THE

RESTORATION OF BELIEF.

THE

RESTORATION OF BELIEF

BY
ISAAC TAYLOR.

 " Suis Ula (religio Christiana) contenta est viribus, et veritatis propria
fundaminibus nititur : nec spoUatur vi sua, etiamsi nullum habeat vindicem : immo
si Unguce omnes contrafaeiant, contraque nitantur, et ad fidem illius abrogandam
consensionis unitce animositate conspirent." Arnobius.

gt $Ufo ibitbn,
REVISED, WITH AN ADDITIONAL SECTION.
JLonoon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1864
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.

OXFORD
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY T. COMBB, M. A., E. FICKARD HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY,

NOTICE TO THE PRESENT
EDITION.
IN offering to the Public a new edition of this
Volume, the Author has carefully revised it throughout •
and in doing so he has expunged passages which, if
proper at the time of its first appearance, might now
seem to be less so.
In place of these omitted paragraphs he has subjoined
a section, in which he has briefly commented upon the
recent Vie de Jesus of M. Ernest Renan.
Stanford Rivers,
January i, 1864.

CONTENTS.
r
iNTRODUCTORYiSection. Page
Where best the "Christian Argument may be carried forward  1 1
Religious Condition of the Roman world in the time of Alexander Severus 33
The Christian Belief had pervaded the Roman Civilization in the Third
Century  47
Christianity — an Insoluble Problem to the Roman Government  53
Perplexities of the Roman Government in dealing with the new Religion 61
The Obligations of Conscience were at length recognised  72
Martyrs for a Fact ; and Martyrs for a Doctrine  79
Relative Force of Science and of Matters of Opinion  88
The Christian Argument is determinable  104
Classification of the Books of the New Testament, in relation to the present
Argument  119
Inferences suggested by a Review of the Non-supernatural Epistles  162
The Seven Apostolic Epistles which affirm or allude to Miracles  169
Conclusion as to the Seven Epistles which affirm Miracles  201
The Force of Congruity, in relation to Christianity and its Miracles  211
Modern Atheism is Impiety, Christianised  229

viii CONTENTS.
Page
The Three Purposes of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles. — Its First
Intention  245
The Gospel Miracles are the Force of the Christian Ethics  2 74
The Second Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles  296
The Third Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles  328
The Cycles of Christianity  342
The Present Position of the Argument concerning Christianity : Ernest
Reran  360

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
.... Our conversations of late have opened inter
minable questions, on the right hand and on the left;
but hitherto have not brought us to a conclusion on any
one subject. There has always been a common ground
whence we might take our start, and we have been able
to keep company some way on the road; but soon the
one or the other has gone off, drawing the argument
after him, toward some wholly new region.
You will recall instances of this sort of wandering,
which, while it has seemed to violate logical rules, has —
so we have felt it — obeyed the call of a moral necessity.
The chance of the hour may have given us our first im
pulse ; but a law of thought not to be resisted, has car
ried us forward from that point toward an unknown
centre where all thought converges. The Newspaper
may have given rise to discussions, touching the con
dition of the labouring classes — manufacturing or rural ;
thence onward we have gone till we found ourselves
encircled by those abstruse questions, in approaching
which the depths of Theology were in front of us. We
may have debated the principles of Taxation ; but thence
a path has opened itself into the subject of the moral
obligations of governments towards the people; and

2 THE RESTORATION
thence onward again toward the problem of religious
establishments. We may have incidentally mentioned
some point of Biblical criticism, and have gone on to
ward subjects, not unconnected indeed therewith, but
of far greater importance than can belong to any merely
critical question.
In a word, in coming upon what one might call sur
face questions, it has always appeared that an interior
beneath was to be first explored. Or if the interior
were brought under discussion, its results and issues
have carried us toward the fields of practical science.
We must not. impute this incessant wandering to
ourselves altogether as a fault. If in these instances
we had been less desultory, and more logical, we should
have paid respect to the forms of argumentation, only
in proportion as we had disregarded those relationships
that are more real, and that now are felt to be so by
all men.
This circuit-going in all directions, at what point
soever either serious controversy or incidental conver
sation takes its start, is the marked feature of the times
present ; and it has, as I think, not only a deep meaning,
but it has a good — or as we say — an auspicious meaning.
Conversation among intelligent men, as well as the
literature of the day, shows the same tendency ; and as
we cannot fail to notice it, we should not fail to gather
its import. Is it not just now as if an invisible tyranny
were driving the minds of men onward and onward,
or in perpetual circuits, until they shall have become
spent in fruitless courses over the unenclosed wilds of
speculation ?

OF BELIEF. 3
If you ask what this discursiveness means,' and what
will be its end — I think it shows that at length a true step
forward toward a better understanding — at least among
the educated classes of the community — has actually
been taken ; and that we, and some of those from whom
we most differ, have by this time gone forward on a
road which it will not be necessary hereafter for our
selves, or for our successors, to retrace. To look abroad
upon the world of opinion, in this country or elsewhere,
what one sees might seem to resemble the hurrying
hither and thither of the sparks upon a burned paper;
all which sparks, bright as they are, are soon to find
their rest in ashes and blackness. Yet it is not so,
I think, in the social system; for here the sparks are
showing a tendency in one and the same direction;
or — like the falling stars of an autumnal sky — they
all give notice of their bearing upon great planetary
movements. You will be told by some — and they are men whose
judgment entitles them to be listened ' to — that they
have heretofore seen the end of movements not less
promising than this to which now we are linked, and
that no notable result, or none in which we could re
joice, has marked the return of men's minds to their
customary acquiescent inaction.
I must however continue to be hopeful so long as
I see a ground of expectation that what is bright is at
hand. It has come to be felt and to be acknowledged
too, that truth, in relation to any particular subject
which touches immediately or remotely the well-being
of men — either the individual man, or the social — must
b a

4 THE. RESTORATION
be only one portion, or one aspect, of universal truth ;
and that if we would secure ourselves against mistakes
and illusions as to that particular subject, whatever it
may be, we must • know, not merely the whole of itself,
but what it borders upon; and then the bordering of
those remoter neighbours, one upon another, and so
must we advance, onward and round about, until we
have fairly made the circuit of all things; or of all
things which it is granted to man to measure and
compass. This feeling — this acknowledgment — in professing
which all are agreed, runs parallel with the axiom of
Natural Philosophy, namely, that there are no insu
lated sciences; but that all investigations of nature,
and all paths followed in the abstract sciences, tend
toward a centre, and are only so many separate con
tributions toward a system which will at length pre
sent itself as a harmony, and which will then assign
to its place every item of that knowledge which we
shall have made our own, concerning the Material
Universe. The perception we have acquired concerning the inter
relation and dependence, one upon another, of moral,
religious, and political questions, has not been borrowed
from the Physical Sciences ; nor is it an inference that
has been carried over from one side of philosophy to the
other : for although, in its rise, it has been contempora
neous, it has had its own source, springing up from
within the world of speculation. It is a feeling that has
flowed from a far deeper mode of thinking than has
hitherto prevailed on such subjects; and it has shown

OF BELIEF. 5
the presence of a serious desire, or — one might say —
an impatience^-almost an agony, impelling men to
reach, if it be possible, a solid ground of belief.
It is inevitable that this feeling should drive men in
from the surface of all subjects, and compel them to' dig
until, from all sides, they have come to encounter each
other, working in the same shafts, and pursuing the same
seams of thought. These underground encounters, start
ling as they are when they bring those who are declared
adversaries above ground — face to face in the mine, and
so near to the very pith of the world, may lead to a
common understanding, and to a belief generally, if not
universally assented to, and to a conclusion, once for
all arrived at, and which thenceforward will be brought
to bear upon every practical question that may seem to
stand related to it in morals, politics, and education, as
well as Religion.
We have not, however, as yet, advanced quite abreast
on the two high roads of Philosophy — the physical and
the intellectual, or moral; for on the former a rule is
well understood and universally obeyed, which on the
latter is but dimly seen, or is perpetually broken.
What I mean is this — that in all departments of the
physical sciences, both abstract and applicate, and on
all fields of learned industry, every inquirer, and every
collector of facts, is left to pursue his path in his own
mode, and is held to be exempt from interference on the
part of others ; as if what one had learned could super
sede, or might interdict the inquiries of another. Al
though, in the issue, there will be One Philosophy, and
although there should be fellowship among the labourers,

6 THE RESTORATION
none are to put bars across the paths of their com
panions. This sort of interference, as it would be
groundless, so must it be fruitless in the end ; and mean
time it would be mischievous ; nor is it often attempted
in the world of physical science.
So much as this cannot be alleged in behalf of those
branches of philosophy which touch human nature more
intimately. On this ground attempts are often made to
intercept the progress of inquiry in some one direction,
as if it might disturb what has been ascertained in an
other. Too often — and here we are all more or less
in fault — we carry inferences over from one field to
another; or we are in too great haste so to do; for
undoubtedly, in the end, all inferences, all deductions,
will join on, one to another.
Let me state the case in some such way as that in
which it now often meets us. Let us suppose that I am
addicted to antiquarianism — to historical criticism — to
ethnological philology, or to kindred subjects. You
perhaps are conversant with political economy, and the
social interests it involves. Now I may have convinced
myself, in my own modes of inquiry, that things are so
and so; or that the transactions of remote ages have
been truthfully reported. You ought not then to come
in with a supercilious air and tell me that I may as well
spare myself so much learned toil, for that you, in your
department, have ascertained, beyond doubt, that I have
been deceiving myself, and am blindly misleading others.
This is not a scientific procedure ; it is an outrage corcw
mitted upon the commons of Philosophy. If you say you
do but retaliate, I reply, I will take care to give you no

OF BELIEF. 7
cause of offence in this way in future ; and I shall also
disregard any such interferences on your part.
It is easy to foresee what those occasions are in which
I am likely to claim protection under the shield of this
rule of our modern philosophy. The rule itself is a main
article in the Magna Charta of our intellectual liberties,
and whoever infringes these privileges forfeits his claim
to be much listened to, even on his own ground.
I do not say that we, on our side — I mean the side of
Religious Belief — have not in any instances been blame
worthy in this same manner — all parties have been per
secutors in their time : but I think it may be shown that
acts of attempted interference, as well as argumentative
intolerance, have of late been frequent on the other side
in a larger proportion. Too often, we, on our side, have
cowered before the unseemly bearing of those who have
assailed us. If there has been any of this giving ground,
it is more than was due ; and it is now time that we
should repel all such violences. When I say repel, I mean
^— that we should not yield an inch to those who offend
against the acknowledged maxims of what may be called,
philosophical courtesy.
Not only, on my side, would I abstain from the lan
guage of intimidation or of interdiction — not only not
say, ' you must not approach this or that subject, for the
ground is sacred ;' but rather would invite every one to
follow up his own course of inquiry in the mode that best
suits himself. If he does so in a manner that is un
seemly, flippant, inconclusive; or if he so writes and
speaks as to betray an arrogant and captious temper, in
doing so he provides against himself a most effective sort

8 THE RESTORATION
of reply, and I need give myself no trouble on his
behalf. As to what is written or spoken ingenuously and sin
cerely, or as we say, ' in good faith,' although it be with
the avowed intention of loosening, or subverting Reli
gious Belief, I will never call the author of such utter
ances my enemy. So firm is my own belief, that I can
well afford to be thus charitable — nay, more : although,
in regard to the immediate welfare of many, I must
deeply deplore what I see to be taking place around me,
I have a perfect confidence in the issue, after a time, of
the intellectual movement which is in progress, so far as
it is impelled by those who are honestly intended. If
not everywhere, yet in this country, such a restoration
of Religious Belief as could not have resulted from any
other conjunction of causes, will be its consequence.
In what I now propose to do there is included no in
tention to take in hand any recent book or books, as if
to give it, or them, an answer : this would be to enter
upon an endless and unavailing labour. I am not igno
rant of what has lately been written ; but I shall pursue
my own track of thought in my own mode, and leave
others to do the like in theirs.
If I think or speak of any man as an adversary, I do
so in a sense that is purely logical ; and I do not allow
the word to bring with it any of those feelings with
which, in fact, I regard the principles he may endeavour
t6 establish. These principles I utterly condemn, and
the influence he has acquired over the minds of others I
would gladly destroy ; but toward himself I harbour no
unkindly sentiment: how should I do so when I think of

OF BELIEF., 9
him as struggling, without help or hope, in the grasp
of perplexities with which every seriously-minded man
has had to contend, at some stage of his course ; or with
which he does still contend in times of mental lassitude.
Those who have suffered no. anguish in their past history,
and who have passed through no conflicts, are men (en
viable perhaps ! but) with whom neither my adversary
nor myself should have nearly so much sympathy as we
should with each other.
It is much to be wished that those who at this moment
are assailing Religious Belief would deny themselves the
poor and cheap gratification, in which they almost all of
them give themselves free leave to indulge, that of call
ing the adherents and advocates of Belief — c enthusiasts,'
or ' fanatics.'
And yet, perhaps, this seemingly arrogant practice
should be pardoned in those who are guilty of it, inas
much as it may not so much spring from an intolerant
temper, or personal malignity, as from the felt necessity
of the position in which they, on that side, have placed
themselves: for if, indeed, those whose belief these
writers assail are not ' fanatics ;' and if, on the contrary,
they, or many of them, are as well informed and as
highly cultured and as capable of reasoning as them
selves, and if they are equally serious and honest, and if,
in a word, they are every way as ' good men,' and yet are
believers, then is Belief proved to be reasonable; for
reasonable men profess it; and so the contrary assump
tion falls to the ground ; and then is Belief that conclu
sion which will be accepted and rested in, after full in
quiry, by the great majority of minds that are in a sound

io THE RESTORATION
state. So it will be — those seasons of reaction excepted,
like the present, in which a revulsion is taking place,
and which is attributable to obvious causes.
Whoever calls me a fanatic, simply because I believe,
puts into my hand a lever by means of which I shall up
heave his stronghold.

OF BELIEF.

WHERE BEST THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT MAY BE
CARRIED FORWARD.
Great arguments, we have said, cannot be long held
apart, or permanently disjoined. As this is true in
natural philosophy, so is it true in whatever touches
human nature and the welfare of man, morally or re
ligiously considered. It is not always easy to dissever
even questions of politics from religious principles ; for
through the medium either of what concerns Religious
Establishments, or Religious Liberty, or Public Educa
tion, the one set of principles interlocks itse,lf with the
other. Of some of these lines of argument it may be said
that they possess an inherent logical title to prece
dence — they present themselves as first to be disposed
of in the order of dialectic sequence. In behalf of some
weighty questions it may be pretended that, if deter
mined in a certain mode, they bring all other argu
mentation, all balancing of probabilities, all inquiries
concerning possible improvements or progress, to a dead
stop; they throw a pall over the world, and over its
fruitless agitations.
Again, there are questions affecting the welfare of
classes which cry for instant consideration, if, indeed.

12 THE RESTORATION
hearts of flesh beat in our bosoms. Of what account are
theories, or principles of any sort, when placed in com
parison with some practical measure, tending to assuage
physical suffering, or to gladden the homes of thousands
of our fellow-men? Such pleas are good; but they need
not overrule our present purpose. Let every one take
to the path that best suits himself.
If a preference be given to subjects which affect the
welfare — not of classes of men, but of men universally,
we may then make our choice in adopting one of two
methods — the first of which might be called the Ger
man, and the other the English mode.
The German mind inclines to begin at the beginning,
rather than to seize a main point midway, or to catch it
in its concrete form. Whatever the German mind has
to do with, although it be a surface question, it takes
a preliminary plunge among profound abstractions. A
metaphysical, much rather than a scientific, law of thought
prevails with it; and thus the simplest adjustment of
things about us must show reason, as related to some
theory of the universe, which, perhaps, has scarcely yet
fledged itself, as newly broken forth from chaos.
It is not so with the English mind, which has more
inclination toward the concrete than the abstract. At
least we must say it seeks the practical — it loves what
ever is well-defined and certain, nor does it hesitate to
accept and to use what is sure and at hand, although much
room may still be left for argument on the a priori side.
In the present instance, then, I must make my choice
of a preliminary subject in compliance with the habits
and tendency of the English mind.

OF BELIEF. i3
At this time, when everything is brought into doubt,
if there be in sight a path that is open and straight be
fore us — if there be, on any side, ground that feels firm
to the foot — if, near at hand, there are objects that are
palpable — if around us we may see what we have known
to be good, and which is our own — then upon such a
path will we set forward, and upon such ground will we
first essay to tread, and such objects will we grasp, and
to such possessions will we assert our right. Thence,
and from such ground, will we adventure forward and
outward, toward the dark unknown.
I shall here perhaps be stopped by an exception taken
against any renewal of the endeavour to link Religion
to History, or to send us back for our faith and morals
to past ages. Nevertheless I must do so from the very
necessity of the case. Belief and History God has
conjoined, nor shall man, to the end of time, succeed in
effecting a divorce. Religion, disjoined from History,
is a flickering candle, held in the hand of one who looks
back upon utter darkness behind him, and who looks
into the blackness of darkness in front of him.
But beside this inherent necessity of the case, there
meets us an incidental necessity for taking the same
course, and for travelling back to ages past. Even if
Belief and History were not thus wedded, Disbelief
takes an equally firm hold upon antiquity. In every
form of it, it has its ancestry, and it must not now ask
to be spoken to as if we had not already, and long ago,
made acquaintance with it.
Is it, indeed, to be reckoned as a fault, or is it a dis
qualification for engaging in argument, to have become,

i4 THE RESTORATION
in some degree, conversant with the fortunes of man in
past time ? If not, then this species of accomplishment
brings with it an irresistible feeling, prompting one to
see and to recognise, in what is recent, the very coun
terpart of what is of remote origin.
It is not merely this — that the objections which have
been of late urged against Christianity — against the Old
Testament Books, and the New, are substantially the
same as those which Origen and the early Apologists en
countered and refuted. This is not all ; for those deeper
speculations — more formidable in aspect, as they are,
which just now are presented as the ripened fruits of the
mature human mind, which at length is freeing itself
from its thraldom of centuries — these same speculations,
fresh complexioned as they seem, differ in little, beside
their wording, from the profundities of the Oriental and
the Alexandrine philosophy, as it was uttered and edited
by the several schools of Gnostics, Manichees, and others.
If then Belief carries us back to antiquity, so does Mis
belief; and we cannot refuse to follow a double guidance
that is peremptory in both instances.
As a proper introduction, therefore, to any argument
that touches the philosophy of human nature, or that
implicates what is abstruse in theology, I must essay to
tread upon the solid g-round of history as far forward as
it offers itself to the foot. History is solid ground; or,
to exclude exceptions, let us say that, within the region
it professes to embrace, solid ground is discoverable in
all directions. This is manifestly the case when certain
historic positions are brought into comparison, as to their
demonstrative value, with any assumed principles of ab-

OF BELIEF. 15
straet science (not mathematical). As thus : — It is cer
tain that the Normans brought the Saxons under their
sway in the eleventh century; but it is questionable
whether a chivalrous race will always succeed in van
quishing an agricultural and a trading people. It is
certain that Augustus established and consolidated a
despotism upon the ruins of that republic, in the attempt
to maintain which Brutus pointed his sword against
Caesar, and in despair of restoring which he fell upon
it himself. But it may be doubted whether a republican
government, such as that of ancient Rome, will neces
sarily find its end and issue in the hands of an autocrat.
It is more certain that Socrates swallowed hemlock by
the vote of his fellow-citizens, than it is that a people,
like the Athenians of that age, must have been taught
to listen to and admire Plato, before they could tolerate
teaching, such as that of Socrates.
But now, although matters of history do possess this
absolute and this comparative certainty when placed
beside abstract principles, and although it be true that
no inferences from those principles can ever be admitted
to abate a jot of the certainty of what is certain in his
tory, this relative value of the two species of evidence
will not be seen by all minds alike. On the contrary,
some minds from want of culture, or some from an ir
resistible propensity toward paradox, and some from a
vague and dreamy unfixedness of temper, will always fly
off from the better evidence, and will betake themselves
to the worse.
With many, the most misty abstractions which look
well at a distance will always be eagerly pursued : while

16 THE RESTORATION
matters of fact, although irresistibly evident, are scouted
or forgotten. Culture has much to do with that faculty
of the understanding on which history lays a firm hold.
Apart from a certain amount of culture, we do not find
that history — as a reality past — comes home to the in
tellectual consciousness. Hence springs a disadvantage
attaching, in the nature of things, to the labours of those
who aim to impart an historic belief to the masses of
the people, in the way of definite proof. The process
finds a quality wanting in those who are the subjects of
it : hence too, of course, arises that poor advantage which
is snatched at by those whose aim it is to loosen the
same historic belief from the minds of these classes.
There is no arrogance in what is here alleged. Every
educated man, whether he be preacher, or lecturer, or
teacher, in any line — scientific, literary, or professional —
well knows that, even when he has done his utmost, it
is but a fragment of his own vivid perception of the
subject that he can lodge in the reason and the imagina
tion of imperfectly instructed hearers. Therefore will
it always be an easy task, in dealing with such, to dis
lodge materials that have no cement, and to strew the
ground with the ruins of a structure that has not settled
down on its foundations, and which has no coherence.
Because it is so easy to do this, writers who are impatient
to win notoriety, and who would fain be followed by
troops of disciples, address themselves, without scruple,
to those whose consent, when they have obtained it,
has no value; and whose plaudits should make a wise
man blush.
Ini all departments of knowledge it is the results

OF BELIEF. 11
that are for the many; while the process through which
results have been reached, are for the few. Especially
must it be so in the departments of history and criti
cism. Results may easily be rendered into the verna
cular; and when thus translated, they become public
property. But processes of inquiry are carried forward
in symbol, and these signs imply that a knowledge is
already possessed, ten times out-measuring that to which
the bare symbol can give expression. Persons imper
fectly educated suffer no real damage on this ground, so
long as they are not tampered with by sophists. In a
country where the Press, the Pulpit, the Platform, the
Class-room, are quite free, popular incompetency, as to
matters of science or of learning,- as it cannot be much
abused by the privileged, so should it not be wrought
upon, nor flattered, nor cajoled by ambitious declaimers.
There is a ripened condition of the faculties — there.
is a state of plenary consciousness toward the things, the
persons, the events of past time, which is the fruit of
high culture and of life-long habits. This conscious
ness — this mental existence, carried back into the heart
of antiquity, supersedes what, in a logical sense, might
be required in the way of Evidences and Proof.
A man sits surrounded with the books of all ages,
among which he has passed the best years of his life.
He has gone in and out among them : he has made a
path for himself through their very substance in the
course of methodical study ; and with these he has con
versed, discursively, as accident might lead him. Now
let us imagine that these his companions are set out in
chronological perspective on his tables — right and left,

i8 THE RESTORATION
each according to its date. Thus placed, they are so
many candles lit, shedding their beams over the expanse
of centuries, up to the remotest eras. It is true that
many deep shadows still rest upon spots and spaces of
this landscape ; nevertheless, wherever the light does fall,
the outlines of things are perfectly defined, and the
colours are bright.
Besides, as the books are, in a sense, phosphorescent
in the view of their possessor, so are the multifarious
contents of the cabinets around him : — so are the antique
busts that occupy the brackets : and, ' as face answereth
to face in a glass,' so do the visages and the legends of
medallions and of sculptures answer to, and interpret,
and sustain, the pages of the historians, the poets, the
philosophers, of the corresponding times. Taken alto
gether, or when considered in their aggregate effect,
these accumulated materials give a familiarity and an
assurance to the historic consciousness which does not
rate lower than does the feeling as to any class of objects
that are not actually present to the senses.
Yet how much of this feeling will it be possible for
this man of culture to impart to one whose education
has been elementary only ? Not a thousandth part
of it; and if the recipient of such a communication,
along with an ordinary measure of native intelligence,
should bring with him a smack of conceit, and if, in his
case, ignorance, instead of being simply negative, has
gone into the positive form of a shrewd scepticism, then
the bringing forward what he will call c book-evidence,'
and antiquarian corroborations, may be found to have
produced on him the very contrary of their proper effect.

OF BELIEF. 19
This man, who is one 'not soon imposed upon,' had
come forward apprehensive that he should perhaps be
robbed forcibly of his disbelief; but instead of this, he
has seen and heard nothing that he has really'understood ;
and he departs — with his reason confused, and his vanity
entire. What then is the inference hence resulting ? It is just
this — that knowing these things, the well-informed, the
honestly-intending, the seriously-minded, should scorn
the easy triumph of trampling upon the Religious Belief
of the people — the uneducated and the half educated.
Do I say this because I inwardly mistrust my argu
ment, and therefore shrink from the light, and foresee
what must be the issue of an open discussion? I shall
show you that any such surmise as this, on your part, if
you have entertained it, is wholly unfounded. What I
shrink from is not light, but darkness ; what I am afraid
of is not the brightness of day and the fresh breezes cf
the upper skies; — what I am afraid of is that choke-
damp of popular ignorance, into which the assailants of
Religious Belief shall not tempt me to descend in pursuit
of them.
Besides, to follow severally, those who of late have
assailed the Christian Belief of the mass of the people,
in the way of reply, would be, on our part, to descend
from our true position, and implicitly to give way to an
utterly false idea of Christianity itself. We should thus
come to think of it as a something artificial and fragile,
which might be destroyed by bringing forward objections^
difficulties^ flaws on its surface — this and that — ten,
twenty, or a hundred doubts. We should then feel as if
c a

20 THE RESTORATION
Christianity were a casting of that sort (as founders say)
in which such a condition of internal tension by unequal
cooling— such a strain upon the interior coherence of
particles has come about, that, if you do but scratch the
surface with a nail, or break off a corner, the whole flies
into atoms.
This is very much the feeling with which one rises
from the perusal of books, not merely those written to
impugn Christianity, but sometimes, of books written
to defend it. Any such idea of the matter in hand is
wholly a mistaken notion. The anxiety that springs
from it, and which disturbs the minds of those who do
believe, or who would fain continue to believe, is quite
groundless; under the influence of it one says, in a
desponding tone— What if this or that difficulty cannot
be cleared up ? And there are twenty more in reserve !
How can we hope to cut our way out from this jungle ?
It is a commendable labour with which those charge
themselves who sit down to meet and obviate objections
seriatim — to reconcile inconsistencies — real or apparent
— to harmonize discrepant narratives, and to draw the
line around a difficulty, so as to reduce it to its minimum
of importance. All this should be done ; but it is better
done in books devoted to philological and historical
criticism, and in which questions are treated according
to their intrinsic merits and their real import, apart
from any allusion to what is irrelevant or disingenuous
in the writings of opponents. But as to Christianity
itself, those who think that it may be brought into
doubt, or that it will be exposed to peril by means of
.cavils in detail, or by the allegation of difficulties that

of belief: 21
defy solution, such persons—whether notions of this
sort inspire them with the hope of a triumph for infi
delity, or depress them with fear as believers, can never
have understood what this Gospel is in itself, or what it
intends, or how it stands related to human nature, and
to the well-being of nations, or to the destinies of the
human family. Such persons, whether they be over
weening disbelievers, or timid and mistrusting believers,
are burrowing hither and thither under the sward, un
conscious of what may be seen and felt in the open
world. No problem, historical or critical, presenting itself
for solution, should be negligently dealt with, or timidly
evaded ; much less should it be disingenuously smothered,
or conjured out of the way. Difficulties and objections
thus disposed of, are so much gunpowder, stowed away
by our own hands, beneath the foundations of the house
we live in.
What I propose to do in the following pages is not to
wrestle with gainsayers, sincere or insincere, on low
levels; nor to tread anew a ground that has already
been trodden hard. Work of this sort has been well
done; and no one who, in a spirit of industry, and
honesty, would inform himself concerning the 'Evi
dences of Christianity,'— the ' authenticity and genuine
ness of the Gospels and Epistles,' or any kindred subjects,
need be at a loss in finding books, learnedly and con
clusively written, where he may meet with more than
enough of proof and argument to satisfy every seriously-
minded and educated reader.
Nevertheless it is true that even such readers. do rise

22 THE RESTORATION
from the perusal of these books, confusedly convinced,
and not fairly or finally rid of their" misgivings. It is to
them as if Infidelity had been mortally wounded, and
lay at their feet as dead ; but the carcase has not been
removed or buried out of their sight, and they eye it
with dread, as expecting its resurrection. They have
concerned themselves with negations : they have carried
their eye too close to the object before them : they have
failed to come into correspondence with what is positive
in the Gospel: they have lost,. or not yet acquired,
sympathy with that in it which, to those who occupy a
better position, is seen to be great, and is felt to be true,
and is found to be real.
So far as at this time a Restoration of Belief may be
looked for as probable, either in single instances, or as
to the community, it will be brought about, not by con
flict or compromise with negations or exceptions, not by
forcing a path through the briars of doubt ; but by pushing
our way straight forward toward the positive, and by
apprehending, so far as the finite may do it, the infinite.
A restoration of belief, whether we think of it as
an argumentative and logical process, or as a change of
disposition produced by suasive and moral means, de
mands conditions thereto favourable. And it may be
affirmed that it is in this country, rather than anywhere
else, that these requisites are to be found in full measure.
It is within the circuit of the British islands that every
reasonable exception against the conclusiveness of an argu
ment concerning Christianity is taken out of the way,
as if a fair hearing of the adverse part had not been
allowed. But might we claim a fifth, or even a seventh

OF BELIEF.

23

part of Christendom, as if it could afford open ground
for such a purpose ? Barely so. It is true that wherever
there has survived any knowledge of the Gospel, and
where a glimmer of the light of heaven still shines, there
might be found sincere men, enough to make up a
Church in Tertullian's sense, 'Ubi tres, ibi Ecclesia.'
But these exceptive cases in the sight of Heaven are of
little account as to our immediate purpose, for we are
not attempting to number the Faithful among the living,
but are in search of a field that is adapted to movements
on a large scale. Little can be said of nations that have
not actually in their hands, generally, and who have
not become conversant with, the book, concerning the
authority of which this argument is to be had.
It may be affirmed that Christianity, considered as a
system of religious and moral principles, is of such a
nature that it will be sure to find its way toward that
one community, within the circle of civilization, which,
by national temperament, is the most energetic, which
the most instinctively embraces doctrines that are seen
to be practically good, and which makes its election, in
matters of opinion, with the most absolute freedom — a
freedom uncontrollably impatient of restraint or inter
ference. Christianity chooses for itself a people that is
pre-eminently spontaneous — self-governing, and in an
ejual degree regardful of order ; and abhorrent of despot
ism, and if silent or acquiescent, is so much rather
fnm a consciousness of individual independence, than
frcm servility or fear. Such is the people (as compared
wih others) to the hearth of which Christ's religion
has at length drawn itself, as if retiring to its own

24 THE RESTORATION
home. Among such a people, when hunted from other
lands, has this religion been welcomed, and here has it
found its asylum.
In looking at the same facts in their other aspect, we
should think of Christianity as that plastic power which,
in the course of many centuries, and especially during
the last three, has itself made the people what they are.
It is the Gospel that has wrought itself into the national
temper, and has moulded us so much to its own fashion.
It is the Gospel which has planted in our hearts that
sense of individuality, that seriousness of convictiot,
which despotism dreads, and which it can never crus|i.
It is this deep belief, and this sense of the authority of
truth, which has come to be a national characteristic,
and which is the guarantee of our liberties, religious and J
political. It is this Gospel that has given us our higher
tone of domestic virtue, our relish for home, our home
bred feelings, and our true idea of personal delicacy, and
our sense of individual importance, consistently with
individual modesty. It is thence, and from the verna
cular diffusion, and the daily usage and hearing of the
Scriptures, that we have drawn the power and point, the/
simplicity and the majesty, the tropical richness, the/
opulence, and the fervour of our conversational style/
and of public oratory.
Combine what is proper to each of these aspects
the same facts, and then the result is this — that Chril
tianity, in its migrations through eighteen centuries, hi
betaken itself to the British People, as if these wde
its own, and that these, under its influence, and at p
inspiration, have become such as they are— if not pe

OF BELIEF. 25
most highly educated among the nations, yet the most
effective, the most beneficent, the most humane, and the
people to whose purposes and labours the world looks for
what is good and hopeful.
The Christian Argument does indeed demand liberty
as its indispensable condition ; but it is not a vague or
unemphatic liberty that will suffice. It is not mere free
dom to breathe and to speak, such as you may find any
where, but it is the earnest-minded liberty, the freedom
positive which one is conscious of enjoying in the dense
centre of a people whose minds are headed up by Insti
tutions : it is that liberty which gives a strong pulse to
the energies of men, individually and socially : it is the
liberty of men who differ from each other resolutely,
who oppose each other pertinaciously, and who contend
for their opinions, or for their prerogatives, with a vehe
mence stopping short only at the border beyond which
the rights and properties of others would be invaded.
What we need for carrying forward an unexception
able argument in defence of Christianity is, every man's
feeling, not merely that, without rebuke, he may become
as wise as he can, and may profess and teach what he
thinks to be true and good ; but more than this, that he
may humour himself among his crochets, and may be as
absurd as he pleases ; that he may proclaim his whim,
whatever it be, and endow it too, and spend upon it his
children's inheritance. Within a community which is
indeed free, everything may be said, done, and prac
tised, which does not inflict damage upon others : and
then, all such things may be assailed with equal freedom.
If indeed we may hope to reach a conclusion which is

26 THE RESTORATION
not afterwards to be rejected as precipitate, we must not
betake ourselves to countries where there is no escape
from despotism. Nor will it be enough for us to know
that, albeit questions concerning existing institutions
are straitly prohibited, the wilds of abstruse speculation
are free land— that the back-woods of philosophy have
not been parcelled out, and that ' Government' maintains
no police in the Sheol of Universal Disbelief.
The English on this side the Atlantic hold an ad
vantage, even in comparison with our brethren of the
United States. Grant it that their liberty is much like
our own; and they may perhaps think it more entire
than ours ; yet if it shows a wider surface, it embraces
less of deep purpose. No Code-making according to
theory will give a people that which our history has
given ourselves: our social condition is the offspring
of the many straggles we have passed through. If the
American liberties are also the fruits of events, these
have gone into theory : with us they have issued in the
creation of those beneficial anomalies which no theory
would ever allow ; but which, in the working of a con
stitutional system, are more serviceable to a people than
anything which men sit down to contrive for them
selves. Antagonisms come, they are never called for.
Anomalies confront us unbidden ; they perplex us ; we
quarrel with them : but against our consent, they secure
to us the very highest advantages. So is it especially in
whatever touches the ecclesiastical framework under
which we live and act.
One of these benefits, and the one we have just now
to make proof of, is this— that the Christianity of the

OF BELIEF1. 27
British people stands exempt from all suspicion of com
bination among its adherents: so planted are we in
companies on the flanks of Ebal and Gerizim, that a
damage to the one cause which sincerely we all wish to
uphold, arising from our dissensions, is an event far
more probable than the bringing in of any advantage,
from our concert, and collusion.
How far the moral or political condition of any of the
Continental states would show a change, it is not easy
to conjecture, supposing a silent dying out of religious
belief to occur, that is — Christian belief — from the mind
of the people, and from the lip of the state. But there
can be no such room for doubt as to ourselves. What
those various consequences might be, resulting from a
national abandonment of our present faith in the Divine
origin of the Bible, this is not the place to inquire ; yet
there is reason to thinS that such an apostasy would
mean — national annihilation.
Whether it might be' so or not, it is certain that
Christianity has always shown itself to be migratory :
it abides with a people for a century, or for a thousand
years; but it does not chain itself to a soil, as with '
bands of brass.
Hitherto no combination of adverse forces — neither
persecutions from without, nor perversions from within
— nor deluges of barbarism, have availed to dislodge
Christianity from the world. Yet unobtrusive causes
have often driven it from countries. Fixing the eye
upon any one spot, thence to watch the waxing and
waning of the light of the Gospel, one might think it a
terrestrial phosphorescence, rather than a luminary of

28 THE RESTORATION
heaven. It shines upon a land to-day ; to-morrow these
beams may have drawn themselves up to their source !
This readiness to depart — this word always upon its
lip, ixirafiaivcoixiv evrevdiv, which seems to be its law, as
to cities and countries — does it not repeat itself in in
dividual instances every day? The religious history
(for example) of the once Christian cities of the East,
is a narrative, at large, of what is written — small, in the
personal history of many around us — perhaps in our own.
In the fresh season of life Christianity had lodged itself
firmly in a man's affections, and in his reason too, so far
as the reason was then developed. Within the chamber
of conscience the ethics of the Scriptures was always '
listened to as the ultimate authority : never did it seem
doubtful that this rale of virtue, if indeed obeyed, would
lead in the path of rectitude and of purity, and would
issue in the highest good. But the conflicts of mature
life, and its seductions, came upon this neophyte : they
came with their moral ambiguities, with their over
wrought requirements, with their blandishments. A
hubbub of contending impulses came to fill the chamber
' wherein, formerly, Conscience and Christianity used to
confer in so consentient a tone that the two voices fell
upon the ear as one sweet sound.
Thenceforward Christianity betook itself to a lodge
ment remote from this place of noise — the mature man's
brain. When so lodged at a distance, it came to be
regarded as a Personage whose merits might be weighed,
whose claims were open to inquiry, and who might be
brought to terms along with other rival authorities : per
haps its demands were scouted as excessive and im-

OF BELIEF. 29
practicable. Every day the aerial perspective inter
vening between this departing Power and the busy man,
gave him more and more advantage over it, as an
Authority. Then came on the detractors of Christianity— a
motley crew; these detractors were sinister in look,
and they were intent upon rending and tearing and
treading in the mire whatever might be abandoned to
their will : this was their hour ; and there came up with
them one in the garb of a sage, who, in an attempered
tone, and as if he held back a secret purpose, whispered
such things to the prejudice of the Religion of the man's
youth as could not but be listened to : he said, ' It is
due to myself, it is due even to Christianity, if I am
again to admit it to my confidence, to give these reason
able allegations a patient hearing: I will do so when
leisure permits.' Leisure did not come to this man at
his call; but it came in its own way; and during its
stay the question of Christianity was considered anew,
and it did obtain a hearing; and in the full exercise
of mature reason, aided by the experience of years, it
did make good its hitherto unexamined claims. It re
entered the chamber of conscience ; it rekindled the
extinct affections; it became the spring of energies,
and the fountain of hope.
Such, in this instance, was the actual issue: but
how easily might it have been otherwise ! A train of
events, seemingly casual, taking their course in another
direction, and then this man would have gone on to the
end, as his companions in active life have gone. In
their company, whatever was not palpable, was as a

3o THE RESTORATION
dream, to the bodings .of which it would be inane to
pay regard. In the hurry of many interests Christianity
— and with it every definite forethought of a future life,
may pass out of sight and be lost for ever ; just as a man
may quit his hold of the arm of a friend in a crowded
street, and see him thenceforward no more.
What may happen to the individual man, and which
does happen to thousands, may happen to commu
nities — if not with so little observation, or within the
brief term of two decades, yet within the limits of
the years that measure out a generation. Regular habits,
a discreet silence, and churchgoing, will carry the indi
vidual man ostensibly well through a period of religious
syncope ; and thus in like manner its ancient institu
tions, and its usages, and its conventional proprieties,
may avail to bear a people onward some way beyond the
point at which their religious professions have" ceased
to be genuine, and are formal only. Yet such a hollow-
ness as this can but have a limited time allowed it.
What a people has indeed become, will declare itself at
some moment when an unlooked-for turn in its affairs
gives involuntary utterance to its inner thoughts.
Immeasurably far from any such hollow condition as
this, is the English Christianity of this present time.
If certain classes are less loyal in their religious attach
ments than lately they were, other classes have become
much more so. A genuine religious feeling is deepening
on the one hand, if it be fading away on the other. Yet
is it certain that, during the last few years, a progress
towards Disbelief has become a marked feature in- lite
rature and society. If the Press did not make this cer-

OF BELIEF. 31
tain, every one who listens to the accidental utterances
of men's feelings, must know it to be the fact. Such a
tendency is a gravitation, the property of which is to
accelerate itself at a rapid rate. The English people
are not disbelievers; but they may become such soon,
unless a better direction be given at once to the mind
of the educated classes.
No one whose habit of mind it is to pay regard to
that which affects the community, can refrain from thus
considering the Christian question in its bearing upon
our national welfare. So it must be, if one cares for
England, and thinks of the position which it occupies
among the nations, as the only free and religious country
of the Old World; — the only country in which a re
newed profession of adherence to Christianity could be
thought to have much argumentative value.
And yet although I advert to facts of this general
sort — half political as they are, it is not as related to
national interests, nor as a secular question, that we are
now to enter upon a subject so deep, and which touches
the peace and the hopes of each one of us. But do not
be alarmed at the hearing of these customary phrases.
I am not intending to preach, as if to frighten you into
Belief. Several reasons would forbid my attempting so
to do; but this especially — that I have to ask you to
hold, at my command, your reason. To make you a
Christian, in the deep sense of the term, is not my work ;
but I hope to show you that you ought to be such ; and
with this end in view, I shall use no means of suasion
against which you can rightfully except.
Besides, I shall call upon you to judge between me and

32 THE RESTORATION
those overweening writers of the present time, who allow
themselves great licence in speaking of Christians — I
mean, of men equal to themselves every way — as besot
ted, blinded by childish prejudices, wanting in honesty ;
or if not so, in understanding ; and who deal always in
' miserable shifts,' ' paltry evasions,' and ' unworthy sub
terfuges.' I think I see at the impulse of what motives
these unseemly imputations have been so plentifully
strewed over the pages of some recent books. We
Christians must be fools or knaves, for the ease and
comfort of those who reject Christianity. Be it so.
Yet I will say this to yourself. When you find me
faulty in any such manner, when you see that I am
inwardly trembling in the consciousness of difficulties I
dare not name, and cannot dispose of, when you find
that I have recourse to any of these alleged 'shifts,'
' evasions,' ' subterfuges,' when I cease to satisfy you as
thoroughly ingenuous, straightforward, and upright in
argument, then lay these pages aside.

OF BELIEF.

33

RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE ROMAN WORLD IN THE
TIME OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS.
The thirteen years during which Alexander Severus
held the empire of the world, from the Euphrates to the
Atlantic, and from the sands of the African desert to the
Baltic, afford a good resting-place whereupon we may
establish ourselves at ease, and thence look around us.
On this platform we may both of us dismiss all alarms —
, you as a philosopher, and I as a Christian ; for the young
man in whose hand is our civil existence is mild in
temper ; and though firm, yet is he just and reasonable.
He is such, on the whole, as one should wish the Master
of mankind to be. As to philosophers, he cares little for
them ; he is not jealous of you, like a Domitian : he is a
man of affairs, although also a man of mind; and he knows
that, think what you may, you have not courage either
to act or to suffer so as to give him any trouble. Toward
me indeed he has some uneasy thoughts ; nevertheless
he will not be induced, even by reasonable apprehensions
of danger to the Roman State, to do violence to the
spirit of Roman law, although its letter might well
warrant his taking that course : he will not hurt — much
less attempt to exterminate, good citizens whose only
fault is a strange pertinacity in the matter of their
D

34 THE RESTORATION
superstition. Alexander Severus was not a mindless
despot ; therefore the philosopher is safe while he lives ;
and as he was not a Marcus Aurelius, the Christian
also may freely breathe. Besides, this Emperor— no
softling himself— is not ashamed to take counsel of his
mother ; and she, although indiscreetly frugal, is a wise
woman, who, having trained her son for empire, took
care to screen him from the vices of the times, and to
hold off not merely the corruption that would have
enfeebled his youth, but the fanaticism that might have
inflamed his ripening manhood. It is even suspected
that Mammaea, either in Syria or at Rome, had come to
know so much of the now-spreading religion, as to
forbid that it should be cruelly trampled on. If so, then
she is not the first imperial lady who has gleaned in the
fields of the Church, to its advantage and her own.
We take our stand then at this resting-place, as a
point of observation, whence the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them are visible, and where they may
with advantage be contemplated. Hence we may look
up the stream of time, through the hundred years that
were occupied by Commodus, M. Aurelius, Antoninus
Pius, Hadrian, and Trajan.
As related to the purpose which I have now in view,
this position has a definite advantage, which we must
not lose sight of. Outspread before us is a wide Acid-
it is the world in fact, so far as history knows much of
those times ; and as to the evidence thereto relating, it
is very voluminous. The folios and the quartos of that
period, and those which serve to attest its principal
facts, much more than cover a library table. It cannot

OF BELIEF. 35
therefore be pretended that I am leading the way into a
dim region— the land (in a literary sense) of the shadow
of death — scarcely shone upon by here and there a glim
mering lamp.
In the mass of materials under our hand, some things
are worthless — much is not available for any argumenta
tive purpose ; some- portions are of doubtful authority ;
and some things are undoubtedly spurious. Yet all these
deductions — or if they were more than they are — fall
very far short of amounting to what might touch any
conclusion I am intending to draw from my evidence.
I am not driven to the necessity to fight a hard battle for
a single treatise or book, like Boyle against Bentley ; nor
to number and Weigh ancient manuscripts in support of
a doubtful reading. The materials on my table are, as to
any use I am intending to make of them, safe from all
reasonable objection.
And besides the copiousness of these materials, there
is this peculiar circumstance attaching to them, taken
just at the moment at which I have chosen to make a
stand : it is this, that the mass combines the two, as yet
unamalgamated and adverse elements — on the one side,
the polytheistic and philosophic ; on the other side the
Christian. The literature of the gods, and of the philo
sophers who threw the handful of incense upon the
altars in contempt, had not yet died away ; nor had this
philosophy been infringed upon, or curtailed, or put in
fear : its own decrepitude was its only disparagement.
Then, on the Christian side, no favour which it had
not dearly purchased, or did not well deserve, had as yet
been shown to the new religion ; it was not yet a religio,
D2

36 THE RESTORATION
licita : it drew its breath in suspense from day to day,
and it hung upon the personal dispositions of proconsuls,
or the temper and politics of the Caesar for the time.
The Christian literature of the era before us alternately
fires up with. the courage of conscious truth; or it flickers
as in the gust of adversity.
But now what was this Roman World, in the fore^
front of which I am intending to bring in, artist-like,
and with every possible advantage, the Christianity I
am pleading for ?
It is natural that you should imagine me setting to
work with an ample canvas before me, and mixing the
colours that are most proper for my background, with
forethought of the effect that is to be produced by the
picture. Shall I not have in readiness the lurid reds, the
cloudy purples, with store of the deepest blacks ? shall I
not spread a Rembrandt palette for the depths of that
canvas, the centre of which is destined for saints, for
confessors, and for a choir of cherubs ?
I am going to work in no such manner. It is not
merely for the sake of having at my command abundance
of evidence that I take my position at the point of time
I have named ; but it is because I wish to have to do
with nothing that is not unquestionably real.- On my
own side I expect to find none but real men ; many of
them, good and true, whose motives and principles of
conduct I can understand, whose failings need not be
cloaked, whose errors give me no alarm ; whose follies,
if any, do not put my argument in peril; and whose
wisdom and virtue I shall know how to interpret, and
assign to its source. I am not in quest either of super*

OF BELIEF. 37
human men, or of angels, walking the earth. I know I
shall find a superhuman religion — and I know that I
shall come upon the footsteps of God.
On the other side, there is no motive inclining me
to blacken heathenism for the sake of a contrast. On
the contrary, I had much rather show Christianity,
shining bright upon a moderately illumined surface,
than made to appear artificially resplendent by setting
it upon a ground of the deepest shades.
We are sometimes told — ' If you would know what
heathenism is, and would understand what it was which
the Gospel had to contend with, and which it van-r
quished, go to India, and there look about you; — hea
thenism is the Devil's religion, and therefore it is always,
the same, though it may show a different face in different
countries.' No, I think not. Whatever polytheism
may be, as to its inner nature, and as the Devil's re
ligion — and such I think it is — yet among some nations
it may coexist with influences — alien to itself, which
may attemper and amend and correct it, so as to forbid
its worst enormities, and that, when compared with its
unmixed condition, as developed among other families,
the resemblance of the two is partial only ; and we
shall find ourselves perplexed if we rush into argument,
assuming that the gods are the gods, meet them where
we may. "
At the time when Christianity was yet in its purity,
it made inroads upon the grounds of Buddhism and of
Brahminism; but it failed to overturn either; it did
not even extensively colonize India ; it did but breathe
there. Those forms, of polytheism presented no attend

38 THE RESTORATION
pered elements, whence its assault upon human nature
might draw an initial advantage.
And should we not as Christians be glad to find it a
fact, that whereas the Gospel sickened and died upon the
pestilential swamps of India — those plains sodden with
human blood, and abominable even still more for the
practices of the living, it lived and spread on the soil
which Greek poetry had planted out as a garden, upon
which Plato had built his palaces of thought, and where
Aristotle had reared his logical fortresses? The Poly
theism, which the Gospel did supplant, was that religion,
under the shade of which Epictetus had fashioned his
scheme of virtue; it was the religion under which Plu
tarch and Seneca had digested so well the wisdom of
the past, and had mused of better things to come ; it
was the religion in conforming to which Roman em
perors — unresisted despots as they were, had ruled the
world with justice, mercy, and truth, and had learned
to govern — more than the Imperium Romanum- — their
own passions. Nevertheless for this elaborate paganism
Christianity proved itself an overmatch.
From the platform whereon we now stand one might
be tempted to look around upon the gorgeous spectacle
that presents itself on every side. We are used to think
of the times of Hadrian and of Alexander Severus, as
degenerate ; we do so because they stand, toward us of
modern times, in optical conjunction with the Augustine
age : and then again we see them as if they were laden
with the ruin and disaster — the decay and the barbarism,
of an after time, the blame of which we are apt to throw
upon the men of this middle period.

OF BELIEF. 39
Putting away these mere illusions of position — these
errors in perspective — the prospect before us is such as
at no other point of time, either much earlier, or much
later, this earth of ours has presented. The Roman,
landscape — contemplated at any moment during the
reigns of the benignant emperors, beginning with Tra
jan, has not had its parallel — if the West and the East
are thought of together — in any other period. Certainly
the same area of three thousand miles by two. thousand,
now shows a falling off in almost every item of esti
mation, namely— population, material wealth,, breadth
of cultivated surface, the number and splendour of cities,
and the magnitude and utility of those public works
which at once were the praise of the central government,!
and the means of sustaining its power.
The East, and the West, and Africa, taken into the
reckoning together, the world that now is — the great
field over which our summer tourists are wandering,,
does not seem to have gained much upon the world,,
such as it was in the age of the Antonines. What is
certain is this — That, in relation to the mighty revo
lution which in that age was advancing towards its
crisis, the human family (so far as it is authentically
reported of it by continuous and intelligible history):
had never before, and has never since, so presented
itself to a plastic hand to be moulded anew,, as then
it did. That was the epoch which might most fairly
have been fixed upon, as proper for making a new ex
periment upon humanity, which should be decisive in
its issue.
The fully-developed and educated mind of the human;

4o THE RESTORATION
family was then to be found clustering, at bright centres,
and thence diffused over surfaces, everywhere between
and within the boundaries of the Roman empire. A-
mong the cultured nations of this area, thought took
its wayward flight ; and on no side did it come up to
adamantine barriers ; its own power of wing being its
only limit. Into all regions of speculation a way had
been freely opened. The Roman roads, centring at
Rome, and running out, as if contemptuous of the
rugged surface, right away into, and through, the gloom
of primeval forests, did but symbolize those beaten ways
which Philosophy had opened for herself and for her
sons, outward, from the home amenities of Poetry and
Rhetoric, toward the dark unknown of abstruse specu
lation. It is true that the human mind in that age had ceased
to be creative: the men of earlier times had wrought
up the material of the fine arts and of poetry, and had
occupied the ground on every side. The nations, using
the languages of Greece and Rome, were living de
liriously upon the intellectual products of an age of
more life and energy. The human mind did not any
longer seem luminous, as if from within; but yet its
lamp was fed from a store of oil which apparently was
inexhaustible. At no one time in the world's history has erudite
intelligence been spread over so large a surface, geo
graphically, or had it come, as one body of philosophy
and literature, into the keeping of so large a number
of persons, as at the time whereat now we have made
a pause. If we take an earlier age, then the West was

OF BELIEF. 41
redeemed from barbarism only at points ; or if we take
a much later time, then the clouds of a sky, overcast for
a thousand years, were gathering over both the West
and the East : or, if we come down to more modern
times, the vast regions of the East, with Africa and
Egypt, are a howling wilderness, and the habitation of
dragons. Whence then shall we furnish ourselves with the dark
colours, by aid of which we are to recommend the
brightness of the Gospel, which was then making its way
toward supremacy?
This darkness, which is to give us our intended con-,,
trast, does not spring from barbarism, or from ignorance,
or from intellectual slumber, but from universal in
certitude, which was the characteristic of the times;
it is the gloom of that moral dismay which comes upon
cultured minds, when they abandon in despair the long-
cherished hope of seizing upon truth and certainty — of
knowing something beside the theorems of Euclid — of
grasping in the hand a stay immovable. The soul reels
and sickens when it turns hither and thither, vainly en
deavouring to learn out of what chaos man had sprung,
and into what abyss his destinies would plunge him.
To disguise this despair, or to divert it, the levities
of literature and the endless inanities of criticism had
been resorted to. For choking it, Stoicism was the
means employed. Yet, and notwithstanding the efforts
of elaborate frivolity on the one part, and of a death
like doctrine on the other, the comfortless dismay of
the human mind — hopeless of Truth, uttered itself in
a moan — a low wailing, of which we may catch the

42 THE RESTORATION
echoes at whatever point we listen to the voice of that
age. Let any one whose course has not been altogether
sensual, or merely busy, but who has known what are
called ' exercises of mind,' go back to those moments
of his life when convictions, beliefs, persuasions of every
kind, were passing away from his view, and when no
thing remained to him but a dread uncertainty, and the
feeling as if never again he should grasp a truth. In
the recollection of such a season one would think it
appropriately called — the night-time of the soul; and
not less so, although all the splendours of literature and
science were then glittering around him. It must be
so : for the first necessity of man's higher nature is
truth, and the despair of finding it is indeed — a dark
ness that may be felt.
It was in this sense of the word, that a thick darkness
rested upon the cultured members of the human family
(of the Roman empire) at the time which we have
chosen for our survey. From the time when tlie genius
of the Greek and Roman literature had departed, that
darkness had sensibly gathered blackness ; for in fact, as
it is the very property of Genius, and its first charac
teristic, to speak and behave itself as in the conscious
possession of whatever it touches, and as it is its pre
rogative to impart to illusions the aspect of reality^
therefore, so long as this spontaneous power lives among
a people, they may believe that truth is still extant,
somewhere, because its tones are still heard.
In this definitely explained sense of the term, then, I
am warranted in affirming that — thinking of the . poly-.

OF BELIEF. 43
theistic and philosophic majority of the people, through
out the circuit of the Roman civilization, a deep gloom
at this time covered the nations, and that the people sat
as ' in the shadow of death.' It would be easy to make
good other allegations, tending to show that this gloom
was darkened by the ever-growing corruption of morals —
by the decay of public spirit, by the dissoluteness which
despotism encourages, and by that depravation of the
humane emotions which came from the frequency and
the sanguinary atrocity of the exhibitions of the amphi
theatre. But from all this we may abstain, for it does
not materially affect the argument.
Grant this, that, as to the Life of the Soul— as to that
brightness of assured belief toward which human nature
tends with so strong an. instinct and so earnest a craving,
it was a season of dimness, and of more than dimness ;
it was the most gloomy season in the history of man
kind ; for all shadows were then lengthening and spread-,
ing; and a chill was in the atmosphere, foreboding a
wintry night at hand.
Throughout the countries whereupon the once festive
polytheism of Greece had built its altars, mockery had
supplanted religious awe; a factitious fanaticism had
come in the place, both of gay observances and of
serious feeling. Philosophy had uttered her last pro- I -
mises, and had broken them. On no side did light break J
forth. From a worldly point of view we have thus looked
abroad upon the kingdoms of the Roman earth, and
have imagined their glory. But now, shutting out that
mundane glare, what we see is a thick cloud, over-

44 THE RESTORATION
shadowing the prospect, even from the rising of the sun
to the going down of the same.
Yet all is not dark. If we pass down the Mediterra
nean, from the Pillars of Hercules, and look to the right
hand and to the left, and carry the eye inland too, as
far as to the furthest barriers of the Empire, the whole
of the coast-line on both sides throughout this voyage,
and every headland, and every mountain range, more
remote, and every temple-crowned acropolis, and every
lofty front, glows as if the sun were rising. A Light
has already arisen upon the nations; a promise of
Truth, and an assurance as to the destiny of man, has
brightened the gloom.
Everywhere — the exceptions are few — throughout the
regions which the Mediterranean divides, in cities and
in fields, we meet companies of men, even multitudes,
who have quite thrown off the listlessness of scepticism —
men from whose countenances the sullenness of atheism
has been dispelled, and who speak to us in the decisive
tones that spring from an accepted and undoubted be
lief. These men show, in their animated looks, and
by the determination of their behaviour, that there is in
them the vitality of a Religious persuasion which they
do not distrust.
How cordially to be welcomed is such a visitation, as
of the morning — if indeed it be the morning! How
good a promise was it for mankind of an escape from the
gulph toward which the human family was slowly yet
surely drifting away ! A sure holding has at length been
found. Some — nay thousands of the people, declare that
their feet do touch firm ground in the waters of religious

OF BELIEF. 4S
opinion, and that they stand where good standing is.
Instead of those inarticulate babblings, as from the
frivolous million, and instead of those doleful murmurs
of the desponding, the ear now catches the intelligible
utterances of men who say they have come into the
possession of certainty, and of hope.
Whether the grounds of this confident assurance were
of that kind which we in this age should think solid and
-sufficient, does not yet appear. It is probable that many,
or even a large proportion of those in that age who
made this profession, could have given no such reason
for ' the hope that was in them,' as would have com
pelled the assent of the men of these times, or such as
could have endured a ten minutes' cross-examination in
the modern forensic style. •
This does not at all concern us now to inquire. The
fact is all we have to do with, which fact, briefly stated,
is this — That at the time now in prospect, multitudes
of men, of all the races that were then subject to the
Roman sway (and of some other races probably) had
passed from a condition of frivolous indifference, or of
sensual obtuseness, or of sullen hopelessness, and had
come — rightfully or not, into the possession of a bright
and well-defined religious belief.
If we were to set forth this belief in the most concise
terms possible, it would stand in the form of an affirma
tive reply to three questions, which questions are as old
as the world, and to which men, from the very begin
ning, have been seeking, but not finding, an answer.
* Is there a Supreme Being who cares for man, and in
whose wisdom and goodness man may confide ?'

46 THE RESTORATION
' Is there an after life, and a retribution ? '
' Is there forgiveness of sins with God ? '
It is not that no solutions — more or less intelligible,
had been attempted, and had been obtained, of these vital
problems ; for the moral instincts of men had, in some
way, solved them. Every form of worship had assumed
a reply to them in the affirmative; and philosophical
meditation had done its part — ambiguously enough — to
answer them. Yet, all this while the reply — let it come
whence it might, carried no peremptory conviction into
the hearts of those who heard it. It came with no weight
of authority ; it came as a balanced probability — it pro
fessed no attestation. But now at length it has so come.
— The reply — the ' yea' which Christianity has uttered,
takes a thorough hold of men's inmost souls, as well as of
their reason. Whether or not this confidence of theirs
was strictly warrantable, according to our notions of the
laws of evidence, the fact that they did so believe is
beyond all question ; and of the strength of this their
persuasion proofs were given, than which any more con
clusive cannot be imagined.
This then is the point we have reached — That, in the
century which is named from Trajan, Hadrian, and the
Antonines, the instructed races bordering upon the
Mediterranean were in a transition state, and were
passing from darkness to light ; that is — the Light of a
confidently held religious Belief — whether true or false.

OF BELIEF. 47

THE CHRISTIAN BELIEF HAD PERVADED THE ROMAN
CIVILIZATION IN THE THIRD CENTURY.
In what follows, I shall imagine that all we can
know about Christianity, as to its origin and its earlier
period, must be gathered from the literary remains of
the age which we have now before us. Every thing,
every book, treatise, memoir, fragment, that might have
come down to us from a date anterior to the accession
of Trajan, I will suppose has perished. And even as to
the books that are extant, I draw my pen through all
citations of the Christian writers of a preceding age
that appear in them.
Besides doing this, I dismiss from my recollection
whatever I may have come to know of the after history
of Christianity, or of the literature of times subsequent.
What we have to do with at present, is all found between
two chronological termini — the accession of Trajan,
and the death of Alexander Severus.
Then, as to the materials belonging to this bounded
period, various as they are, I handle them with entire
freedom. As I have already said, I have no anxiety
about disputed passages, interpolations, or books of
doubtful authorship. This only should be said, that, as
I undertake to do nothing for those who may be pre-

48 THE RESTORATION
resolved to believe nothing, and are determined to stick
to every imaginable paradox that may help them to effect
their escape from Christianity, I am supposing so much
acquiescence as to the reality of the materials before us,
as well informed men, warped by no prejudice, will'
always be ready to grant.
The countries, provinces, and cities of the Roman
empire, within which Christianity had openly estab
lished itself about the middle period of the second cen
tury, are easily named, and they may be certainly known.
But to what extent, as to the population in each pro
vince or city, conversion from heathenism had taken
place, this must be matter of surmise ; or at best of pro
bable inference. We should incline to hold back from
the highest estimate of this proportion; and therefore must
listen with caution to the assertions of those Christian
apologists in following whom we might be led to believe
that, if times of severe suffering are allowed for, a
majority of the people in all the principal cities of the
empire had become Christians, and that the country
folk were forsaking their paganism in large numbers.
Pliny's report, made to his master at the commencement
of our period, does indeed appear to carry the same
meaning, and we might perhaps infer as much from
other testimonies. But the statistics of this subject does
not touch any point of our argument.
Gibbon supposes that, at the most, not more than a
twentieth part of the entire population of the empire had
become professedly Christian at the moment preceding the
edict of Milan. This population — taken midway in the
second century, he estimates at one hundred and twenty

OF BELIEF. 49
millions. We may believe that, in the interval of a
century and a half, the Christian proportion had gone
on increasing, so that in the time of Antoninus Pius
we should not be warranted in computing them at more
than a thirtieth or perhaps a fortieth part of the whole ;
that is to say, if we accept Gibbon's rale.
Yet it is not easy to reconcile so low an estimate as
this with the averments of Tertullian, which were loudly
uttered, and addressed to the hostile Roman authorities —
able as they were, and willing enough, to give them a
flat contradiction, if they had been glaringly false. —
' We are but of yesterday,' he says, ' and we have filled
everything that is yours, cities, islands, castles, free
towns, council halls, the very camps, all classes of men,
the palace, the senate, the forum. We have left you
nothing but your temples. We can number (out-num
ber) your armies : there are more Christians in a single
province (than in your legions) !' At the time now
spoken of, it is probable that the Roman world included
from three to five millions of Christian people.
These converts, as I have said, were spread over an
area three thousand miles in length, from east to west,
and two thousand in breadth, from north to south.
I take no account here of ultra-Euphratean Christianity,
which however had branched off on the right hand into
southern India, and on the left into Parthia, and it went
even as far as China. Media, Persia, Bactria, Arabia,
had also listened to the Gospel.
The machinery of a government so complete and
efficient as was that of the Roman empire, and the
universality of two languages ; — especially the wide

50 THE RESTORATION
diffusion of the better of the two, and the energies of
commercial enterprise, and the purer commerce of mind
— the interchange of philosophy, literature, and art — all
these influences combined, had brought the nations then
subject to Rome into a condition of relationship and
communion, which, perhaps, even the boasted facilities
of modern times do not much — if at all surpass. As to
me actual velocity of travel, it is true that days now
stand for the weeks of an ancient voyage or journey ; or
even for months ; but as to the actual intercommunion
of nations — the East and the West, and Africa, it may
be questioned whether it be at all greater now than it
was in the age of Hadrian.
The spread of the Gospel had been favoured from the
first by all these means of intercourse ; and it took to itself
the wings of every energy which then carried men to
and fro between the three continents. It used the roads
and the ships of the empire; it went in the track of
caravans. It flowed, as one might say, through the
arteries of the Greek language, philosophy, and litera
ture ; it went wherever books had gone before it : cul
ture was a preparation of the soil for its reception.
Forests and wilds it did penetrate by adventurous and
precarious missions; but, alongside of the refinements
of a high civilization, it dwelt as its fittest home.
In each of the great cities of the empire — Antioch,
Alexandria, Rome, and in every second, third, and
fourth-rate city, Christianity claimed an appreciable
proportion of the citizens as its own ; in some cities it
had a large majority. From each of these centres it
spread itself over the rural surface; at some points

OF BELIEF. 5I
imperfectly colonizing only, in other directions suffusing
itself without limit. Thus did it lodge, or thus did it
dwell, in Spain and Gaul, even as far as to the shores
of the Northern Ocean, Britain, a favoured asylum of
Roman leisure and refined rural enjoyment, had wel
comed the Gospel from the first. Italy, Illyricum,
Macedonia, Thrace, and Greece, it had pervaded ; and
the provinces of Asia Minor still more fully; and in
some of its provinces and cities the entire mass of the
people were professedly Christian. Throughout Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Syria, churches, well organized,
had meted out the geographical surface, more or less
completely. In turning the face again westward, the same divided
state of the population meets us ; at some points the
Christian and the Polytheistic elements were nearly
balanced. Egypt, Lower and Upper, was to a great
extent Christian. Cyrene, Carthage, the whole of Pro
consular Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, had also thus
become obnoxious to the Roman state : for as to these
regions, it was asserted that the new religion was rapidly
spreading in town and country, among all ranks, not
even excepting the highest.
Geographically, or as to square miles, numbered on
the surface of the globe, the religion of Christ had spread
itself over the entire area which is distinctly known to
history at the time now before us. Statistically it was
fast tending toward such a proportion as to render its
further increase a subject of well-founded disquietude
to the government. As to, classes, it had emerged from
the servile class ; and it had spread largely among the
e a

52 THE RESTORATION
free and the privileged; it had taken its position in
the legions, and had seated itself in places of honour
and profit. As to mind and learning, it had engaged
the zealous aid of the best instructed and the most elo
quent men of the times. The heathen writers — their
contemporaries, can claim no sort of superiority over
them. The facts thus briefly alluded to may, as every one
knows, be easily substantiated by citations, Greek and
Latin, that would fill many pages.
But for what purpose do I now, in this cursory man
ner, bring forward what is so well known? Not to
repeat, for the hundredth time, what has been affirmed,
warrantably, and pointedly, often already: That the
spread of Christianity — all the conditions attending it
considered — the place, and the feebleness of its origin,
the severity of its moral code, its unbendingness, and
the furious hostility it encountered ; — this spread, thus
early, is proof of its reality — of its truth. So it is : but
I have now a more specific purpose in view.

OF BELIEF. 53

CHRISTIANITY  AN INSOLUBLE PROBLEM TO THE
ROMAN GOVERNMENT.
Very often of late we have been told, that the human
mind has at length reached a mature condition such as
fits it for the task of working out for itself the elements
of morality, and the principles of Religion too — so far
as any Religion may still seem to be serviceable or
necessary. This, it is said, we may all do for ourselves,
each for himself, without the aid of a Book. What need
can there be now for sending us to gather lessons from
a Book, all which lessons we may find written in our
hearts, more legibly, and with fewer admixtures of what
is obsolete, mystical, or fabulous ?
By those who thus speak it is granted that Christianity,
in its day, did effect a good service for the nations of
the West, in ridding them of the old polytheism, and in
giving forth a simpler expression of the truths on which
Religion and Worship should rest. But having long ago
performed, this service, we need its aid no more ; — it can
have nothing further to teach us.
Without pushing the inquiry, how far these spon
taneous elements of morality have, in fact, been bor
rowed from the Book itself, or how far the hold they
have of us, as an authority, is derived from a vague

54 THE RESTORATION
unacknowledged reference to the sanctions upon which .
that Book insists, I am willing to accept this home
grown morality, with all the sentiments it recognises —
come whence it may, and shall make an appeal to it,
and to those sentiments, in a confident manner. Do
not draw back from this appeal ; then you are mine —
you yield yourself to Christianity !
No forward movement among civilized communities
has ever come on insensibly ; or as if it merely grew out
of abstract principles. In each instance it has been the
consequence of a visible course of events ; it has been
the result of a crisis, brought on by some shifting of
the social forces; and it has gone forward through
seasons of suffering, and by means of straggles, and at
the cost of life.
When such a crisis has been passed, it will not suffice
to sum up the result in a rounded paragraph of gene
ralities, and thus to run off with the benefit, forgetful of
the conditions under which it has been obtained for us.
Nor will it be enough, merely to assign the praise
which may be due to those by whose labours and
sufferings a great achievement has been brought to its
issue. Take the case before us, to which I am about to
invite your exact attention. It is granted that Chris
tianity did a service to mankind, in its time, by over
throwing the frivolous and absurd mythology and wor
ship which the Roman world upheld, and to which it so
resolutely clung. Through centuries longer these fables
and superstitions might have retained their place. But,
thanks to the Martyrs, the whole congeries of fables was

OF BELIEF.

55

swept away ; a great clearance of the ground was made,
and whatever may have been the supervening errors,
that ground has been held open for all those advance
ments which we rejoice in, as indications of even better
things to come.
You allow that Christianity did carry the nations
through the crisis, and did effect a change which was
indispensable to the advancement of mankind; but you
affirm that its function has long ago determined with
the occasion. You may so think while you keep the
facts at a distance, and refuse to descend from gene
ralities. But when these facts come to be strictly
regarded, as they should, then it will be seen that some
conditions of a very peculiar kind were attached to that
suffering-testimony, and to that resistance, by means
of which the Christian body, throughout the Roman
world, effected what it did effect, in the course of two
hundred years. These conditions imply nothing less
than the reality of the Christian system, and its conse
quent perpetuity.
What is affirmed is this, that a revolution affecting in
the deepest sense the well-being of the human family,
and indispensable to its progress, drew on to a crisis,
and passed its crisis in the period intervening between
the accession of Trajan and the death of Alexander
Severus. I then affirm that this revolution implies the
reality of what had brought it on, and therefore involves
a belief which touches ourselves, and the remotest
future. The visible circumstances which attended this revo
lution were such as to consist well with our supposition

56 THE RESTORATION
of its magnitude, and of the importance of its con
sequences. The nations of the three Continents had at that time'
been drawn together to take their places upon one plat^
form of secular administration: one system of govern-/
ment, ruled by the same political maxims, prevailed
over the whole of this diversified surface. All men,
looked up to one will as the sovereign source of good'
or ill. All felt their relationship of dependence every |
moment upon the common centre; and nations the
most remote from each other were continually made
conscious of a relationship of welfare among themselves.
The living organic structure was conscious of its structure
— as one body.
The period of this structural unity was coincident
with the period occupied by that conflict with which we
are now concerned. The beginning and the end of the
Christian crisis, or the time during which the Church,
as a body, resisted the strenuous endeavours of the State
to maintain and enforce its own maxims of govern
ment — this period was synchronous with the structural
unity of the Empire. When the conflict had reached,
and had passed its term, which was when the State
yielded the main point in dispute, and recognised
Christianity as one among the religiones licit<e, then the
Empire split, never again to be one in the same sense.
During a sixty years after this crisis had been passed
through, the conflict between the two parties continued
to be carried on at intervals ; but the grounds of it were
not the same: when not attributable to the wanton
ferocity of the individual emperor, or to his fanaticism,

OF BELIEF. 57
it had a political, more than a religious meaning, and it
expressed the fears of a party which felt itself to be
losing ground daily.
The fact, which has often been adverted to, demands
attention, that, at those moments in the course of the
struggle between the Church and the Empire which
have the most meaning as related to the point in dispute,
the Roman world was ruled by princes who have ever
since occupied pedestals, as models of sovereign benig
nity, of political wisdom, and of personal virtue. What
ever the Christian people, in some provinces, might \
sometimes suffer at the hands of ferocious magistrates or
emperors, or from the rabble, yet when the Church
suffered in its proper character, as the witness against the
polytheism of the State, its enemy was always one of
these pattern philosophic princes.
This was no accident ; for it sprang from the proper
conditions of the contest. Whenever — passion and
fanaticism apart, the Roman authorities gave their
attention to the perplexing problem which Christianity
had brought before them, and when they endeavoured to
apply to it the only general principles of which they
were cognizant, and to give effect to the undoubted
rales of Roman policy toward the subjugated nations,
then it was that they issued edicts, which — cruel and
fatal as might be the consequences thence resulting, did
truly embody the unchangeable maxims of the govern
ment they administered.
These endeavours — violent in act, temperate in in
tention — to break through the perplexity which could
not be theoretically removed — were of course renewed

58 THE RESTORATION
from time to time. The Master of the World — in
dulgent as he would be toward the rites of the van
quished gods, could not allow the Cteremonia Romana to
be set at nought, nor permit the religion of the Empire
and of all nations to be denounced as nugatory and
vicious. On the part of the Christian body — willing as these
were to yield obedience to the State, they had no choice
left them but to protest and to suffer. Thus was the
contest between the duty of the State and the conscience
of the remonstrants quite hopeless; for the straggle
could terminate in no way, but either by the extermi
nation of the new Religion and its adherents, or by the
defeat and dishonour of the government.
Whence then came this peremptory necessity, on the
side of the Christian body, so to protest, and so to
suffer ?
The point actually in dispute between themselves
and the authorities — namely an external compliance with
rites which meant little beyond an homage rendered to
the Emperor as patron of all religions, did not touch
the main part of the Christian system; it was an inci
dental consequence only of this system which threw its
adherents into collision with the State. To profess and
maintain Monotheism was not the peculiarity of Chris
tianity. Sages had professed this same belief, and had
openly taught it ; and so might these Christians, if they
would have been content with the promulgation of an
abstract doctrine. If only they had gone about main
taining a pure Theism, and telling the people, in a
good-natured manner, that the gods they worshipped

OF BELIEF. 59
were no gods ; on these terms, though they might often
have been roughly treated by mobs? yet probably they
would have provoked no serious animadversion from the
Roman government.
Besides, if an abstract truth only had been in
question, and if no other obligation had pressed itself
upon Christians, beyond that of declaring and teaching
it when and where they could gain a hearing, evasions
might easily have been resorted to by themselves, and
apologies would gladly have been accepted at the 'tri
bunals — sufficient at least for the immediate purpose of
screening themselves from suffering, and of excusing the
magistrate from the odious duty of inflicting it.
The stress of that compulsion which carried so many
men, women, and youths through the endurance of tor
tures — even to death, and which brought so many apo
states, pallid and trembling, to the tribunals, there to
clear themselves, at the cost of their souls, of the fatal
suspicion — this compulsion sprang wholly from the per
fect conviction they had of the certainty of that body of
facts which constituted, and in which consisted, their
Religious Belief.
The Belief of Facts, not an opinion of the truth of
principles, was the impulsive cause of that endurance of
suffering which we have to consider.
Now just at this point it has been usual to state the
argument in behalf of Christianity thus — The constancy
of the Martyrs gave evidence of the sincerity of their
faith. This faith of theirs, considering the nearness of
the events to which it related, and the opportunities
then at hand for sifting the evidence, and for detecting

60 THE RESTORATION
frauds or illusions, is proof of the historic reality of the
system that was so accepted and suffered for. So it may
be; but this is not precisely the light in which I am
looking at the case before us.
Perhaps the suffering Church had not at any time
given its mind with sufficient care and intelligence to
the task of sifting that evidence on the ground of which
it had accepted the Gospel. Its own Belief was indeed
pronounced in the most unfaltering tone; and on the
strength of it life was surrendered, and the rack endured;
but can I now take this same Belief as my own, on the
grounds of that same confidence ? This is not absolutely
certain.

OF BELIEF. 61

PERPLEXITIES OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT IN DEALING
WITH THE NEW RELIGION.
The witness-bearing of the early Church through
seasons of intermittent suffering, and during the hun
dred and fifty years to which we now confine our at
tention, is available in argument, either indefinitely, or
definitely. Indefinitely, and yet conclusively, is it avail
able, showing the excellence of the Religion which was
so contended for ; and its moral power also ; and so, by
legitimate inference, its truth. No fault should be found
with this mode of reasoning; but yet we may have
recourse to another. What I here intend will best
appear in giving attention to two or three of those
remarkable instances of constancy to which the im
perial edicts gave occasion.
The first of these instances possesses the peculiar ad
vantage of meeting us in a form that is exempt from
any suspicion of having been dressed up or coloured, to
serve a purpose. You will at once know that I have in
view the 97th Epistle of Pliny Junior, and the imperial
reply to it.
In this well-defined instance the perplexity of the
Roman magistrate on the one hand, and the necessity
he felt himself under to act as he did toward the Dis-

62 THE RESTORATION
sidents, and then, on their part, the counter-necessity
that compelled them to suffer, alike present themselves
free from all ambiguity.
The Propraetor found the province to which he had
been appointed in a state to which he could not be
indifferent. Things as they were, could not be left
to take their course. The mass of the people of all
classes, so he says — multi enim omnis aetatis, omnis
ordinis, utriusque sexus — or, to put the lowest sense
we can upon the language of Pliny, a large proportion
of them, had become, not simply indifferent to the
Religion of the State, but they were eager to denounce
it as false ; and they had actually adopted another. The
temples were forsaken, the simulacra of the gods and of
the emperor were defrauded of the customary homage ;
and besides, stated assemblages of the people were having
place for purposes unknown, and therefore unlawful, and
not to be tolerated.
It does not appear through what remissness of the
authorities this defection had spread so far. But Pliny —
this new representative of the majesty of the Empire, in
showing himself awake to his duty, and aware of the
impending danger, had, by issuing edicts, by judicial
inquests, and by the infliction of capital punishment
upon the refractory, made some progress in restoring
law, and in recovering, for the Carimoni<e Romana the
lost ground. This he had done before he had deter
mined to report the facts to his master, or ask in
structions. Multitudes of the people had at once re
nounced their Christianity, and had cleared themselves
of all suspicion by compliance with the sacrificial rites,

OF BELIEF. 63
and by uttering — with the required maledictions, the
name which had come to designate the new community.
For the purpose of effecting these conversions in a legal
manner, the Roman magistrate had caused the effigies
of the gods and of the emperors to be brought into
court. Can we now fancy that we see these divinities coming
forward — dolls ; or be they what they might, shouldered
by the officers of justice, and bobbing and nodding as
they came ! In style of art these simulacra are vastly
superior to the hideous blocks which now grin in our
museums, the representatives of the gods of Owyhee and
the Sandwich Islands ; and yet, whether they be more or
¦less sightly, these effigies, and the vast system of wor
ship which they symbolized, were indeed blocks, standing
in the way of that next great forward movement which
the human mind was destined to take.
This enlightened Roman gentleman and scholar, well
conversant as he was with whatever had been said and
taught by the philosophers of Greece or Rome, did not
seem to be conscious of any humiliation — he did not
blush when these stupid symbols had been poised near
him, and he — prompting the form of appellation — prae-
eunte me — pointed to them as fit objects of devout
regard ! The accused — pale and trembling as they did
that which he did not blush to exact, offered the incense
and the wine; and departed safe !
If the Roman State — then in so advanced a condition
of intellectual refinement, and when it was represented
by a philosopher and a man of letters, thus showed that
it was not then making, and had not made, any progress

64 THE RESTORATION
whatever toward a better Theology, can it be thought
probable that any such reform would spontaneously come
about? Whether or not there might yet be a chance
of some spontaneous reform, it is certain that the actual
reform which did at length take place — the actual ex
pulsion of the gods, and the riddance then effected for the
human mind of this encumbrance — this stop to progress,
was otherwise brought about.
How then was it indeed effected ? Not by the silent
spreading of an opinion — not by the gentle diffusion of
a better Theologie Idea — platonic, or of any other sort ;
but in this severe manner, namely — That throughout
all the provinces of the Roman empire — as in this
of Bithynia, a multitude of the people — high and low,
had accepted, as certain, a belief concerning a Person,
which belief did, by an incidental consequence there
with connected, absolutely forbid their compliance with
polytheistic rites, and therefore compelled them to
suffer. How many soever — at a time of alarm, might be the
faltering and the timid, there were never wanting some
of firmer moral structure, who, as Pliny here tells us,
' could by no means be induced either to offer sacrifice
to the gods, or to speak injuriously of Christ.' Rather
than do this, they endured torments, calmly, and they
accepted death joyfully.
This constancy of the early Christians,- thus severely
tried, might well be admitted as valid proof of the
reality of the belief on which it rested, especially con
nected as it was with a blameless morality. Such an
admission will readily be made by every mind that is

OF BELIEF. 65
fraught with moral sensibility, and which has not been
damaged by sophistry. Every natufal sympathy carries
us along with the sufferers, as we stand in the crowd
and witness the grave inflexibility of some, the flushed
excitement of others — youths and women, and the tre
mors and the anguish of many who yet did endure to
the end. Thus far — or so far as our truest emotions
will carry us — we involuntarily side with the condemned.
With them we think that ' they be no gods which are
graven with art and man's device.' With them we feel,
when we see them led out to die rather than yield their
belief, or be false to it.
But why might not these Christians have excused
themselves, and by means of some evasion have stood
clear of consequences so frightful ? Whether they might
have done so or not, it would now be superfluous to in*
quire. They did not do so; and it was not otherwise
than by' a century and a half of suffering, on the part
of the Church, that the gods were thrown from their
pedestals. This was the obvious part of the revolution which was
then taking place. But another revolution- — not obvious
indeed, and yet not less important, and not less indis
pensable in relation to the progress of the human mind
and the development of its higher faculties — was, by the
same terrible means, then brought about.
We may just imagine that the philosophic Pliny, if
we could have taken him apart in his hours of relaxation,
might have been brought on so far as to acknowledge
that the men whom he had ordered to execution in the
morning, were right on the great principle of Mono-
F

66 THE RESTORATION
theism. This abstract doctrine was not new to him,
and it had received, as he knew, the adhesion of illus
trious sages. There stood, however, in the rear of this
purer theology, a principle, then in course of develop
ment, which neither Pliny nor any men of his time had
thought of, or could have been made to comprehend.
Nevertheless it is the axiom on which hinges the
immeasurable moral difference between classical an
tiquity and the modern mind. Even the sufferers in
that early contest were not competent to put forward
any clear enunciation of the principle which them
selves were so painfully bringing to bear upon human
affairs. At present we stand clear of the question as to the
truth of the Religion in behalf of which the early
Church gave its suffering testimony. We abstain also
from what belongs to those moral and spiritual benefits
which Christianity brought with it, and we postpone
also all inquiry touching its own interior beauty and
grandeur. The one purport of these preliminary pages
is to put, in a distinct light, what it was which the
Church of the early age did for mankind in preparation
for a new moral era, and under what conditions this
necessary function was discharged.
A final clearance of the gods and goddesses from the
field of civilization was to be effected ; and this was to
be done, not by the gentle means of philosophic suasion,
but by bringing thousands of the people, in all provinces
of the Roman empire, into a position of unavoidable
resistance toward the government, in such a way that
neither party should find it possible to retreat from its

OF BELIEF. 67
ground: — not the government, because the first prin
ciples of the empire were impugned by this opposition ;
— not the Christian people, because it was not a mere
opinion that sustained their opposition; but a belief
toward a Person whose authority they regarded as para
mount to every other.
Thus to insist on the one side, and thus to resist
on the other side, were evenly-balanced necessities, of
which frequent martyrdoms were the inevitable con
sequence. But this violent process — in the course of which an
issue in favour of the sufferers was continually becoming
more certain — gave effect to a principle, never appre
hended by antiquity, and which was only in an indistinct
manner, and insensibly, recognised on the Christian
side ; and yet, apart from which there could have been
no such development of the human mind in the mass,
and no such depth given to the moral faculties indi
vidually, as have in fact come to place the modern,
immeasurably in advance of the ancient, civilization.
The virtue and duty of truthfulness, as between man
and man, had been taught, and well enough understood,
among ancient nations, whether more or less advanced
in civilization. And so had the religious sanctions of
morality. But the one lesson which remained to be
brought out, and to be wrought into the hearts of men,
was — the religious obligation of belief; an obliga
tion, not resting upon communities as a public or social
charge, but pending, with the whole of its weight, upon
the conscience of the individual man; — an obligation
personal, a privilege unalienable, and when duly dis-
F 2

68 THE RESTORATION
charged, a function, giving the individual man a pledge
of his immortality.
Until this principle should come to be worked out as
an axiom in morals, nothing could be hoped for as to the
destinies of the human family. Now that it has been
thus worked out, and now that it has been accepted
as an axiom, the aspect of human affairs can never
be so lowering as that we should despond concern
ing those destinies. But have we sufficiently regarded
the fact, that this great problem was solved for us by
the martyr Church during the century and half now in
prospect ?
The sufferers did not know precisely what they were
doing in this behalf; and yet, with an observable
uniformity, the professions which they made before tri
bunals, and on scaffolds, took the true direction as
related thereto.
As it had been with Pliny, so was it with L. Statius
Quadratus, proconsul of Asia. His personal dispositions
were such as would be becoming to a Roman magis
trate ; he was neither sanguinary nor fanatical ; but his
position in the province was different. The severities
to which Pliny had allowed himself to have recourse had
been prompted entirely by his own sense of public duty :
otherwise they were uncalled for. But Quadratus found
himself pressed upon by the fury and fanaticism of the
populace :— the rabble of Smyrna, incited, as it appears,
by the Jews, was in movement, and a victim must be
thrown out to appease the multitude.
The martyrdom of Polycarp, whatever else it may
show or may prove, brings out distinctly those conditions

OF BELIEF. 69
of the struggle between Christianity and the State, to
which I have already adverted. The aged bishop behaved
on the occasion so as the rule of Christian constancy
required him to behave ; nor can there be alleged against
him any indication of undue excitement. He had con
sented to conceal himself from the Proconsul's officers
so long as this course might fairly be taken. At length
he surrendered himself to them with dignity ; and these
officers had been enjoined, no doubt, to treat so vene
rable a man with respect. He was urged to yield so far
to the authorities as might enable them to screen him
from the popular fury. Why not invoke the Emperor,
and offer sacrifice ? What harm could there be in uttering
the" words Kvpie KaCcrap, and then to sacrifice, and thus
to save himself? ko.1 Qvcrcv. kcil biacrc&{ecrdcu. This advice,
kindly intended, was urged importunately. " Never
shall I do what you advise." Then if not, the time of
forbearance had passed, and the aged man was thrust
from the chariot with violence by those who had charge
of him.
Yet, notwithstanding the clamour of the mob, when
the bishop's name was proclaimed in court, the Pro
consul used all persuasions that might shake his con
stancy; and in so doing he shines by the side of the
philosopher, who, while surrounded by a trembling
crowd, at once sends whoever would not yield, to
capital punishment. "Swear by the genius of Caesar.
Change your purpose— utter the words, ' Away with the
Atheists.' "
" Away with the Atheists," he could say in his own
sense, and he said it with a groan. " Then swear, and

70 THE RESTORATION
I will release you : revile Christ ! " This might not be.
Polycarp had been numbered with the servants of Christ
from his infancy; — his martyrdom occurred a. d. 167,
or a year later; in his youth, therefore, he was con
temporary with the last survivor of the Apostles, and
thus the whole of his religious persuasion resolved itself
into a personal consciousness of facts. These facts,
true or false, or partly true and partly illusory, con
stituted the ground or ultimate reason of his constancy :
how could he blaspheme his ' King and Saviour ? '
" I am a Christian," and therefore, while professing the
Christian rule to obey magistrates, no way of escape
was opened to him, except that of contradicting the
consciousness he had of his own history, from his Boy
hood upwards.
With Polycarp this consciousness was more imme
diate and more personal than it could be with others,
his contemporaries: nevertheless with them, not less
than with himself, the ground of that Christian1 for
titude which, in the end, prevailed over the polytheism
of the State, was a belief toward a Person ; it was not
an opinion as to a doctrine : and here we should take
care to distinguish between the various motives that
might come in to sustain the courage of a martyr in
his extremity of suffering, and that one ground on
which his constancy rested. In the instance of the
Bishop of Smyrna (as in that of Cyprian, probably) con
siderations of personal honour, as the venerated Chief
of the Christian people around him, may have had an
influence. So might the motive to which he himself
alludes : " You threaten me with a fire which does its

OF BELIEF. 71
work in one hour; but you think not of the fire of
eternal punishment that awaits the wicked." These,
or other motives, would have shown little intrinsic
force, if they had rested upon an opinion : their power
sprang from their connexion with a definite historic
belief.

THE RESTORATION

THE OBLIGATIONS OF CONSCIENCE WERE AT LENGTH
RECOGNISED.
It is in the course of things that a Great Principle of
conduct should long have been acted upon — perhaps for
a century or more — before it comes to be explicitly
recognised, or to be formally defined and registered in
treatises. So it was in the present instance. The
suffering Church had felt the sacred obligations of
Truth ; and Christians, individually, had passed through
the fiery trial which these obligations required them to
meet — compelled so to do by a tacit recognition of this
principle — that he who fears God must not deny his
inward Belief, even although the avowal may cost him
his life.
The acts of the early martyrdoms might be copiously
cited in illustration of what is here affirmed. But at
length, as was natural, the implicit Principle got utter
ance for itself, and it did so with more and more dis
tinctness continually ; gradually it came to be defined,
until that great Law of Conscience, which places the
modern mind so greatly in advance beyond the ancient
mind, was allowed to stand in the very forefront of
ethical axioms,
I do not know whether this law might not be found

OF BELIEF. 73
in nearly as distinct a form among the earlier Christian
writings ; but it is found, well and finely enunciated in
that admirable Tract in which Origen deals so strictly
with the consciences of his Christian contemporaries,
who were then passing through a season of the most
severe suffering. The treatise entitled — 'Urging to
martyrdom,' is of considerable length. It must here
suffice to state the drift of it, so far as it bears upon my
present purpose.
The terrors of torture — more than the fear of death
(for at that time the infliction of torture, rather than of
death, appears to have been the determinate intention
of the Roman authorities) had shaken the constancy of
many among the Christians; and so it was that pleas
and evasions of every kind had been sought for, and had
been found, by aid of which the religious obligation
attaching to a Christian belief might be made to consist
with a retreat from the field of conflict. Origen meets
and refutes these evasions — one by one, and in doing so
he gives expression to a principle which we all of this
age — believers and unbelievers, profess to think sacred,
and which we acknowledge as the basis of personal
virtue, and in the abandonment of which self-respect
is gone.
Well does this confessor labour to animate the
courage of his faltering brethren by opening before them
the prospects of immortality : but he hastens toward his
main purpose, which was to snatch from them those
evasive pleas, in search of which too many of them were
employing an ill-directed ingenuity. The timid were
trying to persuade themselves that a genuine faith,

74 THE RESTORATION
hidden in the heart, might avail for ensuring their
salvation ; for ' with the heart man believeth for
justification' — nay, he says — but salvation has another
condition, which is not by us to be severed from the first,
for ' with the mouth confession is made unto salvation ;'
and there might be room to think that a bold confession
of the truth, even if the heart is too little animated by
love to God, honours Him more than does a heart which
withholds this confession.
Whether we grant this or not, it must be acknow
ledged that this Father is here laying the foundation-
stone of our modern sense of the stern obligation of
religious sincerity. Yet the laying this stone, at that
time, what courage did it demand ! Such courage as he
himself displayed in the hour of trial !
The Proconsul, Quadratus, as we have seen, had
vehemently urged upon Polycarp the friendly advice, to
save himself by uttering five words — Only swear by
the genius of Caesar, and I will let you go. — It means
nothing, or very little. It appears that the Christians
of a later time had begun to suggest this very evasion,
one to another, and that they were endeavouring to
get it accredited and accepted as valid. Not so, says
Origen: it is a hollow excuse, and will not save you.
If it be a transgression to swear by Heaven, by Earth,
by Jerusalem, by one's own head, how much greater a
sin must it be to swear by the fortunes of another,
6fj,vvvai Tvyj)v twos ? Can we dare to whisper a faithless
purpose in the presence of Him who declares that he is
jealous of His right over us ; and to do this moreover at
the moment when inquiry is made concerning our faith,

OF BELIEF. 75
and when torments are in sight? 'Confess me before
men,' says Christ, 'and I will confess you : deny me, and
I deny you.'
To give no place to the Devil, who is ever suggesting
evasions — to allow no thought which tends to a denial
of Christ to lodge in our hearts — to put from us the
very recollection of those most dear to us, children and
wife, or earthly possessions — to do this is to satisfy the
requirements of Christ: to do otherwise, or anything
less, is to fall short of them, and we must take the
consequence. Let us note the fact that this strenuous mode of
dealing with the infirm consciences of his brethren, on
the part of Origen, and whence were to result benefits
incalculable to mankind, drew the whole of its force
from an historic source, that is to say, from the authority
of Christ.
When we entered, says Origen, upon the Christian
life, we pledged ourselves to observe its conditions, to
take up the cross, and to deny ourselves, even for His
sake who shed His precious blood for our redemption.
The common obligations of truthfulness, as between
man and man, had long before been well understood;
but now this, new and higher obligation — binding man,
individually, to God as the object of all worship and
duty, came on to be enforced, and Origen urges it upon
his brethren with reasons which could not be rebutted ;
moreover he sustains these reasons — not by philosophy
(with which however he himself was conversant) but
by many pertinent citations of Scripture. To give this
higher obligation its utmost force, he infers it from the

76 THE RESTORATION
tenor of Christ's admonitions to His disciples, that the
call to martyrdom is a divine call ; it is a summons on
the part of God, calling upon His servants to bear
testimony, on His behalf, before the world. Who
shall disobey this summons, when thus it is uttered?
' Ye are my witnesses before all nations ; and it shall
be given you in the hour when it is needed, what ye
shall speak.'
He who thus exhorted his brethren to hold fast their
profession stedfast unto the end, did himself hold it
fast : for although he did not actually die in martyrdom,
he died of it. When a boy he had written to his father
— who was then in prison as a Christian — ' Be stedfast,
and do not think of us :' a life of labour, penury, and
suffering for Christ's sake, was his own commentary on
this filial and generous admonition. From his master,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen had learned the rudi
ments of that doctrine which he more fully expounds :
It is, says Clement, from the love of God that we are to
suffer as Christians. Having taken upon ourselves the
name of Christ, if we shrink from the confession of
Him, we are not called men of little faith, or of weak
faith ; but of none. Thus the Religious Obligation of
Truth was interpreted to demand suffering, for the sake
of it, whenever the Christian was challenged to answer
the question — Art thou a Christian ?
From the pages of every Christian writer of the
second and third centuries, passages might easily be
cited, showing that, though differently expressed, this
same principle was working itself forward into notice,
until it should become the recognised law of the

OF BELIEF. 77
Christian profession. 'Better for us to die, than to
live, and lie to God.' In a condensed form it stood
thus : — It is I who, unless I forego my hope of immor
tality, must now endure the scourge, the rack, the fire !
It is I who must meet death, armed as it is with aggra
vated terrors ! The question whether I shall face these
terrors, or shall turn aside from them, is a question
between God and my soul. My Christian brethren may
indeed aid me,. in some measure, by their plaudits and
exhortations while I suffer; but they can neither suffer
these torments for me, nor can they take upon themselves
the future consequences if I fall away, and deny my
Lord : they cannot be condemned in my place.
It was thus, and it was by a process of such extreme
severity, and it was by the repetition of it in thousands
of instances, through the lapse of more than two hundred
years, that the most signal of all the revolutions which
have marked the moral history of man was effected;
and thus was it lastingly established. The time was
come when the individual man should be lifted up
from his obscure place, as a unit in the mass of hu
manity, and should be raised to his true position, and be
invested with his proper dignity, as related individually
to God. It was thus, and it was amid the terrific
horrors of the pagan persecutions, that the meanest of
the species — the slave, the outcast — did at length secure
for himself, and for his peers of all times and countries,
a formal recognition of his worth and of his rights, as
the equal — in moral estimation — of the noble and the
learned. It was thus — even by the endurance of all

78 THE RESTORATION
imaginable forms of misery on the part of thousands
whose names have perished on earth, that we, of this
present time, have learned to regard with religious
respect, and patiently to listen to, whoever it is that, in
the name of God, comes forward to profess his belief —
yes, or his disbelief.

OF BELIEF. 79

A DOCTRINE.
The removal of polytheism from the cultured mind
was a great work ; and yet the recognition and develop
ment of that Principle which assigns to man his true
place and dignity, was a greater, and a more difficult
work. Both were effected by the constancy of the Early
Church ; and both were effected by means of long-con
tinued and- most severe courses of suffering; and both
sprung out of, and were inseparably connected with, a
Definite Persuasion, as to the events of a preceding
time, and as to the authority of a Person, and as to the
authenticity of books.
Nevertheless the modern world has not come into the
enjoyment of the benefits which were thus won for it
by the Ancient Church, without a further conflict ; and
this conflict has even been more severe than the first,
and also was of much longer continuance.
It might perhaps be possible to glean from the pages
of classical antiquity as many as half-a-dozen sentences,
bearing an apparent resemblance to those which are
plentifully found in the early Christian writers, wherein
the religious obligations of truth are affirmed. Yet even
if it were so, the facts remain as they were ; for what-

80 THE RESTORATION
ever philosophers might have said and written, they had
wholly failed to win a hearing for their doctrine among
the people. Nor did any of the governments of those
times ever recognise a principle of this sort : they un
derstood nothing of the kind. As to the Early Church,
it was as if the bare idea had never before presented
itself to the mind of man. The battle had to be fought
on ground every inch of which must be contended for ;
it was otherwise as to the assault upon polytheism, for
on this ground a better theology had been long before
propounded at least, although not accepted.
But when at length the Church, by which we mean
the Christian Body throughout the Roman world, had
achieved this great service, and had given expression to
what may be called the Martyr Principle, there followed
a consequence which was to entail upon the world a
new catena of martyrdoms.
A consciousness of the sacred obligations of Religious
Truth had given the ancient Martyr his power of en
durance; but then a spurious counterpart of this same
principle followed very quickly, and it served to inflame
the fanaticism of the Persecutor. It was thus argued: —
' If it be a duty we owe to God to profess the Truth —
even at the cost of life, must it not be a duty of parallel
obligation, to suppress and exterminate Error?' This
inference, illogical as it was, did not wait long to be
put into words, or to be acted upon. It became an
almost universally admitted axiom. Shall we attempt
to number its victims? Doubtless they have been a
thousand times as many as those that had been immo
lated by the pagan authorities.

OF BELIEF. 8i
This false and fatal Inference, accepted so early as it
was, came at length to be regarded as an axiom, which
needed no proof, and which indeed admitted of none ;
for it was self-evident! If you would see in how cool
and confiding a manner it is advanced, read the Epistles
of Innocent III, and some of the sermons of St. Bernard.
If the mere exclusion of suffering and trial were
the only consideration worth regarding, then one might
be tempted to wish that the first principle — the Martyr
doctrine — true and good as it is, had for ever slept,
unthought of, rather than that, in becoming known, it
should have given occasion to the establishment of its
spurious counterpart — the Persecutor's doctrine. But
we are not at liberty thus to wish; nor may we thus
reason; for everything about us shows that the higher
destinies of the human family are not to be reached
otherwise than through blood-sodden ways of suffering,
extreme in degree, and drawn out through centuries.
It is — it must be, enough for us to know that the
terrible results of the spurious Inference whence all
persecutions have borrowed their apology, have not
availed to deprive us of the inestimable benefits of the
previous Truth. This Truth is now ours : it is ours as
an inheritance, the encumbrances of which have already
been discharged. Dare we relinquish this good ? When
we do so, a night that can have no morning will be
before us.
But at this present moment we— that is, we Christian
men, are forbidden to entertain the thought of any such
treason by those who (strange sometimes are the sniff
ings of position among parties) are vehemently, nay, are
g

82 THE RESTORATION
even passionately, taking up the Martyr Principle —
won for us by the ancient Church, and are pleading it
in their own behalf, while they are making their de
termined assault upon this same Christianity! It may
be well to listen for a moment to this new utterance
of an old, but not obsolete, doctrine. How is it that
the ministers of Disbelief screen themselves from re
buke ? It is by taking to themselves, at a cheap rate,
the Truth which the ' noble army of Martyrs ' purchased
for the world on -the rack and at the stake !
A writer on the side of Disbelief professes his con
fidence that his reader will ' judge his argument (in
disproof of Christianity) and himself, as before the bar
of God.' In these words we hear the very tones of the
Martyr Church. '  If Faith be a spiritual and
personal thing ; if Belief, given at random to mere high
pretensions, is an immorality; if Truth is not to be
quite trampled down, nor Conscience to be wholly
palsied in us ; then what, I ask, was I to do when I saw
that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew is an
erroneous copy of that in the Old Testament, and that
the writer has not only copied wrong, but also counted
wrong, so as to mistake eighteen for fourteen?'
Then, when a second and a more serious discrepancy
presented itself, what course did this ' martyr' take ?
' On what ground of righteousness, which I could
approve to God and my conscience, could I shut my
eyes to the second fact?' Again, finding Christianity
utterly indefensible — ' Would it have been faithfulness
to the God of Truth, or a self-willed love of my own
prejudices, if I had said, I will not inquire further, for

OF BELIEF. 8
fear it should unsettle my faith?' To have stopped
anywhere in this course of disbelieving would have
been, in his view, 'sinful;' it would have been to
' plant the root of insincerity, falsehood, bigotry, cruelty,
and universal rottenness of soul.'
I think one might easily have shown this writer, or
any who may take the same ground, what he might have
done amid such perplexities, which would have been
far better than, on account of difficulties of this order, to
renounce Christianity ! But this writer thinks that, to
have shrunk from his convictions, which ended in his
entire rejection of the Gospel, would have been ' infi
delity to God, and truth, and righteousness.'
If, indeed, the case be thus, then it is certain that this
great principle of the Religious Obligation of Truth must
not be abandoned by any of us. Yet we may listen to
another witness, who speaks to the same effect, and he
is one whose testimony is equally unexceptionable. He
professes to admire the Bible; but he protests against
its pretensions, as of divine origin, or as if it possessed
any authority more than belongs to the Iliad, or to
the Divina Commedia, or to the Paradise Lost, or to
Shakspeare's Macbeth : he says, ' We may not lie to God.
It may be convenient to let things alone ; it may save
cowards trouble to shrink from the responsibility of
using honestly the faculties which God has given them :
but it will not do in the long run; and the debt of
longest date bears the heaviest interest.'
'" So thought the martyr bishop of Antioch, and the
martyr bishop of Smyrna ; and so the tens of thousands
who, in their day, have trod the same thorny path to a
g a

84 THE RESTORATION
land which none shall reach who have 'lied to God.'
Thus far then Believers and Unbelievers are agreed :
yet let another witness be heard ; and in hearing him
one might think that his words are an echo that has
come softly travelling down, through sixteen centuries,
from some field of blood, or some forum, or some amphi
theatre, where Christian men were witnessing a good
confession in the midst of their mortal agonies! This
witness is one who assures us that ' he can believe no
longer, he can worship no longer : he has discovered
that the Creed of his early days is baseless, or fallacious.'
Yet he too takes up the same martyr truth, that we
must not lie to God. He is one to whom ' the pursuit
of Truth is a daily martyrdom— how hard and bitter let
the martyr say. Shame to those who make it doubly so !
honour to those who encounter it, saddened, weeping,
trembling, but unflinching still ! '
Thus far then we are all of one mind — we Christians
of this present age, and these our contemporaries, who
denounce our belief as absurd, and they — the martyrs
of the early time, who ascertained this same moral rule,
and who, for our use, sealed it with their blood. We —
believers and unbelievers — hold it as a fixed principle,
as did the martyrs of old, that if we lie to God we
consign ourselves to perdition, or to some unknown
future woe, we know not what.
Yet there is this difference among us, and it has an
ominous aspect. —
— We Christian men of this age, along with our vene
rated martyr brethren of the ancient Church, in making
this profession — That we may not lie to God, nor deny

OF BELIEF. 85
before men our inward conviction in matters of reli
gion — we (as they did) affirm that which is consistent
within itself, and which, in the whole extent of its
meaning, is certain, and is reasonable, grant us only our
initial postulate — that Christianity is from Heaven.
But how is it when this same solemn averment comes
from the lips of those who deny that postulate, and who
scorn to recognise the voice of God in the book ? It
is just thus ; and those whom it concerns owe it to
the world and to themselves, to make the ingenuous
avowal. —
— In the first place, the very terms employed by these
writers, in enouncing the fact of the martyrdom they
are undergoing, are a plagiarism, and nothing better!
A claim, on behalf of the Gospel, must first be made
of what is its own, and which these writers have appro
priated, without leave asked. As to every word and
phrase upon which the significance of this their pro
fession turns, it must be given iip, leaving these writers
in possession of so much only of the meaning of such
phrases as would have been intelligible to Plutarch,
to Porphyry, and to M. Aurelius. A surrender must
be made of these Christian words, Conscience, and
Truth, and Righteousness, and Sin; and is it not
so that these modern unbelievers must be challenged
to give us back that one awe-fraught Name which they
have stolen out of the book? When they shall have
frankly made this surrender, we may return to them
the ro 0eioi> of classical antiquity, for their future use.
Yet this plagiarism, as to terms, is the smaller part
of that impropriation with which the same persons are

86 THE RESTORATION
chargeable. As thus — It is reasonable, and it is what
a good man must do, to suffer anything rather than
deny a persuasion which is such that he could not, if
he would, cast it off". So it was with the early Christian
martyrs : their persuasion of the truth of the Gospel had
become part of themselves ; it was faith absolute, in the
fullest sense of the word. The same degree of irre
sistible persuasion attaches to the conclusions of mathe
matical or physical science ; but it never can belong to
an opinion, or to an undefined abstract belief. A man
may indeed choose to die rather than contradict his
personal persuasion of the truth of an opinion ; but in
doing so he has no right to take to himself the martyr's
style. So to speak is to exhibit — not constancy, but
opiniativeness, or an overweening confidence in the
strength of his own reasoning faculty.
Polycarp could not have refused to die when the only
alternative was to blaspheme Christ, his Lord : but
Plutarch could not have been required to suffer in at
testation of his opinion — good as it was — that the Poets
have done ill in attributing the passions and the per
turbations of human nature to the immortal gods ; nor
should Seneca die in behalf of those astronomical and
meteorological theories with which he entertains him
self and his friend Lucilius.
When those who, after rejecting Christianity, talk
of suffering for the ' truth of God,' and who speak as
if they were conscience-bound ' toward God,' they must
know that they not only borrow a language of which
they are not entitled to avail themselves, but that they
invade a ground of religious belief whereon they can

OF BELIEF. 87
establish for themselves no right of standing. They
may indeed profess what opinion they please, as to the
Divine Attributes; but they cannot need to be told
that which the misgivings of their own hearts so often
whisper to them — that all such opinions are, at the very
best, open to debate, and must always be indeterminate,
and that at this time their own possession of the opi
nion which just now they happen to cling to, is, in the
last degree, precarious. How then can martyrdom be
transacted among those whose treading is upon the
fleecy clouds of undemonstrable religious feeling ?
Educated men should not wait to be reminded that
those who, after abandoning a peremptory Historic
Belief, endeavour to retain Faith and Piety for their
comfort, stand upon a slope that has no ledges ; Atheism,
in its simplest form, yawns to receive those who there
stand; and they know themselves to be gravitating
toward it.
It would be far more reasonable for a man to die as
a martyr for Atheism — a stage beyond which no further
progress is possible, than to do so at any point short of
that terminus, knowing as he does that every day is
bringing him nearer to the gulph. The stronger the
mind is, and the more it has of intellectual massiveness,
the more rapid will be its descent upon this declivity.
Minds of little density, and of much airy sentiment,
may stay long where they are, just as gnats and flies
ensnared upon the slimy sides of a china vase — they
'do not go down, but never again will they fly.

88 THE RESTORATION

RELATIVE FORCE OF SCIENCE AND OF MATTERS
OF RELIGIOUS OPINION. i.
Through a strange misapprehension of what is the',
present tendency of things, within the precincts of
Philosophy, those who are struggling to save for ther/i-
selves the Pietism of Disbelief have made allusion/to
the progress of the Sciences, as if these were threaten
ing the destruction of Christianity. We are told tiat
our obsolete Creed will be rent from us by the advance
of the Physical sciences. \
A miscalculation it is that has led astray those who ,
thus think, and thus speak. The modern Physical
sciences — Astronomy, Geology, Physiology, have in
deed availed to dispel from Christian Belief this or
that groundless supposition, the demolition of which
has occasioned pain to infirm minds, and has spread
alarm among many; but the issue will be good and
confirmatory. I may hereafter show you on what
ground I think so; and I do not wish it to be sup
posed that I am either unmindful of the difficulties
that have had their origin in this quarter ; or that I am
intending to evade the consideration of them. But
whatever damage Science may do to Christianity, its
operation (so strangely forgotten by the writers in
question) will be, not to damage, but to put quite out

OF BELIEF. 89
of existence, every phase of those vague pietistic notions
which it may have been thought possible to retain, when
Christianity is gone. The fate of all those varieties of
speculative doctrine is already sealed, and it is sealed
by the hand of our modern Physical sciences! How
and why this should be taking place has not, I think,
been understood ; and I invite attention to it.
In any case when that which, on any ground of proof,
takes full hold of the understanding (such, for example,
are the most certain of the conclusions of Geology)
stands contiguous to that which, in a logical sense, is of
inferior quality, and which is indeterminate, and fluc
tuating, and is liable to retrogression — in any such case
there will be going on a silent encroachment of the
more solid mass upon the ground of that which is less
solid. What is sure will always be pressing upon what
is uncertain — whether or not the two are designedly
brought into collision or comparison. Whatever is well
defined weighs upon, and against, what is ill defined.
Nothing can stop the continuous involuntary operation
of science, in dislodging opinion from the minds of
those who are conversant with both.
A very small matter that is indeed determinate, will
be able to keep a place for itself against this incessantly
encroaching movement; but nothing else can do so.
As to any of those theosophic abstractions, which we
may wish to cling to, after we have thrown away the
Bible, we might as well suppose that they will resist the
impact of the Mathematical and -Physical Sciences, as
imagine that the lichens of an Alpine gorge will stay
the slow descent of a glacier.

90 THE RESTORATION
It is not that these Demonstrable Sciences are likely
to be brought designedly into antagonism with the theo-
sophies of Disbelief. But instead of this, these authentic
sciences are now coming down, in one compact mass,
upon all varieties of mere 'opinion: without noise, yet
certainly, they are coming, to raze these from the soil
where they grow. Travelling in its might, this solid
mass will scrape quite bare the surface over which it
travels. Nor is it merely the Mathematical and Physical
Sciences that in this manner are edging opinion out of
the intellectual world; for in the train of these come
the Statistical, the Economic, and the Political sciences,
which every day are assuming a more positive tone than
heretofore, and are becoming more articulate than any
Religious opinions can be, unless sustained by evidence
of the most conclusive sort. Deductions that are indis
putable — principles that have a near bearing upon the
welfare of the community, not less than the higher
truths ^of philosophy, tend to disengage the minds of
men from whatever does not possess equal or similar
recommendations. We sicken of endless surmises, of
guesses, of aspirations, of impressions, of vague hopes.
Now it is manifest that the Religious Disbelief which
is at this time offered to us in the stead of Christianity,
neither does, nor can, in the nature of things, take
possession of solid ground whereupon it might establish
and fortify itself. At the very best it is only a pleasing
possibility, or a probability — it is a something better
than nothing. Itself, from a consciousness of its own
slenderness, it will be glad to slip away, unnoticed,
from the halls of science.

OF BELIEF. 91
This process, sealing the fate of theosophic beliefs of
all sorts, does not indeed bear upon the masses of the
religious community. Happily it does not ; but it does
bear upon the entire community of well-instructed
men ; and from them the effect which it produces is now
spreading itself, outward and downward, and thus a
paralysing of religious sentiment has gone far and wide ;
and this it is which calls for a fresh recurrence to the
very substance of Christianity, as the only means that
can be trusted to for bringing about a Restoration of
Belief. We must not allow ourselves to imagine that the
relative position of Natural Philosophy and of Religious
Philosophy at all resembles now what it was at the
time when Christianity prevailed over philosophy and
polytheism; for the speculations of that age did not
stand liable to any such pressure from without, as that
which now weighs upon their modern representatives.
The Theology ofnhat epoch was not at all less approvable
to reason than was the Physical science of the same
time: both were surmises only; and, on the whole,
fewer absurdities were comprised in the theology than
in the science of the times. The science of antiquity
could call scarcely anything within its compass — certain,
except its geometry and its applicates ; nor was it itself
in a progressive condition ; it slept on its ground, and
was not more likely to dislodge its neighbour — the
Theology of the same time, than one of the pyramids
is likely to shove another into the Nile.
It would be an illusion to imagine that any scheme
of religious belief can now maintain itself in the minds

93 THE RESTORATION
of instructed men, under the pressure of the compacted
mass of our modern sciences. A most misjudging
course, therefore, have those writers adopted who, of
late, have threatened Christianity with an extinction,
which, they say, is to be effected by the hand of the
Physical sciences ! Do they not see that there is a victim
that stands first to be immolated — to wit, their own
baseless theology?
But why may not Christianity itself share this same
fate ? Is it not itself an opinion ? This will be the end
of every one of those modifications of Christianity
which have been devised for the purpose of escaping
from its extreme consequences, or of mitigating its
supposed severity, or of winning the favour of those
who reject it. These varieties of what we must call
an abated Christianity, are indeed opinions only ; and
they entirely lack intelligible evidence, as well as sub
stance and motive force : they stir no affections ; they
fix no resolves ; they breathe no such 'energy into the
souls of men as should strengthen them in a course of
real sufferings for the Truth's sake.
What is it then that may, and that will, hold its
ground against the ever-increasing momentum of our
modern philosophy ? It is that Christianity, whole and
entire, which, filling as it did the mind and the heart
of the Early Church, carried it so well through its
day of trial.
I now therefore reach the point which I have had in
view thus far ; — it has been my purpose to show that a
Restoration of Belief, at this time, must be aimed at in
making our way direct into the heart of the question,

OF BELIEF.

93

and in reclaiming for the Gospel its own grandeur, its
own beauty, and its own force, as a cluster of facts, not
a congeries of notions.
Hitherto we have confined our attention to the
martyr age of Christianity, and have considered how
the men of that time, while they so 'fought the good
fight of faith,' rendered a service to the world, the
benefits of which can never leave it. But can any one
persuade himself that this war could have been' waged
on the strength of any of those abated notions of
Christianity which we are now required to accept in
stead of itself? We may be sure it could not have been
so; and we know it was not so. The faith of the
Martyr Church was undoubting in its quality, and
ample in its compass. The martyr confronted his
tormentor, and he welcomed death, in the perfect
assurance that the Religion he professed was from
Heaven, and that it had come into the world attested
by Miracles.
Such a persuasion, we may think, cost this martyr
little; for it was an age (so it is said) of ready belief.
Men believed on slender evidence, or on none. It is
of no consequence to dispute this: let it be granted.
But if the credulity of the age made it easy for the
Christians of that time to accept a religion professing
miraculous attestations, this same willingness to believe
sprang from a feeling, the vividness of which we, of this
age, can scarcely imagine. The men of the martyr
time had found in Christianity that which out-measured
all miracles ; to them the spiritual existence which they
had drawn from the Gospel, was itself a Miracle with

94 THE RESTORATION
which those of the Evangelic history seemed in perfect
accordance. What they felt in themselves, and what
they saw in others, of the power of the Gospel, was to
them a resurrection, equivalent to the miraculous healing
of the sick, or the raising of the dead.
But is it not ' reasoning in a circle' thus to believe
the miracles because the religion is felt to be from
Heaven, and to believe the religion, because it has been
attested by miracles? Grant it that this is reasoning
in a circle, when thus formally stated ; but it does not
follow that therefore the reasoning is not valid. A
misapprehension on this ground has too easily been
admitted, as well on the side of those who have con
ducted the Christian argument, as with those who have
impugned it. A sophism, boldly obtruded on the one
side, has been timidly dealt with on the other.
The very firmest of our convictions come to us in
this same mode — that is, not in the way of a sequence
of evidences, following each other as links in a chain,
and carrying with them the conclusion ; but in the way
of the congruity of co-ordinate evidences, meeting or
collapsing in the conclusion. This is not the same
thing as what is called ' cumulative proof,' nor is it
proof derived from the coincidence of facts. Those
impressions which command the reason and the feelings
in the most imperative manner, and which in fact we
find it impossible to resist, are the result of the meeting
of congruous elements : they are the product of causes
which, though independent, are felt so to fit the one
to the other, that each, as soon as it is seen in com
bination, authenticates the other; and, in allowing the

OF BELIEF. 95
two to carry our convictions, we are not yielding to the
sophism which consists in alternately putting the pre
mises in the place of each other, but are recognising a
principle which is always true in the very structure of
the human mind.
Let the case be this — that you have to do with one
who offers to your eye his credentials — his diploma,
duly signed and sealed, and which declare him to be a
Personage of the highest rank. All seems genuine in
these evidences. At the same time the style and tone,
the air and behaviour, of this Personage, and all that he
says, and what he informs you of, and the instructions
he grvses you, are in every respect consistent with his
pretensions, as set forth in the Instrument which he
brings with him. It is not, in such a case, that you
alternately believe his credentials to be genuine, because
his deportment and his language are becoming to his
alleged rank ; and then, that you yield to the impression
which has been made upon your feelings by his deport
ment, because you have already admitted the credentials
to be true. Your Belief is the product of a simultaneous
accordance of the two species of proof: it is a combined
force that carries conviction; it is riot a succession of
proofs in line.
The same force of Congruity, not a catena of proofs,
gives us the most trustworthy of those impressions upon
the strength of which we act in the daily occasions of
life ; and it is the same Law of Belief which rules us
also in the highest of all arguments — that which issues
in a devout regard to Him, by and through Whom all
things are. On this same ground, where logic halts, an

96 THE RESTORATION
instinctive reasoning prevails, which takes its force from
the confluence of lines of reasoning.
I have asked it to be supposed that all we can now
know of Christianity must be derived from the literary
materials of the second and third centuries. But we
now go back to those materials. They are various, if
not of very great absolute bulk : they include contribu
tions from the pens of fifty or sixty writers, some of
these being voluminous, some amounting to fragments
only, or paragraphs or sentences : but then, as to these
Contributions, they are gathered from all quarters of the
Roman World. These fragmentary remains bring to
our hearing, as we might say, the voices of the dwellers
in Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, Gaul,
Italy, and Greece; what we now listen to is a testimony
coming in from a large surface. These variously derived
materials constitute so many segments of a great circle,
the centre of which they will enable us to determine,
if only we rightly bring them to their places : the radii,
projected from these segments, meet in a central point.
A striking unanimity of feeling pervades this mass;
and yet this is along with much diversity of style — the
temper of the individual men also being everywhere
conspicuous, as well as the characteristics of country.
The subjects treated of are various also. Nevertheless,
as to the central object of which these materials give
us our idea, the uniformity — the Identity of Image is
such, and it is of such intensity, that it moulds to its
own fashion the mind of every ingenuous reader: he
cannot refuse to yield his reason and imagination too,
to this one idea: undoubtedly it is everywhere the same

OF BELIEF. 97
person whom he encounters in these scattered memorials
of a distant time !
One of the purposes I have had in view in thus
bringing forward the persons and events of the Martyr
age, and in keeping the eye fixed upon that limited
field, was this — to render more easy a mental effort by
which we put out of sight the bearing of Christianity
upon ourselves, and thus discharge from our feelings
that which haunts our minds, .namely — the thought that
it may touch and disturb ourselves.
In now summing up, I entreat you to make this
effort, and to imagine that Christianity has long ago
ceased to hold any place of influence in the world ; and
that it stands before us only as a singular development
of the religious and moral elements of human nature,
which, having had its season, now stands on record, only
as an insulated object of historic curiosity. If now you
will go with me so far, ingenuously grant such things
as you would not think of denying if you were relieved
from all anxiety as to future consequences, touching
ourselves. I will therefore suppose you to allow these
following things. —
— That the Christian communities did, during the
period that we have had in view, make and maintain
a protest against the idol-worship of the times; which
protest, severe as it was in its conditions, did at length
win a place in the world for a purer Theology, and thus
set the civilized races free from the degrading super
stitions of the Greek Mythology.
— That, in the course of this arduous struggle, and as
an unobserved, yet inevitable consequence of it, a New
H

98 THE RESTORATION
Principle came to be recognised, and a New Feeling
came to govern the minds of men, which principle and
feeling have conferred upon the individual man — how
ever low his rank, socially or intellectually, a dignity
that was unknown to classical antiquity ; and which yet
must be the basis of every moral advancement we can
desire, or can think of as possible.
— That the struggle whence resulted these two mo
mentous consequences, affecting the welfare of men for
ever, was entered upon and maintained on the ground
of a definite persuasion, or Belief, of which a Person
was the object.
— That this belief toward a Person, embraced attri
butes, not only of superhuman excellence and wisdom,
but also of superhuman power and authority. If we
take the materials before us as our guide, it will not
be possible to disengage the history from these ideas
of superhuman dignity.
If in any instance that can be thought to be parallel,
the concentric testimony of many writers conveys the
idea of a clearly-defined Individuality, such an idea,
such a conception of a Person — real, and yet unlike
others, is conveyed by the evidence now in our hands ;
and in this idea the historic and the supernatural elements
are indissolubly blended ; the two elements of character,
as thus combined, possess a force of congruity which
compels our submission to it as real. Whence then
came this Idea ? We find it on the pages of the early
Christian writers in a form so consistent, and it is con
veyed in language so sedate and so uniform, that we
must believe it to have had one source.

OF BELIEF.

99

Much do we meet with in these writers that indicates
infirmity of judgment, or a false taste ; yet does there
pervade them a marked simplicity, a grave sincerity,
a quietness of tone, when He is spoken of whom they
acknowledge as Lord. If there be one characteristic of
these ancient writings that is constant and uniform, it
is the calm, affectionate, and reverential tone in which
the Martyr Church speaks of The Saviour Christ !
I am perfectly sure that, .if you could absolutely
banish from your mind all thought of the inferences,
and the consequences that may result from your ad
missions, you would not, after perusing, this body of
Martyr-literature, fall into the enormity of attributing
the notions entertained of Christ, as invested with
Divine attributes, to any such source as ' exaggeration,'
or ' extravagance,' or to ' orientalism,' or ' enlarged
Platonism.' Exaggeration and inflation have their own
style: nor is it difficult to recognise it: no character
istic of thought or language is more obvious. But you
will fail in your endeavour to show that this character
istic does attach to the writings in question; and why
should you make such an attempt ? There can be no
inducement to do so, unless it appears to be the only
means available for escaping from some consequence
which you dislike or dread.
But how can it be that a resumption of the inference
which Christianity brings to bear upon ourselves, should
rightfully affect the admissions we have made while that
inference was held in abeyance ? It can never be logical
to say, ' I would not have granted you so much, if I
had foreseen what use you would have made of my
h a

ioo THE RESTORATION
concessions.' If our concessions have been reasonably
granted, we must abide by them, come what may.
That which these concessions involve is this — that
unless we at once allow the Supernatural and the
Divine to have belonged to Christianity at its rise,
our alternative is to fill up the void by aid of some
hypothesis which shall give an intelligible account of
what we know to have followed, wherever it was pro
claimed, throughout the Roman world. As to any such
hypotheses (four have been devised) I will not call them
inadmissible, or insufficient ; for to me they are wholly
unintelligible. Unintelligible are these hypotheses, even when looked
at in the coldest manner from the ground of historical
criticism. But how revolting do they seem when the
course of events, through the lapse of centuries, is re
garded in any manner that might deserve to be called
philosophic !
The dark mysteries that attach to the course of human
affairs, who shall profess to interpret? No one now
undertakes such an office. Nevertheless we may trace
single lines of causation with perfect certainty : we may
follow a clue up from Effects to Causes; and we may
discover causes which, in their quality and their effi
ciency, are such as the effect demands. We may safely
reject, as by instinct, an hypothesis which assumes to
trace great and extensive effects to causes that would be
not merely insufficient, but which are utterly incon
gruous and unfit.
Remove from Christianity everything in it which is
supernatural and divine, and then the problem which

OF BELIEF. 101
we have to do with is this. — A revolution in human
affairs, granted to be in the highest degree beneficial in
its import, was carried forward upon the arena of the
great world, by means of the noble behaviour of men
who, by force, command our sympathy and admiration,
as brave, wise, and good. But this revolution drew the
whole of its moral force from a Belief which — how
shall we designate it ? — was in part an inexplicable
illusion; in part it was a dream, and in large part it
was a fraud ! This, the greatest forward movement which
the civilized branches of the human family have ever
made, took its rise in Jewish brains, bewildered and
diseased ! Indestructible elements of advancement, to
which even infidel nations confessedly owe whatever is
best and most hopeful within them — these elements of
good, which were obtained for us at so terrible a cost,
had their source in a congeries of exaggerations, and in
a mindless conspiracy which was hatched by chance —
nursed by imposture, and winged by fanaticism !
While I must speak of the Theories that have been
propounded for solving the problem of Christianity, on
natural principles, in no measured terms, I would not
be thought disposed to treat slightly the catalogue of
difficulties that attach to the Christian argument, at
specific points. Real are some of these difficulties ; and
some must be fatal to certain gratuitous assumptions,
held on the Christian side : not one of them should be
inconsiderately dismissed. But not one of these diffi
culties touches the Integrity of our Faith ; nor can the
entire mass avail at all to abate the confidence of our
persuasion, that the Gospel of Christ is from Heaven,

io2 THE RESTORATION
and carries with it an authority which Time does not
impair, and which Eternity shall unfold and confirm.
When a collection of historic materials, bearing upon
a particular series of events, is brought forward, it will
follow (upon the supposition that those events have, on
the whole, been truly reported) that any hypothesis the
object of which is to make it seem probable that no
such events did take place, must involve absurdities,
which will be more or less glaring. But then, after the
truth of the history has been established, and when the
trustworthiness of the materials has been admitted, as
we proceed to apply a rigid criticism to ambiguous
passages, we shall undoubtedly encounter a crowd of
perplexing disagreements; and it is probable that we
shall find employment enough for all our acumen, and
trial enough of our patience, in clearing our path. And
yet no amount of discouragements, such as these, will
warrant our falling back upon a supposition which we
have already discarded as incoherent and absurd.
This then is the present state of the argument as to
Christianity. As to those inroads which of late have
been made upon the Belief of well-informed Christian
men, they have been effected by urging exceptive cases,
and by bringing forward instances of historic misplace
ment, or contradiction, affecting the credit of the In
spired writers ; or, by inference, bringing into question.
the Divine authority of the collection of books. On
this ground the course that should be taken, though it
be arduous, is straight before us.
To propound difficulties pressing upon a Christian
belief, is one thing; but to propose a theory that

OF BELIEF. 103
might be properly accepted as affording an intelligible
solution of the problem which demands to be dealt
with, when we disallow the claims of Christianity as
from Heaven, is a very different matter. On this
ground, I do not see that any advantage has been
gained on the side of Disbelief in modern times. Our
English disbelief can pretend to no originality ; for it
is a copy after the German ; and yet German theories,
though they have broken down, in quick succession,
at home, have been imported, as if still good, and have
been done into English without scrapie: is there one
of these theories that has not been abandoned or dis
carded where it first appeared ?
This is as it should be, on the supposition — That
Christianity is true: the difficulties which adhere to
the mode of its transmission may still be insoluble;
yet to devote primary attention to these would only
have the effect of giving our thoughts, as well as
feelings, a wrong direction. A better course is, first
to assure ourselves of the substance of our Belief :
we may then, with comfort and advantage, meet the
exceptive argument in its particulars.

io4 THE RESTORATION

the christian argument is determinable.
It is said that Christianity must be content to take its
place along with many indeterminate questions, which
are, and which should be spoken of among reasonable
men as ' matters of opinion.'
I deny this allegation; and I take my position, if
with humility, yet fearlessly, on this opposite ground,
namely : that, if those modes of reasoning which have
been authenticated as good in other cases, are allowed
to take effect in this case, there is nothing in the entire
round of human belief more infallibly sure than is
Christianity, when it is affirmed to be — Religion,
given to Man by God.
The same proposition, stated exceptively, might be
thus worded. Christianity can be held in question only
by aid of violence done to the first principles of rea
soning, and by disregarding those laws of evidence
which in all analogous cases are enforced.
I would not be misinterpreted in this instance.
I might perchance undertake to demonstrate some un
questionable theorem in geometry, or to establish the
most certain of the conclusions in the circle of the
physical sciences; and I might so mismanage the pro
cess as in fact to make those things seem doubtful
which, in truth, are absolutely certain. The question

OF BELIEF. 105
just now, is not — whether an individual writer suc
ceeds or fails in bringing a demonstrable argument to
a true conclusion; for this may happen or not; but
whether the argument itself be demonstrable or not.
Grant me therefore so much liberty as this, at starting,
that is to say — allow me to fail in my present honest
endeavour; yet let it be without prejudice to my
cause. Grant me this, and I will repay your candour
with an equivalent. I shall impute no bad motives to
you as a cover to my chagrin in finding that I do not
bring you over to my side : I shall not tell you that your
resistance to my reasoning is nothing but an immoral
obduracy, springing from the corrupt wishes of an ' un-
regenerate heart.' It may be so in fact; but that is
your affair, not mine. " Let a man examine himself?'
I am no Inquisitor, nor Father Confessor; nor do I
profess to be a spiritual adviser.
Besides, I am not about to deal in persuasives, or to
be eloquent and ingenious. I would not touch this
argument at all if I did not find it solid in every part
of it, and better than that it should need eloquence.
We all perfectly know that the only style proper to
the exposition of absolute Truth is that which indicates
no consciousness of the surmised dispositions, or ad
verse feelings, or prejudices, of those who are addressed.
Euclid deals with everybody alike : he knows nothing
of men's tempers. It is thus that, in working our way
toward the truth of any mass of facts, debated in Court,
we listen with all attention, as if an inspired person were
about to speak, to the evidence of an intelligent and
guileless child; for we suppose that this child does not

106 THE RESTORATION
know, or knowing, does not care, how his statement
will tell upon the suit, or how it may gratify, or irritate,
or appal, the plaintiff, or the defendant. This child-
testimony is just the normal style of a purely scientific
treatise; and it should serve as sampler to an argu
ment that is professed to be thoroughly honest and
irrefragable. A style much less inartificial than this has prevailed,
on both sides, in the argument concerning Christianity.
How this has come about on the side of Disbelief, it
does not concern me to inquire. On the side of Belief
it has had entrance in such ways as these: — Perhaps a
writer who himself is sincerely, rather than perfectly per
suaded, labours, from page to page, under the weight
of a lurking uneasiness or misgiving, as to the goodness
of the cause he has taken in hand. Or perhaps his
amiable temper and his abhorrence of dogmatism, impel
him to employ so many softnesses of language, and to
abound so much in uncalled-for concessions, that the
reader loses hold of an argument of which the writer
himself seems to have lost his hold. Perhaps — and this
is often the fact — the Christian advocate, being also
a minister of religion, and in that capacity having much
to do, from week to week, with the levity of the human
mind, and its perversity, its indifference, and its ob
duracy, and thus forecasting the rejection of his argu
ment — unimpeachable as it may be, draws back from
a peremptory statement of it, lest he should risk too
much in boldly challenging the readers' submission.
He will not pledge Christianity where he foresees that
he shall perhaps find a contumacious resistance.

OF BELIEF. 107
Expect no such gentle obliquities in these pages.
I am not provided with slender conventionalisms of
this kind ; — ' Ought we not to grant ?' — ' Is it not
reasonable to suppose?' — 'Can we imagine this or
that?' — 'Every candid mind will allow;' and so forth.
But then if I abstain from the use both of lenitives
and of irritating stimulants, I protest against every sort
of argumentative violence, or polemical outrage. What
I mean by this protest is this — We are about to make
our way, in company, through a mansion, the doors
of which, inner and outer, are locked ; but I carry a
master-key in my hand. Every door opens instantly
by application of these fair means. You must not then
bring with you a sledge-hammer; as if you would be
impatient of the use of the key. You must not bring
forward, by preference, a violent supposition to avert
an apprehended consequence. Only let the key take
its course wherever it suffices, and I am content.
What then are the conditions of a proposition which
should be regarded as a ' matter of opinion ?' In con
nexion with an argument like this, the vague truism
will not serve us — That an opinion is a proposition
concerning which even the best informed men may
differ without imputation, either of wrong motives, or
of incompetency. On this ground, we need to be
guarded against misapplications of the word.
A question concerning facts may be indeterminable
in consequence of some hopeless deficiency of the extant
evidence which relates to it ; or ambiguity may attach
to it in consequence of the occult quality of the facts
in question. But any such indeterminate problems,

108 THE RESTORATION
assignable, as they may be, to the region of opinion, and
which are therefore open to endless discussion, are
likely to belong to one, as well as to another of the
departments of science, of philosophy, or of criticism.
It is a mistake, fertile in errors, to imagine that Opinion
belongs always to one department, and Certainty to
other departments; as if the immunities of an exemption
from the tolls of controversy were the class-privilege of
this or that aristocratic science.
Every science, how absolute soever it may be in its
methods of proof, has its indeterminate verge — its open
territory of opinion; so it must be while it is in a
progressive condition. Until a science may pronounce
itself to have reached its culminating point, there is
always stretching out in front of it a region over which
adventurous speculation takes its course, and whereupon
no authority better than that of opinion has yet been
recognised. Mathematical Science is, we are told, still in pro
gress ; and, therefore, even over this region, or rather in
front of it, there hovers the ' pillar of a cloud' — a cloud
of promise, leading the way over the sands of the infinite,
toward further conquests.
As to the Physical Sciences, if what has been ascer
tained within their compass would fill twenty folios —
the matters next outlying beyond these, and which yet
are sufficiently defined to be susceptible of some sort of
intelligible statement, would fill a hundred folios.
As to those branches of science, or of criticism, which
take their bearing upon Individual Facts, and which
deal with Evidence — no greater error could be fallen into

OF BELIEF. 109
than that of supposing that, in any special sense, we are
here entering upon the trackless region of opinion. In
truth, as to the relative amount of the certain and the
uncertain — of the determinate and the indeterminate —
of that which is open to discussion, or is closed against
it, and is sealed for ever as infallibly sure, those depart
ments upon which evidence (in the technical sense of
the word) bears, show a decisive advantage, as compared
with the boundless domains of the physical sciences. It
is so on two grounds : — First, as to the nature of the
subjects respectively that are treated of; and secondly,
as to the symbols, or the medium of conveyance, from
mind to mind.
The Physical Sciences, inasmuch as they relate to the
powers, properties, functions, of the material world —
inorganic and organised, they touch the surface onlytof
an abyss that is unfathomable. The things concerning
which they treat are, more or less, occult, and, for a
great part, they are inscrutable, as well by the human
senses, as by human reason. Besides which, these sci
ences are compelled to express themselves in a medium
which has been borrowed for their use, and which is
very imperfectly adapted to the purposes it is now made
to serve.
The prerogative of Mathematical Science is, that it
has created its own symbols; and it has done this just
as far as it has needed them: these symbols are quite
exempt from ambiguity; and the truths conveyed by
them are not attempted to be expressed a step further
than they are thoroughly understood.
A parallel advantage attaches to the various depart-

no THE RESTORATION
ments over which evidence holds sway ; for the facts —
with few exceptions — are intelligible, and the medium
of conveyance — that is to say, the language of common
life, has itself grown out of, or is the product of this
very class of facts. Language is at home when it is
framed into propositions concerning individual facts
that are sustained by evidence ; but, on the contrary, it
is doing a work strange to itself when it is giving ex
pression to the generalizations of Physical Science.
So long as the. Latin language lives it will always be
perfectly known what sort of event was intended to be
recorded when an accomplished nephew affirms, con
cerning his learned uncle, that — Innitens servulis duo
bus, assurrexit, et statim concidit : but when we turn to
those of this same learned writer's pages in which he
tries his hand at the scientific explication of natural
phenomena, as of thunder-storms (ii. 43), or when
Seneca gives his theory of earthquakes (Nat. Quest, iv. 5),
we feel, first, that the things spoken of by these great
men were immensely far beyond their cognizance ; and
secondly, that the terms in which they laboured to convey
their own confused notions concerning these things are
too indeterminate to have admitted, either then or
now, any very certain interpretation. Nor ought we to
assume very much more than this in behalf, even of our
modern scientific speculations ; for a time may come
when a lecture, upon — let us say — the theory of volca
noes — even if the English language should live so long
as a thousand years, may read like mere jargon; or it
may require many pages of learned exposition to be
spent upon it, before it can be known at all what the

OF BELIEF. in
writer could be thinking of when he talks about " a dis
turbance of the equilibrium of Galvanic forces," and the
like. The narrative of the first eruption of Vesuvius —
the history, is just as intelligible now, as it could have
been eighteen centuries ago; and the letter of Pliny
will retain the whole of its bright vivacity to the end of
time ; so that this one entry upon the page of universal
history has a better chance for eternity than even the
pyramids. But as to a large portion of our modern Phy
sical Science — every century, as it passes, overlays it
with a coating of obscurity, inasmuch as the theories
of each era are superseded by those of the next; and
inasmuch too, as the terms conveying such theories,
having no real relationship to the things they intend,
lose almost all hold of those things in the lapse of time,
and cease to be easily intelligible. In respect of the
events of the Trojan war — whether the Iliad be history
or fable, the Greek language carries a meaning that is
unchangeably certain for ever; but in respect of Ari
stotle's astronomy, or of Plato's scheme of the universe,
nothing can keep the very terms in an intelligible con
dition — nothing but a running commentary which needs
to be re-issued from age to age.
There is no ground then for setting off Christianity,
to take its place among indeterminate questions — among
' matters of opinion,' merely because it stands before us
as an entry upon the page of history; for it stands there
in company with things that are quite as sure as the
surest theorems of geometry. What it teaches — or some
of those things may be, and are, matters of opinion ; but
it is not itself a matter of opinion.

ii2 THE RESTORATION
You say — Christianity is an exceptive instance, be
cause it comes to us laden with miracles, which no evi
dence can avail to authenticate; and in trath we are
granting it more indulgence than it can rightfully claim,
when we concede to it any footing at all upon the
ground of rational argumentation. Let Christianity rid
itself of the supernatural, and then we will think
about it.
You cannot take this course ; and my purpose at this
time is to close it against you.
Authentic history comes into our hands along with a
vast mass of adventitious matter, which is not of itself ;
and from which it may easily be distinguished without
any damage to itself, or even much disparagement to
the repute of the original writers. Of this sort are those
statements of alleged facts for the truth of which the
historian does not very explicitly pledge himself; and
concerning which we may easily suppose him to have
been innocently in error: — also — of this sort are his
own opinions, his own reasonings, and his surmises,
which are worth just what they may be worth : — also the
entire mass of indirectly asseverated narratives — matters
of tradition, matters of national belief, or of popular
contemporaneous parlance.
Now, as to the connexion of all such extraneous
matters with authentic history, I apply to it — for the
purpose of my present argument, this phrase, and say —
the tie between the two masses is that merely of adhe
sion : it may thus be spoken of because a removal of the
adhesive portions may be effected without violence : it
may be done without drawing blood; and as to the

OF BELIEF. 113
historian himself, he will scarcely be conscious of the
operation. In how pleasant a manner have many such
removals been effected in the instance of the ' Father
of History,' who, in truth, as a veracious collector of
facts, enjoys a much better repute among us now, than
he did a century ago.
But there is another bond of union — connecting a
body of history with what it brings with it, which
implies more than mere adhesion, and which must be
regarded as implying a connexion of cohesion. When
ever the tie is of this kind, an attempted separation of
the two masses touches the life, and we should look
well to the consequences before we set about it. I
affirm that, in the instance of the canonical documents
of Christianity, the connexion of the historic mass with
the supernatural, is a case of cohesion; and that it is
absolutely indissoluble.
When an instance of this sort presents itself, one of
three courses may be taken : — that is to say, the three
courses are hypothetkally eligible ; but which of them is
actually so can be known only upon inquiry.
1st, It may be that we ought wholly to reject the
conglomerate — the history and the miracle together, as
being manifestly destitute of any intrinsic value.
and, We may apply force — retaining the simply his
toric mass, and throwing off the mass cohering. But
when this is done the patient dies: — that is to say, the
credit of the writer, or, in other words, his vitality as a
witness is gone, even although much that he has re
corded may still be quite true : we have slain the, man ;
1

ii4 THE RESTORATION
nevertheless if he carried anything about him that is
valuable, we take it to ourselves.
3rd, We may accept at once the simply historic mass,
and that which coheres with it, both being true, and
both historic.
The course of argument, therefore, in relation to
Christianity, must be this : — In behalf of it, it should
be shown, first — That the combination of the histdrical
and the supernatural which it offers to our view is not
an instance of mere adhesion ; but is an instance of in
dissoluble cohesion.
We must then show that, unless violence is to be
done to the principles that are applicable to the occa
sion, the commingled mass cannot be cast aside, as
unsubstantial, or as destitute of value ; inasmuch as the
historical portion is of indisputable validity: — this is
sure, if anything in history is sure.
But no endeavours, fairly made, can avail to disjoin
the supernatural, in this case, from the historical. In
other terms stated— within the compass of the canonical
documents of Christianity the supernatural is one and
the same as the historical. The two can be accounted
two, by hypothesis only. Moreover the two elements—"
if they be two — coalesce into one mass, not merely by
cohesion, of which just now I am to speak ; for they are
still more intimately blended by the force of congruity,
to which I have already (p. 94) made allusion, and of
which, hereafter, I shall have much to say. Whether or
not the alleged cohesion of the historic and the super
natural may be incontestibly established, the connexion

OF BELIEF. ng
of Congruity, laying hold as it does df the firmest of our
convictions, stands entire ; and it is such as has availed,
and it will always avail, with the mass of unsophisticated
minds, to ensure an unclouded belief.
The ground of argumentation, such as is now in hand,
has been gradually narrowing throughout the course of
the present half century. It is mainly the industry of
adverse criticism that has thus cleared the way before
us; or more fairly stated, it has been the assiduous an
tagonism of Christian, and of Antichristian scholarship,
working with unwearied zeal at the same problems, that
has achieved this service. On the one part, laborious
ingenuity has spent itself in floating out threads which
might perchance catch and detain, in behalf of Scepti
cism, this or that portion of the apostolic remains. On
the other part, an overdone scrupulosity, and a super
fluous candour, has employed itself in loosening the hold
of these films — one by one.
The upshot of all this industry is just this, that, after
two or three ambiguous cases have been allowed for, the
apostolic antiquity of the several portions of the New
Testament canon has come to be out of question; and
that, as to the Epistles (with which alone I am at pre-
senf concerned). "The credit of these writings, as to
genuineness and authenticity, rests upon evidence one
tenth part of which has been customarily admitted as
sufficient, in any parallel instance, on the field of clas
sical literature. It must be mere affectation, or it must
indicate infirmity of the reasoning faculty, to speak in
any other tone than this of the result of those critical
explorations of which the Canonical Epistles have been
i a

n6 THE RESTORATION
the subject, in the course of the last fifty or sixty
years. As to any argument with which, just now, I am con
cerned, I should be content if there were handed over
to me, only so many as four or five of the Apostolic
Epistles — or even fewer, as undoubtedly genuine. Allow
us anywhere good anchor-hold in the roadstead of apo-
stolicity, and it is enough. It is enough, not merely
because these fewer authentic documents carry by them
selves an inference from which there is no escape ; but
because, as I shall show, a spurious writing, which is so
like the genuine as hardly to be distinguished from it,
will bear the weight of my present argument almost, or
quite as well as it could, if it were genuine.
And then, after some such ambiguous document has
yielded its available amount of evidence, in a direct
manner, it serves a further purpose in giving support
indirectly to what is genuine. The genuine shows the
'Hall-mark;' but the spurious, or the doubtful, carries
a mark that is less authentic ; and a comparison of the
two ' stampings' affords the ground of new confidence,
as to that which already we hold to be infallible.
With our English straightforwardness about us, and
our dislike of the practice of catching at straws for the
purpose of keeping a desperate hypothesis afloat, we take
in hand a sample of German hypercritical captiousness.
— It runs in this way : — ' Throughout our Epistle,' says
the critic, ' we find several words, and some combina
tions of words, that are not Fauline : they indicate an
other mind, and another hand. The forger, it must be
confessed, has very nearly hit' — what? Paul's style! —

OF BELIEF. 117
but not quite : he has done his work cleverly ; but yet
he has betrayed himself in not fewer than half-a-dozen
places. This Pauline style has then come to be — an historic
reality — and as such I want nothing more ; it is dis
tinct, and distinguishable, by its individual character
istics, which are of so marked a kind that, while they
held out a temptation to the ancient forger, they are of
so peculiar a sort that modern critics are sure of their
scent whenever an imitation is under inquiry. It is just
thus that a practised collector of ancient coins applies
his tongue to a specious ' Cleopatra,' or to a false ' Pto
lemy ;' for he knows the taste of the genuine Egyptian
mintage too well to be so easily imposed upon: — the
colour of the rust is nothing. The Critic takes a bearing
upon that which is genuine (implicitly, if not explicitly)
for the purpose of discarding the spurious. But I take a
position even upon the spurious, that, from that vantage-
ground, I may be able to trust myself with more con
fidence in accepting the genuine. As to any one in
particular, of the twenty-one epistles of the Canon, the
question of its genuineness, and authenticity need not be
entered upon until some critic, who shall be competent
to the task, comes forward, in seriousness, and with
copiousness of proofs, to affirm that all of them are
forgeries. This will not be attempted; or if it be
attempted, those who engage in such an enterprise
must first make a clear field by erasing every remains
of antiquity — profane and religious, anterior to the
Norman conquest.
Nor do we now touch any question as Jo the alleged

n8 THE RESTORATION
Inspiration of these Epistles, or of any other books of
the Canon. We are often told that we timidly hold
up this ' Inspiration' as a screen, lest the documents of
our faith should come to be dealt with severely,* in the
mode that is proper to historic criticism. Only let this
Historic Severity take its free course, and Disbelief will
be driven from its last standing-place. It is my perfect
persuasion that, in the now actual position of the
Christian argument, the doctrine of the Inspiration of
the Canonical books is of more importance, in a logical
sense, to Disbelief than it is to Belief.
If every one of the Canonical books of the New
Testament — every one of those in behalf of which
Inspiration is alleged, had perished, and if nothing
were now before us but the uninspired documents of
Christianity (those of the second century) I must still
be a Christian, although I should often be at a loss
as to the separate items of my Creed. But now, if
the Canonical writings — Inspiration not considered,
were dealt with in the historic mode, without prejudice
or favour, Disbelief would wither from under the sun.

OF BELIEF. 119

CLASSIFICATION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,
IN RELATION TO THE PRESENT ARGUMENT.
The historic element and the supernatural (the mira
culous) are connected in the books of the New Testa
ment in the way of Cohesion, not of adhesion merely ;
but then this cohesion takes effect in a very different
manner in different instances. These differences it is
quite important to take account of; and it suggests a
corresponding classification of the canonical documents.
The Twenty-seven books take their places, when re
garded in this particular aspect, under three heads ; and
thus we have —
I. Those, throughout the substance of which the his
toric base blends itself with the supernatural in the way
of explicit and circumstantial narrative. These of course
are the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles.
II. Those books in which, once or oftener, some ex
plicit affirmation of the supernatural occurs ; but which
contain no circumstantial narrative of miraculous events.
Of this sort are Seven of the Epistles.
III. Those in which we find no affirmation of this
sort, and throughout which the supernatural makes
no other appearance than that which is implicitly
(though necessarily) conveyed in the primary article

120 THE RESTORATION
of the Christian profession — namely, the Resurrection
of Christ. This necessary implication always understood
— the writer affirms nothing that is miraculous. As
many as Fourteen of the Epistles come under this
category. In relation to the present argument the Apocalypse
does not take a place in our arrangement.
The facts then which, under this aspect, stand before
us, in outline, are these — That, out of the six and twenty
constituents of the Canon, Fourteen are (as I here
presume to call them) non-supernatural, saving only
that one constant element — expressed or implied in every
Christian writing— the Resurrection of Christ. Of the
Twelve remaining books, Seven Epistles distinctly
affirm, along with this universal implication, the fact
of a miraculous agency of which the writer professes to
have personal cognizance. Five, or, if the Gospel of
Lu'ke and the Acts be reckoned as one — Four, books
not merely allege this agency, but narrate instances of
miracles ; and so relate them that the natural and super
natural elements constitute a continuous tissue, which is
not resolvable into two, except by violence.
It is natural to place these three classes in the order
here assigned to them ; but the logical order, or that in
which they offer themselves most conveniently for the
purposes of a rigid scrutiny, ending in a peremptory
conclusion, is just the contrary. I therefore begin" with
the Fourteen Epistles which, liable to the condition al
ready mentioned, are here designated as the non-super
natural. These are — The Epistles — to the Ephesians
— to the Colossians — to the Philippians — the two to. the

OF BELIEF. 121
Thessalonians — the two to Timothy, the Epistles to
Titus, and to Philemon, and the five Catholic Epistles
of St. James, St. John, and St. Jude.
This significant fact, that more than half of the
authentic documents of a Religion which boldly rests
itself upon miraculous attestations, contain no explicit
allusion to such events, claims our strict attention. At
a first glance this fact is susceptible of opposite interpre
tations ; but its true meaning will be seen in attending
to the particular instances in which it appears.
Manifestly, this tri-partition of the Canonical books
is founded upon do intrinsic difference distinguishing
them ; but is accidental merely. The difference has no
other reality than that which attaches to these composi
tions in their bearing upon the argument now in hand.
It is to the same writer that we attribute five of the
books of the second class, and nine of those belonging
to the third ; and between those of the second and those
of the third there is discernible no difference of doc
trine, or as to tone, or as to moral intention. Yet the
one circumstance which constitutes the reason of this
present classification is itself explicable, and it consists
well with the assumption of the historic reality of the
Christian documents. That fourteen out of these six
and twenty compositions, or that fourteen out of twenty-
one Epistles, should contain no affirmation concerning
miracles, does not imply that miracles were not alleged
by the teachers of Christianity; — for they are alleged,
boldly and clearly ; but it quite excludes the inference
that these teachers were men of heated minds whose
element was the world of wonders, and who would

122 THE RESTORATION
always be labouring to propagate the same feeling in
the minds of others, and to keep alive a species of ex
citement which is found to be peculiarly grateful to the
mass of mankind. This fact, moreover, under the con
ditions which, as we shall see, attach to it, wholly ex
cludes the supposition that the preachers of the Gospel
were accustomed to indulge themselves in the super
natural wherever it was safe to do so; but that they
cautiously abstained from any allusion to it where there
might be a risk of provoking scrutiny and contradiction;
the very contrary of this is that which presents itself: as
we shall see.
The writers of these Fourteen Epistles— this is con
spicuously evident — were neither striving to bolster up
their own confidence by incessant references to miracles;
nor were they endeavouring to sustain the constancy of
their converts, by any such means. Their habit was —
we do not infer this, but see it — to allege miracles
whenever there was direct occasion so to do— and not
otherwise; and therefore, though they make this alle
gation in Seven Epistles, in fourteen they do not make
it. When an Apostle writes to his intimates — to his
colleagues, and to those whose belief was a tranquil
assurance, like his own — not a syllable of the super
natural meets the eye. But when he defies his adver
saries, or rebukes a set of faulty converts, he takes his
stand upon miracles ; and yet even then a word of
allusion to them is enough.
The Fourteen Epistles that contain no reference to
the supernatural are attributed to four writers, namely,
Paul, John, Jude, and James. The temperament of these

OF BELIEF. 123
four writers is as diverse as can be imagined, and the
style of each has no resemblance to that of the others.
This dissimilarity of character being conspicuous (and
it has often been insisted upon) the fact that the four
are brought thus into company on the ground of their
abstinence from the supernatural, in these Epistles,
carries the more meaning; for it is evident that this
abstinence did not draw its reason from the dispositions
of the individual writer, but from an influence belonging
to the Religion they professed, and which bore alike
upon the four whenever the circumstances under which
they wrote were similar, or similar in this particular
respect. It has been customary to say— and we may
always say it confidently — that God works no miracles
without cause sufficient : and now it appears that these,
His servants, make no mention of miracles — without
cause sufficient. As in the Christian dispensation the
supernatural was measured out by the necessity of the
occasion, so are the* allusions to it restricted within the
limits of a rigid frugality. Jude.
I now take in hand the Epistle of Jude as if it were
the solitary extant contemporaneous document of that
Christianity of which I have seen and heard so much,
while traversing the Roman world in the times of
Trajan and the Antonines.
This Epistle is one of those which, through the com
mendable caution of the ancient Church, took its place
among the avTikeyo/xeva — the ' controverted.' Not that

124 THE RESTORATION
its antiquity was questioned ; or its authenticity — in any
such sense as is material to my present argument.
The writer does not call himself an Apostle ; and the
Church hesitated to admit the claims which had been
advanced in his behalf in this respect. Besides, such
was the religious feeling of the Christian body, and of
the critics of the third century, that because Jude, in
two places, quotes, as genuine, two books that were held
to be spurious, this apparent error was judged to be
incompatible with his repute as an Inspired writer.
Although an easy supposition — namely, that Jude cites,
not those spurious writings, but some then extant re
mains, afterwards incorporated in the spurious books-,
might have obviated this objection; yet it so far had
influence as to keep this Epistle under a cloud until
some time in the fourth century. But with no am
biguities of this kind have I anything to do at pre
sent. That the Epistle is a writing of the Apostolic
age, or the very early times, has not been reasonably
questioned. What this means is just this, that if those rules of
historical criticism which prevail in the department to
which the instance rightfully belongs are allowed to
take effect, then the Epistle of Jude is a genuine docu
ment of the Christianity of the first century. Yet, even
if it were nothing better than a good imitation of such
documents, and we knew it to have been promulgated in
the Apostolic age, it would serve our purpose as well.
The energy, the simplicity; the gravity, and the moral
tone that are proper to a genuine writing, are manifestly
the characteristics of this. It has, moreover, a graphic

OF BELIEF. 125
force and a rotundity peculiar to itself. Looking to
the Greek of this Epistle, you recognise the style of
a writer who has tropical phraseology at his command,
and whose cumulative manner and condensation indi
cate an intensity of feeling, which yet is governed so
as is usual with men in places of authority, who, if they
write with power, are careful not to compromise .their
position by a lax diffuseness; and while they show a
stern countenance towards offenders, yet preserve the
calm aspect of paternal love towards the better sort.
But the document in hand carries a meaning of a
more definite kind.
Whether or not we choose to regard an affirmation of
the supernatural as a dead weight which must sink any
writing in which it occurs, no such weight attaches to
the Epistle in hand. Indirectly, as I have said, the
reality of the primary miracle of the Christian pro
fession is implied; but the writer claims no power of
working miracles for himself; nor does he in any way
allude to occurrences of this class. There does not
present itself, therefore, any hypothetical difficulty
which should bar the way of the inference I have in
view. Thus far I suppose myself to know absolutely nothing
concerning Christianity beyond that which I have ga
thered, by some industry, from the writers — Christian
and Heathen — of the period above specified (p. ^).
What I have so learned stands far out of the reach
of controversy or contradiction. No scholarlike man
would dream of attempting to bring the main facts
here assumed into question. This various and volu-

126 THE RESTORATION
minous evidence is, as I have said (pp. 49 and iot), a
body of testimonies gathered from a surface geogra
phically more extended than the Roman empire; and
when it is thus regarded, the broadly-expanded mass
is seen to take a concentric bearing upon that which
must have been the common source of the whole. If
indeed nothing belonging to that central point had
come down to us, we must have surmised concerning
it as well as- we could ; but if only a single fragment
belonging to it reaches us, then, instead of vague sur
mises, we look to it in the warrantable expectation of
finding that this piece, small as it may be, will show
a true congruity with the mass which remotely bears
upon it. The mason's chiseling upon this key-stone
will serve to identify it as belonging to the arch.
Take notice then of my purpose, which is this : — in
the course of an inductive scrutiny of the various ma
terials in my hand, I am getting together, and am
bringing to their respective places, the well-squared
stones of a firm historic structure, to which structure,
as I shall afterward show, the supernatural so coheres
that the two elements can never be sundered ; I mean,
they can never be fairly sundered.
The community that was addressed in this Epistle
was of some standing ; for it had its stated observances,
its ayh-ncu, and there had been time for it not merely to
develope its own proper qualities, but to draw toward
itself — as a new and fervent religious body always does —
men of cloaked purposes, who had found in it the means
of gratifying their ambition, their cupidity, or their
licentiousness. Yet this mischief,, the constant atten-

OF BELIEF. 127
dant as it is of every remarkable religious movement,
was a recent occurrence ; for the writer, who is a man
in authority, had upon gaining knowledge of it '¦hastened''
to throw himself in the way of its further spread^-7rao-ai>
CT1t0vbv\V 1i0WU\XiV0i.
These evil-purposed men had snatched at a doctrine
which, when it is grossly apprehended by men of a
sensual temper, seems to screen all vices. We descry
in this instance the distinguishing feature of the Chris
tian system (already known to us) that is to say, the
free remission of sins, of which even the most profligate
are invited to avail themselves. It is not against the
immorality of the wide world that the writer inveighs -;
but against that of those who had abused a Christian
profession in this very manner. This abuse had become
rank in a degree to which a season of persecution would
supply an effective remedy. But the season of general
persecution had not, as it seems, yet commenced ; for
if it had come on, these vultures would have flown.
We found the Church of the martyr age in the atti
tude of a moral force, struggling to maintain a difficult
position, closely beleaguered on every side by gross
errors of belief, by abounding immoralities, and by
virulent animosities. In the course of this straggle
the Church was unconsciously coming into the posses
sion of that fundamental principle of genuine mora
lity — the sense of individual responsibility toward God.
This germ of whatever is good, it brought out into act
for itself, and then passed it down for the benefit of
mankind in all time following. But we naturally look
for the rudiments of so remarkable a revolution in the

128 THE RESTORATION
original documents of the religion which gave it to
the world; and it comes under our eye now in this
Epistle. At a later time it was constancy in the
endurance of sufferings for the truth's sake that had
thrown the Christian upon his individual responsibility.
In this earlier age it was constancy in resisting the in
sidious advantage of false doctrine, and of specious
immoralities that had availed to the same end; and
this constancy, as well in its later as in its earlier
forms, had been animated by the same prospect of
immortal blessedness. Thus are these springs of the
moral life mingled in the closing injunctions of the
Epistle. Towards delinquents a compassionate discri
mination was to be used — the individual demerits of
each being considered (verses a a, 33) ; while those who
stood firm were reminded of their dependance every
moment upon the help of God; and this caution is
conveyed in terms which, within the compass of five
lines, concentrate what is. most affecting in Theology
and in Ethics. As to this majestic doxology, we should
lose more in losing the truths it conveys than in con
signing to the abyss of oblivion the entire body of
classical philosophy. " To Him who is able to guard
you unfallen, and to make you stand before the glory
(of his presence) unblamable in joy — to the one God,
our Saviour, by Jesus Christ our Lord (be ascribed) glory
and majesty, might and authority, as well now as
throughout all ages. Amen."
Here then in this Epistle we find exempt from every
exception — reasonable, or unreasonable, a Centering-
stone of that structure which, in the age of the Anto-

OF BELIEF. 129
nines, had arched over the Roman world, from East to
West, from North to South,

James.
To which of the evangelic persons, bearing this name,
and mentioned in the Gospels, this Epistle should be
attributed, it is of no moment here to inquire ; nor is it
material to know anything more concerning the Epistle
than that it is of very early date ; of which fact, besides
the references to it by Clement, Hermas, and others —
the place it holds in the ancient Syriac version is suffi
cient evidence.
Notwithstanding a single passage of ambiguous import
(c. V. 14, 15) I do not hesitate to class this Epistle along
with the non-supernatural. The writer, among miscel
laneous injunctions, gives one which by no means
necessitates the supposition of what should be called
a miraculous agency : — miracles were incidental and
extraordinary (in their very import) but in this place
a customary occurrence is referred to, and the reason of the
course which the writer advises to be taken is drawn
from a general truth, namely — the efficacy of prayer.
The force and vivacity of this composition, besides
the comparative purity of the Greek, give it a very
marked character. It resembles, except in a few phrases,
none of those with which it is associated in the canon
of the New Testament. The writer gives us a very
distinct idea of himself, as well as a portraiture of the
persons with whom he had to do, which is specially
graphic. The indications of historic reality stand out,

130 THE RESTORATION
one might say, with a harsh prominence on every para
graph of this Epistle. Nothing here has been smoothed
down: there has been no revision of the first draught
with a view to secure consistency, or to avoid giving
offence. The Writer must have known that his official
position, and the weight of his personal character, would
secure for him a hearing, how unacceptable soever might
be the rebukes which it was his duty to administer.
To no community could remonstrances, and reprehen
sions, and pungent advices such as these seem flattering.
They might perhaps be submitted to; but they could
not be welcomed. The writer uses the tone of a man
in authority — in office; and yet he does not labour to
vindicate that authority ; nor does he go about to sustain
the pretensions of a sacerdotal class ; he falls in with no
prejudices ; he does not flatter the overweenings of na
tional or sectarian self-love. The Epistle bears upon its
surface the straightforward purpose of a firmly consti
tuted and fearless mind, opposing itself, at once, to open
abuses and to specious pretexts. Nothing that is sinister
— nothing deeper than the resolute intention of one
who is jealous for truth and virtue, can anywhere be
discerned among the sententious clauses of this com
position. We are free to take it for what it seems ; but to take
it in any other sense we are not free. We are no more
at liberty so to do than we should be to put an ill con
struction upon the words or conduct of a neighbour
against whom there is not a shadow of unfavourable
evidence. This writer is not a man of the meditative
turn : his modes of thinking are fixed ; his views, so far

OF BELIEF. 131
as appears from the Epistle, are limited ; his habits and
feeling show the practical, not the abstract tendency.
In temper he is firm : or even severe ; but yet he is
discriminative ; and toward the well-behaved he is
indulgent and loving. He resents subterfuges; he is
indignant at wrong. He does not work his way, by
reasoning, toward a conclusion, but he seizes it with
vivacity, and as by a moral instinct. His logic is of
this kind — ' Talk as you may, profess what you please,
I know of only one sort of piety that can be acceptable
before God, our Father ; which shows itself in visiting
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in
keeping itself unspotted from the (pollutions of the)
world. — Whatever your theology may be, the wisdom
which I acknowledge to be genuine and heavenly is
pure, peacefully disposed, gentle, easy to be persuaded,
abounding in works of mercy, and in fruits of goodness ;
— it is impartial, and abhorrent of disguises.'
Such is the writer; but the Epistle gives a brightly
historic reflexion of the manners, tempers, usages, of the
community, or class of persons that is addressed.
But now ought not a discreet Christian apologist to
hesitate before he lifts the curtain ? He will do so if
what he is in search of, in antiquity, is a factitious image,
or a fabulous social condition ; but he will do no such
thing if he be in quest of hard historic realities — not
if it be his ambition to drive off from the Christian
precincts the shadows, the myths, the quaint unintel
ligible hypotheses of German origin, in the mists of
which English Disbelief is just now finding a momen
tary refuge.
Ka

132 THE RESTORATION
Even if the writer of this Epistle had not prefixed to
it the conventional phrase which designates his nation,
" the twelve tribes of the Dispersion," we could have
found no difficulty in recognising our company. It is
certain that, on this occasion, we have entered the an
cient Synagogue. The noisy congregation around us has,
it is trae, become professedly Christian; nevertheless in
behaviour, and in moral costume, they are Jews, more
than they are Christians. They are persons who have
not undergone that melting down of the soul which
took place in the instance of educated polytheists who,
when they " turned from dumb idols to serve the living
God," and when they awoke to the hope of immorta
lity, passed under the transformations of a new spiritual
existence. As to these synagogue converts, they had
given up one religious persuasion, and they had taken
up another. They had yielded the one point of con
troversial difference between the Synagogue and the
Church ; but they had retained their factious spirit, and
their wrangling habit of discourse. They were expert
in the twists and sophistries of rabbinical evasion : they
were too ready to cry " Corban," whenever appealed to
on the ground of mercy and piety. Between the obli
quities of their Jewish training, and the simplicity of
the Christian system, a perpetual conflict was going on.
That characteristic of the community of which we get a
glimpse in this graphic Epistle, is — restlessness— a want
of equilibrium— a want of repose — a glaring want of
consistency. One hears the clatter and the jar of a dis
cordant assemblage of men who, as yet, have adjusted
nothing in their own principles or motives. In a word

OF BELIEF. 133
— and it is a word full of historic meaning — we have
stepped into the Synagogue!
These Jewish converts were skilled in those perverse
reasonings by means of which men are wont to throw
the blame of their many failures upon God (i. 13). They
were glib in speech (i. 19), they were lagging in con
duct; they were prompt to dictate (iv. 1), and slow to
learn. Ready were they to cringe before the rich (ii. a)
but backward in administering to the needs of the poor
(ii. 15). Such was then the license of the Jewish tongue,
that the writer exhausts all figures that can be applicable
to the subject, in labouring to set forth its unbridled
excesses : a tongue, the incendiary intensity of which
declared its rise in the nether furnace; a tongue— in one
hour, taking its part in a liturgy, in the next pouring
forth curses. These apt scholars of the Devil (iii. 15)
slanderers, like their teacher (iv. 3) are dealt with in a
way which nothing could sustain but the intrepidity of
the most assured virtue and piety. We shall presently
find the very same men (the likenesses are not to be
mistaken) treated by another chief of the new religion,
in his own style ; but with the same fearlessness.
Critics have differed as to the country of the writer.
It is of little moment to settle this point — of none just
now. The people of the synagogue are much the same
folk, wherever we find them. They were so, not merely
from the prevalence and decisiveness of their national
dispositions and habits; but because the individuals
composing these congregations were migratory, carrying
with them, of course, their peculiarities. Even now, in
this synagogue in which we have taken our stand, there

134 THE RESTORATION
are some who have but lately arrived from the ends of
the earth; and there are also some who, at the moment
when the sun goes down, will be busy at home, strap
ping their packages, and preparing to depart, at dusk,
or at dawn, having already whispered to themselves the
words reported by this writer, " To-day, or to-morrow,
we will go into such a city, and continue there a year,
and buy and sell and get gain."
The precise date, too, of this Epistle is controverted ;
yet, apart from reasons of a critical kind, and which
favour a very early date, that peculiar moral condition
of indeterminate conflict, between Jewish tempers, and
Christian principles, which this Epistle brings so vividly
before us, must, in its nature, have belonged only to
a transition period ; and we know, in fact, that, while
Judaism speedily collapsed upon itself, Christianity soon
ceased to wear this party-coloured garb ; and everywhere
showed its own mind, as the very contrary of Judaism.
This Epistle would not comport with any state of things
that was of later date than the Jewish war.
There is one point of accordance between the Epistle
of Jude and that of James which we should not fail to
notice. I have said (p. 99) that a remarkable uniformity
of tone characterises those passages in the writings of
the martyr age in which the personal attributes of the
Saviour Christ are alluded to ; consequently this prime
feature of the Christianity of the second and third cen
turies should show itself in every document bearing date
in the apostolic times. And so it does in these two
instances, and the fact is the more observable because
in neither of them is the theological element distinctly

OF BELIEF. 135
brought forward. The one writer speaks with a calm
solemnity of Him whom some, by their immoralities,
had impiously denied — " our only Lord God and Saviour
Jesus Christ ;" and the faithful are exhorted to " look
for" the " mercy" of this Saviour, " unto eternal life."
The other writer, in the same tone, and with the same
allusive brevity, speaks of the Christian profession as
the faith of the " Lord Jesus Christ — (the Lord) of
Glory." And he* denounces those who, while perse
cuting the followers of this Saviour, were accustomed
to " blaspheme that worthy name."
These two Epistles, then, the historic reality of which
stands out of the reach of legitimate scepticism, and
which possess, in themselves, a peculiarly well-defined
character, constitute — apart — and together — a mass, in
destructible in itself, and equal to any stress which —
to revert to my masonic allusion — I may have occasion
hereafter to throw upon it.
But suppose that, on the question of the genuineness
and authenticity of these two Epistles, our critical evi
dence fell short, by a little, of irresistible demonstration.
This imagined faultiness of proof (which, in fact, cannot
be alleged) might indeed touch the question of the place
that should be assigned to them in the Canon of Scrip
ture : but it scarcely affects at all, if at all, my present
argument. I take, then, this Epistle of James, marked as it is
with the, inimitable characteristics of genuineness — as
much so as any remains of antiquity that might be
placed by the side of it. As to its antiquity, all shadow
of doubt is removed, not merely by the quotation of

136 THE RESTORATION
it by the early Fathers, as then well known to them;
but by its presence in the Syriac version, in which the
Epistle of Jude does not appear : these early translators
found it already possessed of repute, as an authentic
Apostolic work ; and as such it had been ordinarily read
in the churches of Palestine, using this language.
But let us imagine that these ancient translators, and
that the Eastern Churches generally, had misjudged the
case : in fact, that they had been imposed upon — for
the Epistle, although spurious, bore so much the sem
blance of an apostolic work, that they did not detect
the fraud. The forger — the imitator — the compiler,
or by whatever epithet we should designate him, un
derstood the manner of the apostolic teaching so well,
and he knew so well what would be looked for by
Christian readers in any composition purporting to
come from an apostolic man, that he would expect only
instantaneous detection if he admitted into his copy so
much as one line which would be of ambiguous quality
in relation to Christian morality. This imagined imi
tator of the apostolic 'style, after looking about him for
samples, in order to choose the one which would seem
the most characteristic, and which would be the least
likely to awaken a suspicion, makes this sort of selec
tion: — He writes an epistle, in the assumed name of
James, for which he hopes to obtain currency among
Jewish converts throughout the world; but this Epistle
breathes an uncompromising moral intensity, and it
abounds in sharp rebukes of that sanctimoniousness
which was in fact the prominent characteristic of the
Jewish people at that time !

OF BELIEF. 137
What now does this mean but that the well-known
apostolic style — the style which an imitator would think
it the safest to attempt — was that of men who, full of
the courage of God's own prophets, were wont to risk
everything in behalf of trath and virtue ? I do not see,
then, that we should gain much on the side of Disbelief
by suggesting doubts, in this same manner, as to the
genuineness of the Epistles of the Canon : it would be
better to let them pass at once for genuine and authentic.
Apostolic Christianity, if looked at through its own
crystal, shows the clear brightness of Heaven : — yet even
if it were looked at in the copper speculum of spurious
writings, it still carries a resplendence, not sensibly
dimmed. John.
The First Epistle of John stands among the 6p.oX.o-
yovpeva of the ancient Church, the genuineness and
authenticity of which are copiously attested,. The
second and the third were for some time questioned;
but these are of no moment in relation to my argument,
any further than this — that, if they be imitations, the
absence of any allusion to miracles in them shows that
this omission was quite customary in the Christian writings
of the time.
There is not a word or phrase occurring in this first
Epistle which could suggest the idea that Christianity
had made its way in the world by the aid of miraculous
attestations — the one foundation miracle always sup
posed. Yet at several points, throughout it, an allusion
to miracles would have seemed fit and proper; espe-

138 THE RESTORATION
cially where an appeal is made to that assurance of
being in possession of truth which the writer affirms
to be the privilege of all Christians. But the appeal
is, in fact, to an interior vitality, not to any external
demonstrations (iii. 14, 19, iv. 16, v. 10). The appeal
is to a moral test, not to the supernatural (iv. ao).
The witnessing on earth (v. 8) omits the witnessing
by "signs and wonders." The ripened Christianity
which this writer spreads out before us had no ne
cessary connexion with any such attestations, which be
longed to the outworks of the New Religion.
The writer last cited was seen to be in conflict —
right and left, with an inburst of rancid Judaism; but
at the time when the Epistle now before us was given
to the Christian community this source of trouble was
passing off into the distance ; for the disturbers had
discovered their mistake in thinking to connect them
selves with the rising body; and they had retired.
"They went out from us, but they were not of us;
for if they had been of us, they would have remained
with us." (ii. 19.) At length the Christian body had
become homogeneous; the leaven having duly worked
itself into the mass. Yet human nature is always the
same ; and so it is found that these Teachers, however
far the system they administered might have shifted its
position, and how widely soever they might themselves
differ in temperament, yet tread the same strait path
whenever this same human nature, with its frailties,
awakens their fears for the honour of the Gospel.
This sameness of feeling, and even of language, is the
more observable, because, in this instance, it forms the

OF BELIEF. 139
one link connecting two writers, who, individually,
might be taken as samples of opposite tendencies of
the human mind. The one, with knit brow, expanded
nostril, firm lip, and outstretched hand — like the master
of a ship in a storm — is intent upon the behaviour of his
people, and is observant of the shifting tempest: — the
other, with even front, and open eye, is gazing upon
the cloudless vault of heaven, as if unconscious of earth,
and always ready to leave it. And yet this contemplatist,
whose own converse is with the unseen of the Christian
system, so understands this system, and he is so alive
to its bearing upon the conduct of its adherents, as to
know that, if the sordid and factitious religionist slides
off from the path of morality, on the one side, the sin
cere idealist — the man of meditation, is not unlikely to
slide off from it, on the other.
Noticeable it is that, while the main drift of the one
epistle is practical, and the spirit and tendency of the
other is theological, yet, in the course of it, the writer
lets go, and again takes up, his admonitory strain as
often as seven times within tlie compass of so brief a
treatise. He does this as if at the prompting of an
undefined but strong moral instinct, which, ever and
again, brings him down from Heaven to earth — alarmed
lest he should have failed in any point of his duty, as
a leader of the Christian community. James, with a
ruthless hand, rends the mask from the hypocrite. John,
with a loving solemnity, warns the mystically disposed
against those illusions — those oblivions of the obliga
tions of life, of which, so easily, such men are the
victims. It is thus that the one Teacher rebukes the

1 40 THE RESTORATION
perversity of the dogmatist — -"What good is it, my
brethren, for a man to say he hath faith, and have not
works ? Can faith {such a faith) save him ?" The other
Teacher addresses himself to the sincere theopathist—
lost perhaps in the meditation of ineffable perfections ;
but yet the two come into conjunction — as we say of
the heavenly bodies — on the very same meridian of
Christian charity : — the one says, " If a brother or a
sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of
you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and
filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things
which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?"
The other says the same thing, yet in his own manner :
"Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother
have need, and shutteth up his bowels from him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him ?"
Now at this point I decline to accept a customary
tribute, rendered to the ' sublime purity of the Christian
Ethics' — which ' we all admire.' This vapid homage
does not satisfy the occasion. From a reasonable an
tagonist I require an acknowledgment that shall carry
more of historic distinctness with it. It is very true,
and there can be little merit in not denying it, that
a high moral tone pervades the books of the New
Testament without exception. But beyond this, if we
possess that instinctive faculty which enables a reader
to look into the bosom of a writer, through the glass
of what he has written, then we must admit that, if any
two of these writers, whose individual structure of mind
was the most dissimilar, are placed side by side, there
is seen, working at the depth of the heart of each alike,

OF BELIEF. 141
a moral intensity — quick, sensitive, and always con
sistent in its utterance ; for even if we are not always
able to discern the coherence of their theological rea
sonings, we must always admit the harmony of their
ethical conclusions.
This fact I shall turn to account in the course of my
future argument; for it can never be made to consist
with any of those futile suppositions under cover of
which Disbelief is now taking shelter.
Paul.
Of the fourteen Epistles attributed (and rightly) to
Paul, as many as Nine take their place along with those
already spoken of, inasmuch as they contain no allusion
to miraculous occurrences, or to miraculous gifts. Of
these nine Epistles four are addressed to individuals
who were the Writer's intimates and colleagues. Five
are congregational addresses, sent to those four Societies
with the religious condition of which the writer was, in
the main, well content. With these societies there was
no serious controversy in hand ; nor any personal con
test, such as should make it needful for him to sustain
his apostolic authority. The faith of these — his personal
friends, and of these attached and obedient converts —
was a faith, like his own — it was a " full assurance of
faith" — a faith to which miracles could add no stead
fastness. So it was that, when no motive suggested a
reference to supernatural attestations, none appear.
But as to six of the nine that are now in view, they
sparkle, as one might say, with historic crystallizations ;

142 THE RESTORATION
and every paragraph reflects something of the objects
that were then surrounding the writer. John knew just
so much of that world through which his pilgrimage-
heavenward lay, as might be forced upon his notice by
urgent motives of responsibility toward the Church.
Paul knew the world around him as those know it-
who are gifted with perceptions the most vivid. The
persons, the transactions, the modes of feeling in the
midst of which he was moving, he was as much alive
to as were any, the most observant of his contem
poraries. He has penned no graphic descriptions of
oriental splendours, or of the Roman greatness; but
as often as he needs a figure in illustration of his sub
ject, he shows that he could have done well what he has
not attempted.
I should think it mere pedantry to profess hesitation
in accepting these nine Epistles as genuine. Unless
it were to give proof of critical quixotism, no one would
have gone about to show reason for any such doubts.
But, just now, it is quite enough if only some of them
are genuine ; and that we accept the remainder as good
imitations. The reasonings — if they deserve to be so
designated — of those of the German critics who have
laboured to bring the three pastoral epistles into doubt
are of a sort that might well be adduced in illustration
of a copious and not unimportant branch of intellectual
philosophy — I mean, nationality in logic. Germans dive
into the profound after a fashion which firmly consti
tuted and cultured English minds resent as an insult to
common sense. Upon the merest film of possibility
the attenuated intellectuality of Germany soars away

OF BELIEF. i43
through thin air. Between the not-to-be-translated
mysteries of its abysses, and the infinite divisibilities
of its heights, the mind of England finds no terra firma.
A writer who undertakes the task of defending the canon
of Holy Scriptures, as inspired, must needs meet and
refute these refinements, even the last of them ; but no
such obligation rests upon one who carries forward an
argument such as that which I have now in hand.
The pastoral epistles connect themselves, by some
incidental allusions, with the Epistles of James and
of Jude, for we find in them a portraiture which must
at once be recognised.
A certain class of men, against whom one apostolic
writer inveighs — to whom another gives battle, and to
whom another transiently alludes, the writer of the three
pastoral epistles so depicts as that they may easily be
identified. They were everywhere found hovering about
the infant society ; and, being by temper and habit noisy
and obtrusive, it would have been an error easy to be
fallen into by an observant polytheist of that time, to
have spoken of them as if they were true samples of the
new religion, and to have drawn an inference to its dis
advantage accordingly. We may just fancy the sarcastic
author of the piece-IIEPI TH2 nEPEITINOT TEAET-
TH2 — the Voltaire of his age, if he had lived a century
earlier, to have encountered some of these men, and to
have given us his pithy description of them. We may
suppose him to say that he had met them in the streets
of Alexandria, and at Ephesus, and at Antioch, and at
Corinth, as well as at Rome; and he had also found
them in Crete, which seemed to be their head quarters.

144 THE RESTORATION
They are, he would say, voluble, contentious, acrimo
nious, virulent in their talk, obtruding everywhere the
mystical dogmas of their religion ; and cloaking always
their real purposes. Insidious are they, and fertile in
expedients for drawing the unwary into their trap; and
all this is the means they use for filling their bags with
money. I have found, he says, one of these huckster
preachers, with his box of baubles slung over his
shoulder, working his way into the courtyard of a
great house, where he has contrived to draw the wo
men about him — mistress and maids, whom he enter
tains with marvellous stories, and with more marvellous
dogmas ; while, at frequent pauses, he puffs the contents
of his package, where you may find the aromatics of
Arabia — the oils, of Syria — the silks, the silver rings
and chains, the gems (not worth a button) of India —
the tear-bottles, the signets, the scarfs, the tiaras of
Persia: — and all as worthless as this new philosophy
itself — this ' marvellous wisdom of the Christians.'
Even Lucian, if he had written -in this manner, must
have admitted that those ' Palestinian priests and scribes,'
who were, as he does say, the reputed authors of this
' philosophy,' had done their utmost to denounce these
false adherents, and to expel them from the Society. ' A
Christian bishop' — thus writes one of these Teachers —
' must not merely be a man of blameless life ; but of
such energy also that he may be able to convince and to
put to silence those disorderly and noisy persons — Jews
chiefly, who, with sordid intentions, teach what they
ought not. These are they who subvert whole families,
and while they profess to know God, in works deny

OF BELIEF.

H5

him: — abominable are they and disobedient, and unto
every good work reprobate.' The very same persons are
they which one finds ' creeping into houses, and leading
captive silly women, laden With sins, led away with
divers lusts.' This plain dealing, and more to the same
purpose, did not long fail to take effect. The men — as
we have just seen — went off — declared themselves open
enemies of the new religion, and acted as such thence
forward; and when they had taken this turn, we find
them using the influence they had already acquired in
every city with 'ladies of rank' to move persecution
against the Christian teachers. Luke courteously calls
these ladies ' devout and honourable women ;' yet it
is not certain that Paul, in a letter of pointed advices
addressed to his friend, might not be thinking even of
these, as the same ' silly women,' who, at the instigation
of these Jews, moved the magistrates to make an ill use
of their power, driving the Apostles from city to city,
or leaving them without redress in the hands of the
rabble. It would have been of no avail, probably, to appeal to
the candour of one like Lucian, or to his sense of justice,
spreading before him these three pastoral epistles, as evi
dence that he had misapprehended the new religion.
This anticynic was too thoroughly cynical in soul and
temper to have listened to any such challenge, or to
have placed himself within range of any generous emo
tions. But we of this time profess ourselves to be just,
candid, and discriminating, and therefore we may be
challenged in any case to give a verdict according to the
L

146 THE RESTORATION
evidence, even although it be in contravention of our
previous opinions and inward wishes.
What then are the conclusions which, looking to
these three epistles — and to nothing else — are warrantable
and inevitable ? — looking to these three epistles, and not
looking away from them, to the right hand or to the
left.— — Although they now stand in a collection of writings
that are stitched in the same cover, this juxta-position is
incidental only. They have indeed reached us on the
same float, with other writings, but they obtained a
lodgement upon it on a showing of their own merits,
singly. Individually they have passed the ordeal of the
severest criticism. The probability that they are not
genuine is infinitely small. Even if one of the three
were abjudged, it would still keep its place in argument,
as a good imitation of the apostolic manner.
The pretext (illogical as it would be to urge it) that
these pieces are damaged — historically, by an admixture
of the supernatural, does not in this case find any sort
of lodgement ; for here there is no such admixture — the
belief of Christ's resurrection being always allowed for.
But although it would be illogical to advance such
an exception as this — inasmuch as the reality of the
Christian miracles is the very question in debate — yet
a valid reason would present itself for regarding these,
or any other writings, suspiciously, if they pictured a
fabulous condition of the social system; — or if it appeared
that the writer, surrounded always by the golden haze of
his own fictitious emotions, could never see things around

OF BELIEF. 147
him as they are. Manifestly it is not so here : — human
nature is plainly spoken of, such as it is, always ; and it
is cared for accordingly:— cautions, provisions, injunc
tions, varied and repeated, show that the writer was at
once cool in his judgment, and practical in his views, as
well as immoveably firm in principle.
These epistles are so admonitory in their drift and
tone that, as to what might be the virtues of the Chris
tian people of that time, we gather no information from
this source. From Pliny's letter to Trajan we should
learn more that is favourable to the purity of the Chris
tian body, than we do from the whole of Paul's letters to
Timothy and Titus.
We do not need the evidence of these three letters to
establish the fact of the existence of Christian societies
at the time alleged. But the purpose they do serve is to
show that Christianity, as interpreted by the most zealous
and intelligent of its first Teachers, held its place in the
world as an earnest Remonstrant Force, opposed — not
merely to religious errors, but to evasive pretexts, to
illusions, to hypocrisies, and to immoralities — whether
Jewish or Gentile. Especially was it a protest against
the unintelligible jargon — the interminable wranglings,
the sophistry and the impiety which its own energy,
simplicity and grandeur had woke up, on every side of
it, as its assailants.
If the mind of one of these writers seems at any time
unhinged, while he is uttering his protest against these
assailants, there is an ingredient mingling itself with
these vivid passages which has a deep meaning^ It is
the characteristic of minds that are habitually tranquil
l a

148 THE RESTORATION
and conversant with what is great and pure, when they
are summoned by a sense of duty to join issue with the
lawless and disorderly of this world, to revert, as if with
a rebound of the soul, to the loftiest themes ; — as if im
patient to escape from a scene of confusion, and regain-
the sanctuary of its happy and wonted meditations. Now
it is remarkable that the most sublime and beautifully-
worded of those doxologies, and of those condensed
enunciations of eternal truths which illumine the pages
of the New Testament, are found embedded in the very
midst of warm remonstrant passages. In fact, within
the narrow limits of these three epistles — the drift of
which is mainly remonstrant, there, occur as many as
fourteen of these resplendent parentheses.
The very same indication of a spontaneous reaction is
discoverable in the Epistles of James,, and of Jude — both
of them reprobative ; — among these are some which
stand unmatched in grandeur of idea, and in majestic
simplicity of expression.

The Epistle to Philemon has often — perhaps often
enough — been appealed to by those who have undertaken
the Christian argument. Nothing can be more legiti
mate than such an appeal, if the question be — What
was the. writer ? Was he such a one as a man must have
become, after a thirty years' apprenticeship to illusion
and unreality ? To affirm this, or even to harbour such
a thought at all, is not so much a wrong done to the
individual, as an outrage upon human nature.
This letter breathes the tranquil rectitude of a mind

OF BELIEF.

149

that is itself in perfect equipoise, and that is used to find
its rest among the gentlest and the purest emotions.
The epistle does not touch the supernatural, but it is in
a genuine sense itself natural in every phrase of it.
An accord of truth vibrates in every well-attuned mind
at the hearing of verse after verse. Even if the writer
of this letter had not reminded his friend that he was —
' Paul the aged,' we might surely have inferred this fact
from that peculiarity of it which is its charm; for it
shows the mellowed gentleness of a spirit that, at the
end of years of labour and of suffering, has survived its
vehemence, but has not outlived its sensibility.
In what way then does this Epistle avail us for the
purpose of our argument ? It avails peremptorily for
excluding any of those suppositions touching the cha
racter of the writer which must of necessity be resorted
to when — the merely historical part of Christianity
being granted as real, the supernatural, thereto cohering,
is attempted to be set off from it as spurious.

The two Epistles to the Christians of Thessalonica
are, according to the almost unanimous verdict of
modern critics, of early date. A phrase occurring in
the second paragraph of the first Epistle — ev bvvdpet, had
at this time acquired a conventional sense, and probably
it carried an allusion to those miraculous attestations of
the Gospel which had attended its first promulgation in
Macedonia. Otherwise, or beyond the insertion of this
single word, these two Epistles do not contain a 'refer
ence — direct or indirect, to any such events, as if they

iSo THE RESTORATION
were then occurring, or as if they had lately occurred,
under the eye of the persons addressed. This absence
of the supernatural is full of significance in this parti
cular case.
Inconsiderately, in relation to the coherence of their
own argument, those writers who have lately assailed
Christianity have noised the instance of Paul's apparent
error in regard to the near approach of the consummation
of all things. It has been said, in a tone of exultation —
' You say Paul was an inspired man ; and yet we here
find him professing a belief, in regard to which, as we
now see, he was utterly mistaken.'
To this it would be enough to reply, that the Second
of these Epistles — written in haste for the very purpose
of correcting the mistake to which the first had given
rise — proves in the most conclusive manner that the
writer, notwithstanding the use of personal pronouns,
did not himself entertain any such anticipation. The
Christians of Thessalonica might easily have thought so ;
but herein they were mistaken. A proper inference
also from this same instance has been drawn by Paley,
in proof (if proof were needed) of the genuineness of
the Epistle.
But a sufficient reply, on my part, would be this —
That the objection, whatever may be its value, bears
wholly upon the question of Inspiration, with which,
at present, I have nothing to do. I am looking into
these remains of apostolic Christianity in a merely his
torical light, and not at all as related to Theology.
Thus, then, let us handle this matter with all freedom,
and see what use we can make of it, on either side. You

OF BELIEF. 131
take the language of the writer in its apparent meaning,
and therefore assume that, when he says — ' We which
are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord' —
and again, when he affirms that ' We shall be caught up
to meet the Lord in the air' — his mind was filled with
the glowing idea of a near exchange, for himself and
his converts, of pain, want, and humiliation, for eternal
blessedness and glory.
Let this, then, be our hypothesis. Personally the writer
was in a condition so helpless that, while preaching the
Gospel, he was compelled to labour night and day for
his daily bread; and at the same time he was undergoing
grievous ill treatment, frequently at the risk of life.
Those to whom he wrote — of humble rank mostly, were
also enduring cruel persecution at the hands of their
Gentile neighbours on account of their religion. Such
being the present position alike of the Teacher, and of
the people, he holds before them the belief that, midway
in the tranquil hours of some day — not a day distant —
earth itself should tremble at the blast of the archangel,
and should echo the notes of the trump of God, and the
shout of celestial myriads : — the Lord himself, with the
hosts that wait his pleasure, drawing near to earth, and
rescuing thence his faithful followers, carrying them off
to immortal joys !
It was no wonder that simple people, if they thus
understood (or misunderstood) their Teacher, should be
much 'shaken in mind,' by such a prospect; or that,
some of them, breaking away from their ordinary occu
pations, as unnecessary, and unbecoming their high ex
pectations, should wander up and down — ' working not

152 THE RESTORATION
at all' — but busying themselves in everything rather than
in their proper employments. This was quite according
to the course of things, and some instances of a similar
kind recently occurring, might easily be mentioned.
Yet it is certain that, as to the propagator of this per
turbing belief, he had not himself in any degree lo?t the
balance of his own mind. A tone of calm affection, and
of subdued feeling — the consequence of long continued
suffering — pervades both Epistles, and this first espe
cially, which is distinguished also by the earnestness of
its admonitions, as to conduct and temper, in purity,
rectitude, sobriety, gentleness, and avoidance of every
guise or semblance of evil.
If in any case we may trust to the constant principles
of human nature, we may affirm that a mind which, while
it is filled with anticipations of the most animating sort,
is yet recollective of all proprieties, and is careful on
those points of duty which are not of an exciting kind,
must be a strong mind, not a weak one — a well regu
lated mind, not one that is habitually deranged by some
conscious moral obliquity.
According to the supposition now before us, Paul was
looking, every day, for a triumphant apotheosis of him
self and his associates, amid the exulting shouts of the
heavenly hosts ; — and yet he shows himself to be as re
gardful of the obligations of this present life as if a dull
century of its trials and labours had been guaranteed to
him. No ingenuity will avail to make this idea of the
man consist with any of those suppositions upon which
We are thrown, if, while we accept tlie mere facts of
Christianity (which it is impossible to deny) we attempt

OF BELIEF. 153
to rid ourselves of the supernatural therewith connected ;
for those suppositions imply that the Apostles were men
who strangely mingled in their mental structure, imbe
cility, extravagance, and a blunted sense of the obliga
tions of truth.
But now I relinquish the advantage put into my hand
by an inconsiderate opponent, and assume the contrary
supposition, which indeed I take to be manifestly the
trae one — namely, that, in writing the first of these
Epistles, Paul did not entertain the belief which, at a
glance, his language might seem to express.
Then I ask, how was it that he did not entertain this
belief? Ideas of this order were, as we see, actually
present to his mind ; and they furnished the grounds on
which he took comfort for himself, and imparted it to
others. Now, with minds imbued with religious con
ceptions, the tendency has always shown itself to bring
down the supernatural, if possible, upon the present hour.
Even highly cultured minds have been seen to surrender
themselves to this powerful impulse : — ' to-morrow, or
next month — or next year, or such a year named, which
we, may live to see — these glories shall brighten the
earth on which we tread.' Thus, from age to age, have
sincere but unstable souls been wont to beguile them
selves on the field of prophetical interpretation. Not so
Paul (on the supposition now before us). And yet why
not ? If we say, because his mind was pre-eminently
vigorous, and was always in the soundest condition ; if
this be the reply, I am content; and shall not fail to
draw an inference accordingly. But if the reply be —
The actual course of this world's affairs — involving a

154 THE RESTORATION
slow development of evil principles, had been conveyed
to him supernaturally, that is to say, by the teaching of
Him who alone is able to look on through the lapse of
ages ; then also I am content ; — for such an answer (and
it is the only trae and admissible answer) embraces
everything on the side of Belief. It is beyond my pro
vince to advert particularly to that prediction of the
second Epistle by means of which the Apostle corrects
the mistake into which his friends had fallen: never
theless this prediction, by its boldness, its gravity, and
the unlikelihood of its fulfilment, bespeaks its own
reality. It has been said that this prediction, coupled
with another occurring in the Epistle to Timothy, are
nothing more than notable instances of sagacity, fore
casting the tendencies of human affairs. Wonderful
indeed would be such an instance of long-sightedness !
but I should be apt to think that a mind which could
thus penetrate the dark unknown of centuries to come,
must have seen that a religion which pretended to be
supernatural, and which yet was not so in fact, would
soon exhaust its meagre resources, and would disappear.
Is this, then, our supposition, that an intellect of so high
an order lent itself to an enterprise which itself saw to
be baseless and desperate ?

'The absence of any allusion to miraculous attestations
in the Epistle to the Ephesians is a fact deserving of
particular attention.
The nugatory exceptions of De Wette have at length
been overruled, and the genuineness of this Epistle can

OF BELIEF. 155
scarcely be said to stand liable to a shade of reasonable
doubt. If we follow the arbitrary division of the Re
ceived Text, we have before us 155 clauses, or separable
members of a continuous flow of thought. Of these
verses 66 convey the writer's own fervent feelings, as in
presence of the loftiest themes of Christian Theology :
89 verses are occupied, either immediately with pointed
ethical injunctions, or with those reasons and motives
that take a bearing upon the ordinary behaviour of
Christians ; but in not so much as one clause, or phrase,
does the writer turn aside to mention miracles, or
miraculous endowments. And yet there are two places
in this Epistle in which such an allusion would have
seemed quite natural. The first of these is (iv. 11)
where the functions which were then in exercise in
the Churcli are enumerated, among which the power of
working miracles does not find a place; although, in a
parallel passage of another Epistle (1 Cor. xii. 10 — 28),
these miraculous powers are expressly named. The other
place is that occurring toward the close (vi. ic, et seq.)
in which the writer sets forth, in figurative language,
the arduous position which those occupy who, in making
profession of the Gospel, find themselves opposed to the
crafty and to the open violence, not only of men around
them, but of invisible adversaries — that were more to be
dreaded. Against these powers — seen and unseen, the
Christian soldier is exhorted to hold his ground, armed
— the fanatic would have said — with Heaven's own
thunderbolt, and with those ' fiery darts' which would
bring omnipotence to bear upon the artillery of hell —
not so, but armed, says the Apostle, with Truth, Recti-

156 THE RESTORATION
tude, Peace, Faith, the hope of Salvation, and the Word
of God; for these are the defences and the weapons
which a genuine wisdom approves.
Quite of a piece with the spirit of this closing advice
are the preceding admonitions, in the compass of which
each of the principal points of homely morality is
touched upon, in the plainest form of words, and in
a tone of earnest solemnity. But I hear you say, sar
castically—' It appears then that the Christian folk of
those apostolic times needed much looking to, as to
their morals.' I reply — It does so appear ; but then, if
they needed it, we see that they had it ; and this fact
is quite enough in relation to my present purpose.
What we find is this — That the first Teachers of
Christ's religion, although they might forget, for a time,
their own wonder-working endowments, never wrote
a letter in which they forgot the main import of the
religion which they preached ; this purpose was to
uproot the usurpation of Satan in the world ; — and this
usurpation was to be resisted by means that are purely
spiritual and moral, and that are approvable to the
highest reason.
The absence of the supernatural, in the instance now
before us, has however yet another meaning.
The 66 verses already referred to, make up a cluster
of parentheses, piled one upon another by the writer's
fulness of feeling. He has almost forgotten his galling
chain (vi. ao) ; he has quite forgotten the Roman soldier
at his side, and the prison: — he has forgotten earth and
its brief trials, as well as its pomps. As if with a
seraph's wing he has reached the upper heavens, and

OF BELIEF. 157
thence he measures — at a glance, the scheme of human
salvation, stretching far back into the eternity past ; and
far forward into a bright eternity to come. On either
hand of this shining pathway athwart the infinite, he sees
a bright array of ' principalities and powers,' observant
of this mystery of redemption — long veiled, and now
revealed. While thus musing upon objects so vast, was the
writer's state of mind such as we moderns must approve,
or not approve ? Were his feelings — real, or were they
illusory ? If they were of the latter class, and if there
be any coherence in human nature, meditations so lofty,
indulged in by one who at the same time believed him
self to stand near to the Supernatural — as we find he did,
would infallibly have gone off upon this high ground ; —
here he would have exhibited himself as being in cor
respondence with heaven by means of those supernatural
endowments which were at his command.
But how is it in fact that he descends, to resume his
terrestrial standing-place ? He has just sealed his lofty
meditations with a doxology; and then — a returning
consciousness of the sombre things of earth takes this
turn — ' I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, beseech you
that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are
called — with all lowliness and meekness, with long-
suffering, forbearing one another in love.'
Adhering then to our document, the case before us
stands thus — On the one hand the brightest meditations
did not lead the writer of this Epistle on toward the
Supernatural; — they did not, because he was no
Enthusiast : on the other hand, gloomy meditations

158 THE RESTORATION
did not drive him toward the Supernatural ; — they did
not, because he was no Fanatic. In one mood of
mind or in another, he kept close to the course of
practical wisdom and virtue — he did so because, in
fact, he was in the highest sense, wise, virtuous, and
sound-minded.

Toward the Christian people at Philippi, Paul's feel
ings were those of warm affection, gratitude, and ap
proval. The personal allusions in this Epistle, addressed-
to this Society, are of the most peculiar kind ; and these,
along with the mass of external testimonies, place it far
out of the range of even the most captious exceptions.
Once again then referring to my protest against violence,-
I affirm that — violence not admitted — this morsel of
Greek, now under my eye — this six pages of antiquity,
is as much a Reality as is any other remains of past
time which this present time conserves, and trusts to.
If I may not say so much as this, show me clearly, in
accordance with the authentic rules of historical cri
ticism, why I may not.
In this composition the writer, who was then reach
ing the term of his labours — the religion which he had
taught having by this time wrought the whole of its
proper effect upon his mind — freely opens his heart to
our inspection ; and in doing so he incidentally conveys
the elements of Christianity itself, and exhibits its bear
ing upon human nature.
Now I wish that we could read this one document of
the Apostolic times as if not an atom beside had come
down to us : let us take it as if it were our only means

OF BELIEF.

159

of forming an opinion concerning that religion of which
we possess copious information, such as it had come to
hold a place in the world, in the age of the Antonines.
Whatever that breadth of facts required us to ima
gine, as belonging to the centre fact — the rise of this
scheme, we find to be condensed within the limits of
this one document. There is first, the mysterious dig
nity of the Person to whom, on every page of the later
Christian writings, a reference occurs, in terms of grave
reverence, and devout affection. Lucian, and other
writers of his age and class, assure us that the zeal and
assiduity of the Christians of his time in serving or
rescuing one another was incredible. — aprjx.av0l> ^ n T0
rd\os embeiKWVTai, eneibdv ri toiovtov ykvryrai, br)p.6cnov . .
. . . . ol Xpicmavol crvp.cpopav iroiovpevoi to Ttpaypa, irdvra
enivovv, et;a.pitdcrai Treipup,evoi avrov. To us this need not
seem strange, for the motives which prompted these
labours of love had a foundation in a theology of sur
passing intensity. The writer of this Epistle says to
his friends at Philippi — ' Let not, every one of you,
be regardful of his personal interests; but let each be
mindful of the welfare of others : — in a word, let that
disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who
being in the form of God thought it no wrong to be
equal to God; and yet emptied himself (of this dignity)
and took the form of a servant;' — and this to accom
plish our salvation.
It is testified abundantly, by their enemies, concern
ing the Christians of the martyr age, that they cheerfully
submitted to spoliations, and were even prodigal of life.
Celsus mocks them on this very ground ; he says,

160 THE RESTORATION
though making much of the body in their doctrine of
the resurrection, they were ready — when challenged to
renounce their hope of immortality — i:d\w 8' avTo pi-mc-iv
els Kokdareis, as aripov. This is as it should be, if they
had truly imbibed the spirit of their religion as at first
taught them; for Paul had said — 'Yea doubtless I reckon
all things as a loss, for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord ; for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, if by any means I might attain to the
resurrection of the dead.'
Pliny assures us that he found the Christians of his
province to be a harmless folk, binding themselves to
do whatever is right, and to abstain from whatever is
wrong. So it should be, for, from the first, they had
been thus instructed. ' As to anything further, my
brethren, (which I might wish to say, this is enough).
Whatever things (in profession or behaviour) are true,
whatever things are seemly, whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure, whatever things are loving,
whatever things are well-reputed, if there be anything
of manly virtue, if anything praiseworthy, make such
things your study.'
And thus, in the main, did Christians behave them
selves in those times concerning which our information
is ample — their enemies being their witnesses; and thus
— as we now see, had they been taught from the very
first. There is here before us an arch— all in one style,
one jamb of which has its resting-place in the age of
Trajan, the other in the time of Nero.
In this Epistle we find a lofty theology — a bright
immortality, a pure and a finished morality, a loving

OF BELIEF. 161
fervour, and a sharply struck individuality; but there
are no miracles. Nevertheless there seemed room for
one, inasmuch as the writer had looked for ' sorrow
upon sorrow1 in the dangerous illness of his attendant
friend — Epaphroditus — a calamity he had not thought
himself able to avert by supernatural means; for these
were at his command only for a single and clearly-defined
purpose — the attestation of his message. Granted for
this one purpose, no allusion to them is found in epistles
addressed to those who needed no such assurances.

The Epistle to the Christians of Colosse presents the
same elements, and sustains the same inferences : there
is the same theology, as to the Person (i. 15), the same
hope (i. 1 a, iii. 4) : the same morality (iii. 5, et seq.) :
and throughout it, the same fervour and individuality.
It presents, however, this further characteristic of the
writer's temper and principles — namely, a decisive pro
test against that specious pietism which so easily enslaves
feeble minds by its abstracted mysticism, and its ascetic
practices, and its superstitious observances. Yet the
writer had np contention with this Society; and the
Epistle contains no allusion to miracles.

M

162 THE RESTORATION

inferences suggested by a review of the non-
supernatural EPISTLES.
It thus appears that these apostolic writers, though
they much more often omit the supernatural than advert
to it, are yet never found to omit the preceptive element
in their addresses to their converts. They well knew
that it is not by witnessing miracles that men are to be
trained in virtue. Now, in this, I see that which may
be likened to the course of a careful and industrious
husbandman. He has been looking long upon his parched
fields; but in a moment Heaven's flash lights up the
landscape : Heaven's voice peals round the skies ; Hea
ven's copious rain comes down — a life-giving torrent.
This seasonable help from above the husbandman could
not command; but now when it comes, it is his part to
follow it up : he does not talk of the fertilizing thunder
shower ; but he goes to work upon his field with a new
animation. So it is with the apostolic writers : they say
little of miracles ; but they say much of behaviour : they
plant, they sow, they root up every weed : and it is God
that giveth the increase.
Besides, these New Testament writers had read the
Old Testament history ; and they had gathered from it a
lesson of wisdom by which they ruled their own con
duct, as teachers of religion. They knew that the things

OF BELIEF. 163
which had befallen the Israelitish people had been re
corded ' for our learning,' and from this history they
drew the inference that, although miracles serve to bring
the teacher into his due position of authority as God's
minister, the work on account of which he has been
so installed has to be carried forward irrespectively of
miracles. The Apostles were well conversant with those
historical odes in which the obduracy of the people is
the recurrent theme. They had listened to the verse,
' Marvellous things did He in the sight of our forefathers,
in the land of Egypt : even in the. field of Zoan ;' and
they had taken up the response — ' Yet for all this they
sinned more against him; and provoked the most High
in the wilderness' — ' they believed not his wondrous
works' — ' They forgat God their Saviour, who had done
so great things in Egypt : wondrous things in the land of
Ham ; and fearful things by the Red Sea.'
That these instructive passages in the history of their
nation were present to the minds of the Christian teach
ers we have their own repeated assurance (1 Cor, x.,
Acts vii. 51, xiii., xxviii. 25 ; and Hebrews iii. 7, 8, 9);
and that they had put a true and wise construction upon
these instances we have this palpable evidence, that,
while their writings breathe throughout an intense fer
vour, directed toward the one object of promoting and
securing the personal and social virtue of the people
committed to their care^ they do not in a single instance
throw the stress of any ethical argument upon the super
natural attestations of their message. Throughout the
Epistles morality is made to rest upon the solid basis of
universal and permanent religious considerations.
M a

i64 THE RESTORATION
I have said that the question of Christianity is strictly
determinable. Up to this point it clearly is so. When
the literary remains of the period already referred to—
Christian — non-Christian, and anti-Christian — are taken
as evidence of the existence, the wide extension, and
the general quality of the new religion, instructed men
will not be found to be materially at variance as to the
palpable facts that are thus established. Among educated
persons these facts are out of question, but they lead us
back toward that moment when this religion was making
its earliest assaults upon the religions around it, and
upon the immoralities of the times. As the result of this
quest for early materials we find some ten or twelve
compositions, purporting to be official circulars, issued
by the first teachers and preachers of the Gospel. These
letters having come down from the time of their alleged
production are amply verified in accordance with rules
held to be valid in such cases; and they are submitted
to the strictest scrutiny which modern criticism, in its
mood of utmost severity, has been able to effect. This
critical process has now been continued through a period
of eighty years : it is not that the case is in itself
ambiguous; but in fact each rising man, aspiring to
practise in this court of criticism, is ambitious to distin
guish himself by taking his share in a controversy that
draws the eyes of the world, and he hunts the ground
anew for pleas on which he may rest his reputation.
I am now thinking of those fourteen Epistles to
which reference has been made in the preceding pages;.
which I have named the Non-Supernatural; but I

OF BELIEF. 165
am next about to call your attention to the Seven, in
which an affirmation of, or allusion to, miracles, some
where appears. It may be well, however, in stepping
across from the one class of writings to the other, to
bring under your eye the proportion which the one
bears to the other, in a more exact manner than in
stating it, roundly, as two to one.
The Canonical Epistles, which are twenty-one, are
broken up, in the Received Text, into 3767 verses. It
matters not now whether this subdivision has been
well or ill effected. Of this number a large proportion,
which it is not easy to define, has reference to the cir
cumstances or the history either of the writers, or of
the persons addressed; and this is of a purely historic
quality. This mass constitutes, in fact, a sort of sub
stratum, firm in its adhesion, part to part, and available
for any of those purposes which, in an argument on
Evidence, it is usual to accomplish by such aid.
Another portion of the mass — the quantity of which
it is not important to ascertain — is occupied with theo
logical disquisition, or argument, or with the enuncia
tion of principles that are purely religious. About one
thousand of the verses are either directly preceptive,
bearing specially and pointedly upon the virtues and
vices ; or they are abstractedly preceptive, and properly
ethical. Such are the injunctions — ' Be ye holy (saith
God) for I am holy' — ' Without holiness no man shall
see the Lord ;' and many of the same sort.
I now set off one chapter entire, which is directive,
relating to the exercise of the ' gift of tongues ;' — this
passage not included then, of the whole number of

166 THE RESTORATION
canonical verses, not more than Sixteen; or, if we
include some contextual portions, let us say Twenty
verses, contain affirmations or allusions implying mira
culous events— known to the writer, and for the reality
of which he must be held to pledge his reputation.
Presented, therefore, in the one mode, the proportion
between the two masses is as two to one. Presented
in the other form, which is the most exact, it is as one
to 138.
Perhaps this state of the facts may not hitherto have
occurred to you : but do not misunderstand my intention
in thus presenting it. Do not imagine that I am clear
ing the ground, as far as I can, in preparation for a
retreat; or that I am intending to creep out of the
miraculous through a loophole of this sort.
In entertaining any such supposition you would do
me a great wrong. What I am preparing the way for
is an affirmation of the Miraculous in the boldest, most
ample, and uncompromising manner ; but meantime
this fact of the vast disproportion of the two masses —
for which perhaps you were not prepared, as attaching
to the epistolary part of the Canon, I hold to be fraught
with a very conclusive kind of argumentative meaning;
for it will not consist with any other hypothesis than
this, — That, conversant as they affirm themselves to have
been, with supernatural events, these writers — it is not
one or two of them, but all of them — were right-minded
men, and were in a most unusual degree exempt from
the ordinary religious tendency to run into, or to run
after, or to drive forward, those excitements which the
Supernatural supplies.

OF BELIEF. i6>;
I might now, when thus more accurately computed,
bring forward the body of historic materials, using more
than ninety-nine parts of it out of a hundred, which
stand clear of every pretext of exception, on the ground
of the admixture of the miraculous. This ninety-nine
per cent, forms a body of vastly greater bulk than is re
quired for bearing up, and for giving consistency to, the
facts of the widely-based Christianity of the age of the
Antonines. This central mass fully satisfies the condi
tions that are demanded by the facts belonging to the
later period. All the phenomena of that period are
embraced and satisfied; everything is explicable. The
religion, seen at its rise, is seen to be a system of
motives, principles, and precepts which we find to have
been brought into act in the martyr age, over the extent
of the Roman world.
The documents of the later time are so copious and so
heterogeneous that exceptive criticism may be invited to
do its worst without affecting any argument dependent
thereupon. The documents of the inchoative period,
though they are small in bulk, have come forth from a
' furnace of earth, heated seven timesj' and they stand
before us approved. The later dated and voluminous
mass takes its bearing — groining down upon the centre
column, and finding there its true support — whether con
sidered as so much masonry, or as so much architecture ;
it is all solid, and it is all in keeping.
But now to affirm that this one per cent, of the
Supernatural vitiates the mass in the midst of which
it occurs, is just to beg the question upon which we
are joining issue.

168 THE RESTORATION
You say Miracles never have occurred, and never
can ; if so, those who affirm them must not be listened
to. But satisfy me in any way you please, either of evi
dence, or of abstract reasoning, that they have not, and
then we are agreed. As to the evidence to which I
appeal, it is immoveable; and as to your abstract rea
soning, it is, in my view, nothing better than a trans
parent sophism.

OF BELIEF. 169

THE SEVEN APOSTOLIC EPISTLES WHICH AFFIRM
OR ALLUDE TO MIRACLES.
These are .five of Paul's Epistles — namely, those to
the Romans, the Corinthians — first and second ; to the
Galatians, and to the Hebrews (here assumed to be his)
and the two Epistles of Peter.
These compositions, when compared with the Four
teen, are not at all of inferior pretensions, as to their
genuineness and authenticity. One of them excepted,
they are all critically good. Nor do they lock-in less firmly
with the historic mass with which they stand connected.
Four of these Pauline Epistles so cohere with the nine
of the Non-Supernatural class that no critic would
attempt to sever them. Read the two Epistles to the
Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Churches of Ga
latia ; — read them in the Greek, and do your utmost, as
you go on, to persuade yourself that they are anything
else than what they profess to be. Even the Tubingen
Critics have here confessed themselves foiled. No
scholar, unless he be crazed, would risk himself upon
the sceptical side, in these instances. The same may
be affirmed of the Epistle to the Romans. Upon this
four, along with the Epistle to the Philippians which is

170 THE RESTORATION
also allowed to be unassailable by criticism, or even
hypercriticism, the entire weight of the Christian argu
ment might very safely be thrown.

But I now take in hand that one of the Seven
Epistles relative to which a divided verdict has been
pronounced by competent critics : — I mean the Second
Epistle of Peter.
For the purposes of the present argument, I regard it
as if, on good grounds, it were supposed not to be what
it professes itself; or to be, in some sense not easily
defined — a spurious work. That it had become known
throughout the East at an early period, and that it was
publicly read in the Churches, is sufficiently attested by
the mode in which it is cited or referred to, by (Clement
of Alexandria ?) by Eusebius, and by Jerome. The fact
that, notwithstanding its intrinsic excellence, it stood
so long waiting for admission into the Canon is one
proof, among many, of the cautious manner in which
the ancient Church exercised its discriminative function,
as the guardian of the Sacred Text.
The Apostolic excellence of this Epistle is such that
its exclusion from the Canon, if this were now to be
effected, would inflict pain upon every devout reader of
Holy Scripture: its characteristics are devout gravity,
unction, and purity in its moral tone and aim. In a
word, it bears upon its surface that inimitable air of
calm majesty, and simplicity, which is characteristically
Biblical, and which broadly distinguishes the books of

OF BELIEF. 171
the Canon from all other compositions — especially from
those of the age next following the Apostolic.
The supposition of the spuriousness of this Epistle
may best be made to consist with this — its apostolic
tone, by means of some such hypothesis as this — That
certain genuine fragments of apostolic teaching had
been put together, by whoever compacted the Epistle,
into one; and that the interference of this fabricator
went no further than merely to insert, between the
fragmentary portions, some few connective phrases.
The first verse therefore (on this supposition) may be
untrue only so far as this — that it was not ' Simon Peter'
who issued the whole, in its present form.
Any such supposition as this undoubtedly touches the
authority of the Epistle, in a theological sense ; but in
relation to an argument which is purely historical, it
has no significance. I will now take it up on the lowest
supposition (which however is very far from coinciding
with my personal belief) namely — That, from the first
verse to the last, this Epistle is a forgery, or that it
is an attempted imitation of the well-known apostolic
style. If so, then the imitation is so good, that, notwith
standing some critical difficulties, and the paucity, or
inconclusiveness of the external evidence, it did in fact
obtain currency at a very early time ; and that it did, at
a later time, make its way into the Canon. In modern
times the air of truth and reality that belong to it have
secured for this Epistle the suffrages of an evenly
balanced array of critics.
This fabrication then (if such it should be accounted)

172 THE RESTORATION
has been ably executed. Those who have decided
against it, whether in ancient times or in our own,
have admitted that ' it contains nothing unworthy of
an Apostle :' — although differing in style from the first
Epistle, it differs not at all in its tone and tendency, it
is the same in doctrine and in morality.
Let us then put the facts together. How good soever
the intentions of a writer may be, or mistaken his
principles, it is not possible to attribute much moral
sensitiveness to a man who sits down coolly to produce
a forgery. Be his aim never so good there must be a
flaw, or something worse, in the understanding of the
maker of a lie, as well as a callousness in his conscience.
A mind that is at once infirm and is vitiated betrays
itself somewhere. An involuntary betrayal of itself
may be set down as the inevitable consequence of an
inward treason : or it will be so, unless some restraining
force of extraordinary intensity be present to prevent it.
In the instance before us, what could be this re
straining force, the operation of which was sufficient —
as we see, to exclude from this fabrication every taint
of the unhealthy condition of the writer's own mind ?
It can have been nothing else but a very vivid sense of
the extreme delicacy and difficulty of his enterprise, as
to its bearing upon morals. If there were but one
phrase wrong, in this sense — if only a single clause
savouring of laxity, it would be enough to condemn
the whole, in the view of the Christian community;
for all would exclaim — ' It was not thus that an Apostle
of Jesus Christ ever spoke or wrote.'
But I will put this supposition in a still more definite

OF BELIEF. 173
form, as thus: — let us imagine that the real — though
unconfessed — dbject of the writer was, under favour of
an apostolic name, to give currency to the belief of the
literal melting down of the material universe — 'the
heavens and the earth,' in the ' day of the Lord.' This
startling averment, which is but slenderly, if at all,
corroborated by other Scriptural declarations, the writer
reiterates, in phrases a little varied, as many as three
times within the compass of the same paragraph. He
does this as if he were very intent upon his object, and
wished to secure a due regard to it. Here, then, was
precisely the hingeing-place of the whole piece ; and at
this point especial care was requisite.
Now this writer — well aware as he was of the feeling
that pervaded the Christian community, and knowing,
as he did, what it was that would be looked for in a
writing purporting to be apostolic — skilfully sets his
dogma, of the fiery doom of the creation, in the most
authentic style, inserting between his two affirmations
of it, this pointed ethical caution — 'If then all these
things (which now we look upon) are to be melted down
(suddenly, and perhaps soon) what sort of persons ought
you to show yourselves in pureness of behaviour, and in
piety ?'...' But we Christians look for new heavens,
and a new earth — which is to be the habitation of
righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, inasmuch as ye are
looking out for such things as these, be careful that (the
Lord) when he comes, may find you in peace, unspotted,
and blameless.'
It was thus, then, and in no other manner, that, in
those early times, a spurious writing could be put

174 THE RESTORATION
together with any chance of its passing among the
Churches as an apostolic work. What, then, is the
dilemma ? — If this Epistle be genuine, then it is avail
able, with its majestic simplicity, and its fervour, in
proof of what was the temper and feeling of 'Simon
Peter, the servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.' But if
it be spurious, then it is available, in a sense even more
expressive, and more extensive too, as indicative of the
temper, the feeling, and the moral sensitiveness of
the community, the suffrages and favour of which it
courted. If I cared for nothing but the argumentative avail-
ableness of this ancient document, I should be equally
willing to accept it, as genuine, or to deal with it as
spurious. But whether genuine or spurious, it sustains alike a
further inference. If it be genuine, then, in the near
prospect of martyrdom, by crucifixion — Kai Y\.e\pos he
em 'Pcopys KaTa KecpaXr^s crTavpovrai — which he mentions
under the calm euphemy of a ' putting off this taber
nacle,' the writer very pointedly affirms his latest con
fident profession of the Gospel, as true ; and he pledges
himself on the ground of his personal knowledge of its
truth, in recollection of that hour, when, from out of
the midst of the dazzling shekinah, the voice of the
Most High proclaimed Jesus — the Son of God !
But if this Epistle be factitious, and if the writer was,
as we see, perfectly aware of the conditions under which
he might hope to gain credit for his work, then it is
manifest that it had been the known usage of the Apostles
to utter such professions of their personal concernment

OF BELIEF.

175

with the supernatural events of Christ's life. Or state
the case thus ; — the supposition being that this second
Epistle is a fabrication.. — .
This very significant fact has already presented itself
to our notice, that — taking the apostolic Epistles en
masse — the allusions to the Supernatural are very few;
not being one per cent, as to quantity j and that these
writers, more often than not, addressed the Churches
without making so much as a single averment of this
sort, direct or indirect. It is manifest, therefore, that
it would have been a safe course for the forger of an
apostolic letter to avoid everything of this kind: on
the whole, it would have been the safer course of the
two; and an astute scribe (he was no blunderer who
got up this Epistle) would be very likely to keep him
self on this safer side. But now, unless it had been
the known practice of the Apostles, and of Peter espe
cially, at times, if not often, to affirm their personal
implication with the Supernatural, and unless there
had been among the Churches a consciousness of this
fact, it would have been to incur a risk of the most
extreme sort to insert, in a letter bearing the name of
Peter, a formal statement, such as occurs in the first
chapter. We conclude thus : —
If the Epistle be genuine, then this aged Teacher of
the Gospel, in the very last days of his life, affirms
Christianity to be a supernatural dispensation.
If it be spurious, then it indicates the fact that such
affirmations were customary with apostolic men.

176 THE RESTORATION ¦-.
The First Epistle general of Peter. In this instance-
to advance, as if there might be any reasonable ground,
for it, the supposition of spuriousness, would be an im
pertinence. The apostolic antiquity of this Epistle is
a fact out of question — I mean among those whose
readings in German criticism have not denuded them
of their English common-sense. Yet even here I might
be willing — as to its bearing upon my argument, to take
this Epistle as being, though not genuine, so like to a
genuine epistle as to secure for itself universal accept
ance as such.
The calm majesty, the fervour, the bright hopefulness,
and the high moral import of the Epistle carry it home
to every ingenuous mind as an embodiment of whatever
is at once the most affecting in theology, and the most
effective and salutary in morals. With those — if there
be any, who have no perception of these qualities in
the writing before us, I should not court controversy;
for in any such instance nature must have dealt in a
very parsimonious manner with a man's mind and heart,
and sophistry must have robbed him even of his stint
of reason.
But how does this Epistle connect itself with the
Supernatural? What does it say of Miracles? Not
one word of allusion does it contain to occurrences
of this order, as then attendant upon the ministry of
the Apostles. It is addressed to the dispersion (Chris
tians, figuratively, or Jewish converts, literally) sojourning
in the provinces of the Lesser Asia. Paul, in his course
through these same countries had established the reality
of his mission by ' mighty signs and wonders,' wrought

OF BELIEF. 177
in every city on his track. In these provinces — or some
of them, Christianity had prevailed over heathenism to
an extent — so says Pliny — which must leave a very,
difficult problem in the hands of those who, in their
theory of the spread of the Gospel, deprive its preachers
of the aid of the Supernatural : it had spread and
triumphed so widely, either without the help of mira
cles, or with that help. Take now the supposition
which seems to you to involve the lesser difficulty.
I must profess to think that in this case it is nothing
but Miracles that can save us from the Incredible.
No such occurrences are however alluded to in the
instance before us, and I draw an inference full of
meaning from this fact; coupled as it is with another,
which is of still deeper meaning. —
— The writer, in addressing an admonition to the Pres
byters of the Christian societies, takes to himself the
style which conveys the lowest of his claims so to
address them: — he is a presbyter, as they are; and he
is also ' a witness of the sufferings of Christ.' To these
sufferings he makes a very distinct allusion, as often
as seven times in the course of the Epistle. In each
instance these allusions are woven into an ethical con
text, in such a manner as to be inseparable from it.
Take the instance which occurs in the second chapter.
The main purport of this chapter — as indeed of the
entire Epistle — is hortatory, and it bears upon the
conduct and temper of Christians, when called to
suffer for their profession. Whatever in the Epistle is
theological rather than ethical, comes in as an illus->
tration, or as a subsidiary reason : these adjuncts there-
N

178 THE RESTORATION
fore so cohere to the mass as to make an attempted
separation of them impracticable.
Christians are fortified under the endurance of wrong
ful inflictions, by several considerations — mainly by a
reference to the example of Christ, who so suffered,
wrongfully indeed, for in Him there was no sin,, nb
guile, and who, in silent patience, yielded Himself to
violence, while ' His own-self He bare our sins in His
own body on the tree.'
It is thus that the Writer — and in other places he
does so in the same incidental manner — affirms and
attests the death of Christ, of which he was a witness.
This is not all; for as if to preclude subterfuge, he
follows the released Spirit in its descent into Hades,
and affirms what had been the purport of this entrance
of the ' Shepherd and Bishop of Souls' among the Dead.
A little further on, and when resuming the subject of
the patient endurance of wrongful inflictions, he affirms
that Christ, when ' put to death in the flesh,' entered —
incorporeal — among the disembodied ; visiting the re
gion where they are detained— and there making a loud
and authoritative proclamation ; (on the part of God.)
With the theology of this passage I have nothing to
do; nor am I careful to forefend inferences of any sort.
¦I read the verses in their historic sense. A knowledge
of the fact here affirmed, remote as it was from all cog
nizance of man, must have been given to Peter, either
by Christ -Himself, orally, after His resurrection, or it
must have been conveyed to him at a later time, in
some mode which he regarded as supernatural; and
therefore authentic. If I were to describe to you the

OF BELIEF.

179

things which would be found in a particular latitude
and longitude, at the lowest depth of the Atlantic,
I must make profession of having at my command
some means of information that are unknown alike to
common experience and to science. Peter affirms,
therefore, in this case, that which involves and im
plies the supernatural, even more necessarily than is
done in some narratives of visible miracles.
But he affirms also the resurrection of Christ, in
varied phrases, five times in this Epistle. These affir
mations are all of them adjunctive to his proper subject,
and inseparable from the context. They include not
only the fact of the resurrection; but that also of
Christ's assumption to the throne of celestial dominion.
(iii. 2 a.) We have here, then, in hand an instance of
the Cohesion of the supernatural and the historic which
is of a peculiar kind.
In any composition if three, four, or five subjects,
of different classes, are brought together, that one among
them must be regarded as the one uppermost in the
mind of the writer, in illustration of which the other
subjects — two, three, or four, are introduced. That one
is the leading subject ; the others are the adjunctive and
subsidiary. According to this plain rule, the drift of this Epistle
is ethical. The main intention of the writer, and his
ruling impulse, was so to fortify the minds of the
Christian people under his care, as should secure the
purity, rectitude, and religious consistency of their con
duct. In going about to make good this, his main
purpose, he brings in those principal facts on which
n a

i8o THE RESTORATION
the Christian profession rested, and in behoof of which
Christians were liable to suffer. These facts stand in
series, commencing with a merely historic fact — namely,
the crucifixion, and the death of Christ — going on to
those that were wholly remote from human cognizance,
and coming to a close in the visible, yet supernatural
fact, of Christ's ascent from earth to heaven.
Now this instance of indissoluble Cohesion may be
dealt with, and it has often been so dealt with, in
a style of extenuation or apology, as thus — 'Can we
imagine, or ought we to suppose, that a writer who is so
careful to enforce moral principles, and who so well
understands them, should himself, through life, be the
propagator of what he must always have known to be a
falsehood?' Reasonably we can imagine no such thing;
but just now I should state the case in other terms, as
thus —
— I bring this document into Court. In doing so I pro
test against any pleadings that take for granted the very
question which is now to be argued, and upon which the
plaintiff and defendant are joining issue. That question
involves the reality of a series of facts, including those
that are miraculous.
As to the genuineness of this particular document, it
has already passed under revision, in the proper Court ;
and it has been duly counter-signed there, as authentic.
It stands open to no exceptions that could be available
for the plaintiff, only this one— that it bears upon the
verdict in a sense unfavourable to himself. But this
exception, of course, stands for nothing.
I read my document from beginning to end, and then

OF BELIEF. 181
'ask — 'Excluding the plaintiff's nugatory objection, which
is grounded upon his apprehension of an adverse verdict,
would this Epistle suggest any other idea than this —
that the writer's own mind was tranquil and well-
ordered ; and that his intention in writing it was of a
sort which is becoming to a wise and virtuous man;
especially to one who is in a place of authority ?'
The answer is manifest. This Epistle, if read apart
from any reference to the point now in debate, and if
judged of purely on the ground of its intrinsic merits,
carries home to our understandings and best feelings
an irresistible impression of the goodness, wisdom, and
simplicity of the writer. Search the entire compass of
ethical writings, ancient and modern, we should not
find even one that carries more decisively upon it the
characteristics of sincerity and truthfulness.
Why then should it, or why should the writer be
otherwise thought of? For no imaginable reason, only
this, that, if we allow him his unquestionable due —
then the plaintiff is very likely to be non-suited.

The genuineness of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and
the integrity of the Text, are admitted by the highest
critical authorities. Its antiquity is vouched for, at once
by the usual external evidence, and by several allusions
contained in it to the services of the Jewish Temple ;
and which indicate its publication before the destruction
of Jerusalem. As to the authorship of this Epistle,
Origen's judgment may well be assented to — on, to. pJev
i'o^p.ara tov cvhocttoXov ecntv, fj be cppdcris Kal r\ crvvdecns

182 THE RESTORATION
cvnop,vr]p,ovevcravTos tlvos to. dirooroAi/ca — and this allowed,
it will take its place chronologically, in the last year, or
two years, of the Apostle's life.
This composition is a theological treatise in its sub
stance; an epistle only in its form. It is just so far
personal in its allusions as to give the whole a more
distinctly historic character than it would derive from
its argumentative portions : The writer speaks once and
again of himself, and of his colleague Timothy ; and he
administers rebukes, freely and mildly, to those whom
he addresses, as if personally acquainted with their
religious condition and their attainments as Christian,,
people. These attainments fell short, it seems, of what might
have been expected, their opportunities of improvement
considered; nevertheless it is manifest that the writer
supposed himself to be addressing persons who, as well
in their biblical accomplishments, as in the keenness of
their intellectual habits, vastly surpassed that average of
mental power and learning which is to be found in our
modern Protestant congregations. A verse-by-verse
commentary, aided by all the stores of our biblical
erudition, is not more than is needed to give even a
well-instructed and intelligent congregation a thorough '
comprehension of the reasoning of some parts of this
Treatise. Those passages in it which, in their tone,
rise above the temperature proper to biblical expository
reasoning, are those in which the calmness of heaven's
own atmosphere gives majesty to the language of the.
writer : of this sort are the opening verses of the treatise,
and the middle portion of the twelfth chapter.

OF BELIEF. 183
This Treatise — with its incidental allusions, its
references to the then-existing Jewish economy, its
refined trains of argument, its pointed admonitions, its
tone of serious intensity — is, in itself, an Historic
Mass : it is a Reality of the Apostolic times ; — and as
such it is competent to sustain whatever is found to be
inseparably attached to it.
The persons addressed were thoroughly conversant
with Jewish institutions, as also with the conventional
sense of those forms of speech which had their source
in the Old Testament Scriptures, and which had long
been familiar to the Jewish ear, through the medium of
the Greek version.
The writer, in his exordium, affirms the surpassing
dignity of Him to whom the new dispensation owes its
origin; and having done so, he draws the natural
inference, that a negligent regard to it will involve so
much the more guilt and danger. This Gospel message
which was first announced, he says, by the Lord, had
been confirmed toward the Christians of that time by
those who had heard Christ Himself — 'God bearing
witness (to the truth of their testimony) with signs and
wonders; and divers powers, and bestowments of the
Holy Spirit, according to His pleasure.'
To Jewish ears these phrases carried a conventional
meaning that stood clear of all ambiguity: we have
here authentic formulae of the Old Testament, bringing
recollections with them that embraced the staple of the
national belief. Think what we may of the articles of
that belief, these phrases recalled to the mind of the
Jew of the Apostolic age, that long series of miracles

184 THE RESTORATION
which had placed the people in a position of the nearest
relationship with God. The words and the combinations
of them are identical throughout the Old and the New
Testaments, — Kat ebcoKe Kvpios o-rfptla Kal Tepara pieydXa
 ra crripeia Kal to, ripara Ta peydka exeXva 
they occur frequently in the Pentateuch, in the Psalms,
and in the Prophets. They had come also into curren
use in the Christian community, in connexion witl
events which were admitted to be supernatural, as
appears in the Acts of the Apostles, throughout.
Thus it is then that, in the course of a lengthened
argumentation which discusses or alludes to a round
of religious topics, bringing the ancient and the new
economy into comparison in various points of view,
there occurs one, and only one, affirmation concerning
miracles ; but then this one is perfectly explicit ; and it
is so worded that the persons addressed could not mis
understand the writer. He affirms that those who had
been the hearers of Christ, and who had reported the
Gospel message to the Christian converts of the then
present time, had, in delivering this message, received
the same sort of attestation from God Himself which had
been granted to Moses and the Prophets.
And as nothing vague attached to the wording of this
passage, and as it stands boldly prominent in a context
of peculiar gravity, so did it receive a more than ordi
nary weight of meaning from the circumstances of the
persons addressed. It was to the Jewish converts who
were still resident in Palestine, that the Treatise was
primarily addressed, and through them, no doubt, to the
same class of persons throughout the world. These

OF BELIEF. 185
Palestinian Jewish Christians, among whom there were
¦ surviving some who themselves had listened to Christ's
discourses, and had witnessed. His Miracles, were in a
position materially unlike that of the Gentile converts
in distant countries. Not only were they resident on
the spot where the Evangelic history took its rise ; but
they consorted everywhere with those of their country
men who virulently denied the Messiahship of Jesus.
The alleged miracles of that history were rife matters
of debate — in Jewish families — in synagogues — in the
market-places — on the high ways — in the areas of the
Temple. How, then, do we purpose to deal with the fourth
verse of the second chapter of this Epistle ? There is no
pretext for cutting it out of its place : it stands where
it stands, unimpeachable on critical grounds. It attests
the fact, first, that apostolic men — this writer at least —
did not hesitate boldly to affirm the occurrence of mira
cles among those to whom the idea of such attestations
of a message from God was intelligible and familiar. It
establishes also this fact, that Jewish converts of that
time customarily admitted the reality of such occurrences.
If they had not done so there could not have been room
for an unexplained and categorical affirmation of them,
such as this is.
If the alleged miracles of that time had been very few,
and these few of ambiguous quality, and if they had
barely been recognised by Palestinian converts, there
would either have been no allusion to them (as there are
none in fourteen of the apostolic Epistles) or something
would have been said of them in the style, either of

186 THE RESTORATION
apology, or of asseveration. This simply worded passage
of three lines would have been introduced or followed
by a verse or two of oblique insinuation, or of evasion,
saving a way of escape for the writer.
The question I put, in this instance, is this. — Sup
posing the alleged miracles of the Apostolic period to
be real, then is not this brief, bold, and unambiguous
reference to them just what is natural in the case of a
writer who himself is conscious of truth, who knows
that the phrases he employs carry a determinate biblical
meaning, and who forecasts no contradiction ?
This passage in this Epistle may be thrown out of its
place, as to its historic import, only by supposing that
the writer was a man of that class who, devoid alike of
shame and of sensibility, allow themselves to use boastful
expressions, at random, which are well understood to
have no meaning — vauntings, which are the mere ex
pletives of a rambling rhapsody, forgotten as soon as
uttered, and disregarded when heard.
Tell me plainly, do you profess this to be your
judgment in this case ?

The Epistle to the Romans is also a Treatise rather
than an Epistle; its authenticity and genuineness are
out of question; or if you would fortify your English
distaste of nugatory German criticism, acquaint yourself
with that tissue of surmises on the ground of which the
genuineness of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters has
been questioned. The continuity of thought, running
on from the fourteenth into the fifteenth chapter, and

OF BELIEF. 187
thence to the end of the Epistle, is irresistibly con
spicuous. The thought and the language are all of a
piece, from the first verse to the last of this Treatise.
Why then determine otherwise ? For no reason but
because the gratification of a pedantic ambition, and
the craving for paradox, find a momentary occasion in
an instance of this sort.
With the theology of this Epistle I have nothing to
do at this time; nor with the ethical portions of it,
unless to say, in passing, that, following as they do as
inferences from the theology, they present to us an in
stance most remarkable, of an equipoise of principles,
not logically wrought out, but springing from a harmony
that is loftier and deeper than the range of mundane
speculation. But now find me anywhere a sample of practical good
sense more striking than is that presented in the four
teenth chapter, and running on into the next. These
six-and-twenty verses, if they had been duly regarded
on every occasion to which they might rightfully have
been applied, in the course of eighteen centuries, would
have exempted the loaded shelf opposite me, just now,
from the weight of at least ten of the folios of the Acta
Conciliorum. But great principles, when simply an
nounced, demand cycles of time for getting themselves
recognised — cycles as long almost as geological eras.
This Epistle, like the one last named, contains one,
and only one affirmation as to Miracles, as events then
occurring. But this one averment is, like that last re
ferred to, explicit and bold, and it is unaccompanied by
any expletive or extenuating phrases. It goes further,

188 THE RESTORATION
however, in relation to my present argument, than the
passage cited from the Epistle to the Hebrews. In that
instance the writer does not affirm for himself the ex
ercise of miraculous gifts: in this he does so very
distinctly. In this Epistle ' Paul the Apostle of Jesus
Christ' stands before us in a clear historic light, con
necting himself with the supernatural. Up to the time of
writing it he had not made proof of his ministry among
the Christians of Rome. He had long been wishing
to do so, and he now believed that, at no very remote
time, this, his Christian wish, might be accomplished;
for after he had fulfilled his immediate intention of
visiting Jerusalem, he hoped to make his way into Spain,
and to see Rome in passing. His course of evangelic
labour, hitherto, had occupied more time than, perhaps,
he had calculated upon ; for he had taken a very wide
circuit in adhering to his rule, not to build on another
man's foundation.
Thus he had gone preaching the Gospel throughout
all the countries intervening, landwise, between Jeru
salem and Italy. Many, in these regions, had listened
to him, and had become ' obedient to the faith ;' yet it
had not been by preaching alone that these successes
had been won; for it was by 'word and deed' that the
people had been persuaded to forsake their idols. From
'Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum,' he had
(everywhere and) in a complete manner, made procla
mation of the Gospel; and in doing so he had given
proof of the reality of his mission by ' mighty signs and
wonders,' which Christ had wrought by his hands.
This noted affirmation has often been adduced by

OF BELIEF. 189
Christian advocates ; yet there may be room for me to
bring the facts once again under review ; as thus. —
The resort of Jews to Rome, and the access which
they had gained for themselves to persons of all ranks,
even the highest, had been the means of introducing
many to a knowledge of the Scriptures, in the Greek
version. Among these ' devout persons' — Gentiles by
birth and habit, Christianity rapidly made converts;
and unimpeachable evidence attests the fact that, in
Nero's reign, the number of Christians at Rome was
very great.
These Gentile converts were well conversant with
the Old Testament history, and were accustomed to
the recitation of the Psalms, and to the hearing of the
Prophets. This sort of familiarity with biblical history,
and with the phraseology of the Scriptures, undoubtedly
belonged to those to whom were addressed the now
extant non-canonical epistles of the first and second
centuries. Besides ; the Epistle to the Romans itself furnishes
abundant evidence of the diffusion of this amount of
biblical knowledge among those, to whom it is ad
dressed, Gentiles as well as Jews. Paul now writes to
these converts, announcing his intention to visit them
shortly. He tells them that he had lately been em
ployed preaching the Gospel in many provinces of the
empire. He speaks, too, of the miracles that had every
where given efficacy to his preaching ; and in doing so
he uses that one set of phrases to which the ears of the
people had been long accustomed, and which, in their
minds, stood connected with the notable miracles of the

i po THE RESTORATION
Old Testament history. In using this particular form of
words, Paul perfectly knew in what sense they would be
understood when the Epistle was read in the Christian
congregations of Rome.
These congregations, numbering hundreds of persons,
if not thousands, were told that they were soon to see
and hear this noted preacher of the Gospel, who, in
his course from city to city of the Roman world, had
wrought miracles of such a kind that the phrase ' mighty
signs and wonders,' might with propriety be applied to
them. But at length this Preacher, he having appealed to
Caesar's tribunal, reaches Rome : he stays there a length
of time : in what manner then does he meet and satisfy
those expectations which he had himself excited among
the people ? This we are not told. But it appears that
he found his countrymen there, or the greater part of
them, ill-affected toward the new religion, and more
disposed to listen to those reports to its disadvantage
which had reached them, than to his arguments in its
favour. An open breach soon takes place between the
gainsaying Jews of Rome and this Preacher of the
Gospel, who denounces, and in fact, defies them.
What would next follow may be surmised; but let
us assume that the passage above cited in the Epistle
meant nothing — or nothing that would bear inquiry:
the words were a mere flourish — a rhetorical grace!
Neither did this Preacher show any ' signs or wonders'
at Rome, answerable to the kindled expectations of the
people ; nor did those who, from time to time, arrived

OF BELIEF. 191
from the provinces he had evangelized, bring with them
authentic or credible reports of any such miracles as
those which the language of the writer implied. What
effect so great a disappointment as this must have pro
duced among the Christian people of Rome I will not
venture to affirm. Let it only be remembered that
these newly-professed Christians were of three classes,
namely — first, Jewish converts having constantly to do,
in their homes, with those of their countrymen who
were virulently opposed to the Gospel, and who were
now the irritated personal enemies of Paul; secondly,
Gentile converts, from the populace of Rome, whose
natural eagerness to witness ' signs and wonders ' had
been whetted by Paul himself; and — thirdly, a few
persons of rank and education, about the Court, who,
in compromising themselves with the new sect, even
in the most cautious manner, had risked everything —
life, as well as fortune.
In what way these several classes of believers were
affected when, after a three or four years' suspense, they
found that, in fact, no miracles were to be looked for in
attestation of this preacher's mission, or in justification
of his own professions, we do not know.
But what we do know is this — that, three or four
years later, there were Christians enough in Rome to
slake the ferocity of Nero — even the — multitudo ingens,
of Tacitus.
Now this ' vast multitude' — or let us take the words
in their lowest probable meaning, whatever that may
be — had either professed Christianity at the time when

192 THE RESTORATION
the Epistle from Paul reached them, or else there had
been a great accession of converts during the inter
vening three or four years.
If we take the first named of these suppositions, then
one must think it a serious matter (if we know any
thing of popular excitability) to disappoint the — multi
tudo ingens in regard to these promised supernatural
attestations. Knowing that he must disappoint the
multitude at Rome in this very manner, then the
boldness of the language in which, only a few days
after his arrival, he defies the Jews, and makes his appeal
to the Gentiles, is indeed amazing. (Acts xxviii.)
But we now take up the second of these suppositions,
and assume that, though the Christians of Rome had
been few when the Epistle before us reached them, the
— multitudo ingens had been " added to the Church"
after the occurrence of this signal disappointment, and after
the time when the gainsaying Jew had been put in a
triumphant position, and was warranted in defying this
Preacher to make good his written pretensions ! Is this,
then, our supposition ? To me a belief in the Christian
miracles is far more easy.

One affirmation only, concerning miracles, we have
found in the Epistle to the Hebrews; one in that to the
Romans ; one in the Epistle to the Galatians ; one in the
second Epistle to the Corinthians. In each of these
single instances the allusion is cursory; it arises out
of the occasion, and it is firmly agglutinated with the
context. Moreover to each of these instances there

OF BELIEF. i93
attaches some special circumstance, rendering this sort
of categorical averment in a high degree dangerous,
if, in fact, it had been liable to any sort of exception.
It was so, peculiarly, in the instance now next to be
considered. Throughout the scattered societies of Galatia, and
among a people remarkable for the fickleness of their
dispositions, and for their proneness to be led and
driven by demagogues, the apostolic authority of Paul
had been set at defiance, or was openly impugned, while
the doctrine he had taught was denounced. Up and
down throughout this province, and scattered among its
obscure towns, where they could not be followed, there
were, as the writer of this Epistle knew,, those who
stood forward as his personal enemies, and who were
ready to catch an advantage against him.
Nevertheless, in the bosom of these distracted socie
ties there were some to whose better feelings he might
still appeal — some there were who adhered to the evan
gelic doctrine — some who professed and contended for,
the ' faith once delivered' to them. We must infer also
from the expression 6 ovv kiaxopr\yS>v vp.w  that there
was one Teacher among the Galatian converts who con
tinued to maintain that foremost article of the Christian
system which was its characteristic, as contrasted with
the Pharisaic Judaism of the times, and which, in this
Epistle, Paul expounds anew. The position of this one
Teacher, in the midst of the general defection, must
have been that of antagonism; and it was with him
alone, as we may infer from the phrases used, that the
power of working miracles remained.

i94 THE RESTORATION
The appeal made to the supernatural endowments
of this one Teacher (if our inference from the form of
expression be historically right) was in the highest
degree fearless. But whether or not an Individual so
distinguished, be here intended, or whether the apostle,
though using the present tense, means to remind the
people of his own ministrations among them, in times
past, this brief challenge is in the style of one who feels
that he risks no contradiction, as to the matter of fact ;
he says, Are ye then indeed so unwise ? after accepting
Christianity as a spiritual system, are ye now going
back to a system of bodily observances ? Has it then
been to no purpose (as the professors of a spiritual doc
trine) that ye have suffered so much (at the hands of
Jewish fanatics) if indeed it has been to no purpose ! Or
answer me now this question- — He (the Teacher) who
now ministers to you the gifts of the Spirit, and who
works miracles among you — nal 6 evepycov bvvdpeis — is
he a teacher of the legalizing doctrine ? or does he not
maintain the doctrine of salvation by faith, which I am
now explaining to you anew ?
This question followed hard upon a taunt, the pun
gency of which finds no parallel in the other Epistles
of this writer, affectionate, and courteous too, as he is.
He calls these Galatians dvor\Toi ; and he asks who it is
that has so far abused their folly as actually to bereave
them of their senses ?
No inference which I judge to be important is de
pendent upon what may be a questionable paraphrase
of this passage. The fact is enough that Paul, to whom
the recollection of his miraculous powers does not ever

OF BELIEF. 195
occur when he is addressing his attached friends, boldly
affirms them, or affirms the same gifts in his colleagues^
when he descends among his adversaries. This he does
when, as in the present instance, he intends to keep
no terms of amity with his opponents ; and he does the
same whether the tempers he had to do with were more
or less virulent.
Note this fact, that those of the Epistles of Paul
which contain affirmations of the supernatural, are those
in which he encounters his adversaries, and administers
sharp rebukes, even to his attached adherents. It is also
to be observed that, when we name those of his fourteen
Epistles which are the most distinctly marked with the
historic characteristics of genuineness, we are naming
also those in which he affirms the present occurrence of
miracles. It is thus that the purely historic and the
supernatural are, as one may say, inseparably riveted
together in these writings.

It is the same in the two Epistles to the Christian
people of Corinth. If there be anything at all that
has come down to us from antiquity — whole and
unquestionable, these two Epistles will take a place
among such 6p.okoyo-up.eva ; and if in any instance an
ancient writer has spread himself out, and opened the
door of his heart to our inspection, Paul has done so in
these two Epistles.
I take up first, the second Epistle, containing as it
does one passage that is applicable to my immediate
o a

196 THE RESTORATION
purpose. This is the twelfth verse of the twelfth
chapter. There might be room to think that the remarkable
passage with which this same chapter commences, should
also be named as an affirmation of the supernatural. It
is so in reality ; but it is not so in a logical sense ; or as
bearing out the inference upon which I have to insist.
The sort of affirmations I am in quest of are those in
support of which the writer may appeal, and does so, to
the knowledge of those whom he addresses.
Paul, in this case, necessarily, affirms only what be
longed to his individual experience : he declares that
thus he had been favoured with two extraordinary re
velations; but though the mention of them is proper
to the occasion, they are not to be adduced as strictly
available in the present instance.
Compelled as he was by the audacity of his opponents
at Corinth to assert, and to vindicate, his apostolic au
thority, he reminds the people there of the circumstances
that had attended his ministrations among them; and
he says that, feeble as he might be in himself, he had in
no respect shown himself inferior to the most noted of
the Apostles ; for the wonted attestations of an apostolic
commission had been wrought (not simply affirmed)
among them, with all submissiveness of manner eu 0-77-
pewis Kal ripacri Kal bvvdp.ecn. Here again we have the
customary biblical formula, and in its more expanded
expression. We now turn to the first Epistle to the Corinthians.
In that one passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews which

OF BELIEF. 197
links it to the supernatural, the persons addressed are
reminded that they had witnessed miracles, wrought by
those from whose lips they had received the Gospel
message. In the Epistle to the Romans, the writer
affirms of himself that he had wrought miracles in the
course of his late missionary journeys. In the Epistle to
the Churches of Galatia he appeals to the miracles that
were then frequently wrought among themselves. In
the second Epistle to the Corinthians he speaks of the
miracles wrought by himself during his stay at Corinth.
In this first Epistle he speaks, at large and particularly,
and with perfect freedom, of the existence and exercise
of miraculous gifts among themselves.
He tells them generally (i. 7) that they had been
wanting in no gift- — Iv p.r)bev\ xapicrpaTi  with which
other Churches had been favoured. These gifts he spe
cifies (xii. 4) mingling those which are ordinary with
the supernatural ; and this is so done as if to weave the
two elements together in a fabric the materials of which
should not be severed. ' To one among you is granted,
by the same Spirit— wisdom — to another knowledge ; —
to one faith, to another charisms for healing, to another
energies for mighty works— to another prophecy — to
another the discrimination of spirits (or knowledge of
character) — to another (the command of) several lan
guages ;— to another the interpretation of languages.'
Further on the writer enumerates — apparently in the
order of their relative importance in his view — the func
tions which were constituted, and which were then in
exercise in the Church ; as thus— first, that of apostles ;

198 THE RESTORATION
next of prophets (or teachers), then instructors, or mas
ters of classes. After these come the functions of those
who were endowed with miraculous powers, gifts of
healing — faculties of administration and management,
and the command of languages. The order which pre
vails in these enumerations deserves attention.
Between this more general declaratory passage, and
those injunctions which a disorderly practice had called
for, there comes a parenthesis — an entire chapter —
luminous with good sense: ought we not to acknow
ledge this, and to risk the consequence? If now it
be Heaven's wisdom, of which we have such a sample,
supernaturally granted to this writer, we need hold no
further argument concerning Christianity. But if it be
the writer's natural wisdom which here shines out, then
how shall we make it consist with the supposition of the
tumid extravagance of his mind ; or of any imaginable
condition of conscious falseness in his professions, or in
his conduct ? But we have to mark here that these thir
teen verses, teeming as they do with the very substance
of ethical truth, and exhibiting so correct a sense of
ethical distinctions, come in as a corrective of that
natural error from which we have found the apostolic
writers to be themselves wholly exempt — I mean the
error of thinking more of miracles than of morality —
more of ' signs and wonders' than of temper and beha
viour. If four or five of these gifted Corinthian converts
had left us so many as one-and-twenty of their letters
and treatises, I think we should not have found fourteen
of them destitute of a single affirmation as to their own

OF BELIEF. 199
command of the supernatural ; nor the remaining seven,
each with nothing more than a brief and solitary allusion
of this kind.
But a word more should be said on this occasion.
This thirteenth chapter of the Epistle before us is a
parenthesis, linking the purely historic instructions
which precede it, with other instructions, having rela
tion to a misapplication of supernatural endowments.
Here, then, we have the simply historic, or natural,
blended and bound up with the supernatural, in such a
manner as to defy the endeavour to separate the two.
In the instances hitherto adduced I have noticed the
iron riveting of these two elements : in the present in
stance I ask, Is not this tie a bolt of the purest gold ?
The rule I adhere to is to lay no stress upon any
matter that is controverted among well-informed and
reasonable critics and commentators. Now a great
cloud of difficulty has been made to settle over the
subject treated of in the fourteenth chapter of this
Epistle; so that what might seem quite intelligible
when one reads the Greek without assistance, the same
becomes an enigma, after erudite criticism has shed its
best light upon it ! Just now, therefore, I will say no
more concerning the ' Gift of Tongues' than this —
That Paul himself does manifestly regard this power as
a miraculous gift ; and as such he explicitly affirms his
own participation in it : — rejoicing in the copiousness
of the faculty which he exercised, he says — 'I thank
my God I speak with tongues more than you all.'
What was it then that he thus thought of with devout
gratitude ? Was it that knowledge of Hebrew (or the

200 THE RESTORATION
Aramaic) of Greek and of Latin — which he had acquired
at Tarsus in his boyhood? Or was it the power of
pouring forth a mindless gibberish, intelligible to no
tribe of men on earth ?
It is enough that, in this passage, while the apostle
exhibits his usual good sense, and his feeling of what is
practically best, he speaks without hesitation of that
which he regarded as supernatural.

OF BELIEF. 201

conclusion as to the seven epistles which
affirm miracles.
I have now taken in their order those documents of
the Canon which contain an affirmation of, or allusion
to, miracles, as currently taking place under the eye of
the writer, or of those whom he addresses. I have
especially given attention to those five Epistles of
St. Paul which are distinguished from the nine of the
same writer that are free from any reference to the
supernatural. I have pointed out three circumstances attaching to
these Epistles which should fix our attention, namely,
first, that they are those which, if there be any dif
ference, stand the clearest of any suspicion of spurious-
ness ; secondly, that three of these Epistles are those of
the entire number — fourteen — which are addressed to
societies that had harboured or listened to, the personal
enemies of the apostle, and in addressing which the
greatest caution was needed ; and thirdly, that, if the first
Epistle to the Corinthians be excepted — the affirmation
of miracles is confined to a single utterance, which is
brief, distinct, and peremptory.

202 THE RESTORATION
I have also drawn your attention to the fact — that, in
each of these instances, that authenticated form of words
is employed in relation to which misinterpretation was
impossible, and to which a clearly defined historical
sense had come to be attached.
But I will now imagine that, instead of employing
this biblical formula, which none of those who were
accustomed to the Greek version of the Old Testament
could misunderstand, St. Paul had gone about in quest
of a phrase which might be susceptible of a rather less
rigid interpretation : let us suppose him to have used a
phrase of abstract coinage — bordering upon the philoso
phical, and which the better educated among his readers
might so have interpreted as to leave a margin of indis
tinctness whereupon the writer might, at least in the
view of such readers, clear himself of the charge of direct
falsification. To me it seems perfectly certain that a
religious leader in the position of this writer, if he had
been conscious that the ' miracles' of which he spoke
must, when narrowly looked into by his adversaries,
melt away into anything or nothing — into mere exagge
rations of natural occurrences — would have borrowed
or forged a phrase adapted to his purpose ; and that he
would most carefully have avoided that particular form
of words which, in the minds of all, carried an indu
bitable meaning of the largest import.
Let us now imagine that Paul, who had no narrow
acquaintance with the resources of the Greek language,
had employed, when speaking of the miracles that were
lately wrought by himself or his colleagues, some one of
those very phrases which his erudite countryman and

OF BELIEF. 203
contemporary, Philo, does actually use on analogous
occasions. For example, if instead of the repara ko.1
crrip.eia} and the several phrases (all of biblical usage)
which he does apply to his own miracles, he had given us
a form like the following, with an evasive expletive
inserted, repdcmov be cpacri crvpj3rjvai kcVt eKelvov tov
Xpdvov, p.eya\o-ipyrip.a t^j cpvcrecos - ... or that he had
apologised for these miracles, as Philo does elsewhere
in his Life of Moses. If it had been so, there might have
been room for a supposition for which, in fact, there is
now no room. The biblical form, used when miracles
of the most amazing kind are intended to be spoken of,
had, in the apostolic time, come to be applied cus
tomarily to the miracles of the evangelic history; as
appears from the Gospels. Moreover the same set of
words occurs thirteen times in the Acts of the Apo
stles, always carrying the same indubitable sense. Once
only, in speaking of such events, does the writer employ
a different form (xix. 1 1), where it is — bvvdpeis re oi ras
rvyovcras iirolei 6 Qebs . . . The form is the same in the
Apocryphal books, as in the Epistles (Wisdom viii. 8,
x. 16, Eccles. xlviii. 14) — in the Prophets; (Jerem. xxxii.
ao, Dan. vi. a7) — in the Psalms ; cv. 27, evi. 7 : and the
Pentateuch, very frequently: — Exod. iii. ao, iv. 9, iv.
a I, a8, vii. 3 . . . ra crr\peid pov, xal ra repara ev yfj
AlyviTTio .... x. 2, Num. xiv. 11, Deut. iv. 34, — Kal
iv crripeiois, Kal ev repacrt . . . . vi. 23, Kal ebatKe Kvptos
crrjpeia xal repara peydXa Kal irovqpa. iv Aiyinrr<a 
vii. 19, ra crrjpeia Kal ra repara ret p,eydXa fKeiva 
xxxiv. 1 1, 'Ev warn rois o-rjpeiois Kal ripacnv 
There are those who, professing to admire the cha-

204 THE RESTORATION
racter of Paul, would gladly bring him off clear of the
imputation of having compromised himself with the
supernatural — if it could be done. Looking to these five
Epistles, this attempt might perhaps have been made if
only he had been careful to avoid this biblical formula,
and if he had taken up, in its place, any vague ab
straction of the kind of which samples enough may be
found in Philo, in Josephus, and in several of the
classical writers, when speaking of prodigies.
Let us now inquire by what means, if there are any,
the supernatural might be severed from the mass of
historic document to which we find it attached.
These means must be such as do not in any way
violate the authentic rules of philological or historical
criticism. An attempted violation of such rules could
be prompted by nothing but an ill intention ; and as in
this argument 1 impute no bad motives to an opponent,
I am saved the disagreeable necessity of rebutting any
supposition of that class.
Now we first narrow our ground by putting out of
view those fourteen Epistles upon which we find no
particles of the supernatural adhering. We need not
inquire how to exclude miracles from writings in which,
in fact, none are affirmed.
These fourteen Epistles are of a purely historical
character: each of them comes into our hands bearing
its own credentials, separately from the others. Even if
ten of them could be shown to be spurious, the others
stand their ground; but instead of this, a mere shadow
of doubt is all that attaches to two or three of the

OF BELIEF. 205
number : and even these, as I have shown above, avail
as much in argument, when imagined to be forgeries, as
when they are admitted to be genuine.
Here, then, is foundation ample enough to sustain my
Belief, as a Christian : I am willing to take my stand
upon it ; and never shall I be driven from this footing.
If I have thoroughly informed myself concerning the
Christianity of the age of the Antonines — reading the
entire extant evidence — Christian and Antichristian —
then, in these fourteen Epistles, I find whatever should
be there, on the supposition that this great revolution
which has placed the civilized portion of the human
family on new ground, was real and true in its origin,
and that it was the work of God. The present question
then relates solely to those Seven Epistles which imbed
our problem.
Now these might easily be disposed of if, in a critical
sense, they were of inferior quality ; but they are not
so : on the contrary, they are those (one excepted) con
cerning which there has been, and is, the least difference
of opinion among critics.
Or the supernatural paragraphs in these Epistles might
be excinded if, on any ground that is recognised by legi
timate criticism, these sentences stood as interpolations.
But it is not so. On the contrary, as to most of them,
these verses are woven into the context, before and
after, and are one with the body of the Epistle.
And yet, even admitting the genuineness of these
passages, we might incline to attach an abated im
portance to them if any one of the following supposi-

206 THE RESTORATION
tions could be entertained. — If they occurred in those
Epistles only which are addressed to the writer's col
leagues, or to societies of whose attachment to himself,'
and to Christianity, he was perfectly assured. But the
very contrary of this is the fact.
— If, instead of these few peremptory affirmations, we
found a diffuse, turgid, and careless allusion to miracles
on almost every page of the twenty-one Epistles. The
contrary of this, also, is the fact.
— If, instead of employing, in these few instances, the
well understood biblical formula, to which an historic
sense had come immoveably to adhere, the writers had
quietly let themselves down through the medium of two
or three vague phrases, of which they might soon have
found the type in several writers of that age. The
contrary of this also is the fact.
The only remaining supposition which occurs to me
as at all admissible, if our purpose be to set aside these
passages, is this — That, as no miracles are specified^
and as no narratives of this kind are given in these
Epistles, it is not certainly to be inferred that the
writers wished themselves to be understood in any very
definite sense when they thus vaguely affirm such to
have occurred. So we might perhaps suppose if no
other Christian writings of the apostolic age had come
into our hands. But an undoubted book — containing
many such narratives, is before us. I abstain from an
examination of this Book — the Acts — at present, and
turn to it only for a moment, as it stands related to the
supposition just named; and I affirm first —

OF BELIEF. 207
—That the historical relationship of this Book to
the Pauline Epistles has been so exhibited, in modern
times, as should exclude all question as to the genuine
ness of either — the history, or the' so related, Epistles :
secondly —
— That, in this book, as I have already said, the
formula which occurs in the Epistles occurs also — and
as often as thirteen times, and in connexion, each time,
with narratives of miraculous events. In what sense
these phrases were understood in the apostolic times is
thus put out of doubt by this employment of them in
such a connexion.
I affirm, therefore, that the apostles do implicate
themselves with the supernatural element of Christi
anity, and that they do it in the most formal and dis
tinct manner possible ; and that therefore it is only
by violent means that the supernatural can be severed
from the historical, as the two stand connected in the
Christian documents.
What those means are which, in this case, ought to
be regarded as ' violent,' and which should therefore
be rejected, may easily be determined. To solve the
problem of Christianity by force is to admit some sup
position, or to listen to an imputation to which a
cultured and well ordered mind will never reconcile
itself; and which would never be advanced, at all, by
minds of any class, except at the impulse of some
urgent argumentative necessity.
I bring this to an issue thus : —
Make the effort requisite for putting yourself mentally

208 THE RESTORATION
into the position of one who, as yet, knows nothing of
Christianity. I put into your hands, in succession^ the
fourteen Non-Supernatural Epistles — You spontane
ously say of them, 'Whatever I may think of this
Theology, which is so new and amazing, it is manifest
that these writings embody, with great harmony of
intention, an elevated and consistent morality; it would
be well for the world if all men would receive it. It is
also manifest that the writers, whether they be right or
wrong in their religious belief, are sincere in their
profession of it: — it appears also that they are sober-
minded, and of good judgment ; — it is clear that they
are earnestly affected in relation to whatever is of un
doubted importance, and that they treat slightingly what
we all feel to be indifferent.'
Thus far, then, you will not affirm that any of those
sinister imputations which you hold in reserve for
solving the problem of Christianity, would spontane
ously be suggested to you in the course of your New
Testament reading. But you next peruse the five —
above mentioned — Epistles of St. Paul ; or you take up
the Epistle to the Romans. In reaching the close of it
you are startled to find the writer, with whose inmost
thoughts you had become familiar, boldly affirming
that, in a missionary circuit of several hundred miles,
he had wrought miracles, in each town and city as he
passed. Under the perplexity that has thus arisen, I direct
your attention to those several conditions attaching to
this case which I have just above specified. These, if
they are considered as they should be, and if we reject

OF BELIEF. 209
unintelligible evasions — myths, and shifts; — rejecting,
in; fact, what a well constituted English mind must
and will reject as frivolous, impertinent, vaporous, and
absurd, then our alternative is just this. —
To yield our belief to Christianity, as a supernatural
dispensation ; — or, To suppose — I do not well know
how to put such a supposition into words — that the
apostolic men, not one of them, but all, stand as
a class by themselves, of which no other samples
have occurred among the myriad varieties of the
species : for they are wise, and they are mad : they
are always virtuous, and they are always wicked:
they are prudent and they are absurd; and they
are both these in an extreme degree. They are at
all times consistently inconsistent with themselves,
and with human nature.
Language has been framed for expressing things that
are, or things that may be intelligibly conceived of.
You will therefore find an extreme difficulty in at
tempting to give me, in any definite shape, your own
idea of the apostles, the facts duly taken into the account,
on the supposition that no miracles were wrought in
attestation of their ministry. In this attempt you will
never succeed, to your own satisfaction.
I will not tell you that your supposition as to the
apostolic character is ' uncharitable,' or that it is ' un
warrantable,' or 'ungenerous,' and the like; for I am
content to tell you — what is simply the fact — That it
is a jumble of incoherencies to which no semblance of
moral, or of immoral unity can be given. I do not tell
you that your conception is wrong and unfair; — for it
p

210 THE -RESTORATION
is no conception at all — it is a sheer absurdity ! I will
return to this subject at any time if only you will put
before me, in a form which I can understand, your idea
of the apostles — all the facts allowed for, on the hypo
thesis of Disbelief.

OF BELIEF. 211

CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MIRACLES.
It would next come in order to bring under consi
deration those Five Books of the New Testament which
contain narratives of miracles, blended with ordinary
history, and with discourses — showing, in detail, that,
throughout these books, the supernatural and the his
torical are indissolubly commingled. This indissoluble
connexion might soon be shown in the several in
stances; but I abstain from this path for two reasons;
first, because the demolition of Rationalism by Strauss,
and its abandonment generally, supersedes the necessity
for showing that the evangelic miracles cannot be ex
plained away in the manner that was attempted by the
German writers of that school. But beside this reason,
as I propose to bring before you this same supernatural
element, considered in a different light, I wish to avoid
the irksomeness of going over the same ground twice,
although it would be for different purposes.
I must repeat what I have already said (p. 94) just
so far as to remind you that those of our convictions
upon which we are accustomed to act with the most
unhesitating confidence, and to which we commend
P 3

2i2- THE RESTORATION
ourselves without fear, when life itself, or estate, is
at risk, are not, or they seldom are, of that kind which
we obtain by processes of catenary deduction ; or by a
course of reasoning which, in a technical sense, is lo
gical. It is not so. Man, such as we find him on the
beaten road of real life, is no such syllogistic automaton
as that he should bring propositions in threes to bear
upon the business and conduct of every day. Pedants
do this, and they break their heads in consequence.
It is by the force of congruous evidence — it is by help
of wind and tide together, that we launch upon the
dangerous atlantic of life, and cross it in confidence,
and reach our port in safety.
The vast difference, as to its bearing upon our prin
ciples of action, and our every-day habitudes, between
formal catenary reasoning and the force of Congruity,
is felt in the instance of the argument concerning
Christianity more than perhaps in any other case that
could be named. Let it be that, with favourable im
pressions on the side of Christianity, and with a sincere
wish to confirm ourselves in our religious belief, we
carefully read one or two of the best modern books on
the ' Evidences.' We follow the reasoning, from page
to page, and we yield our assent to it, feeling it to
be entirely conclusive. To frame a reply to this chain
of proofs, in any manner that should be satisfactory to
ourselves, we know to be impossible. And yet a few
days after closing the book, the upshot of the perusal
of it has been to leave us — not in a state of logical
indecision, but only of discomfort and depression, as
to our convictions; and we almost wish we had not

OF BELIEF. 213
attempted to convince ourselves in this argumentative
manner. We need not go far to find the reason of such a
result. Those who read books on the ' Evidences' in
the favourable mood which I am now supposing, per
fectly know that, if Christianity be true, it is not an
abstract speculation, but a practical concernment for
every day, and that among the many claimants upon
our attention, this one claim stands, or should stand,
foremost. But now the reasoning of the book we have
just read is out of harmony with the machinery of real
life ; for a man is not used to act at a prompting of this
sort. The argument, although it be irrefragable, comes
upon us cross-grained as to all our habitudes as delibe
rative and spontaneous beings. In fact — after several
failures in the endeavour to feel and act as Christian
men, on the ground of argument, among the things and
persons of the real world — we return the book on the
' Evidences' to a high shelf — we forget it, except to lend
it to a perplexed friend ; and for ourselves, we resume
our Christian consciousness: unconsciously, but really,
we go back to the sphere of those undefined moral con-
gruities which heretofore have sustained our belief; and
then we abandon proofs in line.
Nevertheless, as often as we return to the subject as a
matter of argument, we find ourselves in a position of
disadvantage. At a point far removed from the eye,
and at the end of a vista of logical evidences, we get our
view of the miracles of the Evangelic history. For a
length of time we have been fixing the eye upon the
supernatural, as it appears when seen in this perspective ;

214 THE RESTORATION
just as one might gaze upon a sunrise, seen through
the bare trunks and naked branches of a wintry forest.
Yet this aspect of these objects is not merely remote
and accidental ; but it produces an impression which is
substantially untrue.
Without any very difficult effort of the mind, I can
imagine myself to occupy a position whence I should
look upon the miracles of the Evangelic History in
their immediate proximity to those things with which,
actually, they did always stand connected. I should
then see the Supernatural in its relationship to the
Infinite, which is its true relation. When I place
myself in this position, I at once discern the reason of
that which otherwise is unaccountable — I mean the fact
already noticed, that the apostolic men, though they
declare themselves to be conversant with miracles, yet
so seldom, and with such brevity, mention them. From
this position, moreover, that perfect simplicity, and that
calmness which has been so often remarked as the cha
racteristic of the Gospels, when miracles are narrated,
appears only natural and proper.
There are three mental conditions, easily distinguish
able from each other, in which I can imagine an indu
bitable miracle to be witnessed. The first is that of
what we may call — mediaeval credulity — or an incurious,
unreasoning, inconsequential passiveness, to which all
things, natural and supernatural, come alike, and pass
away without leaving any strong impression. The se
cond state is that of our modern, dry, cold, sophisticated,
scientific temper ; — scientific more than it is philosophi
cal. Witnessed in this mood, a miracle would astound

OF BELIEF. 215
us — it would just curdle the brain, and produce little or
no effect upon the moral nature.
But I can form an idea of a mental condition as much
unlike the first of these two states as the second. I can
imagine myself to have come into a discernment of
those unchanging realities of the spiritual and moral
system which indeed affect my welfare, present and
future ; so that the witnessing of a miracle would . pro
duce a feeling entirely congruous with such perceptions;
and would neither astound nor agitate the mind. I can
imagine myself to have so profound a sense of primary
moral truths as that miracles would be confluent with
the deep movements of the soul, and would produce no
surge. I can imagine myself to have such a prospect of
the plains of immortality — a prospect moral, not fanciful,
not sensuous, as that the spectacle of the raising of the
dead should instantly assort itself with my feelings. Sp
to see ' death swallowed up in victory,' would excite no
amazement. I read this very quietness in the apostolic
Epistles ; and it sheds the steady brightness of the morn
ing upon Paul's discourse concerning the resurrection.
This great fact concerning the destiny of man, which
he there expounds, I also hold to be a truth, undoubted.
But if, beside thus believing it with my modern logical
persuasion — if instead of this belief, I had Paul's sight
and consciousness of it, then, like him, I could speak of
miracles briefly, firmly, and without a note of wonder.
The miracles of the evangelic history come to us
with the force of Congruity, just so far as we can
bring ourselves morally within the splendour of those
eternal verities which are of the substance of the Gospel.

216 THE RESTORATION
While we stand remote from that illuminated field, they
are to us only a galling perplexity ; for we can neither
rid ourselves of the evidence that attests them, nor are
we prepared to yield ourselves to it. At this moment
the Christian argument is nothing else than an in
tolerable torment to hundreds of cultivated minds
around us.
In the crowd of those who witnessed the miracles of
Christ, there were some who mocked ; there were some
who gnashed their teeth; there were many who mar
velled and applauded, and soon forgot what they had
seen. But there were some into whose minds the doc
trine — the moral purport — the spiritual reality of his
discourses had so entered, that, beside being conscious
of the fitness of which already I have spoken, they felt,
with overwhelming force, a Congruity of another kind;
I mean that of these miracles with the majestic bearing
and style of Him who wrought them ; for he did these
' mighty works' with the spontaneous ease of one in
whom this power, and much more than this, was in
herent. From what sources have I gathered my idea of the
personal aspect and demeanour of Christ ? You will say
from the groundless traditions of Italian art — from our
modern religious poetry — from the pulpit, and so forth.
It may be so in part ; but the main rudiments of this
idea have come to me — I am sure of this — from a year-
to-year reading of the Gospels — commentaries, trans
lations, and all modern accompaniments, out of view.
This vivid conception of the Person is the genuine pro
duct of the Evangelic narratives, to which I have added

OF BELIEF. 217
nothing by imaginative effort. It is not that the writers
have described to me this Person, or that they have
given me a leading hint, here and there, to put me on
the right tack. An image has concreted itself in my
mind, whether I would or not. So. far as I have laboured
with it at all, it has been for the purpose of reducing it
to its very simplest expression — removing from it the
pictorial — the poetic — the dramatic — the meditative-
decorations, and bringing it to consist with the most
rigid conception of the plain historic reality, as to the
country — the age — the race — the costume.
This idea of the personal aspect and demeanour — the
individual manner and style of Christ, I find to be
congruous with the narratives of his ' mighty works,'
on, one supposition only; on any other supposition the
incongruity is irresistibly revolting. I possess no such
power over the intellect, or the moral intuitions, or the
ideal faculty, as would be requisite for bringing any
such repellant conceptions into combination. You will
say that this Ideal is mine, not yours ; that you have no
such conception; and therefore that you feel no such
difficulty. But now, indulge me while I give you credit
for a remainder of those sensibilities which perhaps you
would disown, but which sophistry has not indurated.
You will not tell me that a consciousness is unreal,
merely because I fail in my endeavours to give it intel
ligible expression, or indeed to put it into words at all.
Do not the uncultured minds around us possess a genuine
consciousness, as to moral principles, in behalf of which
— either to explain, or to defend them, they would not
have a word to say ? Or take an instance such as this.

218 THE RESTORATIO N
— I have a consciousness of the vast difference between
the Greek sculpture of the purest times, and the Roman
style of the imperial times, which consciousness is to
me as much a matter of certainty as is any other thing
whatever that has become an inseparable part of my
existence. The difference between the one style of
chipping marble into the human form and the other,
is so clear in my view, that, to confound the two, or to
mistake the one for the other, is impossible ; and yet I
should shrink from the attempt to set this same percep
tion forth in sentences and paragraphs: I can do no such
thing. Meantime you might as well tell me that honey
and molasses have the same flavour, as try to convince
me that this discriminative feeling is a mere illusion,
or that it is a vulgar prejudice belonging to my artistic
orthodoxy. The sense of congruity which I have now in view,
stands related to that moral regeneration which has
placed our modern civilization so far in advance of the
ancient civilization. To the ancient civilization — that,
to wit, of the Athenian age, there belonged a purity of
Taste, which we, of this time, must be content to
admire, and very poorly to imitate. But then in our
modern literature, and in our poetry especially — in our
fine arts — sculpture, painting, and music, there is a deep
soul-life of which the entire circle of ancient art and
literature barely offers the faintest indications. To the
modern mind there has come to belong an awful capacity
of feeling, and a liability to intensities, both of suffering
and of enjoyment (the one as well as the other intel
lectual, not sensuous) of which the bright, gay, surface-

OF BELIEF. 219
loving mind of antiquity seems to have known little
or nothing. Then along with this power of feeling,
striking into the roots of the soul as it does, there are
perceptions and instinctive judgments, of which it must
be said that they are altogether modern developments of
humanity; they are true elements of our nature; but
they have newly been brought from the subsoil.
It is to the slow working of Christianity upon human
nature that I attribute nearly the whole of this deeper
vitality of the modern mind: — You think otherwise;
but yet our difference as to the cause cannot affect our
acknowledgment of the fact. If you should attempt to
deny the fact, I must think of you not merely as anti-
Christian, but as downright pagan.
Often and truly it has been said that the writers of
the Gospels were men wholly incapable of imagining, or
of putting together, a consistent fiction of any kind.
But to say this is to say little in relation to the instance
which I have now in view; for the accordance which
comes upon my modern consciousness with so irresistible
a force is of a sort to which the ancient world entire,
cultured and uncultured — Greek, Roman, or Jewish, was
not alive. Not only were there then no writers skilful
enough, designedly, to bring together those elements of
harmony ; but even if there had been such writers, there
were then no readers to whose senses any such harmony
would have been cognizable.
It is allowed that the miracles of the Gospels are, for
the most part, narrated in the fewest words, and in the
most artless manner. Then abreast of these narratives,
and intermingled with them, come the instances of

220 THE RESTORATION
Christ's behaviour, in various positions, and of His
utterances of those ethical principles which are peculiarly
Christian. Now between these elements which are here
found in juxtaposition, there presents itself a congruity
which the modern mind vividly perceives, but of which
the ancient mind would scarcely have been conscious at
all. The ancient mind formed a conception of the
Goetes, and of the Thaumaturge, in which conception
the sombre, inscrutable element was the leading prin
ciple. The man so conceived of, and of whom types
enough, in all their varieties, might be seen in Egypt —
that seat of jugglery, was the murky or the epileptic
supernaturalist. Antiquity had not conceived of a worker
of miracles in whose course of life and behaviour the
working of miracles showed itself as a secondary and
incidental element, and in whose character Love was of
the substance, while the supernatural faculty was the
adjunct only.
Whencesoever the materials of the Gospels may have
come — and it is the legitimate office of criticism to
inquire whence — this is certain, that they do convey an
Idea of a Person, possessing, in an extraordinary degree,
the charm of Unity, or singleness of intention. This
idea may be variously expressed : it includes consistency
¦of ultimate purpose, and the coherence of all principles
of action; it includes oneness of aim, from the com
mencement to the close of a course of life : it supposes
uniformity of temper, and a sameness of the impression
that is produced by the Person upon other minds. Then
this idea excludes all those inconsequential departures
from the main purpose of a man's life, which, when

OF BELIEF. 221
we witness them, prompt the exclamation — How unac
countable, and how inconsistent a being is man, at the
best !
If I wanted proof that this symmetry, moral and
intellectual, does really belong to that idea of the person
which the Gospels embody and convey, I should find it
in the fact that, amid all the dogmatic distractions that
have troubled Christendom, during eighteen centuries,
there has prevailed, in all times, and among all
Christianized nations, a wonderful uniformity as to the
idea that has floated before all minds of the personal
Christ. Wherever the four Gospels are popularly
read, this same conception forms itself and prevails.
Infancy spontaneously acquires it : manhood does not
revise or reject it : — age holds it to the last. It is not
in consequence of the poverty of the elements it em
braces, or of any vagueness in the mode of conveyance,
that this idea is so perfectly symmetrical.
Now observe that this symmetry, or harmony of the
elements, constituting the idea of Christ as a person,
embraces the miraculous portions of the evangelic nar
rative, not less than the ordinary; and indeed, if there
are any parts of this narrative which a reader of correct
taste would single out as the most resplendent instances
of moral fitness and unity,, they are precisely those that
narrate miracles with the most of detail.
It is affirmed by those who reject everything that
presents itself as miracle in the Gospels, that these four
compilations have become what they now are by the
accumulation of heterogeneous fragments, vague tra
ditions, exaggerated early beliefs, and myths. The Four

222 THE RESTORATION
Gospels, it is said, are constituted of a few morsels of
genuine history, mingled with the illusions of the
popular mind; — that mind being then in a state like
the ' troubled ocean, casting up mire and dirt ;' and then
it must be believed that, out of a random confluence,
such as this, there has come a Personal Conception
which is not merely morally beautiful, in the highest
degree, but which, beyond all comparison, is symme
trical, and is exempt from discordant adjuncts. Are the
chances as a million to one, or in what other proportion
are they, that a conglomerate, mingling the true and the
false (for you must except against all the miracles as
false) should present an instance of congruity to which
no equal can be found ?
All the world, that is to say — readers of the Gospels,
ten thousand to one, are conscious of this congruity, and
they discern this moral beauty. You say you see little
or nothing of the sort ; on the contrary, in the course of
a strict criticism of these writings you have detected —
how many is it ? — ninety-nine, or a hundred and one,
discrepancies (these Gospel contradictions constituting,
just now, the stock entire of Disbelief) ; or you admit a
something of harmony in the merely historic ' Jesus of
Nazareth ;' but you spurn the miraculous portion of the
narrative. Yet you cannot effect this separation; for
the harmony is not divisible. The supernatural cleaves
to the individual; and the two elements constitute
together the one person.
Among these miracles there are no portents — .such as
are related by classic writers; nor are there any ex
hibitions of things monstrous ; — there are no contrarieties

OF BELIEF. 223
to the order of nature ; there is nothing prodigious, there
is nothing grotesque. Nor among them are there any of
that kind that might be called theatric. There are no
displays of supernatural power, made in the presence of
thousands of the people, summoned to witness them.
Although claiming to be sent of God into the world,
with a sovereign authority, Christ did not, as Elijah
had done, convene the people, and then challenge his
enemies to dispute with him his mission by help of
counter-attestations. Taken singly, and when regarded in relation to the
circumstance out of which each of them arose, the
evangelic miracles were as spontaneous, and, in this
sense, they were as natural, as would be the acts of any
one of ourselves who, while walking up and down in
this world of suffering, should suddenly become conscious
of a power to give effect to the promptings and yearn
ings of pity. When I tread the floor of an hospital —
what is it that I would do if I could ? It is precisely
that which the Saviour of men did at the impulse of the
very same sympathies, as often as the ' sick, and the
maimed, and the blind' were brought in crowds, and
laid at His feet — ' He healed them all.'
_What we have before us in the Gospels is not the
Thaumaturge, going about to astound the multitude;
but it is the Man, whose human affections are here in
alliance with Omnipotence. That hand uplifted, while
the lips utter an axiom of virtue, symbolizes at once
perfect intelligence, absolute goodness, and irresistible
power. If I can imagine myself to stand in that pre
sence, at such a time, I should have felt that the fixed-

224 THE RESTORATION
ness of the course of nature is only an arbitrary and
temporary constitution; and that it must be less con
stant than are those energies of love which are eternal.
In the presence of Him whose volitions flow out into
act, without an interval, the difference between the
natural and the supernatural — if it has not already
vanished, seems to tremble upon the balance; for
nothing can be more natural than that omnipotent
compassion should have its way. What is this material
universe, in its vastness, and its variety, what but the
product, every moment, of the perpetual will of the
Creator ? If we believed ourselves to stand near to Him
in whom the perfections of the Infinite Being dwelt
bodily, a sovereign volition of one kind would not be
accounted more difficult, or strange, than volitions of
another kind.
Considerations of this sort are thrown out as they
suggest themselves, and they may be admitted or re
jected. What I insist upon may be condensed in these
four allegations. —
i. — A distinct Individuality, in the historic sense
of the word, presents itself, in the perusal of
the Four Gospels : all the world feels this, and
has felt it in every age.
ii.— By the consent of mankind, or the involuntary
suffrage of Christianized, nations, ancient and
modern, a perfect individual idea, combining
the intellectual and moral qualities of One
who is wise, and good, and who is possessed
of superhuman power and authority, is em
bodied in the Four Gospels.

OF BELIEF. 225
iii. — This harmony, or, as we call it, this beauty of
character, in which there is no distortion, and
with which nothing is mingled that is inco
herent, is spread over the entire surface of
the evangelic narratives, embracing the super
natural incidents of the life of Christ, not
less than the natural. In these narratives no
seams, or joints, can be discerned, showing
where the spurious portion has been spliced
on to the genuine ; but —
iv. — If we reject Christianity, as true in its own
sense, that is to say, as attested by miracles,
then we must solve the problem before us by
means of one of two suppositions, or of some
other, not essentially differing from the one
or the other, each of which, as it comes in
turn to be considered, is found to be inad
missible, and insufferable. These suppositions
are either — That no historic reality whatever
has formed the substratum of the Gospel his
tory: in this case a perfect individuality has
sprung out of a congeries of illusions ; or — The
merely natural portions of the evangelic his
tory being true, the supernatural portions have
been imagined, contrived, and fitted to their
places, with so profound a skill- as to defy all
power of criticism to trace the joinings.
Let Christianity solve its own problem in its own
way, and then we stand clear of endless perplexities —
having before us, in perfect symmetry — the Christ of
God — the Saviour of the world. Q

226 THE RESTORATION
Let Christianity solve its own problem, in its own
way, and then, not only does this perfect congruity
ensue, connecting the Personal Character of Christ
with his miraculous acts; but a congruity connecting
also these miracles with the Great Scheme of which
they are the adjuncts.
¦ At intervals of frequent recurrence during the last
two hundred years, Christian writers have carried on
an argument, the conditions of which have compelled
them to regard the miracles recorded in the Gospels
under the one aspect of their present availableness, for
the polemical purpose of establishing the truth of Chris
tianity, as a revelation from Heaven. Thus to appeal
to these supernatural attestations is, no doubt, a legiti
mate mode of defence against infidelity ; and yet it is
not while we are placing ourselves in this accidental
position, or when we are driven in upon it by sophistry,
that we shall ourselves be conscious of the real meaning
of those same events as related to the Scheme of Reli
gion which they serve to attest. This scheme, so far
as it is unfolded in the Scriptures, or so far as it may be
thence gathered, inferentially, grasps the destinies of
the human family from the first; and it so stretches
itself out in prospect as to leave nothing connected
with those destinies which it does not embrace and
provide for.
Christianity must be looked at in its own light. So
looked at, it is seen to fill all time, and to lay its hand
upon the human species, comprehensively, and abso
lutely. No child of man is born beyond its domain;

OF BELIEF. 227
none shall ever effect his escape into regions where its
authority is not recognised.
If the Gospel be thus thought of in the way in which
itself claims to be considered, it will follow that the
ministry of Christ, as narrated by the Evangelists, must
be quite misunderstood so long as it is regarded as a
course of events bounded by the initial and the closing
year of his life among men. Whether we number
ourselves with believers, or with unbelievers, we shall
continue to misinterpret the facts, or .to be perplexed by
them, while we keep the eye upon that narrow field
of five-and-thirty years.
You will tell me I am about to assume the truth of
Christianity in order that I may show it to be true.
I admit that it is so, in great measure; and in the
nature of things it must be so. So long as your mood
of mind is this — that you will grant nothing which it
is possible for you to deny, you will catch only a glimpse
of things disadvantageously presented to the eye. But
if you allow me to exhibit the same objects in their
trae position, and in their natural , proportions, you will
yourself see them to be real. After this you will not
ask me to follow you from point to point in so rigid a
manner. If I undertook to teach you the modern astronomy,
and you would at once grant that my interpretation of
the visible heavens is the true one, I should be able to
convince you that it is so in much less time, and by a
far less painful process, than as if you make it a point of
honour to dispute every inch of ground.

228 THE RESTORATION
Up to this time I am not aware that I have assumed
anything — or anything material — which a well-informed
and ingenuous opponent can show to be disputable. But
it is not while following evidences, step by step, that the
harmony of truth can be exhibited. In what may follow
I propose to choose my ground with more freedom —
to assume the truth of that which I know to be true,
and to employ myself in the more hopeful labour of
setting forth those great consistencies among the prin
ciples and the facts of Christianity in regarding which
its truth commands an assent which we yield cordially.

OF BELIEF. 229

In several places, in these pages, and as occasion
arose, I have remanded the question of the Inspiration
of the Scriptures, as not involved in the course of argu
ment which I am now pursuing. It is manifest that
these two subjects — The historic reality of Chris
tianity — -claiming to be — Religion given by God to
man, and the Inspiration of the canonical books, are
subjects separable in a logical sense. And not only are
they separable, so as that they may be considered and
discussed irrespectively the one of the other, but they
are, in my opinion, best kept apart — especially so when
we have to do with those who profess Disbelief; for
recent disbelief , rests itself almost entirely upon alle
gations that take their force from a mistaken appre
hension of what we mean by Inspiration.
But if these two questions are separable, and if they
should be kept separate, then it is manifest that the
one with which I have concerned myself in these pages
must have the precedence of the one which I remand.
It must be a very illogical course to infer the historic
truth of the Gospel from the alleged inspiration of the
books which bring it to our knowledge. To say — and

230 THE RESTORATION
to say it to an opponent — Christianity is true because
the Gospels and Epistles are inspired books, is indeed to
make a very unscrupulous use of the petitio principii.
This logical sequence of the one subject as related to
the other is quite obvious ; and scarcely less so is the
necessity, at this present time, of establishing our posi
tion immovably, as Christians, upon the ground of a
belief that is purely historic. That this may be done
I have a perfect confidence. When it has been done,
such inferences will be seen inevitably to follow as
must leave nothing worth the contending for on the
side of Disbelief.
If Christianity be true — historically — its miracles
included — and if indeed ' Christ rose from the dead
according to the Scriptures,' then the writings which
bring facts such as these to our knowledge will take
a place of authority in our mind and conscience which,
practically, and as to their influence in determining
our faith and our conduct, must be very nearly the same
whatever may be the theory or the opinion we adopt
(among the many that have been advanced) concerning
Inspiration. That these theories or these opinions, on a subject so
arduous, and so important, are all nearly on a level as to
their intrinsic merits, I am far from professing to think;
but I think that among those who have already yielded
to the force of the evidence which proves Christianity
to be true, the grounds of difference will be continually
becoming more narrow, until a substantial agreement
shall have taken place, and thus . controversy on the
subject will die away.

OF BELIEF. 231
If now I may suppose myself to have to do with an
ingenuous opponent, I would ask such a one to forego
the transient advantage which he may seize while he
fights the doctrine of Inspiration. Let him deny himself
any such momentary triumph, and manfully encounter
the historic argument^the alleged inspiration of the
books not considered, I might well ask such an opponent
to yield this point, simply because it is reasonable so to
do; but further, I will ask it because he who makes the
request — which is in itself reasonable — does so in a
mood which entitles him to be listened to.
While earnestly wishing that the reader of these pages
may forget the Writer, and think only of the argument, I
have persuaded myself that two inferences concerning
him would, in a manner, whisper themselves in the ear
of an intelligent reader. The first of these inferences
is this — That the writer is no timid waverer between
belief and disbelief — looking about for expedients
whereby to effect a compromise of the controversy now
on foot. The second inference is this — That, how deri
sive soever may be his own convictions as a Christian,
he harbours no ill feeling toward those to whom he
opposes himself; and that, as well on the ground of
temperament, as of principle, he is as exempt as most
men from religious arrogance, and as little addicted to
dogmatism. Although it is certain that I could not regard with
cordial feelings those who are employing conspicuous
talents in the work of loosening the hold which salutary
truths have upon the minds of men; nevertheless "the
risings of resentment will have been checked if one has

232 THE RESTORATION
learned to think of such persons as the agents in a
movement which is written in the book of fate, and
the beneficial issue of which if not immediate, is sure
to come.
The recent* outburst of antagonism toward Chris
tianity may be contemplated by Christian men from
opposite points of view ; as for example ; I might, with
reason, as many Christian men do, look at this ' Infi
delity' and this ' Impiety' with feelings of indignation,
as a wanton outrage upon society; and so I might be
wrought up to a pitch of zeal, impelling me to make
proclamation, ' Who is on the Lord's side ? — who ?' and
then to vent my feelings in terms that disguise curses.
There might even be reason in such a mood of mind ;
albeit it does not suit my individual temperament.
But these same facts may be looked at as they are
seen from another position. It is implied in the very
theorem of Christianity, if it be a body of truth, sent
down to work its way in a world out of order, and if it
is to offer no solution of the dark problems of such a
world, that, from time to time, it; should evolve con
trary schemes of belief, which draw their life and mean
ing, and their intensity, from out of itself. Heaven's
own truth will not fail, at epochs, to bring the insoluble
problems of this present world to press with intolerable
weight upon the minds of men — and it is often the
choicest minds that come under the pressure. Those
principles of mundane regeneration which Christianity
has put in movement, and which it keeps in movement
* Written in 1852.

OF BELIEF. 233
by new impulses from age to age, often take effect upon
single minds, and upon communities, in a convulsive
manner, and with almost a mortal violence. The Gos
pel scheme might be shown to carry, in its depths, the
yeast of these periodic fermentations. Allow me here a
jumble of figures. — If this system were not immortal, it
must long ago have been devoured by its own progeny.
A false system either could not concoct such perilous
energies ; or even if it could, would not have survived
the first outburst of them.
Christianity, until it shall have reached its next stage
— that of acknowledged supremacy in relation to human
affairs — cannot be imagined to live in the world on any
possible condition than that of passing through recurrent
seasons of conflict with adverse principles, which,
though the germs of them are universally diffused, are
not quickened except when they come into collision
with eternal truth. It is thus that the disbelief of
these last times, so far as it is a scheme of doctrine,
may be shown to be a birth of Christian doctrine. The
Atheism of the present time partly, and the Theism
entirely, is a heresy which is full of Christian sap. By
calling it Christian, I mean that it has no meaning at
all except that which it has wrung from the elements
of Christian belief, brought into collision one with
another. Atheism, in these days, is not, as of old, a
metaphysic abstraction, or an icy, dry paradox; but it
is a living creature, speaking with a loud voice, and
showing a ruddy cheek, because it has drawn life-blood
from that which can spare much, and yet live. If the
Gospel — the destruction of which is eagerly desired by

234 THE RESTORATION
some among us, were actually to breathe its last, not
one of those schemes of doctrine which are now offered
to us in its stead would thenceforward draw another
breath. Universal nonbelief, which is the death of the
human soul toward God and immortality, must instantly
ensue. But there is little fear of the coming on of any such
hour of darkness. So long as Impiety has Christian
blood in its veins, it will henceforward, as now, start
up to say its say, and to trouble our love of ease. It
will do so because Christianity itself, which is now the
only source of moral life in the world, and is immortal,
will continue, not only, as heretofore, to ' satisfy her
poor with bread,' but to scatter broken meat to her
enemies. We shall continue, therefore, both to believe,
and to contend with Disbelief; but we shall not fall
into Nonbelief.
This course of things is not merely inevitable, but
it is highly useful; it is indispensable if not to the
conservation of the Gospel, yet to the restoration of its
forces from time to time. As to the good Christian
people of this time, or of any other, we could not be
willing to leave Christianity in their hands, undisturbed
and irresponsible — far from it. The work that is needed
to be done, from time to time, is of a sort which
perfunctory good intentions will never attempt, and
which conventional wisdom knows not how to set
about. Let me here speak with reverence : — God will
perform this work, and will call to it those who, as to
their calling, will perhaps work at it in the dark.
In proportion as there comes upon us a deeper sense

OF BELIEF. 235
of the awful reality of the Christian scheme, and of its
bearing upon the welfare of the human family, now and
hereafter, shall we feel distrustful of the easy, over
weening, and egotistic Christianism of the mass of
Christian people. At the impulse of this uneasiness,
one may be fain to cry out — looking across the road to
the ranks of ' Infidels and Atheists' — ' Friends ! come
over and help us ; — set the house on fire, and then we
shall shake off our illusions, and do our duty.'
At any time an outburst of Infidelity compels intel
ligent Christian men to look anew to the ground on
which they stand, and to sift the ' Evidences,' and thus
to regain logical possession of their religious persuasion.
This is well; and so is an after consequence of such
a fermentation — namely, the throwing off from the
Christian body sundry superstitions and superannuations,
which the ' Enemy5 in the heat of action has snatched
hold of, and which no one thenceforward will attempt
to restore to their places : these relics are left to strew
the field of battle.
But there is a result which is far more important than
either of these, consequent upon a time of out-spoken
impiety, and of which impiety Christianity, being, as
it is, the only truth now extant among men, is neces
sarily the object. This momentous interaction, partly
logical, partly moral and spiritual, is of this kind : —
In the course of the recent argumentation a marked
approximation has been made, on both sides, toward
that point whereat the two beliefs — the Christian and
the Antichristian — must come to an issue. We are
drawing on toward that ground — a very limited space,

236 THE RESTORATION
which all see to be the area whereupon one question
only shall remain to be determined, in this way, or
in that. The religious controversy of the passing time
is bearing us forward toward a single issue. The alter
native now in front of us is this- — -Christianity or
Atheism. All lines of thought are tending toward this
point : all well-informed men, whose habits of thought
are unshackled, have long ago come to see this ; or they
are struggling to hold themselves off from it.
What we mean here by Christianity is — the Gospel,
in its plenitude and its amplitude, interpreting itself
in its own way, and speaking among men in a tone of
authority from which there is no appeal.
What we mean by Atheism I do not well know how
otherwise to define than by saying that it is the pro
position which stands last in logical order among those
which the human reason can put into words, at all intel
ligibly, concerning the universe, or that compass of
phenomena, external and internal, with which we have
to do.
One feels that this alternative, and nothing short of
it, is near in front of us, because, on the one side, those
many ill-judged schemes for effecting a compromise
with infidelity, which of late have been propounded by
estimable Christian men, carry upon them the indica
tions of their origin in a faultering belief — in mistaken
discretion, and in confusedness of mind. We may be
sure that no such devices as these can have power to
check that mighty movement to which we are all of us
committed, or that it can save us from the issue. On
the other side — the side of Disbelief — the endeavours

OF BELIEF. 237
that are making by Theists to float a raft a-head of
Niagara, would be purely absurd, if the consequences
were not fatal.
We have reached this, our present position, after
leaving far in the rear the ribaldry of the Voltaire
epoch. We have also now lately left behind us the
elaborate whim of Strauss. Strauss, by acknowledgment,
has failed in his endeavour to solve the historic problem
of the origin of Christianity, on the assumption that
it is false. The same thing, stated in other words, is
this — That the historic argument, on the affirmative
side, is found to be irresistible. This is the consequence
which, by his failure, this able writer has helped us to
come to.
If there be any means of holding off from the
alternative above stated, it must be sought for among
those schemes of antichristian Theism which recom
mend themselves by an exterior of refined spiritualism,
but which, fair as they may seem on the sentimental
side, will not bear to be looked into on the logical side.
Such schemes will not avail for the purpose intended by
their framers, because, as may easily be shown, recent
advancements in modes of thinking have made it im
possible to fence them off from the border doctrine —
Pantheism; nor are much pains needed to prove that
the boundary between pantheism and atheism is like the
margin of twilight between day and night in the tropics
— it is an ambiguity that is passed in ten minutes. It is
not that Natural Theology does not now, as ever, rest
upon its own firm foundations ; or that, in ascertaining
these foundations, we are driven to the shift of reasoning

238 THE RESTORATION
in a circle, alternately assuming our premises in Natural
Theology, for establishing Christianity, and anon using
Christianity in making good our Natural Theology : no
such expedients as these are called for.
But the case, as touching us at the present moment,
is this. — During a lapse of years which need not be
precisely dated, as well the abstract as the concrete
theistic argument has insensibly moved itself forward
in advance of the position which awhile ago it occupied.
The line of argument which was accepted as sufficient
and conclusive in Paley's time, and which embraced so
many accumulated evidences of power, intelligence, and
benevolent intention, drawn from the material universe,
and from organisms — vegetable and animal, around us,
is indeed as valid now as heretofore, and it is unassail
able. Yet it fails to meet the intellectual requirements
of these times; for this argument does not furnish us
with an entire Theology, and it scarcely opens at all the
path towards a Theodicy; much les.s does it lay the
foundation for a Worship, or give fixed support to an
Ethical Doctrine. And it fails to reveal a Future Life. ¦
On all sides, therefore, we now feel and know — and
it is strange that our predecessors were so little con
scious of the fact — that, for achieving these last-named
purposes (and unless they are achieved the argument
is frustrate) we must go much deeper, and must look
wider and further : our evidences, to be conclusive
against the recent Atheism, must embrace the world
of Mind, as well as the world of Matter; and we must
bring our argument to bear upon those realities of the
moral world of which the reasoners of past times seem

OF BELIEF. 239
to have had but a glimmering consciousness. Our
Natural Theology must take its hold upon our con
victions, and come home to the instincts of the real
life, that is to say — the life of the soul.
Now when we have done this — driven as we are to
do it by the current of thought at this time — and when
in the process of doing it we have recognised as true,
and have reinstated as authentic, the circle of our emo
tional and moral instincts, sympathies, and aspirations —
when we have assigned a place to our irradicable hopes,
and also to our irradicable misgivings and alarms, and
have thus constructed for ourselves a Natural Theology
worth the labouring for; — when, in a word, we have
taken up anew a Theology, a Theopathy, a Theodicy,
a Morality — when we find our feet resting upon a basis
of hope, as men immortal, and also that we are standing
within range of terrors, as men guilty; when we find
that there has reared itself around us an edifice within
which men may be invited to pay homage to the Crea
tor, Ruler, and Father, we then feel that any longer to
repel Atheism, and at the same time to discard Chris
tianity, is impossible. We have brought ourselves so
near touching upon the awful alternative above men
tioned, that to hold off from it, demands an effort like
that of one who is clinging by the hands to the pedi
ment of a lofty building.
Up to a certain point Natural Theology runs parallel
with Christianity. Removing the forms of the argu
ment, and thinking of its substance, or substituting
concrete for abstract terms, it is not easy to distinguish
the one body of belief from the other. But when we

240 THE RESTORATION
have trod the Theistic ground thus far, Christianity
is ready to collapse upon us, and to challenge us to
surrender. And this challenge gets a deeper meaning
at each step of our progress.
The Deists of the time gone by seem to have been
little conscious of speculative difficulties which we of
this time are groaning under. It is amazing to see
in how dry, cold, and mechanic a style the writers of
the past era — Christian as well as antichristian, deal
with those painful subjects which touch the modern
mind to the quick, and which well-nigh drive sensitive
spirits to despair. ' A trim, academic, syllogistic, and
rotund paragraph, indicating no genuine sympathy with
human suffering, no anguish of soul, no conflict, not
even a man-like feeling toward our fellow men, did
well enough for the finish-off of an ^argument attempted
for 'justifying the ways of God toward man.' The
'tenth head of discourse' in a sermon would afford
space wherein to propound and to dissipate all reason
able doubts on questions of that order !
But the times have changed. A new and better
feeling has come, not upon the few only, but upon very
many, if not the mass of minds. It is a better feeling
(whatever it may lead to) in so far as feeling is better
than apathy ; and as there might be a question whether
it would not be better for a man to give himself up to
despair, than that he should live on in indifference to
facts which would make him wish himself out of the
world, if he were but conscious of them.
At this moment we may be quite sure that no scheme
of religious belief will be able to hold its footing abroad

OF BELIEF. 241
in the world, or beyond the walls of cloisters, which
does not, in some intelligible and coherent manner,
make provision for securing our peace of mind in regard
to the present lot, and to the prospects of the human
family. It is on this arduous ground that the fate of the
recent Theisms, one and all of them, is sealed. They
will have their day, and then become as the chaff
of the threshing-floor. Atheism offers its services by
showing us how we may cease to feel, or to trouble
ourselves concerning anything that does not touch our
individual animal welfare at the passing moment. But
it is few that can take to themselves this sort of com
fort — brutish as it is.
Our Theistic friends cannot do it ; and, while turning
their backs upon the Gospel, they are struggling at des
perate odds to keep at bay the last enemy in the direc
tion toward which they are looking. They are asking —
' Why may not we, as did our illustrious predecessors,
stand our ground, and enjoy our philosophic religion,
while we spurn your obsolete Christianity ?' We answer
— You cannot do it, because we and you, and all of us,
have moved on to new ground. You see that the Theo
logians of this time do not utter, nor can they bring
their lips to frame, those heartless inferences concerning
the lot of man in this world and the next, which passed
glibly over the tongues of their predecessors. This fact
might give you a significant notice that the time is
gone when the icy philosophy of a profligate age could
be re-edited. The same impossibility which presses
upon Christian theologians at this time, must take
R

242 THE RESTORATION
effect in another manner upon yourselves, and must
forbid your wrapping yourselves in the fool's coat that
fitted the broad shoulders of your grandsires.
The Theists of this time might perhaps hold their
ground if their near neighbours, the Atheists, who laugh
at them, would let them alone ; but they will not let
them alone. They have found in their abyss a sort of
comfort and a present ease, which the Theist will never
enjoy while he struggles to keep his head above water,
and while he continues to look up to the sky.
Abstract questions are necessarily the same in sub
stance in every age ; and any attempted solution of the
difficulties that attach to such questions can vary but
little, except as to the order of the thoughts, and the
tone and the style of the language employed by indi
vidual writers. Inasmuch therefore as those perplexi
ties with which the best minds, in all times, have
struggled — to little or no purpose, must continue to
press upon every scheme of Philosophic Theism, those
who, at this moment, are propounding such schemes
ought not to imagine that they shall be more successful
than their predecessors. But unless they are so — unless,
in a very signal manner, they are more successful, then
it is certain that the human mind is moving toward a
ground where these ancient difficulties will gain a ten
fold force. This should be well understood. I advert
to it here for the purpose of showing with what feeling
I regard those who, as antichristian men, I must speak
of as adversaries, but who are not yet Atheists.
In regard to the time that may be near at hand, and
as a preparation for that one last convulsion which the

OF BELIEF. 243
human mind must pass through, in making its choice
between Christianity and Atheism, it is not merely
desirable, but it is indispensable to the good issue of
the conflict, that Antichristian Theism should first have
exhausted all its resources — should have shot its best
arrow, should have refined itself to the utmost, should
have culminated in its" own heavens — and, especially,
that it should have given utterance, in opposition to
Christianity, to the most extreme doctrine which may
any way be made to consist with its holding a position
at all against Atheism,
It may be thought that this preliminary work has
already been accomplished; but I can imagine some
thing better to come than what has hitherto been put
forth by our hostile friends — the anti-christian anti-
atheists. As yet, what we have had before us has borne
the manifest indication of being the product either of
minds unstable, impulsive, and perturbed, and ill con
tent with their own holdings (which they cannot hold
to) or of such as are flippant, self-seeking, ambitious,
and coldly vain — minds that to win a clap, would not
scruple to sink a world. I can hardly imagine that
Antichristian Theism has completed its destined work
while it is represented by writers who show no such
seriousness or honesty of purpose as would lead them
fairly to meet the problem as to the origin of Christi
anity, and to scorn sophisms which can serve a turn
only among the least informed and the most unthinking
readers. Especially we want to see what can be done in making
good a scheme of anti-christian anti-atheism, by men
Ra

244 THE RESTORATION
who have that modesty and self-respect which inspires
respect for an opponent. On this ground the entire
class of modern infidel writers is very much at fault.
Christianity, keeping its hold, as it does, of the con
victions of men who are as highly cultured as any others,
and who are as robust in mind as any, and as fearlessly
honest as any, it is an ill symptom when writers on that
side constantly affect ignorance of any such fact, and
are showing off their condescension toward the obtuse
superstitions that are prevalent in these ' dark ages.'
I am apt to think that this pitiful affectation must
nearly have worn itself out by this time, and that men
who will be ashamed of it are yet to come forward on
the same side — if indeed anything further remains to be
advanced on that side.
Meantime I harbour no animosity toward the writers,
such as they are, with whom a Christian writer has to
do. I, for myself, am heartily glad that I am not doing
their work — although, alas! it must be done by some
body. Toward some who manifestly have known, as I
have known, the pains of saddened meditation, my feel
ings are those of profound sympathy. As to the flippant
and the ambitious, it is easy to forget them. As to one
or two who, in a fit of moral hallucination, have uttered
revolting blasphemies, I leave them in the hands of Him
whom they revile, and who once carried charitable hope
to its utmost boundary when He said, ' They know not
what they do.'

OF BELIEF. 245

BY MIRACLES. ITS FIRST INTENTION.
If it be sincere men that are to be addressed, then
it may be demanded Of them that the Gospel should be
listened to on the supposition that it is true : and then,
let it be proved to be false, if that can be done. In
appending this last condition, I must not. be so mis-*
understood as if I could imagine this to be possible.
It is not possible so long as we respect the laws of
evidence, and the principles of human nature. But
the Christian argument must be allowed to follow the
course which is pursued in the exposition and demon
stration of every other system of proof in which pre^
mises are assumed, conclusions arrived at, difficulties
cleared up, and counter-suppositions shown to be un
tenable. Whoever charges himself with the task of conveying
to the minds of others a system — of whatever kind —
must be understood to have reached his ground in some
such manner as this : that is to say — he professes to
understand the subject of which he is to treat ; and those
to whom he speaks must believe that he does understand

246 THE RESTORATION
it, and that he is familiar with all parts of it, including
its most difficult problems. His hearers must listen to
him on the belief that what he affirms to be true, he
knows to be demonstrable ; and they must believe too
that he is prepared, at the last, to meet and remove all
reasonable objections.
There is nothing in the circle of philosophy, or of cri
ticism, or of history, or of physical science, that can be
duly set forth and established, unless, virtually, as much
as this is postulated on the one side, and is cheerfully
allowed on the other. Dropping therefore a petitionary
tone, and abstaining from those circumlocutions which
spring from the consciousness of having to encounter a
perpetual gainsaying and contradiction, I am to speak in
the confidence that my position is good ; and that it is
impregnable. So much as this being granted, then we are to con
sider what it is we are to look for in the documents
of the Christian Religion.
Now from the discourses of Christ, and from the
veiled meaning of several of his parables, we gather this
inference — that his mission, as toward the human family,
had, in his own view of it, Three Purposes, which are,
to a great extent, irrespective of each other ; and which,
although they are not in fact disjoined, are yet suscep
tible of independent interpretation. The supernatural
element of the Christian system — namely, that body of
miracles which is recorded by the four Evangelists — has
a meaning which is peculiar in relation to each of these
three purposes, considered independently of the others ;
and in relation to each, and to the entire scheme of

OF BELIEF. 247
which His ministry on earth was the visible act, the
miracles wrought by him in the course of it are not the.
substance of that scheme ; but, although inseparable from
it, they are adjunctive, and incidental to it. The super
natural element, although adjunctive, holds its position,
unchanged by the lapse of ages. If we have come to
think of the miracles of the evangelic history — granting
the entire truth of the record — as events which have
long ago come to their end, and which are now receding
from our view, and fading away in the haze of a remote
antiquity — if we thus think, we misapprehend the pur
port of the Gospel, and lose sight of its perpetual vitality.
This I shall endeavour to show.
The three purposes embraced in the Mission of Christ
— sent of God to bring about the well-being of the human
family, or to open a door of hope to all its tribes — are
these three.—
First we gather from Christ's incidental expressions,
and from the purport of some of his parables, this — That
he knew himself to have appeared in the world to effect,
by means of principles which he originated, or which he
authenticated, a Secular Reformation ; that is to say,
a purification, a rectification, and an ennobling of man's
life, individually and socially, as related to this present
course of things — even that life individual of which
death is the termination, and that life social which
matures itself in races — expires with them, and renews
itself in other and remote regions.
Christ, the Reformer and Philanthropist, was to
achieve this purpose just so far as in its nature it could
be brought about, by means that are purely suasive ; or,

248 THE RESTORATION
as we say, by moral influences, apart from the auxiliary
concomitance of visible and political institutions, or
of secular power, or the setting up of a material empire.
As to the second of the purposes above named, a far
more explicit reference is made to it by himself than to
either the first or the third. In truth it so stands out
in his discourses, and it so presents itself in his apo
logues, as might lead us to suppose that it was the ruling
purpose of his life, and the reason of his sufferings and
death, and that which, when he had made it sure by his
resurrection, became the complement of joy in the fore
thought of which he had endured the cross and despised
its ignominy. This — the second and the prominent
purpose of Christ's mission, was — the rescue of a gather
ing — call it, if you will, an election— from out of the
million millions of the human family, and the conferring
upon these- — whom he calls 'hjs own' — the life divine,
the life immortal — even a new and imperishable exist
ence, of which his own human immortality was to be at
once the type and the pledge.
On this ground I am not writing as a theologian, or
as a disputant on one side of an antiquated controversy.
I know nothing about systems of divinity, nothing
about confessions of faith, nothing about articles of
religion. What I have to do with, and the only things that
come within my field of vision, are these : — on the one
hand, Christ's own professions — distinct and unambi
guous as they are ; and on the other hand, that matter
of fact which has conspicuously attached to, and has
characterized, the course of events in all ages and

OF BELIEF.

249

countries when and where the Gospel has, in any
measure, developed its energies.
The accomplishment of this second purpose, as well
as of the first, was to involve such means only as are
purely suasive — moral and spiritual, that is to say as •
distinguished from such as are visible, political, and
mundane. But then, more than this, it implies the
presence of a spiritual energy, going beyond the suasive
force of moral principles, or of audible teaching, and
which takes effect in each instance in a manner that is
inscrutable, that is infallible, and that is analogous to
those acts of the Creative will which at the first filled
the universe with life, and which is now and always
doing the same.
As to the third of those purposes which we assume
to have been included in the mission of Christ, in
asmuch as it is more occult than the first, and far more
so than the second, and as it touches only in an indirect
manner the circle of human duties and sentiments, so
is it very sparingly alluded to in his discourses, and if
anywhere it is affirmed as a doctrine, the conveyance is
made in symbolic terms.
Brevity and allusiveness, in this instance, is what
we should look for, as proper in one who is in trath
what he professes himself to be. The Enthusiast or the
pretender would either have made no such challenge ;
or if he had made it, he would have blazoned it in
hyperbolic style.
Gathering up from Christ's incidental utterances,
and from his apologues,- the less obvious import of
certain passages, we infer that he professes himself to

250 THE RESTORATION
have entered upon the stage of the world, on the part
of its Rightful Lord, the Almighty, to deliver the human
family from under the hand of a Usurper — to restore
truth and order — to overthrow a tyranny, and to bind
. and expel the Tyrant ; and having done so — to ' lead
captivity captive.'
The accomplishment of this third purpose of the
advent supposes on the part of the Deliverer an absolute
lordship over all human spirits (willing and unwilling)
a control of all destinies — present and future — to wit —
the weal and the woe of the Living and of the Dead —
for Christ is the Sovereign and the Judge : He is King of
Hades, and He is Master also of every spiritual race, as
well the loyal as the rebellious.
The accomplishment of this ulterior purpose of
Christ's mission, and the achievement of this conquest,
is to be brought about in such a manner — so we infer —
and by such means only, as shall at once demonstrate, and
shall signalize, in the view of all, the intrinsic force
of Goodness, Truth, Rectitude, when, on even ground,
these immortal energies are matched against wicked
ness, with its falsities, its subterfuges, its blundering
intelligence — its sophisms— and its own malignant de
vices. This supremacy of Good in its conflict with
Evil is to be exhibited under conditions that shall be
as favourable as may be to the party that is in the end
to be discomfited.
In thus sketching the outline of the argument just
now in hand, I profess it to be my intention to show
that the series of miracles recorded by the Evangelists,

OF BELIEF. 251
consummated as they were by the miracle of Christ's
resurrection, occupy a place of perpetual efficacy in rela
tion, separately, to each of the three abovenamed purposes
of his ministry, first as Saviour of the world, in a secular
sense; secondly as the Redeemer of his people, and
then as Conqueror in the world of spirits.
This series of supernatural events is, as I think,
misunderstood as to its purport, when it is imagined
to have been an interposition, requisite indeed for
launching a New Religion in the world,' and for giving
it an initial impulse ; but which, now that the Gospel
has got a firm footing among the nations, has outlived
its purpose, and may, not only safely but conveniently,
and with advantage, be suffered to fall out of notice
and to be forgotten. Any such supposition as this — en
tertained as it seems to be by some who profess them
selves to be Christians — ds, in my opinion, an error
which is the fruit of modes of thinking that are shallow
and nugatory; and which gives rise to various misap
prehensions, fertile in false doctrine.
We have said that Christ has entered upon the
platform of the human system — even of this secular
course of things — embracing the well-being of men
singly, and the welfare and progress of communities,
with the benign purpose of effecting thereupon a gra
dual, but extensive and deep-working regeneration. As
'Benefactor of those whose term of existence is three
score years and ten, and as the Reformer of nations
which, although they have longevity, have no after life,
He has gained a hearing for principles the vitality of
which is such that they germinate even in the most

252 THE RESTORATION
rugged soils, and spring up and bear frait and scatter
their seeds under even the most inclement sides.
These renovating principles, contrary as they are to
the baser impulses and to the ingrain desires of human
nature, have often been contradicted with the intention
of expelling, and of utterly putting them out of the way
of interference with the better-loved interests of the
day and hour. Yet they live as we see, and from time
to time they come forth with as fresh an energy as at
the first: nay,' with more energy than at the first;
because, in each successive impact upon the human
system, they fall upon a mass which these same prin
ciples have brought into a condition favourable to the
impression that is next to be made upon it.
It would seem to be a matter of course, at this point,
to specify those ethical principles, or, as we might call
them, those edicts of the Christian system which are
properly its characteristics, and which, so far as they
take effect upon the course of affairs in the world do so,
by universal acknowledgment, in the right direction;
that is to say, in imparting force to every dictate of
justice, humanity, self-denial, temperance, and purity.
But it is superfluous to introduce any such specifications,
for we are saved this labour by those who, wishing to
disparage Christianity, are wont to say tliat, as to the
ethical principles he taught, Jesus of Nazareth has
advanced nothing but what had been already said, and
said . in a better manner, by the great writers of anti
quity; or even by Jewish teachers, and by Chinese
philosophers. If indeed this be so, then, on all hands,
it is agreed that the morality of the Gospel is coin-

OF BELIEF. 253
cident with principles that are held and professed by
the leading minds of the most cultured races. This is
enough ; or if anything more were affirmed it would be
in such terms as these — it would be said — ' We do not
need Christianity as a system of morals; for we all
know and feel whatever is good — whatever is simply
of an ethical quality, in the Gospels and the Epistles.'
This then is enough ; and hence it appears that Christ,
as the Reformer of the human system in its secular
aspect, takes up and authenticates those well-understood
principles which, as soon as they are heard, approve
themselves to the consciences of men, and which the
sages of all times have recognised and taught. This is
as it should be, and on this ground, it appears, there can
be no controversy.
That the teaching of an ethical Reformer should be '
consentaneous with the better feelings and convictions
of men, as embodied in the sayings and teachings of
minds of the highest order, is what we may well look
for as the first requirement in one who comes forward
to regenerate a world that has fallen into disorder.
A second requirement in the qualifications of such a
Reformer is this — that, in giving expression to these
dictates of universal morality, he shall use categorical
forms, and not such as are conditional or inferential.
His style will be this — 'I say unto you' — and 'This is
my commandment.' But then the necessary adjunct of
an authoritative tone is— the affording proper evidence
that it is rightfully assumed.
It has been usual, on the part of Christian advocates,
to say, that Christ sets a bold foot upon the ground of

254 THE RESTORATION
the world, as if proprietor of the soil ; and that he issues
laws — as a Master, not maxims — as a sage. In no case
does he ask leave to be listened to, or aim to conciliate
attention. Love is indeed in his demeanour, and in
every act of his life ; but stern law is on his lips, and it
is at our peril that we turn away the ear from him who
speaks as none but the ' one Lawgiver' may speak.
Christ, as the founder of a system of mundane Ethics,
revises and overrules all bygone moralities, issuing anew
whatever is of unchangeable obligation, and consigning
to non-observance or oblivion whatever had a temporary
force only, or a local reason. With a touch — with a
word — a word full of far-reaching inferences, he rules
the ages to come ; and he so sends morality forward — he
so launches it into the boundless futurity of the human
system on earth, as that it shall need no redressing, no
complementing, no retrenchment, even in the most
distant eras.
This is done — not by systematic codification, but by
the characteristic practice of instancing at the critical
points, wherever an ambiguity is to be excluded.
Beauty of contour, in the human form, is secured by
the ligaments at the joints, and by adhesions of the
integuments to the bony structure at places. It is so
that, in Christ's apothegms, and in his apologues, and in
his pointed replies to sophistical questions, he imparts
a divine symmetry to his body of laws. — Christ's law
wears the grace of Heaven, albeit it is firmly knit toge
ther, as law must be, if it is to hold a place in a world
such as this.
Is then Christ's morality a good morality as related

OF BELIEF. 255
to the well-being of men in this present life ? You
find fault with it — raising objections on this or on that
ground. But your adverse judgment can have little sig
nificance, nor can it carry much weight in this instance ;
for an appeal may be made from your captious criticism
to the catholic judgment of mankind. It is true that we
all of us are apt to kick at Christ's law, and to resent it,
in our worse moods of mind ; but then we all. give in to
it and approve it, in our better moods. At moments we
defend ourselves against its application to ourselves; and
we look about for pleas and grounds of exception when
it stands upon the pathway of our selfish or sensual de
sires ; yet we are prompt to wish that we could arm this
same law with thunder when another's selfishness, or his
lawless passions threaten our life, or peace, or property.
In the course of those upheavings which the western
nations have passed through, in the lapse of centuries,
Christ's morality has still floated uppermost, and has
held its position in the opinion of nations, as being
better than any other morality with which it might be
compared. In the social condition of communities those
things which now rend the heart of the philanthropist,
and which perplex the statesman, are those in which
Christ's law is set at naught, and in which, if it were
applied to them, sufferings would be mitigated — oppres
sions would wear themselves out, or be renounced im
mediately ; and so the problem which baffles legislation
would resolve itself as if by spontaneous sublimation.
Christ's law, when it takes effect as the principle of
social well-being, underlays legislation by the substitution
of deeper motives for motives that are shallow ; and it

2S6 THE RESTORATION
overlays legislation by establishing conventional pro
prieties of behaviour, and by diffusing a refinement and
a sensitiveness, as to conduct, which have the effect of
banishing enactments and penalties from the thoughts
of men, in the ordinary routine of domestic and public
life. Only let Christ's law come into position, first as
a fixed principle, and then as a suffused influence, and
thenceforward legislation would retire within its limits,
just as a needful authority in defining those reciproca-
tive interests and functions which are indifferent, as to
morality. We are so used to think of Christianity as a Religion
— related to the invisible and future life — which doubt
less is its essential character, that it demands an effort
of abstraction to think of it merely as a mundane, or
secular religion, sustaining itself indeed upon beliefs
concerning the invisible and the future, yet achieving
an end which does not in fact stretch out beyond the
present life.
If Christianity be not from Heaven, in the sense in
which it claims to have come thence, then its author,
individually, is entitled to the immeasurable glory of
having devised and put upon a course of continuous
vitality a mundane religion which, as to its power, and
as to the intimate hold it takes upon the deepest prin
ciples of human nature, is, when set beside the ancient
theisms, what the summer's sun is, as compared with an
arctic aurora.
Let us then take it so just now, that Christianity is
the product of a human mind — a benevolent mind —
intending to benefit mankind, and devising the means

OF BELIEF. 257
of driving off the vicious polytheism of the nations,
and also aiming to substitute an efficient belief for
the inefficient abstractions alike of Eastern and of
Grecian sages.
This intention supposed — -then the author of Chris
tianity did these things following: — First, he brought
the Infinite and Supreme Being — the Creator and Ruler
of the world, clearly and prominently from out of the
haze and the ambiguities of metaphysical speculation.
Theism had long laboured to do this — it had yearned
to do it — it had laboured and yearned on this ground to
give some contentment to the sorrowful longings of the
human spirit, and to find a balm for its woes ; and also
to screen the terrified imagination of guilty man from
horrors. Very slender success had attended any of these
earnest endeavours. The crowd of men was in fact sent
back from the Walks of philosophy, and they were told
to procure for themselves what help they might, at the
hands of priests, and in the frequenting of altars and
the besieging of shrines.
Christ — we are now thinking of Him only as the author
of a secular religion — effected His purpose by bringing
men into contact with a well-defined conception of a
Personal Being — infinite, incomprehensible, and yet
hear to each human spirit — to each spirit a Father,
' seeing in secret,' and accessible by prayer. It was
this vivid revelation — call it now a merely human con
ception — which, by its splendour put out the flickering
candle of philosophy, and which, by its force overthrew
altars, and sent gods and goddesses to seek a home
thenceforward in the waste places of the earth ; or they
s

20 THE RESTORATION
were left to shrink back into their own marbles: — they
vanished from the real world, and were to be found only
in books that are now the portion of schoolboys.
If Christianity be a religion for this present life, then
if takes possession of the human spirit precisely at those
points whereat a religion first makes its entrance, and
which also are the last holding-places of religious feeling
with men who are endeavouring to throw off their
belief. — These are — the consciousness of guilt — the con
sciousness of weakness, and the experience of suffering,
impelling us, whether we will or not, to believe in the
speciality of the Providential government of the world,
and to trust in, and to use, the instrument of prayer, as
a real means of obtaining deliverance — relief — solace.
It is quite true that there is a class of sophisticated and
debauched minds that do succeed in reasoning them
selves out of .these beliefs: — there are men who, with
a suicidal wantonness, having applied logical scissors to
the nerves of the moral life, do declare, and may, with
truth, say it, that they are conscious of no feeling which
might lead them to look for help in God.
So it may be with a few ; but so it is not, nor ever
can be, with human nature, taken at large. Men and
women in their seasons of hope and fear, of changeful
weal and woe; — man, while he carries in his heart a
conscience, and while he is liable to a thousand ills,
must somewhere find a religion.
Christ, the benefactor of the world, in giving men
a religion, does not recognize, as if they deserved refu
tation, any of those sophisms that contradict our belief
in Providence, and that would silence prayer, as if it

OF BELIEF. 259
could be of no avail : on the contrary, He gives pro
minence, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, to
three principles, which in truth might be regarded as
the characteristics of His system, namely, first — That
there is forgiveness of sins with God; secondly — That
the welfare of the individual man is watched over
and provided for by God our heavenly Father, even in
relation to the smallest incidents; and, thirdly — That
' the Father of spirits' hears prayer, and yields Himself to
it, and that He is accessible to importunity. These are
the constituents of a Belief such as men have need of in
this present life.
When, as now, we are thinking of Christianity only
as a secular religion, then, without instituting inquiry
as to the truth of the doctrine it teaches concerning
a future life (which inquiry can be pertinent only when
we regard it as heaven-descended) we are bound to take
account of what are the main elements of the scheme,
namely — the promise and the threat of a world to come
— even a retributive immortality.
The way in which. this promise and this threat are
propounded, and then the mode of balancing, both the
promise and the threat, with our instinctive sense of
justice, demands to be noticed ; for this adjustment has a
deep meaning, and it has been too little regarded.
The future retribution — even the alternative of abso
lute weal, or woe, and each of these carrying with it
the momentum of a boundless duration — how have these
fearful conceptions been employed by the Author of the
Christian system? — He has brought an awful Eternity
to bear upon a mundane religious institute ! and may we

260 THE. RESTORATION
not use this word, awful, as applicable not merely to
the threat, but even to the promise ? In truth, can we
look onwards to an endless existence as our destiny,
under any condition, and not tremble ? — how shall this
instinctive fear be relieved from feelings of dismay ?
The word — Eternity must here be accepted in the
fulness of its popular sense; for assuredly any terms
that are used in conveying to mankind at large a secular
religion, must be understood to bear none other than
a popular or ordinary interpretation. Whatever those
exceptions may be to which the more mature critiiscm
of some future time may give support, or whatever the
qualifications which a better biblical induction may intro
duce, there will ever stand before Christianized nations,
in the teaching of Christ, an absolute alternative, which
He affirms to await those of the human family that have
come within its influence ; that is to say — a state of
permanent well-being, or a condition of irretrievable
suffering and damage in the future life ; and this as the
consequence of our behaviour in this life, or of our moral
and spiritual condition when we leave it.
Those who have had much practical concernment
with human nature, such as it is, and who understand
the instability of the moral principle in the minds of
men and women — such as they are, will be ready to
grant that no affirmation of the future life which should
be ambiguous, or which should fall short of being abso
lute, on this side, or pn that, would be likely to take
any effect at all upon the mass of minds. The supposi
tion of a future state which should have no boundary
between a condition absolutely good, and the contrary,

OF BELIEF. 261
would be snatched at as eligible on all those perilous
occasions when the impulses of the sensuous and selfish
life are balancing against the vague and remote good of
the life future. To give force to motives acting under
this disadvantage, they must carry with them this idea
of fixedness, as belonging to the future retributive state*
But now among those moral intuitions which are the
hopeful distinction of human nature, there is a profound
sense of truth, and fitness, and order, and justice, which
looks for a doctrine of quite another sort, as requisite
for establishing the equilibrium of the mind — and espe
cially of minds the most sensitive towards whatever is
good. Provision is accordingly made in the Christian
scheme for satisfying this moral necessity.
This is done distinctly, and very boldly, in the teach
ing of Christ, on those occasions when He gives ex
pression to the doctrine of an exactly adjusted, and an
evenly meted out retribution — both of premium and
penalty — such as shall in nothing fall short of a balance-
keeping recompense of good deeds, on the one hand,
and of punishment on the other. He declares that there
shall be such a retribution as shall approve itself to every
well-constituted mind; — only that, on this side, con
siderations of ignorance or of disadvantage shall be
admitted to mitigate, of to overrule, the reckoning.
This doctrine stands before us in the Gospels quite
as sharply defined as does the other doctrine of grace ;
and it is this last-named principle that satisfies those
instinctive notions of even-handed justice — of strict
impartiality — of fitness — order — truth, which (except
where sophistry has paralysed the moral nature), take

262 THE RESTORATION
effect in every human breast, and form a groundwork
upon which conscience lodges itself, and on which it
rests its leverage.
But now do we not discern an incongruity in these
two beliefs ? Does not the one doctrine cut across the
path of the other, and seem to contradict, or to dislodge
it ? Theologians of all schools have believed that they
saw this contrariety ; and to meet the difficulty thence
arising, they have rejected, or evaded, or ignored the
One or the other of these prime elements of the Chris
tian ethics. Here has been the reef upon the sharp
ridges of which logical Theologies have stuck fast among
the breakers. Systems — :such as might show a rotund
outline and might be moulded into symmetry by scien
tific manipulation — must, of course, profess to be able to
steer clear of these rocks, on either hand. Meantime
humble-minded, intelligent, and non-logical readers of
Christ's discourses and parables, instead of finding them
selves troubled by the presence of any such incongruity
— instead of thinking His teaching incoherent, find in
it the rest of their spirits — find there the principle of
a genuine harmony, or moral rest. On the one hand,
the prospect of an irreversible alternative of happiness
or woe takes effect, with unabated force, upon the re
ligious instincts — giving intensity to the religious life.
On the other hand, the counter doctrine, which is not
less distinctly brought into view, meets the require
ments of a conscience that is sensitive, well informed,
and exercised among and upon the duties and trials
of real life.
But why does not Christ, the Teacher, Himself fill

OF BELIEF. 263
up the chasm in His religious system ? why does He
not show us how two announcements, so dissimilar
in their apparent meaning, may be reconciled ? Did
He not foresee the offence which the logical reason
would here stumble at ? As a human teacher, or sage,
He would no doubt have foreseen this difficulty, and in
some way He would have secured His religion against
objection at this point. But He does not do this — not
even by a word.
If we should be willing to think of Christ as more
than a sage, then we may ourselves readily supply an
explanation of the omission, in this manner. — We may
suppose, either that the mode in which the two prin
ciples shall take effect in the future life may be such as
could not be intelligibly presented to the human mind
in its present stage; — or that, even if this might be
done, such a revelation would include more than could
now be set before us for our good. So long, therefore,
as Christ, the Teacher of morals, is listened to by man
kind, the two doctrines, each carrying the force that
belongs to it — apart from the other, will continue to
bear upon religious minds, and will preserve in them,
such a state of moral acquiescence.
We have spoken of Christ's doctrine of a future life,
and especially of its threatening aspect, on the supposi-v
tion that this religion has sprung from a human mind,
and has been contrived for effecting purposes relating
to this present life only. Thus regarded, the terms in
which this doctrine is conveyed must be accepted in
their obvious and popular sense. But when they are
taken in this sense, they carry a meaning from the

264 THE RESTORATION
pressure of which we are driven to seek relief — if
relief may so be had, in criticism; — or if not so, in
some mitigating hypothesis; or if this will not help
us, then we are tempted to reject Christianity on this
very score. There is, however, another source of help
under the intensity of this weight, which, as it is easy
to foresee, may unfold itself in the course of an im
proved method of biblical interpretation ; and it is of
this sort. —
—Biblical criticism has already reached a stage far in
advance of the position which it occupied only a few
years ago; and perhaps more ought not now to be
exacted of it than it has actually accomplished. Yet
there is a movement which is not merely desirable,
nor merely possible, but very likely to come about.
This is a thorough emancipation of biblical interpre
tation from the trammels that have been imposed upon
it by polemical theologies. When this liberation shall
have been effected, the utterances of Scripture will take
a new hold of the human mind. — accepted as true in
their simplest meaning; and then it may be that a
counterpoising of moral and spiritual principles will
develope itself in a manner that shall give rest to the
heart, even although no systematic coherence can be
secured for scientific theology.
Let us apply this supposition to the case before us.
Why has not Christ's explicit teaching concerning an
impartial and rigorous future retribution, touching all
men, hitherto taken the place which of right belongs to
it in our theologies ? Why ? It is because we could not
allow it to come into any such position without risk to

OF BELIEF. 265
the counter doctrine of an absolute alternative of good
or evil; or without giving an advantage they would
snatch at, to our antagonists, on the right hand, and on
the left.
But let the time come when all such unworthy influ
ences shall be discarded as they deserve, and when all
such jealousies shall be dispelled by a salutary fear lest,
personally, we be found flattering ourselves among
delusions; and then, this potent Christian element —
working its way into the core of our now relaxed
Christianism — probing and wounding our conceit of
individual impunity — breaking in upon the dreams of
self-love, and discharging its anodynes; and then a
health-giving apprehension, of which our own indivi
dual moral condition — and not the fate of other men,
will be the object, will dissipate the morbid moodiness
which had so often sent us on a bootless search after
some hitherto unthought-of and softened etymology of
the aldvws of our Greek Testament.
Besides, this same faithful mode of dealing with our
selves — an alarmed conscience holding a candle as often
as we read our Bibles — will bring before us the truth
that, in its application to the millions around us— even
to the unprivileged and the untaught millions of our
brethren — a fearless interpretation of Christ's doctrine
concerning the impartial future retribution, avails im
mensely more in the clearing up of the difficulties that
have saddened our meditative hours, than does, or than
can, any imaginable novelty of interpretation, even the
most lax that should be put upon obnoxious phrases in
the Gospels.

266 THE RESTORATION
It has been usual to think of Christ's announcements
of future punishment in relation to their direct bearing
upon morals ; and the question asked has been how far
this threat may have operated as a restraint upon the
passions of men. On this ground appeals have been
made to facts, in support of opposite conclusions. With
this much-worn question I have nothing now to do, nor
am inclined to advance an uncalled-for opinion upon it.
But there is a permanent and a very extensive product
of those awful declarations, which, though it be not
obvious, and though it is seldom adverted to, is of un
questionable reality, and it may be traced in its opera
tion upon every page of religious history. As often as
we are comparing the ancient with the modern mind,
and when we notice the characteristics of the two very
dissimilar moods of the same human nature, this in
fluence is recognizable.
The ancient civilization, as I have already said,
(p. 6y, and 77) with all its great and shining qualities —
qualities which have secured for it so much glory. —
wanted that which places our modern civilization upon
a far more solid basis, and which gives it perpetuity.
In the social system of cultured antiquity there was
wanting an element of some kind — nor did it appear
whence it could be drawn — which should confer upon
the individual man, and upon woman also, a ground of
self-esteem that should be exempt from arrogance: —
there was needed too, in every man, a reason for re
specting and promoting the welfare of other men which
should stand firm irrespectively of any estimate of their
individual merits: there was wanting some principle,

OF BELIEF. 267
or impulse of personal courage, and fortitude, which
should be available for the feeble as well as for the
strong, and which should arm the individual man, with
out making him pugnacious, and make him unconquer
able without making him sullen : — there was wanting in
the ancient mind, a motive so solid as that the loftiest
virtues might rear themselves upon it as a basis, and yet
show no contempt of others : there was wanting a ground
of humility exempt from abjectness, and of grandeur of
soul exempt from pride.
Christ, the Saviour of men as to this present life, has
supplied this want in the most effective manner; — for
He has planted in the hearts of those who trust Him
a hope and a fear which surmounts, and which out-
measures every other hope, and which expels every
other fear; — a fear too which gives an irresistible
prompting to courage, and which sustains even the
pusillanimous in a course of behaviour which the
noblest spirits, without it, can barely emulate.
That dozen of men — ignobly born as most of them
were, which followed Jesus in his circuits through
Galilee and Judaea, had dreamed of palaces and prince
doms — soon to be their own, when in truth, they were
about to be sent forth upon a course of suffering
intensely severe. It was therefore needful to arm them
against this unlooked-for conflict, and such a prepara
tion, as it included powerful motives of the happiest
complexion, so did it embrace a dread so deep that it
should be proof under the extremest wrench of bodily.
anguish. On the one hand, this Teacher had said — ' Fear
not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to

268 THE RESTORATION
give you the kingdom :' — but on the other hand he had
said — even to these his ' friends' — ' Fear not them which
can kill the body, and after that have nothing more that
they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall
fear ; — fear him which hath power, after he hath killed,
to cast into Gehenna; yea, I say unto you, fear him.'
And what was this Gehenna ? — it was the place where,
according to the same Teacher, ' their fire is not
quenched, and where their worm dieth not.'
Now we of this age may expound as we think fit
these appalling words ; or we may extenuate these
phrases ; — or, if we so please, let us cast away the whole
doctrine as intolerable and incredible. — Let us do so;
yet it is a matter of history — out of question, that the
apostolic Church, and the Church too, of later times,
took it, word for word, in the whole of its apparent
value. It is true that several attempts were made to
substantiate a mitigated sense ; but it is certain that
the language of Christ, in regard to the future life,
was constantly on the lips of martyrs, throughout the
suffering centuries. Often and often was it heard issuing
from out of the midst of the fire, and it was lisped by
the quivering lips of women and children while writhing
on the rack.
These, then, were the actual fruits of Christ's doctrine
of the ' wrath to come,' and it was by such means as
these that the world was at length cleansed of the pest
of licentious gods and goddesses. But there were other
and later fruits of the same belief which have been not
of less moment, albeit less direct, and less conspicuous.
An unclouded belief concerning the future life, with

OF BELIEF. 269
its awful alternative of endless good or ill — a belief of
inheriting a bright immortality by favour, not by merit
— -a belief of individual relationship to the Infinite and
Eternal Being — a commingled or aggregate persuasion
of this sort solves the problem that has been stated
above; for it supplies to the individual man — and
woman too — and child — it supplies a ground of self-
esteem that is exempt from arrogance; — it furnishes a
constant reason for respecting the welfare of others,
standing good irrespectively of their individual merit;
it conveys to the heart an impulse of personal courage,
and of fortitude, available by the feeble as well as by
the strong : it arms the individual man without making
him pugnacious; — it renders him proof against despot
ism, but it does not make him sullen. This aggregate
belief—the fruit of Christ's teaching — yields to the
mind and to the heart, a basis upon which the loftiest
virtues may rear themselves, without showing contempt
toward others ; and it supplies a ground of humility free
from abjectness, and of greatness exempt from pride.
The ancient civilization, compared with the modern,
that is to say, the civilization of the people of Western
Europe, offers to the eye the prominent difference that
results from the position of woman —her personal purity
and dignity, and her consequent .influence in society,
generally, and in the domestic circle, specially. Now
it ought not to be affirmed — for such an allegation
could not be put beyond question by an appeal to facts
— that this vast difference, with its incalculable conse
quences — favourable as they are to the stability of

270 THE RESTORATION
modern nations — is vjholly attributable to Christianity,
either in the way of explicit injunction, or of moral
influence. The social position of woman — her personal
qualities and virtues— her place and her power, as wife
and as mother, are the characteristics of certain races ;
and being so, they mark those races as destined for
progress, and as susceptible of refinement; while on
the contrary, the families or nations that want the same
inborn distinction, are doomed to be stationary through
thousands of years ; or they are now melting away from
the countries they once filled.
But in relation to the place which woman occupies,
and to her qualification for filling it, these two affirma
tions are safe from contradiction, namely, first this, that,
as often as Christianity is offered to the acceptance of
nations which do not possess this mark of nobility, and
as there can be no compromise on this ground, such
races must either acquire — along with the new religion,
this redeeming instinct; or if not, then Christianity
retires from their borders ; and when it does so, it
consigns them to hopeless barbarism, or to gradual dis
appearance from among nations.
But secondly, this may be affirmed — that in any
community (assumed to be noble in this special sense)
in which the Gospel takes a firm hold of many minds,
and in which it is publicly recognized as a final autho
rity, it makes provision for securing the rights, the
influence, and the personal dignity of woman — not
indeed by legislating upon polygamy, adultery, concu
binage ; but in a far more effective manner — in truth

OF BELIEF. 271
in the only mode that could be effective— namely, by
imposing the restraints of personal virtue, purity, and
continence upon man. Where men are virtuous, women
will be pure ; and where women are pure, they will hold
the place that is due to them without the help of laws.
Now we need look no further than this in search of
what should be regarded as the primary conditions of
national well-being, and if we accept the two above
specified conditions as sufficient, we might, in the
manner following, put our theorem into form. — Given,
a community within which many may always be found
whose individuality is marked by profound religious
convictions, and by corresponding moral sentiments,
which they will adhere to, and will openly profess,
even at the peril of life itself: thus, then, we have a
guarantee for the maintenance of religious liberty within
that community, and, through that, of civil and political
liberty ; and by means of these together, there will take
place the highest developments of human nature, indi
vidually and socially. — Given also, a community within
which certain evangelic dicta — such, for instance, as that
comprehensive rule issued by Christ (Matthew v. 38),
or that one by his minister, (Hebrews xiii. 4) are held
to carry with them the awful sanction of Divine Law ;
and then, as the sure consequence, we have a social
system which is sound at the core; and is not false
and putrescent : we have a system within which the
brightest and the best felicity which earth can yield to
man shall be enjoyed in thousands of homes : — we have a
social system within which, from thousands of sources —

272 THE RESTORATION
obscure and, illustrious, from cottages and from mansions,
from attics and lodgings, from shop-parlours, and from
halls of splendour, there shall spring forth, and shall
spread themselves abroad perpetually, as well the stern
virtues, as the soft, warm, and heavenlike affections;
even the smiling bright-eyed graces of innocent youth,
and the tearful and yearning sympathies of matron life ;
in a word, all the bosom-heaving joys, and all those
soul-healing griefs which render earth such, that men,
while in the fruition of so much pure good, feel and
know that there must be a Heaven to come, where
earth's blossoms shall ripen into undecaying fruits.
But now as to all this Christ-given earthly good, on
what terms is it to be had, or in compliance with what
conditions is it to be made sure to any people ?
Nothing more simple or certain than the reply —
the one condition is this, that Christ, the ' author and
finisher' of a Faith carrying with it these principles of
Earthly Well-being, shall be thought of and listened to
as God's authenticated minister, so as that we are sure
that not one of His words shall fall to the ground, or fail
to take effect upon ourselves, here, or hereafter.
In other words, there must be available, in a form
adapted to the reasonable requirements of an instructed
people — evidence sufficient, on the ground of which
the convictions of such a community may securely rest.
Belief is the one condition which we need : grant it ;
and the consequences above named follow.
If Christ be trusted in — if Christ be feared as He
who shall come to be our judge, and if He be loved

OF BELIEF. 273
as our Deliverer, He becomes at once 'the Saviour
of all men,' and He is then the Giver — in this present
life — of Liberty, Love, Virtue, and whatever of peace
and felicity this life may be made to embrace in its
course of seventy years.

274 THE RESTORATION

THE GOSPEL MIRACLES ARE THE FORCE OF THE
CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
I come round to my main purpose, which is to show
the bearing of the supernatural element of the Christian
system upon its perpetual influence in the world, as the
Source, and the impulsive cause of secular good and of
earthly felicity to the human family ; or of solace and
mitigation, as the case may be. Remove the miracles
of Christ from the Gospels, or, in other words, reduce
the evangelic histories, by aid of some unintelligible
hypothesis, to the level of a jumble of myths, credulity,
and extravagance, and then Christianity, as to any
effective value in relation to any humanizing and be
nevolent influence, will go to its place — a place a few
degrees perhaps above the level of some passages in
Epictetus and M. Aurelius.
Whatever may be the estimated value of the best
pages of classical antiquity — considered as a moral force
now in operation for the good of mankind — then the
residual value of the Gospels and Epistles — after the
miracles have been driven off from them in the furnace
of historic criticism, will be — may you not grant it ?
about twice as much! Let us ask, what, in relation

OF BELIEF. 275
to the support of vegetable and animal life, would be
the value of a daylight that should be twice as good as
moonlight ?
The Gospel is a force in the world available for the
good of mankind, not because it is Wisdom, but because
it is — a Power. Whence then comes its power? Or
whence will it come after you have persuaded the world
that, henceforward, in the great book of history, it must
be catalogued along with frauds ?
It is a customary truism to say that a power of enjoy
ment and a power of suffering — necessarily correlatives —
are directly as the quantity of the intellectual and moral
faculty, and in proportion to the development of both.
There may always be room therefore for the question
how far, in a world such as this, abounding as it does
in sources of suffering, an increase of intellectual and
moral faculty, and the development of them, are truly
to be desired. This question we leave where it stands ;
but this is certain, that, in the structure of human nature
a provision is made for the proportionate enlargement
of those sympathies which bind us together, in weal or
woe, and which widen so much the interval between
the cultured man and the savage. Are we not all capa
ble both of enjoying and of suffering a thousand times
more than is the troglodite? — yes, but then we may
each of us reckon upon receiving all sorts of aids and
solaces — substantial help and tearful love, in our hour
of suffering; while he-^the savage — is left at the last,
to be eaten alive by wild dogs or vultures.
Nevertheless, while it is true that the natural im
pulses of sympathy .do, in a general way, keep pace with
t a

276 THE RESTORATION
the expansion of the intellectual and moral faculties, it
is also true that the actual force available at any time, for
the relief of want, and for the assuagement of pain and
woe, needs a momentum to be supplied to it from some
energy that is foreign to itself. It is the presence of this
supplementary force, drawn from a definite religious
belief, which makes the difference between the power
less philanthropy of the best times of ancient refinement,
and the laborious benevolence of modern Christianized
communities. Yet the momentum supplied by the
Gospel is a force which disappears — which is gone for
ever, when Belief in its authority, as attested by miracles,
is destroyed. This assertion might seem to need no proving, but
it may admit of something to be said in the way of
illustration. It is affirmed, on your side, that no such event as a
miracle has ever occurred in the world's history; or
even that, if it had occurred, it could not have been
so reported to us as should reasonably command our
assent. Furthermore, let it be granted that the mass
of mankind have in all ages admitted such reports
greedily, and have done so in the exercise of little dis
crimination. No allegations of this sort affect my pre
sent argument. The evangelic miracles have, in fact,
been accepted as true, from age to age, and they are so
accepted at this present time ; and the evidence in sup
port of them is of such force that it does command the
assent of educated men, who at the same time reject the
entire mass of that spurious stuff which crams Church
histories. This being the fact, the supernatural element

OF BELIEF. 277
of Christianity is an extant efficient cause, working itself
out now in the movements of every Christianized com
munity. Christian benevolence — expressing itself in
a thousand forms of appliance, as related to the ten
thousand phases of human suffering and degradation,
is not a vapid sentiment with a tear on its cheek;
nor is it an ambulatory wisdom, nor is it a schirrous
humanity- — grown upon political economy; but it is a
calculable resource, occupying a principal place in the
estimate of a people's means of regeneration and pro
gress. Belief in the supernatural lifts this estimate :
disbelief sinks it below zero. Belief is the spring or
reason of practical benevolence in a country : Disbelief
is the azote of the moral world.
Whether it be done cordially, or done grudgingly, men
do yield themselves — they yield their personal services,
or their purses, or both, to the assessments of authoritative
Christian benevolence. To some extent the purest and
most heavenlike impulses, and to a great extent, con
ventional practices, feed Christian charity, public and
private, and keep it agoing; but both alike take their
rise from a belief which is held to carry with it tlie
weight of Divine law — law that shall take effect upon
us in a future life.
How is it as to a Church-going community, in a
country like England ? Among these Church-going
folks there are — first, the large class of the inert, the
thousands — young and old, who yield themselves to the
forces that are brought to bear upon them. Then there
are the repugnant, who are held within the Christian-
charity pale by nothing better than inferior or sinister

278 THE RESTORATION
motives. These reluctant persons take a share in what
is good, at the impulse of motives that are ready to snap
at any instant. Then there are the few, the loving, the
heart-whole, the believing; — those whose presence is
the life-blood of the body social and moral.
Now with these three classes in view, filling churches
once a-week in pews — let me suppose that we had the
power to try the two experiments following : —
First, let it be imagined that, from some unsuspected
source, there has come up evidence, palpably contra
dictory of the Gospel history, as to its supernatural
element. A flaw in the evidence has been brought for
ward — a flaw of such a kind as could leave no place for
explanation. This discovery so acts upon the Church-
going class as that the religious persuasion of the body
entirely collapses. Belief is gone ; that is to say, all
feeling toward Christianity as a revelation from God —
miraculously attested, and which hitherto has claimed our
reverential regard, has ceased. We still have in our
hands the same Text, with all its excellent maxims, and
its elevating sentiments, and its eloquent passages. But
the faded parchment no longer entitles us to an estate —
the document no longer alarms us with the threat of
pains in a future life.
The Church bell goes the Sunday morning next after
this fatal discovery has been noised abroad, and, scarcely
knowing why, the congregation obeys the call. But at
a year's end shall we find these same pews filled with
families — taking a part in worship, and listening to a
preacher ? I think not. In one such Church there will
be enacted some sensuous theatric superstition; — in an-

OF BELIEF. 279
other a lecturer will be taking his turn ; and there will
be a platform, and a chairman, and a debate; and the
question will be — I will not put it in words, for I fancy
of what quality that question will be. You will tell me
that the pulpits from which fanatics have been driven
will henceforward be occupied by philosophers — that is
to say, by men who will set about mending the world,
and keeping it in repair by application of pure Theisms :
and so may a man employ himself in carving a block of
granite with a penknife ; or in moulding a mass of clay
with a straw!
We have lost our standing of unmeasured hope and
fear, grounded upon an attested message from God ; and
now what has become of the inert multitude ? Will they
be listeners to your theistic gospel ? or will they com
prehend the nihilism of Hegel ? This mass will have
subsided into its own slough of pleasure-loving sen-
suousness and sensuality.
But the repugnant, where are they ? So long as reli
gious opinion hemmed them in, they were restrained
or abashed to a great extent. But now they are told
that all shall be well with them in the end — that the
alarms of conscience are nervous misgivings, which
should be treated with sulphate of quinine and the
shower-bath. They are assured that philosophers, al
though they are not agreed upon the question whether
' absorption' or « annihilation' is to be the next stage of
the 4 1' or the ' me,' yet are unanimous in the opinion
that the one or the other of these desirable issues awaits
us: certainly not the fabled immortality of the Christian
superstition !

280 THE RESTORATION
I ask you — and I ask you to give me an outspoken
answer to this question — whether,, in the actual state
of abstract Philosophy, as it is now taught among those
who reject Christianity, any announcement that should
be morally better than this can be made when you con
voke the Church-going inert multitude to listen to their
last sermon, and to receive the philosophic benediction ?
But what has become of the cordial Few— ^whither
has fled the life-blood of the social body ? They have
sickened and fainted on the spot where those sounds of
dismay first fell upon their hearing. Their hearts broke
at the blow. They can no more lift a hand in works of
charity ; they can no more set a foot forward upon the
flinty path of self-denying love. The wretched and the
hungry and the sick call for them; but they are as the
dead that hear not. ,
I will now imagine a contrary course of /things ; — not
a sudden enhancement of religious feeling, arising we
know not whence, or why, and after a while subsiding ;
but what might fitly be called — a Restoration of Belief;
that is to say, a confirmed rational confidence in the
Divine authority of Christianity as attested by the
miracles that are recorded in the Gospels.
In what manner such a renovation of, the belief, of an
instructed people might be likely to come about, I need
not now stay to inquire. It is sufficient to say that,
whereas the critical and historic argument in support
of this belief stands, at this time, quite intact, having of
late years passed through the severest process of adverse
analysis, almost any incidental occurrence — almost any
casual coincidence turning up, unlooked for, which

OF BELIEF. 281
should arrest attention, and fix it upon the facts of the
evangelic history, would suffice for bringing on the sort
of revolution I am now thinking of.
What is needed just now is not the creation or. the
evolution of a new body of evidence, but only the
awakening and riveting of attention upon that which
has long been in our hands. In a dark night a party
of travellers has come — they know not where ; but they
feel that a pavement is under their feet : it is affirmed
among them, and it is denied, that they have reached
the principal square of a city: — at the instant a flash
of lightning reveals the broad fronts of palaces, with a
background of domes, spires, castles ; and thus all argu
ment is at an end. — I think that at this very moment,
when a cloud of atheistic darkness has settled itself down
upon continental Europe, the skirts of which chill these
islands, the incidental coming up of any corroborative
facts, which should engage the attention of educated
men, would be enough to dissipate this gloom, as affect
ing ourselves, and to refresh and restore our confidence
in the Trath which, as a nation, we profess.
But grant such a refreshment to be possible, and
imagine it actually to have taken place, and then — as
if awaking from a dream — as if shaking off a lethargy,
we feel that the unseen — the future, as set before us in
the Gospel, is near at hand, and that this future is what
awaits each of us at every instant. Now the entire
consequence, personal and social, of such a return to a
vivid Christian Belief goes over to the side of whatever
promotes our individual well-being, and the welfare of
the community; that is to say, Christ then becomes the

282 THE RESTORATION
Saviour of men when his claim to be such is assented to
in the world. And then when this claim is allowed, the
miraculous attestations upon which it rests come into a
causal connection with that earthly blessedness, of which
the Christian system contains the elements.
Without taxing the imagination for aid, we may
trace this connection in its operation from a remote
age to the present time. The sun was going down
behind the Galilean hills, and the waters of the lake
were darkening, when a transaction had place which,
from that moment to this, has never ceased to yield
its results in the form of calculable, funds, whence the
hungry and wretched throughout all time since have
drawn large supplies.
Jesus, seeing the multitudes, had compassion on them,
because they had continued crowding around him, day
after day, until their stores were spent. — He marshalled
them in companies — for He, as his race, was a lover of
order; He blessed the bread that then came to His
hand, and from that hand distribution was made until all
were satisfied. There are two things noticeable in this
event. First, there is the authentication which it con
tains of those better impulses of our nature which
prompt us to consider the welfare and comfort of others,
and to do whatever may be done to meet the occasion
which at any time awakens compassion. This is the
doctrine of this history. Next comes its legislative
import. To find this we turn over a page in the
Gospels, and there are forewarned that, in the course of
Christ's administration of mundane affairs this shall be
held to be a judicial test of character — ' I was an hun-

OF BELIEF. 283
gered and ye fed Me ;' or, on the contrary, c I was an
hungered and ye gave Me no meat.' But if this is to be
the rule of the future judgment, then the feeding of the
four, thousand is not merely an exemplification of bene
volence, which we may do well to imitate ;— it is much
more than this. Whence comes then the deeper meaning
of this instance ? It springs directly from the miracle. If
this history be true, then it is true that we are yet to
be dealt with according to the abovenamed rule, which
we find to be in that case made and provided.
Now through all the years of these eighteen centuries
past, this history has been accepted as true — and more
over the judicial inference has been duly appended to
the history among Christian nations, and it is so now,
and the result now, as always it has been, is seen in ten
thousand 'works of mercy' as they are called — public
and private — stated and occasional; the charities ad
ministered by 'committees' — the crust given at the
cottage gate — the alms, in ways innumerable, through
which, at the prompting of natural sympathies, strength
ened, deepened, enforced by the Christian rule, and by
men's belief in the Christian future, the unblessed —
the luckless, the unhelpful, the feeble, the decrepit, the
diseased, the maimed, the blind, the deaf, the insane,
receive such help as their several cases admit of, and
which the hand, heart, and purse of their fellows may
afford. The Evangelist tells us that, in one of the
instances now referred to, the number of the men was
about five thousand, beside women and children ; or say,
they were seven thousand altogether: now if we take
each unit of that number, and give it a place at the

284 THE' RESTORATION
head of hundreds of thousands, we shall still fall short of
the truth in computing the millions of the needy who,
in the direct line of moral causation, have, through the
course of time, eaten their bread daily from those Ga
lilean baskets. The doctrine— the precept, the example,
alone, would not have taken effect in any such manner
as this ; but it has been the doctrine — authenticated by
the miracle: it has been — not the mere teaching;— but
the authoritative teaching.
There is a feeling which is natural, and therefore not
in itself to be reprehended, impelling us to ask that
where legislation carries with it the most extreme con
sequences—touching us individually, the authentication
should not come to us remotely, or in an ambiguous
manner ; but that it should touch every man's conscious
ness, either through his senses or his understanding, in
a mode that shall be reasonably certain. Hence the
demand so often repeated — 'Show us a sign from
Heaven.' Give to us — even to the men of this gene
ration, a proof that the things written in the Book are
sure, and that we shall find it to be so hereafter.
I need not here reiterate the customary replies to
this demand, which, if they be fairly weighed, should I
think be deemed good and sufficient. But while, as
now, we are thinking of Christianity as a secular
reforming force, intended by its Author to take effect
through the lapse of ages, then, in the mode that has
been chosen for establishing the authority of the system
in the minds of men, throughout all time, there is
visibly a proof, not merely of a profound knowledge of
the structure of the human mind, but also a foreknow-

OF BELIEF. 285
ledge (how wonderful if its author were such only as
you suppose him) of those revolutions in the intellectual
as well as the moral condition of cultured nations which
the flow of centuries was destined to bring about ! To
me it seems as if the special mood or temper of this
very half century in which our lot is cast, had been in
the view of Him whose name this system carries.
It is trite to say that during ages of popular ignorance,
and of its attendant credulity, genuine miracles could
scarcely, under any conditions, have been made to stand
infallibly distinguished from the spurious; and yet,
unless they did so stand, their legislative authority would
be vitiated. If I go back to the times of the venerable
Bede, or of Gregory of Tours, my mood of mind is such
that a miracle would be congruous with it ; and I look
at it in its own light ; — it does not put me aghast. But
then if I belong to that age I might have no habits of
thought — no discriminative temper, impelling, or indeed
enabling me to deal discretively with the wonders that
are daily reported or shown off before me. The genuine
miracle, therefore, would retain little or none of its
distinctive force.
When, from that twilight age I come down to these
days, even to the times of Laplace and of Playfair, in
which Physical Science bears sway, and when a larger
Philosophy is out of favour — at such a time, the occur
rence of a miracle would be a shock or a violence,
because there is nothing of homogeneous quality in my
present intellectual condition. Whether I would have
it so or not, I am now governed, and in truth am
overawed, by the dry, rigorous, and exceptive temper of

286 THE RESTORATION
physical Science, and by the soulless and boastful mood
of mechanical achievement. Doing homage, as I cannot
help doing, to this spirit of the times, the supernatural
has moved off far beyond my utmost range of thought.
But let me not forget that this now-uppermost mood is
the mood of a period only : it is not -to be thought of as
if it were the normal condition of human nature ; far
from it! Aristotle is not a model man; it were far
better to take Plato as such. It is indeed a great thing
to resolve nebulae, and to construct steam navies, and to
convey thought over land and across oceans, and round
the equator through galvanic wires: — these things are
glories if we are comparing our own time with any
times that are past : but then they ought to be accounted
woeful disgraces if we hear them boasted of as feats that
symbolize the powers of the human mind in its highest
possible condition ! If, perchance, in the next age, Phi
losophy should dare to speak again, and should become
bold enough to teach humility to physical Science, then
man — spiritual and immortal as he is — might be trusted
to witness miracles anew; and thus might he step forward
into the place that becomes him, where he would
calmly hold correspondence — as at the first — -with a
stage of the universe higher than this, and would be
permitted to look onward toward that eternity, on the
threshold of which his foot is even now placed. And
yet perhaps it will always be true that, in proportion as
men become consistently reasonable, and acquire the
habitude of yielding themselves almost involuntarily to
¦ the conclusions of an authenticated practical lo^ic, they
will gladly accept, as best for them, the unchanging and

OF BELIEF. 287
the unchangeable certainties of historic evidence ; and
being content with these, will cease even to desire recur
rent revelations, as coming anew from the unseen world.
At this moment, a very little of the supernatural,
taking place in the room next to that in which I am
sitting, might shake my reason ; for it would not find
me in a state to yield my judgment or conscience to its
bidding. Or, if it did not make the brain curdle, it
would bring me under peril of a worse kind; for I
might be tempted so to resist this sort of appeal as to do
a damage, that must be irremediable, to the moral and
religious constitution of the mind.
Quite of another sort would be an occurrence such as
I have already supposed — namely — That, in the course
of critical and historical studies, any residue of ambi
guity still attaching to portions of the evangelic writings
should be dispelled; while new corroborations, such as
in the nature of things spring up when a genuine history
is subjected to severe scrutiny, are continually present
ing themselves : — this species of augmenting certainty,
coming in upon the reasoning faculty in a mode the
most congruous with it, in its present state, invigorates
religious belief, and yet gives rise to no excitement; —
faith is deepened, and is made to rest upon a basis,
coextensive with the intellectual and moral faculties.
If at any time amid the toils and tumultuous strivings
of the open world, or if, when too long exposed to the
factitious excitements of intellectual society, or if when,
well satisfied with earth's choicest enjoyments, I so rest
in them as to forget the life future in the flowery
enclosure of domestic sweetness — if at any such time

288 THE RESTORATION
I suddenly awake to the infinite peril of losing my
part in immortality, what I should ask of Him who
' knoweth our frame,' and its frailty, would not be a
new miracle, wrought in my sight, but an hour's reading
of the narrative of the miracles of the apostolic age,
with a fresh conviction that this record is true, and that
in those wonders the hand of Omnipotence was indeed
stretched out.

There is a feeling abroad that the world — or rather,
those members of the human family that are progressive,
have lately come into a position that is new, and full
of promise. New conditions — marvellous indeed, at
tach to the mere mechanism of common life; — but
more than this, deep sympathies, which were barely
present to the consciousness of men in the last century,
take effect upon benevolent minds in this. There is
nothing that is not astir; every social interest is in its
crisis :— the sedimentary deposits of past ages are heav
ing up, and are displaced. History has written out a
long chapter of man's past fortunes, and a new leaf is
even now rustling between her fingers. Thus far we
are agreed ; but not so as to what is to follow. Two
roads diverge at this point. You are looking along
one of these ways: my belief, as a Christian, impels
me to look along the other. What precisely your anti
cipations are I do not know, nor need inquire whether
they are bright or gloomy : perhaps they are alternately
the one and the other, for this is likely to happen when

OF BELIEF, 289
theories which we would Wish to cling to are contending
against the uniform testimony of experience.
As to my anticipations, though they are steadily
bright, they are not unmixedly so; far from it: they
much resemble one's prospects for a day's journey
when, though the barometer has been slowly rising all
night, the morning hour is much overclouded. There
are two independent grounds of divination : the first
is a secular calculation of. a course of events which
seems not improbable — all things now present being
taken into the account; but a second source of con
jecture is an outline of the world's way onward, which
has been put into my hand from above, and on which
I look with confidence : what I distrust is, not the
outline, but my own manner of filling in the spaces.
Yet I am not so absurd as to sit down, with the pages
of Isaiah, Daniel, and St. John before me, and attempt
to write the Newspapers ten years in advance! This
is a folly which has stood in the way, hitherto, of a
proper use of the prophetic writings. I am no fortune
teller for kings, nor have any wish to peruse the palms
of the ' great men and the captains ;' but, from the
general import, or, as we say, from the drift and upshot
of the prophetic writings — those of the Hebrew Scrip
tures especially- — I gather such things as these — and in
specifying them, every diligent reader of the Bible Will
at once recollect the passages to which I might refer.. —
— I look forward to a time when national distinctions
of race, language, and geographical location shall con
tinually be melting away, at least so far as they might
be obstructive of the intercourse of the human family.
u

29o THE RESTORATION
A sort of universalism — not empire — which a true
understanding of the conditions of social well-being
tends to bring about, is, I think, implied throughout
the prophetic writings. On this ground I look for a
time when Right for the many — or, better expressed,
when Right for all, shall be the sovereign principle in
every community. As to Right for the many, the phrase
has taken to itself a conventional meaning, which differs
little from a periodic overthrow of society, such as may
give the undermost class their harvest-time of plunder.
But Right for all, means social stability ; and this one
idea of stability, as opposed to anarchy and to periodic
convulsions, meets us in many places in the prophetic
pages. As the consequence of this change for the better
I look for a time when the material welfare, or the
daily comfort and enjoyment of the many — or let us
rather say of all, so that we may exclude that banditti-
meaning which radicalism clings to — when this well
doing for all — this secure holding of the most needful
things of life, shall be so much thought of as that it shall
in fact realize itself in a continually more and more
complete manner. Between the two influences of an
iron sense of right and justice on the one hand, and
of soft-hearted sympathies on the other, an intense
feeling shall pervade the social mass, under the opera
tion of which, want — still incident, as it must be, to
man — and squalor, and houseless discomfort, and, what is
worse — cellared wretchedness, and. disease — shall always
be in process of sublimation, and shall be driven off
from the social mass, by the high internal temperature
of the social body. A powerful feeling of uneasiness

OF BELIEF. 291
at the sight or thought of privation and misery shall be
always ridding the world of these ever-recurrent evils.
I look for a time — not fabulous and impossible— not
rosy and celestial — but earthlike and sunny, when every
man — quite secure from violence, and moderately at
ease, shall sit, in home style, under, or near to, as he
likes best, his vine and fig-tree, none daring, or even
wishing, to make him afraid, I do not look for a time,
on this earth, when there shall be no surgeons' work to
be done — no Hospitals, no Infirmaries, no police; but
I do believe in an age of individual and domestic bliss,
such as is pictured in some sweet odes and stirring
paragraphs of my Bible. I believe in a time— yet to
come, when He who — shame upon Manichees, upon
Ascetics, upon Fanatics of all sorts — ' manifested His
glory' fey being a willing guest at a wedding, and then
and there showing that Creation is His own — when
He shall bless the world by bringing at once His iron
sceptre of righteousness and His law of love to bear
upon the temporal good of all men. I look for a time,
when He who is ' King of Peace' and also ' King of
Righteousness,' shall rule the nations under both these
titles ; and when, as the consequence of the establish
ment of uncontradicted Truth, and of Reason, and of
Right, bowed to and enforced, there shall be abundance
of earthly felicity, to last until this planet shall have
wound up its destined story.
In the course of those events that have marked the
years of this century — that is to say, those ostensible
matters which histOry takes account of — I scarcely dis
cern the indications of the coming on of such an era
u a

292 THE RESTORATION
of mundane welfare. One may imagine, to-day, that
things are taking a turn in this better direction; but
to-morrow (as so many past to-morrows have done) will
perhaps scatter every supposition of the sort, and break
it up as a dream. But though the evolving fortunes
of nations do not foreshow the golden age at hand, yet
it is true that those who have been watching the un
recorded movements of the human mind — in Europe,
throughout these fifty years, and -who have been used
to let down a line into the under-current, and have
noted its shiftings, have come to think that those pre
parations — intellectual, moral, and political — which
would be the proper precursors of a new and better
era, have not only had a commencement, but have been
making progress at an appreciable rate. I shall risk
nothing on ground where it is so easy to fancy this
and that, just as may suit one's purpose in an argument.
There is, however, one of these preliminary movements
which strictly belongs to my present subject, and to
which (p. 342) a second time I will advert. What
I mean is the approach of the antichristian and atheistic
philosophy toward a fusion of the two.
We are just now looking at Christianity from the
same level: — you are regarding it as an invention of
man, because it is, you think, a scheme which two or
three Jews of the times of Tiberius and Nero might
easily have concocted. This is your belief, and I am
consenting so to think of it, to serve a momentary
purpose in an argument.
Now while forcing myself into this false position, and
persuading myself that the Gospel asserts nothing that

OF BELIEF. 293
shall touch us in the next stage of our existence, then
it is certain that, on grounds of secular philanthropy
merely, nothing is so much to be wished for as the
spread and restoration of this Christian Belief. It is
manifest that a nation has an infinitely better prospect
of coming into the enjoyment of peaceful good, while
holding this belief, than it can have in rejecting it, and
in.taking in its stead — what is it ? — Tell me, what is it
that must be taken in its stead !
We therefore, on the Christian side, may well rejoice
in witnessing what must issue in the final engulphing of
the several antichristian Philosophies which are at pre
sent making a noise in the world. These schemes are
forging themselves down the slimy incline that shall
shoot them, one and all, into the bottomless slough of
obsolete absurdities. You are acquainted, I may pre
sume, with the course of abstract speculation in modern
times, from Spinoza down to these days of the ' Positive
Philosophy.' Now if we lay aside every feeling of
religious anxiety — if we think of Theologie Science just
as we think of any one of the physical sciences, then it
is impossible that we should greatly differ as to what
must be the issue of the present course of reasoning on
the road of Disbelief.
We see — and you must see it as I do — intelligent and
amiable men struggling to keep their footing on some
ledge where they may stand — short of the gulph : — these
honey-lipped gentlemen would gladly keep entire for
themselves a Theism — patched with borrowings from
the Gospels. But in labouring to this end they shift
their articles of belief from year to year. At one time

294 THE RESTORATION
they think they may grant a ' Resurrection of the Dead,
and a Future Judgment ;' but anon they come to think
less favourably of these articles than once they did ; or
it has been demonstrated to them that any such persua
sion involves the ' supernatural,' and cannot be retained
unless they will choose to stand where they should be in
peril of becoming Christians. It is well that there is
always within the pale of intelligence a class of minds
that, by fault of nature, want the analytic force which
would enable them to foresee the inevitable issue of the
lines of thought they are pursuing. Without these minds
a chasm would yawn between Belief and Disbelief; but
these gentle spirits bridge it over.
You well know that the endeavour to get rid of
Christianity on the ground of historical criticism, has
utterly failed. The historical problem is acknowledged
to be unsolved on your side. You know, moreover, that,
if certain positions are abandoned, which, if they are
retained, we must in the end surrender ourselves to
Christianity ; then the alternative — as sure as any con
clusion in science, is — a choice between Material Athe
ism, in its most grossly expressed form, or Idealistic
Atheism ; and this latter, if it has any meaning at all,
may be summed up in some such manner as this; —
' Whether there be any existence other and beside the
' Ego,' I do not know ; or if there were any such other
being, I could never come to know it. But then I do
not know that I know even so much as this : — nay, to
speak the whole truth at once — I do not even know that
I do not know this, because, for ought I know, I may
know that I do not know it.'

OF BELIEF. 295
Putting out of view a proper religious regard for the
souls of men, I might exult in witnessing this rush of
our ' Leading Minds' ' down this steep place' into the
gulph. The upshot of Abstract Speculation, on the side
of those who reject the Intuitions of the human reason,
and of the moral constitution, has now fully shown itself
to be a wordy nothing, which, though it still clothes
itself in sublime verbiage among our Teutonic neigh
bours, will never, in these lands of common sense, fail,
after a little time, to be rejected with contempt as
pompous nonsense.
This upshot of Idealistic Atheism, when recognised on
all hands, will leave Christianity opposed to one adversary
only — namely, Material Atheism — and this adversary,
when left to put forth its proper nature, has never yet
failed to work its will in brutal excesses of sensuality
and cruelty.

296 THE RESTORATION

THE SECOND INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS
ATTESTED BY MIRACLES.
Christ, the Saviour of the world in a secular sense,
made no formal profession of His intention to do what
He has actually done for its benefit. He did not plainly
say that He had come to civilize rude nations — to hu
manize savages, to abrogate slavery, to abolish polygamy,
to bring into disuse judicial torture, to rid cities of the
sanguinary exhibitions of the amphitheatre, to break up
caste, and to set men forward on the course of free and
hopeful improvement, on terms of brotherhood : — Christ
said little of these purposes —great as they are ; but now
that we see what it is which His religion does for na
tions, if only it is allowed to take effect upon them in
its own manner, we turn anew to the record of His ser
mons and parables, and there, without difficulty, we find
the efficient principles of all these silent reforms, and we
may trace each of them separately up to its source, in
this or that word of power — whether it be precept or
instance. It is quite otherwise when the same Person comes to
be regarded in His character as the Saviour — not of men,
as occupants of a seventy years, but of man as immortal ;

OF BELIEF. 297
and so, as the Redeemer of those who, to the world's
end, shall become willing to accept the free gift of im
mortality at His hands. On this ground there is no
doubt or ambiguity as to the purpose to effect which
Christ came into the world : — He came to seek and to
rescue those who, in every age and country, shall ' hear
His voice' — the voice of the c Good Shepherd,' and
hearing it, shall set forward upon the path which He
trod, and which He opened for them ; and so shall enter
with Him upon the bright fields of eternal life. The
Christian scheme, looked at on this side, wears an aspect
of the most determinate simplicity. On this side no
mystery attaches to the language of the Saviour ; the
mystery is only that which shrouds the conditions of the
rescue, and still more, its limits. Saved or lost! who
shall surmise what is the meaning of either of these
words — the mere utterance of which, with thoughtful
ness, staggers reason, and which, when brought to take
a bearing upon those who are now walking side by side
upon the smooth path of domestic fondness, rends the
heart, and quite bewilders the moral instincts.
And yet, if we find ourselves entering upon a scene
where meditation fails to guide us, we soon find that
there is no way of retreat, and that our only course is
onward — following the beckoning of Him whose leading
is ever toward the light. And now, as the scene is
shifted, so does the Person stand revealed in another
manner. — Let us pause for a moment, and well consider
what it is that is before us. We must inquire concern
ing that principal truth, which forms the substance
of the Gospel. For my own part I could not attempt,

298. THE RESTORATION
nor in fact should have any motive sufficiently impulsive
for attempting, the task of setting forth the Christian
evidences on any other ground than that of an unexcep-
tive orthodoxy. The use of this term, which carries
with it an ascertained historic meaning, saves many
circumlocutions; it excludes ambiguities, and it exempts
a writer, who wishes to keep clear of what would be a
theological or exegetical argument, from the necessity
of giving expression, in his own terms, to his own indi
vidual faith. No further explanation need be asked for
by the reader from a writer who ingenuously declares
that he professes, as his Belief, the several articles of the
Nicene Creed.
Do we hesitate to surrender ourselves to a Belief,
including, as this Creed does— conceptions which the
finite reason labours in vain to apprehend ? Yet before
we draw back, we should look at the alternative: we
must either commend ourselves devoutly and joyfully to
a Bright Infinitude, or else must wander for ever among
schemes of Philosophy, or speculative theisms, to none
of which, hitherto, has this same Reason, with all its
efforts, succeeded in giving a tolerable degree of co
herence. At this point I challenge those whose pursuits may
have qualified them to accept such a challenge, to look
back upon the field of thought over which the human
mind has been travelling these eighteen centuries. —
There are two roads under the eye in such a retrospect :
that, namely, of Abstract Thought, on the one hand,
and that of Christian Belief, on the other. To the first
of these I have just now adverted, and shall not repeat

OF BELIEF. 299
what I have said, otherwise than to express, in a varied
form, a profound conviction — and it is a painful con-.
elusion to come to — that, however abundant may be
the means apparently available for constructing a The
istic Doctrine, and however irresistibly conclusive the
argument may be, in a logical sense, on this ground,
yet, if we deduct from it, as we ought, all the materials
that have been drawn, directly or indirectly, from the
Hebrew and Christian canonical books, we then find
ourselves in an undefended position as toward the
darkest of those surmises which take their rise from
that spectacle of misery and disorder which the human
family has everywhere, and has always, presented. On
this road, was not the Terminus reached long ago ? If it
were required of us ' to report progress' in the depart
ment of Abstract Philosophy, let it be said whether
those who profess to shake off every restraint of theo
logical bias and religious prejudice, have at length
reached a position which is so solidly based, or so well
defined, as that it may boast the adherence of all well-
informed persons. If there be any such Philosophy
which is now available as a resting-place for the human
mind, it must be easy to name it : no such Philosophy
can be named ; and until it shall appear, nothing stands
in front of us — on the road of Abstract Thought —
nothing but an abyss which has become more terrible in
prospect at this time than heretofore it was, because
the enhanced sensitiveness of all minds impels us to
people the dark void with ghastly forms. Psychological
Science (or those dim conjectures that are its precursors)
is robbing us of the Atheistic illusion that ' Death is an

300 THE RESTORATION
eternal sleep.' Whether or not the Christian immor
tality be in prospect, there is an after stage for man ;
and who shall say what may be its conditions? Why
may not that future be such as the analogy of things
around us would suggest ?
The intuitions of human nature impel us to seek
relief from these distracting speculations in a theology
of some sort, and which, if only because it is more
distinct, shall be less appalling than are the fathomless
surmises of a Pantheistic hypothesis.
We pass over then to the road of Christian Theology,
or that line of dogmatic belief which professedly has
been derived from the canonical books. But among
these beliefs, such as they stand before us on the pages
of Church history, which is it that we shall choose ?
I think it will be granted that the tenour of religious
history — looking now to the speculative (not the eccle
siastical) side — is of this sort : — There has been going
on, throughout these eighteen centuries, an ever-re
newed endeavour, on the part of — -often — earnest minds,
to make good a position somewhere short of that Belief
to which the Nicene Creed gives formal expression.
It could not have happened otherwise than that such
endeavours should be perseveringly made, and that the
failure of one of them should suggest and prompt to the
making of another. The restless curiosity of the human
mind, its impatience of restraint, and the diverse
structure of individual minds, necessitate these peren
nial enterprises, the purpose of all of which is to win a
resting-place for thought where the things it converses
with are measurable, apprehensible, and subject to its

OF BELIEF. 301
own control. The history of these fruitless enterprises,
if it could be candidly written — if it could be written
otherwise than as under the polemic title, ' A History
of Heresies, and of Heretics,' would supply the best
sort of corroborative evidence in support of Orthodoxy ;
inasmuch as they would all indicate their rise in the
same error of attempting to generalize where the subject
stands alone, and can have no parallel.
But now, in looking back upon this road — a battle
field as it is — let us ask which of these heresies (for
convenience I here so call them) can now be spoken of
as if it were a successful solution of the difficulties it
professes to deal with ? which of them is it, from the
apostolic age to this, that has been accepted by Bible-
reading communities as proven ? which of them is it
that, by fair means of interpretation, has put itself in
harmony with the Text of the apostolic writings ? If I
could divest myself, at this moment, of every residue of
religious solicitude, and could, in that mood of indif
ference, sit down to review the heretical series, I should
be compelled to grant — concerning each of them in its
turn, that its elements are incoherent, that its argu
mentative style is tortuous and sophistical, that its
method of biblical interpretation is a system of shifts,
that in surrendering oneself to it, as a scheme one
might accept and rest in, one is driven to wish that it
could fairly divorce itself, either from its philosophy on
the one side, or from its professed regard to Scriptural
authority on the other ; for, if it be a philosophy, it is,
burdened with the Bible ; and if it be a biblical theology,
it is spoiled by its philosophy.

302 THE RESTORATION
Not one of those schemes of Belief which, in the
lapse of time, has disputed the ground with the Nicene
Faith, recommends itself by that charm of Interior
Congruity which this latter so conspicuously possesses.
It is this alone that is an Entire Belief, and concerning
which it may be affirmed that its elements — abstract,
moral, and spiritual, are in unison. In this Belief there
is proportion, and symmetry, and there is that grandeur
and simplicity which is the inimitable characteristic of
a Great Truth in any department. With this Belief at
my heart, the logical ground of the historic evidences is
firm to the foot : without it, while attempting to give
coherence to the body of proof, I tread a shifting sand
bank. Without it, the supernatural narratives of the
Gospels stand out unsustained, and they are so dispro-
portioned to the doctrine that I am fain to rid myself
of them, if possible : with it, the miracles of Christ's
public life take their places of fitness as the graceful
accompaniments of the ministry of Him who ' dwelt
among us' for effecting a purpose far greater than all
miracles, and more arduous than the uttering the
creative fiat.
Although I can grasp no one element of my Creed,
either meditatively or scientifically, for each is a pro
perty of the Infinite, yet, in the meditative contem
plation of it as a whole, I am at rest; for the object
before me contradicts no intuition of my moral nature.
The contour is that of Majesty — the Person gives
contentment to the highest conceptions I can form,
both of perfect humanity, and of Divine benignity and
wisdom.

OF BELIEF, 303
Then, as this Catholic Belief is entire in itself, and as
it fully realizes whatever is true in human nature, and
whatever we may conceive of as proper to the Divine
nature, so does it interpret itself into the language of
my own spiritual life with a happy and a healthgiving
facility. Those emotions which it finds in me dormant,
and which it wakes up in me, I cannot but yield myself
to, and gladly obey, when once they are thus quickened.
In an hour of perplexity and dismay — such as are
incident to every human spirit that is not lost in sen
sualities, or wholly occupied with sordid aims — in such
an hour, when the atmosphere of hopeless woe is that in
which one can breathe the freest — at such a time, if I
ask, and ask it as if no bright answer could be returned
to such a question — What that eternal life might be of
which, such as I am, I could be the recipient, and which
it would be possible for me to enjoy, or even to wish for
— I find no answer other than that which I find in my
Creed. This life of the soul — the life eternal, is not
what I am either fit for, or could think of with comfort ;
but it is such as it is fitting for Him to bestow who is
what my Creed declares Him to be. If, in seasons of
saddened thought, if, amid inveterate hesitations and
perplexities and misgivings, I take up the several rudi
ments of my now actual condition, moral and spiritual
— if I know myself to be — as indeed I am — disordered,
broken, powerless, faulty, and utterly wanting in any
quality or talent out of which I might perchance work
the price of my redemption from this state, or might
perchance draw toward me the eye of Infinite Compas
sion — if I feel and know such things as these, and if,

304 THE. RESTORATION
while so feeling, I form to myself some notion of im
mortality — even of an endless consciousness, with all
the odds of infinity against me, and thus ill provided
for; — thus thinking in a way which I am forced to
admit is according to a true estimate of myself, then do
I shrink back from a boundless prospect of golden bliss,
and ask rather that there may be assigned to me, as
heaven's best boon, the dimmest corner of the universe,
wherein to lie forgotten, and wherein to while away the
cycles of an obscure eternity.
Thus dismayed — thus uncomforted, thus tempted to
envy the natures around me that are not immortal, if
then, by help given me from above, I look upward, if I
look Sunward," if I turn to my Belief, and accept it such
as it appears — a Truth, heaven-descended, then the
darkness of my soul is dispelled by that Light. That
immortality which, when regarded from a point of view
proper to myself, is inconceivable ; or, if conceivable, is
undesirable, comes now to be contemplated in its own
light — it is life-endless in Him, and it is His royal gift,
who is the Light of Light, and the life of immortality ;
— it is the gift of Him in whom the perfections of the
finite, and the attributes of the Infinite are so blended
that a boundless and a bright hope comes to its rest
upon those unchangeable attributes, thus brought within
our reach by these human perfections.
This eternal life, which is offered to me in the Gospel
—the Gospel being interpreted as it is in my Creed, and
therefore not to be thought of as if it were a superfluous
announcement of known moralities, but as a revelation

OF BELIEF. 305
of Truths that are quite unattainable by reason — is of
universal aptitude, in relation to human nature in its
actual condition; and it must be so thought of even
although in fact it were but one in millions that should
accept it. Christianity is not a religion for the religious;
but a religion for man. 1 do not accept it because my
temperament so disposes me, and because it meets my
individual mood of mind, or suits my tastes. I accept
it as it is adapted to that moral condition in respect of
which there is no difference of importance between me
and the man I may next encounter on my path.
There is a constant tendency in minds of a certain
order — which delight in first-glance generalizations — to
assume the contrary of what I here affirrn, and to think
themselves very wise in professing the hypothesis that
the Christian, if he be not a hypocrite — if he be a sin
cere and devout man, is such by individual organization
— by temperament. It is not so : those who thus think
want discrimination ; and they want also an acquaintance
with facts of this class. Philosophers who so speak are —
smart spirits it may be — but such as show that they have
little sympathy with that which is profound in human
nature; and as to their own souls, there is not depth
enough in them for any affection that roots itself below
the surface.
In affirming this, I shall not be contradicted by those
whose large experience among 'the religious,' through
a long course of ministerial labour, qualifies them to
give evidence on such a question. Grant it that, if you
draw at hazard from out of a religious community, a
hundred persons whose habits are devotional, and whose
x

3c6 THE RESTORATION
course of life consists with their profession, this selection
will include those whom one might in a sense call the
' devout born :' — by this phrase I intend to designate
persons whose temperament, intellectual and emotional,
whose sensibilities, and whose tastes, are all of the kind
that favours the happiest development of the religious
affections. There may be four or five such in any hun
dred ; — rarely so many as ten or twenty. But within the
limits of the same hundred there will be found (and yet
they shall be unfeignedly religious persons) more than a
ten or twenty whose piety has had no aid whatever from
what it has found in them — has met with nothing con
genial in the tone of the sentiments, in the imaginative,
or in the reasoning faculty. We have seen and well
known some of this order, and have been near enough to
them, for a length of time, to look into their common-
made souls — to see through their honest but homely
hearts. We have seen, admired, and loved such, and have
been cordially at one with them, and have wished to be
like them — yet, if you could abstract from them all that
Christian piety has done for them, in giving them intel
ligence, in giving them taste, and a sense of propriety,
in shedding a healthy warmth through the social affec
tions — yes, and in quickening within them a conscious
ness of the sublime and the beautiful — such they were
that, if stripped of the heavenly enrichment they have
received, they would, in most of these aspects, have
been as the dead, the deaf, the blind, the idiotic; so
marked were they by nature with the not-to-be-mistaken
stamp of mediocrity, that an hour intheir society would
have been a weariness. But they have become what

OF BELIEF. 307
now they are, because the 'Eternal life' has made its
commencements in their hearts ; and because, in daily
earnest exercises of the soul, they have held communion
with Him who is — what my Creed declares Him to be.
Those whom the Saviour Christ — the Good Shepherd,
gathers about Him from out of each generation of men,
as it passes forward in time, and who, at no time, are
more than a ' little flock,' are so chosen as if designedly
in contradiction of any rule of obvious or natural causa
tion ; and so as to illustrate at once' the sovereignty of
the choice — to display the omnipotence that gives effect
to it, and to demonstrate a deep truth — namely — the
universal applicability of this salvation to human nature.
Christ's followers are indeed exceptional, if we reckon
them by arithmetic : but they are not exceptional, psy
chologically. Christ's trae followers, in every age, are, we say, not
a class of persons who might be pointed out before they
become such : — they are not believers of the Gospel by
idiosyncracy ; — but they are so simply because they have
come to know the truth of their condition, as toward
God — which is the condition of all men alike — whether
they know it or not. Need it be shown that they are
not the class of Mystics? Mysticism is the religion
of abstraction ; but Christianity is religion in the con
crete : — the two mental conditions are antagonistic.
Mysticism is intellectual voluptuousness, and it must
therefore be abhorrent to a system, the first precept of
which forbids self-seeking, and every seclusive personal
indulgence. Or need it be shown that Christ's own
followers are not the few of any ecclesiastical enclosure,
x a

3o8 THE RESTORATION
any more than they are the adherents and the defenders
of sectarian doctrines ?
Nothing so catholic as is that spiritual life into the
composition of which there enters these rudiments — a
consciousness of guilt and helplessness, for one part,
and a correlative intuition of grace and help in God,
for the other part. And if there be these rudiments,
the Giver of so much grace will doubtless give more
in due season.
How comforting' is it to meet, on one's path, with
one whose spiritual life is just rudimental in this sense ;
for if there be one such, there may be thousands whose
names do not appear in any muster-roll of the visible
Church. It is not true that Doctrine is of little account
in the spiritual life ; but it is trae that souls may live —
may live on till they wake up in immortality, with less
of doctrine worded in a creed than human language
could know how to attenuate.
Christ's true disciple is one who — at any moment —
at a call — at a beckon, will rise from the couch and
table of worldly enjoyment, and follow Him through
whatever rugged way it is that his Guide is going. In
any company of persons who have entered their names
in ecclesiastical lists — let the word — the whisper be
heard — ' The Master is come and calleth for thee,' and
those among them for whom the summons is intended
— rise at the instant — rise, trembling perhaps and
doubting, but yet they do rise, and they go ' whither
soever He goeth.'
That such there are, and more than a very few, in
each following generation, is a fact forcing itself upon

OF BELIEF. 309
the convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous reader
of the history of Christianity ; — forcing itself upon the
convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous observer
of Christian communities as they now are.
These facts, which I assume to be patent and unques
tionable, will receive a theological interpretation such
as may best accord with the doctrinal system which we
individually adhere to, and which we allow to overrule,
or to dispose of all facts, in its own manner. It may be
that this interpretation is nipped in between imaginary
logical necessities ; or it may be that it is ample, in
genuous, unencumbered. Yet either way, not an iota
is added to, or is taken away from the simple reality
with which we have to do — namely, that Christ's true
followers are — as He said they should be — a few among
those whom visible Christianity embraces, and upon
whom it confers temporal blessings.
This reality, stripped of what is incidental to a
Christian profession, and of what is merely conven
tional also, and of what may be ambiguous, reduces
itself to an elementary moral and religious state of
mind, which is variously described by the apostolic
writers, but yet always so as to embrace the ruling idea
of an intimate conscious relationship between the hu
man spirit and the Divine Nature, as this Divine Nature
is brought within the range of human conceptions and
of human emotions in the person of Christ. It behoves
every one who becomes alive to his welfare in the future
life, to ascertain for himself the fact of this relationship,
as subsisting or not. As to others — and as to all around
him who take to themselves the Christian name, it is

3io THE RESTORATION
the part of charity to accept every such profession as
valid and genuine which does not receive a glaring
contradiction in the life and temper of the indi
vidual. We have nothing here to do with the limits and the
conditions of this ' Charity that believeth all things.'
I am now thinking of the Christian scheme as the
source of spiritual life to the individual human spirit.
Now if a hundred such instances could be laid open, it
would, I think, be found that, for one that believes the
Gospel on grounds of historical evidence, or who be
lieves it because it has been logically proved to be true,
ninety-nine accept it, with a perfect assurance, on the
strength of that sense of congruity which itself brings
home, as well to the heart as to the reason, whenever
it is apprehended by both in conjunction. But it is
manifest that this species of intuitive conviction is not
of a sort that can be brought within the range of lan
guage, for the purpose of conveying it, verbally, from
one mind to another. This certitude can no more be
defined or described, than can any primary element of
our consciousness be so treated.
Least of all can that which may be called the very
element among the several elements of the divine life
be verbally set forth, or be brought to submit itself to
the process of development in a string of propositions.
This rudiment of the spiritual life is a consciousness,
more or less clear, of the Absolutely Good, and which,
to the human spirit, in its now actual condition, in
volves a correlative consciousness — painful and hum
bling — of moral disorder. How can such an awakening

OF BELIEF. 311
as this be passed through without anguish — without some
itensity of suffering ? Any such agony of the soul,
endured at the moment of the dispersion of the dreams
of self-love, must indeed vary, as to its intensity, very
greatly, according to the structure of the individual
mind, and according also to its previous history, and
to its experiences ; yet may we surely take this as an
axiom — That where there has been no agony in the
moral nature, there has been no spiritual birth.
Whence then comes this sense of congruity which
I have once and again spoken of, and which brings with
it a ready assent to the first truth of the Christian
scheme — the ineffable union of the Divine and human
nature in the person of Christ ? Certainly I shall not
here attempt to spread out in a paragraph, or to put into
a string of sentences, that which, as it so soon trans
cends the meditative faculty to grasp it, so much sooner
baffles a writer's faculty of embodying his thoughts in
forms of speech. Yet if an explanation be sought for
of the fact that, with very rare exceptions, Christian
people, whose depth and seriousness of feeling indicates
itself in an unambiguous manner, do cordially accept
the articles of an Orthodox Creed, the explanation is
discoverable at this rudimental point. The leading
article in that Creed meets the awakened and wounded
human spirit, and it so calms the perturbations of the
soul — it so satisfies its alarms, and so brings it to its
resting-place, as that the textual evidence, when ad
duced in detail, is listened to with comfort, and is
assented to with a spontaneous confidence.
Let it be argued, as. easily it may — and very learnedly

312 THE RESTORATION
— on grounds metaphysical, and on grounds ethical, that
the Christian doctrine of Propitiation for sin (stated
without reserve) is 'absurd' — and that it is 'impossible'
— and that it is 'immoral' — and that it is everything
that ought to be reprobated, and to be met with an
indignant rejection ; — let all such things be said, as they
have been said a thousand times, and will continue to be
said to the world's end — it will to the world's end also
be true that each human spirit, when awakened toward
God, and when it has a consciousness of the Moral
Attributes, finds rest in that same doctrine of the
vicarious sufferings of the Divine Person, and finds no
rest until it is there found.
I have just above affirmed that not one of those en
deavours which have been made in the course of cen
turies to establish a doctrine of lower import than the
Nicene, has had any permanent success; and the ob
vious reason of this failure, in each instance, may be
found in its want of accordance with the canonical
standard. But a more occult meaning of these suc
cessive shipwreckings of heretical enterprises is to be
sought for among those laws of the human mind which
forbid its resting short of an intimate sense of congruity
among the principles that are offered to its acceptance.
The promulgators of such schemes, themselves, find no
repose in them ; for they are morally incoherent. Souls
alive toward God can only pine and languish, and look
from side to side, until they find Him, as the object of
their trust, whom they thenceforward worship as ' God
their Saviour.' Do you ask me to bring forward irre
sistible proof that Christianity is from Heaven? I can

OF BELIEF. 313
do this to such an extent as that you will fail, by any
fair means, to overthrow my argument. But there is
a shorter course. Come with me now into the presence
of the Infinite Rectitude and Purity : — when there, re
nounce not that true dignity of human nature in virtue
of which you are capable of such an introduction, and
which makes you rightfully amenable to this bar : — while
standing confronted with Eternal Justice — learn what
you are, and frankly acknowledge what is simply true ;
and it is then that argumentation will seem to you a
superfluous labour, and that the 'historic evidences'
will be superseded by the powerful workings of the soul
upon its own troubled consciousness.
In every instance in which Christianity comes to be
assented to and accepted on this ground — the ground
of its meeting the requirements, and assuaging the
anguish of a quickened spiritual consciousness, then
the miracles of the Evangelic history at once shift
their position, as toward the reasoning faculty. Here
tofore they were thought of (if real) as so many proofs
of Christ's mission, as a teacher sent from God; and
the one question, if any question at all were asked, was
this — Can we be sure that the record is not fallacious ?
But from the moment when the human spirit has
coalesced with the Principal Truth of the Christian
system, then this series of miracles takes its subordinate
place, alongside of the course of the Divine Delivererwhile
he trod the earth. How can we imagine otherwise than
that, at any moment while on his way. toward the spot
where he was to expiate the sins of the human family,
he should show his command of nature, and of life,

3H THE RESTORATION
and should do this with a freedom and a copiousness
becoming those attributes that were shrouded in his
Person ?
It was undoubtedly under this aspect that the writers
of the canonical Epistles were accustomed to think of
the supernatural adjuncts of the Religion which they
taught. To these attestations of their ministry, as from
God, they appealed on special occasions only ; but then
it was in a manner which forbids the attempt to dis
lodge them from their place in the system, or to treat
them as the illusions of weak minds. Yet while to
these facts they make none but incidental and infre
quent references, they were earnestly intent, first, upon
the diffusion of the Gospel Message, and then upon its
influence in governing the life and temper of those who
received it. No moment of their precious time do they
consume in the endeavour to show that Christ's miracles,
and that their own, were real; — no solicitude do they
betray on that ground. — What they feared was, on the
one hand, lest men should reject this Gospel; or, on
the other, lest, professedly accepting it, they should in
conduct and temper deny it.
To the right-minded Christian of this present time
the Evangelic miracles are not the props of a tottering
belief; but they are the food of happy meditation. He
peruses so often, and with unsatiated pleasure, these
narratives, not that he may, by these means, repair the
dilapidations which his faith sustains in the open world ;
but that, by their aid, he may bring, daily, within the
range of his conceptions, the conditions of that future
world wherein the distinction between the natural and

OF BELIEF. 315
the supernatural — arbitrary as it is — shall have vanished,
and where a perpetual nearness to Omnipotence shall
kindle and shall keep alive the feeling that all things
natural are always in truth supernatural. There can be
no miracles in a world where the unclouded blaze of
Eternal Power which fills all space, is visibly in act, every
moment. The difference between the natural and the
supernatural is relative, not absolute — it is not essen
tial. We so account of events of this kind according
to the position in which at any moment we happen to
stand toward them. Grant me so much as this, that the
miracles recorded in the Gospels — the feeding the mul
titudes — the healing the sick — the giving sight to the
blind — the raising the dead, were looked at, not only by
mortal, but by immortal eyes ;^— grant it that, while the
rude multitude pressed around Jesus of Nazareth, and
were filled with wonder, and said ' We have seen strange
things to-day' — there was a throng supernal — looking
on also. But to these the very same acts of benign
omnipotence wore the tranquil aspect of a familiar
experience : with them wonder can have no place, for it
is absorbed in adoration. These miracles — so we on
earth must call them, and which we are accustomed to
speak of as inroads upon the course of nature, are, if
truly considered, so many fragmentary instances of the
Eternal Order of an upper world.
It is often alleged that the miracles of a remote age
(even granting them to have been real) can be of no
avail to us, at this time, and especially in this our
advanced condition as to intellectual culture. Assuredly
they are of no avail, and can be of none, to those who

316 THE RESTORATION
regard Christianity as an inexplicable anomaly, attaching
to the history of that anomalous race — the descendants
of Abraham.
Let us take the centre miracle of the Christian
system — the Resurrection of Christ, and see what is its
bearing upon the mind and heart — upon the intellectual
and religious well-being of one who accepts the Gospel
as the groundwork of his spiritual life — as the reason of
every fear, and of every hope, which he allows to sway
his conduct.
The Resurrection of Christ is the very life of that
inner life — of that initial immortality which is bestowed
upon those who, in every age, 'hear His voice' and
'follow Him.' These hear Him say, 'Because I live,
ye shall live also.' — ' I am the resurrection and the life.'
• — ' If any man hear my voice, though he were dead, yet
shall he live.'
Now we may follow the process which takes place in
the instance of one with whom the reasoning faculty is
sound, and has received a due culture— who is informed
on matters of religious history and criticism; and we
suppose that his moral history and present condition
are not such as to breed an instinctive wish to rid
himself of his belief: on the contrary, his best feelings
impel him to wish that he may find indubitable warrant
for it. Grant it, that this Christian persuasion has not
been acquired in a strictly logical order; for he has
come into the possession of it by education — by devo
tional habitudes, and by the involuntary intuition of
his moral nature. But at a certain moment in his
course he makes a pause, and, in that mood of firm

OF BELIEF. 317
resolve which is characteristic of a strong intellect and
a strong will, he determines to convince, himself that
his faith is solidly based upon What should be its proper
evidence; — or if he cannot do this — he is prepared
boldly to renounce it.
For the sake of convenience, and to avoid circum
locutions, I throw this descriptive analysis of the process
of a recovered belief into the form of a personal nar
rative. Thus resolved then, as I have said, I set out on
my road, taking with me this unquestionable preliminary
— namely — That, if a religious persuasion is to come
into its place among those principles of action which, on
any supposition, must govern the active and moral life,
if it is to sway me, notwithstanding many impulses
and motives which might prevail with me in a contrary
direction — if my religion (be it what it may) is to
work in and along with the mechanism of the world of
mind — such as I find it to be, if so, then the confidence
I may feel in its truth must, of necessity, rest upon
such ground as that an opposite belief, or an absolute
rejection of it, may yet be possible. If I am to become
a religious man, in the Christian sense, then it must be
at least conceivable that I might become an irreligious
man, in that same sense. If a religious belief is to be
the same thing with me as my moral beliefs ; if it is to
act as an influence, countervailing other influences, then
it must be possible for me to disbelieve.- There could
not be a Christian, in a world constituted as this is,
if there were not always room for a man to be an
infidel. Christianity and Philosophic Theism occupy precisely

3 iS THE RESTORATION
the same ground, considered under this aspect. If in
this world of discipline — this world of educational
antagonism — this world of products wrought out of
contrarieties — if I am to possess a faith in God, as
my Creator, Judge, and Father, this faith must be the
correlate of its logical opposite — Atheism. The Theist,
in this present world, will never cease to find himself
face to face with the Atheist. Wherein then consists
the blameworthiness of the Atheist ? it is this, that
knowing — and he cannot be ignorant of a truth so
obvious — that the system of motives to which he con
forms himself every day in the open world, always
leaves room for some exception or evasion, he snatches
at that exception, and he uses that evasion whenever
the Theistic evidence presents itself before him ; but he
does not do so in any other instance, unless indeed he
be fool or knave. The virtuous man is one who man
fully holds to the rale, and spurns the exception, and
who scorns to escape by the evasion : he embraces the
principle, and he casts from him the sophism ; he adheres
to intuitions ; he does not listen to the paradox.
This premised, I go to work at the beginning of the
Christian evidences, and ask — as it concerns my own
prospect of immortality — whether those things are sure,
that are taught and affirmed in the Apostolic writings.
It may be that I should have chosen some other medium
of evidence, touching a point of such incalculable mo
ment. But whether I choose it or not, I find myself
handed over to this peculiar species of proof. Yet in
looking into it — on the supposition that God, the
Father of my spirit — challenges me to accept it, I find

OF BELIEF. 319
that, as to its completeness, in its own kind, and as to its
conclusiveness, the body of critical evidence very far
surpasses any other instance with which it ought to be
brought into comparison. That this is the fact has
become manifest, inasmuch as the strenuous endeavours
of many accomplished men, inflamed with the ambition
to overthrow Christianity, have confessedly broken
down. After reading what has been written with this
view, I find that I can in no way disengage myself from
the Christian evidence, except by resolving to dismiss
the subject from my thoughts. But I go on to sift this
evidence, at intervals, and I do so with all possible care,
and in different moods of mind, and I come ever and
again to the same result. I read the recent antichristian
literature, and in doing so candour is sorely tried if I
persist in supposing that educated men may be honest
when they put forth what is so frivolous, is so captious,
is so nugatory, as that which they advance in behalf of
their disbelief. I converse with those who profess this
disbelief, and instead of rigid argumentation — serious
in its tone, and ingenuous — I am met by a style of
reasoning which is unanswerable only because it is
vague, misty, evasive, and sentimental; and often it is
rancorous. This is enough : — I see that before I could stand
clear of Christianity, I must let go my hold of those
convictions which rule my every-day life. To me,
Disbelief must act as a solvent of all logical coherence,
and must discharge from my mind every persuasion
which binds me to the social system now, as well as
those which connect me with immortality.

320 THE RESTORATION
I return then with assurance to my Belief, and I sur
render myself without fear to that train of meditation
which attends, and surrounds, its centre fact — the resur
rection of Christ. —
— At this point, in an instance the most signal and
the freest from ambiguity, the Supernatural takes a bear
ing upon my individual state of mind, and touches my
fears, my hopes, and my conscience, and gives a turn to
the emotions, excites the imagination, and occupies the
reason. That Jesus Christ l suffered, and died, and that
He rose again,' is a fact in yielding myself cordially to
the belief of which I pass forward from one condition
of existence, and come into another ; and this change is
so extensive in its consequences, that nothing affecting
my happiness can remain unaffected by it. That remote
event with which I stand connected through the medium
of historic and critical evidence, concerns me far more
intimately than could any event of to-day which should
entirely change my individual or social position.
What those changes are, severally, of which a belief
in Christ's resurrection is the efficient cause, I shall not
here attempt to specify. I will speak only of two of
them ; and of these, not in the style of a digested and
consecutive discourse, but discursively. —
— In the first place then, an unhesitating belief of the
resurrection of Christ — if I allow the meditative faculty
to dwell upon it — leads me forth from a region of inter
minable surmises that are comfortless, or appalling, or
worse; and it brings me upon a ground that is firm
to the foot, and where those objects that are already
familiar to me, stand out distinctly, and are sharply

OF BELIEF. 321
defined ; and they show themselves, not in the glimmer
or in the blaze of a vague phosphorescence, but in the
every-day sober sunlight of this present world. If I
carry myself back, as I may easily do, to that Garden
under the walls of Jerusalem wherein was a sepulchre,
or enter an upper chamber, within the city, or go on to
a house that was a sabbath-day's journey south of it ; or
travel so far as to the shore of the lake of Galilee ; if I
go thither taking with me no haze of exaggeration, I
there find Him who is at once the Representative of the
human family, and its Sponsor ; and I find Him such —
after the suffering of death, as He was before it — save
his recent scars. This immortality, therefore, which
is held before me in the Christian scheme, is no such
thing as a nucleus of conscious mist, floating about in
a golden fog, amid millions of the same purposeless,
limbless sparks. Instead of any such lifeless life, it is
an immortality of organized material energies; — it is
the same welded mind-and-matter human nature — fitted
for service — apt for labour, and capable of all those
experiences, and furnished for all those enterprises, and
armed for those endurances which, seeing that they are
thus provided for, and are, as one may say, thus fore
shown in the Christian resurrection, put before me a
rational solution — hypothetic indeed, and yet not illu
sory — of those now immanent trials, of those hard ex
periences, of those frustrated labours, and of those fiery
sufferings, the passing through which so much perplexes
and disheartens me now ; but which at once find their
reason when I see them in their ulterior intention, as
Y

322 THE RESTORATION
the schooling for an immortality in the endless fortunes
of which this mind-and-matter structure shall have room
to show what things it can do, and what it can bear,
and what dangerous enterprises of love it shall devise,
and shall bring to a happy consummation — it may be,
cycles of centuries hence.
' The Lord is risen indeed !' said those simple souls,
one to another, in that dim morning hour — which was
the morning of an Eternal Day to human nature ; and
He so rises as to throw forward upon the path of this
human nature, to the remotest range of an endless
existence, the steady light of a reality we may think
of reasonably.
Over against this conceivable Christian Idea of the
future life, such as it is set before me in the instance
of the Resurrection of Christ, I will put the dreamy
Elysium of- classical antiquity— I will put the sensual
isms of the oriental beliefs — I will put the wearisome
and vapid inanities of modern poetical or philosophical
surmises: — yes, and over against this genuine belief I
must put those more consistent suppositions which,
at this present time, are presenting themselves, in a
whisper, as probable, if we are to follow the guidance
of psychological speculation, and if we are looking to
such a future existence as the analogy of things around
us might suggest. As compared with any such anticipa
tions — more or less consonant as they may severally be
with facts known to us — I find that my Christian Belief
is more consistent than any one of them, and it is more
realizable — and it is more cheering, more animating,

OF BELIEF. 323
and that it is of a tendency (when rightly considered)
the most healthful, as to the moral and the intellectual
faculties. And ' why should it be thought a thing incredible
that God should raise the dead?' Every pretext for
so thinking, on scientific grounds, has been snatched
from us by the modern Geology. On the contrary,
the supposition that man, such as he is — his intellect
and his moral nature considered — should cease to exist
at death, is indeed incredible; and yet, if we feel
that it is his destiny to live anew, then, among all the
beliefs to which the instincts of our nature have given
birth, whether in ancient or in modern times, the
Christian belief of the resurrection of the body, by
which we must mean — the reconstruction of human
nature entire — mind and matter — body and soul, is
incomparably the easiest to conceive of; as it is also
the best recommended by analogies ; and, I will boldly
say, it is the belief to which a genuine philosophy
would instantly give the preference, if, among the
many hypotheses of a future stage of human existence
which have been imagined as probable, we must make
a choice. Yet it is on no such ground of its abstract credibility
that this fundamental fact of the Christian life is ac
cepted by those in whom that life has indeed had its
commencement. As to those of them who are informed
and intelligent, they can at all times fall back upon that
body of evidence which secures them against inroads of
disbelief. But going far beyond any such merely intel
lectual persuasion, Christ's true disciples have a sense
y a

324 THE RESTORATION
of the import of His resurrection which renders them —
except as towards others — indifferent to logical methods
of proof. Ask them for a reason of their faith, and they
can well meet the challenge ; but having done so, they
retire to a ground of consciousness concerning which no
distinct conveyance can be made from mind to mind,
through the medium of language. Verbal propositions
do not represent those intuitions within the circle of
which this conviction takes place.
It can be of no avail for you to say that the super
natural, even if granted to be real, is a remote fact
which can have no bearing upon our individual feelings
at this time. I can never think so while I believe that,
Christ's resurrection, apart from the meaning which it
carries as to the futurity of all men, is the proof — as
it is the consequence, of the efficacy of His vicarious
death in securing for us, individually, the remission of
sins, and the blessedness of that future life.
It is at this point that we touch the real matter in
debate among the various theological controversies of
the present time. If this point be determined, then the
several articles of religious belief must follow, in their
order, with little question. But while this is undeter
mined, no argumentation will avail to bring such con
troversies to a conclusion.
What interpretation is it which we allow ourselves to
put upon the admitted fact of the disordered condition
of human nature ? Is wrong right — seen under another
aspect, or from a loftier point of view ? Are crimes not
crimes, but misfortunes ? Is sin a mistake ? The answer
we give to questions of this kind— and they may be in-

OF BELIEF. 325
definitely varied — involves the whole argument concern
ing the truth of the Christian system. The Christian
may well leave the Atheist, the Pantheist, the antichris
tian Theist, and the would-be Christian philosophist, to
make up a reply among themselves — and there can be
no substantial difference among them : for himself he
has come to his own conclusion in this matter. He per
fectly understands — what it might have been supposed
all must understand — that, to confer with, and to treat
man as a machine, or as a brute, or to condole with him
as more ' unlucky' than culpable, is to vilify and degrade
him still more, and to consign him to a series of hope
less -descents, until, in fact, he has become a brute, and
might well wish himself a machine. The Christian
feels that — cost what it may to the individual — the
true method of treatment with human nature— the only
hopeful course, and that which indeed lifts him up,
and does him honour, is to assume that he is in fact
amenable to the severest law, and should, measure him
self by the highest standard of purity, rectitude, and
goodness, which his faculties, intellectual and moral,
enable him to conceive of, or to comprehend. In truth,
we need no other evidence in support of the principle
that man is actually amenable to such a law, than this — ¦
That, when it is placed before him, he involuntarily
recognises it as good.
The spiritual life then, or the first stage of the eternal
life, is a recognition of the immutable Law of purity,
rectitude, and love, not merely as abstractedly good;
but as good and fit to be applied to man, how disastrous
soever may be the consequences of that application to

326 THE RESTORATION
him in his actual condition. Better were it for him
to be condemned by such a law, than to find himself
villanously discharged from court on the ground that
his nature does not admit of the application of a rule so
high. Better for him that he should be condemned as
guilty, than that he should be vilified as pitiable. Better
for man to endure his doom among beings who have
fallen from heaven, than that he should take his place
as the ' most unfortunate' of the mammals.
It is manifest that when the individual man has
reached this point, and has unfeignedly assented to a
principle of government to which he is obnoxious, the
depth and intensity of the emotions that thence take
their rise will bear proportion, much rather to the
culture, the refinement, and the sensitiveness of his
moral constitution, than to the extent or enormity of
his actual transgressions. So it is (as must seem likely)
that those whose course of life has been — in the world's
eye — blameless, and whose domestic phase is altogether
lovely, often go far beyond the ostensibly guilty in
those feelings of anguish and abasement which attend
their entrance upon the Christian life. Shall we say
that such feelings — such agonies, are misplaced — that
they are groundless — are morbid ? We may say this if
we wish to mark and notify our own low place on the
scale of spiritual perception.
It is, then, as starting from this point that the several
elements of a Christian belief take their order of se
quence. It is as occupying this ground — the ground at
once of humiliation and of hope, that the Christian
accepts the articles of his Creed — each of them as

OF BELIEF. 327
involved in that which precedes it. It is thus that he
professes his belief in the mystery of the Trinity — the
Incarnation, and the propitiatory sufferings and death
of Christ ; and it is thus, and it is as thus standing in
hope of life eternal, that he welcomes the assurance of
the triumphant resurrection of his Saviour, who ' having
died for our sins, rose again for our Justification.'
To many, whose religious feelings are superficial, and
whose faith is mainly conventional, the resurrection of
Jesus is coolly assented to as perhaps a ' well authenti
cated fact,' carrying with it — of course — the truth of the
Christian scheme. To Christ's true disciple his rising
from the dead is of infinitely more moment than it can
be as yielding any such attestation.
I affirm therefore anew the proposition with which I
set out — That the Supernatural, as we find it in the
Christian Scriptures, not merely vouches for the truth
of the system, as a Revelation from God ; but that it
is the ground and reason of that hope of immortality
which is the life of the soul.

328 THE RESTORATION

THE THIRD INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS
ATTESTED BY MIRACLES.
In entering upon this ground it must be understood
that I am not attempting to meet all objections, or even
to satisfy every reasonable doubt : all I ask is, that those
with whom I may suppose myself to be in converse are
of serious mood ; and I suppose them to admit that the
Christian system, such as we find it in the books of the
New Testament, rightfully commands the thoughtful
regard of every well-constituted mind ; and also — That,
as we find in these memoirs an historical consistency,
or Individual Congruity, which is of a very peculiar
land, it must be reasonable to follow it up as a safe
guidance, and to pursue this oneness of the Personal
Idea as far as it will carry us ; even although it may
lead us in thought, beyond the boundary of this visible
mundane scene.
I do not hesitate to make this demand, nor to ask
the thoughtful to accompany me a few paces forward
upon this dim road. What, in fact, is the initial sup
position on the ground of which we consent, at all, to
listen to Christ as the Teacher of things which can be
authentically known by man only through the aid of a

OF BELIEF.

329

Revelation from Heaven ? Plainly it is this, that the
things of the ' threescore years and ten' — the things
' seen and temporal' — the things that ' perish in the
Using,' are far from including all that we have to do
with while these seventy years are running out ; or in
other words, in surrendering ourselves, in any degree,
to the Christian argument, we implicitly grant, that the
Human Family stands related — not merely to the Creator
and Ruler of all things ; but to a great scheme of Uni
versal Government, which is developing itself slowly —
and in part — now, and here;- — more fully hereafter, and
elsewhere. But if we grant so much as this, it necessarily follows
that He who, on entering upon this earthly platform,
professes that He comes forth from a higher and a wider
region of the Universal Government, and declares Him
self to be conversant with, and to be perfectly informed
concerning, the transactions and the persons of that
higher stage of things, should, in His discourses, and
still more in His acts and course of conduct, give indi
cations of the same, which can be intelligible only on
the supposition here asked for.
Such a Visitor from a foreign world may either
discourse at large concerning the things, the persons,
and the transactions of that world ; or He may observe
a rigid reserve on every subject of that class. Christ
does not take the first of these courses ; — He does not
freely and copiously speak concerning a supermundane
system ; but neither is His reserve absolute. He utters
himself thereupon in a very distinct, and always in a
peremptory manner; but He goes no further: — He

330 THE RESTORATION
gives no narratives, otherwise than as parable. He
relates no incidents; — He says nothing that might
either tempt conjecture or stimulate curiosity. Yet it
is quite certain that a recollection, on our part, of
Christ's professed relationship to orders of being not of
the human family, is indispensable to our completing
our idea of his Person, as interiorly coherent and
consistent. Let me again, and with emphasis, use that
comprehensive word — Congruity, and affirm that,
whereas this majestic harmony of the moral ingredients
of Christ's individual character — this fitness and sym
metry, which — if we make allowance for the obliquities
of a few minds — has always subdued, as it does now
subdue, the minds of men, and does win their reve
rential affection — this perfect consistency, intellectual
and moral, would be marred if we were to' set off from
our conception of His character this, His hypothetic
relationship to orders of being that are not of this
human family.
Does not that conception of Christ's demeanour and
style which we gather from the four Gospels — does it
not include the idea that we are in the presence of one
who is acting at the impulse of a purpose deep hidden
in his own bosom? Does it not seem that he has a
consciousness of facts, of which the men about him are
not informed ? Does he not move forward as if he were
bringing about ends that are remote from the proximate
intention of what he says and does ? Christ's acts are
frequently, or they seem to be so — incidental to his
principal purpose : His teachings are fragmentary, be
cause the bearing of his doctrine is shared between

OF BELIEF. 331
this — the visible world, and another world. His mira
culous interpositions for the relief of human suffering
appear to have been prompted — at the moment, merely
by human impulses of compassion; but they are done
as if he deflected, for the time, from his higher course
in performing them. The Saviour of the world walks
the earth, and He makes his way through the crowd,
as one whose eye is fixed upon objects beyond its
horizon. If, in an attempted explication of Christ's language
in relation to a spiritual system, we adopt the meagre
hypothesis of supposing that He adapts Himself, by
accommodation, to the superstitious beliefs of the Jewish
people of that age, what we do is not merely to abate
our confidence in his sincerity as a Teacher ; but we
remove from the historical conception of his character
a set of facts, the reality of which is indispensable to its
completeness. It is then chiefly on this ground that I
feel it to be unavoidable to understand his language,
when concerned with an invisible world, as carrying a
meaning that is literally true.
Assuming so much as this, then what it comes to,
expressed in the fewest words, is this — That the history
and destinies of the Human Family have become (if the
word may be allowed) entangled with the history and
the destinies of tribes or orders, partakers with it of
intelligence, and moral consciousness, and liberty of
will; but subject to another administrative economy,
and not included in the same remedial dispensation.
The consequences of a belief such as this, whether ima
ginary or real, are nothing to me : the belief may be of

332 THE RESTORATION
ill tendency ; and I am sorry if it be so ; but my sor
rowing or not sorrowing will not make the facts other
than they are. Can I walk about this world — can I
make my way through the streets of cities— can I enter
the dens that are found in some of those streets, and
then persuade myself that a supposition of this kind is
abstractedly, or that it is theologically incredible ? Alas !
this must not be said. The customary pretexts of scep
ticism in relation to subjects of this class belong to a
period — now drawing to its close — or passed already —
a period of shallow and frivolous thinking — a period
when the actual condition of large portions of the human
race — imperfectly known, and little thought of, and less
cared for, had no appreciable influence upon systems of
opinion. Theories of human nature were in the last age
put together in closets, to be bandied about in saloons.
But what correspondence had these scented things with
that real world into the core of which our modern
philanthropy has carried us, to mourn and wonder; — and
to mourn the more ?
A revolution has already made great progress which,
in its issue, shall bring about a far more deeply-toned
belief, as to the spiritual world, and as to the destinies
of man, than has ever yet taken hold of the human
mind : and thus it will be that, if Superstition has
tyrannized the ages that are past, a quelling conscious
ness of awful realities shall rule the future in equal
sternness. It is Christianity itself that has given the initiative
to this revolution; and it is the same that shall draw
the conclusion ; but it is likely that we shall be carried

OF BELIEF. 333
through the intermediate stages of the process by the
Atheism of the present time, which has the nerve to
do what itself only could do. A belief in the bearing
of the Christian scheme upon a wider circle than that of
the human family must carry with it an admission of its
supernatural attestations ; and toward such an admission
we are tending — the modern Atheism giving us just
now a propulsive aid.
But it may be asked — Are we not receding from the
field of modern intelligence, and going back to the
ground of the ' dark and pernicious credulity' — which
belonged to an age of ignorance ? I do not ask whether
the objects before me are such as an ignorant age will
delight in; nor ask whether a belief concerning them
be of bad influence, or otherwise. It is certain that the
human mind has universally entertained suppositions of
this kind; and therefore there must be a ground for
them. I wish there were no ground for them ; but there
is; and nothing can be gained by refusing to see it.
There would, in truth, be a powerful motive for ridding
ourselves of the appalling idea, of a Personal Satan, and
of his hosts, if, in renouncing the 'Superstition,' we
could also dispel the ' darkness.' But we cannot do so ;
on the contrary, if we refuse to admit this article into
our pneumatology, as matter of history — then the ' dark
ness' which shrouds the world thickens around us so
much the more, and becomes indeed a ' thick darkness,'
for it is then a gloom, without a gleam. So long as
we retain an hypothesis which connects the history and
destinies of the human race with another history and
with other destinies, we retain also, in some manner,

334 THE RESTORATION
though it be wholly undefined, a sort of hold upon the
future: — for we then know that there is a course of
events in progress, which may issue, we know not how,
for the better. As on the one hand there can scarcely
be a greater mistake than that of supposing the an
cient problem of the origin of evil to be in any way
solved, or the mystery in the least degree cleared up,
by carrying it back to the epoch of the Satanic rebel
lion; yet, on the other hand, the inroad of sin and
woe upon the human family comes to wear a different
aspect when it is thought of in connection with this
supposition. So thought of, it is brought into relation
ship with that scheme which is seen to be unfolding
itself from the first page to the last of the Canonical
Books. Seen from the position into which we are in
sensibly led by following this series of writers, the evil
that is in this world, and its attendant miseries, fall into
perspective, and exhibit, at least, so much of coherence
as may result from their relation to a scheme within
which truth and order reign supreme, and upon which
a light, though it be only a glimmer, does shine.
Especially it is as seen from this position that the
personal behaviour of Christ, and that the professed
intention of His mission toward man, become intel
ligible; for, to think of Him merely as the Teacher
of a pure morality, and as the author of beneficial
secular maxims, leaves the greater part of His conduct,
and of His teaching, entirely unaccounted for. To
think of Him further as the Redeemer of His people,
though it supplies much of what is needed to give a
meaning to both — His behaviour and His teaching —

OF BELIEF. 335
still leaves much unaccounted for, nor do we find the
clue to this until we accept, in a literal sense, what
is declared concerning the ' Christ of God' as He who
should drive the Usurper from the world he has in
vaded. This might seem to be the point at which a writer —
intending to propitiate his opponents, and to smooth
a path from Disbelief to Christian Faith — would intro
duce some hitherto unthought-of hypothesis concerning
the universality of Redemption, or the possible modes
in Which things future, which we find to be incon
ceivable, may yet be conceived of. I am not about
to attempt anything of this sort. The notorious failure,
hitherto, of all such endeavours, from the time of Origen
to this time, might well be taken as warning enough
against venturing a step on ground where there is no
footing. One scheme after another has broken down —
and necessarily so, because each of these mitigative
theories includes much more than those will allow who,
on this very account, reject Christianity ; and they as
sume much for which a Christian man— who would fain
find it — finds no warrant in the written Revelation;
and if not, who is he that shall dare to add anything
to that word, or to strike off from it the least particle ?
The easily recognised characteristics of undigested
thinking — of reasonings prompted by a predetermined
issue, and which are reckless of evidence, attach, as
I think, to every one of the hypotheses of universal
restitution which have been advanced by men pro
fessing to respect the authority of Scripture. In the
regions of Science — reasonings of the same class— the

336 THE RESTORATION
products of the very same order of minds, come under
the familiar designation of quackery : — several philo
sophies of this sort have lately courted notoriety. The
gravity of the subject now in hand should preclude the
employment of this colloquial phrase ; — otherwise it
would very fitly designate these spurious schemes — one
and all. To a sound mind the momentary solace which
attends a first listening to a scheme of this sort, there
quickly succeeds a profound dissatisfaction, which leaves
us in more discomfort than before.
If then we reject, as I think we must, the mitigative
theories that have been devised for reconciling pur
notions of the Divine Benevolence, as related to the
destinies of the family of man, with visible facts and
with articles of our faith, what do we bring forward in
the place of them for the purpose of assuaging that state
of distress and perplexity toward which we are always
advancing, just in proportion as we steadily think of
what is around us, and look forward to the future in
serious mood ?
Although it be confessed that no hypothesis of this
sort is in reserve which a Christian man can bring
forward ; nevertheless there are considerations to which
a belief in the literal — or, we may say, the historical
meaning of certain narratives in the Gospels gives
rise, which are of high importance for maintaining a
religious temper. They are such as these. — In the first
place, the interpretation which we ought to put upon
Christ's language and conduct, wherever He had to do
with those who are spoken of as possessed by unclean
spirits or ' demons,' carries the supposition that the

OF BELIEF, 337
relation in which He stood toward beings of this class
was essentially unlike that which He sustained toward
any of the human race. This marked dissimilarity is
strongly implied, in various ways. — The passionate utter
ances of these beings (utterly unlike as they are to the
ravings of maniacs) were in no case expressive either
of hope or of submission : on the contrary they bespoke
a well-understood and an inveterate hostility: — these
convulsive exclamations, and these sudden recognitions,
speak volumes of history — a history that runs far back
into the cycles of duration past; — and it is a history
of which there are chapters not yet enacted. On the
part of Christ there is indicated nothing but a corre
sponding and a settled adverse feeling which has no
reserves, and has no purpose of relenting.
If we go so far as this, then the inference is irre
sistible, that there may be, within the universal govern
ment of ,God, and that there is, in fact — conscious,
open, and hopeless rebellion. It is true that Speculative
Theism might show cause for refusing to admit a sup
position so appalling as this ; — but can we indeed walk
the streets of this world — and still profess to think it
incredible? — Alas! the fact supposed must be granted
to be possible — and more than possible! But if there
be, as we now say, open and determinate rebellion
within the realm of God's government, and if it borders
nearly upon us too — and if states of mind which re
semble such a desperate perversion, are facts, attaching
even to the human system, then must there be ground
for a fear — a fear which the ordinary proceedings of
human governments show to be reasonable — of this
z

338 THE RESTORATION
sort: — When rebellion is rife in a country, it is cer
tain that men who in many respects are worthy citizens
may easily come to be fatally compromised with it, and
may find themselves in the end consorted with the worst
of criminals, and that they are sharers in the same fate.
Again : If facts be such as we are now supposing,
then we get a means of rightly interpreting a large part
of that discipline which we are undergoing in the pre
sent state. The ulterior purpose of that severe training
through the stages of which some of us, if not all, are
passing, and which constitutes the individual history of
some men from the earliest development of reason to
the last hour of life, is, as it seems, the formation of a
firm principle of religious loyalty— an enduring acqui
escence in the procedures of the Divine Government —
a principle so fixedly wrought into the soul as that it
may stand trial under conditions the most difficult that
can be imagined — not only of the life now present, but
of the future life. Why the entire schooling of a long
life has been, to some men, what it has been, becomes
so far intelligible if we admit the supposition that, in'
the future life, with its incalculable revolutions, such
spirits, thus tried and proved as they have been, shall be
challenged to undertake services in relation to which
this immoveable loyalty shall find its occasions, and
shall be nothing more — as to its iron nerve — than those
occasions shall be found to demand.
Suppositions of such a kind as this may ill comport
with the notions of many good people about Heaven —
and which notions we may grant to be right in substance
although wrong in form ¦, but I think they will come to

OF BELIEF. 339
be accepted as not unfounded in the next age, when
Scriptural Interpretation shall be unshackled, and shall
speak out the full meaning of the Inspired Text. Mean
time I admit no element into my anticipations of the
future life which I do not see to be symbolized now, in
the course of the Divine administration toward indivi
dual men. In professing as we do every Sunday that
we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life.
of the world to come, I understand the ' world to come'
to be such a world as that the present world shall be a
fit preparation for its labours, and for its endurances,
and for its trials of religious constancy.
Again : If we admit, in their obvious and properly
historic sense, those of the Evangelic narratives which
relate to demoniacal possessions, the Supernatural ele
ment therein implied supports an inference which,
when in the fewest words, and with the utmost caution,
we have enounced it, should be left to carry its meaning
home into our hearts, without our attempting to follow
it out into consequences — we know not what, and for
which we have not sufficient warrant, or rather — none
at all.
— The series of miracles wrought by Christ during
the years of His public ministry had — as toward man
kind — not only a benevolent intention, but a beneficent
issue. This fact is the more to be noted, because it
forms a ground of distinction between Christ's miracles
and those of His ministers, as related in the Book of
the Acts — several of which were administrative and
punitive. But no such use was made of miraculous
powers by Him who declares that He came into the
za

,340 THE RESTORATION
world ' not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.'
In striking contrast with this rule of the Supernatural,
as it is, seen to govern the .Saviour's conduct toward
men, is the rule which manifests itself as often as He
encountered beings of another order, or of another
derivation. In every such instance, the word of power
carried with it — Law, not Mercy: — it was not ven
geance ; but it was reprehension and repulse : — the
implied meaning was ever the same — ' Keep your
bounds — Go back.'
If it be asked — What then is your further inference ?
I am prepared with no answer; I have no further in
ference; yet there is before me a conspicuous fact —
there is here a difference; there is here a distinction;
and this fact, which I know not how to unfold, consists
with the belief which I gather up from many scattered
notices, strewn over the canonical pages, the purport
of which is that the Mission of Christ — the Son of God,
and Saviour of the world — was to overthrow a usurpa
tion, and to drive the Tyrant from the field he has in
vaded ; and I further gather this truth, that, in carrying
forward this purpose, He shall not fail, but shall triumph;
for it is said of Him, that ' He shall lead captivity cap
tive.' This is my resting-place; — it is not indeed a
place of sunshine ; but it is as a ' covert from the
storm.' Let it not be said, or imagined, that, in adducing
considerations of this sort, the intention is to solve
problems, or to clear up mysteries: — we may hold it
for certain that no considerations coming within the
range of the human mind, can avail for any such pur-

OF BELIEF. 341;
pose. But what may be looked for, as the fruit of these
trains of thought, is this — namely, the giving coherence
and consistency to many insulated passages of Scripture;
and more than this — the rendering an aid to meditation
when we are endeavouring to complete our conceptions
of the Saviour Christ, as the Deliverer of man. A prin
cipal element of that Idea — absolutely unique as it is,
is supplied when we duly regard His ministry as it is
related, on the one hand, to the victims of a usurpation;
and on the other hand, to its chief and his adherents.

343 THE RESTORATION

THE CYCLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
At this moment * a lengthened period of social tran
quillity seems to have come to its end ; and, as to the
western and cultured races, it has been peculiarly favor
able to those reactions of the public mind upon itself
which are natural to it, and beneficial in their ultimate
results ; but for which reactions leisure is not found in
seasons of political excitement. We may be entering
upon a period of arduous struggles, of great enterprises,
of great trials, and of sufferings as great. A period may
be before us — not for amusing ourselves with ingenious
paradoxes, not for dressing up philosophic schemes of
opinion; but for daring, and for doing, and for enduring,
whatever energetic men may devise, achieve, and bear.
The ingenious writers, therefore, who, with so much
zeal, ability, and vehemence, have been labouring, of
late years, to rid themselves and the world of Chris
tianity, may find that their day is gone by — and that it
must be their sons, or their grandsons, who shall return
to this crusade, in some future time of repose, like the
past. At this time, not only will men of action have
* Written in 1855.

OF BELIEF. 343
no ear for subtilties; but such men wilLfeel their need,
personally, of principles that are already authenticated,
and that are not now to be sought for and elaborated- at
home. Men of action, who may have much to suffer, as
well as to do, will ask for grounds of religious hope and
solace which time has consolidated, and on which the
good, the wise, the great, of all ages, have been wont
to rest in their hour of trial. The Christian Belief
shall again, as heretofore, be found to meet the need of
humanity in the years that are before us — years, not of
dreams, but of realities.
As to the apostles of the modern impiety — Atheistic,
and Theistic, and Pantheistic- — although their enterprise
has failed for the present, and their hopes dashed, they
may console themselves with the thought that — if not to
them, to their successors, another opportunity shall arise
for labouring on the same stony field. The Christian
system will itself evolve principles that necessitate, these
periodic straggles, and that give them force ; and it will
do so at each return, with augmented force.
At this time what would be more fruitful of good than
any imaginable triumph over Infidelity — on the field
of argument — would be a wise preparation, on the part
of the Christian community, for that next coming sea
son when the Gospel must anew pass through -a crisis
of great intensity. A main part of such a prepara
tion would consist in knowing clearly whence such an
intestinal conflict springs, and toward what issue it
tends. In affirming the Christian origination of the recent
outburst of Infidelity and Atheism,, it is needful to dis-

344

THE RESTORATION

tinguish between those deep-seated sequences of thought
which we have just now in view, and those obvious and
incidental effects of patent causes which might have
been other than they are, and which may or may not
reappear at a future time. The fact is not to be ques
tioned that much of the Disbelief which floats around
us, and which poisons the atmosphere of towns, takes
its occasion, or derives its force, from what it finds
that is wrong, or absurd, or merely conventional, in the
Christianity of Christian people. Materials of this sort
are rife always, so that men of acrid temper are never
at a loss when looking about for occasions of that scorn
which they would fain heap upon the Gospel. There
is a plenty of Disbelief which springs up, rank, about
sacred edifices ; but what we have to do with at this
time is — a Spectre that rises from the Adytum.
The Atheism of this age has a depth which is its
own only because it has sent its line down into that
abyss of which Christianity withdraws, in part, the veil.
This Atheism displays a grandeur which is not of itself;
but which it assumes in looking upward, beneath the
vault of that Infinitude to which it has gained admit
tance by help of the Gospel. This Atheism shows, and
it actually possesses, a sensibility, and it has a conscious
ness of the true, the beautiful, and the good, which it
owes, entirely, to the books and to the system which it
denounces. These tones of tenderness and of purity in
which it has learned to utter itself — if we catch them
at a distance, so as to lose what in them is articulate —
might be mistaken for the silver sounds of mercy to
man, and universal benevolence.

OF BELIEF. 345
The Atheism which startles us by the fireside, which
sits with us in pews, which flames out in our literature,
which is the Apollo of the periodic Press, has not merely
learned its rhetoric in the Christian school, and thence
stolen its phrases, but it has there got inspiration from
a Theology of which itself is only the necessary anti
thesis. Evoke now from Hades a genuine Atheist of the
classic Pagan Church, and bring him within hearing of
a modern Atheistic lecture, and the very terms of the
discourse would be unintelligible to him. You must
baptize him before you can convince him that you are
his disciples, or that he is indeed one of yourselves.
The Creed in which he lived and died was a marble
paradox, and you have a great work to do in him before
he can be made to listen to a breathing sophistry, with
its Christianized heart, and its soul of fire. An Atheistic
philosophy which is indeed earthborn, and which steams
up from the dead levels of the Pagan world, is a miasma,
in breathing which nations are overcome with drowsi
ness — intellectual and nioraL, and walk about dreaming,
for thousands of years, unchanged. But a Christian-born
Atheistic philosophy comes over a Christian land, at
periods, as a cloud, riding upon the winds — it mutters
blasphemies — it smites the earth with its forked scourge,
and it moves away.
The very same body of facts concerning the woes and
disorders — hopeless as they are, and purposeless as they
seem, which press upon humanity — these facts, lightly
regarded by the sages of pagan antiquity, and which led
them to reject the hypothesis of a Supreme wisdom,
benevolence, and power — these facts come before us

346 THE RESTORATION
now — unchanged or scarcely mitigated, and they not
merely perplex the reason — they do more, they distract
us, because we have been long trained in meditative
converse with an Idea of the Supreme Wisdom, Benevo
lence, and Power, immeasurably surpassing any concep
tion of these attributes which the ancient mind had ever
entertained. That which was an insoluble problem to
the ancient classic reason, is also, to the modern mind,
a problem insoluble : — but it is more than an intellectual
stumblingblock, for it puts at fault our consciousness of
first Truths.
Moreover, while Christianity has so greatly enlarged
our religious conceptions, teaching us to think so much
more profoundly, and more justly as to whatever touches
our higher nature, the advances of Science, which in a
manner expand our consciousness over the fields of
infinite space and time, help to impart an awful inten
sity to every subject that has any theologie aspect.
Then the same Gospel which gives rise to warm emo
tions — dispersive of selfishness, brings in upon the heart
a sympathy that tempts us to wish that itself were not
true ; or that it had not taught us so to feel. At these
points then we come upon an interior antagonism — a
deep counteractive energy, whence, almost with periodic
regularity, springs — a disbelief of which Christianity
is the immediate object, inasmuch as it has been its
incitative cause.
During a period of national repose, such as that which
we have passed through, the Christian system, its
doctrines and its moral energies, working freely upon a
people whose mind and speech submit to no censorship,

OF BELIEF. 347
produces effects of two kinds — the one being the anti
thesis of the other. The first of these is the product of
its own proper influence, which refines and enhances
the humanizing sentiments of the people, in their
respective classes: — so it is that many of the highest
class will be seen to signalize themselves in courses of
self-denying and noble philanthropy; while the lowest
class, to some extent, are weaned from their rudeness
and their ferocity. At the same time the large middle
class becomes alive to whatever touches the well-being
of mankind, near at home, and afar off, and they tax
themselves heavily to give effect to many generous
enterprises. In effecting these ameliorations Christi
anity shines with its own light, and shows its derivation
from a world of love and order.
At the same time, and it is because men are at
leisure, that the meditative sensitiveness of which
Christianity is the source, and which it so much che
rishes, evolves adverse theories, and gives birth to
schemes of Christianized philosophy (first within the
pale of the Church) and then of antichristian philosophy,
beyond those limits. From this same source perplexed
meditations spring up, in their ancient order of sequence
— Pantheistic and Atheistic schemes, which might be
spoken of as the Congestion of thought in minds, often
of fine mould, though not the most robust. Take two
men of equally humane temperament, and train both of
them under Christian influences, and lead them both,
day after day, through scenes of human degradation and
wretchedness: — the one of them, whose structure of
mind is the most ordinary, and also the most healthy,

348 THE RESTORATION
will addict himself, forthwith, to some labour of
Christian benevolence; and he finds himself, though
much worn, yet happy in his path of toil. The other,
who, intellectually, is the choice sample of the two,
deeply ponders what he sees : —he thinks, till he becomes
miserable; — he throws up his religious profession, and
wildly looks round for some doctrine that may assuage
his anguish: — but he finds no such doctrine, and the
collapse of conflicting feelings leaves him — without God,
and without hope in the world! Deprive the first of
these men of his Christian belief, and of his Christian
motives and hopes, and he will presently ' faint and be
weary' in his work. But withdraw from the mind of
the other those lofty conceptions of the Supreme Wisdom
and Goodness which he received at first from Chris
tianity, and he would quickly find himself able to turn
away from scenes of human misery with frivolous
indifference. We may be sure that whenever Christianity has so
far wrought itself into the mind of a people at large as
to give rise to many self-denying enterprises of benevo
lence, and that it sustains these labours in vigour from
year to year, it will also have produced a reaction —
within the same community, which will utter itself
concerning the evils that abound in the social system in
tones that at first are querulous — then they become
ferocious, and at last they are blasphemous. If on all
sides of us there are penitentiaries — reformatory prisons
— missions among cannibals — and those latest efflo
rescences of Christian love — ragged schools — then there
will also be heard lecturers and writers — some of them

OF BELIEF. 349
men of genius, who, after beginning their career as hu
mane reformers, end it as murky misanthropic Atheists.
Just as the pains and troubles of a man's individual lot
may drive him to snatch at the knife or poison of the
suicide, so may the anguish and the despair with which
a sensitive heart contemplates the miseries that are in
the world impel him, if we might so speak, to open the
veins of the immortal spirit, and to let go forth the
life-blood of the soul.
This is that sifting of spirits — this is that fiery trial
which, with a peculiar intensity, is going on at this
time, and is putting to the severest proof the loyalty
— the religious allegiance, of many, born and trained
within the pale of Christian influence. To each of us,
in a more or less pointed manner, the critical question is
now put whether we will stand by Heaven — by Truth —
by Goodness ; or will range ourselves with the primaeval
rebellion, and be compromised with those whose quarrel
with God may be older than the mountains ?
This trial of constancy is now severe to many; but
it may yet become more so. One need not be gifted
with a prophet's eye to foresee this as probable : for it
is a course of things that is involved in the present
tendencies, at once of religious feeling, and of Abstract
Thought. Those who have survived (in a religious sense) a
conflict of this kind, eagerly turn to the Evangelic
records of Christ's discourses, that they may discover if
He has made any provision — or if so, what provision,
for securing the tranquillity of those who 'believe
and are sure' that He is the true interpreter of God's

350 THE RESTORATION
ways toward men. How is it that this 'Physician of
souls' goes about to heal the deep wounds of those
whose wounds have touched the immortal life ? We
cannot open the Gospels without acknowledging that
the lips of this Teacher breathe love and peace— health,
and power, as well as wisdom. May we not therefore
confidently look to Him for the relief of our perplexities
— for the solving of distracting problems ? Will He not
shed some light upon the dark mysteries of this world ?
He does nothing of that sort which we so much desire !
He is fixedly abstinent in relation even to subjects which
the Jewish mind of that age had become in some degree
alive to. He does not propound the main articles of a
Theistic belief, or speak of them as if they needed to be
ascertained or defended. Much less does He recognize,.
as if they were a burden upon that belief, the staggering
difficulties which oppress us, of this age, and with which,
the thoughtful in all times have so vainly striven. That
heavy load of troubled speculation which weighs us
down, does not seem to have come into His view when
He invites the weary to seek their rest in Him. This.
' Man of sorrows,' who was ' acquainted with griefs,'
gives no expression to those griefs which, to many of
the thoughtful and sensitive among His followers, have
outweighed the pressure of extreme personal sufferings,
so that they have been tempted to say — ' I am indeed
afflicted — yet would endure all with cheerfulness, if the
thick darkness that overspreads these heavens were with
drawn, or if only I could see a verge of the dawn upon
the cloud.'
On one occasion, when a perplexity nearly of this

OF BELIEF. 351
class stood out suddenly in His view, there is heard
from His lips a singular outburst of devout exultation
— ' I thank Thee, O Father' — which in no way chimes
in with our modern comfortless feeling. When, from
the ridge of Olivet, He wept over the doomed city — its
palaces and Temple, foreseen in ruins, His sorrow was
of that sort which resembles the spontaneous grief of a
parent who thinks of the miseries that are in store for a
rebellious child : — the trouble was of the concrete, not
of the abstract kind.
And yet if we do not find in the teaching of Christ
that which we should so gladly find, we find at least the
rudiments of peace, and a remedy against distraction,
which, if we will accept it and use it,- brings with it as
much acquiescence as is to be had, in the nature of
things, on earth; — and as much, perhaps, as is to be
found even among those that have encircled the Eternal
Throne since the morning hours of the Creation.
If there presents itself — and such a surmise will.
present itself, a surmise of this kind — That the terms
and phrases which are employed by the Canonical
writers, when they speak of the Divine attributes of
Wisdom, Goodness, Love, are used, as of necessity,
because there are none others ; but that these terms
must not be so understood, or be so interpreted by us,
as would bring them into parallelism with our finite
conceptions, or with any human modes of thinking and
of feeling, and which would warrant the free outflow of
our sympathies in harmony with our religious beliefs ; —
if we are thus tempted to think, then a suspicion so
disheartening is dispelled when we consent to listen to

352 THE RESTORATION
Christ, when He declares himself to be — not merely
a messenger, sent by God to man, but far more
than this — the Living Representative of the Divine
Nature, so far as the Infinite Mind can become cog
nizable by the finite mind. Now as Representative of
God among men, we hear him say — ' He that hath seen
me, hath seen the Father also ;' and' it is certain that
what are called the moral attributes, are, in a much
ampler sense cognizable by us than the natural attributes
can be. It is not merely that Christ, authenticating
His message by miracles, teaches us with authority con
cerning God; but He treads the earth as the genuine
Image of the Invisible God ; — and as such, He assures
us that the Universe is one, in its moral constitution —
that the language of Heaven is literally interpretable
among men — word for word ; and that whatever marvels
might surprise us in traversing the skies, yet, as to our
moral intuitions, we should everywhere find ourselves at
home. The language in which we embody our notions
of the True, the Right, the Good, the Loving, is not a
dialect of this province ; but it is the universal style of
God's kingdom in all places.
Precisely therefore as we — if we be humane, are
prompted to ' do good to all, even to the evil and the
unthankful,' so, and with a feeling strictly analogous to
this, does the Father of all dispense His benefits^ In a
sense corresponding to our own consciousness — He is
righteous in His administration — He is no respecter of
persons — He is merciful — compassionate — slow to anger
-^-ready to forgive — arid a Hearer of prayer. But He is
also firm of purpose, true to His word, and sure to give

OF BELIEF. 353
effect to whatever originates with Himself. The Saviour
Christ does not in words vindicate the. ways of God to
men ; but better than doing this, He stands before us as
a living Theodicaea — an intelligible expression of those
attributes of the Divine Nature which carry with them,
if not an implicit solution of the dark mysteries of the
moral system, yet an antidote to the fatal effect they
might have upon our minds ; and this is certain, that if
there be rebellion in any province of the universe, it is
a resistance to such wisdom, and to such rectitude, and
to such love, as are brought down to our apprehension in
the Person of Christ — the Christ of God.
And yet, if by this means a Theology is set before
me which commands my approval, something more is
still needed to afford me the intimate satisfaction which
I seek for ; or at least to convey to me a uniform peace
— a sentiment, as well as a conclusion of the reason.
I may make progress as to my conceptions of the Divine
Nature; and yet the further I go in assimilating my
own state of mind to those conceptions, so much the
more does darkness thicken around me when I look
abroad, and when I tread the crowded thoroughfares of
this world. It is true that there are considerations
which, if they be wisely entertained, suffice for con
vincing me that those troubles and pains that affect
myself have been, and are, not more than enough tO
constitute a beneficial discipline, which finds its suffi
cient reason in the wholesome products by which I am
morally the gainer. But where shall I find the shadow
of a reason — applicable to the millions of instances in
which the miseries of this life are taking effect jn no
A a

354 THE RESTORATION
such remedial manner; but the very contrary; — for
they are the very source and cause of aggravated vice,
and of deeper and deeper wretchedness ?
At this point it becomes evident that, for the ground
of a' settled composure in looking abroad upon the
human system — such as it is, and such as it ever has
been, I need something more than hitherto I have
found, Abstract > Theism is serviceable to a certain
extent; but it leaves me to contend, as I may, with
formidable surmises, and to abide under the shadow of
mysteries that have always defied human reason. On
this ground the brightest lights and the darkest shadows
- — not blended by any diffusive medium — show the
harshest contrasts. When I advance from this ground,
and come upon the illuminated field of Biblical Theism,
there is here indeed both light and warmth; never
theless, as we have just seen, it is this very Theism —
-well' defined as it is, and pure, which gives a propor
tionate intensity to the trouble that draws its too valid
reasons from the spectacle of human nature — erring,
suffering, and far from hope.
Where then shall I find peace ? Shall I school myself
in apathy, and resolutely refuse, any more, to care for
ills which do not infringe upon my personal ease and
¦enjoyment ? I cannot do this, if I would. I dare not
persuade myself to assume this insensibility, even toward
.the million with whom I have no tie of near relation
ship:— how then shall I attempt it as toward the few
whose welfare is dearer to me than my own? Philosophy
'will not help me. Theistic theories fail me at the very
point where I might look to them for comfort; nay,

OF BELIEF. 355
they mock me at that point. The Theism of the Bible,
if it be considered abstractedly, renders me tenfold more
alive to perplexities of this kind than 1 should have been
without it: — it is the very soul of that consciousness
upon which the evil and the woe around me take effect
so powerfully.
I see before me but one way of peace ; and yet even
this is not rest to the Reason, for it does not bring with
it a clearing away of thick clouds ; it is not the opening
of a bright azure overhead ; but it is the commencement
of a composure which establishes itself in the heart in a
spontaneous and gradual manner. Devoutly I believe
that there is not in this world (and probably not in any
other) more than one position in occupying which the
human mind — if it be sensitive, and unselfish, and in
every sense alive, can be exempted from those distracting
perplexities which are incompatible with moral health,
and which abate virtuous energy.
— Already I have listened to Christ as a Teacher sent
into the world on God's part, to make known to me
what I could not otherwise have known. I have learned
also to regard Him as the Representative of the Moral
Attributes of God, so that, in contemplation of Him
I acquire, as to those attributes, a consciousness which
is trustworthy, and sufficient too for my guidance and
support in the exigencies of this life. It remains then
that I think of, and live in communion with, the same
Christ as the Faultless Man, in whose demeanour, and
in whose words and actions, I find an intelligible au
thentication of every emotion, and of every sensibility
which I ought to allow, and to cherish, as good and
a a a

356 THE RESTORATION
reasonable, and as truly related, not only to those facts
which come within my own range of vision, but. to
those also which lie far beyond it. In the demeanour-^-
in the discourses — in the conduct of Christ-^the True
and Faultless Man, I see reflected, as in a mirror, all
things of all worlds that touch, or that belong to, the
moral state and consciousness of the intelligent crea
tion — that is to say — all those facts which, if I saw
and knew them, would affect me with a corresponding-
joy or sorrow.
It must not be pretended, on the adverse side, that
the Evangelic Memoirs, containing as they do the whole
that we can now know of Christ, are too fragmentary—
too inartificial, and tog brief, to warrant my deriving
from them the comprehensive Personal Idea which now
I am in search of, Infinitely preferable are these frag
mentary Gospels, in relation to the purpose before me,
than would be any imaginable biography, framed upon
a philosophic principle. In any instance where the
Individual Man of a past age is to be thought of, vividly
and correctly, give me genuine fragments of his actual
life, and of his familiar converse with his chosen friends,
and keep far out of my sight the generalizing portraiture
which may be offered to me by some writer who is more
full of himself and of his sagacity, than of his subject.
This is, I think, the rule . in observance of which the
ablest recent writers of history have made so great an
advance upon the practice of their predecessors. The
Gospels, rigidly analysed on the principles that are now
authenticated within the department pf history, offer to

OF BELIEF. 357
me precisely the sort of materials which are the most
to be desired, in such a case.
With these materials in my' hand — with these sketches
— these hints — before me, I come into the possession
of a conception of the Personal Christ as complete as
I have of any personage of the ancient epochs. And
I acquire this distinct conception notwithstanding the
fact that this Person is such a one as had never before
trod the earth, nor has any one the like to Him trod it
since. And be it observed that this Perfect Idea which
has concreted itself in my mind, is not a vague outline
of godlike majesty; but it has the vivacity and the
intelligible distinctness of a likeness, taken and fixed,
at various moments, by some infallible and instanta
neous process. All things mundane I must regard as
a troubled dream — all history must become as an inco
herent myth, if it be not certain that the Christ of the
Gospels is a reality, and that the incidents of His life
are in the strictest sense — historical.
This being so, and as I have on other grounds con
vinced myself that this Christ of the Gospels combines
in His Person the qualities and virtues of human nature
with the. attributes of the Divine nature, I draw near
to Him in the confidence that I shall find indicated in
His behaviour, in His words, and in His actions, those
views and sentiments regarding the subjects that most
perplex me, which, if I could but attain the same, would
give me, at the least, composure. While I approach
Him — even this 'Jesus, Son of David,' thronged by the
multitude, I see Him as one who is conscious of all

358 THE. RESTORATION
conditions and states of being — visible and invisible —
the past, the present, and the future : — the present and
the visible must in His view keep their proportion, as
related to the unseen and the eternal.
It is certain that it is not insensibility — it is not
insensitiveness of temperament, whence springs the
serenity of that brow, and the governed calm of that
countenance. But then, may it not be that, in the
depths of that unfathomable soul, wherein the weal of
all creatures is entertained, no regard is had to those
ills and pains of an hour or a day, the witnessing of
which moves me to pity, and disturbs my peace ? If
I might be tempted to think so, then I follow the course
of this Saviour of the world, and note what is the quality
and the intention of His miracles, from the first of them
to the last. Now in this series there occur not more,
at the most, than two or three exceptions to the rule,
that they were interpositions, having for their purpose
the relief of bodily sufferings, or the supply of bodily
wants. — They were (with these few exceptions) just
such acts of spontaneous sympathy as my own feelings
would prompt me to imitate, every day, if I could, when
mingling with the concourse of crowded cities. In this
sense we may reverse the Scripture, and say, ' the mind
that is in me was also in Christ Jesus.' There was in
Him compassion on a level with the most ordinary of
the ills that affect humanity. It was not that, to Him
before whose eye the immortality of the thousands
around Him was laid open, their present pains — their
lameness and palsy, their blindness and deafness, their
hunger and their thirst and weariness, were of small

OF BELIEF. ^359
or no account. It was not that a forethought of the
boundless future bred in Him a lofty indifference to
ward pains and ills so ephemeral as those that weigh
upon mortality. Viewed on this ground, and in rela
tion to the inference which I have now in view, the
series of evangelic miracles carries with it a peremp
tory conclusion. The. case before us is one in which
the less involves the greater. It is certain that He
who knows,- and who has in His view all that I see
and know, and far more, and whose emotions of pity
are like my own — yet are far more acute, and uniform
— has also in His view such facts, or such prospects
as are more than sufficient for the double purpose, first
of securing an habitual composure and tranquillity, and
then for holding entire an unshaken loyalty toward God
— the Sovereign Creator and Ruler of the universe.
If now the question, be put to me, whether my Chris
tian Belief enables me to rid myself of that burden of
far-reaching care and trouble which I share with. the
thoughtful of all ages — my reply is this — In truth I have
not found the means of ridding myself of this burden;
but in the Gospels I have found Him in communion
with whom I am learning how to bear it; and thus
I hope to bear it to the end, still retaining my faith
and trust in God as supremely Good and Wise — ' a Just
God, and a Saviour,'

360 THE RESTORATION

THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE ARGUMENT CONCERNING
CHRISTIANITY: ERNEST RENAN.
It is one thing to inquire concerning the present
position of an argument, in a strict sense, and another
thing to give a reply to an indefinite question relating
to the variations of religious opinion, thereto relating,
within this or that community at a particular time. The
first-named inquiry is logically distinct; and it may
admit of a single and a categorical reply : the other is
likely to receive contradictory answers ; and yet each
may be true in a sense, or true in part. The reply to
the first question, if rightly given, will be peremptory
and conclusive ; and moreover it will carry with it a
consequence or an inference, bearing upon what ought
to be the next following step in the same direction. A
reply to the second will indicate consequences that are
precarious, and which may or may not be realised : — in
such case — no one can say yea or nay — confidently.
As for instance — the present position of the argument
concerning Christianity is such — if the mere reason of
the case in hand is to prevail — that it can admit of only
one further step. But even if, in the strictest logic,
a conclusion finally in favour of our Christian Belief

OF BELIEF. 361
should .be admitted, it will by no means follow as an
inevitable consequence, that a people — the people of
Germany, or of France, or of England — shall therefore
yield itself to what is admitted to be the reasonable
issue. This is far from being a necessary result. In
fluences that are always rife, and always in active opera
tion, may avail, as heretofore has happened several times
in the course of ages, to bring about a condition of
national, and almost universal Atheism. We, on the
Christian side, are too ready to assume as certain what
is in fact exceedingly doubtful — namely this — that a
Christianized community will always and for ever hold
to its profession — because in reason it ought to do so.
The actual mood of the public mind toward Chris
tianity at any particular time is very much the conse
quence of the influence of individual popular writers—
who may sway the literate classes, this way and that, for
¦a season : it is a to-and-fro movement — it is a hot and a
cold fit, which intermits from year to year. Not so —
an argument concerning a mass of facts. In the con
duct and the issues of a great argument no such varia
tions of the public mind can rightfully have any place.
The argument has its own stages: — it has its slow
developments, and its crises, and it will have its issue
in a determinate manner. We shall. see this in making
a report of a notable recent instance.
Fits of national unbelief, with an Atheistic chill fol
lowing, or attending them, are likely to arise among an
imperfectly instructed and a much-reading people from
various causes, but especially from this, that the contro
versy between Christian and antichristian writers has

362 THE RESTORATION
lately come to the surface in an inverted order. This
mistake in method is attributable, quite as much to the
ill-directed zeal of the Believing, as to the astuteness of
the Unbelieving combatants. On both sides a ground
less hypothesis concerning the conditions of a written
^Revelation has been assumed, as if it needed no proof.
When we reject this hypothesis, then a vast mass of
argumentation — learned and proper in its place— ceases
to take any bearing ; or it takes only an indirect bearing
upon the question of Christianity, as affecting ourselves
now, and in the future life.
It is a very natural prejudice that prompts us to ima
gine that a Revelation — in the form of a written message
from above — ought, as to its literary quality, and as to the
conditions under which it comes into our hands, to con
form itself to certain notions of fitness, and propriety,
and exactness, that seem due to its heavenly origin.
This prejudice — it is nothing better than a prejudice— -
assumes all forms among our religious communions : —
with those who are the least well informed it exists as
an absurd superstition, attaching itself to the Authorized
Version, and even to the spellings of our English Bible :
with those who are a little better informed this super
stition has taken up the Textus Receptus as its rock, or
its anchor ground : then comes the more erudite critical
doctrine in support of which volumes upon volumes of
learned apology are every year issuing from the Press,
But what becomes of this same pious hypothesis in
behalf of Holy Scripture — the Book of God — when we
place it alongside of our religious interpretations of the
great book of the material world, and when we look

OF BELIEF. 363
about upon the Universe, considered as God's creation ?
We know in how dark and comfortless a mood the Ori
ental mind — from the earliest ages to the present time,
has continu'ed to peruse the book of nature — presented
to it as the product of infinite Goodness, Wisdom, and
Power. The Oriental sage affirms that the animal orders
are not — cannot be, from God — " the Eternal Father ;"
but are the work of the demiurge — a being of inferior
attributes, and doubtful beneficence. In like manner
among ourselves, the ways of the Almighty are discussed
and criticised in a mood of gloomy perplexity, on the
ground of an hypothesis which, in fact, is wholly gra
tuitous, and which is the product of a theology that is
itself factitious. A time must come when suppositions
which already have given way in their imagined bearing
upon the material world, shall also cease to take effect
upon Biblical Interpretation. When this time shall have
fully come, Unbelief will have lost its occasion, and
apologistic criticism will have lost its importance.
I have just now said that the subjects of debate in
the Christian argument have come to the surface in
an inverted order. In an instance such as that of the
Christian argument, the logical' order which the subjects
in debate should obey, is plainly this. — In the first place
it is to be asked — Are the principal facts on the reality
of which everything rests real, or not so? — Are the
allegations concerning them true or false ? If they are
mainly true, then this conclusion carries in itself all
that we need much care about as to the documents
wherein the alleged facts are reported. But if, on the
contrary, the principal allegations are untrue, then a

364 THE RESTORATION
laborious discussion concerning the literary merits, and
the age, and the authorship of the writings will barely
repay the pains of those who take it in hand : — such a
discussion will be consigned, by the busy world, to the
care of the few who abound in leisure and in learning.
If we are sincere — if our motives are approvable
in entering upon this great argument, then we shall
remand to a future hearing, and shall put off to a
convenient season, all evidences for and against the
hypothesis that the documents in our hands — to wit —
the Gospels and Epistles, are of Divine origin, and are
therefore authoritative in a religious sense. This done,
and the ground cleared — we take in hand the purely
historic problem which relates to the truth of the facts
alleged. Whether the writings which report these facts
were divinely inspired, or were simply human products
— this is an after question.
We take up the argument therefore in this, its proper
and reasonable order, as to the subordination of subjects.
Let it be assumed then that we have done with ques
tions concerning the Inspiration and infallibility of the
Scriptures in detail. We have done, therefore, with piles
of books and pamphlets on the one side — samples as
they are of frivolous and malignant criticism, intended
to impugn and destroy popular beliefs concerning the
Bible. We have done also, on the other side, with the
groundless anxieties of those — learned and ingenious
Writers — who have come forward to maintain this po
pular faith. The truth of the facts is all we need think
about at this time. And now if we inquire concerning
tlie present position of the Great Christian Argument

OF BELIEF. 365
relating to the truth of the Evangelic Facts, we are
excused from the necessity of calling into court the
band of Christian advocates ; inasmuch as we have at
hand evidence that is more available than this : we have
before us, in series, the succession of Antichristian ad
vocates, and we may at this moment listen to the con
clusive and most pertinent testimony of the last and the
best of them, who, as from a vantage ground, and him
self personally endowed with the highest qualifications
fitting him for the task, at once passes sentence upon his
predecessors — one and all — on the same side, and gives
expression to what must be — if itself be inadmissible — a
final effort on that side to solve the problem of historical
Christianity. Of each of the several suppositions that have been
resorted to in recent times for solving the problem of
historic Christianity, this is true of it — that it rejects
and finally disposes of its immediate precursor, and by
implication it contradicts its penultimate precursor.
Thus it was that the base-born and ill-considered ri
baldry of the Voltaire era met its refutation from the
pens of the German Rationalists, who admitted, for the
most part, the honest intention of the Evangelists, and
accepted the reality of the history — minus — the miracles.
But the insufficiency of this mode of disposing of the
supernatural element was soon felt, and by many it was
acknowledged ; and at length a formal and elaborate re
futation of the theory was undertaken, and ably executed
by Dr. Strauss. This acute and accomplished writer —
thoroughly master of his materials— advanced step by
step, and at every step held up Rationalism to scorn.

366 THE RESTORATION
A better hypothesis than that of the Rationalists must,
he said, be devised. The mythic origin of the Gospels,
and the Idealistic uprise of Christianity, was therefore
brought forward to supplant Rationalism, and to fill the
chasm which the removal of it had occasioned.
But this same chasm quickly yawned anew — The
" myth" was pronounced to be — an impracticable
scheme. A substitute for this also must therefore be
found, and we now have it in the recent volume of
M. Ernest Renan. Yet again the same law of demolition
takes effect, as before. The mythic origination of the
Gospels is first formally rejected by M. Renan, and the
historic reality of the Person of Christ is amply ad
mitted ; and much more than this is granted, as we shall
see. Nevertheless, while the enterprise upon which
Strauss had expended so much labour, is peremptorily de
clared to be futile — to be nugatory and inapplicable, the
ingenious author of the scheme receives from his accom
plished and courteous headsman a due acknowledgment
of his personal merits. So it is that the man in black,
who wields the fatal axe in front of the block, says to
his kneeling victim — 'Forgive me the stroke — I have
no malice toward you in my heart.' *
Each of these instances, in its turn, supplies an illus
tration of what must be the course of things, under the

* " La critique de detail des textes eVangeliques, en particulier, a &A faite par
M. Strauss d'une maniere qui laisse peu h desirer. Bien que M. Strauss se soit
trompe dans sa theorie sur la redaction des Evangiles, et que son livre ait, selon
.moi, le tort de se tenir beaucoup trop sur le terrain theologique, et trop peu sur le
terrain historique." — Vie de Jims: Introduction, p. viii.

OF BELIEF, 367
circumstances ; and this peculiarity of the Antichristian
argument deserves, at this moment, peculiar attention.
In any imaginable instance if the case be of this sort — ¦
namely — That a difficult problem, whether historical or
physical, is propounded, and a solution of it is attempted
by opposed parties — each reasoning upon the ground of a
foregone conclusion, then, when argumentation has pro
ceeded some way, the final issue will indicate itself- — on
this side, or on that, a while before it is openly recog
nised : — as thus. — Be it that the two opposed conclusions
are absolutely contradictory, the one of the other, so that
— if this be tme—that must be false. On the one side it
will be seen that those who take up the argument in
succession move on toward an issue in the way of a
gradual approximation: — each reasoner, in his turn,
brings forward a hypothetical solution which is substan
tially an advance upon that of his immediate predeces
sor : — at least it is an approach— it is an amendment — •
it does not overthrow, or flatly contradict what has gone
before; — but it improves upon it, and disengages the
hypothesis from some perplexing anomaly. Thus each
of these reasoners nears the true issue as by the method
of " exhaustions." Every page, almost, of the history of
pur modern physical science offers an' instance which
might be brought forward to exemplify this averment.
¦-. On the opposite side — the side of those who are
labouring to make good the contrary conclusion — the
course of argumentation will be this — The reasoners on
this opposite side come forward, each in his turn — each,
in commending his own hypothesis, speaks of it as a new
conjecture — which rests its claims to be listened to upon

368 THE RESTORATION
the plea of the admitted failure and falsity of all pre
ceding schemes. Each advocate presents himself in a
confident manner, and turning round to those on his own
side, who have already shot their arrow and missed the
mark, says — "You too have misapprehended the problem
before us.— You also are quite wrong. We must, on our
side, go to work anew." The issue of an argument which
has thus given a premonition of its nugatory and delu
sive quality, will be to show that all have indeed been
wrong — and the last speaker not less wrong than his
predecessors. So we find it at this very moment : the Great Argu
ment is still at issue concerning Christianity. The
accomplished writer — whom I have named — M. Ernest
Renan, brings the problem forward on ground which is
indeed new, on the Antichristian side ; or it is new as
to the large admissions which he makes — and which he
makes with cordial feeling, on behalf of the Evangelic
history. But then these admissions — made in this mood
— must not win a hearing from us until we have con
sented to reject, and have actually put out of view, whole
and entire, the myth hypothesis of Strauss. Thus it was
that Strauss, in his turn, had given the coup de grace to
the Rationalists : — he had treated them with scorn and
derision : he had said — " You are altogether wrong — :
You have mistaken the facts — The Gospel is not a
reality in any historic sense— it is nothing but a myth."
So did the Rationalists, in their day, rebuke their pre
cursors — the frivolous and ignorant revilers of Christ.
Destruction and contradiction — administered freely to
those on their own side, is the law — it is the logical

OF BELIEF. 369
characteristic of the Antichristian Argument. And such
will be its issue— and this issue awaits it, near at hand.
A course of argument — pertinaciously adhered to in the
desperate endeavour to establish a false position, takes
effect, by retroversion, upon the methods of reasoning
which have thus been misused. The logician who
utterly fails in his argument, breaks or blunts his own
tools. Those on the Christian side who have already noted
this characteristic of the Antichristian Argument, and
have therefore looked out in expectation of what must
be its next turn, may well rejoice — nay, they may exult
in seeing that, in taking this necessitated turn, the
movement has fallen into such hands as those of this
learned, eloquent, and seriously-minded writer. Nothing
more auspicious — on the Christian side — could have
been thought of than is this which has actually occurred.
M. Ernest Renan is the man who possesses those qua
lities as to his personal dispositions, and his reputation,
and his accomplishments, that should fit him for the task
which he has now achieved. This task is of a twofold
kind; for, it is first, that of 'reporting progress' — or
rather, no progress — on the Antichristian side; and
secondly, it is that of giving the highest possible advan
tage to his own hypothesis concerning the Person —
I'homme incomparable — of the Evangelic history ; no
thing less ample than this hypothesis could now — as he
thinks — be admitted with any chance of success. From
this time forward, therefore, no writer — unless it be
some one of the lowest grade in literature — will refuse
to grant, at least as much as this intelligent and learned
B b

37° THE RESTORATION
writer has now explicitly granted. There is then an
end of the Antichristian Argument — so far as Ernest
Renan has disallowed the grounds of it. Unbelief, if it
is dated earlier than the publication of this book — the
' Vie de Jesus,' has died by the hand of an accomplished
conspirator. But the hypothesis of M, Renan — if it be taken along
with his concessions and his admissions — cannot be
thought of as if it might be a final issue in the argument
concerning Christianity. A scheme of this sort — fan
tastic as it is, and wholly gratuitous — not only asks to
be carried out to its natural consequences; but it de
mands, from its contriver, to be set clear of the contra
dictions which it so largely imbeds, and to be stripped
of its poetry also, which is an impertinence. The con
cessions of the ' Vie de Jesus' — incompatible as they are,
one with another — are these. —
The first of them — embracing whatever it implies, but
does not specify — is, the historic reality of — ' la personne
sublime du fondateur' — the author of the new religion.
This leading concession is amplified in many passages
of eloquent eulogium, and of beautiful description. The
personal history is granted, not as with sullen reluctance,
but readily, and it is expanded, and it is vindicated, and
its outline is filled in with much vivid colouring : What
becomes then of Dr, Strauss, and of the unreal mythic
Christ ?
The second of these concessions gives us back the
antiquity, and the substantial authenticity of the four
Gospels — by whomsoever they were actually written, or
in whatsoever manner they were put together, in their

OF BELIEF. 371
present form {Introduction, xvi, and onward). The writers
— it is affirmed— were either eye-witnesses of the acts
of Christ, or they embodied in their narratives authentic
'Original memoirs. This affirmation, at large, is applied
specifically to each of the Evangelists ; and the critical
grounds on which it rests are briefly stated in the course
qf the Author's Introduction. These critical grounds
of belief in the Evangelic documents it is not important
to my argument to repeat. It is enough that, after
setting off the miracles, we are told that we tread solid
ground in listening to the Four Gospels ! It is enough
that — ' les evangiles, sans cesser d'etre en partie legen-
daires, prennent une haute valeur, puisqu'ils nous font
remonter au demi-siecle qui suivit la mort de Jesus, et
me'me, dans deux cas, aux temoins oculaires de ses ac
tions.' These admissions help us therefore to sweep the
field of vast heaps of futile argumentation; and it is
evident that we are now drawing on towards a conclu
sion—whether on this side, or on that.
M. Renan, in giving a resume of his criticism of the
four Evangelists, repeats the expression of his confidence
in them, as substantially trustworthy narrators of what
they saw — although, as to each, it is on grounds peculiar
to each : — ' En somme, j'admets comme authentique les
•quatre evangiles canoniqiies.' Matthew, he says, is un
rivalled in reporting the discourses of Christ. The Gos
pel of Mark — revised by Peter, is, in an historic , sense,
of more firm texture : — it is the most ancient, and the
most original. This Gospel abounds With those minute
notices in matters of fact— i. e. visible events — which,
without doubt, indicate an eye-witness. It is in this
b b %

372 THE RESTORATION
precision, as to facts, that we recognise the consenting
testimony of Peter — who had followed Jesus from first to
last. Luke, in M. Renan's opinion, is to be listened to
with more caution — more reserve ; but it is certain that
in compiling this, which is a regular biography of Christ,
he had under his eye some original documents, which have
been lost ; but which contained facts and discourses un
known to the two — Matthew and Mark. The Gospel
of John is, as M. Renan thinks, of ambiguous authority;
nevertheless his Gospel contains passages of high and
unquestionable authenticity.*
It will be for those who, on the Antichristian side,
shall follow this writer's steps, in the mode of a severe
criticism, to show that what he here accepts as real in
the rise of Christianity, contradicts and disallows the
hypothesis which he labours to uphold. The bone of
Unbelief, ill set by M. Renan, must be broken anew ;
nevertheless he will have had the merit of calling forth,
on the side of material Atheism, a future Goliath of
loftier stature and of hoarser voice, and that will not
now, be slow to come. Meantime why should we,
on the Christian side, endeavour to drive this candid
worshipper of the prophet of Galilee across the lines of
belief, or insist that he should take his place on the
Antichristian side? Why should this be done — inas
much as twenty passages might be cited from this ' Vie
de Jesus' in which the author gives expression to a
* It may be well to note M. Renan's rejection, absolute, of the Apocryphal
Gospels — unworthy, as he thinks, of a moment's comparison with the Four : —
they add to these nothing that can be accepted as of any Value. (Introduction,
p. xliii.)

OF BELIEF. 373
sincere and ungrudging admiration of one of whom, in
the last lines of his book, he says — whatever may be the
future in human history, ' Jesus ne sera pas surpasse.
Son culte se rajeunira sans cesse : sa legende provoquera
des larmes sans fin: ses soufff ances attendriront les meil-
leurs cceurs; tous les siecles proclameront qu'entre les
fils des hommes, il n'en est pas ne de plus grand que
Jesus.' This ' sublime personne,' says M Renan, who pre
sides every day even now over the destinies of the
world, may properly be called divine. The author has
exhausted the resources of panegyric in his book. . What
more then, on the side of Belief, do we ask for ? What
more can we in reason demand ? What we ask is this —
That there should be some fitness or congruity in the
encomium as related to the historic subject of it. As it
is, M. Renan's glowing commendation of the hero of his
romance reaches the utmost pitch of absurdity in its
grotesque disagreement with the historic characteristics
of the real Evangelic Person. Put now out of view the
problem ot the supernatural, which the author evades,
and this 'Vie de Jesus' will stand as a signal instance
of failure in the line of those whose genius has seduced
them into the attempt to work a fable out of a history :
— a fable — true in the shell, utterly false in the sub
stance. Are there any among us — on the Christian side — who
would wish to see a formal refutation of this illusory
book ? The best refutation of it is that which it receives
in a moment when an ingenuous reader, in closing it,
opens one' of the Gospels — let it be that one to which

374 THE RESTORATION
M. Renan affixes his special authentication. The feeling
of revulsion and disgust is irresistible. — On every page
of this pretended ' Life of Jesus,' there is an utter mis
conception of the facts, and of the mind and meaning
of the whole ; and most so, of the mind of Christ.
What is to be complained of is not any malignant
mis-statement of the facts; but it is a strange— one
might say, a burlesqued misconception of them. An
instance analogous to this may give some aid in right
fully and candidly interpreting M. Renan's innocent
bewilderment. Take the case of an intelligent Hindoo
or Persian, who visits England— his note-book in hand :
— the foreigner has access daily to the home and the
office of a public person concerning whose character
and acts he wishes to inform, first himself, and then
his countrymen, on his return. He is veracious, and
keen sighted, and observant. But look now into the
diary of this Oriental.— You will find everything there
to be at once quite true in a sense, and utterly false
also: everything is recognisably exact in the outward
form, yet — -everything is absurdly — it is ludicrously out
of position. This Oriental goes about mis-interpretittg
whatever he sees and hears, not so much because he is
ignorant of our usages, as because the motives — the con
ventional reasons — the moral instincts, and the higher
and more refined consciousness of the English gentleman
artd statesman are of a sort of which the Hindoo or the
Persian has not even a remote conception. It is thus
that M. Renan, on every page, misconceives Him whom
he vaguely designates as the — personne sublime — the
founder of Christianity.

OF BELIEF. 375,
Misconceptions of this species — bewilderments in fact
— -rdo not admit of rectification : — the book therefore is
.safe from refutation— it will continue to be devoured by
uneasy disbelievers. It will never again be spoken of
after 1. the day when the next voice, on that side, shall
have uttered its thunder.
It can be no amazement, on the Christian side, to
find that the Christ of the Evangelic history has been
so strangely misunderstood by a writer who, while he
has the genuine documents of Christianity full in his
view, and diligently read, yet fails to see, or to ap
prehend at all those foremost principles that are the
main characteristics of what he calls — ' a religion for
mankind.' One might think that a prominent rudi
ment of the Christian system is — The doctrine of an
iafter life— even the immortality of the individual man,
and an inheritance for him in the heavens. One might
think that Christ's often-uttered answer to the urgent
question — ' Is there forgiveness of sins with God?'
could not have escaped, the notice of a reader of the .
Gospels — even of the most careless reader. One might
have supposed that the renovation of the moral and
spiritual life in the individual believer, would not fail
to present itself as a prominent article in the preaching
of Christ and of his Apostles. Nevertheless of none
of these principal matters does this learned and indus
trious writer appear to have obtained even a remote
conception, as if it had a place in. the public ministry
of Christ. The question here is not, whether these
doctrines or principles are true, or illusory; but this
only  were they not included in Christ's teaching ? did

376 THE RESTORATION
they not stand foremost in his own view of the objects
of his mission ? Who can doubt it that has read the four
Gospels, or one of them only? Not a line in this 'Vie
de Jesus' gives evidence on behalf of the- Author that he
himself has any sort of consciousness of things spiritual
— the life of the soul toward God. I will not here be
put off with a taunt — ' You are using the Evangelic
slang — we know the sound of it.' From such a judg
ment I appeal to the catholic consciousness of the
Christian community in all times. — There is a life of
the individual soul toward God: — there is a beginning
of this spiritual life in repentance — faith — love, and the
hope of eternal life. — There is an individual spiritual
life to teach, and to give effect to which, Christ lived,
died, and rose again; but of none of these things does
this writer know even the rudiments. He may reject
the supernatural if he pleases : — he may think it enough
to underline a half of the Gospels with his vapid and
inane phrase — la legende dit. He may stare at the pro
blem which he does not attempt to solve ; but there is a
heavier charge outstanding against him — for he wholly
fails to apprehend the first principles of the Christianity
that was given to the world by Christ.
M. Renan finds in the preaching of Christ nothing
more substantial, or nothing which should claim to be
reported qf in a life of the Author of a new religion —
nothing better than a sentimental communism, or an
amended Buddhism. This ' kingdom of heaven,' so
far as this writer has been able to gather its import from
the.four Gospels, is in fact a kingdom forearth, not for
heaven: — it is peace on earth, and harmony and liberty

OF BELIEF. 377
of thought and liberty of action, for the individual man,
and for nations. As to the personal immortality which
the Gospel promises, it is — the Buddhist eternity of
collective human nature. Thus it is that this writer
is content to dismiss in silence the deep yearnings of
the individual soul for a life divine : — it is thus that he
puts contempt upon the instinctive apprehension of a
future retribution :— it is thus that, in his estimation,
the universal belief, the hope, the fear, of a world un
seen, and an individual life beyond death, together with
— " la legende" concerning miracles, and the super
natural, they may safely be set off from the four Gospels.
But then he says — there is nothing great in history that
does not rest upon fable — ' une legende.' In such cases
it is not so much the actors in the fraud that are to be
blamed ; ' c'est l'humanite qui veut etre trompee.'
This mode of solving the difficult problem of
Christianity will not — it does not now — give content
ment to clear-headed men on the Antichristian side.
Such persons, who perhaps are popular writers, may
quietly allow M. Renan's romance to have its day, and
to be retailed in the twopenny literature of the time ;
but they themselves well know that this accomplished
writer has in fact brought the great argument, on their
s'ide, into a position of extreme difficulty. Never again
will it be possible for them, or for their successors, to
resort to random averments, that are indefinite and
cloudy, about myths, or Oriental idealism, or what not.
Antichristian leaders will grudge to see themselves thus
forcibly dragged forward into a position where they can
neither recede, nor advance. How is it in fact ? — this

378 THE RESTORATION
fact is most noticeable, and I ask attention to it — The
Antichristian company, headed at this time by so able a
spokesman as Ernest Renan, is led up to that ' Place of
a skull' where a band of Roman soldiers is doing its
wonted part upon three who are condemned to die by
crucifixion. According to the now-authenticated report
of a witness, the mid-sufferer is heard to exclaim as He
dies—' O Pere, je remets mon esprit entre tes mains.'
This is not enough. This leader of the Antichristian
band is not willing so soon and so easily to dismiss his
friends, whom he has summoned to the spot. He de
mands their presence even to the latest twilight of that
Friday. He insists that they shall wait upon the ground
an hour or more until Joseph of Ha-ramathaim has had
time to confer with Pilate; and moreover until Nico
demus, another ' visionary,' has been able to purchase
and to bring forward ' une ample provision des substances
necessaires a Fembaumement.' These witnesses, under
the guidance of M. Renan, and not only they, but we
all — willing and unwilling — are required to assist at the
burial — we all are to become qualified, along with the
first ' eye-witnesses,' to give evidence as to the im
portant fact that, when the mangled body had been laid
upon the table of stone within the vault, the door of the
sepulchre was closed — «¦ par une pierre tres-difficile a,
manier.' Night has come on; and we may all retire! —
History has nothing more to say concerning the Cru
cified Prophet ! What became of the body is not known
—and can never be known, so thinks the author of this
romance. Who shall stay the pen of the incautious and ill-judg-

OF BELIEF. 379
ing author of the ' Vie de Jesus ?' Manifestly he has here
written a paragraph too much, or a page too little. He
has thrown a complication of difficulties in the way of
those whose resolution is fixed — never to grant the su
pernatural. These difficulties should now be spread out
to view, that we may better understand the arduous task
of those who must encounter them. A few words will
here suffice. — In two, three, or more places of this at
tractive volume, M. Renan gives utterance to his opinion
of the moral and the intellectual qualities of the four
Evangelists — or, as he would say — of their artistic indi
vidual ability as writers. He greatly admires their sim
plicity ; he accepts their manifest literary incompetency,
which, in the best way, vouches for their truthfulness
as reporters of what they had seen. These four writers,
or certainly three of them, were not the men who could
have imagined or invented such a life as is that of their
Master, or who could have framed discourses so divine
as are those which they have recorded. Let us hear him
on this matter. — I will not take the responsibility of
putting into my own words a passage, the far-reaching
inference from which might lose something of its value
in any translation. M. Renan (p. 451) speaks of the
painful fall which the reader is conscious of in passing
from the history of Jesus (the original memoirs) to the
history or the writings of his Apostles. ' Les evangelistes
eux-memes, qui nous ont Mgue l'image de Jesus, sont si
fort au dessous de celui dont ils parlent que sans cesse
ils le defigurent, faute d'atteindre a sa hauteur. Leurs
ecrits sont pleins d'erreurs et de contresens. On sent a
chaque ligne un discours d'une beaute divine fixe par des

380 THE RESTORATION
redacteurs qui ne le comprennent pas, et qui substituent
leurs propres idees a celles qu'ils ne saissisent qu'a demi.
En somme, le caractere de Jesus, loin d'avoir ete embelli
par ses biographes, a ete diminue par eux. La critique,
pour le retrover tel qu'il fut, a besoin d'ecarter une serie
de meprises, provenant de la mediocrite d'esprit des dis
ciples. Ceux-ci l'ont peint comme ils le concevaient,
et souvent, en croyant l'agrandir, l'ont en realite
amoindri.' Passages of the same import, relating to the intel
lectual mediocrity and the literary inefficiency of the
Evangelists, might be cited from several of the chapters
of this volume. The upshot is this — that, in the opinion
of so experienced a critic as M. Renan, the Evangelists,
apart from their Exemplar, were quite powerless : — far
from being able to work in the same style — their original
apart — they blunder and misunderstand everything the
moment when they are tempted to step off from the
terra firma of facts and realities. M. Renan is very
positive on this, point. Away from their Master, or an
inch only out of sight of Him — these four writers do not
fail to show themselves what they are — namely — vision
aries, and low in their mode of thinking — rightly were
they spoken of by the chiefs of the Sanhedrim, as not
only unlearned, but ' idiotic' Galileans.
So let us take it. But if it be so, and we are willing,
on the Christian side, at this time, to grant it, then a
startling question presents itself; and we are inclined
to press for an answer to it : — an answer it must be,
out-spoken, intelligible, special, and carried forward in
its particulars. We have just now been present in the

OF BELIEF. 381
garden, where was a sepulchre. We have witnessed the
entombment of the crucified body. We have seen a
heavy stone rolled up to the mouth of the tomb ; and as
to what afterwards became of the body, no one knows :
— the facts are lost to history. Certain it is that there
was no resurrection.
Whence then have come the closing paragraphs of the
four Gospels ?
These closing paragraphs are thoroughly in the style
of the body of the Gospels — of each Gospel separately.
There is the same simplicity, there is the same archaic
majesty — the same dignity — the dignity of guileless
truth: — there is the same avoidance of passion, and
of exultation, and the same absence of fanciful ampli
fications. That even one of these four writers should have hit the
Evangelic style, in this case, is a supposition that is in
the very highest degree improbable. The improbability
is increased incalculably if we must suppose two to have
done this. — What does the improbability amount to if
the conditions of our argument are not to be satisfied
with anything less prodigious than the supposition that
the four Evangelists — and each in his own manner —
should have concluded their Gospels in the manner in
which they have closed them? This is a supposition
which no well-constituted mind will admit — or not until
after it has sustained fatal damage by obdurate adherence
to a glaring sophism.
Upon this writer's own showing there are therefore
now no grounds for rejecting the closing paragraph of
the four Gospels. These final passages, in which the

382 THE RESTORATION
behaviour and the utterances of Christ carry the marks
of genuineness with peculiar distinctness, could not
have been written at all, otherwise than — as truthful
records of what the four writers had actually seen and
heard. If there be reality anywhere in the Gospels,
there is reality here. Strong indeed must that infatua
tion be which forbids the author of this book frankly to
acknowledge what his own principles of criticism clearly
imply. M. Ernest Renan will not fail to hear of this inco
herence and this inconsistency from chiefs of his own
party, more logical than himself. Some of them will
tell him that there is now only one way of escape from
the embarrassment into which his enthusiasm, his ge
nius, and his taste for the picturesque, have betrayed
him and themselves. He will be told — and told truly —
that those who refuse to accept the supernatural in a
sense divine, must be driven into the acknowledgment
of it in a sense infernal.
It will not be asked of a writer on the Christian side
that he should put forth a programme of the impiety
that is next to come. I decline to do this ; but I think
that those who have watched the progress of the Athe
istic argument during the last twenty years would not
find it difficult to foreshow what must be the next-
coming utterance of it. We may be sure that an awful
Nemesis takes effect on occasions of this kind, serious
as they are: there is a retributive delusion which has
already come upon many among us who are fondly
clinging to the phantom of an easy Christianity that
shall offer them — a faith, void of hope, and exempt also.

OF BELIEF. 383
from fear, for the world unseen: they themselves — bereft
of immortality, and of the last glimmer of Belief.
Things will not come to their rest at this pointy
Many at this moment are flinging themselves into the'
arms of a writer who, by his sophisms, and the graces
of his style, has come in as an angel of light to rescue
them from the dreaded conviction that, after all, this
Christianity may be true, and that, in passing into the
world unseen, it shall prove itself so. The prediction
may be risked that these fond admirers of Ernest Renan
will soon hear that he is scoffed at by bolder spirits on
his own side. Some of these will avenge upon him the
ill turn he has done them in this Life of Jesus. A con
sciousness that the Atheistic cause has been betrayed in
this instance, will compel its chiefs to give utterance to
their last adventure for solving the problem of miracles.
Unbelief has but a step now to take upon its destined
circle, and it will come round to its starting point/"
The reader may find this, if he please, in the Evangelic
record, Matt. xii. 34, Mark iii. 34, and in the parallel
passages in Luke.

the end.

M