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From the Library of
Dr. C. Ray Palmer
1915

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.

CAMBRIDGE :
PRINTED BT METCALFE AND PALMER
FOR MACMILLAN AND Co.
lEontlon : GEORGE BELL, 186, Fleet Street.
©JCfo-D : J. H. PARKER.
_3ubUn: hodges & smith.
lEton : E. P. WILLIAMS.
lEtitnbttrah: edmonston & douglas.
CRIaisao_): JAMES MACLEHOSE.

THE

RESTORATION OF BELIEF.

 "Stris ilia (heligio Chbis'itana) contenta est virions, et veritatis
propria fundaminibus nititur: nee spoliatur vi sua, etiamsi nullum habeat
vmdicem : immo si Ungues omnes contrafaciant, contraque nitantur, et ad
fidem illius abrogandam consensionis unitce animositate conspirent." Aknobius.

Cantlrni.ge:
MACMILLAN & CO.
1855.

PKEFACE.

When these Tracts were projected it was intended
that they should embrace the principal subjects that
belong to the modern argument concerning the truth
of the Christian system; and I then believed that I
should be able to carry out my purpose at short and
regular intervals. I have not found it possible to do
this; and in fact many months have separated the
Second of these publications from the Third ; nor
ought I now to believe that, at any time to which
I could pledge myself, I shall be able to resume my
task. Better than an attempt to refute, one by one, the
captious and nugatory objections that have lately been
urged in justification of Disbelief, would be — as I
think — the establishing an intelligible and defensible
principle of Biblical Interpretation, from a misappre
hension of which such objections — one and all, derive
the semblance of importance which they may possess.
Until this be done it would seem to me not merely

VI PREFACE.
a waste of time to follow and reply to these futile
cavils, but a logical mistake, inasmuch as they
should be dealt with comprehensively, by determining
a previous question.
Effectively to set the Christian argument clear of
the entanglements that still impede its progress would
be an arduous, but hopeful work, which I should
rejoice to see taken up by those competent to the
labour: — that is to say, on the supposition that the
Christian community is at present prepared calmly to
listen to a course of reasoning which, while it would
be in a genuine sense religious, and would involve
no risk to orthodoxy, must fearlessly demolish super
stitions that have grown up around Holy Scripture
in the course of many centuries.

CONTENTS.

Page
Christianity in relation to its ancient and modern antagonists 1
England the fittest arena for the Christian argument 25
The Religious condition of the Roman world in the times of
Alexander Severus 39
The Transition-state of the nations around the Mediterranean
in the period between the reigns of Trajan and Alexander
Severus, not to be understood without assuming the truth
of Christianity 54
The same subject 60
The Roman necessity for persecuting the Church ; and the
Christian necessity for enduring that persecution 68
The Martyr Church wrought out the germinating principle of
the modern Civilization 79
The Relation between modern Science and systems of religious
opinion — not the same as that between the Ancient Phi
losophy and Christianity 96
The Question of Christianity is determinable 113
Classification of the Books of the New Testament in relation to
the present argument 128
General Conclusion as to the Non- Supernatural Epistles 172
The Seven apostolic Epistles which affirm or allude to Miracles 179
Conclusion as to the Seven Epistles which affirm Miracles 211
The Force of Congruity in relation to Christianity and its
Miracles 220
The alternative— Christianity or Atheism 241
The Three purposes of Christ's Mission 259
The First Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles 267
The Second Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles 315
The Third Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles 349
The Cycles of Christianity 363

THE EESTORATION OF BELIEF.

To ***** *
Our conversations of late have issued in
opening interminable questions, on the right hand and
on the left, but hitherto they have not brought us to
a conclusion on any one subject. There has always
been common ground whence we might take our start,
and we have been able to keep company some way
on the road ; but soon the one or the other has gone
off, drawing the immediate argument after him toward
some wholly new region.
You will easily recal instances of this sort of wan
dering, which, while it has seemed to do violence to
logic, has obeyed — so we have felt it — the call of a
deep moral necessity. The chance of the hour has
given us our first impulse; but a law of thought not
to be resisted, has carried us forward from that for
tuitous point toward an unknown centre upon which all
thought converges. The Newspaper may have given
rise to an earnest discussion, touching the condition of
the labouring classes, manufacturing or rural ; thence
onward we have gone till we found ourselves encircled B

2 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
by the most abstruse questions, in approaching which
the depths of Theology were in front of us. We
have debated the principles of Taxation: thence a
path has opened itself into the subject of the moral
relationship of governments towards the people; and
thence onward again toward the problem of Religious
Establishments. We have incidentally mentioned some
point of Biblical criticism, and have gone on toward
subjects, not unconnected indeed therewith, but of
infinitely greater importance than can belong to any
such question.
In a word, an approach to what one might call sur
face questions, has always shown us that an interior
beneath it was to be first explored. Or if the interior
were brought under discussion, its many results and
issues carried us over an unlimited expanse upon the
field of practical science.
This incessant wandering we must not impute to
ourselves altogether as a fault. If in these instances
we had been less desultory, and more logical, we
should have paid respect to the forms of argument
ation, only in proportion as we had disregarded those
relationships that are more real, and that now are felt
to be so by all men.
This circuit-going in all directions, at what point
soever serious controversy or incidental conversation
takes its start, is the marked feature of the times pre
sent ; and it has, as I think, not only a deep meaning,
but a good, or as we say, an auspicious meaning.
Conversation among intelligent men, and the literature

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 3
of the day, show the same characteristic; and as we
cannot fail to notice it, we should not fail to gather its
import. Is it not just now as if an invisible tyranny
were driving the minds of men onward and onward,
or in perpetual circuits, until they shall have become
spent in fruitless courses over the unenclosed fields of
speculation ?
If you ask what this discursiveness means, and
what will be its end, — I think it shows that now at
length the true step forward toward a more sure
agreement and a better understanding, at least among
the educated classes of the community, has actually
been taken ; and that we and others, including many
from whom we most differ, have by this time gone
some way forward on a road which it will not be
necessary hereafter for ourselves, or for our successors,
to retrace. To look abroad upon the world of opinion,
in this country or elsewhere, what one sees might
seem to resemble the hurrying hither and thither of
the sparks upon a burned paper; all which sparks,
bright as they are, are soon to find their rest in ashes
and blackness. Yet not so, I think, in the social sys
tem ; for here the sparks are showing a tendency in
one and the same direction ; or, like the falling stars
and meteors of an autumn sky, they all give notice of
their bearing upon the great planetary movements.
You will be told by some around us — and they
are men whose judgment well deserves to be regarded
— that they have seen the end of several movements
not less promising than this to which we are linked,
B2

4 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and that no notable result in which we could rejoice
has marked the return of men's minds to their cus
tomary inaction.
I must adhere to my hopefulness so long as I
see clearly a ground of expectation that what is
bright is at hand. It has come to be felt and
seen, and to acknowledged too, on all sides, - that
TRUTH, in relation to any particular subject, touching
immediately or remotely the well-being of men —
either the individual man or the social — can be only
one portion of, or one aspect of, universal truth;
and that if we would secure ourselves against mis
chievous mistakes and illusions as to that single sub
ject, 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 onward and round about must
we advance, until we have fairly made the circuit of
all things, or of all things which it is granted to man
to measure and compass.
This feeling — this acknowledgment — in professing
which all are agreed, runs parallel with the axiom of
Natural Philosophy, namely, that there are no insu
lated sciences ; but that all investigations of nature,
and all paths followed in the abstract sciences, tend
toward a centre, and are only so many independent
contributions toward a consentient system, which will
at length present itself as a harmony, and which will
then assign its place to every item of that knowledge
which we shall have made our own, concerning the
Material Universe.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 5
The perception we have acquired concerning the in
terrelation and absolute 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 nearly contemporaneous, it has had its
own and its proper source, springing up from within
the intellectual world. It is a feeling that has flowed
from a far deeper mode of thinking, on all such sub
jects, than has hitherto prevailed ; and it has shown
the presence of a more serious desire, or, one might
say, an impatience, an anxiety, almost an agony, im
pelling men to reach, if it be possible, a solid ground
of belief.
It is natural and inevitable that this urgent feeling
should drive men in from the surface of all subjects,
and compel them to dig, and still to dig, until, from
all sides, they have come to encounter each other,
working in the same shafts, and pursuing the same
seams and veins of thought. Prom these underground
encounters, startling as they are when they bring those
who beneath the upper sky are declared adversaries,
face to face in the mine, and so near to the very pith
of the world, will lead (so I must profess to think)
to a common understanding, to a belief generally, if
not universally assented to, and to a conclusion,
once for all arrived at, and which thenceforward will,
with its inferences, be brought to bear upon every
practical question that can be thought to stand related

6 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
to it in morals, politics, and education, as well as
Religion. We have not, however, as yet, advanced quite
abreast on the two highroads of Philosophy — the phy
sical and the intellectual (or moral and religious) ; for
on the former a rule is well understood and is univer
sally 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 accumulated industry — natural history, for
instance — every one, every inquirer, every reasoner,
every collector of facts, is left to pursue his path in
his own mode, and is held to be exempt from all
interference on the part of others; as if what one
had learned, or was teaching, could supersede, or might
interdict the inquiries of another. Although, in the
issue, there will be One Philosophy, and although
there should be fellowship among the labourers, none
are to put bars across the paths of their companions.
This sort of jealousy, as it would be groundless, so
must it be fruitless in the end; and meantime it
would be mischievous. Nothing of this sort is ever
thought of, or attempted, in the world of physical
science. So much as this cannot be alleged in behalf of those
branches of philosophy and of learning which touch
human nature at the core. On this ground attempts
are often made to intercept the progress of inquiry in
some one direction, as if it might disturb what has

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 7
been ascertained in another. Too often — and 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 infer
ences, all deductions, will interlace and join on one
to another.
Let me state the case in some such way as that
in which it often meets us in these times. I am (let
us suppose it) addicted to antiquarianism — to historical
criticism — to ethnological philology, and to the kindred
subjects. You perhaps are conversant with political
economy, or the like social interests, and you amuse
yourself also with geology. Now I have convinced
myself in my own modes of inquiry, and on my
own proper ground, that things are so and so ; or
that the transactions of remote ages have been truth
fully reported. You ought not then to come in, and
with a supercilious air tell me that I may as well
spare myself so much learned toil, and that you will
be happy to save me the whole of my expenditure
in midnight oil ; for that you, in your department,
have ascertained, beyond doubt, that I have been
deceiving myself, and am blindly misleading others.
This is insufferable : — it is not scientific ; it is an out
rage committed upon the commons of Philosophy. If
you say you do but retaliate, I reply, I will take
care to give you in future no cause of offence in this
way, and I shall disregard any such interferences on
your part.
It is easv to foresee what those occasions are in

8 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 privi
leges forfeits his claim to be much listened to, even on
his own ground.
I do not say that we, on our side — I mean the
side of Religious Belief — have not in any instances
been blameworthy in this same manner — all parties
have been persecutors in their time : but I think
I shall show that acts of attempted interference, as well
as argumentative arrogance and intolerance, have of
late shown themselves on the other side in a tenfold
proportion. Too much, and too often, we on our
side have cowered before the unseemly bearing of
those who have assailed us. If there has been any
of this giving ground, it is more than enough, it is
more than was due; and it is time that we should
repel all such violences. When I say repel, I mean —
not yield an inch to those who thus offend against
the acknowledged maxims of what may be called the
modern philosophical courtesy.
Not only on my side would I wholly abstain from
the language of intimidation or of interdiction — not
only not say, 'you must not approach this or that
subject, for the ground is sacred;' but rather would
invite every one to follow up his own course of inquiry
in the mode that best suits himself. If he does so
in a manner that is unseemly, flippant, inconclusive;
or if he so writes and speaks as to betray an arrogant

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 9
and captious temper, and a sinister purpose, in doing
so he provides against himself a most effective sort
of reply, and I need not give myself any trouble on
his behalf.
As to what is written or spoken ingenuously and
sincerely, or as we say, ' in good faith,' with the avowed
intention to loosen or subvert Religious Belief, I will
never call the author of such utterances my enemy.
So firm and thorough is my own belief, that I can
well 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 in all circles, I have a perfect confidence in the
issue, after a time, of the intellectual movement which
is now in progress, so far as it is impelled by honestly
intended men. 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
intention to take in hand any recent book or books,
as if to give it or them an answer : this would be to
enter upon an endless and unavailing labour. I am
not ignorant of what has lately been written; but
I shall pursue my own track of thought in my own
mode, and leave others to dq the like in theirs.
If I think or speak of any man as an adversary,
I do so in a sense purely logical ; and I do not allow
the word to bring with it into my bosom any of those
feelings with which, in fact, I regard the principles

10 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
he is endeavouring to establish. These principles
I utterly condemn, and the influence he has acquired
over the minds of others I would gladly destroy ; but
toward himself I harbour no unkindly sentiment : how
should I do so when I think of him as struggling,
without help or hope, in the grasp of perplexities with
which every thoughtful and seriously-minded man has
had to contend, at some stage of his course, or does
still contend in times of mental lassitude. Those who
have suffered no anguish in their past history, and
who have passed through no hours of agony, are men
(enviable perhaps ! but) with whom neither my adver
sary 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 calling the adherents and advocates
of Belief — 'fanatics/
And yet, perhaps, this seemingly arrogant practice
should be pardoned in those guilty of it, inasmuch
as it does not necessarily spring from an intolerant
temper, or personal malignity; but comes only from
the felt necessity of the position in which those, on
that side, have placed themselves : for if, indeed, those
whose belief these writers assail are not ' fanatics ¦'
if, on the contrary, they, or many of them, are as well
informed and as highly cultured and as capable of
reasoning as themselves, if they are equally serious

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 11
and honest, and, in a word, are everyway as ' good
men,' and all the while are believers, then is Belief
proved to be reasonable; for reasonable men profess
it, and the contrary assumption falls to the ground;
then is Belief that conclusion which will be accepted
and rested in, after full inquiry, by the great majority
of minds in a sound state. So it will be, those seasons
of reaction excepted, like the present, in which a
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
upheave his stronghold.

Great arguments, we have said, cannot be long held
apart, or permanently disjoined. As this is true in
natural philosophy, so especially is it true in whatever
touches human nature and the social welfare of man,
morally or religiously. It is not easy to disconnect
even questions of politics with religious principles ; for
through the medium either of questions concerning
Religious Establishments, or of Religious Liberty, or
Public Education, the one set of principles interlocks
itself with the other.
Take up what subject we may among the many
which now engage attention, one must reckon upon
the entailed necessity of passing on from that point to
its next neighbour, and so forward. Nevertheless
a choice may be open to us always as to the starting-
point that is taken.
Of some of these arguments it may be said that
they possess an inherent logical title to precedence :
they present themselves as first to be disposed of in
the order of dialectic sequence. For other weighty
questions it may be pretended that, if determined in
a certain mode, they bring all other argumentation,
all balancing of probabilities, all inquiries concerning

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 13
possible improvements or progress, to a dead stop;
they throw a pall over the world, and its fruitless
agitations. Again, there are questions affecting the welfare of
classes which cry for instant consideration, if, indeed,
hearts of flesh beat in our bosoms. Of what account
are dogmas, or principles of any sort, when placed in
comparison with practical measures, tending to assuage
physical suffering, or to gladden the homes of thousands
of our fellow-men ? Such pleas are good ; but they
need not overrule our present purposes. Let every
one take to the path that best suits himself.
If a preference is given to subjects not of this latter
urgent sort, and which affect the welfare, not of classes
of men, but of men universally, we may then make
our choice in adopting one of two methods— the first
of which may be called the German, and the other
the English mode.
The German mind inclines to begin at the begin
ning, rather than to seize the main point midway, or to
catch it in its concrete form. Whatever it has to do
with, although it be a surface question, it takes a pre
liminary plunge among the most profound abstractions.
A metaphysical, more than a scientific, law of thought
prevails with it, and the simplest adjustment of things
about us must show its reason, as related to a theory
of the universe, which, perhaps, has scarcely yet fledged
itself, as newly broken forth from chaos.
Not so the English mind, which has more inclina
tion toward the concrete than the abstract. At least

14 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
we must say it seeks the practical, loves whatever is
well-defined and certain, and never hesitates to accept
and use what is sure and at hand, although much room
there may be left for argument on the a priori side.
In the present instance, then, I must make my
choice of a preliminary subject in compliance with the
tendency of the English mind.
At this time, when all things are brought into doubt,
if there be in sight a path that is open and straight
before us, — if there be, on any side, ground that feels
firm to the foot, — if quite near at hand there are objects
that are palpable, — if around us we may see what we
have known to be good, and which is our own ; then
upon such a path will we set forward, upon such ground
will we first essay to tread, such objects will we grasp,
and to such possessions will we assert our right. Thence,
and from such ground, will we adventure forward and
outward, toward the dark unknown.
I shall here be stopped by an exception taken against
any renewal of the endeavour to link Religion to His
tory, or to send us back for our faith and morals to past
ages. I must do so from the very necessity of the case.
Belief and History God has joined, nor shall man,
to the end of time, succeed in effecting a divorce.
Religion, disjoined from History, is a flickering candle,
held in the hand of one who looks back upon utter
darkness behind him, and looks into the blackness of
darkness in front of him.
But beside this inherent necessity of the case, there
meets us an adjunctive necessity for taking the same

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 15
course, and for travelling back to ages past. Even
if Belief and History were not thus wedded, Dis
belief has its equally firm hold upon antiquity. In
every form of it, it has its ancestry, and it must not
ask now to be spoken to as if we had not already,
and long ago, made acquaintance with it.
Is it, indeed, to be reckoned as a fault, or is it a
disqualification for engaging in argument, to have
become, 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 recognise in what is recent, the very
counterpart of what is of remote origin.
It is not merely this, that the special objections
which have been of late urged against Christianity,
against the Old Testament Books, and the New, are
all substantially the same as those which Origen and
the early Apologists encountered and refuted. This is
not all; for those speculations, more deep and wide,
more sweeping and formidable in aspect, which just
now are redressed and presented as the ripened fruits
of the human mind, which at length is freeing itself
from its thraldom of centuries — these same speculations,
fresh complexioned as they are, differ in little, beside
their wording, from the profundities of the Oriental
and Alexandrine philosophy, as uttered and edited by
the several classes of Gnostics, Manichees, and others.
If then Belief carries us back to antiquity, so does
Misbelief; and we cannot refuse to follow a double
guidance that is sure in both instances.

16 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
As a proper preliminary, therefore, to any inquiries
that may touch the philosophy of human nature, or
implicate what is abstruse in theology, I must persist
in the course I have chosen ; and shall essay to tread
upon solid ground as far forward as it offers itself to
the foot. History is solid ground ; or, to exclude ex
ceptions, let us say that, within the region it embraces,
perfectly solid ground is discoverable in all directions.
This is manifestly the case when certain historic
positions are brought into comparison, as to their de
monstrative value, with any assumed principles of
abstract science (not mathematical). It is certain that
the Normans brought the Saxons under their sway in
the eleventh century; but it is questionable whether a
chivalrous race will always succeed in vanquishing an
agricultural and a trading people. It is certain that
Augustus established and consolidated a despotism
upon the ruins of that republic, in the attempt to
maintain which Brutus pointed his sword against
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,
necessarily finds 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, be
fore they could tolerate teaching such as that of
Socrates. But now, although matters of history do possess

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 17
this absolute and this comparative certainty when
placed beside abstruse or abstract principles ; and
although it be true that no inferences from those
principles can ever be admitted to abate a jot of the
certainty of what is certain in history, this relative
value of the two species of evidence will not be seen
by all minds alike. On the contrary, some minds from
want of culture, some from an irresistible propensity
toward paradox, some from a vague and dreamy un-
fixedness of temper, will always fly off from the better
evidence, and betake themselves to the worse.
With many, the most misty abstractions which look
well at a distance are eagerly pursued : matters of fact,
irresistibly evident, are scouted or forgotten. Culture
has much to do with that faculty of the understanding
on which history lays a firm hold. Apart from a
certain amount of culture, we do not find that history,
as a reality past, comes home to the intellectual con
sciousness. 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
an indispensable quality wanting in those who are the
subjects of it : hence too, of course, comes that poor
advantage which is snatched at by those whose aim it
is to loosen an historic belief from the minds of the
same classes.
There is nothing of arrogance in what is here
alleged. Every educated man, whether preacher,
lecturer, or teacher, in any line, scientific, literary, or
C

18 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
professional, well knows, and constantly feels, that,
do his utmost, it is but a fragment of his own vivid
perceptions of his subject that he can lodge in the
reason and the imagination of his imperfectly in
structed hearers. Therefore will it always be an easy
task, in dealing with such, to dislodge materials that
have no cement, and to strew the ground with the
ruins of a structure that has not settled down on its
foundations, and has no 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 obtained, has no value ;
and whose plaudits should make a wise and sincere
man blush.
In all departments of knowledge it is the results
that are for the many ; but the PROCESS through which
results have been reached are for the few. Especially
must it be so in the departments of history and cri
ticism. Results may be rendered into the vernacular ;
and when thus translated they become public property.
Processes of inquiry are carried forward in symbol, and
these signs always imply that a knowledge is already
possessed, ten times outmeasuring that to which the
bare symbol gives expression. The imperfectly edu
cated suffer no real damage on this ground, so long
as they are not tampered with by sophists. Where the
Press, the Pulpit, the Platform, the Class-room, are
quite free, popular incompetency, as to matters of
science or of learning, as it cannot be much abused

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 19
by the privileged, so should it not be wrought upon,
flattered, and cajoled by ambitious declaimers.
There is a ripened condition of the faculties, there
is a state of plenary consciousness toward the things,
the persons, the events of past time, which is the fruit
of high culture and of life-long habits; This conscious
ness, this mental existence, carried back into the heart
of antiquity, supersedes what, in a logical sense, may
be required in the way of Evidences and Proofs.
A man sits surrounded with the books of all ages :
among these he has passed the best years of his life.
He has gone in and out among them : through their
very substance he has made a path for himself, in the
course of methodical study ; and with these he has con
versed, discursively, as accident might lead him. Now
we may imagine these his companions to be set out
in chronological perspective on his tables and carpet,
right and left, each ascending to its date. Thus placed,
they are so many candles lit, shedding their beams
over the expanse of centuries, up to the remotest eras.
Many deep shadows still rest upon spots and spaces
off 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 phosphorescent in the
view of their possessor, so are the multifarious con
tents of the cabinets around him : so are the antique
busts that occupy the brackets : and, ' as face answer-
eth to face in a glass,' so do the visages and the
legends of medallions and of sculptures answer to,
C 2

20 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
interpret, and sustain the pages of the historians, poets,
philosophers, of the corresponding times. Taken al
together, or considered in their aggregate effect, these
accumulated materials give a familiarity and an assu
rance to the historic consciousness which does not rate
lower than does the feeling as to any class of objects
that are not actually present to the senses.
Yet how much of this feeling will it be possible for
this same man of culture to impart to one whose edu
cation has been elementary only ? Not a thousandth
part of it ; and if the recipient of such a communica
tion, along with an ordinary measure of native intel
ligence, brings with him a smack of conceit ; if, in his
case, ignorance, instead of being simply negative, has
gone into the positive form of a shrewd scepticism,
then the bringing forward of book-evidence and of
antiquarian corroborations may be found to have pro
duced the very contrary of their proper effect. This
man, who is one ' not soon imposed upon/ had come
forward apprehensive that he should perhaps be robbed
by force of his disbelief : instead of this, he has seen
and heard nothing that he has really understood ; and
he departs with his reason confused, and his vanity
entire. What then is the inference hence resulting ? It is
just this — that knowing these things, the well-informed,
the honestly -intending, the seriously-minded, will scorn
the easy triumph of trampling in the dust the Religious
Belief of the people — the uneducated and the half-
educated.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 21
Do I say this because I inwardly mistrust my ar
gument, and shrink from the light, and foresee what
must be the issue of an open discussion ? I shall show
you that any such surmise as this, on your part, if
you entertain it, is wholly unfounded. What I shrink
from is not light, but darkness; what I am afraid of
is not the brightness of day and the fresh breezes of
the upper skies ; — what I am afraid of is that choke-
damp of 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 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 the bringing forward of objections, difficulties,
flaws on its surface, this and that, ten, twenty, a
hundred doubts, might and must destroy. We should
then feel as if Christianity were a casting of that sort
(as founders say) in which there is such a condition
of internal tension by unequal cooling — such a strain
upon the interior coherence of particles, that if you
do but scratch the surface with a nail, or break off a
corner, the whole flies into atoms.
This is very much the feeling with which one rises
from the perusal, not merely of books written to
impugn Christianity, but often of books written to
defend it. This idea of the matter in hand is, I say,

22 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
wholly a mistaken notion. The anxiety that springs
from it, and which disturbs so much the minds of
those who do believe, or who would fain continue so
to do, is quite groundless ; under the influence of it
one says, in a desponding tone, What if this or that
difficulty cannot be cleared up ? And then there are
twenty more in reserve ! How can we hope to cut
our way out from among this jungle of thorns ?
It is a very commendable labour with which those
charge themselves who sit down to meet and obviate
objections, seriatim, to reconcile inconsistencies, real or
apparent, to harmonize discrepant narratives, and to
draw the line close around a difficulty, reducing it to
its minimum of importance. All this should be done;
but it is better done in books devoted to philological
and historical criticism, and in which questions are
treated according to their abstract merits and their
real import, apart from any allusion to what is flippant
or disingenuous in the writings of declared opponents.
But as to Christianity itself, those who think that it
is to be brought into doubt, or that it will be exposed
to peril by means of cavils in detail, or even by the
allegation of difficulties that defy solution, such persons,
whether notions of this sort inspire them with hopes
of a triumph for infidelity, or depress them with fear
as believers, can never have apprehended what this
Gospel is in itself, what it intends, how it stands
related to human nature, to the well-being of nations,
or to the destinies of the human family. Such persons,
whether they be overweening disbelievers, or timid

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 23
and mistrusting believers, are burrowing hither and
thither under the sward, unconscious of what is seen
and felt in the open world.
No problem, historical or critical, presenting itself
for solution, should be negligently dealt with, or timidly
evaded; much less disingenuously smothered or con
jured out of the way. Difficulties and objections thus
disposed of, are so much gunpowder, stowed away by
our own hands, beneath the foundations of the house
we live in.
What I propose to do in the following pages is
not to wrestle with gainsayers, sincere or insincere,
on low levels, nor to tread anew a ground that has
already been trodden hard. Work of this sort has
been well done ; and no one who, in a spirit of industry
and honesty, would inform himself concerning the
' Evidences of Christianity/ the ' authenticity and
genuineness of the Gospels and Epistles,' or any kin
dred subjects, need be at a loss in finding books,
learnedly and conclusively 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 such readers do rise
from the perusal of these books, confusedly convinced,
and not fairly or finally rid of their misgivings. It is
to them as if Infidelity had been mortally wounded,
and lay at their feet as dead ; but the carcase has not
been 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

24 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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, is
felt to be true, is found to be real.
So far as at this time a Restoration of Belief may
be looked for as probable, either in single instances
or as to the community, it will be brought about, not
by conflict or compromise with negations or exceptions,
not by forcing a path through the briars of doubt ; but
by pushing our way straightforward toward the POSITIVE,
and by apprehending, so far as the finite may do it, the
INFINITE.

A restoration of belief, whether we think of it as
an argumentative and logical process, or as a change
produced by means that are suasive and moral, de
mands conditions such as shall be thereto favourable.
At this present moment it is in this country, rather
than elsewhere throughout the civilized world, that
these requisites are to be found in full measure. It
is within the circuit of the British islands that every
reasonable exception against the conclusiveness of an
argument concerning Christianity is shut out — even
to the shadow of a pretext, as if a fair hearing of the
adverse part had not been allowed.
Some things touching our condition as a Christian
people, which may seem, and which indeed are, anoma
lous, and which, under certain of their aspects, give us
much uneasiness, do most decisively favour any endea
vour that may be made to win back to Christianity
those among us who may have lapsed into unbelief.
It is easy to narrow the area, geographically, within
which an argument, such as the one before us, could
be carried forward to any good purpose. Might we
claim a fifth, or even a seventh part of Christendom
as affording open ground for our purpose? I think

26 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
not. Throughout Christendom, that is to say, wher
ever there has survived any knowledge of the Gospel,
wherever a glimmer of the light of heaven still shines,
there, in corners and recesses, might be found soli
taries, or perhaps sincere men enough, in a cluster,
to make up a Church in Tertullian's sense, ' Ubi tres,
ibi Ecclesia.' But these exceptive cases, precious as
they are in the sight of Heaven, can be of no account
as to our immediate purpose. 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.
In relation to any such purpose, no place can we
assign, in our geography of Christianity, to nations,
called Christian, that, in fact, have no liberty, if they
were so inclined, to profess themselves otherwise. Nor
any place can we grant in our atlas to a people who
have not actually in their hands, generally, and who
from habit and feeling have not become, individually,
conversant with THE BOOK, concerning the authority
of which an argument is to be had. Even those who
assail this authority must profess to wish that the
' public ' they appeal to may be competent to assent,
as from its own knowledge, to the allegations, dero
gatory to the credit of the Scriptures, which they bring
forward. Certainly we, on our side, should choose our
hearers and readers from among those who ' search the
Scriptures daily,' and who, in a manner, know them
by heart.
Thus it is then that our line must be so drawn in,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 27
as that it shall include none but the Teutonic branches
of the European family. And even as to these, we
must still make exceptions : — we must make excep
tions, until, to say the truth at once, it will amount to
this — that, in the fullest sense of the word, it is the
English people alone, alone in the old world, that is
now Christian. Let me exempt myself from the im
putation of indulging illiberal prejudices when I so
broadly speak.
One might almost say that, just now, the British
people stands among the nations as the surviving
Trustee of Christianity, or as the Residuary Legatee
of its benefits.
Let those who reject Christianity make what use
they please of this admission, and get from it all the
inferential aid which it may afford them. The fact, if
it can be serviceable on that side, is theirs. But the
genuine inference, thence deducible, I take to be avail
able on my side, with a tenfold weight of meaning.
This fact has two aspects; or we might blend the
two in one conclusion. It may be affirmed first, that
Christianity, considered as a system of religious and
moral principles, is of such a nature that it will be sure
to find its way toward that one community, within the
circle of civilization, which, by national temperament,
is the most energetic, which the most instinctively
embraces doctrines that are seen to be practically
good, which makes its elections, in matters of opinion,
with the most absolute freedom, a freedom uncontrolla
bly impatient of restraint or interference. Christianity

28 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
chooses for itself a people who are preeminently, in all
their doings, spontaneous; self-governing, and in an
equal degree loving order; abhorrent of despotism;
unknowing in disguises; and silent or acquiescent,
much rather from a sullen consciousness of individual
independence, than from servility or fear. Such is the
people (as compared with others) to the hearth of which
Christ's religion has at length drawn itself, as if retir
ing to its own home. Among such a people, when
hunted from all other lands, has this religion been
welcomed, and here has it found its asylum.
But looking at the same facts in their other aspect,
we should be free to think of Christianity as that
plastic power which, in the course of many centuries,
and 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 bosoms that sense
of individuality, that seriousness of conviction, which
despotism dreads, and which it can never crush. 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 ultimate guarantee of our liberties, reli
gious and 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, con
sistently with individual modesty. It is thence, and
from the vernacular diffusion, and the daily usage and

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 29
hearing of the Scriptures, that we have drawn the
power and point, the simplicity and the majesty, the
tropical richness, the rhetoric opulence, and the fervour
of our conversational style, and of public oratory.
Combine what is proper to each of these aspects
of the same facts, and then the result, expressed in
a word, is this — that Christianity, in its migrations
through eighteen centuries, has betaken itself to the
British People, as if these were its oivn, and that
these, under its influence, and at its inspiration, have
become such as they are — if not the most highly edu
cated among the nations, yet the most effective, tbe
most beneficent, the most humane, and the people to
whose purposes and labours the world looks for what
ever is good and hopeful.
For a reason I shall presently mention, it is not even
among our brethren and sons of the United States
that a conclusive course of argument, touching Chris
tianity, could be carried forward in a manner exempt
from reasonable exceptions.
The Christian Argument does indeed demand liberty
as its indispensable condition; but it is not a vague
or unemphatic liberty that will suffice. It is not
mere freedom to breathe and to speak, such as you
may find on the table-lands of central Asia, or in
the midst of the Sahara ; but the earnest-minded
and force-fraught liberty, the freedom positive which
one is conscious of enjoying in the dense centre of
a people whose minds (unshackled in every sense of
the word) are headed up by solid embankments, by

30 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Institutions: it is that liberty which gives a strong
pulse to the energies of men, individually and socially :
it is the liberty of men who, as individuals, and as
bodies, or as classes, differ from each other resolutely,
who oppose each other pertinaciously, and who con
tend for their opinions, or for their prerogatives, with
a vehemence stopping short only at the border beyond
which the rights and properties of others would be
invaded. What we need for carrying forward an unexcep
tionable argument in defence of Christianity is, the
consciousness in every man's feeling, not merely that,
without rebuke, he may become as wise as he can,
and may profess and teach what he thinks to be true
and good; but more than this, that he may humour
himself among his crotchets, and.be as absurd as he
pleases; that he may proclaim his whim, whatever it
be, and endow it too, and spend upon it his fortune
and his children's inheritance. Within a community
emphatically free, every thing may be said, done,
and practised, which does not, in an overt manner,
inflict damage upon others : and then all such things
may be assailed, rebuked, and put to shame with equal
freedom. If we are to pursue our course in a promising
manner, and if indeed we may hope to reach a con
clusion, not afterwards to be rejected as precipitate,
we must not betake ourselves to countries where the
people are told that the liberty they enjoy is that
of choosing whether they will be reduced to the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 31
mummy state, after this fashion or that, when the
immortal soul has been pressed out of the animal
man by despotism. Nor will it be enough for us
to know that, albeit intelligible questions concerning
existing institutions are straitly prohibited, the wilds
of abstruse speculation are free land; that the back^
woods of philosophy have not been parcelled out, and
that ' Government ' maintains no police in the Sheol
of Universal Disbelief. Among the Teutonic nations
of Continental Europe, can we think it likely that the
Christian argument will be carried forward toward a
determinate issue ?
We, that is to say the English on this side the
Atlantic, hold a decisive advantage, even in comparison
with our brethren of the United States. Grant it that
their liberty is much like our own; and they may
think it more entire than ours ; or at least that it is
more theoretically consistent : so it may be ; but on
that very account it is of less value than our own :
and it produces a less marked impression upon the
national mind : if it shows a wider surface, it embraces
less of deep purpose, and it is less resolute. No Code-
making, no legislation according to theory, or in re
spect of the principles of ' abstract justice,' will give
a people that which our history has given ourselves :
our social condition is the giant-limbed offspring of
the many struggles we have passed through. If the
American liberties are also the fruits of events, these
have gone into theory : with us they have issued in the
creation of those beneficial anomalies which no theory

32 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
would ever allow ; but which, in the working of a con
stitutional system, are far more serviceable to a people
than any thing which men sit down to contrive for
themselves. Antagonisms come, they are never called
for. Anomalies confront us unbidden; they perplex
us; we quarrel with them: but against our consent,
they secure to us the very highest advantages. So is it
especially in whatever touches the ecclesiastical frame
work under which we live and act.
One of these benefits, and the one we have just now
to make proof of, is this, that the Christianity of the
British people stands exempt from all suspicion of
combination among its adherents: so planted are we
in companies on the flanks of Ebal and Gerizim, that
a damage to the one cause which sincerely we all wish
to uphold, arising from our dissensions, is an event far
more probable than the bringing in of any advantage,
from our concert, and collusion.
As to the Old World, and forgetting the New,
the question of Christianity is almost an insular ques
tion — it is a British interest. How far, or whether
in any perceptible manner, the moral or political con
dition of any one of the Continental states would show
a change, it is not easy to conjecture, supposing a
silent and somewhat gradual dying out of religious
belief, that is, Christian belief, — from the mind of
the people, and from the lip of the state. But there
can be no room for any such doubt as to ourselves.
What those various consequences to ourselves might be,
resulting from a national abandonment of our present

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 33
faith in the Divine origin of the Bible, and of
our professed submission to its authority, this is not
the place to inquire ; yet there is reason to think 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 thou
sand 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, and 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 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, fieTaj3alva)fj,ev evrevOev, which seems to be
its law, as to cities and countries — does it not re
peat itself in individual 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 lodged itself firmly in a man's
affections, and in his reason too ; so far as the reason
D

34 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
was then developed. Within the chamber of conscience
the ethics of the Scriptures was always listened to as
the ultimate authority: never did it seem doubtful
that this rule of virtue, listened to and obeyed,
would lead in the path of rectitude and of purity,
and would issue in the highest good. But the re
alities of mature life, and its seductions, came upon
this neophyte: they came with their struggles, their
moral ambiguities, their over-wrought requirements,
their blandishments. A hubbub of contending im
pulses came to fill the chamber wherein, formerly,
Conscience and Christianity used to confer in so con
sentient 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 : perhaps its demands were scouted
as excessive and impracticable. Every day the aerial
perspective intervening between this departing Power
and the busy man, gave him more and more advan
tage over it, as an Authority.
Then came on the detractors of Christianity — a
motley crew : these detractors were sinister in look,
and, manifestly, they were intent upon rending and
tearing and treading in the mire whatever might be
abandoned to their will : this was their hour ; and there

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 35
came up with them one in the garb of a sage, who,
in an attempered tone, and as if he governed 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 reasonable allega
tions 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 did obtain a patient hearing ; and in the full ex
ercise of mature reason, aided by the experience of
years, it did make good its hitherto unexamined
claims. It reentered 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 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.
D2

36 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
What may happen to the man, and does happen
to thousands, may happen to communities — if not with
so little observation, or within the brief term of two
decades, yet within the limits of the years that measure
out a generation. Regular habits, a discreet silence,
and churchgoing, will carry the individual man osten
sibly well through a period of religious syncope ; and
so its ancient institutions, and its usages, and its con
ventional proprieties, may avail to bear a people onward
some way beyond the point at which their religious
professions cease to be genuine, and are formal simply.
Yet such a hollowness as this can have only a limited
time allowed it. What a people has indeed become,
will declare itself at some moment when an unlooked-
for turn in its affairs gives an involuntary utterance to
its inner thoughts.
Immeasurably far from any such hollow condition
as this, is the English Christianity of this present time.
If certain classes are less loyal in their religious at
tachments than lately they were, other classes have
become more so. A genuine religious feeling is deep
ening on the one hand, if it be fading away on the
other. Yet is it certain that, during the last few
years, a progress towards Disbelief has become a
marked feature in literature and society. If the Press
did not make this certain, every one who listens to
the accidental utterances of men's feelings, must
well know 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 37
disbelievers; but they may become such soon, unless
a better direction be given at once to the mind of
the educated classes.
No one whose habit of mind it is to pay regard
to that which affects the community, can refrain from
thus considering the Christian question in its bearing
upon our national welfare. So it must be, if one
cares for England, and thinks of the position which
it occupies among the nations, as the only free and
religious country of the Old World ; — the only country
in which a renewed profession of adherence to Chris
tianity could be thought to have much argumentative
value. And yet although at starting I advert to facts of
this general sort, half political as they are, it is not
as related to national interests, nor as a secular ques
tion, 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 Chris
tian, 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 those overweening writers of the present time, who

38 the restoration of belief.
allow themselves great licence in speaking of Chris
tians — I mean, of men equal to themselves every way
— as besotted, blinded by childish prejudices, wanting
in honesty; or if not, in understanding; and who
deal always in 'miserable shifts/ 'paltry evasions,'
and ' unworthy subterfuges.' I think I see at the
impulse of what motives these unseemly imputation)!
have been so plentifully strewed over the pages of
some recent books. We Christians must be fools £c;
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.

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

40 the restoration of belief.
Alexander Severus was not a mindless despot ; there
fore the philosopher is safe while he lives ; and as he
was not a Marcus Aurelius, the Christian 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 her allowing it to be cruelly trampled on. If
it be so, she is not the first imperial lady who has
gleaned in the fields of the Church, to its advantage
and her own.
We take our stand then on this resting-place, as a
place of observation, whence the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them are visible, and may with
advantage be contemplated. Hence we may look up
the stream of time, through the hundred years that
are 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 field— the world in fact, so far as history
knows much of those times ; and as to the evidence
thereto relating, it is voluminous. The folios and the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 41
quartos of that period, and those which serve to attest
its principal facts, cover a library-table. It cannot
therefore be pretended that I am leading the way into
a dim region — the land (in a literary sense) of the
shadow of death, scarcely shone upon by here and
there a glimmering lamp.
In the mass of materials under our hand, some things
are worthless, much is not available fo. any argument
ative purpose ; some portions are of doubtful authority,
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 driven to no necessity to fight a hard battle for
a single treatise or book, like Boyle against Bentley;
or to number and weigh ancient manuscripts in support
of a doubtful reading. Safe from all reasonable excep
tion, are the materials on my table, as to any use I am
intending to make of them.
Besides the copiousness of those 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
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 phi
losophy which threw its handful of incense upon their
altars in contempt, had not yet died away ; nor had it
been infringed upon, or curtailed, or put in fear : its
own decrepitude was its only disparagement.

42 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Then, on the Christian side, no favour which it had
not dearly purchased, or did not well deserve, had as
yet been shown the new religion; it was not yet a
religio 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 flickers as in the gust of adversity.
But now what was this Roman world, in the
forefront of which I am intending to bring in, artist
like, and with every possible advantage, the Chris
tianity 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 most proper for my background, with a
knowing thought 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 abun
dance of evidence that I take my position at the
point of time I have named ; but because I wish to
have to do with nothing that is not unquestionably
real. On my own side I expect to find none but real
men; many of them, good and true, whose motives

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 43
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 argu
ment in peril ; whose wisdom and virtue I shall know
how to interpret, and assign to its source. I am not
in quest either of superhuman men, or of angels,
walking the earth. I know I shall find a superhuman
religion — I know I shall come upon the footsteps of
God. On the other side, there can be no motive inclining
. me to blacken heathenism for the sake of a contrast.
On the contrary, I had much rather show Christianity
shining bright upon a moderately illumined surface,
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 understand what it was which the
Gospel had to contend with, and which it vanquished,
go to India, and there look about you; — heathenism
is the Devil's religion, and therefore always the same,
though it may show a different face in different coun
tries.' No, I think not. Whatever polytheism may
be, as to its inner nature, as the Devil's religion —
and I think it is so — -yet among one family of man it
may coexist with influences, alien to itself, which may
so attemper it, so amend and correct it, so forbid its
worst enormities, as that, when compared with its
unmixed condition, as developed among other families,
the resemblance of the two is partial only; and we
shall find ourselves torn with thorns if we rush forward

44 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
into argument, assuming that the gods are the gods,
meet them where we may.
Christianity, while as yet it was in its purity, made
inroads upon the grounds of Buddhism and Brah-
minism; but it failed to overturn either; it did not
even extensively colonize India; it did but breathe
there. Those 'idolatries' presented to it no attempered
elements, whence its assault upon human nature might
draw an initial advantage.
As a Christian, had one not rather find it to be
a fact that the Gospel sickened and died upon the
pestilential swamps of India— those plains sodden with
human blood, and abominable even still more for the
practices of the living; while it lived and spread in
the soil which Greek poetry had planted out as a
garden, upon which Plato had built his palaces of
thought, and Aristotle his logical fortresses? The
Polytheism, or call it the 'heathenism,' which the
Gospel did supplant, was that religion, under the shade
of which Epictetus had fashioned his scheme of virtue ;
it was the religion under which Plutarch and Seneca
had digested so well the past, and had mused of better
things to come ; it was the religion in conforming to
which Roman emperors, 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. Yet for
this paganism Christianity proved itself an overmatch :
but I must not outrun my argument.
From the platform whereon we stand one might

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 45
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 Seve
rus, as degenerate; because they stand, toward us
of modern times, in optical conjunction with the Au
gustine age : and again we see them as if laden with
the ruin and disaster, the decay and the barbarism,
of an after time, the blame of which we throw upon
the men of this middle period.
Putting away these illusions of position — these errors
in perspective — the prospect before us is such as at
no other point of time, either much earlier or much
later, this earth of ours has presented. The Roman
landscape, contemplated at any moment during the
reigns of the benignant emperors, beginning with
Trajan, has not had its parallel — if the West and the
East are thought of together — in any other period.
Certainly the same area of three thousand miles by
two thousand, now shows a falling off in almost every
item of estimation — population, material wealth, breadth
of fully 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

46 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
revolution which in that age was advancing towards
its crisis, the human family (so far as it is authen
tically 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 experiment upon humanity, which should be
decisive in its issue.
The fully-developed and educated mind of the
human family was then to be found clustering, at
bright centres, and thence diffused over surfaces, be
tween and within the boundaries of the Roman empire.
Among the cultured nations of this area, and nowhere
else, 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 speculation.
The human mind in that age had indeed ceased
to be creative : the men of earlier times had wrought
up the material of the fine arts and of poetry, and
had occupied the ground on every side. The nations,
using the language of Greece and Rome, were living

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 47
deliriously upon the intellectual products of an age
of more 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 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. Take an earlier age, and then the West
was redeemed from barbarism only at points ; or take
a much later time, and the clouds of a sky, overcast
for a thousand years, were gathering over 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, then making its way
toward supremacy?
This darkness, which is to give us our intended
contrast, does not spring from barbarism, or from
ignorance, or from intellectual slumber, but from UNI
VERSAL incertitude, 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 theo-

48 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
rems of Euclid — of grasping in the hand a stay im
movable. The soul reels and sickens when it turns
hither and thither, vainly endeavouring to learn out
of what chaos man had sprung, and into what abyss
his destinies would plunge him.
To disguise this despair, or to divert it, the levities
of literature and the endless inanities of criticism had
been resorted to. For choking it, Stoicism was the
means employed. Yet, and notwithstanding the efforts
of elaborate frivolity on the one part, and of a death
like doctrine on the other, the comfortless dismay of
the human mind, hopeless of Truth, uttered itself in
a moan, a low wailing, of which we may catch the
echoes at 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 from his view, and when
nothing remained to him but a dread uncertainty,
and the feeling that never again should he grasp a
truth. In the recollection of such a season one would
not reject the figure as inappropriate, if it were called
the night-time of the soul ; and not less so, although
all the splendours of literature and science were then
glittering around him. It must be so : for the first
necessity of man's higher nature is truth, and the
despair of finding it is indeed — a darkness that may
be felt.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 49
In this very sense of the word, 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
the genius of the Greek and Roman literature had
departed, that darkness had sensibly gathered black
ness ; for in fact, as it is the very property of Genius,
and its first characteristic, to speak and behave itself
as being in the conscious possession of whatever it
touches, and as it is its prerogative to give illusions
the aspect of reality, therefore, so long as this spon
taneous 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
polytheistic and philosophic majority of the people,
throughout the circuit of Roman civilization, a deep
gloom at this time covered the nations, and that the
people sat as ' in the shadow of Death.' It would
be easy to make good other allegations, tending to
show that this gloom was darkened by the evergrowing
corruption of morals, by the utter decay of public
spirit, by the dissoluteness which despotism encourages,
and by that depravation of the humane emotions which
came from the frequency and the sanguinary atrocity
ofthe exhibitions of the amphitheatre. But from all
this we may abstain, for it does not materially affect
the argument.
Grant me this, that, as to the Life of the Soul, as
E

50 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 mankind, for all shadows were then
lengthening and spreading; and a chill was in the
atmosphere, foreboding a wintry night at hand.
Throughout all the countries whereupon the once fes
tive polytheism of Greece had built its altars, mockery
had supplanted religious awe, a factitious fanaticism
had come in the place, both of gay observances and of
serious feeling. Philosophy had uttered her last promises,
and broken them. On no side did light break forth.
From a worldly point of view we have just now
looked abroad upon the kingdoms of the Roman earth,
and imagined their glory. But now, shutting out that
mundane glare, what we see is a thick cloud, over
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 Medi
terranean, from the Pillars of Hercules, and look to
the right and to the left, and carry the eye inland
too, as far as to the furthest barriers of the Empire,
the whole of the coast-line on both sides throughout
this voyage, and every headland, and every mountain
^ange, more remote, and every temple-crowned acro
polis, 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.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 51
Every where — the exceptions are few — throughout
the regions which the Mediterranean divides, in cities
and in fields, we meet companies of men, even multi
tudes, who have 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
belief. These men show, in their animated looks, and
by the determination of their behaviour, that there is
in them the vitality of a Religious persuasion which
they do not distrust.
How cordially to be welcomed is such a visitation,
as of the morning — if it be the morning ? How good
a promise was it for mankind of an escape from the
gulph toward which the human family was slowly
and surely drifting away ! A sure holding has at
length been found. Some, nay thousands of the people,
declare that their feet do touch firm ground in the
waters of religious 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
E 2

52 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
such reason for ' the hope that was in them/ as would
have compelled 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 hope
lessness, and had come, — rightfully or not, into the
possession of a bright and well-defined belief.
If we were to set forth this belief in the most con
cise terms possible, it would stand in the form of an
affirmative reply to three questions, which questions
are as old as the world, and to which men, from the
very beginning, have been seeking, but not finding,
an answer.
' Is there a Supreme Being who cares for man, and
in whose wisdom and goodness man may confide?'
' Is there an after life, and a retribution ?'
' Is there forgiveness of sins with God ?'
It is not that no solutions, more or less intelligible,
had been attempted and obtained of these vital pro
blems; 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 53
it come whence it might, carried no peremptory con
viction into the hearts of those who heard it. It
came with no weight of authority; it came as a
balanced probability — it had no attestation. But
now at length it has so come. The reply — the 'yea'
which Christianity has uttered, takes a thorough hold
of men's inmost souls, as well as of their reason.
Whether or not this confidence of theirs was strictly
warrantable, according to our notions of the laws of
evidence, the fact that they did so believe is beyond
all question ; and of the strength of this their persua
sion proofs were given, than which any more conclusive
cannot be imagined.
This then is the point we have reached — That, in
the century which is named from Trajan, Hadrian, and
the Antonines, the instructed races bordering upon
the Mediterranean were in a transition state, and were
passing from darkness to light ; that is, the Light of
a confidently held religious Belief, true or false.

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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 55
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 the best informed men, warped by no
prejudice, will always grant.
The countries, provinces, and cities of the Roman
empire, within which Christianity had established itself
about the middle period of the second century, are
easily named, and may be certainly known. But to
what extent, as to the population, in each province or
city, conversion from heathenism had taken place,
must be matter of surmise ; or at best of probable
inference. We should incline to hold back from the
highest estimate of this proportion; and therefore
must listen with caution to the bold assertions of those
Christian apologists, in following whom we might be
led to believe that, times of severe suffering allowed
for, a majority of the people of all the principal cities
of the empire had become Christians, and that the
country folk were forsaking their paganism in large
numbers. Pliny's report, made to his master at the
commencement of our period, does indeed carry the
same meaning, and we might infer as much from other
testimonies. But the statistics of this subject touches
no point of our argument.
Gibbon supposes that not more than a twentieth
part of the entire population of the empire, at the
most, was professedly Christian at the moment pre
ceding the edict of Milan. This population, taken
midway in the second century, he estimates at one

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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 57
efficient as that of the Roman empire, and the uni
versality of two languages, especially the wide diffu
sion of the better of the two, and the energies of
commercial enterprise, and the purer commerce of
mind — the interchange of philosophy, literature, and
art — all these influences combined, brought the nations
then subject to Rome into a condition of relationship
and communion, which, perhaps, the boasted facilities
of modern times do not much, if at all surpass. As
to the actual velocity of travel, days now stand for
the weeks of an ancient voyage or journey; or even
for months ; but as to the actual intercommunion of
nations, the East and the West, and Africa, it may
be questioned whether it be greater now than it was
in the age of Hadrian.
The spread of the Gospel was favoured by all these
means of intercourse ; and it took to itself the wings
of every energy which then carried men to and fro be
tween the three continents. It used the roads and the
ships of the empire ; it went in the track of caravans.
It flowed, as one might say, through the arteries of
the Greek language, philosophy, and literature ; it
went wherever books had gone before it : culture was
a preparation of the soil for its reception. Forests
and wilds it did penetrate by adventurous and pre
carious missions ; but, along with the refinements of a
high civilization, it dwelt as at home.
In each of the great cities of the empire, Antioch,
Alexandria, Rome, and in every second, third, and
fourth-rate city, Christianity claimed an appreciable

58 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
proportion of the citizens as its own ; in some it had
the majority. From each of these centres it spread
itself over the surface ; at some points imperfectly co
lonizing only, in other directions suffusing itself with
out limit. Thus did it lodge, or thus dwell, in Spain
and Gaul, even to the shores of the Northern Ocean.
Britain, a favoured asylum of Roman leisure and re
fined rural enjoyment, had welcomed 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 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 Proconsular Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania,
had also thus become obnoxious to the Roman state :
for as to these regions, it was asserted that the new
religion was rapidly spreading in town and country,
among all ranks, not even excepting the highest.
Geographically, or as to square miles, numbered
on the surface of the globe, the religion of Christ had
pervaded the entire area which is distinctly known
to history at the time now before us. Statistically
it was fast tending toward such a proportion as to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 59
render its further increase a subject of well-founded
disquietude to the State. As to classes, it had emerged
from the servile class : it had spread among the free
and the privileged; it had taken its position in the
legions, and had seated itself in places of honour and
profit. As to mind and learning, it had engaged the
zealous aid of the best instructed and the most elo
quent men of the times. The heathen writers, their
contemporaries, can claim no superiority over them.
The facts thus briefly alluded to may, as every one
knows, be easily substantiated by citations, Greek and
Latin, that would fill many pages.
But for what purpose do I now, and in this cursory
manner, bring forward what is so well known? Not
to repeat, for the hundredth time, what has been
affirmed warrantably, and pointedly, often already:
That the spread of Christianity — all the conditions
attending it considered, the place, and the feebleness
of its origin, the severity of its moral code, its un-
bendingness, and the furious hostility it encountered;
this spread, thus early, is proof of its reality — of its
truth. So it is: but I have a more specific purpose
in view.

Very often of late we have been told, that the
human mind has now at length reached so mature a
condition as fits it for the task of working out for
itself the elements of morality, and the principles of
Religion too — so far as Religion may still seem to
be serviceable or necessary. This, it is said, we may
all do for ourselves, without the aid of a Book. What
need is there 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 Chris
tianity did, in its day, effect a good service for the
nations of the West, in ridding them of the old poly
theism, and in giving forth a 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
borrowed from the Book, or how far the hold thev
have of us, as an authority, is derived from a vague

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 61
unacknowledged reference to the sanctions upon whicli
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 and urgent
manner. Do not draw back from this appeal, and
you are mine — you yield yourself to Christianity !
No movement forward among civilized communities
has ever come on insensibly, or as if it merely grew
out of abstract principles. In each instance it has been
the consequence of a visible and obtrusive course of
events ; it has been the result of a crisis, brought on
by some violent shifting of the social forces ; and it
has gone forward through seasons of suffering, and
by means of struggles, and at the cost of life.
When the crisis has been passed, it will not suffice
to sum up the result in a rounded paragraph of gene
ralities, and thus to run off with the benefit, forgetful
of the conditions under which it has been obtained
for us. Nor 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, and to which I am about
to invite your exact attention. It is granted that
Christianity did a service to mankind, in its time,
by overthrowing the frivolous and absurd mythology
and worship which the Roman world upheld, and to
which it so resolutely clung. Through centuries
longer these fables and superstitions might have

62 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
retained their place. Thanks to the Martyrs, the whole
congeries of fables was swept away ; a great clearance
of the ground was made, and whatever might have
been the supervening errors, that ground has been
held open for all those advancements 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 indispensable
to the advancement of mankind; but you affirm that
its function has long ago determined with the occasion.
You may so think while you keep the facts at a dis
tance, and refuse to descend from generalities. When
these facts come to be strictly regarded, as they should,
then it will be seen that conditions of a very peculiar
kind were attached to that suffering testimony, and
to that resistance, by means of which the Christian
body, throughout the 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 consequent perpetuity.
I affirm that a revolution, affecting in the deepest
sense the well-being of the human family, and indis
pensable to its progress, drew on to its crisis, and
passed it, in the period intervening between the ac
cession of Trajan and the death of Alexander Severus.
I affirm that this revolution implies the reality of what
had brought it on, and compels a belief which touches
ourselves, and the future.
The visible circumstances attending this revolution
were such as to consist well with our supposition of

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 63
its magnitude, and of the importance of its conse
quences. The nations of the three Continents had been drawn
together to take their places upon one platform of
secular administration: one system of government,
ruled by the same political maxims, prevailed over
the whole of this diversified surface. To one will
all men looked, as the sovereign source of good or
ill. All felt every moment their relationship of de
pendence 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 struc
ture, as one body.
The period of this structural unity was coincident
with the period occupied by that conflict with which
we are now concerned. The beginning and the end
of the Christian crisis, or the time during which the
Church, as a body, resisted the strenuous endeavour
of the State to maintain and enforce its own maxims
of government — this period was synchronous with the
structural unity of the Empire. When the conflict
had reached and passed its term, which was when
the State yielded the main point in dispute, and re
cognised Christianity as one among the religiones
licita, 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

64 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
attributable to the wanton ferocity of the Emperor
individually, or to his fanaticism, it had a political
more than a religious meaning, and expressed the
fears of a party which felt itself to be losing ground
daily. The fact, which has often been adverted to, de
mands 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 benignity, of political wisdom, and of per
sonal .virtue. Whatever the Christian people, in some
provinces, might suffer at the hands of ferocious magis
trates or emperors, or from the rabble, when the Church
suffered in its proper character, as the witness against
the polytheism of the State, its enemy was always
one of these pattern princes.
This was no accident; for it sprung from the con
ditions of the contest. Whenever — passion and fana
ticism apart, the Roman authorities gave attention to
the perplexing problem which Christianity had brought
before them, and when they endeavoured to apply
to it the only general principles of which they were
cognizant, and to give effect to the undoubted rules
of Roman policy toward the subjugated nations, then
they issued edicts, which, cruel and fatal as might be
the consequences thence resulting, did truly embody
the unchangeable maxims of the government they
administered.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 65
These endeavours — violent in act, temperate in in
tention, to break up the perplexity which could not
be theoretically removed — were of course renewed from
time to time. The Master of the World, indulgent
as he was toward the rites of the vanquished gods,
could not allow the Cmrimonia Romanes to be set at
nought, nor the religion of the Empire and of all
nations to be denounced as nugatory and vicious.
On the part of the Christian body, willing as they
were to yield obedience to the State, no choice was left
them but to protest and to suffer. Thus the contest
between the duty of the State and the conscience of
the remonstrants was quite hopeless ; for the struggle
could terminate in no way, but either by the exter
mination of the new Religion and its adherents, or the
defeat and dishonour of the government.
But whence 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, meaning little beyond an homage rendered
to the Emperor as patron of all religions, did not
touch the main part of the Christian system; it was
an incidental consequence only of this system which
threw its adherents into collision with the State. To
profess and maintain Monotheism was not the pecu
liarity of Christianity. Sages had professed this same
belief, and had taught it; and so might these Chris
tians, if they would have been content with the
F

66 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
promulgation of an abstract doctrine. If only they
had gone about maintaining the purity of Theism,
and telling the people, in a good-natured manner, that
the gods they worshipped were no gods, though they
might often have been roughly treated by mobs, yet
probably they would have provoked no serious animad
version from the Roman government.
Besides, if an ABSTRACT TRUTH only had been in
question, and if no other obligation had pressed itself
upon Christians, beyond that of declaring and teaching
it when and where they could gain a hearing, evasions
might easily have been resorted to by themselves, and
would gladly have been accepted at the tribunals,
sufficient at least for the immediate purpose of screen
ing 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 tortures, even to death, and which brought so many
apostates, 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 perfect 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 con-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 67
stancy 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 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 pre
cisely 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 take this same Behef
as my own, on the grounds of that same confidence?
This is not absolutely certain.

The witness-bearing of the early Church, through
seasons of intermittent 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, if we
choose to follow our better feelings, showing the ex
cellence of the Religion which was so contended for;
its moral power also; and, by legitimate inference,
its truth. No fault should be found with this mode
of reasoning; but yet we may have recourse to an
other. Precisely what I intend will best appear in
giving attention to two or three of those instances of
constancy to which imperial edicts gave occasion.
The first of these instances possesses the advantage
of meeting us in a form that is exempt from suspicion
of having been dressed up or coloured, to serve a pur
pose. 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
sidents, and, on their part, the counter-necessity that

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 69
compelled them to suffer, 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 — multi enim omnis setatis, omnis ordinis, utrius-
que 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 eager to denounce it as false, and they
had adopted another. The temples were forsaken, the
simulacra of the gods and of the emperor were defrauded
of the customary homage; and, besides, stated as
semblages of the people were having place for pur
pose unknown, and therefore unlawful, and not to be
tolerated. It does not appear through what remissness of the
authorities this defection had spread so far. But this
new representative of the Majesty of the Empire, by
showing himself awake to his duty, and aware of
the danger impending, had, by proclamation of im
perial edicts, by judicial inquests, and by the inflic
tion of capital punishment upon the refractory, made
some progress in restoring law, and in recovering for
the Carimonice Romance the lost ground, before he
had determined to report the facts to his master, and
ask instructions. Multitudes of the people at once
renounced their Christianity, and cleared themselves of
all suspicion by compliance with the sacrificial rites,

70 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and by uttering, with the required maledictions, the
name which had come to designate the new commu
nity. 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 fancy that we see them coming forward,
dolls, or be they what they might, shouldered by the
officers of justice, and nodding as they came ! In
style of art vastly superior are these simulacra to the
hideous blocks which now grin in our museums, re
presentatives of the gods of Owyhee and the Sand
wich Islands; and yet, whether more or less sightly,
these effigies, and the vast system of worship which
they symbolized, were blocks, standing in the way of
that next great movement forward which the human
mind was to take.
This enlightened Roman gentleman, well conversant
as he was with whatever had been said and taught
by the philosophers of Greece or Rome, was conscious
of no humiliation, he did not blush when these stupid
symbols had been poised near him, and he, prompting
the form of appellation — prseeunte me — pointed to
them as fit objects of devout regard ! The accused,
pale and trembling as they did that which he did not
blush to exact, offered the incense and the wine, and
departed !
If the Roman State, then in so advanced a con
dition of intellectual refinement, and when represented
by a philosopher and a man of letters, thus showed

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 71
that it was not then making, and had not made, any
progress toward a better Theology, can it be thought
probable that any such reform would spontaneously
come about? Whether or not there might yet be a
chance of some spontaneous reform, the actual reform
which did at length take place — the actual expulsion
of the gods, and the riddance then effected for the
human mind of this encumbrance, this stop to progress,
was otherwise brought about.
How then was it effected? Not by the silent
spreading of an opinion, or by the gentle diffusion of
a better Theologic Idea — platonic, or of any other
sort; but in this severe manner, namely, That in 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 therewith
connected, forbid their compliance with polytheistic
rites, and compel them to suffer.
However many, 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, and they
accepted death.
This constancy of the early Christians, so severely
tried, might well be admitted as valid proof of the
reality of the belief on which it rested, especially
connected as it was with a blameless morality. Such

72 THE restoration of belief.
an admission will readily be made by every mind
that is fraught with moral sensibility, and which has
not been damaged by sophistry. Every natural sym
pathy carries us along with the sufferers, as we stand
in the crowd and witness the grave inflexibility of
some, the flushed excitement of others, of youths and
women, and the tremors and the anguish of many
who yet did endure to the end. Thus far, or so far
as our truest emotions will carry us, we involuntarily
side with the condemned. With them we 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 might not these Christians have excused them
selves, 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
inquire. They did not do so, and it was by a century
and a-half of suffering, on the part of the Church, that
the gods were thrown from their pedestals.
This 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
indispensable in relation to the progress of the human
mind and the development of its higher faculties — was
then, and by the same terrible means, brought about.
We may just imagine that the philosophic Pliny,
if we could have taken him apart in his hours of re
laxation, might have been brought on so far as to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 73
acknowledge that the men whom he had ordered to
execution in the morning, were right on the great
principle of Monotheism. This abstract doctrine was
not new to him, and it had received the adhesion of
illustrious sages. There stood, however, in the rear
of this purer theology, a principle, then in course of
development, which neither Pliny nor any man of his
time had thought of, or could have been made to
comprehend. Yet it is the axiom on which hinges
the immeasurable moral difference between classical an
tiquity and the modern mind. Even the sufferers in
that early contest were not competent to put forward
a clear enunciation of the principle which themselves
were so painfully bringing to bear upon human affairs.
At present we stand clear of the question as to the
truth of the Religion, in behalf of which the early
Church gave its suffering testimony. We abstain also
from what belongs to those moral and spiritual bene
fits which Christianity brought with it, and 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 prepa
ration for a new moral era, and under what con
ditions this necessary function was discharged. If the
same statement, somewhat varied in terms, seems to
recur within the limit of a few pages, pardon the
brief trespass on your patience : this repetition may
save us time in treating those deeper subjects which
I have mainly in view.

74 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
A final clearance of the gods and goddesses was
to be effected ; and this, 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 govern
ment, neither party finding it possible to retreat from
its ground : not the government, because the first prin
ciples of the empire were impugned by this opposition ;
not the Christian people, because it was not a mere
opinion that sustained their opposition, but a belief
toward a Person whose authority they regarded as
paramount to every other.
To insist on the one side, and to resist on the
other, were evenly-balanced necessities, of which fre
quent martyrdoms were the inevitable consequence.
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 un
apprehended by antiquity, and only in an indistinct
manner, and insensibly re cognised on the Christian
side; yet apart from which there could have been
no such development of the human mind in the mass,
and no such depth given to the moral faculties in
dividually, as have in fact come to set 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. That one lesson which re-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 75
mained to be brought out, and to be wrought into
the hearts of men, was the religious obligation of
belief ; an obligation not resting upon communities
as a public or social charge, but pending with the
whole of its weight upon the conscience of the in
dividual man ; an obligation personal, a privilege un
alienable, and when duly discharged, a function giving
the individual man a pledge of his immortality.
Until this generative principle should be worked
out as an axiom in morals, nothing could be hoped
for as to the destinies of the human family. Now that
it has been thus worked out, and has been accepted
as an axiom, the aspect of human affairs can never
be so lowering, as that we should despond concerning
those destinies. But have we sufficiently regarded
the fact, that this great problem was solved for us
by the martyr Church of the century and half now
in prospect ?
The sufferers did not know precisely what they
were doing in this behalf ; and yet, with an observable
uniformity, the professions made before tribunals and
on scaffolds took the true direction as related thereto.
As it had been with Pliny, so with L. Statius Qua-
dratus, proconsul of Asia : his personal dispositions were
such as were becoming to a Roman magistrate ; he was
neither sanguinary nor fanatical; but his position in the
province was different. The severities to which Pliny
had allowed himself to have recourse were prompted
entirely by his own sense of public duty : otherwise
they were uncalled for. But Quadratus found him-

76 the restoration of belief.
self pressed upon by the fanaticism of the populace :
the rabble of Smyrna, incited, as it appears, by the
Jews, was up, and a victim must be thrown out to
appease the monster.
The martyrdom of Polycarp, whatever else it may
show or may prove, brings out distinctly those condi
tions of the struggle between Christianity and the State,
to which I have already adverted. The aged bishop so
behaved on the occasion as the rule of Christian
constancy required him to behave ; nor can there be
alleged against him any indication of fanatical excite
ment. He had consented to conceal himself from the
Proconsul's officers so long as this course might fairly
be taken. He surrendered himself to them with dig
nity, and these officers had, no doubt, been enjoined
to treat so venerable a man with due respect. He was
urged to yield so far to the authorities as might en
able them to screen him from the popular fury. Why
not invoke the Emperor, and offer sacrifice? What
harm can there be in uttering the words Kvpie Kal-
crap, and then to sacrifice, and thus to save yourself?
ical 6vaai teal Staaa^eaOai. This advice, kindly in
tended, was importunately urged. 'Never shall I do
what you advise.' Then if not, the time of forbear
ance 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-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 77
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 I will release you : revile Christ ! ' This might
not be. Polycarp had been numbered with the ser
vants of Christ from his infancy; — his martyrdom
occurred A. D. 167, or a year later ; in his youth, there
fore, he was contemporary with the last survivor of
the Apostles, and thus the whole of his religious per
suasion resolved itself into a personal consciousness of
facts. These facts, true or false, or partly true and
partly illusory, constituted the ground or ultimate
reason of his constancy : how could he blaspheme his
'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.
With Polycarp this consciousness was more imme
diate and more personal than it could be with others,
his contemporaries : nevertheless with them, not less
than with himself, the ground of that Christian forti
tude which, in the end, prevailed over the polytheism
of the State, was a belief toward a Person; it was
not an opinion as to a doctrine: and here we should

78 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
take care to distinguish between the various motives
that might come in to sustain the courage of a mar
tyr in his extremity of suffering, and the ONE GROUND
on which his constancy rested. In the instance of the
Bishop of Smyrna (as in that of Cyprian, probably,)
considerations of personal honour, as the venerated
Chief of the Christian people around him, may have
had an influence. So might the motive to which he
himself alludes : ' You threaten me with a fire which
does its work in one hour ; but you think not of the
fire of eternal punishment that awaits the wicked.'
These, or other motives, would have shown little in
trinsic force, if they had rested upon an opinion : their
power sprang from their connexion with a definite
historic belief.

It is in the course of things that a Great Prin
ciple of conduct should have been long acted upon,
perhaps for a century or more, before it comes to
be explicitly 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 Behef, even although
the avowal costs him his life.
The acts of the early martyrdoms might be copi
ously cited in illustration of what is here affirmed.
But at length, as was natural, the implicit Principle
got utterance for itself, and it did so continually with
more and more distinctness ; it came to be defined,
until that great Law of CONSCIENCE, which places
the modern mind in so great an advance beyond the
ancient mind, was allowed to stand in the very fore
front of ethical axioms.
I do not know whether it might not be found
in nearly as distinct a form among the earlier Chris-

80 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
tian writings ; but it is found, well and finely enun
ciated in that admirable Tract in which Origen deals
so strictly with the consciences of his Christian con
temporaries, who were then passing through a season
of the most severe suffering. The treatise — 'urging
to martyrdom/ is of considerable length. It must
suffice to state the drift of it, so far as it bears upon
my present purpose.
The terrors of torture — more than the fear of death,
(for at that time the infliction of torture, rather than
of death, appears to have been the determinate inten
tion of the Roman authorities,) had shaken the con
stancy of many among the Christians ; and so it was
that pleas and evasions of every kind had been sought
for, and had been found, by aid of which the religious
obligations attaching to a Christian belief might be
made to consist with a retreat from the field of con
flict. Origen meets and refutes these evasions, one
by one, and in doing so he gives expression to a
principle which we all of this age — believers and
unbelievers, profess to think sacred, and which we
acknowledge as the basis of personal virtue, and in
the abandonment of which all self-respect is gone.
Well does this confessor labour to animate the
courage of his faltering brethren by opening before
them the 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 81
a genuine faith, hidden in the heart, might avail for
ensuring their salvation ; for ' with the heart man
believeth for justification' — nay, but salvation has
another condition, 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 con
fession. Whether we grant this or not, it must be acknow
ledged that this Father is here laying the foundation-
stone of our modern sense of the stern obligation of
religious sincerity. Yet the laying 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, bfivvvat, tv^tjv twos ?
Can we dare to whisper a faithless purpose in the
G

82 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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,
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 sug
gesting 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 any thing less, is to fall short of them,
and we must take the consequence.
Let us note the fact that this strenuous mode
of dealing with the infirm consciences of his brethren,
on the part of Origen, and whence were to result
benefits incalculable to mankind, drew the whole of
its force from an 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. As to the common obligations of truthfulness, as
between man and man, they had long before been
well understood ; but now this new and higher obli
gation, binding man, individually, to God as the
object of all worship and duty, came on to be en-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 83
forced, and Origen urges it upon his brethren with
reasons which could not be rebutted; and he sus
tains 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 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 die in martyrdom,
he died of it. When a boy he had written to his
father, 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, or of weak
faith; but of none. Thus was the Religious Obli
gation of Truth interpreted to demand suffering for
G 2

84 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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
one principle was working itself forward into notice,
until it should become the recognised law of the
Christian profession. ' Better for us to die, than to
live, and lie to God.' In a condensed form it stood
thus : — It is / who now, if I dare not forego my
hope of immortality, must endure the scourge, the
rack, the fire ! It is / who must meet death, thus
armed with aggravated terrors ! The question whether
I shall face these terrors, or shall turn aside from
them, is between God and my soul. My Christian
brethren may indeed aid me by their plaudits and
exhortations while I suffer, but they can neither suffer
these torments for me, nor can they take upon them
selves 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 ex
treme 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 was lastingly established.
It was time that the individual man was lifted up
from his obscure place, as a unit in the mass of hu
manity, and was raised to his true position, and was

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 85
invested with his proper dignity, as related indivi
dually to God. It was thus, and it was amid the
unutterable horrors of the pagan persecutions, that
the meanest of the species, the slave, the outcast, did
at length secure for himself, and for his peers of all
times and countries, a formal recognition of his worth
and rights, as the equal — in a moral estimation — of
the noble and the learned. It was thus — even by
the endurance of all imaginable forms of misery on
the part of the thousands whose names have perished
on earth, that we, of this present time, have learned
to regard with 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.

The removal of polytheism was a great work ;
and yet the recognition and the development of that
Principle which assigns to man his true place and
dignity, was a greater, or a more difficult work. Both
were effected by the constancy of the Early Church;
both were effected by means of a long-continued
and most severe course of suffering ; and both sprung
out of, and were inseparably connected with, a Definite
Persuasion, as to the events of a preceding time,
and as to the authority of a Person, and as to the
authenticity of books.
Yet 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 was even more severe than the first,
and was of much longer continuance.
Perhaps it might be possible to glean from the
pages of classical antiquity so many as half-a-dozen
sentences, bearing an apparent resemblance to those
which are found so plentifully in the early Christian
writers, and in which the religious obligations of truth
are affirmed. Even if it were so, the facts remain
precisely as they were; for whatever philosophers
might have said, they had wholly failed to gain a

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 87
hearing for their doctrine among the people. Nor
did the governments of those times ever recognise
any such principle : they understood nothing of the
sort. To the Early Church it was as if the bare idea
had never before presented itself to the mind of man.
The battle had to be 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,
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 ex
pression 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 constancy ;
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 drawn, 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 were immolated
by the pagan authorities.

88 the restoration of belief.
This wrong and fatal Inference, accepted so early
as it was, came at length to be regarded as an axiom,
needing no proof, indeed admitting of none, for it was
self-evident. If you would see in how cool and con
fiding a manner it is advanced, read the Epistles of
Innocent IIL, and the sermons of St. Bernard.
If the mere exclusion of suffering and TRIAL
were the only consideration worth regarding, then one
might be tempted to wish 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 establish
ment of its spurious counterpart — the Persecutor's doc
trine. But we are not at liberty thus to wish; we
may not thus reason ; for every thing about us shows
that the ultimate destinies of the human family are
not otherwise to be reached than through deep blood-
sodden ways of suffering, extreme in degree, and drawn
out through centuries.
It is — it must be, enough for us, that the terrible
results of the spurious Inference whence all persecu
tions have borrowed their apology, have not availed
to deprive us of the inestimable benefits of the pre
vious Truth. This Truth is ours now: it is ours as
an inheritance, the encumbrances of which have all
been discharged. Dare we relinquish it? When we
do so, a night that can have no morning will be
before us.
But at this present moment WE, that is, we Chris
tian men, are forbidden to entertain the thought of any

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 89
such treason by those who (so strange sometimes are
the shiftings of position among parties) are vehemently,
nay even passionately, taking up the Martyr Principle
won for us by the ancient Church, and are pleading it
in their own behalf, while they are making their deadly
assault upon this same Christianity ! It may be well
to listen for a moment to this new utterance of an
old, but not obsolete, doctrine. How is it that the
apostles of Disbelief screen themselves from rebuke?
It is by taking to themselves the Truth which the
' noble army of Martyrs ' purchased for the world on
the rack and at the stake !
A recent writer professes his confidence that his
reader will 'judge his argument (in disproof of Chris
tianity) and himself, as before the bar of God.' Do
we not hear in these words 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 Mat
thew is an erroneous copy of that in the Old Testa
ment, 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 discre
pancy presented itself, what course did this 'martyr'
take ?
' On what ground of righteousness, which I could

90 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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
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 I could have shown this writer, or any
who may take the same ground, what he might have
done amid these perplexities, which would have been
far better than, on account of difficulties such as these,
to renounce Christianity ! But this is beside my pre
sent purpose. This writer thinks that, to have shrunk
from his convictions, which ended in his entire rejection
of the Gospel, would have been ' infidelity to God, and
truth, and righteousness.'
If, indeed, the case be thus, then it is certain that
this great principle of the Religious Obligation of
Truth must not be abandoned by any of us. But we
may listen to another witness, who speaks to the same
effect, and he is one whose testimony is equally un
exceptionable. He professes to admire the Bible, but
he protests against its pretensions, as of divine origin,
or as possessing any authority more than belongs to
the Iliad, or to the Divina Comedia, or to the Para
dise Lost, or to Shakspeare's Macbeth : he says, ' We
may not lie to God. It may be convenient to let

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 91
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 heavi
est interest.'
So thought the martyr bishop of Antioch, and the
martyr bishop of Smyrna, and the tens of thousands
who, in their day, have trod the same thorny path to
a land which none shall reach who have 'lied to
God.' Thus far then Believers and Unbelievers are
entirely agreed: yet let another witness be heard;
and in 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 amphitheatre, where Christian
men were witnessing a good confession in the midst
of their mortal agonies ! This witness is one who as
sures us that 'he can believe no longer, he can wor
ship no longer: he has discovered that the Creed of
his early days is baseless, or fallacious.' Yet he, too,
takes up the 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

92 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
rule, and, 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
venerated martyr brethren of the ancient Church, in
making this profession — That we may not lie to God,
nor deny before men our inward conviction in matters
of religion ; we (as they did) affirm that which is con
sistent 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 this; and those whom it concerns
so to do, owe it to the world and to themselves, to
make the ingenuous avowal.
In the first place, the style and the very terms
employed by these writers, in enouncing the fact of
the martyrdom they are undergoing, are all a flagrant
plagiarism, and nothing better ! A claim, in behalf of
the Gospel, must be made of what is its own, and
which these writers, without leave asked, have appro
priated. As to every word and phrase upon which
the significance of this their profession turns, it must

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 93
be given up, leaving them in possession of so much
only of the meaning of such phrases as would have
been intelligible to Plutarch, to Porphyry, and to
M. Aurelius. A surrender must be made of the
words Conscience, and Truth, and Righteousness,
and SlN ; and, alas ! modern unbelievers must be chal
lenged to give me back that one awe-fraught Name
which they (must I not plainly say so ?) have stolen
out of the BOOK : when they have frankly made this
large surrender, we may return to them the to ®eiov
of classical antiquity.
Yet this plagiarism, as to terms, is the smaller part
of that invasion of rights with which the same per
sons are chargeable. 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 Chris
tian martyrs : their persuasion of the truth of the
Gospel had become part of themselves; it was faith
absolute, in the fullest sense of the word. The same
degree of irresistible persuasion attaches to the con
clusions of mathematical or physical science ; but it
never can belong to an opinion, or to an undefined
abstract belief. A man may, indeed, choose to die
rather than contradict his personal persuasion of the
truth of an opinion ; but in doing so he has no right
to take to himself the martyr's style. So to speak is
to exhibit, not constancy, but opiniativeness, or an
overweening confidence in his own reasoning faculty.
Polycarp could not have refused to die when the

94 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
only alternative was to blaspheme Christ, his Lord :
but Plutarch could not have been required to suffer
in attestation of his opinion — -good as it was — that the
Poets have done ill in attributing the passions and
the perturbations of human nature to the immortal
gods; nor Seneca, in behalf of those astronomical
and meteorological theories with which he entertains
himself and his friend Lucilius.
When those who, after rejecting Christianity, talk
of suffering for the 'truth of God/ and speak as if
they were conscience-bound 'toward God/ they must
know that they not only borrow a language which
they are not entitled to avail themselves of, but that
they invade a ground of religious belief whereon they
can establish for themselves no right of standing. They
may indeed profess what opinion they please, as to
the Divine Attributes; but they cannot need to be
told that which the misgivings of their own hearts
so often whisper to them, that all such opinions
are, at the very best, open to debate, and must al
ways be indeterminate, and that at this time their
own possession of the opinion which just now they
happen to cling to, is, in the last degree, precarious.
How, then, can martyrdom be transacted among those
whose treading is upon the fleecy clouds of undemon-
strable 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;

the restoration of belief. 95
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 mas-
siveness, the more rapid will be its descent upon this
declivity. Minds of little density, and of much airy
sentiment, may stay long where they are, just as gnats
and flies walk to and fro upon the honied sides of a
china vase ; they do not go down, but never again will
they fly.

Through a strange misapprehension of the pre
sent tendency of things, within the commonwealth of
Philosophy, those who are struggling to save the
Pietism of Disbelief have made allusion to the pro
gress of the Sciences, as threatening the immediate
destruction of Christianity. We are told that our
obsolete Creed will be rent from us by the Physical
sciences, as they advance.
A wonderful miscalculation it is that has led astray
those who thus think, and thus speak. The modern
Physical sciences, Astronomy, Geology, Physiology,
have indeed availed to dispel from Christian Belief
this or that superstition, the demolition of which has
occasioned pain to minds of a certain class, and has
spread alarm among many ; but the issue will be wholly
good and confirmatory. I hope hereafter to show you
on what ground I think so ; and I do not wish it to
be supposed that I am either unmindful of the diffi
culties that have had their origin in this quarter, or
that I am intending to evade the consideration of them.
But whatever damage science may do to Christianity,
its operation (so marvellously forgotten by the writers
in question) will be, not to damage, but to put right

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 97
out of existence every form and phase of those Pietistic
notions which it may have been thought possible to
retain when Christianity is gone. The fate of all
those varieties of sentimental doctrine is already sealed
— it is sealed by the hand of our modern Physical
sciences ! How and why this should be taking place
has not, I think, been understood ; and I invite atten
tion to it.
In any case when that which on any ground of
proof takes full hold of the understanding, (such, for
example, are the most certain of the conclusions of
Geology,) stands contiguous to that which, in a logical
sense, is of inferior quality, and is indeterminate, and
fluctuating, and liable to retrogression, — in any such
case there is always going on a silent encroachment
of the more solid mass upon the ground of that which
is less solid. What is sure will be pressing upon what
is uncertain, whether or not the two are designedly
brought into collision or comparison. What is well
defined weighs upon, and against, what is ill defined.
Nothing stops the continuous involuntary operation of
science, in dislodging opinion from the minds of those
who are conversant with both.
A very small matter that is indeed determinate, will
be able to keep a place for itself against this inces
santly encroaching movement; but nothing else can
do so.. As to any of those theosophic fancies, which
we may wish to cling to, after we have thrown away
the Bible, we might as well suppose that they will resist
the impact of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences,
H

98 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
as imagine that the lichens of an Alpine gorge will stay
the slow descent of a glacier.
It is not that these Demonstrable Sciences are likely
to be brought designedly into antagonism with the
theosophies of Disbelief. But instead of this, these
sciences are now coming down, in one compact mass,
upon all varieties of mere opinion : without noise are
they coming, yet certainly, to raze them from the
soil where they grow. Travelling in its might, this
solid mass will scrape the surface over which it travels
quite bare. Nor is it merely the Mathematical and
Physical Sciences that in this manner are edging
opinion out of the intellectual world ; for in the train
of these come the Statistical, the Economic, and the
Political sciences, which every day are assuming a
more positive tone than heretofore, and are more
articulate than any Religious opinions can be, unless
sustained by evidence of the most conclusive sort.
Deductions that are indisputable — principles that have
a near bearing upon the palpable welfare of the com
munity, not less than the higher truths of philosophy,
tend to disengage the mind from whatever does not
possess equal or similar recommendations. Men sicken
of endless surmises, of guesses, of aspirations, of im
pressions, of vague hopes. Now it is manifest that
the Religious Disbelief which is at this time 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 99
a probability, — a something better than nothing. Itself,
from a consciousness of its own slenderness, will be glad
to slip away, unnoticed, from the halls of science.
This process, sealing the fate of theosophic systems
of all sorts, does not indeed bear upon the masses of
the religious community. Happily it does not ; but it
does bear upon the entire community of well-instructed
men; and from them the effect which it produces
spreads itself, outward and downward, until a para
lysing of the religious sentiment has gone far and wide ;
and this is what is now taking place, and which calls
for a fresh recurrence to the very substance of Chris
tianity, 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 what it was at the time
when Christianity prevailed over philosophy and poly
theism ; for the theories of that age did not stand liable
to any such pressure from without, as that which now
weighs upon their modern representatives. The Theo
logy of that epoch was not less approvable to reason
than was the Physical science of the same time : both
were surmises only ; and, on the whole, fewer positive
absurdities were comprised in the theology than in the
science of the times. The science of antiquity could
call scarcely anything within its compass certain, ex
cept 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
H 2

100 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of the same time, than one of the pyramids is likely to
shove another into the Nile.
It is an illusion to imagine that any scheme of
religious belief can noio maintain itself in the minds
of instructed men, under the enormous pressure of the
compacted mass of our modern sciences. A most mis
judging course, therefore, have those writers adopted
who, of late, have threatened Christianity with extinc
tion, 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 opinions only; and they
entirely lack intelligible evidence, as well as substance
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 through its day of trial.

THE EESTORATION OF BELIEF. 101
I now therefore reach the point which I have had
in view in this preliminary Tract; my purpose being
to explain my meaning in professing to think that a
Restoration of Belief, at this time, demands that we
should make our way direct into the heart of the
question, and reclaim for the Gospel its own grandeur,
its own beauty, its own boundless compass of Truths
eternal. Hitherto we have confined our attention to the
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 : we know it was not so. The faith of the
Martyr Church was undoubting in its quality, and
ample in its compass. The martyr confronted his
tormentor, and welcomed death, in the perfect assu
rance that the Religion he professed was from Heaven,
and that it had come into the world attested by
Miracles. Such a persuasion, we may think, cost this martyr
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

102 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
miraculous attestations, this 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 outmeasured
all miracles; to them the new spiritual existence which
they had drawn from the Gospel, was, a Miracle with
which those of the Evangelic history seemed in perfect
accordance. What they felt in themselves, and saw
in others, of the power of the Gospel, was to them a
resurrection, equivalent to the miraculous healing of
the sick, or raising of the dead.
But is it not ' reasoning in a circle ' thus to believe
the miracles because the religion is felt to be from
Heaven, and to believe the religion, because it has been
attested by miracles ? Grant it that this is reasoning
in a circle, when formally stated; but it does not
follow that the reasoning is not good in its substance.
A misapprehension on this ground has too easily been
admitted, as well on the side of those 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 very same mode, — that is, not in the way of a
sequence of evidences, following each other as links
in a chain, and carrying with them the conclusion ;
but in the way of the congruity of evidences, meeting
or collapsing in the conclusion. This is not what is
called ' cumulative proof/ nor is it proof derived from
the coincidence of facts. Those impressions which

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 103
command the reason and the feelings in the most
imperative manner, and which we find it impossible
to resist, are the result of the meeting of congruous
elements : they are the product of causes which, though
independent, are felt so to fit the one the other, that
each, as soon as seen in combination, authenticates the
other ; and in allowing the two to carry our convictions,
we are not yielding to the sophism which consists in
alternately putting the premises in the place of each
other, but are recognising a principle which is true in
human nature.
You have to do with one who offers to your eye his
credentials — his diploma, duly signed and sealed, and
which declare him to be a Personage of the highest
rank. All seems genuine in these evidences. At the
same time the style and tone, the air and behaviour,
of this Personage, and all that he says, and what he
informs you of, and the instructions he gives you, are
in every respect consistent with his pretensions, as set
forth in the Instrument he brings with him. It is
not then that you alternately believe his credentials to
be genuine, because his deportment and his language
are becoming to his alleged rank ; and then that you
yield to the impression which has been made upon
your feelings by his deportment, because you have
admitted the credentials to be true. Your Belief is
the product of a simultaneous accordance of the two
species of proof: it is a combined force that carries
conviction, not a succession of proofs in line.
It is from the same force of Congruity, not from a

104 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
catena of proofs, that we receive the most trustworthy
of those impressions upon the strength of which we act
in the daily occasions of life ; and the same Law of
Belief rules us also in the highest of all arguments —
that which issues in a devout regard to Him, by and
through Whom are all things. On this ground, where
logic halts, an instinctive reasoning prevails, which
takes its force from the confluence of reasons.
I have asked it to be supposed that all we can now
know of Christianity must be derived from the literary
materials of the second and third centuries. We
now go back to those materials. They are various,
if not of very great absolute bulk : they include
contributions from the pens of fifty or sixty writers,
some of these being voluminous, some amounting
to fragments only, or paragraphs or sentences : but
then they are Contributions gathered from all quarters
of the Roman World. These remains bring to our
hearing, as we might say, the voices of the dwellers
in Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, Gaul,
Italy, and Greece; what we listen to is a testimony
coming in from a large surface. These variously de
rived materials constitute so many segments of a great
circle, the centre of which they will enable us to de
termine, if we rightly bring them to their places :
the radii, projected from these segments, meet in a
central point.
A striking unanimity of feeling pervades the mass ;
and yet along with much diversity of style, the temper
of the men also being everywhere conspicuous, as well

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 105
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 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 discharge from our feelings that
which haunts our minds, the thought that it may touch
and disturb ourselves.
In now summing up, I entreat you to make this
effort, and to imagine that Christianity has long ago
ceased to hold any place of influence in the world;
and that it stands before us only as a singular develop
ment of the religious and moral elements of human
nature, which has had its season, and which now stands
on record, an insulated object of historic curiosity.
If now you will go with me so far, ingenuously grant
such things as you would not think of denying, if
relieved from all anxiety as to consequences, touching
ourselves. I will therefore suppose you to allow these
things. —

106 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
— That the Christian communities did, during the
period that we have had in view, make and main
tain a protest against the idol-worship of the times,
which protest, severe as it was in its conditions, at
length won a place in the world for a purer Theology,
and set the civilized races free from the degrading
superstitions of the Greek Mythology.
— That, in the course of this arduous struggle, and
as an unobserved yet inevitable consequence of it, a
New Principle came to be recognised, and a New
Feeling came to govern the minds of men, which
principle and feeling conferred upon the individual
man, however low his rank, socially or intellectually,
a dignity, unknown to classical antiquity ; and which
yet must be the basis of every moral advancement
we can desire, or think of as possible.
— That the struggle whence resulted these two
momentous 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
attributes, 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 parallel,
the concentric testimony of many writers conveys the
idea of a clearly-defined Individuality, such an idea,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 107
such a conception of a Person, real, and unlike others,
is conveyed by the evidence now in our hands ; and
this idea indissolubly blends the historic and the super
natural ; the two elements of character, as combined,
possess a force of congruity which compels our
submission to it. Whence then came this Idea ? We
find it on the pages of the early Christian writers in
a form so consentient, and it is conveyed in language
so sedate and so uniform, that we must believe it to
have had ONE source.
Much do we meet with in these writers that indicates
infirmity of judgment or a false taste ; yet does there
pervade them a marked simplicity, a grave sincerity,
a quietness of tone, when He is spoken of whom they
acknowledge as Lord. If there be one characteristic
of these ancient writings that is 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, resulting from your admissions,
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 Pla-
tonism.' Exaggeration and inflation have their own
style : nor is it difficult to recognise it. No charac
teristic of thought or language is more obvious.
You will fail in your endeavour to show that this

108 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
characteristic 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 of escaping from some consequence
which you dislike.
But how can it be that a resumption of the in
ference which Christianity brings to bear upon our
selves, should 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 concessions.' We must abide by our
concessions, if they have been reasonably granted,
come what may.
That which these concessions involve is this, that
unless we at once allow the SUPERNATURAL and the
Divine to have belonged to Christianity at its rise,
our alternative is to fill up the void by aid of some
hypothesis which shall give an intelligible account of
what we know to have followed, wherever it was
proclaimed, throughout the Roman world. As to any
such hypothesis (several have been devised) I will not
call them inadmissible, or insufficient ; for to me they
are wholly unintelligible.
Unintelligible are these hypotheses, even when looked
at in the coldest manner from the ground of historical
criticism. But how revolting do they seem when the
course of events, through the lapse of centuries, is
regarded in any manner that might deserve to be called
philosophic !

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 109
The dark mysteries that attach to the course of
human affairs, who shall profess to interpret ? No one
undertakes such an office. Nevertheless we may trace
single lines of causation with perfect certainty : we may
follow a clue up from Effects to Causes, and we may
discover causes which, in their quality and their effi
ciency, are such as the effect demands. We may safely
reject, as by instinct, an hypothesis which assumes to
trace great and extensive effects to causes that would
be not merely insufficient, but which are utterly incon
gruous and unfit.
Remove from Christianity every thing in it which is
supernatural and divine, and then the problem which
we have to do with is this. — A revolution in human
affairs, in the highest degree beneficial in its import,
was carried forward upon the arena of the great world,
by means of the noble behaviour of men who com
mand our sympathy and admiration, as brave, wise,
and good. But this revolution drew the whole of
its moral force from a Belief, which — how shall we
designate it ? — was in part an inexplicable illusion ;
in part a dream, and in large part a fraud ! This,
the greatest forward movement which the civilized
branches pf the human family have ever made, took
its rise in bewildered Jewish brains ! 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 vast a cost, had their source in
a congeries of exaggerations, and in a mindless con-

110 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
spiracy, 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 are fatal to certain gratuitous assumptions,
held too on the Christian side : not one of them
should be inconsiderately dismissed. But not one of
them touches the Integrity of our Faith ; nor can the
mass entire avail at all to abate the confidence of
our persuasion, that the Gospel of Christ is from
HEAVEN, and carries with it an AUTHORITY which Time
does not impair, and which Eternity shall unfold and
confirm. When a collection of historic materials, bearing upon
a particular series of events, is brought forward, it will
follow upon the supposition that those events have,
on the whole, been truly reported, that any hypothesis
the object of which is to make it seem probable that
no such events did take place, must involve absurdities,
which will be more or less glaring. But then, after
the truth of the history has been established, and
when the trustworthiness of the materials has been
admitted, as we proceed to apply a rigid criticism to
ambiguous passages, we shall undoubtedly encounter
a crowd of perplexing disagreements; and we shall
find employment enough for all our acumen, and trial

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Ill
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
Christians, they have been effected by urging ex
ceptive cases, and by bringing forward instances of
historic misplacement, or contradiction, affecting the
credit of the Inspired writers, or by inference, bringing
into question the Divine authority of the collection
of books. On 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
might be accepted as affording an intelligible solution
of the problem which demands to be dealt with, when
we disallow the claims of Christianity as from Heaven,
is a very different matter. On this ground, I do not
see that any advantage has been gained on the side of
Disbelief. Our English disbelief can pretend to nothing
of originality ; for it is all a copy after the German ;
and yet German theories, though they have broken
down, in quick succession, at home, have been im
ported, as if still good, and have been done into
English without scruple : is there one of these theories
that is not insufferably absurd ?
This is as it should be, on the supposition, That
Christianity is true : the difficulties which adhere to

112 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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.

THE QUESTION OF CHRISTIANITY IS DETERMINABLE.
We are told that Christianity must be content to take
its place along with many indeterminate questions, which
are, and which should be spoken of among reasonable
men as " matters of opinion."
I deny this allegation ; and I take my position, with
all humility, yet fearlessly, on this opposite ground,
namely : that, if those modes of proceeding which have
been authenticated as good in other cases, are allowed
to take effect in this case, nothing in the entire round of
human belief is more infallibly sure than is Christianity,
when it claims to be — Religion, given to Man by
God.
The same proposition, stated exceptively, may be thus
worded. Christianity can be held in question only by
aid of violence done to established principles of reasoning,
and by contempt of those laws of evidence which in all
cases analogous to this are enforced.
I must not be misinterpreted in this instance. Per
sonally, I might take in hand to demonstrate some
unquestionable theorem in geometry, or to establish the
most certain of the conclusions in the circle of the
I

114 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
physical sciences ; and I might so mismanage the pro
cess as to make those things seem doubtful which, in
fact, are absolutely certain. The question just now, is
not whether an individual writer succeeds or fails in
bringing a demonstrable argument to a true conclusion ;
which may happen or not ; but whether the argument
itself be demonstrable or not.
Grant me therefore so much liberty as this, at starting,
that is to say — allow me to fail in my present honest
endeavour, yet without prejudice TO my cause.
Grant me this, and I will repay your candour with an
equivalent. I shall impute no bad motives to you as a
cover to my chagrin in finding that I do not bring you
over to my side : I shall not tell you that your resistance
to my reasoning is nothing but an immoral obduracy,
springing from the corrupt wishes of an " unregenerate
heart." It may be so in fact ; but that is your affair,
not mine. " Let a man examine himself." I am no
Inquisitor, nor Father Confessor ; nor do I profess to be
a spiritual adviser.
Besides, I am 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.
We all perfectly know that the only style proper to
the exposition of absolute Truth is that which indicates
no consciousness whatever of the surmised dispositions,
or adverse feelings, or prejudices, of those who are ad
dressed. Euclid deals with everybody alike : he knows
nothing of men's tempers. It is thus that, in working

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 115
our way toward the mere truth of any mass of facts,
debated in Court, we listen with breathless attention,
as if an inspired person were about to speak, to the
evidence of an intelligent and guileless child; for we
suppose that this child does not know, or knowing,
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 argument that is professed to be
thoroughly honest.
A style much less inartificial than this has prevailed,
on both sides, in the argument concerning Christianity.
How this has come about on the side of Disbelief,
it does not concern me to inquire. On the side of
Belief it has had entrance in such ways as these : —
Perhaps a writer who himself is sincerely, rather than
perfectly persuaded, labours, from page to page, under
the weight of a lurking uneasiness or misgiving, as to
the goodness of the cause he has taken in hand. Or
perhaps his amiable temper and his abhorrence of
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 Chris
tian 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 obduracy, and thus forecasting I 2

116 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the rejection of his argument — unimpeachable as it may
be, draws back from a peremptory statement of it, lest
he should risk too much in boldly challenging the
readers' submission. He will not pledge Christianity
where he foresees that he shall find a contumacious
resistance. 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 reason
able 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 appli
cation of these fair means. You must not then bring
with you a crow-bar, or a sledge hammer ; as if you
would be impatient of the use of the key. You must
not bring forward, by preference, a violent supposition to
avert an apprehended consequence. Let the key take
its course wherever it suffices, and 1 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 con
cerning which even the best informed men may differ
without imputation, either of wrong motives, or of

.¦HE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 117
incompetency." On this ground, we need to be better
guarded against misapplications of the word.
A proposition concerning facts may be indeterminable
in consequence of some hopeless deficiency of the extant
evidence which relates to it ; or there may attach to it
an ambiguity in consequence of the Occult quality of the
facts in question. But these indeterminate propositions,
fairly assignable, as they are, to the region of opinion,
and which are open therefore to endless discussion, may
belong to one, as well as to another of the departments of
science, of philosophy, or of criticism. It is a mistake,
and a prejudice, fertile in errors, to imagine that Opinion
belongs to one department, and Certainty to other
departments ; as if the honours and immunities of an
exemption from the tolls of 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 long as it is in a progressive con
dition. Until a science pronounces 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, we are told, is still in pro
gress, and, therefore, over this region, even over this, or
rather in front of it, there hovers the " pillar of a cloud "
¦ — a cloud of promise, leading the way over the sands of
the infinite, toward further conquests.
As to the Physical Sciences, if what has been

118 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
ascertained within their compass would fill twenty folios
— the matters next outlying beyond these, and which
yet are sufficiently defined to be susceptible of intelligible
statement, would fill a hundred folios.
As to those branches of science, or of criticism, the
bearing of which is upon Individual Facts, and
which deal with Evidence — no greater error could be
fallen into 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 sealed for ever, as infallibly
sure, those departments upon which evidence (in the
technical sense of the word) bears, show a decisive ad
vantage, as compared with the boundless domains of the
physical sciences. It is so on two grounds : — First, as
to the nature of the subjects respectively treated of; and
secondly, as to the symbols, or medium of conveyance,
from mind to mind.
The Physical Sciences, as they relate to the powers,
properties, functions, of the material world, inorganic
and organised, touch the mere surface of an abyss that
is unfathomable. The things concerning which they
treat are, more or less, occult, and, for a great part, are
inscrutable, as well by the human senses, as by human
reason. Besides which, these sciences are compelled to
express themselves in a medium which has been bor
rowed for their use, and which is very imperfectly
adapted to the purposes it is now made to serve.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 119
Mathematical Science has created its own symbols, as
fast, and as far, as it has needed them : they are exempt
from all ambiguity ; and the truths conveyed by them
are not attempted to be expressed any further than they
are thoroughly understood.
Parallel advantages attach to the various departments
over which evidence holds sway; for the facts, with
few exceptions, are thoroughly intelligible, and the
medium of conveyance — the language of common life,
has itself grown out of, or is the spontaneous product of
this very class of facts. Language is at home when it
is framed into propositions, concerning individual facts,
sustained by evidence ; but it is doing a work wholly
strange to itself when it is giving expression to the
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, concern
ing his learned uncle, that — Innitens servulis duobus,
assurrexit, et statim concidit : but when we turn to those
of this 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

120 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF".
interpretation. Nor ought we to assume very much
more in behalf even of our modern scientific speculations ;
for a time may come when a modern lecture, upon —
the theory of volcanoes — 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 writer could be thinking of when
he talks about " a disturbance of the equilibrium of
Galvanic forces," and the like. The narrative — the
history is just as intelligible now, as it was eighteen
centuries ago ; and it 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 have the pyramids. But as to a large
portion of our modern Physical Science — every century,
as it passes, overlays it with a coating of obscurity,
inasmuch as the theories of each era are superseded by
those of the next ; and inasmuch too, as the terms con
veying it, 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 Aristotle's astronomy, or of Plato's scheme
of the universe, nothing can keep the very terms in an
intelligible condition, but a running commentary — re
issued from age to age*

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 121
Christianity must not then be set off, to take its place
among indeterminate questions — among " matters of
opinion," merely because it stands before us as an entry
upon the page of history; for it stands there in company
with things as sure as the surest theorems of geometry.
What it teaches — or some of those things, may be, and
are, matters of opinion ; but not itself.
You say " Christianity is an exceptive instance, be
cause it comes to us laden with miracles, which no
evidence can avail to authenticate ; and in truth we are
granting it more indulgence than it can rightfully claim,
when we concede to it any footing at all upon the ground
of rational argumentation. Let Christianity rid itself of
the supernatural, and then we will think about it."
You cannot take this course ; and my purpose in this
present Tract is to close it against you.
Authentic history comes into our hands along with a
large mass of adventitious matter, which is not of itself ;
and from which it may easily be distinguished without
any damage to itself, or much disparagement to the
repute of the original writers. Of this sort are those
statements of alleged facts for the truth of which the
historian does not very explicitly pledge himself; and
concerning which we may easily suppose him to have
been innocently in error : — also — of this sort are his own
opinions, his reasonings, and his surmises, which are
worth just what they may be worth : — also the entire mass
of indirectly asseverated narratives— matters of tradition,
matters of national belief, or of popular contemporaneous
parlance.

122 THE restoration of belief.
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
adhesion ; for a removal of the adhesive portions may be
effected without violence : it may be done without draw
ing blood; and as to the historian himself, he will
scarcely be conscious of the operation. In how pleasant
a manner have many such removals been effected in the
instance ofthe " Father of History," who, in truth, as a
veracious collector of facts, enjoys better repute among
us now, than he did a century ago.
But there is another bond of union, connecting a
body of history with what it brings with it, which
implies more than mere adhesion, and which must
be regarded as implying a connexion of cohesion.
Wherever the 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 hypoihetically eligible ; which of them is ac
tually so can be known only upon inquiry.
1st, We may wholly reject the conglomerate — the
history and the miracle together, as being manifestly
destitute of any intrinsic value.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 123
2nd, We may apply force — retaining the simply
historic mass, and throwing off the mass cohering. But
when this is done the patient dies : — that is to say, the
credit of the writer, or in other words, his vitality as a
writer is gone, even although much that he has recorded
may still be quite true: we have slain the man; but if
he carried anything about him that is valuable, we take
it to ourselves.
3dly, We may accept at once the simply historic
mass, and that which coheres with it, as being both
true, and both historic.
The course of argument, therefore, in relation to Chris
tianity must be this : — In behalf of it, it should be
shown, first — That the alliance of the historical and
the supernatural which it offers to our view is not an
instance of mere adhesion ; but of indissoluble cohesion.
We must then show that, unless violence is to be
done to every principle which is applicable to the
occasion, the conglomerate cannot be cast aside, as un
substantial, or as destitute of value ; inasmuch as the
historical portion is of indisputable validity: — it is sure,
if anything be sure.
But no endeavours, fairly made, can avail to disjoin
the supernatural, in this case, from the historical. In
other terms stated — within the compass of the 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

124 'THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
are still more intimately blended by the force of CON
GRUITY, to which I have already (page 102) made
allusion, and of which, in another Tract, I shall have
much to say. Whether or not the alleged cohesion of
the historic and the supernatural should be incontestibly
established, the connexion of Congruity, laying hold as
it does of the firmest of our convictions, stands entire ;
and it is such as has availed, and will always avail, with
the mass of unsophisticated minds, to ensure an un
clouded belief.
The ground of au 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 antagonism of Christian, and of Anti
christian scholarship, working with unwearied zeal at
the same problems, that has achieved this service.
On the one part, an attenuated ingenuity has spent its
last atom of gluten in floating out threads which might
perchance catch and detain, in behalf of Scepticism, this
or that portion of the apostolic remains. On the other
part, an overdone scrupulosity, and a superfluous can
dour, 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 is out of question; and that,
as to the Epistles (with which alone I am at present

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 125
concerned), the genuineness and authenticity of these
writings rest upon evidence one-tenth part of which has
been customarily admitted as sufficient, in any parallel
instance, on the field of classical literature. It must be
a sickly affectation, or it must indicate a feebleness of
the reasoning faculty, to speak in any other tone than
this of the result of those critical explorations of which
the Canonical Epistles have been the subject, in the
course of the last fifty or sixty years.
As to any argument with which, just now, I am con
cerned, I should be content if there were handed over
to me, only so many as four or five of the Apostolic
Epistles — or even fewer, as undoubtedly genuine. Allow
me anywhere good anchor-hold in the roadstead of
apostolicity, and it is enough. It is enough, not merely
because these fewer authentic documents by themselves
carry an inference from which we can never escape ; but
because, as I shall show, a 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 if it were genuine.
Then, after some such spurious or ambiguous docu
ment has yielded its available amount of evidence, in a
direct manner, it serves a further purpose in giving
support indirectly to the genuine. The genuine shows
the " Hall-mark ;" but the spurious, or the doubtful,
carries a mark that is less authentic; and the com
parison of the two " stampings" affords the ground of
a new confidence, as to that which already we hold to
be infallible.

126 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
With our English straightforwardness about us, and
our dislike of the practice of catching at straws for the
purpose of keeping a desperate hypothesis above water,
we take in hand a sample of German hypercritical cap-
tiousness. — It runs in this way: — "throughout our
Epistle," says the critic, " we find several words, and
some combinations of words, that are not Pauline : they
indicate another mind, and another hand. The forger,
it must be confessed, has very nearly hit" — what?
Paul's style! — but not quite: he has done his work
cleverly; but yet he has betrayed himself in not fewer
than half-a-dozen places.
This Pauline style is then — an historic reality —
and as such I want nothing more; it is distinct, and
distinguishable, by its individual characteristics, which
are of so marked a kind that, while they held out a
temptation to the ancient forger, 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
" Ptolemy;" for he knows the taste of the genuine Egyp
tian 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 learn to trust myself with
more confidence to the genuine. As to any one in
particular, of the twenty-one epistles of the Canon, the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF 127
question of its genuineness and authenticity need not be
entered upon until some critic, competent to the task,
comes forward, in seriousness, and with copiousness of
proofs, to affirm that all of them are forgeries. This will
not be attempted; or if it be 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 to the alleged
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 Canoni
cal writings — Inspiration not considered, were dealt
with in the historic mode, without prejudice or favour,
Disbelief would wither like the grass of the tropics.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTA
MENT, IN RELATION TO THIS ARGUMENT.
The historic and the supernatural (the miraculous) are
connected in the books of the New Testament in the
way of Cohesion, not of adhesion merely; but then this
cohesion takes effect in a very different manner in dif
ferent instances. These differences it is important to
take account of; and it suggests a classification of the
canonical documents accordingly. The Twenty-seven
books take their places, when regarded in this particular
aspect, under three heads ; and thus we have —
I. Those, throughout the substance of which the 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.
HI. 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 129
necessarily) conveyed in the primary article of the Chris
tian 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 be
fore us, in outline, are these — That, out of the six and
twenty constituents of the Canon, Fourteen are (as I
here presume to call them) non-supernatural, saving
only that one constant element, expressed or implied in
every Christian writing — the Resurrection of Christ. Of
the Twelve remaining books, Seven Epistles, besides this
universal implication, distinctly affirm the fact of a mi
raculous agency of which the writer professes to have
personal cognizance. Five, or, if the Gospel of Luke
and the Acts be reckoned as one — Four, books not
merely allege this agency, but narrate instances of mi
racles ; and so relate them that the natural and super
natural constitute a continuous tissue, not resolvable into
two, except by violence.
It is natural to place these three classes in the order
here assigned to them ; but the logical order, or that in
which they offer themselves most conveniently for a rigid
scrutiny, which should end in a peremptory conclusion,
is just the contrary. I therefore begin with the Four
teen Epistles which, liable to the condition already men
tioned, are here designated as the NON- supernatural.
These are — The Epistles, to the Ephesians — to the
K

130 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Colossians — to the Philippians — the two to the Thes
salonians — 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 au
thentic documents of a Religion boldly resting itself
upon miraculous attestations, contain no explicit al
lusion to such events, claims our strict attention. At a
glance this fact is susceptible of opposite interpretations;
but its true meaning will be seen in attending to the
particular instances in which it appears.
Manifestly, this tri-partition of the Canonical books
is founded upon no intrinsic difference distinguishing
them ; but is accidental merely. The difference has no
other reality than that which attaches to these composi
tions in their bearing upon the argument just now in hand.
It is to the same writer that we attribute five of the books
of the second class, and nine of those belonging to the
third ; and between those of the second and those of
the third, there is discernible no difference of doctrine,
or of tone, or of moral intention. Yet the one circum
stance which constitutes the reason of this present
classification is itself explicable, and it consists perfectly
with our assumption of the historic reality of the Chris
tian 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 131
that these teachers were men of heated minds whose
element was the world of wonders, and who would
always be labouring to propagate the same feeling,
and to keep alive a species of excitement which is
found to be peculiarly grateful to the mass of mankind.
This fact, moreover, under the conditions which, as w_
shall see, attach to it, excludes the supposition that the
preachers of the" Gospel were accustomed to indulge
themselves in the supernatural where it was safe to
do so ; but that they cautiously abstained from any
allusion to it where there might be a risk of provoking
scrutiny and contradiction : the very contrary of this is
that which presents itself.
The writers of these Fourteen Epistles — this is con
spicuously evident — were neither striving to bolster up
their own confidence by incessant references to miracles;
nor endeavouring to sustain the constancy of their con
verts, by any such means. Their habit was — we do
not infer this, but see it — to allege miracles whenever
there was direct occasion so to do — and not otherwise ;
and therefore, though they make this allegation in
Seven Epistles, in fourteen they do not make it. When
an Apostle writes to his intimates — his colleagues,
and to those whose belief was a tranquil assurance,
like his own — not a syllable of the supernatural meets
the eye. When he defies his adversaries, or rebukes a
set of faulty converts, he takes his stand upon miracles ;
but even then a word of allusion to them is enough.
The Fourteen Epistles that do not refer to the super
natural are attributed to four writers, namely, St. Paul,
K 2

132 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
St. John, St. Jude, and St. James. The temperament
of these four writers is as diverse as can be imagined,
and the style of each has no resemblance to that of the
others. This dissimilarity of character being 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 an 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.

St. Jude.
I TAKE in hand the Epistle of St. Jude as if it were
the solitary extant contemporaneous document of that
Christianity of which I have seen and heard so much,
while traversing the Roman world in the times of
Trajan and the Antonines.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 133
This Epistle is one of those which, through the
caution of the ancient Church, took its place among
the a.VT iXtyofxtva — the " controverted." Not that its
antiquity was questioned, or its authenticity, in any
such sense as is material to my present argument.
The writer does not call himself an Apostle ; and the
Church hesitated to admit the claims which had been
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 St. Jude
cites, not those spurious writings, but some then extant
remains, afterwards incorporated in the spurious books,
might have obviated this objection, it so far had in
fluence as to keep this Epistle under a cloud until some
time in the fourth century. But with no ambiguities
of this kind have I anything to do at present. That
the Epistle is a writing of the Apostolic, or very early
times, has not been reasonably questioned.
What this means is just this — that if those rules of
historical criticism which prevail in this department —
the department to which the instance rightfully belongs
— are allowed to take effect, then the Epistle of St. Jude
is a genuine document of the Christianity of the first
century. Yet, even if it were nothing better than a
good imitation of such documents, promulgated in the
Apostolic age, it would serve my purpose as well.

134 the restoration of belief.
The energy, the simplicity, the gravity, and the
moral tone proper to a genuine writing, are manifestly
the characteristics of this. It has, too, a graphic force
and a rotundity peculiar to it. Look to the Greek of
this Epistle, and you recognise the style of a writer who
has a great command of tropical phraseology, and whose
cumulation and condensation together indicate an inten
sity of feeling, which yet is governed in the manner
that is usual with men in places of authority, who,
while they write with power, are careful not to compro
mise their position by a lax diffuseness. While they
show a stern countenance toward offenders, they preserve
the calm aspect of paternal love towards the better sort.
But the document in hand carries a meaning of a
more definite kind.
Whether or not we choose to regard an affirmation of
the supernatural as a dead weight which must sink any
writing in which it occurs, no such weight attaches to
the Epistle in hand. Indirectly, as I have said, the
reality of the primary miracle of the Christian profession
is implied ; but the writer claims no power of working
miracles for himself; nor does he allude to any occur
rences of this class. There does not present itself, there
fore, 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
gathered, by some industry, from the writers — Christian
and Heathen — of the period above specified (p. 38).
What I have so learned stands far out of the reach of

the restoration of belief. 135
controversy or contradiction. No scholarlike man would
dream of attempting to bring the main facts into ques
tion. This various and voluminous evidence is, as I
have said (pp. 56 and 109) a body of testimonies
gathered from a surface geographically more extended
than the Roman empire ; and when thus regarded, the
broadly-expanded mass is seen to take a concentric
bearing upon that which must have been the common
source of the whole. 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, in
stead of vague surmises, we look to it in the warrant
able 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 belong
ing to the arch.
Take notice then of my purpose, which is this : — in
the course of an inductive scrutiny of the various mate
rials in my hand, I am getting together, and bringing
to their respective places, the well-squared stones of a
firm historic structure, to which structure, as I shall
afterward show, the supernatural so coheres that the
two elements can never be sundered ; or can never be
fairly sundered.
The community addressed in this Epistle was of some
standing, for it had its stated observances, its ayairai, and
there had been time for it not merely to develop its
own proper qualities, but to draw toward itself, as a new

136 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 attendant as it is of a
remarkable religious movement, was a recent occurrence;
for the writer, a man in authority, upon gaining know
ledge of it had " hastened" to throw himself in the way
of its further spread — iraejav a7rovSfjv iroiov/isvog.
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 Christian
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 im
morality 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 seasons of persecution supply
an effective remedy. The season of general persecution
had not, as it seems, yet commenced ; for if it had,
these vultures would have flown.
The Church of the martyr age we found in the atti
tude of a moral force, struggling to maintain a difficult
position, closely beleaguered on every side by gross
errors of belief, by abounding immoralities, and by viru
lent animosities. In the course of this struggle the
Church was unconsciously coming into the possession
of that fundamental principle of genuine morality — the
sense of individual responsibility toward God. This

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 137
germ of whatever is good it brought out into act for
itself, and then passed it down for the benefit of man
kind in all time following. But we naturally look for
the rudiments of so remarkable a revolution in the
original documents of the religion which gave it to the
world ; and now it comes under our eye in this Epistle.
At a later time it was constancy in the endurance
of 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
insidious advances of false doctrine, and of specious
immoralities that had availed to the same end ; and this
constancy, as well in its later as in its earlier forms,
had been animated by the same prospect of immortal
blessedness. Thus are these springs of the moral life
mingled in the closing injunctions of the Epistle. To
wards delinquents a compassionate discrimination was
to be used — the individual demerits of each J.eing consi
dered (verses 22, 23) ; 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 consigning to the
abyss of oblivion the entire body of classical philosophy.
" To Him who is able to guard you unfallen, and to
make you stand before the glory (of his presence) un
blamable in joy— to the one God, our Saviour, by Jesus
Christ our Lord, (be ascribed) glory and majesty, might

138 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and authority, as well now as throughout all ages.
Amen." Here then we find in this Epistle, exempt from every
exception, reasonable, or unreasonable, A Centering-
STONE of that structure which, in the age of the Anto-
nines, had arched over the Roman world, from East to
West, from North to South.
St. James.
To which of the persons of th_. name, mentioned in
the Gospels, this Epistle should be Attributed, it is of no
moment to inquire ; nor is it material to know anything
more concerning it than that it is ol very early date ; of
which fact, besides the references) -to it by Clement,
Iiermas, and others — the place- 'it holds in the ancient
Syriac version is suffi|_¥-nt evidence.
Notwithstanding a single passage of ambiguous import
(v. 14, 15) J^do not hesitate to class this Epistle along
with th<_ non-supernatural. The writer, among mis
cellaneous injunctions, gives one which by no means
necessitates the supposition of what should be called a
jatiraculous agency : — miracles were incidental and ex
traordinary (in their very import), but in this place a
customary occurrence is referred to, and the reason of the
course which the writer advises to be taken is drawn
from a general truth, namely, the efficacy of prayer.
The force and vivacity of this composition, besides the
comparative purity of the Greek, give it a very marked
character. It resembles, except in a few phrases, none

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 139
of those with which, in the canon of the New Testament,
¦it is associated. The writer gives us a distinct idea of
himself, as well as a portraiture of the persons with
whom he had to do, which is specially graphic. The
indications of historic reality stand out, one might say,
with a harsh prominence on every paragraph of this
Epistle. Nothing here has been smoothed down : there
has been no revision of the first draught 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, could secure for
him a hearing, how unacceptable soever might be the
rebukes which it was his duty to administer.
To no community could these remonstrances, and these
reprehensions, and these pungent advices seem flattering.
They might be submitted to, but they could not be wel
comed. The writer uses the tone of a man in authority
— in office ; yet he does not labour to vindicate that
authority; nor does he go about to sustain the pre
tensions of a sacerdotal class ; he falls in with no pre
judices ; he flatters no overweenings of national or
sectarian self-love. The Epistle bears upon its surface
the straightforward purpose of a firmly constituted and
fearless mind, opposing itself at once to open abuses
and to specious pretexts. Nothing that is sinister —
nothing deeper than the resolute intention of one who is
jealous for truth and virtue, can anywhere be discerned
among the sententious clauses of this composition.
We are free to take it for what it seems : to take it in
any other sense we are not free. We are no more at

140 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
liberty so to do than we should be to put an ill construc
tion upon the words or conduct of a neighbour against
whom we have not a shadow of unfavourable evidence.
This writer is not a man of meditative turn : his modes
of thinking are fixed ; his views, so far as appears from
the Epistle, are limited ; his habits and feeling show the
practical, not the abstract tendency. In temper he is
firm : or even severe ; but yet he is discriminative ; and,
toward the well-behaved he is indulgent and loving.
He resents subterfuges, he is indignant at wrong.
He does not work his way, by reasoning, toward a con
clusion, but seizes it with vivacity, 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 (pol
lutions bf 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 dis
guises." 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 shall not a discreet Christian apologist hesi
tate before he lifts the curtain ? He will do so if what
he is in search of, in antiquity, is a factitious image, or a
fabulous social condition : not if he be in quest of hard

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 141
historic realities : not if it be his ambition to drive off
from the Christian precincts the shadows, the myths,
the quaint unintelligible hypotheses of German origin, in
the mists of which English Disbelief is just now finding
a momentary refuge.
Even if the writer of this Epistle had not prefixed to
it the conventional phrase which designates his nation,
" the twelve tribes of the Dispersion," we should have
had no 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 become professedly Christian; but in behaviour,
and in moral costume, they are Jews, more than
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 immortality, passed under
the transformations of a new 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 controversial difference between
the Synagogue and the Church ; but they had retained
entire, their factious spirit, and their wrangling habit of
discourse. They were expert in the twists and sophist
ries of casuistical evasion : they were ever ready to cry
" Corban," when appealed to on the ground of mercy
and piety. Between the obliquities of their Jewish
training, an_J the simplicity of the Christian system,
a perpetual conflict was going on. That characteristic

142 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of the community of which we get a glimpse in this
graphic Epistle, is — moral restlessness — a want of equi
librium — a want of repose, a glaring want of consistency.
One hears the clatter and the jar of a discordant as
semblage of men who, as yet, have adjusted nothing in
their own principles or motives. In a word — and it is a
word full of historic meaning, we have stepped into the
Synagogue !
These Jewish converts were skilled in those perverse
reasonings by means of which men are wont to throw
the blame of their many failures upon God (i. 13).
They were glib in speech (i. 19), lagging in conduct ;
prompt to dictate (iv. 1), slow to learn. Ready to cringe
before the rich (ii. 2), backward in administering to the
needs of the poor (ii. 15). Such was the wild 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 incen
diary 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. 2), are dealt with in a way which nothing
could sustain but the intrepidity of the most assured
virtue and piety. We shall presently find the very
same men (the likenesses are not to be 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 143
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
are some who have lately arrived from the ends of
the earth ; and there are also some who, at the moment
when the sun goes down, will be busy at home, strapping
their packages, and preparing to depart, at dusk, or at
dawn, having already whispered to 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 contro
verted ; 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 be
longed 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 con
trary of Judaism. This Epistle would not comport with
any state of things of later date than the Jewish war.
There is one point of accordance between the Epistle
of St. Jude and that of St. James which we should not
fail to notice. I have said (p. 107), that a remarkable

144 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
uniformity of tone characterises those passages in the
writings of the martyr age in which the personal attri
butes ofthe Saviour Christ are alluded to; consequently
this prime feature of the Christianity of the second and
third centuries 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 brought forward. The one writer speaks with
a calm solemnity of Him whom some, by their immora
lities, 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 genui neness
and authenticity of these Epistles, our critical evidence
falls short, by a little, of irresistible demonstration. This
imagined faultiness of proof (which in fact cannot be

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 145
alleged) may indeed touch the question of the place that
should be assigned to them in the Canon of Inspired
Scripture ; but it scarcely affects at all, if at all, my
present argument.
I take this Epistle of St. James, marked as it is with
the inimitable characteristics of genuineness — as much
so as any literary remains of antiquity that might be
placed by the side of it. As to its antiquity, all shadow
of doubt is removed, not merely by the quotation of it
by the early Fathers, as a then well known writing ;
but by its presence in the Syriac version, in which the
Epistle of St. Jude does not appear. These very early
Translators found it already possessed of an accredited
repute, as an Apostolic work ; and as such it had been
ordinarily read in the churches using this language.
But let us imagine that these ancient Translators, and
that the Eastern Churches generally, had misjudged
the case : in fact, that they had been imposed upon —
the Epistle, although spurious, bearing so much the sem
blance of an apostolic work that they did not detect
the fraud. The forger — the imitator — the compiler, by
whatever epithet we should designate him, so well un
derstood the manner of the apostolic teaching, and he
knew so well what would be looked for by Christian
readers in any composition purporting to come from an
apostolic man, that he could expect nothing but instan
taneous detection if he admitted into his copy so much
as one line of ambiguous quality, as to its bearing
upon morals. This imagined imitator of the apostolic
style, after looking about him for samples, in order to
L

146 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
choose the one which would seem the most charac
teristic, and the least likely to awaken suspicion, makes
this sort of selection : — He writes an epistle, in the
assumed name of James, for which he hopes to obtain
currency among Jewish converts throughout the world,
which epistle breathes an uncompromising moral inten
sity, and abounds in sharp rebukes of that sanctimo
niousness which was the prominent characteristic of the
Jewish people !
What does this mean but that the well-known apo
stolic style — the style which an imitator would think it
the safest to attempt, was that of men who, with the
courage of God's own prophets, were wont to risk every
thing in behalf of truth and virtue ? I do not see then
that we should gain much on the side of Disbelief by
suggesting doubts as to the genuineness of the Epistles
of the Canon : better let them pass at once for genuine
and authentic. Apostolic Christianity, if looked at
through its own crystal, shows the clear brightness of
Heaven : — looked at in the copper speculum of spurious
writings, it carries a resplendence, not sensibly dimmed.

St. John.
The First Epistle of St. John stands among the
ofioXoyov/iEva of the ancient Church, the genuineness
and authenticity of which are copiously attested. The
second and the third were questioned ; but these are of
no moment in relation to my argument, any further than

the restoration of belief. 147
this — that, if imitations, the absence in them of any
allusions to miracles shows that this omission was
customary in the Christian writings of the time.
There is not a word or phrase occurring in the 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 natural ; espe
cially where an appeal is made to that assurance of being
in possession of truth which the writer affirms to be the
privilege of Christians. The appeal is to an interior
vitality, not to external demonstrations (iii. 14, 19, iv.
16, v. 10). The appeal is to a moral test, not to the
supernatural (iv. 20). The witnessing on earth (v. 8)
omits the witnessing by " signs and wonders." The
ripened Christianity which this writer spreads out before
us, had no intrinsic alliance with any such attestations,
which belonged to the outworks of the New Religion.
The writer last cited was seen to be in conflict, right
and left, with the first inburst of rancid Judaism ; but at
the time when the Epistle now before us was given to
the Christian community, this source of trouble was just
passing off to the distance : the disturbers had discovered
their mistake in thinking to connect themselves with
the rising body ; and they had retired. " They went
out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had
been of us, they would have remained with us." (ii. 19.)
The Christian body had at length become homogeneous ;
the leaven having worked itself into the mass. Yet
l 2

148 the restoration of belief.
human nature is always the same ; and we find that
these Teachers, however far the system they adminis
tered might have shifted its position, and how widely
soever they may themselves have differed in temper
ament, yet tread the same strait path whenever this
same human nature, with its frailties, awakens their
fears for the honour of the Gospel.
This identity of feeling, and even of language, is the
more observable, because, in this instance, it forms the
one link connecting two writers, who, individually, might
be taken as extreme samples of the most opposite ten
dencies 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 observant of the shifting
tempest : — the other, with even front, and open eye, is
gazing upon the cloudless vault of heaven, as if uncon
scious of earth, and always ready to leave it. And
yet this contemplatist whose own converse is with the
unseen of the Christian system, so understands this
system, and is so alive to its bearing upon the conduct
of its adherents, as to know that, if the sordid and fac
titious religionist slides off from the path of morality, on
the one side, the sincere idealist — the man of meditation,
is not unlikely to slide off from it, on the other.
Noticeable it is that, while the main drift of the one
epistle is practical, and the spirit and tendency of the
other is theological, yet, in the course of it, the writer
lets go, and again takes up his admonitory strain as
often as seven times within the compass of so brief a

the restoration of belief. 149
treatise. He does this as if at the prompting of an
undefined moral instinct, which, ever and again, brings
him down from Heaven to earth, alarmed lest he should
have failed in any point of his duty, as a leader of the
people. St. James, with a ruthless hand rends the
mask from the hypocrite. St. John, with a loving
solemnity warns the mystically disposed against those
illusions — those oblivions of the obligations of life, of
which, so easily, such men are the victims. The one
Teacher thus rebukes the perversity of the dogmatist —
" What good is it, my brethren, for a man to say he hath
faith, and have not works ? Can faith (such a faith)
save him?" The other Teacher addresses himself to the
sincere theopathist — lost in the meditation of ineffable
perfections ; but yet the two come into conjunction, as
we say of the heavenly bodies, on the very same meri
dian of Christian charity : — the one says, " if a brother
or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one
of you say unto them — depart in peace, be ye warmed
and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those
things which are needful to the body ; what doth it
profit ?" The other says the same thing, in his own
manner : " Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels from him,
how dwelleth the love of God in him ?"
Now at this point I decline to accept a customary tri
bute, rendered to the " sublime purity of the Christian
Ethics" — which " all admit." This vapid homage will
not satisfy the occasion. I require, from a reasonable
antagonist, an acknowledgment having more of historic

150 the restoration of belief.
distinctness about 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. But beyond
this, if we possess any of 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, a moral intensity — quick, sensitive,
and always consistent in its utterance ; for even if we are
not always able to discern the coherence of their theolo
gical reasonings — we 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 suppositions under cover of which
disbelief takes shelter.

St. Paul.
Of the fourteen Epistles attributed (and rightly) to
St. Paul, as many as Nine take their place along with
those already spoken of, as containing no allusion to
miraculous occurrences, or to miraculous gifts. Of these
Nine, four are addressed to individuals who were the
Writer's intimates and colleagues. Five are congrega
tional addresses, sent to those four Societies with the
religious condition of which the writer was, in the main,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 151
well content. With these there was no serious contro
versy in hand ; nor any personal contest, making it
needful for him to sustain his apostolic authority. The
faith of these, his personal friends, and of these attached
and obedient converts, was, like his own — it was a " full
assurance of faith" — a faith to which miracles could add
no steadfastness. So it was that when no motive sug
gested a reference to supernatural attestations, none
appear. But as to six of the nine, now in view, they sparkle,
as one might say, with historic crystallizations; and every
paragraph reflects something of the objects that were then
surrounding the writer. St. John knew just so much of
that world through which his pilgrimage heavenward
lay, as might be forced upon his notice by urgent motives
of responsibility toward the church. St. Paul knew the
world around him as those know it who are gifted with
perceptions the most intensely vivid. The persons, the
transactions, the modes of feeling in the midst of which
he was moving, he was as much alive to as were the
most observant of his contemporaries. 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 subject, he shows that he could have
done well what he has not attempted.
A sheer pedantry, I should think it, to profess hesita
tion in accepting these nine Epistles as genuine. Unless
it were to give proof of critical quixotism, no one would
have gone about to show reason for any such doubts.
But, just now, it is enough if only some of them are

152 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
genuine, and the remainder are 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 un
important branch of intellectual philosophy — I mean,
nationality in logic. Germans reason after a fashion
which a firmly constituted and cultured English mind
resents as an insult to common sense. Upon the merest
film of possibility the attenuated intellectuality of
Germany soars away through thin air. Between the
not-to-be-translated mysteries of its abysses, and the
infinite divisibilities of its heights, the mind of England
finds no terra firma. A writer who undertakes the task
of defending the canon of Holy Scriptures as inspired,
must needs meet and refute these refinements, even the
last of them ; but no such obligation rests upon one who
carries forward an argument such as that which I have
now in hand.
The pastoral epistles connect themselves by some inci
dental allusions, with the Epistles of St. James, and of
St. Jude, for we find in them a portraiture which must
at once be recognised.
A particular class of men against whom one apostolic
writer inveighs — to whom another gives battle, and to
whom another transiently alludes, the writer of the three
pastoral epistles so depicts as that they may easily be
identified. They were everywhere found hovering about
the infant society ; and, being by temper and habit
noisy and obtrusive, it would have been an easy error in

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 153
an observant polytheist of that time, to have spoken of
them as true samples of the new religion, and to have
drawn an inference accordingly, to its disadvantage.
We may just fancy the sarcastic author of the piece —
I1EPI THS nEPEITINOY TEAEYTHS— the Vol
taire 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 found them too in Crete, which
seemed to be their head quarters. They are voluble, con
tentious, acrimonious, 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 to fill their bags with money.
I have found one of these huckster preachers, with his
box of baubles slung over his shoulder, working his way
into the courtyard of a great house, where he has con
trived to draw the women about him — mistress and
maids, whom he entertains, 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."

154 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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" — 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 him : — abominable are they and disobedient, and
unto every good work reprobate." The very same per
sons 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
thenceforward ; and when they had taken this turn, we
find them using the influence they had already acquired
iu every city with " ladies of rank" to move persecution
against the Christian teachers. St. Luke courteously
calls these ladies " devout and honourable women ;" yet
it is not certain that St. Paul, in a letter of pointed
advices addressed to his friend, might not be thinking
even of these, as the same " silly women," who, at the
instigation of these Jews, moved the magistrates to make
an ill use of their power, driving the Apostles from city

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 155
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 evidence 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 may be chal
lenged in any case to give a verdict according to the
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

156 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 be
lief of Christ's resurrection being always allowed for.
But although it would be illogical to advance such
an exception as this — for the reality of the Christian
miracles is the very question in debate — yet a valid
reason would present itself for regarding these, or any
other writings, suspiciously, if they pictured a fabulous
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
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 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 157
world as an earnest Remonstrant Force, opposed, not
merely to religious errors, but to evasive pretexts, to
illusions, to hypocrisies, and to immoralities — Jewish or
Gentile. Especially was it a protest against the unin
telligible jargon — the interminable wranglings, the so
phistry and the impiety which its own energy, simplicity
and grandeur had woke up, on every side of it, as its
assailants. If the mind of one of these writers seems at any time
unhinged, while he is making his protest against these
assailants, there is an ingredient mingling itself with
these vivid passages which has a deep meaning. It is
the characteristic of minds that are habitually tranquil
and conversant with what is great and pure, when sum
moned by a sense of duty to join issue, hand to hand,
with the lawless and disorderly of this world, to revert,
as if with a rebound of the soul, to the loftiest themes ;
— as if desiring to escape from a scene of confusion, to
the sanctuary of its happy and wonted meditation. Now
it is remarkable that the most sublime and beautifully-
worded of those doxologies, and of those condensed
enunciations of eternal truths which illumine the pages
of the New Testament, are found embedded in the very
midst of warm remonstrant passages. In fact, within
the narrow limits of these three epistles — the drift of
which is mainly remonstrant, there occur as many as
fourteen of these resplendent parentheses.
The very same indication of spontaneous reaction is
discoverable in the Epistles of St. James, and of St.
Jude — both of them reprobative ; — among these are some

158 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 Paul 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
that is in perfect equipoise ; and that is used to take its
rest among the gentlest and the purest emotions. It
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 hear
ing of every 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 pecu
liarity 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 not its
sensibility. In what way then does this Epistle avail us for pur
poses of argument ? It peremptorily avails for excluding
any of those suppositions touching the character of the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 159
writer which must of necessity be resorted to when, the
merely historical part of Christianity being granted as
real, the supernatural, thereto cohering, is attempted to
be set off from it as spurious.

The two Epistles to the Christians of Thessalonica
are of early date, according to the almost unanimous ver
dict of modern critics. A phrase occm-ring in the second
paragraph of the first Epistle — fa 8. vdju.t, had at this
time acquired a conventional sense, and probably it car
ried an allusion to those miraculous attestations of the
Gospel which had attended its first promulgation in that
region. Otherwise, or beyond the insertion of this single
word, these two Epistles do not contain a reference, direct
or indirect, to any such events, as if then occurring, or
as having lately occurred, under the eye of the persons
addressed. This absence of the supernatural is full of
significance in this particular case.
Inconsiderately, in relation to their own argument,
those writers who have lately assailed Christianity have
noised the instance of Paul's apparent error in regard to
the near approach of the consummation of all things. It
has been said, in a tone of exultation — " You say Paul
was an inspired man; and yet we here find him pro
fessing a belief, in regard to which, assuredly, he was
utterly mistaken."
It would be enough to reply that the Second of these
Epistles, written for the very purpose of correcting the

160 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
mistake to which the first had given rise, conclusively
proves that the writer, notwithstanding his use of the
personal pronouns, did not himself entertain any such
anticipation. A proper inference also from this same
instance has been drawn by Paley, in proof (if proof
were needed) of the genuineness of the Epistle.
But a sufficient reply, on my part, would be this —
That the objection bears wholly upon the question of
Inspiration, with which, at present, I have nothing to
do. I am looking into these remains of apostolic Chris
tianity, in a purely historical light, and not at all as the
materials of Theology.
Thus then let us handle this matter with all freedom,
and see what use we can make of it, on either side. You
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. The writer was
himself in a condition so helpless that, while preach
ing 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, at the risk of life.
Those to whom he wrote, being mostly of humble rank,
were also enduring cruel persecution at the hands of
their Gentile neighbours on account of their religion.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 161
Such being the present position of the Teacher, and of
the people, he holds before them the belief that, midway
in the tranquil hours of some day, not very distant —
earth itself should tremble at the blast of the archangel,
and should echo the notes of the trump of God, and the
shout of celestial myriads : — the Lord himself, with the
hosts that do his pleasure, drawing near to earth, and
rescuing thence his faithful followers, carrying them off
to immortal joys !
It was no wonder that simple people who thus under
stood (or misunderstood) their Teacher, should be much
" shaken in mind," by such a prospect ; or that, some of
them, breaking away from their ordinary occupations,
as unnecessary, and unbecoming their high expectations,
should wander up and down — " working not at all " —
but busying themselves in everything rather than their
proper employments. This was quite according to the
course of things, and some recent instances of a similar
kind might easily be mentioned.
Yet it is certain as to the propagator of this perturb
ing belief, that he had not himself in any degree lost
the balance of his own mind. A tone of calm affection ,
and of subdued feeling — the consequence of long con
tinued suffering — pervades both Epistles, this first espe
cially, which is distinguished also by the earnestness of
its admonitions, as to conduct and temper, in purity,
rectitude, sobriety, gentleness, and avoidance of every
guise or semblance of evil.
If in any case we may trust to the universal principles
of human nature, we may confidently affirm that a mind
M

162 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
which, while it is filled with anticipations of the most
animating sort, is yet recoUective of all proprieties, and
careful on those points of duty which are not of an
exciting kind, must be a strong mind, not a weak one —
a well regulated mind, not one that is habitually de
ranged by some conscious moral obliquity.
According to the hypothesis now before us, Paul was
looking, every day, for a triumphant apotheosis of him
self and his associates, amid the exulting shouts of the
heavenly hosts ; — and yet he shows himself to be as
regardful of the obligations of this present life as if a
dull century of its trials and labours had been guaran
teed to him. No ingenuity will avail to make this idea
of the man consist with any of those suppositions upon
which we are thrown if, while we accept the mere facts
of Christianity (which it is impossible to deny), we
attempt to rid ourselves of the supernatural, therewith
connected; for those suppositions imply that the Apostles
were men who strangely mingled in their mental struc
ture, imbecility, extravagance, and a blunted sense of
the obligations of truth.
But now I relinquish the advantage put into my hand
by an inconsiderate opponent, and assume the contrary
supposition, which I take to be manifestly the true one
— namely, that, in writing the first of these Epistles,
St. Paul did not entertain the belief which, at a glance,
his language may seem to express.
Then I ask, how was it that he did not entertain this
belief? Ideas of this order were, as we see, actually
present to his mind, and they furnished the grounds on

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 163
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, next
month — 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 sin
cere but unstable souls been wont to beguile themselves
on the field of prophetical interpretation. Not so St.
Paul (on the supposition now before us). Yet why not?
If we say, because his mind 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 in
ference accordingly. If the reply be — The actual course
of this world's affairs, involving a slow development of
evil principles, had been conveyed to him supernaturally,
that is to say, by the teaching of Him who alone looks
on through the lapse of ages; then also I am content; —
for such an answer (the only true and admissible answer)
embraces everything on the side of Belief. It is beyond
my province to advert particularly to that prediction of
the second Epistle by means of which the Apostle cor
rects the mistake into which his friends had fallen :
nevertheless 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
only notable instances of sagacity, forecasting the ten-
M 2

164 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
dencies 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 pretending to be supernatural, and which
yet was not so in fact, would soon exhaust its meagre
resources, and disappear. Is this then our supposition,
that an intellect of the highest order lent itself to an
enterprise which it saw to be baseless and desperate ?

The absence of all allusion to miraculous attestations
in the Epistle to the Ephesians, is a fact deserving of
particular attention.
The captious exceptions of De Wette have at length
been overruled, and the genuineness of this Epistle can
scarcely be said to stand liable to a shade of reasonable
doubt. Following the arbitrary division of the Received
Text, we have before us 155 clauses, or separable mem
bers of a continuous flow of thought. Of these verses
66 convey the writer's fervent feelings, as in presence of
the loftiest themes of Christian Theology : 89 verses are
occupied, either immediately with pointed ethical injunc
tions, 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 endow
ments. 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 165
were then in exercise in the Church 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 powers are expressly
named. The other place is that occurring toward the
close (vi. 10, et seq.), in which the writer sets forth, in
vivid figurative language, the arduous position which
those occupy who, in making profession of the Gospel,
oppose themselves to the crafty and to the open violence,
not only of men around them, but of invisible adversa
ries — 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 Hea
ven's own thunder-bolt, and with those " fiery darts "
which would bring omnipotence to bear upon the artillery
of hell) — armed, says the Apostle, with Truth, Rectitude,
Peace, Faith, the hope of Salvation, and the Word of
God ; for these are the defences and the weapons which
a genuine wisdom approves.
Quite of a piece with the spirit of this closing advice
are the preceding admonitions, in the compass of which
each of the principal points of homely morality is
touched upon, in the very 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, they had it ; and this fact is enough
in relation to my present purpose.
What we find is this — That the first Teachers of

166 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Christ's religion, though they might forget, for a time,
their own wonder-working endowments, never wrote a
letter in which they forgot the main import of their re
ligion ; which was to uproot the usurpation of Satan in
this world ; — and this usurpation was to be resisted by
means that are purely spiritual and moral.
This absence of the supernatural, in the instance
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. 20) ; he has forgotten the Roman soldier at
his side, and the prison : — he has forgotten earth and its
trials, as well as its pomps. As if with a seraph's wing
he has reached the upper heavens, and thence he mea
sures, at a glance, the scheme of human salvation,
stretching out far into the eternity past ; and far into a
bright eternity to come. On either hand of this shining
pathway through the infinite, he sees a bright array of
" principalities and powers," observant of this mystery
of redemption — long veiled, and now revealed.
While thus musing upon objects so vast, was the
writer's state of mind such as we must approve, or not ?
Were his feelings — real or illusory ? If they were of the
latter class, and if there be any coherence in human
nature, meditations so lofty, indulged by one who at the
same time believed himself to stand near to the Super
natural — as we find he did, would infallibly have gone
off upon this high ground ; — here he would have ex
hibited himself as in correspondence with heaven by

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 167
means of those supernatural endowments which were at
his command.
How is it in fact that he descends to resume his ter
restrial standing-place ? He has just sealed his lofty
meditations with a doxology ; and then a returning con
sciousness 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 stands thus
— On the one hand bright meditations did not lead the
writer of this Epistle toward the Supernatural ; — they
did not, because he was NO Enthusiast : on the other
hand, gloomy meditations did not drive him toward the
Supernatural ; — they did not, BECAUSE he was NO
Fanatic. He kept close to the course of practical wis
dom and virtue — because, in fact, he was in the highest
sense, wise, virtuous, and sound-minded.

Toward the Christian people at Philippi, St. Paul's
feelings 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 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

168 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
a Reality as is any other remains of past time which
this present time conserves, and trusts to. If I may not
say so much as this, show me, in accordance with the
authentic rules of historical criticism, why I may not.
In this composition the writer, who was then reaching
the term of his labours — the religion which he had
taught having by this time wrought the whole of its
proper effect upon his mind — freely opens his heart to
our inspection ; and in doing so he incidentally conveys
the elements of Christianity itself, and exhibits its
bearing upon human nature.
Now I wish that we could read this one document of
the Apostolic times as if not an atom beside had come
down to us : let us take it as if it were our only means
of forming an opinion concerning that religion of which
we possess copious information as it had come to hold a
place in the world, in the age of the Antonines.
Whatever that breadth of facts required us to imagine,
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 dignity 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. — ajUjjyavov Si ri to ra^op hnSdievv vrai,
eTrsiSav tl toiovtov 7-vnrai, Sjjjuocnov . . . . ol Xpiariavol
avp,<l>opav Troioi/Jttvoi to Trpayp.a,7rdvTa ek.vo. v, k^apiraaai
Trupup.svoi awov. To us this need not seem strange.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 169
for the motives which prompted such labours of love
had a foundation in the Christian theology of surpass
ing intensity. The writer of this Epistle says to his
friends at Philippi — " Do not, every one of you, be re
gardful of his personal interests, but let each be mindful
of the welfare of others : — in a word, let that disposition
be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God thought it no wrong to be equal to God ;
and yet emptied himself (of this dignity) and took the
form of a servant ;" — and this to accomplish our salva
tion. It is testified abundantly, by their enemies, concerning
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,
though making much of the body in their doctrine of the
resurrection, they were ready — iraAiv S' a. ro p'nrruv elg
KoAao-.i?, o>g anpov — when challenged to renounce their
hope of immortality. This is as it should be, if they had
truly imbibed the spirit of their religion as at first taught
them ; for St. Paul had said — " Yea 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

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

The Epistle to the Christians of COLOSSE presents
the same elements, and sustains the same inferences :

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 171
there is" the same theology, as to the Person (i. 15),
the same hope (i. 12, iii. 4) : the same morality (iii. 5,
et seq.) : and throughout it, the same fervour and indivi
duality. It presents however this further characteristic
of the writer's temper and principles — namely, a decisive
protest against that specious pietism which so easily
enslaves feeble minds by its abstracted mysticism, and
its ascetic practices, and its superstitious observances.
Yet the writer had no contention with this Society ; and
the Epistle contains no allusion to miracles.

GENERAL CONCLUSION AS TO THE NON-SUPERNATURAL
EPISTLES.
It appears then that these apostolic writers, though
they much more often omit the supernatural than advert
to it, yet are never found to omit the preceptive element
in their addresses to their converts. They well knew
that it is not by miracles that men are to be trained to
virtue. Now, in this, I see just that which one observes
in the instance of a careful and industrious husbandman.
He has been looking upon his parched fields ; but in
a moment Heaven's flash lights up the landscape :
Heaven's voice peals round the skies ; Heaven's copious
rain comes down, a life-giving torrent. This seasonable
help the husbandman could not command ; but when it
has come, it is his part to follow it up : he does not talk of
the fertilizing thunder shower, but he goes to work upon
his field with a new animation. So it is with the apo
stolic 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 173
lesson of wisdom by which they ruled their own conduct,
as teachers of religion. They held that the things which
had befallen the Israelitish people had been recorded " for
our learning," and from this history they drew the in
ference that, although miracles serve to bring the teacher
into his position of authority as God's minister, the
work on account of which he has been so installed has to
be carried forward irrespectively of miracles. The Apos
tles 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 iu the history of their
nation were present to the minds of the Christian teachers
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 fervour, directed
toward the one object of promoting and securing the per
sonal and social virtue of the people committed to their
care, they do not in a single instance throw the stress of

174 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
any ethical argument upon the supernatural attestations
of their message. Throughout the Epistles morality is
made to rest upon the solid basis of universal and per
manent religious considerations.
I have said that the question of Christianity is strictly
determinable. Thus far, it clearly is so.
When the massive literary remains of the period
already referred to — Christian — non-Christian, and anti-
Christian — are taken as evidence of the existence, wide-
extension, and general quality of the new religion, in
structed men will not be found to be materially at
variance as to the palpable facts that are thus established.
These facts are out of question among educated persons ;
but they lead us to look back toward that moment when
this religion was making its earliest assaults upon the
religions around it, and upon the immoralities of the
times. The result of this quest for early materials is the
production of some ten or twelve compositions, or more,
purporting to be addresses or official circulars issued by
the first teachers and preachers of the Gospel. These
letters having come down from the time of their alleged
production, amply verified in the modes admitted to be
valid in such cases, are submitted to the strictest scrutiny
which modern criticism, in its mood of utmost severity,
has been able to effect. This process is continued through
a period of sixty years ; not because the case is in itself
ambiguous ; but mainly for this reason, that each rising
man, aspiring to practise in this court, and ambitious
to distinguish himself by taking his share in the conduct

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 175
of a suit that draws the eyes of the world, has hunted
the ground anew for pretexts on which to rest his repu
tation. I am keeping my eye upon those fourteen Epistles to
which reference has been made in the preceding pages ;
and which I have named the Non-Supernatural ; and
am now 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, as to mass, which
the one bears to the other, in a more exact manner than
in stating it, as I have done, roundly, as two to one.
The Canonical Epistles, which are twenty-one, are
broken up, in the Received Text, into 2767 verses. It
matters not whether this subdivision has been well or ill
effected. Of this number a large proportion, which it is
not easy to define, has reference to the circumstances or
history of the writers, or of the persons addressed ; and
is of a purely historic quality. This mass constitutes, in
fact, a sort of substratum, firm in its adhesion, part to
part, and available for any of those purposes which, in
an argument on Evidence, it is usual to accomplish by
such aid.
Another portion of the mass, the quantity of which it
is not important to ascertain, is occupied with theological
disquisition, or argument, or the enunciation 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

176 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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
canonical verses, namely 2767, not more than Sixteen,
or if we include some contextual portions, let us say
Twenty verses, contain affirmations or allusions imply
ing miraculous events, as known to the writer, and for the
reality of which he must be held to pledge his reputation.
Presented therefore in the one mode, the proportion be
tween 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 clearing
the ground, as far as I can, in preparation for a retreat ;
or 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 argumentative meaning of a very conclusive kind; for
it will consist with no other hypothesis than this, That,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 177
conversant as they affirm themselves to have been, with
supernatural events, these writers — not one or two of
them, but all — were right-minded men, and were exempt,
in a most unusual degree, from the ordinary religious
tendency to run into, to run after, or to drive forward,
those excitements which the Supernatural supplies.
I might now, and as thus more accurately com
puted, bring forward the body of historic materials,
using more than ninety-nine parts of it out of a hundred,
as standing clear of every pretext of exception, on the
ground of the admixture of the miraculous. This ninety-
nine per cent, forms a body of vastly greater bulk than is
required for bearing up, and for giving consistency to,
the facts of the widely -based Christianity of the age of
the Antonines. This central mass satisfies the condi
tions that are demanded by the facts belonging to tlie
later period. All the phenomena of that period are
embraced and satisfied ; everything is explicable. The
religion, seen at its rise, is found to be a system of mo
tives, principles, and precepts which we find to have
been brought into act in the martyr age, throughout the
extent of the Roman world.
The documents of the later time are so copious and
so heterogeneous that an exceptive criticism may do its
worst without affecting any argument dependent upon it.
The documents of the inchoative period, though small in
bulk, have come forth from a " furnace of earth, heated
seven times," and they stand as approved. The later
dated and voluminous mass takes its bearing — groining
down upon the centre column, and finding there its true

178 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
support, whether considered as so much masonry, or as
so much architecture; it is all solid, and it is all in
keeping. But now to affirm that this one per cent, of the Super
natural vitiates the mass in the midst of which it occurs,
is just to beg the question upon which we are joining
issue. You say Miracles never have occurred ; if so, those
who affirm them must not be listened to.
But satisfy me in any way you please, either of evi
dence, or of abstract reasoning, that they have not, and
then we are agreed. As to the evidence, it is immove
able ; and as to your abstract reasoning, it is in my view,
a transparent sophism.

THE SEVEN APOSTOLIC EPISTLES
WHICH AFFIRM OR ALLUDE TO MIRACLES.
These are five of St. Paul's Epistles — namely, to the
Romans, the Corinthians, first and second; to the
Galatians, and to the Hebrews — here assumed to be
his, and the two Epistles of St. Peter.
These compositions, when compared with the four
teen, are they of inferior pretensions, as to genuineness
and authenticity ? One of them excepted, they are not
at all so. Do they lock-in less firmly with the historic
mass with which they stand connected? This is far
from being the fact. Four of the Pauline Epistles so
cohere with the nine of the Non-Supernatural class that no
critic would attempt to sever them. Read the two Epis
tles to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Churches
of Galatia ; read them in the Greek, and do your utmost,
as you go on, to persuade yourself that they are any
thing else than what they profess to be. Even the
Tubingen Critics have here confessed themselves foiled.
No scholar who is not crazed, or what is worse, half
crazed, and therefore allowed to go in and out among
the sane, will risk himself upon the sceptical side, in
N2

180 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
these instances. The same may be affirmed of the
Epistles to the Romans. Upon this four, with the Epistle
to the Philippians (also allowed to be unassailable by
criticism, or hypercriticism), the entire weight of the
Christian argument might very safely be thrown.

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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 181
simplicity, which is peculiarly Biblical, and which so
broadly distinguishes the books of the Canon from all
other compositions — especially from those of the age
next ensuing.
The supposition of the spuriousness of this Epistle
may best be made to consist with its apostolic tone, by
means of some such hypothesis as this — That some
genuine fragments of apostolic teaching had been put
together by whoever framed the Epistle, as one; and
that the interference of this fabricator went no further
than merely to insert, between the fragmentary 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 manifestly touches the
authority of the Epistle, in a theological sense ; but in
relation to an argument purely historical, it has little or
no significance. I will now take it up on the lowest
supposition (which however is very far from coinciding
with my personal belief), namely — That, from the first
verse to the last, this Epistle is a forgery, or an attempted
imitation of the well-known apostolic style.
If so, then the imitation is so good, that, notwith
standing many critical difficulties, and the paucity, or
inconclusiveness of the external evidence, it did obtain
currency at a very early time : it did at a later time,
make its way into the Canon. In modern times its air
of truth and reality have secured for it the suffrages of
an evenly balanced array of critics.
This fabrication then (if such it be) has been ably

182 .THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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.
Now let us put the facts together. How good soever
the intentions of a writer may be, or mistaken his prin
ciples of action, it is not possible to attribute any high
degree of moral sensitiveness to a man who sits down
coolly to produce a forgery. There must be a flaw, or
something worse, in the understanding of the maker of
a lie, as well as a falseness in his conscience, be his aim
never so good. A mind that is at once infirm and vi
tiated, betrays itself somewhere. An involuntary betrayal
of itself may be set down as the natural consequence of
an inward treason : or it will be so, unless a restraining
force of extraordinary intensity is present to prevent it.
In this instance what was this restraining force, the
operation of which has been sufficient — as we see, to
exclude from this fabrication every taint of the morbid
condition of the writer's own mind ? It can have been
nothing else but a very vivid sense of the extreme deli
cacy and difficulty of his enterprise, in its bearing upon
morals. One phrase wrong, in this sense — a single
clause savouring of laxity, would be enough to condemn
the whole, in the view of the Christian community ; for
all would exclaim — " it was not thus that an Apostle of
Jesus Christ ever spoke or wrote."
I will put this supposition in a more definite form, as
thus : — let us imagine that the real, though unconfessed
object of the writer was, under favour of an apostolic

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 183
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 aver
ment, which is but slenderly, if at all — corroborated by
other Scriptural declarations, the writer reiterates, in
phrases a little varied, three times within the compass of
the same paragraph. He does this as if he were very
intent upon his object, and wishing to secure a due
regard to it. Here then was precisely the hinging place
of the whole piece ; and at this point especial care was
requisite. Now the writer, well aware as he was, of the feeling
that pervaded the Christian community, and knowing
what it was that would be looked for in a writing pur
porting to be apostolic — skilfully sets his dogma, as to
the fiery doom of the creation, in the most authentic
style, inserting between his two affirmations of it, this
pointed ethical caution — "If then all these things (which
now we look upon) are to be melted down (suddenly,
and perhaps soon) what sort of persons ought you to show
yourselves in pureness of behaviour, and in piety?" . . .
" But we Christians look for new heavens, and a new
earth — which is to be the habitation of 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 toge
ther with any chance of its passing among the Churches
as an apostolic work. If now this Epistle be genuine,

184 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
then it is available, with its majestic simplicity, and its
fervour, in proof of the temper and feeling of " Simon
Peter, the servant and apostle of Jesus Christ." But if
it be spurious, then it is available, in a sense even more
expressive, and more extensive, as indicative of the tem
per, the feeling, and the moral sensitiveness of the com
munity, the suffrages and favour of which it courted.
If I thought of, and cared for, nothing but the argu
mentative availableness of this document, I should be
equally willing to accept it, as genuine, or to deal with
it as spurious.
Whether genuine or spurious, it sustains alike a fur
ther inference. If it be genuine, then, in the near prospect
of martyrdom, by crucifixion — Kai UirpoQ .. .7ri 'PaJjurie
Kara K-$a\fje aravpovrai — which he mentions under the
calm euphemy of a " putting off this tabernacle," the
writer very pointedly affirms his latest confident profes
sion 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 the midst of the
dazzling shekinah, the voice of the Most High pro
claimed 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 usctge of the Apo
stles to utter such professions of their personal con
cernment with the supernatural events of Christ's life.
Or state the case thus ; — the supposition being that this
second Epistle is a fabrication. —

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 185
— The very significant fact has already obtruded itself
upon our notice, that, taking the apostolic Epistles en
masse, allusions to the Supernatural are very few; not
being one per cent, as to quantity ; and that these writers,
more often than not, addressed the Churches without
making a single averment of this sort, direct or indirect.
It is plain therefore that it would have been quite a safe
course for the forger of an apostolic letter to avoid every
thing of this kind : on the whole, it would have been the
safer course of the two ; and an astute scribe (he was no
blunderer who got up this Epistle) would be very likely
to keep himself on this safer side. But now, unless it
had been the known practice of the Apostles, and of St.
Peter especially, 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
St. Peter, a formal statement, such as occurs in the
first chapter.
If the Epistle be genuine, then this aged Teacher of
the Gospel, in the last days of his life, affirms
Christianity to be a supernatural dispensation.
If it be spurious, it indicates the fact that such affir
mations were customary with apostolic men.

The First Epistle general of Peter. In this in
stance to advance, as if there might be reasonable ground
for it, the supposition of spuriousness, would be a great

186 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
impertinence. The apostolic antiquity of this Epistle is
a fact out of question — I mean among those whose read
ings in German have not denuded them of their English
common-sense. Yet even here, though very unwilling
to seem to concede anything to pedantry and affecta
tion — I should be willing, as to its bearing upon my
argument, to take this Epistle as (though not genuine)
so like to the genuine, as to secure for itself universal
acceptance as such.
The calm majesty, the fervour, the bright hopefulness,
and the intense moral import of the Epistle cany it home
to every ingenuous mind as an embodiment of whatever
is the most affecting in theology, and the most effective
and salutary in ethics. With those — if there are any,
who have no consciousness of these qualities in the
writing before us, I should not court controversy.
In any such instance nature must have dealt in a very
parsimonious manner with the mind and heart, and
sophistry must have greatly overdone her part.
But how does this Epistle connect itself with the
Supernatural? What does it say of Miracles ? Not one
word of allusion does it contain to occurrences of this
order, as then attendant upon the ministry of the
Apostles. It is addressed to the dispersion (Christians,
figuratively, or Jewish converts, literally) sojourning in
the provinces of the Lesser Asia. St. Paul in his course
through these same countries had established the reality
of his mission by " mighty signs and wonders," wrought
in every city on his track. In these provinces — or some
of them, Christianity had prevailed over heathenism to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 187
an extent — so says Pliny — which must leave a very
difficult problem in the hands of those who, in their
theory of the spread of the Gospel, deprive its preachers
of the aid of the Supernatural: it had spread and
triumphed either without the help of miracles, or with
that help. Take which supposition 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. 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 also " a witness
ofthe 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 context, 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 bears upon the conduct and temper of Christians,
when suffering for their profession. Whatever in it is
theological rather than ethical, comes in as an illustration,
or as a subsidiary reason: these adjuncts therefore so
cohere to the mass as to make an attempted separation
of them impracticable.

188 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF."
Christians are fortified under the endurance of wrongful
inflictions, by several considerations — mainly by a re
ference to the example of Christ, who so suffered, wrong
fully indeed, for in him was there no sin, no guile, and
who, in silent patience, yielded himself to violence, while
" his own self he bare our sins in his own body on the
tree." It is thus that the Writer — and in other places 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 — in
corporeal — among the disembodied ; visiting the region
where they are detained — and there making a loud and
authoritative proclamation ; (on the part of God.)
With the theology of this passage I have nothing to
do ; nor am careful to forefend inferences of any sort. I
read the verses in their open and historic sense. A
knowledge of this fact, remote as it was from all cog
nizance of man, without supernatural aid, must have
been given to St. Peter, either by Christ himself, orally,
after his resurrection, or must have been conveyed to
him at a later time, in some mode which he regarded as
supernatural; and therefore authentic. If I were to
describe to you the things which would be found in a

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 189
particular latitude and longitude, at the lowest depth
of the Atlantic, in doing so I must make profession of
having at my command some means of information that
are unknown alike to common experience and to science.
St. Peter affirms, therefore, in this case, that which in
volves and implies the supernatural, even more neces
sarily 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 affirmations
are all of them adjunctive to his proper subject, and in
separable from the context. They include not only the
fact of the resurrection, but that also of Christ's assump
tion to the throne of celestial dominion, (iii. 22.) We
have here in hand an instance of the Cohesion of the
supernatural and the historic which is of a peculiar kind.
In any composition if three, four, or five subjects, of
different classes, are brought together, that one among
them must be regarded as the one uppermost in the
mind of the writer, in illustration of which the other
subjects — two, three, or four, are introduced. That one
is the leading subject; the others the adjunctive and
subdividing. According to this plain rule, the drift of this Epistle
is ethical. The main intention of the writer, and his nil-*
ing impulse, was so to fortify the minds of the Christian
people under his care, as to secure the purity, rectitude,
and religious consistency of their conduct. In going
about to make good this his main purpose, he brings
in those principal facts on which the Christian profession
rested, and in behoof of which Christians were liable to

190 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 have joined issue. That question
involves the reality of a series of facts, including those
that are miraculous.
As to the genuineness of this particular document, it
has already passed under revision, in the proper Court ;
and it has been duly countersigned there, as authentic.
It stands open to no exceptions that could be available
for the plaintiff, 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 191
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 that
sort which is becoming to a wise and virtuous man;
especially to one who is in a place of authority ?"
The answer is manifest. This Epistle, if read apart,
from any reference to the point now in debate, and if
judged of purely on ihe 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 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,

192 THE restoration of belief,
Origen's judgment may well be assented to — on, t« fiev
vorj/iaTa tov dirocrToXov eaTtv, -r) Se (ppdo-i<; /cal f) crvv&eais
aTro/ivnp.ovevcravTO'; tivo<; to, dTro<TTO~Kt,Ka — 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.
These attainments fell short, it seems, of what might
have been expected, opportunities of improvement con
sidered ; nevertheless it is manifest that the writer sup
posed himself to be addressing persons who, as well in
their biblical accomplishments, as in the keenness of
their intellectual habits, vastly surpassed that average of
mental power and learning which is to be found in our
Protestant congregations. A verse-by-verse commentary,
aided by all the stores of our modern biblical erudition,
is not more than is needed to give even a well-instructed
and intelligent congregation a thorough comprehension
of the reasoning of some parts of this Treatise. Those
passages in it which, in their tone, rise above the tem
perature proper to biblical expository reasoning, are those
in which the calmness of heaven's own atmosphere gives
majesty to the language of the writer : of this sort are

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 193
the opening verses of the treatise, and the middle portion
of the twelfth chapter.
This Treatise — with its incidental allusions, its refer
ences to the then-existing Jewish economy, its tranquil
and refined trains of argument, its pointed admonitions,
its tone of serious intensity, is, in itself, an 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 infer
ence, that a negligent regard to it will involve so much
the more guilt and danger. This Gospel message which
was first announced, he says, by the Lord, had been con
firmed toward the Christians of that time by those who
had heard Christ himself — " God bearing witness (to the
truth of their testimony) with signs and wonders ; and
divers powers, and bestowments of the Holy Spirit, ac
cording to His pleasure."
To Jewish ears these phrases carried a conventional
meaning that stood clear of all ambiguity: it is an
authentic formula of the Old Testament, bringing recol
lections with it that embraced the staple of the national
0

194 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
belief. Think what we may of the articles of that be
lief, these phrases recalled to the mind of the Jew of
the apostolic age, that long series of miracles which had
placed the people in a position of the nearest relationship
with God. The words and the combinations of them are
identical throughout the Old Testament, and the New
— Kai E-_jke K-joioe (TrifiLua Kai Ttpara peyaXa  to.
o-ij/XEta Kai .a ripara to. ju.yaAa -KEiva  : they occur
frequently in the Pentateuch, in the Psalms, and in the
Prophets. They had come also into current use in the
Christian community, in connexion with events admitted
to be supernatural, as appears in the Acts of the Apo
stles, 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 mira
cles ; but then this one is perfectly explicit ; and it is so
worded that the persons addressed could not misunder
stand the writer. He affirms that those who had been
the hearers of Christ, and who had reported the Gospel
message to the Christian converts of the then present
time, had, in delivering this message, received the same
sort of attestation from God himself, which had been
granted to Moses and the Prophets.
And as nothing vague could attach to the wording of
this passage, and as it stands boldly prominent in a con
text of peculiar gravity, so did it receive a more than
ordinary weight of meaning from the circumstances of

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 195
the persons addressed. It was to the Jewish converts
still resident in Palestine, that the Treatise was prima
rily addressed, and through them, no doubt, to the same
class of persons throughout the world. These Pales
tinian Jewish Christians, among whom there were sur
viving 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 countrymen
who virulently denied the Messiahship of Jesus. The
alleged miracles of that history were rife matters of de
bate — 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 pre
text for cutting it out of its place : it stands where it
stands, unimpeachable on critical grounds. It attests
this fact, first, that apostolic men — this writer at least —
did not hesitate boldly to affirm the occurrence of 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.
If the alleged miracles of that time had been very few,
and these few of ambiguous quality, and if they had
0 2

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

The Epistle to the Romans is also a Treatise rather
than an Epistle; its authenticity and genuineness are
out of question; or if you would fortify your English

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 197
distaste of the frivolities of German criticism, acquaint
yourself with that tissue of surmises on the ground
of which the genuineness of the fifteenth and sixteenth
chapters has been questioned. The continuity of thought,
running on from the fourteenth into the fifteenth chapter,
and 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 ? Because the gratifica
tion of a pedantic ambition, and the craving for paradox,
may find a momentary opportunity in an instance of
this sort.
With the theology of this Epistle I have nothing to
do at this time ; nor with the ethical portions of it, un
less to say, in passing, that, following as they do as
inferences from the theology, they present to us an
instance most remarkable, of an equipoise of principles,
not logically 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-

198 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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,
however, in relation to my present argument, than the
passage cited from the Epistle to the Hebrews. In that,
the writer does not affirm for himself the exercise of
miraculous gifts : in this he does so very distinctly. In
this Epistle " Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ" stands
before us in a clear historic light, connecting 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 199
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
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 Pro
phets. This sort of familiarity with biblical history, and
with the phraseology of the Scriptures, undoubtedly be
longed to those to whom were addressed the now extant
non-canonical epistles of the first and second centuries.
Besides ; the Epistle to the Romans itself furnishes
abundant evidence of the diffusion of this amount of
biblical knowledge among those to whom it is addressed,
Gentiles as well as Jews. St. Paul now writes to these
converts, announcing his intention to visit them shortly.

200 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
He tells them that he had lately been employed preach
ing the Gospel in many provinces of the empire. He
speaks too of the miracles that had everywhere 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 con
nected with the notable miracles of the Old Testament
history. In using this particular form of words, St. 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
Cesar'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 dis
posed to listen to those many 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 201
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 from the pro
vinces 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 produced among the
Christian people of Rome I will not venture to affirm. Let
it only be remembered that these newly-professed Chris
tians were of three classes, namely — first, Jewish con
verts 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

202 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the ferocity of Nero — even the — multitudo ingens, of
Tacitus. Now this "vast multitude" — or let us take the words in
their lowest probable meaning, whatever that may be —
had either professed Christianity at the time when the
Epistle from Paul reached them, or else there had been
a great accession of converts during the intervening three
or four years.
If we take the first named of these suppositions then
one must think it a serious matter (if we know anything
of popular excitability) to disappoint the multitudo in
gens 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
ihe 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 203
found in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; one in that to the
Romans ; one in the Epistle to the Galatians ; one in tlie
second Epistle to the Corinthians. In each of these
single instances the allusion is cursory ; it arises out of
the occasion, and it is firmly agglutinated with the con
text. Moreover to each of these instances there attaches
some special circumstance, rendering this sort of cate
gorical averment in a high degree dangerous, if, in fact,
it had been liable to any sort of exception. It was so,
peculiarly, in the instance now in hand.
Throughout the scattered societies of Galatia, and
among a people remarkable for the fickleness of their dis
positions, and for their proneness to be led and driven by
demagogues, the apostolic authority of St. Paul had
been set at defiance, or was openly impugned, while the
doctrine he had taught was denounced. Up and down
throughout this province, and scattered among its ob
scure 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 societies
there were some to whose better feelings he might still
appeal — some there were who adhered to the evangelic
doctrine — some who professed and contended for, the
" faith once delivered" to them. We must infer also from
the expression 6 ovv \m\opriyu)V vplv  that there was
one Teacher among the Galatian converts who continued
to maintain that foremost article of the Christian system
which was its characteristic, as contrasted with the

204 THE restoration of belief.
Pharisaic Judaism of the times, and which, in this
Epistle, St. Paul expounds anew. The position of this
one Teacher, in the midst of the general defection, must
have been that of antagonism ; and it was with him, as
we may infer from the phrases used, that remained the
power of working miracles.
The appeal made to the supernatural endowments of
this one Teacher (if our inference from the form of
expression 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 nocontradiction, as to ihe matter of fact; he
says, Are ye then indeed so unwise? after accepting Chris
tianity as a spiritual system, are ye now going back to a
system of bodily observances ? Has it then been to no
purpose (as the professors of a spiritual doctrine) that ye
have 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 —
Kai 6 evipywv §vvap.tiq — is he a teacher of the legalizing
doctrine ? or does he not maintain the doctrine of salva
tion 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 dvorjroi ; and he asks who it is that

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 205
has so far abused their folly as actually to bereave them
of their senses ?
No inference which I judge to be important is
dependant upon what may be a questionable paraphrase
of this passage. The fact is enough that St. Paul, to
whom the recollection of his miraculous powers does not
ever occur when he is addressing his attached friends,
boldly affirms them, or affirms the same gifts in his
colleagues, when he descends among his 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 St. 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 rivetted
together in these writings.

It is so 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 bp,o\oyovfizva ;

206 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and if in any instance an ancient writer has spread
himself out, and opened the door of his heart to our
inspection, St. Paul has done so in these two Epistles.
I take up first, the second Epistle, containing as it does
one passage that is applicable to my immediate purpose.
This is the twelfth verse of the twelfth chapter.
There might be room to think that the remarkable
passage with which this same chapter commences, should
also be named as an affirmation of the 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. St. Paul,
in this case, necessarily, affirms only what belonged to
his individual experience : he declares that thus he had
been favoured with two extraordinary revelations ; but
though the mention of them is proper to the occasion,
they are not to be adduced as logically available in the
present instance.
Compelled as he was by the audacity of his opponents
at Corinth to assert, and to vindicate, his apostolic
authority, he reminds the people there of the circum
stances that had attended his ministrations among
them ; and he says that, feeble as he might be in him
self, 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 fa o-rj/ustoie koi Tspacn koi Svvafxtai. Here

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 207
again we have the customary biblical formula, and in
its more expanded expression.
We now turn to the first Epistle to the Corinthians.
In that one passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews
which links it to the supernatural, the persons 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 — fa j_n__v i xaPltTrlaTl  w*tn 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 languages;
— to another the interpretation of languages."

208 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 ;
next of prophets (or teachers) , then instructors, or masters
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 prevails in
these enumerations deserves attention.
Between this more general declaratory passage, and
those injunctions which a disorderly practice had called
for, there comes a parenthesis — an entire chapter —
luminous with good sense : ought we not to acknow
ledge this, and risk the consequence ? If now it be
Heaven's wisdom, of which we have such a sample, super-
naturally 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 conduct ? But
we have to mark here that these thirteen 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 behaviour. If four or five of these

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 209
gifted Corinthian converts had left us so many as one-
and-twenty of their letters and treatises, I think we
should not have found fourteen of them destitute of a
single affirmation as to their own command of the super
natural ; nor the remaining seven, each with nothing
more than a brief and solitary allusion of this kind.
But a word more should be said on this occasion.
This thirteenth chapter of the Epistle before us is a pa
renthesis, linking the purely historic instructions which
precede it, with other instructions, having relation to a
misapplication of supernatural endowments. Here then
we have the simply historic, or natural, blended and
bound up with the supernatural, in such a manner as to
defy the endeavour to separate the two. In the instances
hitherto adduced I have noticed the iron rivetting of these
two elements : in the present instance I ask, Is not this
tie a bolt of the purest gold ?
The rule I adhere to is to lay no stress upon any
matter that is controverted among well-informed and
reasonable critics and commentators. Now a great cloud
of difficulty has been made to settle over the subject
treated of in the fourteenth chapter of this Epistle ; so
that what might seem quite intelligible when one reads
the Greek without assistance, has become an enigma,
after erudite criticism has shed its best light upon it !
Just now therefore I will say no more concerning the
" Gift of Tongues" than this— That St. 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
P

210 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
he exercised, he says — " I thank my God I speak with
tongues more than you all." What was it then that he
thus thought of with devout gratitude ? Was it that
knowledge of Hebrew (or the Aramaic), of Greek and
of Latin — which he had acquired at Tarsus in his boy
hood ? Or was it the power of pouring forth a mindless
gibberish, intelligible to no tribe of men on earth ?
It is enough that, in this passage, while the apostle
exhibits his usual good sense, and his feeling of what is
practically best, he speaks without hesitation of that
which he regarded as supernatural.

CONCLUSION AS TO THE SEVEN EPISTLES WHICH
AFFIRM MIRACLES.
I have now taken in their order those documents of
the Canon which contain an affirmation of, or allusion to,
miracles, as currently taking place under the eye of the
writer, or of those whom he addresses. I have especially
given attention to those five Epistles of St. Paul which
are distinguished from the nine of the same writer that
are free from any reference to the supernatural.
I have pointed out three special circumstancesattaching
to these Epistles, namely, first, that they are those which,
if there be any difference, stand the clearest of any sus
picion of spuriousness; secondly, that three of these Epis
tles 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 utter
ance, which is brief, distinct, and peremptory.
I have also drawn your attention to the fact — that, in
each of these instances, that authenticated form of words
is employed in relation to which misinterpretation was
impossible, and to which a clearly defined historical
sense had come to be attached.
p2

212 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
But I will now imagine that, instead of employing
this biblical formula, which none of those who were ac
customed 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 exaggerations
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 indubitable mean
ing of the largest import.
Let us now imagine that St. 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 contemporary, Philo, does actually use on analogous
occasions. For example, if instead of the ripaTa km
artfiela, and the several phrases (all of biblical usage)
which he does apply to his own miracles, he had given us

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 213
a form like the following, with an evasive expletive
inserted, TapaaTiov .. tpaat ovpfirivai tear ekuvov rbv
Xpovov, p.£yaXovpyr)fia ri}5 (piejEwg ... .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 customarily to
the miracles of the evangelic history ; as appears from the
Gospels. Moreover the same set of words occurs thirteen
times in the Acts of the Apostles, always carrying
the same indubitable sense. Once only, in speaking of
such events, does the writer employ a different form
(xix. 11) where it is — Svvapug te ov Tat; Tv^ovaaq
iiroiu 6 9eos . . . The form is the same in the Apocryphal
books, as in the Epistles (Wisdom viii. 8, x. 16, Eccles.
xlviii. 14) in the Prophets ; (Jerem. xxxii. 20, Dan.
vi. 27) in the Psalms ; cv. 27, cvi. 7 ; and the Penta
teuch, very frequently : — Exod. iii. 20, — iv. 9, iv. 21,
28, vii. 3 ... to -T/ju-Ta p,ov, _a< Ta Ttpara fa yij Alyvwri^
.... — x. 2, Num. xiv. 11, Deut. iv. 34, — koI fa o-jjjue/oic,
koi h> Tipaai  vi. 22, Kai E-toK- Kvpioc ariptta Kai
Ttpara ptyaXa Kai Trovrjpa iv AlyinrTOj) .... Vii. 19, ra
OYiptia Kai to. ripara to. fuydXa .KEiva .... xxxiv. 11,
'Ev Traa. toic ffij/U-ioic Ka' Tepaalv 
There are those who, professing to admire the character
of Paul, would gladly bring him off clear of the impu
tation of having compromised himself with the super
natural, if it could be done. Looking to these five

214 the restoration of belief.
Epistles this attempt might perhaps have been made if
only he had been careful to avoid this biblical formula,
and had taken up, in its place, any vague abstraction of
the kind of which samples enough may be found in Philo,
in Josephus, and in several of the classical writers, when
speaking of prodigies.
Let us now inquire by what means, if there are any,
the supernatural might be severed from the mass of his
toric document to which we find it attached.
These means must be such as do not in any way
violate the authentic rules of philological or historical
criticism. An attempted violation of such rules could be
prompted by nothing but an ill intention ; and as in this
argument I impute no bad motives to an opponent, I am
saved the disagreeable necessity of rebutting any suppo
sition 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 cha
racter : each of them comes into our hands bearing its
own credentials, separately from the others. Even if
ten of them could be shown to be spurious, the others
stand their ground ; but instead of this, a mere shadow
of doubt is all that attaches to two or three of the
number: and even these avail as much in argument,
when imagined to be forgeries, as when admitted to be
genuine.

the restoration of belief. 215
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 be disposed of if, in a critical sense,
they were decisively of inferior quality ; but they are not
so : on the contrary, they are those (one excepted) 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
legitimate criticism, these sentences stood as interpola
tions. 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 pas
sages, we might incline to attach an abated importance to
them if any one of the following suppositions could be
entertained. — If they occurred in thoseEpistles onlyvrhich
are addressed to the writer's colleagues, or to societies of
whose attachment to himself, and to Christianity, he was
perfectly assured. But the very contrary of this is the fact.

216 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
— 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 con
trary 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 oc
curred. So we might perhaps suppose if no other Chris
tian 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 —
— That the historical relationship of this Book to the
Pauline Epistles has been so exhibited, in modern times,
as should exclude all question as to the genuineness of
either — the history, or the so related, Epistles : secondly—
— That, in this book, as I have already said, the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 217
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 them
selves with the supernatural element of Christianity,
and that they do it in the most formal and distinct man
ner possible; and that therefore it is only by violent
means that the supernatural can be severed from the
historical, as the two stand connected in the Christian
documents. What those means are which, in this case, ought to be
regarded as " violent," and should therefore be rejected,
may easily be determined. To solve the problem of
Christianity hy force is to admit some supposition, or to
listen to an imputation to which a cultured and well
ordered mind will never reconcile itself; and which would
never be advanced, at all, by minds of any class, except
at the impulse of some urgent argumentative necessity.
I bring this to an issue thus :—
Make the effort requisite for putting yourself mentally
into the position of one who, as yet, knows nothing of
Christianity. I put into your hands, in succession, the
fourteen Non-SupernaturalEpistles. — You spontaneously
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

218 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the world if it would receive it. It is also manifest that
the writers, whether they be right or wrong in their
religious belief, are sincere in their 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 undoubted importance, and
that they treat slightingly what we all feel to be indif
ferent." 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 spontaneously 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 mira
cles, 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
unintelligible evasions— myths, and shifts; — rejecting,
in fact, what a well constituted English mind must and
will reject as frivolous, impertinent, vaporous, and ab
surd, 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 219
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 mad : they are always virtu
ous, and always wicked : they are prudent and
they are absurd, and they are both in an extreme
degree. They are at all times consistently incon
sistent 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 attempt
ing to give me, in any definite shape, your own idea of
the apostles, the facts duly taken into ihe account, on the
supposition that no miracles were wought in attestation
of their ministry. In this attempt you will never suc
ceed, to your own satisfaction. „
I will not tell you that your supposition as to the
apostolic character is " uncharitable," is " unwarrant
able," is " ungenerous," and the like ; for I am content
to tell you, what is simply the fact, That it is a jumble
of incoherencies to which no semblance of moral, or of
immoral unity can be given. I do not tell you that
your conception is wrong and unfair ; — for it is no con
ception at all — it is a naked absurdity ! I will return
to this subject at any time if only you will put before
me, in a form which I can understand, your idea of the
apostles — all the facts allowed for, on the hypothesis of
Disbelief.

THE FORCE OF CONGRUITY, IN RELATION TO CHRIS
TIANITY AND ITS MIRACLES.
It would next come in order to bring under considera
tion 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 histo
rical are indissolubly commingled. This might soon be
shown ; but I abstain from this open path for two rea
sons; first, because the demolition of Rationalism by
S_trauss, and its abandonment generally, supersedes the
necessity for showing that the evangelic miracles cannot
be explained away in the manner that was attempted
by the German writers of that school. But beside this
reason, as I propose to bring before you this same super
natural element, considered in a very different light, I
wish to avoid the irksomeness of going over the same
ground twice, although it would be for different pur
poses. I must repeat what I have already said, p. 102, just
so far as to remind you that those of our convictions
upon which we are accustomed to act with the most un
hesitating confidence, and to which we commend our
selves without fear, when life itself, or estate, is at risk,
are not, or seldom are, those which we may obtain by

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 221
processes of catenary deduction ; or by a course of rea
soning which, in a technical sense, is logical. 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 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 port in
safety. The vast difference, as to its bearing upon our prin
ciples of action, and our every-day habitudes, between
catenary reasoning and the force of Congruity, is
felt in the instance of the argument concerning Chris
tianity more than perhaps in any other case that could
be named. Let it be that, with favourable impressions
on the side of Christianity, and with a sincere wish to
confirm ourselves in our religious belief, we carefully
read one or two of the best modern books on the " Evi
dences." We follow the reasoning, from page to page,
and we yield our assent to it, feeling it to be entirely
conclusive. To frame a reply to this chain of proofs in
any manner that should be satisfactory to ourselves, we
know to be impossible. And yet a few days after closing
the book the upshot of the perusal of it has been to leave
us — not in a state of logical indecision, but only of dis
comfort and depression, as to our convictions ; and we
almost wish we had not attempted thus to convince our
selves.

222 THE restoration of belief.
We need not go far to find the reason of such a result.
Those who read books on the "Evidences" in the fa
vourable mood which I am now supposing, perfectly
know that, if Christianity be true, it is not an abstract
speculation, but a practical concernment for every day,
and that among the many claimants upon our attention,
this one claim stands foremost. But now the reasoning
of the book we have just read is out of harmony with the
machinery of real life ; for a man does not act at a
prompting of this sort. The argument, although it be
irrefragable, comes upon us cross-grained as to all our
habitudes as deliberative and spontaneous beings. In
fact — after several failures in the endeavour to feel
and act as Christian men, on the ground of argument,
among the things and persons of the real world, we
return the book on the " Evidences "to a high shelf —
forget it, except to lend it to a perplexed friend, and for
ourselves, resume our Christian consciousness : uncon
sciously, but really, we go back to those undefined
moral congruities which heretofore have sustained our
belief ; and we abandon proofs in line.
Nevertheless, as often as we return to the subject as
a matter of argument, we find ourselves in a position of
disadvantage. At a point far removed from the eye,
and at the end of a vista of logical evidences, we get our
view of the miracles of 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 ;
just as one might gaze upon a sunrise, seen through the
bare trunks and naked branches of a wintry forest. Yet

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 223
this aspect of these objects is not merely remote and
accidental ; but it produces an impression which is sub
stantially 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 always stood 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
medieval credulity — or an incurious, unreasoning, incon
sequential passiveness, to which all things, natural and
supernatural, come alike, and pass away without leaving
an impression. The second state is that of our modern,
dry, cold, sophisticated, scientific temper ; — scientific
more than philosophical. Witnessed in this mood, a
miracle would astound us — it would just curdle the brain,
and produce no effect whatever upon the moral nature.

224 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 ofthe 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 sen
suous, as that the spectacle of the raising of the dead
should assort itself with my feelings. So 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 morning upon St.
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 per
suasion, if instead of this belief, I had St. Paul's sight
and consciousness of it, then, like him, I could speak of
miracles briefly, firmly, and without a note of wonder.
The miracles of the evangelic history come to us with
the force of Congruity, just so far as we can bring our
selves morally within the splendour of those eternal
verities which are of the substance of the Gospel. While
we stand remote from that illuminated field, they are to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 225
us only a galling perplexity; for we can neither rid
ourselves of the evidence that attests them, nor are
prepared to yield ourselves to it. At this moment the
Christian argument is an intolerable torment to hundreds
of cultivated minds around us.
In the crowd of those who witnessed the miracles of
Christ there were some who mocked ; there were some
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
doctrine — 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 was inherent.
From what sources have I gathered my idea of the
personal aspect and demeanour of Christ ? You will say
from the groundless traditions of Italian art — from our
modern religious poetry — from the pulpit, and so forth.
It may be so in part ; but the main rudiments of this
idea have come to me — I am sure — from a year-to-year
reading of the Gospels — commentaries, translations,
and all modern accompaniments out of view. This vivid
conception is the genuine product of the Evangelic nar
ratives, to which I have added nothing by imaginative
effort. It is not that the writers have described to me
this Person, or that they have given me a leading hint,
Q

226 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 con
gruous 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.
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. — I
have a consciousness of the vast difference between the

THE restoration of belief. 227
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 chip
ping marble into the human form, and the other, is so
clear in my view, that, to confound the two, or to mistake
the one for the other, is impossible ; and yet I should
shrink from the attempt to set this same perception 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 vulgarprejudice,belonging to my artistic orthodoxy.
The sense of congruity which I have now iu 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 feel
ing, and a liability to intensities, both of suffering and
of enjoyment (the one as well as the other intellectual,
not sensuous) of which the bright, gay, surface-loving
mind of antiquity seems to have known little or nothing.
Q 2

228 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Then along with this power of feeling, striking, as it
does, into the roots of the soul, there are perceptions,
and instinctive judgments, of which it must be said that
they are altogether modern developments of humanity ;
they are true elements of our nature; but they have
newly been brought from the sub-soil.
It is to the slow working of Christianity upon human
nature that I attribute nearly the whole of this deeper
vitality of the modern mind : You think otherwise ; but
yet our difference as to the cause cannot affect our
acknowledgment of the fact. If you should deny the
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, cul
tured 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 229
Christ's behaviour, in various positions, and his utter
ances of those ethical principles which are peculiarly
Christian. Now between these elements which are here
found in juxta-position, there presents itself a congruity
which the modern mind vividly perceives, but of which
the ancient mind would scarcely have been conscious at
all. The ancient mind formed a 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. Whencesoever the materials of the Gospels may have
come, and it is the 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 purpose,
and the coherence of all principles of action ; it includes
oneness of aim, from the commencement 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

230 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of a man's life which, when we witness them, prompt
the exclamation — " How unaccountable, and how in
consistent 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 Chris
tianized 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 narra
tive, not less than the ordinary; and indeed, if there
are any parts of this narrative which a reader of correct
taste would single out as resplendent instances of moral
fitness and unity, they are precisely those that narrate
miracles with the most of detail.
It is affirmed by those who reject everything that pre
sents itself as miracle in the Gospels, that these four
compilations have become what they now are by the ac
cumulation of heterogeneous fragments, vague traditions,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 231
exaggerated early beliefs, and myths. The Four 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 symmetrical, 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 dis
cern 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 ; there are no exhibitions

232 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of things monstrous ; — there are no contrarieties to the
order of nature; there is nothing prodigious, there is
nothing grotesque. Nor among them are there any of
that kind that might be called theatric. There are
no displays of supernatural power, made in the presence
of thousands of the people, summoned to 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 evan
gelic 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 yearnings of pity.
When I tread the floor of an hospital — what is it that
I would do if I could ? It is that which the Saviour of
men did at the impulse of the very same sympathies, as
often as the " sick, and the maimed, and the blind "
were brought in crowds, and laid at his feet — " He
healed them all."
What we have before us is not the Thaumaturge,
going about to astound the multitude ; but it is the Man,
whose human affections are in alliance with Omnipo
tence. That hand uplifted, while the lips utter an
axiom of virtue, symbolizes at once, perfect intelligence,
absolute goodness, and irresistible power. If I can

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 233
imagine myself to stand in that presence, at such a time,
I should have felt that the fixedness of the course of
nature is only an arbitrary and temporary constitution;
and that it must be less constant than are those energies
of love which are eternal. In the presence of Him whose
volitions flow out into act, without an interval, the dif
ference between the natural and the supernatm-al, 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,
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
rejected. 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

234 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of superhuman power and authority, is em
bodied in the Four Gospels.
iii. — This harmony, or, as we call it, 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 superna
tural incidents of the life of Christ, not less
than the natural. In these narratives no
seams, or joints, can be discerned, showing
where the spurious portion has been spliced
on to the genuine ; but —
iv. — If we reject Christianity, as true in its own sense,
that is to say, as attested by miracles, then we
must solve the problem before us by means of
one of two suppositions, or of some other, not
essentially differing from the one or the other,
each of which, as it comes in turn to be
considered, is inadmissible, and insufferable.
These suppositions are either — That no historic
reality whatever has formed the substratum of
the Gospel history : in this case a perfect indi
viduality has sprung out of a congeries of illu
sions; or — The merely natural portions of the
evangelic history being true, the supernatural
portions have been imagined, contrived, and fit
ted 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 —

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 235
having before us, in perfect symmetry — the Christ of
God— the Saviour of the world.
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 logical
purpose of establishing the truth of Christianity, as a
revelation from Heaven. Thus to appeal to these super
natural attestations is, no doubt, a legitimate mode of
defence against inf delity. And yet it is not while we
are placing ourselves in this accidental position, or when
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 Religion which they serve
to attest. This scheme, so far as it is unfolded in the
Scriptures, or may be thence gathered, inferentially,
grasps the destinies of the human family from the
first, and so stretches itself out in 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 absolutely. No

236 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
child of man is born beyond its domain ; none shall
ever effect his escape into regions where its authority
is not recog used.
If the Gospel be thus thought of in the way in which
itself claims to be considered, it will follow that the
ministry of Christ, as narrated by the Evangelists, must
be misunderstood so long as it is regarded as a course of
events bounded by the initial and the closing year of his
life among men. Whether we number ourselves with
believers, or with unbelievers, we shall continue to
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 it must be so,
in the nature of things. So long as your mood of mind
is this, that you will grant nothing which it is possible
for you to deny, you will catch only a glimpse of things
disadvantageously presented to the eye. But if you allow
me to exhibit the same objects in their true 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.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 237
In this present Tract I am not aware that I have
assumed anything, or anything material — which a well-
informed and ingenuous opponent can show to be dis
putable. But it is not while following evidences, step
by step, that the harmony of truth can be exhibited. In
the next Tract I propose to choose my ground with more
freedom — to assume the truth of that which I know to
be true, and to employ myself in the more hopeful labour
of setting forth those great consistencies among the
principles and the facts of Christianity in regarding which
its truth commands an assent which we yield cordially.

In several places, in these pages, and as occasion
arose, I have remanded the question of the Inspiration
of the Scriptures, as not involved in the course of argu
ment which I am now pursuing. It is manifest that
these two subjects — The historic reality of Chris
tianity — claiming to be — Religion given by God to man,
and the Inspiration ofthe canonical books, are separable
in a logical sense. And not only are they separable, so
as that they may be considered and discussed irrespec
tively 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 allegations that take their

238 THE restoration of belief.
force from a mistaken apprehension of the doctrine of
Inspiration. But if these two questions are separable, and if they
should be kept separate, then it is manifest that the one
with which I have concerned myself in these pages must
have the precedence of the one which I remand. It must
be a very 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 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 ac
cording 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, practi
cally, 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.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 239
That these theories or 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 substan
tial agreement shall have taken place, and controversy
on the subject die away.
If now I may suppose myself to have to do with a
reasonable and ingenuous opponent, I would ask such a
one to forego the small and transient advantage which
he may seize while he fights the doctrine of 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
Tracts may forget the Writer and think only of the
argument, I have persuaded myself that two inferences
concerning him would, in a manner, whisper themselves
in the ear of every candid reader. The first of thes
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 decisive

240 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 tempera
ment, as of principle, he is as exempt as most men
from religious arrogance, and as little addicted to
dogmatism. As to the question of Inspiration, second in importance
to no article of a religious man's belief — I may perhaps
find myself emboldened hereafter to offer to the intelli
gent and candid reader my thoughts upon that arduous
subject.

The time that has elapsed since I last placed before
you my view of the Christian Evidences has allowed
me, not merely to reconsider my proposed line of argu
ment in following up what I have written, but to
think of it as related to the shifting position of the
contrary opinion, or as we say, of Disbelief.
It is matter of course, if one would not be beating
the air, that one should aim to write what is season
able as well as what is abstractedly and always true.
Yet as to that heterogeneous body of opinions to
which the term Disbelief may be applied generically,
two or three months is a long time within which it may
be assumed to have undergone no remarkable change.
A year may have seen revolutions and catastrophes
take place in the history of a mass so inorganic; and
as to two years, within that compass the "Leaders of
the public mind" may have exchanged positions, and
several philosophies may in their turn have claimed
submission as Positive, and have come to be for
gotten. Besides the wish to write seasonably, I have a great
wish to write temperately ; that is to say, with perfect
calmness, and as mindful of the dictates of charity

242 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
toward the adverse party. Now the passage of time
does much in calming that eagerness of the polemical
mood which impels us at any moment to violate can
dour. While holding back from pen and ink for a
year or two, one may have come so to generalise
one's views as to the meaning of a controversy, and
as to its destined issue as must affect one's feelings
towards those who, on the opposite side, are urging it
forward. Although it is certain that I can never regard
with cordial feelings those who are employing con
spicuous talents with unwearied zeal in the work of
loosening the hold which salutary truths have upon
the minds of men; nevertheless the first risings of
instinctive resentment will have been checked when
I have learned to think of them as the agents in a
movement which is written in the book of fate, and
the beneficial issue of which I see to be near at
hand. The recent outburst of antagonism toward Chris
tianity may be contemplated by Christian men from
opposite points of view; as for example; I might,
with reason, as many Christian men do, look at this
modern "Infidelity" and "Impiety" with feelings of
dismay, disgust, and indignation, as a wanton outrage
upon society; and I might be wrought up to a pitch
of zeal, impelling me to make proclamation, "Who
is on the Lord's side? — who?" and then to vent
my feelings in terms that cover curses. There might
be reason in such a mood of mind as this; albeit it

RESTORATION OF BELIEF; 243

does not suit my individual temperament. When,
in so many family circles, one finds young persons of
intelligence and moral promise, who have thrown away
a well-established religious belief, taking in exchange
for it a contemptible sentimentalism — a mere dream,
that is recommended neither by logic nor manliness
of purport; — and when one sees that these victims
have fallen by arts of licentious sophistry; when, in
mingling with the artizan class in manufacturing dis
tricts, one hears men uttering blasphemies, they
know not how impious, which they have picked up,
as choice morsels from out of the Sunday filth with
which vile writers are supplying "the demand";—
when, beyond this> one listens to too authentic in
formation as to the spread of an unenglish disingenu-
ousness among educated men who are persuading
themselves to do on Sunday what they would scorn to
do on any other day of the week ; — when one meets
with persons of cultured taste who give an indulgent
ear to any sort of shining ribaldry that may help
them to shake off the remains of a troublesome " edu
cational prejudice" ; — when things such as these meet
the eye and ear on all sides, those whose own belief
is steadfast, and who know what must be the issue of
a national lapse into atheism, are apt to fire up, and to
make onslaught upon the authors of so much mischief,
and to do so in the temper of one who rushes in to
seize an incendiary by the shoulder.
But these very same facts may be looked at from
another and an opposite position. Yet in defining
R2

244 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
this other position some explanation is needed; for
one may easily be misunderstood on this ground by
nervous good folks. — A word briefly here, and more
onward in this Tract.
It is implied in the very theorem of Christianity, if
it be regarded as a body of truth sent down to work its
way in a world out of order, and if it is to offer no
solution of the dark problems of that world, that,
from time to time, it should evolve contrary schemes
of belief, or theoretic antagonisms, which draw their
life and meaning, and their intensity, out of itself.
Heaven's own truth will not fail at epochs to bring
the insoluble problems of this present evil world to
press with an intolerable weight upon the minds of
men — and usually upon the choicest minds. Those
deep principles of mundane regeneration which Chris
tianity has put in movement, and which it keeps in
movement by new impulses from age to age, often take
effect upon single minds, and upon communities, in a
convulsive manner, and almost with a mortal violence.
The Gospel scheme, if submitted to analysis, might
be shown to carry in its depths the yeast of these
periodic fermentations. Pardon me here a 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 if it could, would not have survived the
first outburst of them.
Christianity, until it has reached its next stage 
that of acknowledged supremacy in relation to human

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 245
affairs — cannot be imagined to live in it on any
other possible condition than that of passing through
frequently recurrent seasons of deadly conflict with
adverse principles, which, though the germs of them
are universally diffused, are never quickened except
when they come into collision with eternal truth. To
this subject, momentous as it is, and too little regarded,
I must again, in this Tract, call your attention ; for the
present I advert to it only for the purpose of showing
how these views affect the feeling I entertain toward
those who now stand forward as leaders of the move
ment which is to issue, as they think, in the over
throw of all Christian Belief.
The disbelief of these last days, so far as it is
a scheme of doctrine, may be shown to be a birth
of Christian doctrine. The Atheism, partly, and the
Theism, entirely, of the present time is a heresy, full
of Christian sap. By calling it Christian, I mean that
it has no meaning at all except that which it has
wrung from elements of Christian belief, brought into
collision one with another. Atheism, in these days,
is not, as of old, a metaphysic abstraction, or a cold
paradox; but it is a living creature, speaking with
a loud voice, and showing a ruddy cheek, because it
has drawn life-blood from that which can spare much,
and yet live. If the Gospel, the destruction of which
is so eagerly desired by some among us, were actually
to breathe its last, not one of the schemes of doctrine
which is now offered to us in its stead would thence
forward draw another breath. Universal nonbelief,

246 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
which is the death of the human soul toward God
and immortality, would instantly ensue.
But there is no fear of the coming on of an hour
of darkness, such as that would be. Impiety, while
it has Christian blood in its veins, will henceforward,
as now, start up to say its say, and to trouble our
love of ease. It will do so because Christianity itself,
which is now the only source of moral life in the
world, is. immortal, and will continue not only, aa
heretofore, to " satisfy her poor with bread," but to
send out broken meat to her enemies, to the end that
they may not starve. We shall continue, therefore,
both to Believe, and to contend with Disbelief; but
we shall not fall into Nonbelief.
This course of things is not merely in a logical sense
inevitable, but it is highly useful; it is indispensable
if not to the conservation of the Gospel, yet to the
restoration of its forces. Do you imagine that I can
so think of the good Christian folks of this present
time, as to their judgment, as to their intelligence,
or as to their conscientious diligence, as that I could
be willing to leave Christianity in their hands, undis
turbed and irresponsible? far from it. The work that
is needed to be done, from time to time, and especially
at this time, is of a sort which perfunctory good
intentions will never attempt, and which conventional
wisdom knows not how to set about. Let me here
speak with reverence: — God will perform this work,
and will call to it those who, as to their calling, will
work at it in the dark.

THE restoration of belief. 247
Just in proportion as there comes upon me a
deeper sense of the awful reality of the Christian
scheme, and of its bearing upon the welfare of the
human family, now and hereafter, do I feel distrustful
of the easy, over-weening, and egotistic Christianism
of Christian people. At the impulse of this uneasiness
I am fain to cry out, looking across the road to the
ranks of " Infidels and Atheists" — "Friends ! come over
and help us ; — set the house on fire, and then we shall
shake off our illusions, and do our duty."
The earliest developed of the beneficial results of
an outburst of Infidelity is this, that it compels intelli
gent Christian men to look anew to the ground on
which they stand, to sift the " Evidences," and thus
to regain logical possession of their religious persua
sion. This is well; and so is the second consequence
of such a fermentation — namely, the throwing off from
the Christian body, as expressed in the formularies
and the conventional style of Churches and commu
nions, sundry superstitions and superannuations, which
the "Enemy" in the heat of action has snatched hold
of and splintered, and which no one thenceforward
will attempt to restore to their places: these relics
are left to strew the field of battle.
But there is a result which is far more important
than either of these, consequent upon a time of out
spoken impiety, and of which impiety Christianity,
being, as it is, the only truth now extant among men,
is necessarily the object. This momentous interaction,
partly logical, partly moral and spiritual, is of this
kind: —

248 THE restoration of belief.
In the course of the controversy now in progress
a marked approximation is every day made, on both
sides, toward that point of intersection whereat the
two beliefs, the Christian and the Antichristian, must
come to a final issue. In the progress of debate we
are drawing on toward that ground — a very limited
space, which all men see to be the area whereupon
one question only shall remain to be determined, in
this way, or in that.
In a manner which is perfectly conspicuous, and
which no man of clear intellect can misunderstand, the
religious controversy of this passing time is bearing
us forward toward a single issue. The alternative,
the only alternative now in front of the cultured
branches of the human family, is this — Christianity
or Atheism. All lines of thought are visibly tending
in to this point : all men who are well informed, and
whose habits of thought are unshackled, have long
ago come to see this, or they are coming to see it, or
(for we should save a corner for the less robust) are
convulsively struggling to hold themselves off from it.
What I mean here by Christianity, is the Gospel,
in its plenitude and its amplitude, interpreting itself
in its own way, and speaking among men in a tone
of authority from which there is no appeal.
What I mean by Atheism I do not well know how
otherwise to define than by saying that it is the pro
position which stands last in logical order among those
which the human reason can put into words, intelligibly,
concerning the universe, or the compass of phenomena,
external and internal, with which we have to do.

the restoration of belief. 249
One feels that this alternative, and nothing short
of it, is near in front of us, because, on the one side,
those many ill-judged and crazy schemes for effecting
a compromise with infidelity, which of late have been
propounded by intelligent Christian men, all carry upon
them the indications of their origin in faultering belief,
in mistaken discretion, and in confusedness of brain.
We may be sure that no such slender devices as
these can have power to check that mighty movement
to which we are all of us committed, or can save us
from its issue. On the other side — the side of Dis
belief — the endeavours that are making by Theists
to pack and float a raft a-head of Niagara would be
purely matter of ridicule, if the consequences to these
schemers were not what they are.
We have reached our present position after leaving
far in the rear the ignorant ribaldry of the Voltaire
epoch. We have also now lately left behind us the
erudite whim of Strauss. Strauss, by general acknow
ledgment, has failed in his endeavour to solve the
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 and critical
argument, on the affirmative side, is found to be irre
sistible. This is the consequence which, by his failure,
this able writer has helped us to come to.
If there be any means of holding off from the alter
native above stated, it must be sought for among those
schemes of antichristian Theism which recommend
themselves by a shining exterior of refined spiritualism,

250 THE restoration of belief.
but which, rotund as they may seem on the senti
mental side, will not bear to be turned over, so that
one might look into them on the logical side. — There
are orders in the animal world that look gay and
beautiful — prone; but are insufferable — supine.
Such schemes cannot avail for the purpose intended
by their framers, because, as may easily be shown,
recent advancements in abstract philosophy have made
it impossible that they should any longer fence them
selves off, as toward their border doctrine — Pantheism,
or the worship of the universe ; and one need not take
much pains to prove that the boundary between
pantheism and atheism is like the margin of twilight
between day and night in the tropics — an ambiguity
that is passed in ten minutes.
Sometimes one wonders how it can be that educated
men should endure the humiliation of putting forth, and
of being looked to as the apostles of religious schemes,
which can claim no fitter designation than this, that
they are " Impiety scented and got up for the ladies."
When with a rude breath one has blown away the
perfumery, and with a ruthless hand has torn off the
millinery, what remains to any of these recent
theisms but the straw and shavings which the mass
of men will never be persuaded to treat as anything
better than rubbish? It will be of no avail to tell
them that it has been the stuffing of a god.
Truly it is not that "Natural Theology" does not
now, as ever,- rest upon its own firm foundations; or
that, in ascertaining these foundations, we are driven

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 251
to the shift of reasoning in a circle, alternately assum
ing our premises in Natural Theology, for establishing
Christianity, and anon using Christianity in making
good our Natural Theology: no such expedients as
these are called for.
But the case, as touching us at the present moment,
is this. During a lapse of years which need not be pre
cisely dated, as well the abstract as the concrete theistic
argument has insensibly moved itself forward far in
advance of the position which some of us remember
it to have occupied. That line of argument which
was accepted as sufficient and conclusive in Paley's
time, and which embraced ten thousand accumulated
evidences of power, intelligence, and benevolent in
tention, drawn from the material universe, and from
organisms, vegetable and animal, around us, is in
deed as valid now as heretofore, and as unassailable.
Yet it fails to meet the enlarged intellectual require
ments of these times ; for this argument does not even
furnish us with an entire Theology, and it scarcely
opens the path towards a Theodicy; much less does
it lay the foundation for a Worship, or give fixed
Bupport to an Ethical Doctrine. It wholly fails too
to reveal a Future Life.
On all sides, therefore, we now feel and know — and
it is strange that our predecessors were so little con
scious of the fact — that, for achieving these last-named
purposes (and unless they are achieved the argument
is barely worth what it costs) we must go much deeper,
and must look wider and further : our evidences, to be

252 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
conclusive against the recent Atheism, must embrace the
entire circle of facts presented by the world of Mind,
as well as by the world of Matter ; and we must bring
the stress of our argument to its bearing upon those in
tellectual and moral realities of which the reasoners of
past times seem to have had but a glimmering con
sciousness. Our Natural Theology must, as to its hold
upon our serious convictions, come home to the instincts
of the real life, that is to say, the life of the soul.
Now when we have done this — and we are driven
to do it by the irresistible current of thought, as
setting onward at this time — and when in the process
of doing it we have recognised as true, and have re
instated as authentic, the whole of our emotional and
moral instincts, its impulses, sympathies, aspirations; —
when we have assigned a place to our irradicable hopes,
and also to our equally irradicable misgivings and
alarms, and have thus constructed for ourselves a
Natural Theology worth the labouring for; — when, in
a word, we have provided ourselves with a Theology,
a 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 congregate, and to pay homage to the
Creator, Ruler, and Father, we then feel that any
longer to repel Atheism and at ihe same time to dis
card Christianity, is impossible. We have brought
ourselves so near touching upon the awful alternative

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 253
above mentioned, that to hold off from it, demands
an effort like that of one who is clinging by the
hands to the pediment 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 terms for abstract terms, it is a nice matter
to distinguish the one body of belief from the other.
When we have trod the Theistic ground as far as it
may be trod, Christianity is ready to collapse upon us,
and to challenge us to surrender. And this challenge
gets a deeper meaning at each step of our progress.
The Deists of the time gone by seem to have been
little conscious of difficulties which we of this time are
groaning under. It is amazing to see in how dry, cold,
and mechanic a style the writers of the past era, Chris
tian as well as antichristian, deal with those grave
and painful subjects which touch the modern mind to
the quick, and which well-nigh drive sensitive spirits
to despair. A trim, academic, syllogistic, and rotund
paragraph, indicating no genuine sympathy with human
suffering, no anguish of soul, no mortal conflict, not
even a man-like feeling toward our fellow-men, did
well enough for the finish-off of an argument attempted
for "justifying the ways of God toward man." The
" tenth head of discourse" in a sermon would afford
ample space wherein to propound and to dissipate all
reasonable 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

254 THE RESTORATION of belief.
many, if not the mass of minds. It is a better feeling
(whatever it may lead to) in so far as feeling is better
than apathy ; and as there might be a question whether
it would not be better for a man to hang himself in
despair, than that he should live on and die in sottish
indifference to facts which would make him wish him
self out of the world, if he were but conscious of them.
At this moment we may be quite sure that no
scheme of religious belief will be able to hold its
footing abroad in the world, or beyond the walls of
closets and saloons, which does not, in some intel
ligible 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
comfort, brutish as it is.
Our Theistic friends cannot do it ; and, while turn
ing their backs upon the Gospel, they are struggling
at desperate odds to keep at bay the last enemy in
the direction toward which they are looking. They
are asking — " Why may not we, as did our illustrious
predecessors, stand our ground, and enjoy our philo
sophic religion, while we spurn your obsolete Chris-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 255
tianity?" " You cannot do it, because we and you, and
all of us, have moved forward on to new ground. You
see that the Theologians of this time do not utter,
nor can they bring their lips to frame those heartless
syllogisms 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 very signifi
cant notice that the time is gone for ever, 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 effect in another
manner upon yourselves, and forbid your wrapping
yourselves in the fool's coat that fitted the broad
shoulders of your grandsires."
The Theists of this time might perhaps hold their
ground if their near neighbours the Atheists, who laugh
at them, would let them alone; but they will not let
them alone. They have found a sort of comfort and a
present ease in their abyss, which the Theist will never
enjoy while he struggles to keep his head above water,
and while he continues to look up to the sky.
Abstract questions are necessarily the same in sub
stance in every age ; and any attempted solution of the
difficulties that attach to such questions can vary but
little, except as to the order of the thoughts, and the
tone and the style of the language employed by an
individual writer. Inasmuch therefore as those stand
ing perplexities 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,

256 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
those who, at this moment, are propounding such
schemes ought not to think that they shall be more
successful than their predecessors. But unless they are
so, unless, in a very signal manner, they are more
successful, then it is certain that the human mind is
moving toward a ground where these ancient diffi
culties will gain a tenfold force. This should be well
understood: but the whole subject will come in its
proper place, if considered further on in the course
of this argument. I have adverted to it here, simply
for the purpose of showing with what feeling I re
gard those who, as antichristian men, I must speak of
as adversaries, but who are not yet Atheists.
In regard to the time that is near at hand, and as
a preparation for that one last convulsion which the
human mind must pass through, in making its choice
between Christianity and Atheism, it is not merely
desirable, but it is indispensable to the good issue of
the conflict, that Antichristian Theism should 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 impieties which
may any way be made to consist with its holding a
position at all against Atheism.
It may be thought that this preliminary work has
already been accomplished. I do not think so. I
can imagine something better to come than what has
hitherto been put forth by our hostile friends — the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 257
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 content with their own holdings
(which they cannot hold to) or of such as are flippant,
self-seeking, ambitious, and coldly vain — minds that to
win a clap, would not scruple to sink a continent. I
can hardly imagine that Antichristian Theism has in
deed completed its destined work while it is repre
sented by writers who show no such seriousness or
honesty of purpose as would lead them fairly to meet
the point of the problem as to the origin of Christi
anity, and to scorn transparent sophisms which can
serve a turn only among the uninformed and un
thinking — the consumers of "railway literature."
Especially we want to see what can be done in
making good a scheme of anti-christian anti-atheism,
by men who have that modesty and self-respect
which inspires respect for an opponent. On this
ground the entire class of modern infidel writers is
miserably at fault. Christianity, keeping its hold, as
it does, of the profound convictions of men who are
as highly cultured as any men, and who are as robust
in mind as any, and as fearlessly honest as any, it is
an ill symptom when a set of writers constantly affects
an innocent ignorance of any such fact, and are always
showing off their condescension toward the obtuse super
stitions that are prevalent in these "middle ages." *
I am apt to think that this affectation must nearly
have worn itself out by this time, and that men who
s

258 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 am heartily glad, for myself, that I am not
doing their work— although, alas! it must be done
by somebody. Toward some who manifestly have
known, as I have known, the pains of saddened medi
tation, my feelings are those of profound sympathy.
As to the flippant and the ambitious, it is easy to
forget them. As to one or two who, in a fit of moral
hallucination, have uttered revolting blasphemies, I
leave them in the hands of Him whom they revile^
and who once carried charitable hope to its utmost
boundary when He said, "They know not what they
do."

If it be seriously-minded and sincere men that are
to be addressed, then it may be demanded of them
that the Gospel should be listened to on the suppo
sition that it is true : and then, let it be proved to be
false, if that can be done.
And yet though I append this last condition, I
must not be so misunderstood as if I could imagine
this to be possible. Any such assumption I hold to be
monstrous; and even to this hypothetic statement we
can attach no meaning so long as we respect the
laws of evidence, and the principles of human nature.
But the Christian argument must be left to follow
in that course which is proper to the exposition, to
the due conveyance, and to the demonstration of any
other, and of every other system of proof in which
premises are assumed, legitimate conclusions arrived at,
difficulties cleared up, and counter-suppositions shown
to be untenable or futile.
Whoever charges himself with such a task as that
of conveying to the intelligence and reason of others
a system or body of truth — of whatever kind — must
be understood to have come upon his ground in some
such manner as this: that is to say — he professes to
S2

260 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
understand the subject of which he is to treat; and
those to whom he speaks must believe that he does
understand it, and that he is familiar with all parts
of it, including its most difficult problems. They 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, of
criticism, of history, or of physical science, that can
fairly be set forth and established, unless, formally or
virtually, as much as this is postulated on the one
side, and is cheerfully allowed on the other.
From this point onward, therefore, dropping a peti
tionary tone, and abstaining from those interlinear
circumlocutions which spring from the consciousness
of having to encounter a perpetual gainsaying and
hostile contradiction, I am to speak in the undisturbed
confidence that my position is good; and that it is
impregnable. From the acts and discourses of Christ, and, not
least, from the occult meaning of several of his para
bles, we gather, with more or less distinctness, that
his mission, as toward the human family, had, in his
own view of it, Three Purposes, each of which is, to
a great extent, irrespective of the other two, and
which, although they are not in fact disjoined, are yet
susceptible of interpretation, when taken apart. The
supernatural element of the Christian system — or that

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 261
body of miracles which is recorded by the four Evan
gelists — has a meaning which is peculiar in relation
to each of these three purposes, considered indepen
dently of the others; and in relation to each, and to
the entire scheme of which his ministry on earth was
the visible act, the miracles alleged to have been
wrought by him, in the course of it, are neither the
beginning, nor the end, nor the substance of that
scheme; and although they are inseparable from it,
they are adjunctive, and, in a sense, are incidental
to it. The supernatural element of this system, although
adjunctive, holds its position within it, unchanged by
the lapse of ages. If we have come to think of the
miracles of the evangelic history — supposing the entire
truth of the record — as events which long ago have
come to their end, as to their intention, and which
are now receding from our view, and are fading away
in the haze of a remote antiquity; — if we thus think,
we misapprehend (so I believe) the purport of the
Gospel, and lose sight of its perennial vitality. This
I shall endeavour to shew.
The three purposes embraced in the Mission of
Christ, as sent of God to bring about the wellbeing
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 expres
sions, and from the purport of some of his parables,
this assumption — That he knew himself to have ap
peared in the world to bring about, by means of

262 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
principles which he originated, or which he authen
ticated, 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 pre
sent 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
bring about this purpose of his mission just so far
as it could, in its nature, be brought about, by means
that are purely suasive; or, as we say, by moral
influences, apart from the auxiliary concomitance of
visible and political institutions, and of secular power,
or the setting up of an empire.
As to the second of these three purposes of Christ's
mission and ministry, a far more explicit reference is
made to it by himself than to either the first or to
the third. In truth it so stands out in his discourses,
and it so presents itself in his apologues, as might lead
us to suppose that it was the ruling purpose of his life,
and the reason of his sufferings and death, and that
which, when he had made it sure by his resurrection,
became fhe complement of joy in the forethought 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 gathering — call
it, if you will, an election — from out of the million
millions of the human family, and the conferring upon
these — whom he calls "his own" — the life divine, the

the restoration of belief. 263
life immortal — even a new and imperishable existence,
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 contro
versy. 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 un
ambiguous as they are; and on the other hand, that
matter of fact which, conspicuously, has attached to,
and has characterized, the course of events in all ages
and countries when and where the Gospel has, in any
measure, developed its energies.
The accomplishment of this second purpose, as of
the first, was to involve such means only as are purely
suasive — moral and spiritual, that is to say as distin
guished from such as are visible, political, and mun
dane. But then, more than this, it implies the presence
of a spiritual energy, going beyond the suasive force
of moral principles, or of audible teaching, and which
takes effect in each instance in a manner that is inscru
table, that is infallible, and that is analogous to those
acts of the Creative will which at the first filled the
universe with life, and which is now and always doing
the same.
As to the third of those purposes which we as
sume to have been included in the mission of Christ,

264 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
inasmuch as it is more occult than the first, and far
more so than the second, and as it touches the circle
of human duties and sentiments only in an indirect
manner, so is it very parsimoniously alluded to in his
discourses, and if anywhere affirmed didactically, the
conveyance is made in symbolic terms.
Brevity and indistinctness, in this instance, is what
we should look for, as proper in one who in truth is
what he professes himself to be. The Enthusiast or
pretender would either have made no such challenge,
or if he had made it, would have blazoned it in
hyperbolic style.
Gathering up with care from Christ's incidental
utterances, and from his apologues, the less obvious
import of certain passages, we infer that he professes
himself to have entered upon the stage of the world,
on the part of the Almighty — its Rightful Lord, to
deliver the human family from under the hand of a
lawless Usurper — to restore truth and order — to over
throw the tyranny, and to bind and expel the Tyrant;
and having done so — to " lead captivity captive."
The accomplishment of this third purpose of Christ's
advent involves or supposes on his part, 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 Sovereign and Judge: he is King of
Hades, and Master also of every spiritual race, as well
the loyal as the rebellious.
The accomplishment of this ulterior purpose of

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 265
Christ's mission, and the achievement of this conquest,
is to be brought about — so we infer — in such a manner,
and by such means only, as shall at once demonstrate,
and shall signalize, in the view of all, the intrinsic
force of Goodness, Truth, Rectitude, when, on even
ground, these immortal energies are matched against
wickedness, with its falsities, its subterfuges, its ever-
blundering intelligence — its own sophisms — and its own
malignant devices. This superiority of Good in its
conflict with Evil is to be exhibited under conditions
as favourable as may be to the party that is in the
end to be discomfited.
In thus sketching the outline of the argument which
I intend to pursue throughout this Tract, I profess it
to be my intention to show that the series of miracles
recorded by the Evangelists, consummated as they
were by the miracle of Christ's resurrection, occupy
a place of perpetual efficacy in relation, separately, to
each of the three abovenamed purposes of his mission,
as Saviour of the world, in a secular sense, as Re
deemer of his people, and as Conqueror in the world
of spirits. This series of supernatural events is, as I think,
altogether misunderstood as to its purport, when it
is imagined to have been an interposition requisite
for launching a New Religion in the world— and for
giving it an initial impulse; but which, now that the
Gospel has got its footing among the nations, has out
lived its purpose, and may, not only safely but con-

266 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
veniently, and with advantage, be suffered to fall out
of notice and to be forgotten.
Any such supposition as this — entertained as it
seems to be by some who profess themselves Chris
tians — is, in my opinion, an error which is the fruit of
modes of thinking that are shallow and nugatory.

THE FIRST INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS
ATTESTED BY MIRACLES.
We have said that Christ has entered upon the
platform of the human system — even of this secular
course of things — embracing the wellbeing of men
singly, and the welfare and progress of communities,
with the purpose of effecting thereupon a gradual, but
extensive and deep-working regeneration. As Bene
factor of those whose ordinary term of existence is
three score years and ten, and as the Reformer of
communities and nations which, although they have
longevity, have no after life, He gains a hearing for
principles the vitality of which is such that they ger
minate in the most rugged soils, and spring up and
bear fruit and scatter their seeds under the most in
clement skies.
These principles, contrary as they are to the selfish
impulses and to the ingrain desires of human nature,
are sought after for the very purpose of expelling,
and of utterly putting them out of the way of inter
ference with the better-loved interests of the day and
hour. Yet they live; and from time to time they

268 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
come forth with a fresh energy, even 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 themselves have brought into
a condition favourable to the impression that is next
to be made upon it.
It would seem to be a matter of course, at this
point, to specify those ethical principles, or as we
might call them, those edicts of the Christian system,
which are its characteristics, and which, so far as they
take effect upon the course of affairs in this present
life, do so, by universal acknowledgment, in the right
direction; that is to say, in the giving force to every
dictate of justice, 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 that, as to his ethical principles, Jesus of Naza
reth has advanced nothing but what had been already
said, and in a better manner, by the great writers of
antiquity; or even by Jewish teachers and Chinese
philosophers. If this be so, then, on all hands, it is
agreed that the morality of the Gospel is coincident
with principles held and professed by the leading
minds of the most cultured races. This is enough;
or if anything more were affirmed it would be in such
terms as these, it would be said — "We do not need
Christianity as a system of morals; for we all know
and feel whatever is good — whatever is simply of an
ethical quality, in the Gospels and the Epistles." This

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 269
then is enough; and it hence appears that Christ, as
the Reformer of the human system in its secular
aspect, takes up and authenticates those well-understood
principles which as soon as they are heard approve
themselves to the consciences of men, and which the
sages of all times have recognized and taught. This
is as it should be, and on this ground, it appears, there
is no controversy.
That the teaching of an ethical Reformer should
be consentaneous with the better feelings and con
victions of men, as embodied in the sayings and
teachings of minds of the highest order, is what we
should look for as the first requirement in one who
comes forward to regenerate a world that has fallen
into disorder.
The SECOND requirement in the qualifications of
such a Reformer is this — that, in giving expression
to these dictates of universal morality, he shall use
categorical forms, and not such as are conditional or
logical. His style is this — "I say unto you" — and
"this is my commandment." But then the necessary
adjunct of an authoritative tone, such as this, is — fhe
affording evidence that it has been rightfully assumed.
It has been usual, on the part of Christian advo
cates, to say, that Christ sets a bold foot upon the
ground of the world, as if proprietor of the soil, and
that he issues laws, as Master, not maxims as a sage.
In no case does he ask leave to be listened to, or
aim to conciliate attention. Love is in his demeanour
and in every act of his life; but stern law is on his

270 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
lips, and it is at our peril that we turn away the ear
from him who speaks as none but the " one Lawgiver"
may speak.
Christ, as founder of a system of mundane Ethics,
revises and overrules all bygone moralities, issuing
anew whatever is of unchangeable obligation, and con
signing to non-observance or oblivion whatever had
a temporary force, 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 era.
This is done, not by systematic codification, but by
the characteristic practice of instancing at the critical
points, and wherever an ambiguity is to be excluded.
Beauty of contour, in the human form, is secured by
the ligaments at the joints, and by adhesions of the in
teguments to the bony structure at places. It is so
that, in Christ's apothegms, in his apologues, and in
his pointed replies to sophistical questions, he imparts
a divine symmetry and majesty to his body of laws. —
Christ's law wears the grace of Heaven, though it be
firmly knit together as law must be if it is to hold
a place in a world such as this.
Is then Christ's morality a good morality as related
to the wellbeing of men in this present life ? You find
fault with it — raising objections on this or that ground.
But your individual judgment can have little signi-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 271
ficance nor carry much weight in this instance ; for an
appeal may be made from your frigid and captious
criticism to the judgment of mankind. It is true that
we all of us kick at Christ's law, and resent it, in our
worse moods of mind; but we all give in to it and
approve it, in our better moods. We defend ourselves
against its application to ourselves, and we look about
for pleas and grounds of exception whenever it stands
upon the pathway of our selfish or sensual desires;
but we are prompt to wish that we could arm this
same law with thunder when another's selfishness or
his passions threaten our peace or property.
In the course of those convulsions and upheavings
which the civilized western nations have passed through,
in the lapse of centuries, Christ's morality has still
floated uppermost, and has held its position in the
opinion of nations, as being better than any other
morality with which it might be compared. In the
social condition of communities those things which rend
the heart of the philanthropist, and which perplex the
statesman, are those in which Christ's law has been set
at naught, and in which, if it were applied to them,
sufferings would be mitigated — oppressions would wear
themselves out, or be renounced immediately; and so
the problem which baffles legislation would resolve
itself as if by spontaneous sublimation. Christ's law,
taking effect as the principle of social wellbeing,
underlays legislation by the substitution of deeper
motives for motives that are shallow; and it overlays
legislation by establishing conventional proprieties of

272 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
behaviour, and by diffusing a refinement and a sensi
tiveness, 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. Let Christ's law come into its position, first as
a fixed principle, and then as a suffused influence,
and thenceforward legislation would retire within its
limits as a needful authority in the defining of those
reciprocative interests and functions which are indif
ferent, as to morality.
We are so used to think of Christianity as a
Religion, related to the invisible and future life —
which doubtless is its essential character, that it de
mands 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, for power, and
for the intimate hold it takes upon the deepest prin
ciples of human nature, is, when set beside the ancient
theisms, what the summer's sun is as compared with
an arctic aurora.
Let us then take it so at least as far as a page
onward in this Tract, that Christianity is the product
of a human mind — a benevolent mind — intending to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 273
benefit mankind, and projecting the means of driving
off the vicious polytheism of the nations, and aiming
to substitute an efficient belief for the inefficient ab
stractions of Eastern and Grecian sages.
This intention supposed, then the author of Chris
tianity did these things following: — First, he brought
the Infinite and Supreme Being — the Creator and
Ruler of the world, clearly and prominently out from
the haze and the ambiguities of abstract or meta
physical speculation. Theism had laboured to do this
— it had yearned to do it — it had laboured and had
yearned on this ground to give some contentment to
the sorrowful longings of the human breast, and to
find and furnish a balm for its woes ; and also to skreen
from horrors the terrified imagination of guilty man.
Very slender success had attended any of these earnest
endeavours. The crowd of men was in fact sent back
from the walks of philosophy, and they were told to
procure for themselves what help they might, at the
hands of priests, and in frequenting altars and in be
sieging shrines.
Christ, and we now think of him as the author of
a secular religion, effected his purpose by bringing
men into immediate contact with a well-defined con
ception of a Personal Being, infinite, incomprehensible,
and yet near to each human spirit — to each spirit
a Father, "seeing in secret," and accessible by prayer.
It was this vivid revelation — call it now a merely
human conception, which by its splendour put out the
flickering candle of philosophy, and which by its force

274 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
overthrew altars, and sent gods and goddesses to
seek a home in the waste places of the earth; or, if
not so, they were left to shrink back into their own
marbles; or they vanished from the real world, and
were to be found only in the books that are now the
portion of schoolboys.
If Christianity be a religion for this present Ufe,
then it takes possession of the human spirit precisely
at those points of contact whereat a religion first makes
its entrance, and which are the very last holding-
places of religious feeling with men who are throwing
off their belief. — That is to say — the consciousness of
guilt — the consciousness of weakness, and the experi
ence 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 and present means
of obtaining deliverance — relief — solace. It is quite
true that there is a class of sophistically constituted,
or of sophisticated and debauched minds, that do suc
ceed in reasoning themselves out of these instinctive
beliefs: — there are men who, with a suicidal wanton
ness, having applied logical scissors to the nerves of
the moral life, do, and may, with truth declare that
they are conscious of no impulse leading them to look
to the supreme power or mercy.
So it may be with the exceptive few; but so it
is not, nor ever has been, with human nature, taken
at large. Man and woman in this their season of
hope and fear, of changeful weal and woe ; — man, while

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 275
he carries in his bosom a conscience, and while he is
liable to a thousand ills, must have a religion.
In giving men a religion, Christ, the Saviour of
the world, does not recognize, as if they deserved re
futation, any of those sophisms that contradict our belief
in Providence, and that would silence prayer, as if it
could be of no avail: on the contrary, he gives pro
minence, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, to
these three principles, which in truth might be regarded
as the characteristics of his system, namely — That there
is forgiveness of sins with God — That the welfare of
the individual man is watched over and provided for
by God our heavenly Father, even in relation to the
smallest of its elements; and That "the Father of spirits"
hears prayer, and yields 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 as
an earth-born and a secular religion, then, without in
stituting inquiry as to the truth of its doctrine con
cerning a future life (which inquiry can be pertinent
only when we regard it as heaven-descended) we are
bound to take account of those main elements of the
scheme — the promise and the threat of a world to come
— even a retributive immortality.
The way in which this promise and this threat are
propounded, and then the mode of. balancing both with
the instinctive sense of justice, in the human mind,
demand to be noticed ; for these adjustments have a
deep meaning, and have been too httle regarded.
t2

276 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
The future retributive life — the alternative of ab
solute weal, or woe, and each of these carrying with
it the momentum of a boundless duration — how have
these fearful conceptions been employed by the Author
of the Christian system? — an awful Eternity, brought
to bear upon a mundane religious institute ! and may we
not use this word, awful, as a fit adjunct not merely of
the threat, but even of the promise ? In truth can we
look onwards to an endless existence as our destiny,
under any condition, and not tremble? — or can this in
stinctive fear be easily exempted from feelings of dismay?
The word Eternity must here be accepted in its
popular sense ; for assuredly any terms or phrases that
are used in conveying to mankind at large a secular
religion, must be understood to bear none other than
a popular or ordinary interpretation. Whatever those
exceptions may be to which the more mature criticism
of a future time may give support, or whatever the
qualifications which a future biblical induction may
introduce, there will ever stand before Christianized
nations, in the teaching of Christ, an absolute alter
native, as awaiting those of the human family that
have come within its influence ; that is to say, a state
of permanent wellbeing, 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 277
men and women, such as they are, will be ready to
grant that no presentment of the future life which
should be ambiguous, or which should be otherwise
than absolute, on this side, or on that, would be likely
to take any effect at all upon the mass of minds.
The supposition of a future state which should have
no boundary between a condition absolutely good, and
the contraiy, would be snatched at as eligible on all
those perilous occasions when the imperious commands
of the sensuous and selfish life are balancing against
the vague and remote good of the life future. To
give force to motives acting under this disadvantage,
they must carry with them this idea of fixedness, as
belonging to the future retributive state.
But now it is certain that among those moral in
tuitions which are the hopeful distinction of human
nature, there is a profound sense of fitness, order, and
justice, which demands a doctrine of quite another sort,
as requisite for securing the equilibrium of the mind;
and especially of minds the most sensitive toward what
ever is good and true. Accordingly provision is made
in the Christian scheme for meeting and for satisfying
this moral necessity.
This is done distinctly and boldly in the teaching
of Christ, when, in various modes, he gives expression
to the doctrine of an exactly adjusted, and an evenly
meted out retribution — premium and penalty — such as
shall fall short in nothing of a balance-keeping re
compense of good deeds, on the one hand, and a
punishment, or an exacting of pains, on the other;

278 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
even such a retribution as shall approve itself to all
well-constituted minds; — only that on this side, con
siderations of ignorance or disadvantage shall be
admitted to mitigate, or to overrule the reckoning.
This doctrine stands before us, on the one hand,
quite as sharply defined as does the other doctrine
on the other hand; and it is this' last-named principle
that meets and satisfies those instinctive notions of
even-handed justice — of strict impartiality — of fitness
— order — truth, which (except where a debauching
sophistry has paralysed the moral nature) take 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 ? Logic-loving theologians have always seen, or have
believed that they saw, this contrariety; and to meet
the difficulty they have rejected, or evaded, or ignored
the one or the other of these prime elements of the
Christian ethics. Just here has been the reef upon
the sharp ridges of which systems of Theology have
lodged themselves among the breakers. Systems, such
as might show themselves with credit in colleges, and
might be shaped into symmetry by scientific manipu
lation, must of course profess to be able to steer clear
of these rocks, on either hand. Meantime humble-
minded, diligent, intelligent, and non-logical readers
of Christ's discourses and parables, instead of being

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 279
troubled by the consciousness of any such incongruity —
instead of finding his teaching to be incoherent, find
in it the rest of their spirits — find the principle of a
genuine harmony, or moral rest. On the one hand
the prospect of an absolute and irreversible alternative
of happiness or woe takes effect, with unutterable force,
upon the religious instincts, giving power and intensity
to the religious life. On the other hand, the counter
doctrine, which is not less distinctly set out to view,
meets the requirements of a healthy reason, and of
a conscience sensitive, well informed, and exercised
among and upon the duties and trials of real life.
But why does not Christ, the Teacher, himself fill
up the chasm in his religious system? why does he
not show us how two announcements, so dissimilar in
their apparent meaning, may be brought into unison?
Did he not foresee the offence which the logical reason
would here stumble at? As human teacher, or sage,
he would no doubt have foreseen the difficulty, and
in some way would have secured his scheme against
objection at this point. But he does not do this, even
by a word.
If we should be willing to think of Christ as more
than a sage, then we may readily supply ourselves with
an explanation of the omission, as thus. — We may sup
pose, either that the mode in which the two principles
shall take effect in the future life may be such as
could not be intelligibly presented to the human mind
in its present stage ; — or that, even if this might be
done, such a revelation must embrace more than could

280 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
now be set before us for our good. So long therefore
as Christ the Teacher of morals is listened to by man
kind, the two doctrines, each carrying all the force
that belongs to it apart from the other, will continue
to bear upon religious minds, and will preserve such
in a state of moral acquiescence.
We have spoken of Christ's doctrine of a future
life, and now are thinking of its threatening aspect, as
a constituent of a religion supposed to have sprung
from a human mind, and to have been contrived for
effecting purposes that relate to this present life only.
Thus regarded, I have said, the terms in which this doc
trine is conveyed must be accepted in their obvious
and popular sense. But ye., when they are taken in this
sense, they carry a meaning from the pressure of which
we are driven to seek relief — if it may be had, in
criticism ;< — or if not so, in some mitigating hypothesis ;
or if this will not help us, then we are tempted to re
ject Christianity on this very score. There is however
another source of help under the intensity of this weight,
which it is easy to foresee is likely to unfold itself in
the course of an improved biblical method; and it is
of this sort. —
— Already biblical criticism has reached a stage
immeasurably in advance of the position which it oc
cupied only a few years ago; and perhaps we ought
not now to be exacting much more of it than it has
actually accomplished. Yet there is a movement for
ward which is not merely desirable, nor merely possible,
but almost certain to come about. This is a thorough

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 281
and absolute emancipation of biblical interpretation
from the trammels that have hitherto been imposed
upon it by our polemical theologies. When once this
liberation has been effected, the utterances of Scrip
ture will have room to take a new hold of the human
mind — accepted as true in their simplest meaning; and
then a genuine counterpoising of moral and spiritual
principles will freely develope itself in a manner
that shall give rest to the heart, whether or not
a systematic coherence can be secured for scientific
theology. Let us apply this supposition to the case before us.
Why has not Christ's teaching concerning an im
partial and rigorous future retribution, touching all
men, hitherto taken the prominent place which of
right belongs to it in our theologies? Why? be
cause we could not allow it to come into any such
position without risk to the counter-doctrine of an ab
solute 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 sinister influ
ences shall be discarded with the contempt they deserve,
and when all such dotard fears shall be dispelled by
a salutary fear lest we personally be found flattering
ourselves among fatal delusions ; and then, this potent
Christian element, working its way into the inert core
of our now relaxed Christianism — touching and wound
ing our fond conceit of individual impunity — breaking
in upon tfye dreams of self-love, and discharging its

282 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
anodynes; and then a healthful, and a health-giving
apprehension, of which our own individual moral con
dition, and not the fate of other men, will be the ob
ject, dissipates, we know not how or why, the morbid
moodiness which had so often sent us on a bootless
search after some hitherto unthought-of and softened
etymology of the aicovio? of our Greek Testament.
Besides, this same style of faithful dealing with our
selves — an alarmed conscience holding a candle as
often as we read our Bibles — will bring before us in
distinct outline, the truth that, in its application to the
millions around us — even to the unprivileged and
the untaught millions of our brethren, a fearless in
terpretation of Christ's doctrine concerning the im
partial future retribution, avails immensely more in the
clearing up of the difficulties that have saddened our
meditative hours, than does, or than can, any imagin
able novelty of interpretation, even the most lax that
should be put upon an obnoxious phrase in the Gospels.
It has been usual to think of Christ's announce
ments of future punishment in relation to their direct
bearing upon morals; and the question is asked how
far this may have operated as a restraint upon fhe
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 thqugh it has

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 283
seldom been adverted to, is of unquestionable reality,
and may be traced in its operation upon every page
of religious history. As often as we are comparing
the ancient mind with the modern mind, and notice
the characteristics of the two very dissimilar moods
of the same human nature, this influence is recog
nizable. To this subject I have already adverted more than
once in these Tracts (as at pp. 74 and 84), and shall
now only bring it to its place in relation to my im
mediate purpose.
The ancient civilization, with all its great and shining
qualities — qualities which have secured for it an im
mortal glory, though not a perpetuity in fact, wanted
that which places our modern civilization upon a far
more solid basis, and which is the reason at once of
its perpetuity and of its progression.
In the social system of cultured antiquity there
was wanting an element of some kind — nor did it ap
pear 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 ar
rogance : — there was needed too in every man, a reason
for respecting and promoting the welfare of other men
which should stand good irrespectively of any estimate
of their individual merits : there was wanting some
principle, 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, without making him pugnacious, and make him

284 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
unconquerable 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 abject-
ness, and of grandeur of soul exempt from pride.
Christ, the Saviour of men as to this present life,
has supplied this want in an effective manner ; — for he
has planted in the hearts of those who trust him as a
teacher sent from God, a hope and a fear which sur
mounts, and which out-measures every other hope, and
which expels every other fear; — a fear too which gives
an irresistible prompting to courage, and which 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 they were,
which followed Jesus in his circuits through Galilee
and Judea, fondly dreamed of palaces and prince
doms which soon were to be their own, when in truth,
they were about to be sent forth upon a course of
suffering intensely severe. It was needful to arm
them for this unlooked conflict, and this requisite
preparation, as it included powerful motives of the
happiest complexion, so did it embrace a dread so deep
that it should be proof against the extremest wrench
of bodily anguish. On the one hand, this Teacher of
men had said — " Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom:" —
but on the other hand he had said, even to these his
' friends' — " Fear not them which can kill the body,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 285
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, ac
cording to the same Teacher, " their fire is not quenched,
and where their worm dieth not."
Now we of this age may expound as we think
fit these appalling words; or may extenuate these
phrases ; — or, if we please, let us cast away the whole
doctrine as intolerable and incredible. — Let us do so ;
but it is a matter of history, out of question, that
the apostolic Church, and the Church of later times,
took it, word for word, in the whole of its apparent
value. It is true that several attempts were made to
substantiate a mitigated sense; but it is certain that
the language of Christ, in regard to the future life,
was constantly on the lips of martyrs, throughout
the suffering centuries. Often and often was it heard
issuing from out of the midst of the fire, and was
lisped by the quivering lips of women and children
while writhing on the rack.
These were the actual fruits of Christ's stern doctrine
of the "wrath to come," and by such means as these
was it that the world was at length cleansed of the
pest of licentious gods and goddesses. But there were
other and later fruits of the same belief which have
been not of less moment, albeit less direct, and less
conspicuous. An unclouded belief concerning the future life, with

286 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 persua
sion 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
despotism, 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 287
facts, that this vast difference, with its incalculable
consequences, favourable as they are to the stability of
modern nations, is wholly 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 fami
lies 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 coun
tries they once filled.
But in relation to the place which woman occupies,
and to her qualifications 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,
as there can be no compromise on this ground, such
races must either acquire, with the new religion, this
redeeming instinct; or not acquiring it, 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 au
thority, it makes provision for securing the rights, the
influence, and the personal dignity of woman — not

288 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
indeed by legislating upon polygamy, adultery, con
cubinage ; but in a far more effective manner — in truth
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
their place without the help of laws.
Now we need look no further than this in search
of what should be regarded as the primary con
ditions of national wellbeing, and accepting the two
above specified as sufficient, might in the manner
following put our theorem into form. — Given, a com
munity within which many may always be found
whose individuality is at once marked and secured by
their possession of profound religious convictions, and
corresponding moral sentiments, which they will adhere
to and will openly profess, even at the peril or cost of
life itself: thus then we have a guarantee for religious
liberty within that community, and through that, of
civil and political liberty; and by means of these to
gether, there takes place the highest possible develop
ment of human nature, individually and socially. —
Given also a community within which certain evangelic
dicta, such for instance as that comprehensive rule issued
by Christ, as recorded by Matthew (v. 28), or that one
by his minister, (Hebrews xiii. 4) are held to carry
with them the awful sanction of Divine Law; and
then, as the sure consequence, we have a social system
which is sound at the core ; not false and putrescent :
we have a system within which the brightest and the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 289
best felicity which earth can yield to man shall be
enjoyed in thousands of homes: — we have a social
system within which, from thousands of sources — obscure
and illustrious, from cottages and from mansions, from
attics and lodgings, from shop parlours, and from
halls of splendour, there shall spring forth, and spread
themselves abroad perpetually, all the stern virtues,
and all the soft, warm, and heavenlike affections; —
all the smiling bright-eyed graces of innocent youth,
and all the tearful and yearning sympathies of matron
life ; in a word, all those bosom-heaving joys, and all
those soul-healing griefs which render earth such, that
men, while in the fruition of so much pure good, feel
and know that there must be a Heaven to come,
where earth's blossoms shall ripen into undecaying
fruits. But now as to all this Christ-given earthly good,
on what terms is it to be had, or in compliance with
whaf conditions is it to be made sure to any people?
Nothing more simple or certain than the reply: —
the one condition is this, that Christ, the " author
and finisher" of a Faith carrying with it these prin
ciples of Earthly Wellbeing, 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
u

290 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the convictions of such a community may securely rest.
Belief is the one condition which we need: grant it;
and the consequences above-named follow.
If Christ be trusted in — if Christ be feared as he
who shall come to be our judge, and if he be loved
as our Deliverer, he becomes at once " the Saviour
of all men," and is then the Giver, in this present
life, of Liberty, Love, Virtue, and whatever of peace
and felicity this life may be made to embrace in its
seventy years.
Now I come round to my immediate purpose in
this section, which is to show the bearing of the
supernatural element of the Christian system upon its
perpetual influence in the world, as the source, and
the impelling reason of secular good and of earthly
felicity, or of solace and mitigation, as the case may
be, to the human family. Remove the supernatural
from the Gospels, or, in other words, reduce the evan
gelic histories, by aid of some unintelligible hypothesis
(German-born) to the level of an inane jumble of
credulity, extravagance, and myth-power (whatever
this may be), and then Christianity will go to its
place, as to any effective value, in relation to human
izing and benevolent influences and enterprizes — a
place, say, a few degrees above the level of some
passages in Epictetus and M. Aurelius.
Whatever may be the present estimated value of
the best pages of classical antiquity, considered as a
moral force, now in operation for the good of man
kind — then the residual value of the Gospels and

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 291
Epistles — after the miracles have been driven off in
the furnace of "historic criticism" — will be (may you
not grant it?) about twice as much! In relation to
the support of vegetable and animal life, let us ask,
what would be the value of twice moonlight?
The Gospel is a force in the world, it is a force
available for the good of man, not because it is
Wisdom, but because it is Power. Whence comes its
power? Tell me whence it will come after you have
persuaded the world that, henceforward, in the book
of history, it must be catalogued along with Frauds?
It is a customary observation, or truism, to say
that the power of enjoyment and the power of suf
fering — necessarily correlatives — are directly as the
quantity of the intellectual and moral faculty, and
in proportion to the development of both. There
may therefore always be room for the question how
far, in a world such as this, abounding as it does
in sources of suffering, an increase of intellectual
and moral faculty, and the development of them, are
truly to be desired. A question such as this we leave
where it stands. But this is certain, that, in the
mechanism of human nature a remedial provision is
made for the simultaneous and proportionate enlarge
ment of those helpful sympathies which bind us to
gether, in weal or woe, and which widen infinitely the
interval between the cultured and morally developed
man, and the savage. Am I, and are those around
me, capable of enjoying and of suffering a thousand
times more than is my brother, the troglodite? — yes,
U 2

292 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
but then I may reckon upon receiving all sorts of
aids and solaces — substantial help and tearful love,
in my hour of suffering; while he is left in his den
to be eaten alive by wild dogs or vultures.
Nevertheless, while it is true that the benevolent
affections, and the natural impulses of sympathy do,
in a general way, keep pace with the expansion of
the intellectual and moral faculties, it is also true that
the force actually available in the world, at any time,
for the relief of want, and for the assuagement of
pain and woe, needs a constant momentum to be sup
plied to it from some energy that is foreign to itself.
It is the presence of this constant force, drawn from
a definite religious belief, which makes the difference
between the vague philanthropy of the best times of
ancient refinement, and the effective benevolence of
Christianized modern communities. But the momentum
supplied by the Gospel is a force which disappears —
which is utterly gone, 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. Let it be affirmed, on your side, that a miracle is
abstractedly impossible, and that no such event has
ever occurred in the world's history ; or that if it had
occurred, it could not have been so reported to us
as should now command our assent. Furthermore,
let it be said that the mass of mankind have in all
ages admitted such reports greedily, or in the exer-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 293
cise of little discrimination. No such allegations, or
the like to them, can affect my present argument.
The evangelic miracles have in fact been accepted as
true, and they are so accepted at this present time;
and the evidence in support of them is of such force
that it commands the assent of educated men, who at
the same time reject with contempt the entire mass
of that spurious stuff which crams Church histories.
This being the fact, the supernatural element of Chris
tianity 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 each cheek;
nor is it an ambulatory wisdom, nor is . it a schirrous
humanity, grown upon political economy ; but it is a
calculable resource, occupying a principal place in the
estimate of a people's means of regeneration and 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: Dis
belief is the azote of the moral world.
Whether it be gladly and cordially, or grudgingly
and formally, men on all hands do yield themselves,
their personal services, or their purses, or both, to
the assessments of authoritative Christian benevolence.
To some extent the purest and most heavenlike im
pulses, and to a great extent conventional practices,
feed Christian charity, public and private, and keep

294 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
it agoing; but both alike take their rise from a belief
which is held to carry with it the weight of Divine
law — law that shall be valid in a future life.
Instead of thinking of so mixed and ambiguous a
mass as the national mind, let us now fix our atten
tion upon the restricted field of a Church-going com
munity, in a country like England. The minds that
fill this narrower field may be distributed into three
classes, as thus: there is, first, the large class of the
inert, comprehending the thousands, young and old,
who yield themselves, in various degrees of ductility
or malleability, to the forces that are brought to bear
upon them. The second class includes the smaller
number of the repugnant, or recalcitrant, who are held
within the Christian-charity pale by nothing better
than secondary or sinister motives. These are those
who are restrained from flagitious evil, and who are
compelled to take a share in what is good, by motives
that are ready to snap at any instant. Then there
is the third class — the true, the loving, the heart-
whole, the believing; — those whose presence is the
life-blood of the body ecclesiastical, spiritual and
moral. Now with these three clearly distinguishable classes
in view, as filling churches — side by side once a-week
in pews — let me imagine that we had the power to try
the two experiments following : —
First, let it be that, from some hitherto unsuspected
source, there has come up evidence, palpably contra
dictory of the Gospel history, as to its supernatural

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 295
element. A flaw in the evidence has been brought
forward — a flaw of such a kind as leaves no place
for explanation. This discovery so acts upon the
Church-going class as that the religious persuasion of
the body suddenly collapses. Belief is gone; that is
to say, all feeling toward Christianity as a revelation
from God, miraculously attested, and having a valid
claim to our reverential regard, has ceased. We have
still in our hands the very same Text with all its
excellent maxims, and its elevating sentiments, and
its eloquent passages. But the parchment no longer
entitles us to an estate — the parchment no longer
alarms us with the threat of future pains.
The Church bell goes the next Sunday morning
after this fatal discovery has been noised abroad, and,
scarcely knowing why, the congregation obeys the call.
But at a year's end shall we find these same pews
filled with families, taking a part in worship, and
listening to a preacher? I think not. In one such
Church there will be enacted a sensuous theatric super
stition ; — in another a lecturer will take his turn ; and
there will be a platform, a moderator, and a debate;
and the question will be — I should blush to put it in
words, for I fancy of what quality that question will
be. You will comfort me by the assurance that the
pulpits from which fanatics have been driven will
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 abstract
truths — pure Theisms. Yes, and so may a man employ

296 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
himself in carving a block of granite with a penknife,
or in moulding a mass of clay with a straw.
You have lost your standing of unmeasured hope
and fear, grounded upon an attested message from
God; and now what has become of the inert multi
tude? Do you think they will be patient listeners
to your Spinoza Gospel ? or will they comprehend your
Hegelian nihilism ? I think this mass will have gently
subsided into its own native slough of easy, pleasure-
loving sensuousness and sensuality.
The repugnant and the ungovernable, where are
they ? Lately, and so long as religious opinion hemmed
them in, they were restrained or abashed to a great
extent. But now they are told that all shall be well
with them in the end — that the alarms of conscience
are nugatory misgivings, which should be treated with
sulphate of quinine and a shower-bath. They are
assured that philosophers, though they are not agreed
upon the question whether " absorption " or " annihi
lation" is to be the next stage of the "I" or the
" me," yet are unanimous in the opinion that the one
or the other of these desirable issues awaits us ; and
certainly not the fabled immortality of the Christian
superstition. I ask you — and I ask you to give me an outspoken
and truthful answer to this question — whether, in the
now actual state of abstract Philosophy, as taught
among those who reject Christianity, any announce
ment that should be morally better than this can be
made when you convoke the Church-going inert mul-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 297
titude 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 these
sounds of dismay first fell upon their hearing. Their
hearts broke at the blow. They can no more lift a
hand in works of charity ; they can no more set a
foot forward upon the flinty path of self-denying love.
The wretched and the hungry and the sick call for
them ; but they are as the dead that hear not.
But I now imagine a contrary course of things, not
a sudden and general enhancement of religious feeling,
arising we know not whence or why, and after a
while subsiding; but what might fitly be called — a
Restoration of Belief; that is to say, a confirmed
rational confidence in the Divine authority of Christi
anity as attested by the miracles recorded in the
Gospels. In what manner such a renovation of the belief of
an instructed people might be spoken of as likely to
come about, I need not now stay to inquire. It is
sufficient to say that whereas the critical and historic
argument in support of this belief stands at this time
intact and valid, having of late years passed through
the severest process of adverse analysis, almost any
incidental occurrence, almost any casual coincidence
turning up, unbolted for, on the path of the critic or
the antiquarian, which should arrest attention and fix
it upon the facts of the evangelic history, would suf-

298 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
fice 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 the awakening
and rivetting of attention upon that which has long
been in our hands. In a pitchy-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 debated, and denied, that
they have reached the principal square of a city: — at
the instant a flash of lightning reveals the broad fronts
of palaces, with a background of domes, spires, castles ;
and thus all argument is at an end. — I think that at
this very moment, when a murky cloud of atheistic
darkness has settled itself down upon continental Eu
rope, the skirts of which chill these islands, the inci
dental coming up of any corroborative facts, within
and upon the walks of historical criticism or of science,
which should engage the attention of educated men,
would be enough to dissipate this gloom, as affecting
ourselves, and to refresh and restore our confidence
in the Truth which, as a nation, we profess.
But grant only such a refreshment to be possible,
and imagine it actually to have taken place, and then,
as if awaking from a troubled dream, as if shaking off
a lethargy, we feel that the unseen and the future,
as set before us in the Gospel, are near at hand, and
that this future is what awaits each of us at every
instant. Now the consequences, personal and social,
of such a return to a vivid Christian Belief all go over

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 299
to the side of those energies which promote and con
firm our individual wellbeing, and the welfare of the
community; that is to say, Christ becomes, at once
the Saviour of the living the moment when his claim
to be such is assented to in the world. And when
this claim is allowed, then the miraculous attestations
upon which it rests come into a direct causal con
nexion with that earthly blessedness, of which the
Christian system contains the elements.
Without calling upon the imagination for aid, we
may trace this connection till we come to facts that are
now under our eye: we begin to follow the links of
this chain in that hour when, as the sun was going
down behind the Galilean hills, and the waters of the
lake were darkening, a transaction had place which,
from that moment to this, has never ceased to yield
its results in the form of ponderable and calculable
charities, whence the hungry and wretched throughout
all time since have drawn supplies.
Jesus seeing the multitudes, had compassion on
them, because they had continued crowding around
him, day after day, until their stores were spent. — He
marshalled them in companies— for He was a lover of
order; He blessed the bread that came to His hand,
and from that hand distribution was made until all
were 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

300 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
that at any time calls up compassion. This is the
doctrine of this history. Next comes its legislative
import. To find this we turn over a page in the
Gospels, and there are forewarned that in the closing
act of Christ's administration of mundane affairs this
should be held to be a valid judicial test of character —
" I was an hungered and ye fed Me"; or, on the con
trary, " I was an hungered and ye gave Me no meat."
If this be the rule of the future judgment, then the
feeding of the four thousand is not merely an exem
plification of benevolence, which we may do well to
imitate ; — it is much more.
But whence comes this further and deeper meaning
of this instance ? It springs directly from the miracle.
If this history be true, then are we all yet to be dealt
with according to the above-named rule or law, which
we find to be in that case made and provided.
Now through all the years of these eighteen cen
turies past, this history has been accepted as true — and
moreover the judicial inference has been 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 administered by "committees" — the crust given
at the cottage-gate — the alms, in ways innumerable,
through which, at the prompting of natural sympathies,
strengthened, deepened, enforced by the Christian rule,
and by men's belief in the Christian future, the un
blessed — the luckless, the unhelpful, the feeble, the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 301
decrepit, the diseased, the maimed, the blind, the deaf,
the insane, receive such help as their several cases
call for, and admit of, and which the hand, heart, and
purse of their fellows may 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; say seven thousand altogether:
now if we take each unit of that number, and give it
a place at the head of hundreds of thousands, we shall
still fall short of the truth in computing the hosts of
the needy who, in the direct line of moral causation,
have, through the course of time, eaten their bread
daily from those Galilean 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 mere teaching ; — but legislative teaching.
Now there is a feeling which is natural, and there
fore not in itself to be reprehended, impelling us to
ask that where legislation carries with it the most ex
treme consequences, touching us individually, the au
thentication should not come to us remotely, or be
attainable inferentially only, but that it should come
home to every man's consciousness, either through his
senses or his understanding, in a mode that shall be
unambiguous and categorical. Hence the demand so
often repeated — "show us a sign from Heaven."
"Give to w_— even to the men of this generation, a
proof that the things written in the Book are sure,
and that we shall find them so hereafter."

302 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
I need not here reiterate the customary replies to
this demand, and which, if fairly weighed, should I
think be deemed valid and sufficient. But while, as
now, we are thinking of Christianity as a secular re
forming force, intended by its Author to take effect
through the lapse of ages, then I see, in the mode
that has been chosen for establishing the authority of
the system in the minds of men, throughout all time,
a proof, not merely of a profound knowledge of the
structure and laws of the human mind; but also a
foreknowledge (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 barbarism and
of popular ignorance, and of its attendant credulity,
genuine miracles could scarcely, under any conditions,
be made to offer themselves as infallibly distinguished
from the spurious; but unless they did so, their legis
lative 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 is
congruous with it; and I can look at it calmly, in its
own light; it does not put me aghast. But then I
have no habits of thought, I have no discriminative
temper, impelling, or indeed enabling me to deal dis-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 303
cretively with the wonders that are daily reported and
shown off before me. The genuine miracle, therefore,
would retain little or none of its distinctive force.
If from that twilight age I come down to these
days, even to the times of Laplace and of Playfair,
in which Science bears sway, and when Philosophy
is in the wane, or is even scouted — at such a time,
the occurrence of a miracle would be to me a shock
or a violence, because there is nothing of homogeneous
quality in my present intellectual condition. Whether
I will or not, I am now governed, and in truth am
overawed, by the dry, rigorous, and exceptive temper
of Science, and by the soul-less and boastful mood of
mechanical achievement. Doing homage, as I cannot
help doing, to this spirit of the times, the super
natural has moved off far beyond my utmost range
of thought. But let me not forget that this now-upper
most mood is the mood of a period only : it is not
to be thought of as if it were a normal condition of
human nature; far from it! Aristotle is not a model
man; it were better to take Plato as such. It is u_-
deed a great thing to resolve nebulae, and to construct
steam navies, and to convey thought over land and
across oceans, and round the equator upon galvanic
wires : — these things are glories if we are comparing our
own time with any times that are past: but they are,
and they ought to be accounted woeful disgraces if we
hear them boasted of as feats that symbolise the powers
of the human mind in its ultimate and highest possible
condition! If, in the next age, Philosophy should

304 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
dare to breathe again, and should become bold enough
to teach humility to Science, then man — spiritual and
immortal as he is — might be trusted to witness miracles
anew ; and thus might step forward into the place that
becomes him, where he would calmly hold correspond
ence, as at the first, with a stage of the universe
higher than this, and would be permitted to look on
ward 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 con
sistently reasonable, and acquire the habitude of yield
ing themselves implicitly and almost involuntarily to
the conclusions of an authenticated practical logic, they
will gladly accept, as best for them, the unchanging
and the unchangeable certainties of historic evidence;
and being content with these, will cease even to desire
recurrent revelations, as from the unseen world.
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 far 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
ambiguity still attaching to portions of the evangelic

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 305
writings should be dispelled; while new corroborations,
such as in the nature of things spring up whenever a
genuine history is subjected to severe scrutiny, are
continually presenting themselves : — this species of aug
menting certainty, coming in upon the reasoning faculty
in a mode the most congruous with it, in its present
Btate, 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 ex
posed to the factitious excitement of non-christianized
intellectual society, or if when, well satisfied with earth's
choicest delights, I so rest in them as to forget the
life future in the flowery paradise of domestic sweet
ness — if at any such time I suddenly awake to the
infinite peril of losing my hold of immortality, what I
should ask of 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 stringent conviction that
this record is true, and that in those wonders the hand
of the Almighty was indeed stretched out.

Just now we are all of us saying it, and we are
saying it under the impulse of the most diverse and
opposite anticipations, that the world, or rather, those
members of the human family that are progressive, x

306 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
have, within these few years past, come into a posi
tion that is new, and that is full of promise. New
conditions, marvellous indeed, attach to the mere me
chanism of common life; — but more than this, new
views ofthe ends and purposes of the social structure
have come to be entertained, and have possessed them
selves of leading minds; — deep sympathies and solici
tudes, which were barely present to the consciousness
of any in the last century, take effect upon thousands
of sensitive and benevolent minds in this. The rudest
and most ordinary impulses of worldly interest, which
heretofore wrought their purposes in their own style,
and came to a pause when they had attained their
end, have come of late — no one can tell why — to under
work purposes of a higher order, and thus, like peasants
trudging along a miry road with royal despatches
bound in their girdles, they are diffusing blessings,
where heretofore they had been recognised only as what,
in guise and speech, they seem. There is nothing
moveable, that is not astir; every social interest is in
its crisis : — the sedimentary deposits of past ages are
heaving up, and are dislocated. History has written
out a long chapter of man's past fortunes, and a new
leaf is even now rustling between her fingers.
Thus far we are agreed; but not at all agreed
either as to the principles under the guidance of which
the proximate course of events shall proceed, or as
to the issue of the movement. On this ground an
extreme disagreement takes its rise. Two roads,
offering themselves as the future highway of the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 307
nations, diverge at this point. You are straining
the eye in looking along one of these ways: my be
lief, as a Christian, is directing me to look along
the other. What the precise grounds of your antici
pations are, if warranted by facts, or if they be better
than gay reveries, I do not know, and need not in
quire: — whether they are bright or gloomy I do not
know; perhaps they are alternately the one and the
other, for this is likely to happen when theories which
we would wish to cling to are contending in our minds
against the uniform testimony of experience.
As to my anticipations, though they are steadily
bright, they are not unmixedly so, far from it : they
much resemble one's prospects for a day's journey
when, though the barometer has been slowly rising
all night, the morning hour is much overclouded.
I occupy two independent grounds of divination : the
first is a purely secular calculation of that course of
events which seems not improbable — all things now
present being taken into the account ; but my second
source of conjecture, as to the future, is a sketch of
the world's way onward, which has been put into my
hand from above, and which I look into with confi
dence. What I distrust is, not the sketch, but my own
hastiness in reading off the lettering.
Yet assuredly I am liable to no such overweening
delusion as this — that I should sit down, with the pages
of Isaiah, Daniel, and St. John before me, and should
attempt to write the Newspapers ten years in advance !
This is a folly which has stood in the way, hitherto, of
x2

308 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
a warrantable use of the prophetic writings. I am
no fortune-teller for Czars and kings, and have no
wish to peruse the palms of the " great men and the
captains;" but, from the general import, or, as we
colloquially say, from the drift and upshot of the pro
phetic writings — those of the Hebrew Scriptures espe
cially, I gather such things as these — and in specifying
them, every diligent reader of the Bible will at once
recollect the passages to which I might refer; and as
to others, a foot-note of references would be thrown
away. — I look forward to a time when national dis
tinctions of race, language, and geographical location
shall continually be melting away, at least so far as
they may ultimately be obstructive of the brotherhood
of the human family. That centralization — apart from
universal empire — which a true understanding of the
conditions of social wellbeing tends to bring about, and
which it is now in course of bringing about, is, I think,
embraced or implied throughout the prophetic writings.
On the same grounds I look for a future time when
Right for the many, or, better expressed, when Right
for all, shall be the sovereign and irresistible principle
in every community. As to Right for the many, it
has taken to itself a conventional meaning, which differs
little, if at all, from a periodic overthrow of society,
such as may give the undermost class their time of
plunder. But Right for all, means social stability ;
and this one idea of stability, as opposed to anarchy
and to periodic convulsions, meets us everywhere on

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 309
the prophetic pages. Then, as the consequence of this
my first anticipation, I look for a time when the material
welfare, or, as we say, the earthly and daily comfort
and enjoyment of the many — or let us rather say of
all, so that we may exclude that banditti meaning
which radicalism clings to — when this well-doing for
all — this secure holding of the most needful things of
life, shall be so much thought of as shall in fact realize
it in a continually more and more complete manner.
Between the two co-operative influences of an iron
sense of right and justice on the one hand, and of
humanizing and soft-hearted sympathies on the other,
an intense feeling shall pervade the social mass, under
the operation of which, want — still incident as it must
be to man — and squalor, and houseless discomfort, and,
what is worse, cellared wretchedness, and disease —
the child of filth, shall always be in process of subli
mation, and shall be driven off, as one may say, from
the social mas3, by its high internal temperature. A
strong feeling of uneasiness at the sight or thought
of privation and bodily miseiy shall be always ridding
the world of these ever-recurrent evils. I look for
a time, not fabulous and impossible — not rosy and
celestial, but earthlike and sunny, when every man —
absolutely secure from violence, and moderately at ease,
shall sit, in home style, under, or near to, as he likes
best, his vine and fig-tree, none daring, or even wishing,
to make him afraid. I do not look for a time, on this
earth, when there shall be no surgeons' work — no
Hospitals, no Infirmaries, no police; but I do believe

310 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 — eternal shame upon Manichees, upon As
cetics, upon Fanatics of all sorts — "manifested His
glory " first, by being a willing guest at a wedding,
and then and there showing that Creation is His own
— when He shall bless the world by bringing at
once His iron sceptre of righteousness and His law of
love to bear upon the temporal good of all men. I look
for a time, when He who is "King of Peace" and "King
of Righteousness," shall rule the nations under both
titles ; and when, as a consequence of the establish
ment of uncontradicted Truth, and of Reason, safe from
sophistry, and of Right, bowed to and enforced, there
shall be abundance of earthly felicity, to last until this
planet has wound up its destined story.
In the course of those events that have marked the
years of this current century — that is to say, those
ostensible matters which history takes account of — I
scarcely discern any indications of the coming on of
such an era of mundane welfare. One may imagine,
to-day, that things are taking a turn in this better
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 clearly, if at
all, foreshew the golden age at hand, yet it is true that
those who have been watching the unrecorded move
ments of the human mind — in Europe, throughout

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 311
these fifty years, and who have been used to_ let down
a line into the under-current, and have noted its shift-
ings, have come to think that those preparations — in
tellectual, 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 a rapid rate.
I shall risk nothing on ground where it is so easy
to fancy this and that, just as may suit one's purpose
in an argument. I shall put into your hand none of
that advantage which you would so soon snatch at,
if I were to venture forward a few steps on this path.
There is, however, one of these preliminary move
ments which strictly belongs to my present subject,
and to which, a second time (p. 256) and in concluding
this section, I will advert. What I mean is that work
ing off of the anti-christian and atheistic philosophy
which is now in such active progress.
You and I are just now looking at Christianity
from the same level: — you are regarding it as an in
vention of man, because, as you say, you see in it no
marks of a higher origin : — it is, you think, a scheme
of belief and of morals which two or three Jews of
the times of Tiberius and Nero may easily be thought
capable of concocting. This is your belief, and I am
so thinking of it (monstrous hypothesis !) to serve a
momentary purpose in an argument.
Now while forcing myself into this false position,
and persuading myself that the Gospel asserts nothing
which we shall find to be true in the next stage of our

312 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
existence,, then I am perfectly certain that, on mere
grounds of secular philanthropy, nothing is so much
to be wished for as the spread, the corroboration, the
Restoration of this Christian Belief. I am perfectly
certain that a nation has an infinitely better prospect
of coming into the enjoyment of peaceful good, while
holding this belief, than it can have in rejecting it,
and in taking in its stead — what? — Tell- me, I pray
you, what there is to be taken !
At the impulse of this firm persuasion I now there
fore exult in looking on while the process is in pro
gress which shall issue in the final engulphing of the
several anti-christian Philosophies which are at present
making a noise in the world. Each in its own way,
and all together, these schemes are forging themselves
down the slimy incline that shall shoot them, one and
all, into the bottomless slough of exploded and for
gotten absurdities.
You are acquainted, I may presume, with the course
of abstract speculation in modern times, from Spinoza
down to these days of the Positive Philosophy. Now
if we both of us lay aside every lingering feeling of
religious anxiety — if we think of Theologic Science just
as we think of any one of the physical sciences, then
it is impossible that we should differ as to what must
be the issue of the present course of reasoning on the
road of Disbelief.
We see — and do you not see it as I do, and smile to
see it ? — we see intelligent and amiable men struggling
to keep their footing on some ledge, short of the gulph :

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 313
— rosy-cheeked, honey-lipped gentlemen, they are, who
would gladly keep entire a Theism — patched with
borrowings from the Gospels. But how do they shift
their articles of belief, from year to year ? At one time
they think they should like a " Resurrection of the Dead,
and a Future Judgment;" but anon they come to
think not so well of these articles as once they did ;
or it has been demonstrated to them that any such
persuasion involves the " supernatural," and cannot
be retained unless they will choose to stand where
they would be in hourly peril of becoming Christians.
It is well for us that there is always within the pale
of intelligence a large class of minds that, by fault
of nature, want the analytic force which would enable
them to ascertain the inevitable issue of the lines of
thought they are pursuing. Without these minds an
awful chasm would yawn between Belief and Disbelief;
but these gentle spirits bridge it over.
You well know that the endeavour to overthrow or
to get rid of Christianity on the ground of historical
criticism, has utterly failed. The historical problem is
still unsolved on your side. You know, moreover, that,
if certain positions are abandoned, which, if they are
retained, we must in the end surrender ourselves to
Christianity; then the alternative, which is as sure as
any conclusion in science, is, a choice between Material
Atheism, in its most grossly expressed form ; or, Ideal
istic Atheism ; and this latter, if it has any meaning
at all, may be summed up in some such manner as this ;
— " Whether there be any existence other and beside

314 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the ' Ego,' I do not know ; or if there were any such
second being, I could never come to know it. But
then I do not know that I know 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."
Putting out of view a proper religious regard for
the individual men, I thoroughly exult in standing on
one side as spectator of this rush of our "Leading
Minds" "down this steep place" into the gulf. The
upshot of Abstract Speculation on the side of those
who reject the Intuitive Principles of human reason,
and of the moral constitution of man, has now fully
shown itself to be a wordy nothing which, though it
still clothes itself in sublime verbiage among our Teu
tonic neighbours, will never, in these lands of common
sense, fail, after a little time, to be rejected with in
dignant contempt as naked nonsense.

THE SECOND INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS
ATTESTED BY MIRACLES.
Christ, the Saviour of the world, made no formal
profession of His intention to do what He has actually
done, and is now doing, for its benefit. He did not
plainly say that He had come to civilize rude nations —
to humanize savages, to abrogate slavery, to abolish
polygamy, to bring into disuse judicial torture, to rid
cities of the sanguinary exhibitions of the amphi
theatre, 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 nations, when it is allowed
to take effect upon them in its own manner, we turn
anew to the record of His sermons and parables, and
there, without difficulty, we find the efficient principles
of all these silent reforms, and can trace each of them
separately to its source, in this or that word of power
— precept, or instance.
It is quite otherwise when the same Person comes
to be regarded in His character as the Saviour, not
of men, as occupants of seventy years, but of man as

316 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
immortal; and so as the Redeemer of those who, to
the world's end, shall be willing to accept immortality
at His hands. On this ground there is no doubt or
ambiguity as to the purpose to effect, which He came
into the world. He came to seek and to rescue those
who, in every age and country, shall " hear His voice "
— the voice of the "Good Shepherd," and hearing it,
shall set forward upon the path which He trod, and
which He opened for them, and so shall enter with
Him upon the bright fields of immortality. The
Christian scheme, looked at on this side, wears an
aspect of the most determinate simplicity. On this
side no mystery attaches to the language or professions
of the Saviour; the mystery is 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
thoughtfulness, staggers the reason, and which, when
brought to take a bearing upon those who are now
walking side by side upon the smooth path of domestic
fondness, rends the heart, and quite bewilders the
moral instincts.
And yet, if we find ourselves entering upon a scene
where thought and meditation fail to guide us, we
soon find that there is no way of retreat, and that our
only course is onward, following the beckoning of
Him whose leading is ever toward the light. And now
as the scene is shifted, so does the Person stand re
vealed in another manner. — Let us pause for a moment,
and well consider what it is that is before us.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 317
— It is my steadfast conviction that Christianity
will not henceforth maintain its ground, as related to
the present intellectual condition of instructed com
munities, so long as " Christian apologists " (so called)
take up a position upon the " outworks," or spend
their efforts upon the well-meant but fruitless endea
vour to put forward the " Historic Evidences " apart
from that principal truth, which forms the sub
stance of the Gospel. So long as this Principal Truth
does not occupy its due position in the mind and
faith of the writer, and so long as it is not boldly
presented to the mind of the reader, there is a con
sciousness, on both sides, of an interior incoherence
in the system itself: there is a painful and perplexing
feeling of incongruity, which sets these evidences a
jarring, as well in a logical as in a moral sense, one
against another.
If this Principal Truth be A TRUTH, then, to mis
apprehend it — to hold it off, as if it might be accepted
or rejected at our pleasure, while yet the historic
evidence is admitted to be conclusive and entire — is an
error fatal to the argument, logically, and of the worst
tendency as to the reader's mind in a religious sense.
For my own part I could not attempt, and in fact
should fail to have any motive sufficiently impulsive
for attempting, to set forth the Christian evidences on
any other ground than that of an amply expressed and
unexceptive orthodoxy. The use of this term, which
carries with it a clear and ascertained historic meaning,
saves many circumlocutions; it excludes ambiguities

318 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and it exempts a writer, who wishes to keep clear of
what would be a 'theological or exegetical argument,
from the necessity of giving expression, in his own
terms, to his own individual faith. No further expla
nation need be asked for by the reader from a writer
who ingenuously declares that he professes, as his
Belief, the several articles of the Nicene Creed.
Do we hesitate to commit ourselves to a Belief,
grasping, as this Creed does, conceptions which the
finite reason labours in vain to apprehend? Yet be
fore we draw back, let us look to the alternative : let
us inquire whether we will commend ourselves devoutly
and joyfully to a Bright Infinitude, or will wander
forever among schemes of Philosophy, or systems of
religious belief, to not one of which, hitherto, has this
same Reason, with all its efforts, succeeded in giving
a tolerable degree of coherence or certainty.
At this point I challenge those whose pursuits may
have qualified them to accept such a challenge, to look
back with me upon the field over which the human
mind has been travelling these eighteen centuries. —
There are two roads under the eye in such a retrospect :
namely, that of Abstract Thought^ on the one hand,
and that of Christian Belief, or Theological Science,
on the other. To the first of these I have just now
adverted, and shall not repeat what I have said, other
wise than to express, in a varied form, a profound
conviction — and it is a painful conclusion to come to —
that, however abundant may be the means available
for constructing a Theistic Doctrine, and however

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 319
irresistibly conclusive the argument may be on this
ground, yet, if we rigidly deduct from it, as we ought,
all aids and materials that are due, directly or indi
rectly, to the Hebrew and Christian canonical books,
we then find ourselves in an undefended — an inde
fensible position as toward the very darkest of those
surmises which take their rise from that spectacle of
misery and disorder which the human family has every
where, and has always, presented. On this road, has
not the Terminus been reached long ago ? If it were
required of us "to report progress" in the depart
ment of Abstract Philosophy, let me be told whether,
as honest men, we could affirm that those who profess
to shake off every restraint of theological bias and re
ligious prejudice, have at length reached a scientific
position, which is so solidly based, and which is so well
defined, as that it commands the assent, and may boast
the adherence of all well-constituted and disciplined
minds ? If there be any such Philosophy which is now
available as a resting-place for the human mind, it
must surely be easy to name it. No such Philosophy
can be named; and in default of it, or until it shall
appear, nothing stands in front of us — on the road of
Abstract Thought — but an abyss which has become
much more terrible in prospect at this time than here
tofore it was, because the lately-developed depth of
the human mind, and its enhanced sensitiveness impel
us, irresistibly, to people the dark void with ghastly
forms. Psychological Science (or those dim conjectures
that are its precursors) is robbing us of the fond illusion

320 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
that " Death is an eternal sleep." Whether or not the
Christian immortality is before us, there is an after
stage for man ; and who shall say what may be its
conditions ? Why may they not be such as the analogy
of things around us would suggest?
The intuitions of human nature impel us to seek re
lief from these distracting speculations in a theology of
some sort, and which, if only because it is more dis
tinct, shall be less appalling than are the fathomless
surmises of a Pantheistic or Atheistic hypothesis.
We pass over then to the road of Christian The
ology, or that line of dogmatic belief which is professedly
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 re
ligious history — looking now to the speculative (not the
ecclesiastical) side — is of this sort: — There has been
going on, throughout these eighteen centuries, an ever-
renewed endeavour, on the part (no doubt) of earnestly
purposed minds, to make good a position somewhere
short of that Belief to which the Nicene Creed gives
a formal expression. It could not have happened other
wise 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, necessi
tate these perennial enterprises, the purpose of all of
which is to win a resting-place for thought where the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 321
things it converses with are measurable, apprehensible,
and subject to its control. The history of these fruit
less 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 gene
ralize where the object is unique, and can have no
parallel. But now, in looking back upon this road — a battle
field as it is — let us ask which of these heresies (for
convenience I so call them) can now be spoken of
as a successful solution of the difficulties it professes
to deal with? which of them, from the apostolic age
to this, is it that has been accepted by Bible-reading
communities as proven? which of them is it that, by
fair means of interpretation, has put itself in harmony
with the Text of the apostolic writings? If I could
divest myself, at this moment, of every residue of reli
gious solicitude, and could, in that mood of indifference,
sit down to review the heretical series, I should be com
pelled to grant, concerning each of them in its turn,
that its elements are incoherent, that its argumentative
style is tortuous and sophistical, that its method of
biblical interpretation is a system of shifts, that in sur
rendering oneself to it, as a scheme one might accept
and rest in, one is driven to wish that it could fairly
divorce itself, either from its philosophy on the one side,
or from its professed regard to Scriptural authority on

322 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
the other; for as a philosophy it is burdened with the
Bible ; and as a biblical theology it is spoiled by its
philosophy. Not one of those schemes of biblical belief which,
in the lapse of time, has disputed the ground with
the Nicene Faith, recommends itself by that charm of
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 ele-
s__«jilip— abstract, moral, alio1 _pi_riitf_i,,",*__>5e in jjbmmmk
In this Belief there is proportion, and symmetry, and
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 super
natural narratives of the Gospels stand out as unsus-
tained, and as disproportioned to the doctrine; and I
am fain to rid myself of them, if possible: with it,
the miracles of Christ's public life take their places
of fitness as the graceful accompaniments of the mi
nistry of Him who " dwelt among us" for effecting a
purpose far greater than all miracles, and more arduous
than the uttering the creative fiat.
Although I can grasp no one element of my Creed,
either meditatively or scientifically, for each is a pro
perty of the Infinite, yet in the meditative contem
plation of it I am at rest; for the object before me
contradicts no intuition of my moral nature. The con-

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 323
tour is that of Majesty — the Person meets and gives
contentment to the highest conceptions 1 can form,
both of perfect humanity, and of Divine benignity
and wisdom.
Then, as this Catholic Belief is entire in itself, and
as it fully realizes whatever is true in human nature,
and whatever we may conceive of as proper to the
Divine nature, so does it interpret itself into the lan
guage of my own spiritual life with a happy and a
healthgiving facility. Those emotions which it finds
in me dormant, and which it wakes up in me, I can
not but yield myself to, and gladly obey, when once
they are thus quickened.
In an hour of perplexity and dismay — such as are
incident to every human spirit that is not lost in sen
sualities, or occupied with sordid aims — if in such an
hour, when the atmosphere of hopeless woe is that in
which one can breathe the freest — if at such a time I
ask, and ask it as if no bright answer could be returned
to such a question, what that eternal life might be
of which I, such as I am, could be the recipient, and
which it would be possible for me to enjoy, or even
to wish for — I find my answer in my Creed. This
life of the soul — the life eternal, is not what I am
either fit for, or could think of with comfort; but it
is such as it is fitting for Him to bestow who is what
my Creed declares Him to be. If in seasons of
saddened thought, amid inveterate hesitations and per
plexities and misgivings, I take up the several rudi
ments of my now actual condition, moral and spiritual
Y2

324 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
— 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 Com
passion — if I feel and know such things as these, and
if, while so feeling, I form to myself some notion of
immortality, even of an endless consciousness, with all
the odds of infinity against me, and thus ill provided
for; — thus thinking in a way which I am forced to
admit is according to a true estimate of myself, then
do I shrink back from a boundless prospect of golden
bliss, and ask rather that there may be assigned to
me, as heaven's best boon, the dimmest corner of the
universe, wherein to lie forgotten, and wherein to while
away the cycles of an obscure eternity.
Thus dismayed, thus uncomforted, thus tempted to
envy the natures around me that are not immortal, if
then, by help given me from above, I look upward,
if I look Sun-ward, if I turn to my Belief, and accept
it such as it appears — a Truth, heaven-descended, then
the darkness of my soul is dispelled by that Light.
That immortality which, when regarded from a point
of view proper to myself, is inconceivable, or, if con
ceivable, is undesirable, comes now to be contemplated
in its own light — it is life-endless in Him, and His royal
gift, who is the Light of Light, and the life of immor
tality; — it is the gift of Him in whom the perfections
of the finite, and the attributes of the Infinite are so
blended that a boundless and a bright hope comes to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 325
its rest upon those unchangeable attributes, brought
within our reach by those human perfections.
This eternal life, which is offered to me in the
Gospel — the Gospel being interpreted as it is in my
Creed, and therefore not to be thought of as if it were
a superfluous announcement of known moralities, but
as a revelation of Truths quite unattainable by reason
— is of universal aptitude, in relation to human nature
in its actual condition ; and it must be so thought of
even although in fact it were but one in millions that
should accept it. Christianity is not a religion for the
religious, but a religion for man. I do not accept it
because my temperament so disposes me, and because
it meets my individual mood of mind, or my tastes.
I accept it as it is suited to that moral condition in
respect of which there is no difference of importance
between me and the man I may next encounter on
my path.
There is a constant tendency in minds of a certain
order — which delight in first-glance generalizations —
to assume the contrary of what I here affirm, and to
think themselves very wise in professing the shallow
hypothesis that the Christian, if he be not a hypocrite,
if he be a sincere and devout man, is such by in
dividual 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

326 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 in the most categorical manner,
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, alphabetically, from out of a religious community,
a hundred persons whose habits are devotional, and
whose course of life consists with their profession, this
selection will include those whom one might in a sense
call the "devout born": — by this phrase I intend to
designate persons whose temperament, intellectual and
emotional, whose sensibilities, and whose tastes, are
all of the kind that favours the happiest development
of the religious affections. There may be four or five
such in any hundred; — rarely so many as ten or
twenty. But within the limits of the same hundred
there will be found (and yet they shall be unfeignedly
religious persons) more than a ten or twenty whose
piety has had no aid whatever from what it has found
in them — has met with nothing congenial in the tone
of the sentiments, in the imaginative faculty, or in
the rational. Yes, have we not seen and well known
some of this order, and been near enough to them,
for a length of time, to look into their common-made
souls — to see through their honest but homely hearts?
Have we not seen, admired, and loved such, and been
cordially understood with them, and have wished to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 327
be like them — who, if you could abstract from them
all that a Christian belief and a Christian piety has
done for them, in giving them intelligence, in giving
them taste, and a sense of propriety, in shedding a
healthy warmth through the social affections — yes, and
in quickening within them a consciousness of the sub
lime and the beautiful — such that, if stripped of the
heavenly enrichment they have received, they would,
in most of these aspects, have been as the dead, the
deaf, the blind, the idiotic; so marked were they by
nature with the not to be mistaken stamp of inane
mediocrity, that an hour in their society would have
been an intolerable weariness. But they have become
what now they are, because the " eternal life" has
made its commencements in their hearts ; and because,
in daily and hourly earnest exercises of the soul, they
hold communion with Him who is — what my Creed
declares Him to be.
Those whom the Saviour Christ — the Good Shep
herd, gathers about Him from out of each generation
of men, as it passes forward in time, and who, at no
time, are more than a " little flock," are so chosen as
if designedly in contravention of any rule of obvious
or natural causation; and so as at once to illustrate
the sovereignty of the choice — to display the omnipo
tence that gives effect to it, and to demonstrate a
deep truth — namely — the universal applicability of this
salvation to human nature. Christ's followers are in
deed exceptional, if we reckon them by arithemetic:
but they are not exceptional, psychologically.

328 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Christ's true followers, in every age, are, we say,
.lot a olass of persons who might be pointed out
before they become such : — they are not believers of
the Gospel by idiosyncracy ; — but they are so because
they have come to know the truth of their condition,
as toward God, which is the condition of all men
alike — whether they know it or not. Need it be
shown that they are not the class of Mystics? Mys
ticism is the religion of abstraction ; but Christianity
is religion in the concrete: — the two mental conditions
are antagonistic. Mysticism is intellectual voluptuous
ness, and 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, any more than they are the
sturdy adherents and warm defenders of sectarian doc
trines. 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 appear on no muster-roll of the visible Church.
It is not true that doctrine is of little account in the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 329
spiritual life; but it is true that souls may live —
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
"whithersoever He goeth."
That such there are, and more than a very few,
in each following generation, is a fact forcing itself
upon the convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous
reader of the history of Christianity; — forcing itself
upon the convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous
observer of Christian communities as they now are.
These facts, which I assume to be patent and un
questionable, will receive a theological interpretation
such as may best accord with the doctrinal system
which we individually adhere to, and which we allow
to overrule, or to dispose of all facts, in its own
manner. Such an interpretation may be nipped in
between imaginary logical necessities ; or it may be
ample, ingenuous, unencumbered. Yet either way, not
an iota is added to, or is taken away from the simple

330 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
reality with which we have to do — namely, that Christ's
true followers are, as He said they should be, a few
from among those whom visible Christianity embraces,
and upon whom it confers temporal blessings.
This reality, stripped of what is incidental to a
Christian profession, and of what is merely conventional
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 inti
mate conscious relationship between the human spirit
and the Divine Nature, and as this Divine Nature is
brought within the range of human conceptions and
of human emotions in the Person of Christ. It is the
duty of every one who becomes alive to his welfare
in the future life, to ascertain for himself, alone, the
fact of this relationship, as subsisting or not. As to
others — and as to all around him who take to them
selves the Christian name, it is the part of charity to
accept every such profession as valid and genuine which
does not receive a glaring contradiction in the life
and temper of the individual.
As to the limits and the conditions of this " Charity
that believeth all things," we have nothing here to
do with them. I am now thinking of the Christian
scheme as the cause and the source of spiritual life to
the 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 believes it because it has been

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 331
logically proved to be true, ninety-nine accept it, with
a perfect assurance, on the strength of that sense of
congruity which itself brings home, both to the heart
and the reason, whenever it is apprehended by both
in conjunction. But it is manifest that this species
of intuitive conviction is not of a sort that can be
brought within the range of language, for the purpose
of conveying it, verbally, from one mind to another.
This certitude can no more be defined or described,
than can any primary element of our consciousness be
so treated. Least of all can that one which may be called the
very element among the elements of the divine life be
verbally set forth, or be brought to submit itself to
the process of development in a string of propositions.
This rudiment of the spiritual life is a consciousness
of the Absolutely Good, more or less clear, and
which, to the human spirit, in its now actual condi
tion, involves a correlative consciousness — painful and
humbling, of moral disorder. How can such an awaken
ing as this be passed through without anguish — with
out some intensity of suffering? Any such agony of
the soul, endured at the moment of the dispersion of
the gay dreams of self-love, must indeed vary, as to
its intensity, very greatly, according to the structure of
the individual mind, and according also to its history,
and to its experiences; yet may we surely take this
as an axiom — That where there has been no agony
in the moral nature, there is no spiritual birth.
But whence comes this sense of congruity which

332 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 transcends the meditative faculty to grasp it,
so much sooner baffles a writer's faculty of embodying
his thoughts in forms of speech. Yet if an explana
tion be sought for of the fact that, with very rare
exceptions, Christian people, whose depth and serious
ness of feeling indicates itself in an unambiguous
manner, do cordially accept the articles of an Orthodox
Creed, the explanation is discoverable at this rudi
mental point. The leading article in that Creed meets
the awakened and wounded human spirit, and so calms
the perturbations of the soul — it so satisfies its alarms,
and so brings it to its resting-place, as that the tex
tual evidence, when adduced in detail, is listened to
with comfort, and is assented to with a spontaneous
confidence. Let it be argued, as it easily may — very learnedly —
on grounds metaphysical, and on grounds ethical, that
the Christian doctrine of Propitiation for sin (stated
without reserve) is " absurd" — and that it is " impos
sible" — and that it is " immoral" — and that it is every
thing that ought to be reprobated, and to be met
with an indignant rejection; — let all such things be
said, and they will be said to the world's end — it will
to the world's end also be true that each human spirit,

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 333
when awakened toward God, as to His Moral attri
butes, 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 now affirmed that not one of those
earnest endeavours which have been made in the course
of centuries to establish a doctrine of lower import than
the Nicene, has had any permanent success; and the
ostensible reason of this failure, in each instance, may
be found in its want of accordance with the canonical
standard. But the more occult meaning of these suc
cessive shipwreckings of heretical enterprises is to be
sought for among those laws of the human mind which
forbid its resting short of an intimate sense of con
gruity among the principles that are offered to its
acceptance. The promulgators of such schemes, them
selves, find no repose in them; for they are morally
incoherent. Souls alive toward God can only pine
and languish, and look from side to side, until they
find Him, as the object of their trust, whom they thence
forward worship as " God their Saviour." Do you
ask me to bring forward irresistible proof that Christi
anity is from Heaven ? I can do this to such an extent
as that you will fail, by any fair means, to over
throw my argument. But there is a shorter course.
Come with me now into the presence of the Infinite
Rectitude and Purity: — when there, renounce not that
true dignity of human nature in virtue of which you
are capable of such an introduction; and which makes
you rightfully amenable to this bar: — while standing

334 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
confronted' with Eternal and Inexorable Justice — learn
what you are, and frankly acknowledge what is simply
true ; and it is then that argumentation will seem to you
a 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. Heretofore
they were thought of as so many proofs (if real) of
Christ's mission, as a teacher sent from God; and the
one question, if any question at all were asked, was
this — " Can we be sure that the record is not falla
cious? But from the moment when the human spirit
has coalesced with the Principal Truth of the Chris
tian system, then this series of miracles takes its sub
ordinate place, as along side of the course of the Divine
Deliverer while he trod the earth. How can we ima
gine otherwise than that, at any moment while on his
way toward the spot where he was to expiate the sins
of the human family, he should show his command of
nature, and of life, and should do it with a freedom
and a copiousness becoming those attributes that were
shrouded in his Person?
It was undoubtedly under this aspect, that the
writers of the canonical Epistles were accustomed to
think of the supernatural adjuncts of the Religion which

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 335
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 dislodge them from their place in the system, or to
treat them as the inexplicable illusions of weak minds.
Yet while to these facts they make none but incidental
and infrequent references, they were earnestly intent,
first, upon the diffusion of the Gospel Message, and then
upon its influence in governing the life and temper of
those who received it. No moment of their precious
time do they consume in the endeavour to show that
Christ's miracles, and that their own, were real; — no
solicitude do they betray on that ground. — What they
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 delicious meditation.
He peruses so often, and with unsatiated pleasure, these
narratives, not that he may, by these means, repair
the dilapidations which his faith sustains in the open
world; but that, by their aid, he may bring, daily,
within the range of his conceptions, the conditions of
that future world wherein the distinction between the
natural and the supernatural — arbitrary as it is, shall
have vanished, and where a perpetual nearness to
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

336 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
where the unclouded blaze of Eternal Power fills all
space, and is visibly in act every moment. The dif
ference between the natural and the supernatural
is relative, not absolute — it is not essential. We so
account of events of this kind according to the posi
tion 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 ; — that while the rude
multitude pressed around Jesus of Nazareth, and were
filled with wonder, and said "we have seen strange
things to-day" — there was a throng supernal — looking
on also. — But to these the very same acts of benign
omnipotence wore the tranquil aspect of familiar ex
perience: with them wonder can have no place, for
it is embraced and absorbed in adoration. These mira
cles — so we on earth must call them, and which we
are accustomed to speak of as inroads upon the course
of nature, are, if truly considered, so many fragmentary
instances of the Eternal Order of an upper world.
It is often alleged that the miracles (even granting
them to have been real) of a remote age can be of no
avail to us, at this time, and especially in this our ad
vanced condition as to intellectual culture. Assuredly
they are of no avail, and can be of none, to those
who regard Christianity as an inexplicable anomaly,
attaching to the history of that anomalous race — the
descendants of Abraham.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 337
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 intel
lectual and religious wellbeing 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 re
surrection and the life." — " If any man hear my voice,
though he were dead, yet shall he live."
Now we may follow that process which takes place
in the instance of one with whom the reasoning fa
culty is sound, and has received a due culture — who is
informed in all matters of religious history and criti
cism ; and we suppose that his moral history and pre
sent 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 in
dubitable 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 devotional habitudes, and by the invo
luntary intuition of his moral nature. But at a certain
moment in his course he makes a pause, and in that
mood of firm resolve which is characteristic of a
strong intellect and a strong will, he determines to
z

338 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 pro
cess of belief into the form of a personal narrative.
Thus resolved then, as I have said, I set out on my
road, taking with me this unquestionable preliminary —
namely — That, if a religious persuasion is to come into
its place among those principles of action which, on
any supposition, must govern the active and moral life,
if it is to sway me, notwithstanding many impulses
and motives which might prevail with me in a contrary
direction — if my religion (be it what it may) is to
work in and along with the established mechanism of
the world of mind — such as I find it to be, if so, then
the confidence I may feel in its truth must, of necessity,
rest upon such ground as that an opposite belief, or an
absolute rejection of it, may yet be possible. If I am
to become a religious man, in the Christian sense, then
it must be at least conceivable that I might become
an irreligious man, in that same sense. If a religious
belief is with me to be the same thing as are my
moral beliefs ; if it is to act as an influence counter
vailing 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 Abstract Theism occupy precisely
the same ground, considered under this aspect. If in

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 339
this world of discipline — this world of educational anta
gonism—this world of products wrought out of con
trarieties — if I am to possess a faith in God, as my
Creator, Judge, and Father, this faith must be the cor
relate of its logical opposite — Atheism. The Theist, in
this present world, will never cease to find himself face
to face with the Atheist. Wherein then consists the
blameworthiness of the Atheist ? it is this : — knowing —
and he cannot be ignorant of a truth so obvious — that
the system of motives to which he conforms himself
every day in the open world, always leaves room for
an exception or an evasion, he snatches at that ex
ception, and he uses that evasion when the Theistic
evidence presents itself before him ; but he does not
do so in any other instance, unless he be fool or
knave. The virtuous man is one who manfully holds
to the rule, and spurns the exception, and who scorns
to escape by the evasion : he embraces the principle,
and he casts from him the sophism ; he adheres to
universal intuitions ; he listens not to the paradox.
This premised, I go to work at the beginning of
the Christian evidences, and ask, as it concerns my own
prospect of immortality, whether those things are sure,
that are taught and affirmed in the Apostolic writings.
It may be that I should have preferred some other me
dium of evidence, touching a point of such incalculable
moment. But whether I choose it or not, I find my
self handed over to this peculiar species of proof. Yet
in looking into it — on the supposition that God, the
Father of my spirit, challenges me to accept it, I find
Z2

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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 341
I return then with assurance to my Belief, and
I surrender myself without fear to that train of medi
tation which attends, and surrounds, its centre fact —
the resurrection of Christ.
At this point the Supernatural, in an instance the
most signal and the freest from ambiguity, takes a
bearing upon my individual state of mind, and touches
my fears, my hopes, and my conscience, and gives a
turn to the emotions, excites the imagination, and
occupies the reason. That Jesus Christ " 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 con
nected 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 interminable surmises that are comfortless, appall
ing, or worse; and it brings me upon a ground that

342 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
is firm to the foot, and where those objects that are
already familiar to me, stand out distinctly, and are
sharply 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 where
in was a sepulchre, or enter an upper chamber,
within the city, or go on to a house a sabbath-
day's journey, south of it; or travel so far as to
the shore of the lake of Galilee; if I go thither
taking with me no haze of exaggeration, I there find
Him who is at once the Representative of the human
family, and its Sponsor; and I find Him such after
the suffering of death, as He was before it — save his
recent scars. The immortality, therefore, which is
held before me in the Christian scheme, is no such
thing as a nucleus of conscious mist, floating about in
a golden fog, amid millions of the same purposeless,
limbless sparks. It is an immortality of organized
material energies; — it is the same welded mind-and-
matter human nature — fitted for service — apt to labour,
and capable of all those experiences, and furnished
for all those enterprises, and armed for those endur
ances which, seeing that they are thus provided for,
and are, as one may say, thus foreshown in the Chris
tian resurrection, put before me a rational solution —
hypothetic indeed, and yet not illusory — of those now
immanent trials," of those hard experiences, of those
frustrated labours, and of those fiery sufferings, the

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 343
passing through which so much perplexes and dis
heartens me now ; but which at once find their reason
when I see them in their intention, as the needed
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 bear, and
what enterprises of love it shall devise, and shall bring
to a happy consummation, it may be, cycles of cen
turies hence.
" The Lord is risen indeed !" said those simple souls,
one to another, in that dim morning hour — which was
the morning of a Day Eternal to human nature ; and
He so rises as to throw forward upon the path of this
human nature, to the remotest range of an endless
existence, a steady light of reality.
Over against this reasonable and conceivable CHRIS
TIAN Idea of the future life, as it is set before me
in the instance of the Resurrection of Christ, I will
put the dreamy Elysium of classical antiquity — I will
put the sensualisms of the oriental beliefs — I will put
the wearisome and vapid inanities of modern poetical
or philosophical surmises: — yes, and over against this
genuine belief I must put those more consistent sup
positions which, at this present time, are presenting
themselves, in a whisper, as probable, if we are to
follow the guidance of psychological speculation, and
if we are looking to such a future existence as the
analogy of things around us might suggest. As com
pared with all such anticipations — more or less con
sonant as they may severally be with facts known to

344 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
us — I find that my Christian Belief is more consistent
than any one of them, is more realizable — is more
cheering, is more animating, and that it is of a ten
dency (when rightly considered) the most healthful, as
to the moral and the intellectual faculties.
And "why should it be thought a thing incredible
that God should raise the dead?" Every pretext for
thinking it so, on scientific grounds, has been snatched
from us by the modern Geology. But that man,
such as he is — his intellect and his moral nature — -
should cease to exist at death, Is indeed an incredible
supposition ; 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 recom
mended 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, it must make a choice.
Yet it is on no such ground of its abstract credi
bility, that this fundamental fact of the Christian life
is accepted by those in whom that life has indeed had
its commencement. As to those of them who are in
formed and intelligent, they can at all times fall back
upon that body of evidence which secures them against

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 345
disbelief. But going far beyond any such merely in
tellectual persuasion, Christ's true disciples have a
sense of the import of His resurrection which renders
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 conscious
ness concerning which no distinct conveyance can be
made from mind to mind, through the medium of
language. Verbal propositions do not represent those
intuitions within the circle of which this conviction
takes place.
In vain you say that the supernatural, even if you
were to grant it to be real, is a remote fact which
can have no bearing upon our individual feelings at
this time. You will not bring me to think so while I
believe that Christ's resurrection, apart from the mean
ing 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 re
mission of sins, and the blessedness of that future life.
It is at this point that we touch the real matter in
debate among the various theological controversies of
the present time. If this point be determined, then
the several articles of religious belief must follow,
in their order, with little question. But while this is
undetermined, no argumentation avails to bring such
controversies to a conclusion.
What interpretation is it which we allow ourselves
to put upon the admitted fact of the disordered con-

346 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
dition of human nature? Is wrong right — seen under
another aspect, or from a loftier point of view? Are
crimes misfortunes? Is sin a mistake? The answer
we give to questions of this kind — and they may be
indefinitely varied, involves the whole 'argument con
cerning the truth of the Christian system. The Chris
tian, leaving the Atheist, the Pantheist, the antichris
tian Theist, and the would-be Christian philosophist to
make up a reply among thsmselves — and there is no
substantial difference among them — has come to his
own conclusion in this matter. He perfectly under
stands, what it might have been supposed all must
understand- — that, to confer with, and to treat man as
a machine, or as a brute, or to condole with him as
" unlucky," but not culpable, is to vilify and degrade
him still more, and to consign him to a series of hope
less descents, until, in fact, he has become a brute,
and might well wish himself a machine. The Chris
tian feels that, cost what it may to the individual,
the true method of treatment with human nature — the
hopeful course, and that which indeed lifts him up,
and does him honour, is to assume that he is in fact
amenable to the severest law, and should measure him
self by the highest standard of purity, rectitude, and
goodness, which his faculties, intellectual and moral,
enable him to conceive of, or to comprehend. In
truth, we need no other evidence in support of the
principle that man is actually amenable to such a law,
than this — That when It is placed before him, he
involuntarily recognises it as abstractedly good.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 347
The spiritual life then, or the first stage of the life
eternal, is a recognition of the immutable Law of
purity, rectitude, and love, not merely as abstractedly
good, but as good to be applied to man, how dis
astrous soever may be the consequences of that ap
plication to him in his now 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 ap
plication of a rule so high. Better that he should be
condemned as guilty, than 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 mammalia.
It is manifest that when the individual man has
reached this point, and has unfeignedly given in his
adherence to a principle of government to which he
is obnoxious, the depth and intensity of the emotions
that thence take their rise will bear proportion, much
rather to the culture, the refinement, and the sensitive
ness of his moral constitution, than to the extent or
enormity of his personal transgressions. So it is (as
must seem likely) that those whose course of life has
been — in the world's eye, blameless, and whose do
mestic phase is altogether lovely, often far exceed
the ostensibly guilty in those feelings of anguish and
abasement which attend their entrance upon the Chris
tian life. Shall we say that such feelings — such agonies,
are misplaced — are groundless — are morbid ? We may
say it if we wish to mark and notify our own low place
on the scale of spiritual perception.

348 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
It is then as starting from this point that the
several elements of a Christian belief take their order
of sequence. It is as occupying this ground — the
ground at once of humiliation and of hope, that the
Christian accepts the articles of his Creed — each of
them .as 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 suffer
ings and death of Christ ; and it is thus, and it is as
standing in hope of life eternal, that he welcomes the
assurance of the triumphant resurrection of his Saviour,
who " having died for our sins, rose again for our
Justification." To many, whose religious feelings are slender, and
whose faith is mainly conventional, the resurrection of
Jesus is coolly assented to as a " well authenticated
fact," carrying with it — of course — the truth of the
Christian scheme. To Christ's true disciple his rising
from the dead is of infinitely more moment than any
such attestation.
I affirm therefore that proposition with which I set
out, That the Supernatural, as we find it in the
Christian Scriptures, is not merely an attestation of
the truth of the system, as a Revelation from God;
but is the ground and reason of that hope of immor
tality which is the life of the soul,

THE THIRD INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS
ATTESTED BY MIRACLES.
In entering upon this ground I must be under
stood as not attempting to meet all possible objections,
or even to satisfy every reasonable doubt : all I ask is,
that those with whom I may suppose myself to be in
converse are of serious mood; and I suppose them to
admit that the Christian system, such as we find it
in the books of the New Testament, rightfully com
mands 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 kind, it must be reasonable
to follow it up as a safe guidance, and to pursue this
oneness of the Personal Idea as far as it will carry
us ; even although it may lead us to carry our
thoughts beyond the boundary of this visible mundane
scene. I do not hesitate to make this demand, nor to ask
the thoughtful to accompany me a few paces forward
upon this dim road. What, in fact, is the initial sup
position on the ground of which we consent, at all, to
listen to Christ as the Teacher of things which can

350 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
be authentically known by man only through the aid
of a Revelation from Heaven? Plainly it is this, that
the things of the "three score years and ten" — the
things "seen and temporal" — the things that "perish
in the using," are far from including all that we have
to do with while these few years are running out; or
in other words, in surrendering ourselves, in any de
gree, to the Christian argument, we implicitly grant,
that the Human Family stands related, not merely to
the Creator and Ruler of all things; but to a great
scheme of Universal Government, which is 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 Himself to be conversant with, and to be per
fectly 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 indications of the same, which can be
intelligible only on the supposition here asked for.
Such a Visitor from a foreign world may either
discourse at large concerning the things, the persons,
and the transactions of that world ; or He may observe
a rigid reserve on every subject of that class. Christ
does not take the first of these courses; He does not
freely and copiously speak concerning a supermundane
system ; but neither is His reserve absolute. He utters

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 351
himself thereupon in a very distinct, and in a peremp
tory manner; but He goes no further: — He gives no
narratives, He relates no incidents; — He says nothing
that might either tempt conjecture or stimulate cu
riosity. 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 co
herent and consistent. Let me again, and with em
phasis, use that comprehensive word — Congruity, and
affirm that, whereas this majestic harmony of the
moral ingredients of Christ's individual character — this
fitness and symmetry, which — if we make allowance
for the inconceivable obliquities of a few minds — has
always subdued, as it does now subdue the minds of
men, and does win their reverential affection — this
perfect 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 family.
Does not that conception of Christ's demeanour and
style which we gather from the four Gospels — does it
not include the idea that we are in the presence of
one who is acting at the impulse of a purpose deep-
hidden in his own bosom? Does it not seem that he
has a consciousness of facts, in which the men about
him are not sharers? Does he not move forward as
if he were bringing about ends remote from the proxi
mate intention of what he says and does? Christ's
acts are frequently, or seem to be so — incidental to

352 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
to his principal purpose: His teachings are fragment
ary, because the bearing of his doctrine is shared
between this — the visible world, and another world.
His miraculous interpositions for the relief of human
suffering appear to have been prompted, at the mo
ment, by human impulses of compassion; but they are
done as if he deflected, for the time, from his course
in performing them. Does not the Saviour of the
world walk the earth, and make his way through the
crowd, as one whose eye is fixed upon objects beyond
its horizon?
If, in an attempted explication of Christ's language
in relation to a spiritual system, we adopt the meagre
hypothesis of supposing that He adapts himself, by
accommodation, to the superstitious belief of the
Jewish people of that age, what we do is not merely
to abate our confidence in his sincerity as a Teacher;
but we remove from the historical conception of his
character a set of facts, the reality of which is indis
pensable to its completeness. It is then chiefly on
this ground that I feel it to be unavoidable to un
derstand his language, when cencerned with an in
visible 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 his
tory 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

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 353
will ; but subject to another administrative economy,
and not included in the same remedial dispensation.
The consequences of a belief such as this, whether
imaginary or real, are nothing to me : it may be
of ill-tendency ; and I am sorry if it be so, but my
sorrowing will not make facts other than they are.
Can I walk about this world — can I make my way
through the streets of towns — can I enter the dens
that constitute 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 scepticism
in relation to subjects of this class belong to a period
now drawing to its close — or passed already; a period
of shallow and frivolous thinking — a period when the
actual condition of a large portion of the human race
— imperfectly known, and little thought of, and less
cared for, had no appreciable influence upon systems
of opinion. Theories of human nature were put to
gether in closets to be banded about in saloons. But
what correspondence had these scented things with
that real world into the core of which our modern
philanthropy has carried our feet?
I think that a revolution has already made great
progress which, in its issue, shall bring about a far
more deeply-toned belief, as to the spiritual world, and
as to the destinies of man, than has ever yet taken
hold of the human mind: and thus if Superstition has
tyrannized the ages that are past, a quelling conscious
ness of awful realities shall rule the future. AA

354 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
It is Christianity that has given the initiative in
this revolution ; and it is the same that shall draw the
genuine conclusion; but we shall be carried 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 admis
sion 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 belong to an age of ignorance? I do not ask
whether the objects before me are such as an ignorant
age will delight in ; or whether a belief concerning them
be of bad influence, or otherwise. It is certain that the
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 is gained by refusing to see it. There
would, in truth, be a powerful motive for ridding our
selves 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
" darkness" which shrouds the world thickens around
us so much the more, and becomes indeed a "thick

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 355
darkness," for it is then a gloom, without a gleam.
So long as we retain an hypothesis which connects the
history and destinies of the human race with another
history, and with other destinies, we retain also, in
some manner, though it be wholly undefined, a sort of
hold upon the future: — for we then know that there
is a course of events in progress, which may issue, we
know not how, for the better. As on the one hand
there can scarcely be a greater mistake than that of
supposing the ancient problem of the origin of evil
to be in any way solved, or the mystery in the least
degree cleared up, by carrying it back to the epoch
of the Satanic rebellion; yet, on the other hand, the
inroad of sin and woe upon ihe human family comes
to wear a different aspect when it is thought of in
connection with this supposition. So thought of, it
is at once brought into relationship 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 insensibly led by following
this series of writers, the evil that is in this world,
and its attendant misery, fall into perspective, and
exhibit, at least, so much of coherence as may result
from their relation to a scheme within which truth
and order reign supreme, and upon which a light,
though it be only a glimmer, does shine.
Especially it is as seen from this position that the
personal behaviour of Christ, and that the professed
intention of His mission toward man become intel
ligible; for, to think of Him merely as the Teacher
AA2

356 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
of a pure morality, and as the author of beneficial
secular maxims, leaves the greater part of His conduct,
and of his teaching, unaccounted for. To think of
Him further as the Redeemer of His people, though
it supplies much of what is needed to give a meaning
to both — His behaviour and His teaching, still leaves
as much unaccounted for, and the clue to this we do
not find until we accept, in a literal sense, what i3
declared concerning the Christ of God as He who
should drive the Usurper and Tyrant from the world
he has invaded.
This might seem the point at which a writer —
intending to propitiate opponents, and to smooth a
path from Disbelief to Christian Faith — would intro
duce some hitherto unthought-of hypothesis concern
ing the universality of Redemption, or the possible
modes in which things future, which we find to be
inconceivable, may yet be conceived of. I am about
to attempt nothing of this sort. The notorious failure,
hitherto, of all such endeavours from the time of Origen
to this, might well be warning enough not to venture
a step on ground where there is no footing. One
scheme after another has broken down — and neces
sarily so, because these mitigative theories still include
much more than those will allow who, on this very
account, reject Christianity; and they assume much
for which a Christian man, who would fain find it,
finds no warrant in the written Revelation; and if
not, how shall he dare to add to that word, or to
strike off from it the least particle?

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 357
The easily recognized characteristics of undigested
thinking — of reasonings prompted by a predetermined
issue, and which are reckless of evidence, attach, as
I think, to every one of the hypotheses of universal
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 products of the very same order of minds, come
under the familiar designation of quackery : — a dozen
philosophies of this sort are just now courting ephe
meral notoriety. The gravity of the subject now in
hand should preclude the employment of this collo
quial phrase; — otherwise it would very fitly designate
these spurious schemes, one and all. In a sound mind
the momentary solace which attends a first listening
to a scheme of this sort, is quickly followed by a
profound dissatisfaction, which leaves us in more dis
comfort than before.
If then we reject, as I think we must, the miti
gative theories that have been devised for reconciling
our notions of the Divine Benevolence, as related to
the destinies of the family of man, with 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 there is no hypothesis
of this sort in reserve which a Christian man can bring

358 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
forward; nevertheless there are considerations to which
a belief in the literal — or we may say, the historical
meaning of certain narratives in the Gospels gives rise,
and which are of high importance for maintaining a
religious temper. They are such as these. — In the
first place, the interpretation which we ought to put
upon Christ's language and conduct, wherever He had
to do with those who are spoken of as possessed by
unclean spirits or " demons" carries the supposition
that the relation in which He stood toward beings of
this class was essentially unlike that which He sus
tained toward the human race. This marked dissimi
larity is strongly implied in various ways. — The pas
sionate utterances of these beings (unlike as they are
to the ravings of maniacs) were in no case expressive
either of hope or of submission : they bespoke a well-
understood and an inveterate hostility: — these excla
mations, 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 opened. On the part of Christ
there is indicated nothing but a corresponding and a
settled adverse feeling which has no reserves, and 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 — open, con
scious, and hopeless rebellion. It is true that Abstract
Theism might show cause for refusing to admit a sup
position so appalling as this; — but can we indeed walk

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 359
the streets of this world — and profess to think it in
credible? — Alas! it 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 upon us too —
and if states of mind which nearly resemble such a
desperate perversion, are facts, attaching even to the
human system, then must there be ground for a fear
— a fear which the ordinary proceedings of human
governments show to be reasonable, of this sort : — when
rebellion is rife in a country, it is certain that men
who are, in many respects, worthy citizens, may easily
come to be fatally compromised with it, and may find
themselves in the end consorted with the worst of
criminals, and sharing the same fate.
Again: If facts be as we are now supposing, then
we get a means of rightly interpreting a large part
of that discipline which we are undergoing in the
present state. The ulterior purpose of that severe
training through the stages of which some, if not all,
are passing, and which constitutes the individual his
tory of some men from the earliest development of
reason to the last hour of life, is, as it seems, the
formation of a firm principle of religious loyalty — an
enduring acquiescence in the procedures of the Divine
Government- — a 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 seventy years has been, to some

360 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
men, what it has been, becomes at once intelligible if
we admit the supposition that, in the life future, with
its incalculable revolutions, such spirits, thus tried and
proved as they have been, shall be challenged to un
dertake services in relation to which this immoveable
loyalty shall find its sphere, and shall be nothing more,
as to its iron nerve, than those great occasions shall
be found to demand.
Suppositions of this kind may very ill comport with
the notions of many good people about Heaven — and
which notions we may grant to be right in substance
though wrong in form; but I think they will seem
not unfounded when, in the next age, 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 distinctly sym
bolized now, in the course of the Divine administration
toward individual men. Every Sunday, in professing
aloud that " I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come," I understand the
" world to come" to be such a world as that the pre
sent world shall be a fit preparation for its labours,
and for its endurances, and for its trials of religious
constancy. Again: If we admit, in their obvious and historic
sense, those of the Evangelic narratives which relate
to demoniacal possessions, the Supernatural element
therein implied supports an inference which, when in
the fewest words, and with the utmost caution, we

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 361
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 none at all.
— The entire series of miracles wrought by Christ
during the years of His public ministry had — as toward
mankind — as well a benevolent intention, as a beneficent
issue. This fact is the more to be noted because it
forms a point of distinction between Christ's miracles
and those of His ministers, as related in the Book of
the Acts — several of which were administrative and
punitive. But no such use was made of miraculous
powers by Him who declares that He came into the
world "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
In striking contrast with this rule of the Supernatural,
as it is seen to govern the Saviour's conduct toward
men, is the rule which manifests itself as often as He
encountered beings of another order, or of another
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 ; yet there is before me
a conspicuous fact — there is here a difference; there
is a distinction; and this fact, which I know not how
to unfold, consists well with the belief which 1 gather up
from many scattered notices, strewn over the canonical
pages, and the purport of which is that the Mission of

362 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
Christ— the Son of God, and Saviour of the world-
was to overthrow a usurpation, and to drive the Tyrant
from the field he has invaded; and I further gather
this truth, that, in carrying forward this purpose, He
shall not fail, but shall triumph ; for it is said of Him,
that "He shall lead captivity captive." 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
purpose. But what may be looked for, as the fruit
of these trains of thought, is this — namely, a 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 com
plete our conceptions of the Saviour Christ, as the
Deliverer of man. A principal element of that Idea
— absolutely unique as it is, is supplied when we duly
regard His ministry as it is related, on the one hand
to the victims of a usurpation; and on the other
hand, to its Chief and His adherents.

THE CYCLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
At this moment a lengthened period of social tran
quillity seems to have come to its end; and, as to the
western and cultured races, it has been peculiarly favor
able to those reactions of the mind upon itself which
are natural to it, and beneficial, in their ultimate re
sults ; but for which no leisure is found in seasons of
national or political excitement. We are entering
perhaps 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 our
selves 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 vehe
mence, have been labouring, of late years, to rid
themselves and the world of Christianity, may find
that their day is gone by — and that it must be their
sons, or their grandsons, who shall return to this
Crusade, in some future time of repose, like the past.
At this time, not only will men of action have no ear
for bootless subtilties; but such men will feel their

364 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
need, personally, of principles that are already authen
ticated, and not now to be sought for and elaborated
in closets. Men of action, who will have much to
suffer, as well as to do, will ask for grounds of re
ligious 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 — Athe
istic, and Theistic, and Pantheistic, — although their
enterprise has failed for the present, and although
their hopes are dashed, they may console themselves
with the thought that — if not to them, to their suc
cessors, another opportunity shall arise for labouring
on the same stony field. The Christian system will
itself evolve principles that necessitate these periodic
struggles, and that give them force; and at each
return with augmented force.
At this time what is of more importance, and what
would be more fruitful of good than any imaginable
triumph over Infidelity — on the field of argument,
would be a wise preparation, on the part of the Chris
tian community, for that next coming season when
the Gospel must anew pass through a crisis of mortal
intensity. A main part of such a preparation would
consist in knowing clearly whence such an intestinal
conflict springs, and toward what issue it tends.
In affirming the Christian origination of the recent

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 365
Infidelity and Atheism, it is needful to distinguish
between those deep-seated sequences of thought which
we have just now in view, and those obvious and in
cidental effects of patent causes which might have
been other than they are, and which may or may not
bear upon 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 power, 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
its own, but which it assumes in rearing its head, and
looking upward, beneath the vault of that Infinitude
to which it has gained admittance by favour of the
Gospel. This Atheism shows, and actually possesses,
a sensibility, and it has a consciousness of the true,
the beautiful, and the good, which it owes, conspicu
ously and entirely, to the books and to the system
which it denounces. These tones of tenderness and of

366 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
purity in which it has learned to utter itself — if we
catch them at a distance, so as to lose what in them
is articulate, might be mistaken for the silver sounds
of God's mercy to man.
The Atheism which startles us by our fireside,
which sits with us in pews, which flames out in our
literature, which is the Apollo of the weekly, monthly,
and quarterly Press, has not merely learned its rhetoric
in the evangelic school, and thence stolen its phrases,
but it has there got inspiration from a Theology of
which itself is only the necessary antithesis. Evoke
now from Hades a genuine Atheist of the classic Pagan
Church, and bring him within hearing of a modern
Atheistic lecture, and the very terms of the discourse
would be unintelligible to him. You must baptize him
before you can convince him that you are his disciples,
or that he is indeed one of yourselves. The Creed
in which he lived and died was a marble paradox, and
you have a great work to do in him before he can
be made to listen to a breathing sophistry, with its
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
drowsiness- — intellectual and moral, and walk about
dreaming, thousands of years, unchanged. But a Chris
tian-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 it-
forked scourge, and it moves away.

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 367
The very same body of facts concerning the woes
and disorders — hopeless as they are, and purposeless
as they seem, which press upon humanity — these
facts, rudely regarded by the sages of pagan antiquity,
and which impelled them to reject the hypothesis of
a Supreme wisdom, benevolence, and power — come
before us now, unchanged or scarcely mitigated, and
they not merely perplex the reason — they do more,
they distract us, because we have been long trained in
the meditative converse with an Idea of the Supreme
Wisdom, Benevolence, and Power, immeasurably sur
passing any conception of these attributes which the
ancient mind had ever entertained. That which was
an insoluble problem to the ancient classic reason, is
also, to the modern mind, a problem insoluble; — but
it is more than an intellectual stumblingblock, for it
puts at fault our consciousness of first Truths.
Moreover, while Christianity has, to so vast an ex
tent, enlarged our religious conceptions, and has taught
us to think so much more profoundly, and more justly
in whatever touches our higher nature, the advances
of Science, which in a manner expand our conscious
ness over the fields of infinite space and time, help to
impart an awful intensity to every subject that has
any theologic aspect. Then the same Gospel which
penetrates our souls with warm emotions — dispersive
of selfishness, brings in upon the heart a sympathy
that tempts us often to wish that itself were not
true ; or that it had not taught us so to feel. At these
points then we come upon an interior antagonism — a

368 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
deep counteractive energy, whence springs almost with
periodic regularity — a disbelief of which Christianity
is the immediate object, inasmuch as it is its incitative
cause. During a period of repose, such as that which we
have passed through, the Christian system, its doctrines
and its moral energies, working freely upon a people
whose mind and speech submit to no censorship, pro
duces effects of two kinds — the one being the antithesis
of the other. The first of these is the product of its
own proper influence, which is to refine and enhance
the humanizing sensibilities of the people, in their re
spective classes : — many of the highest will be seen
to signalize themselves in courses of self-denying and
truly noble philanthropy; while the lowest class, to
some extent, are weened from their rudeness and their
ferocity. At the same time the large middle class
becomes alive to whatever touches the wellbeing of
mankind, near at home, and afar off, and tax them
selves heavily to give effect to many generous enter
prises. In effecting these ameliorations Christianity
shines with its own light, and shows its derivation
from a world of love and order.
Also, and at the same time, and because the minds
of men are at leisure, that reflective and medita
tive sensitiveness of which Christianity is the source,
and which it so much cherishes, and favours, evolves
adverse theories, and gives birth to schemes of Chris
tianized philosophy (first within the pale of the
Church) and then of antichristian philosophy, beyond

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 369
those limits. From this same perplexed meditation
spring, iri 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,
will addict himself, forthwith, to some instituted labour
of Christian benevolence, and he finds himself, though
much worn, yet happy in his path of toil. The other,
and who is intellectually the choice sample of the
two, deeply ponders what he sees: — he thinks, till he
becomes miserable ; — he throws up his religious pro
fession, and wildly looks round for some doctrine or a
theory that may assuage his anguish: — 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 Christianity, 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 as to give
BB

370 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
existence among them to many self-denying enterprises
of benevolence, and to sustain these labours in vigour
from year to year, it will also have produced a re
action, within the same community, uttering itself con
cerning the evils that abound in the social system in
tones, which at first are querulous — then ferocious, and
at last blasphemous. If on all sides of us there are
penitentiaries — reformatory prisons — missions among
cannibals — and those latest efflorescences of Christian
love — ragged schools — then there will also be heard
lecturers and writers, some of them men of genius,
who, beginning their career as humane reformers, end
it as murky misanthropic Atheists. Just as the pains
and 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 to open the veins of the immortal spirit, and let
go forth the life-blood of the soul.
This is that sifting of spirits — this is that fiery
trial which, with a peculiar intensity, is going on
at this time, and is putting to the severest proof the
loyalty — fhe religious allegiance, of many minds born
and trained within the pale of Christian influence. To
each of us, in a more or less pointed manner, the
critical question is now put whether we will stand by
Heaven — by Truth — by Goodness; or will range our
selves with primaeval rebellion, and be compromised
with those whose quarrel with God may be older than
the mountains?

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 371
This trial of constancy is now severe; but a time
is inevitable when it will have become more so. One
need not be gifted with a prophet's eye to foresee this :
for it is a course of things — it is an issue, that is in
volved in the present condition and tendencies at once
of religious feeling, and of Abstract Thought.
Those who, by God's help, have survived (in a
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 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 with
out 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
resolution of our perplexities — for the solving of dis
tracting problems? will He not shed some light upon
the dark mysteries of this world? He does nothing
of that sort which we so much desire ! He is fixedly
abstinent in relation even to subjects which the Jewish
mind of that age had become in some degree alive to.
He does not propound the main articles of a Theistic
belief, or speak of them as if they needed to be
ascertained or defended. Much less does He recog
nize, as if they were a burden upon that belief, the
Btaggering difficulties which oppress us, of this age,
BB2

372 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
and with which the thoughtful in all times have so
vainly striven. That heavy load of troubled specu
lation which weighs us down, does not seem to have
come into His view when He invites the weary to
seek their rest in Him. This "Man of sorrows," and
" acquainted with griefs," gives no expression to those
griefs which, to many of the thoughtful and sensitive
among His followers, have outweighed the pressure
of the most extreme personal sufferings, so that they
have been tempted to say — "I am indeed afflicted —
yet would endure all with cheerfulness, if the thick
darkness that overspreads these heavens were with
drawn, or if only I could see a verge of the dawn
upon the cloud."
On one occasion, when a perplexity nearly of this
class stood out suddenly in His view, there is heard
from His lips a singular outburst of devout exultation
— " I thank Thee, 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, His sorrow was of that sort
which resembles the spontaneous grief of a parent,
who foresees the miseries that are in store for a re
bellious child: — the trouble was of the concrete, not
of the abstract kind.
And yet if we do not find in the teaching of Christ
that which we should so gladly find, we find at least
the rudiments of peace, and a remedy against distrac
tion, which, if we will accept it and use it, brings with
it as much acquiescence as is to be had, in the nature

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 373
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 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
Christ as what He declares himself to be — namely, not
merely a Messenger, sent by God to man, but far more
than this — the Living Representative of the Divine
Nature, so far as the Infinite Mind can become 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, au
thenticating His message by miracles, teaches us with
authority concerning God; but He treads the earth as
the genuine Image of the Invisible God; — and as

374 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 travers
ing the skies, we should everywhere find ourselves at
home, as to our moral intuitions. The language in
which we embody our notions of the True, the Right,
the Good, the Loving, is not a dialect of this pro
vince; 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 — and a Hearer of prayer. But
He is firm of purpose, true to His word, and sure to
give effect to whatever originates with Himself. The
Saviour Christ does not in words vindicate the ways
of God to men ; but better than 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 pro
vince of the universe, it is a resistance to such wisdom,
such rectitude, and such love, as are brought down to

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 375
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 needed to afford me the intimate satisfaction which
I need; or at least to convey to my heart a uniform
peace — a sentiment, as well as a conclusion of the
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 concep
tions, 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
obvious considerations which, if they be wisely enter
tained, suffice for convincing me that those troubles and
pains that affect myself have been, and are, not more
than a needful and beneficial discipline, which finds its
sufficient 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 in
stances in which the miseries of this life are taking
effect in no such remedial manner; but the contrary —
are the very source and cause of aggravated vice, and
of deeper and deeper wretchedness?
At this point it becomes evident that, as the
ground of a settled religious composure in looking
abroad upon the human system, such as it is, and
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

376 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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
the Biblical Theism, there is here indeed both light
and warmth: nevertheless, as we have just seen, it
is this very Theism, well defined as it is, and pure,
which gives a proportionate 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 insensi
bility, even toward the million with whom I have no
tie of near relationship : — 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, they mock me at
that point. The Theism of the Bible, if it be con
sidered abstractedly, renders me tenfold more alive to
perplexities of this kind than I should have been with
out it: — it is the very soul of that consciousness upon
which the evil and the woe around me so powerfully
take effect.
I see before me but one way of peace ; and yet

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 377
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 ex
empted from those distracting perplexities which are
incompatible with moral health, and which abate vir
tuous 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 contempla
tion of Him I acquire a consciousness, as to those
attributes, which is genuine and trustworthy, and suf
ficient too for my guidance and support in the exigencies
of this life. It remains then that I think of, and live
in communion with the same Christ as the Faultless
Man, in whose demeanour, and in whose words and
actions, I find an intelligible authentication of every
emotion, and of every sensibility which I ought to
allow, and to cherish, as good and reasonable, and as
truly related, not only to those facts which come
within my own range of vision ; but to those also
which lie far beyond it. In the demeanour, in the
discourses, in the conduct of Christ — the True and

378 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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
tlie Evangelic Memoirs, containing as they do the
whole that we can now know of Christ, are too frag
mentary — too inartificial, and too brief, to warrant my
deriving from them the comprehensive Personal Idea
which now I am in search of. Infinitely preferable are
these fragmentary Gospels, in relation to the purpose
before me, than would be any imaginable biography,
framed upon a philosophic principle. In any instance
where the Individual Man of a past age is to be
thought of, vividly and correctly, give me genuine
fragments of his actual life, and of his familiar con
verse with his chosen friends, and keep far out of
my sight the generalizing portraiture which may be
offered to me by some writer who is more full of
himself, than of his subject. This is, I think, the
rule in observance of which the ablest recent writers
of history have made so great an advance upon the
practice of their predecessors. The Gospels, rigidly
analysed on the principles that are^now authenticated
within the department of history, offer to me precisely
the materials which are the most to be desired, in
such a case.
With these materials in my hand — with these

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 379
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 not
withstanding the fact that this Person is such a one
as had never before trod the earth, nor has the like
to Him trod it since. And be it observed that this
Perfect Idea which 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 like
ness, taken and fixed, at various moments, by some
infallible and instantaneous process. All things mun
dane I must regard as a troubled dream — all history
must become as an incoherent myth, if it be not cer
tain that the Christ of the Gospels is a reality, and
the incidents of His life in the strictest sense his
torical. This being so, and as I have on other grounds con
vinced myself that this Christ of the Gospels unites in
His Person the qualities and virtues of human nature
with the attributes of the Divine nature, I draw near
to Him in the confidence that I shall find indicated
in His behaviour, in His words, and in His actions,
those views and sentiments regarding the subjects that
most perplex me, which, if I could but attain the
same, would give me composure, at least. While I
approach Him — even " Jesus, Son of David," thronged
by the multitude, I see Him as one who is conscious
of all conditions and states of being — visible and in
visible — the past, the present, and the future: — the

380 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.
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 se
renity of that brow, and the governed calm of that
countenance. But then, may it not be that, in the
depths of that unfathomable soul, wherein the weal of
all creatures is entertained, no regard is had to those
ills and pains of an hour or a day, the witnessing
of which moves me to pity, and disturbs my peace?
If I 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 ex
ceptions to the rule, that they were interpositions,
having for their purpose the relief of bodily suffer
ings, 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 fhirst and weariness, were of small

THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 381
or no account. It was not that a forethought of the
boundless future bred in Him a lofty indifference
toward pains and ills so ephemeral as those that weigh
upon mortality. Viewed on this ground, and in 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 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
Christian 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 retain
ing my faith and trust in God as supremely Good
and Wise — " a Just God, and a Saviour."

THE END.

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MANUALS FOR THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS,
UNIFORMLY PSINTEU AND BOUND.
It is now about seven years since the Prospectus of this Series was
first issued. Pour volumes have been published, and several
others are in an advanced state. The reception which these
volumes have met with, has fully justified the anticipation with
which the Publishers commenced the Series, and warrants them
in the belief, that their aim of supplying books " concise, com
prehensive, and accurate," "convenient for the professional
Student and interesting to the general reader," has been not
unsuccessfully fulfilled.
The following paragraphs appeared in the original Prospectus, and may
be here conveniently reproduced :—
" The Authors being Clergymen of the English Church, and the Series
being designed primarily for the use of Candidates for office in
her Ministry, the books will seek to be in accordance with her
spirit and principles ; and as the spirit and principles of the
English Church teach charity and truth, so in treating of the
opinions and principles of other communions, every effort will
be made to avoid acrimony or misrepresentation.
" It will be the aim of the writers throughout the Series to avoid all
dogmatic expression of doubtful or individual opinions."
I.
A General View of the History of the Canon of the
New Testament during the PIRST POUR CENTURIES.
By Beooke Poss Westcott, M.A., Assistant Master of Harrow
School, formerly Pellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Crown 8vo. cloth, 12s. Gd.
" The Author is one of those who are leaching us that it is possible to rifle the
storehouses of German theology, without bearing away the taint of their atmo
sphere ; and to recognise the value of their accumulated treasures, and even
track the vagaries of their theoretic ingenuity, without abandoning in ihe pursuit
the clear sight and sound feeling of English common sense . . . . It is by far
the best and most complete book of the kind; and we should be glad to see it
well placed on the lists of our examining chaplains." — Guardian.
"Learned, dispassionate, discriminating, worthy of his subject, and the present
stale of Christian Literature in relation to it." — British Quarterly.
" To the student in Theology it will prove an admirable Text-Book : and to all
others who have any curiosity on the subject it will be satisfactory as one of ihe
most useful and instructive pieces of history which the records of the Church
supply." — London Quakteriy.

!6 NEW WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS.
THEOLOGICAL MANUALS-continued. II.
History of the Christian Church, from Gregory the
Great to the Reformation (a.d. 590-1600).
By Charles Hardwick, M.A., Christian Advocate in the
University of Cambridge. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 21s.
Vol. I. contains The History to the Excommunication of Luther
With Four Maps.
Vol. II. contains The History of the Reformation.
Each Volume may be had separately, price 10s. 6d.
" Full in references and authority, systematic and formal in division, witk enough
of life in the style to counteract the dryness inseparable from ils<brevity, and
exhibiting the results rather than the principles of investigation. Ma. Hard-
wick is to be congratulated on the successful achievement of a difficult task."
— Christian Remembrancer.
" He has bestowed patient and extensive reading on the collection of his materials ;
he has selected them with judgment; and he presents them in an equable and
compact style." — Spectator.
"' To a good method and good materials Mr. Hardwick adds thai great virtue,
a perfectly transparent style. We did not expect to find great literary qualities
in such a manual, but we have found them; we should be satisfied in this
respect wilh conciseness and intelligibility ; but while this book has both, ii is
also elegant, highly finished, and highly interesting." — Nonconformist.
III.
A History of the Book of Common Prayer,
together with a Rationale of the several Offices. By Prakcis
Procter, M.A., Vicar of Witton, Norfolk, formerly Pellow of
St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. Third Edition, revised and
enlarged. Crown Svo. cloth, 10s. Gd.
"Mr. Procter's ' History of tlie Book of Common Prayer' is by far ihe best
commentary extant  Not only do the present illustrations embrace ihe
whole range of original sources indicated by Mr. Palmer, but Mr. Procter
compares the present Book of Common Prayer with the Scotch and American
forms; and he frequently sets out in full the Sarum Offices. As a manual of
extensive information, historical and ritual, imbued with sound Church princi
ples, we are entirely satisjied with Mr. Procter's important volume!'
CnRisnAN Remembrancer.
"It is indeed a complete and fairly -written history of the Lituryy ; and from the
dispassionate way in which disputed points are touched on, will prove to many
troubled consciences what ought to be known to them, viz. : — that they may,
without fear of compromising the principles of evangelical truth, give their assent
and consent to ihe contents ofthe Book of Common Prayer. Mr. Procter has
done a great service to the Church by this admirable digest."
Church or England Quarterly.
OTHER MANUALS ARE IN PROGRESS, AND WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN DUE TIME.

CLASS-BOOKS FOR COLLEGES ANT) SCHOOLS,
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MACMILLAN AND CO.
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MATHEMATICAL.
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Mathematical Tracts on the Lunar and Planetary
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the Calculus of Variations, and the Undulatory Theory of Optics.
; Fourth Edition, revised and improved. 8vo. cloth, 15s.
BY R. D. BEASLEY. M.A.
Head Master of Grantham Grammar School.
An Elementary Treatise on Plane Trigonometry;
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BY GEORGE BOOLE, LL.D.,
Professor of Natural Philosophy in Queen's College, Corle.
A Treatise on Differential Equations. Crown 8vo. cloth.
BY W. H. DREW, M.A.,
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Crown 8vo. cloth, 4s. Gd.
BY HUGH GODFRAY, M.A.,
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BY A. R. GRANT, M.A.,
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Plane Astronomy. Including Explanations of Celestial Phe
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18 MATHEMATICAL CLASS-BOOKS,
BY H. A. MORGAN, M.A,
Fellow and Sadlerian Lecturer of Jesus College, Cambridge.
A Collection of Problems and Examples set at Jesus
College, Cambridge, during 1850 — 57. Arranged
in the Different Subjects progressively, with Answers to all the
Questions. Crown. 8vo. cloth, 6s. Gd.
CAMBRIDGE SENATE-HOUSE PROBLEMS :—
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1857. With Solutions by Campion and Walton. 8s. Gd.
BY BARNARD SMITH, M.A.,
Pellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge.
1. Arithmetic and Algebra, in their Principles and
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Sixth Edition, revised and enlarged throughout.
Crown 8vo. (696 pages) strongly bound in cloth, 10s. Gd.
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4. Mechanics and Hydrostatics in their Principles and
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Examples, taken from the Cambridge Examination Papers, with
special reference to the ordinary B.A. Examination. {Preparing.
BY G. HALE PUCKLE, M.A.,
Head Master of Windermere College.
An Elementary Treatise on Conic Sections, and Alge
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" A better elementary book on the Conic Sections and Analytical Geometry could
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PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN AND CO. 19
BY J. C. SNOWBALL, M.A.,
Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.
1 . The Elements of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry.
Greatly improved and enlarged.
Ninth Edition, Crown 8vo. strongly bound in cloth, 7s. Gd.
2. An Introduction to the Elements of Plane Trigono
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and Problems chiefly from the University Examination Papers,
with Hints for their Solution. Fourth Edition.
Crown 8vo. bound in cloth, 5s.
By P. G. TAIT, M.A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, and Professor
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A Treatise 01I Dynamics, with numerous Examples.
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BY S. PARKINSON, M.A.,
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An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics. For the use of
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BY J. B. PHEAR, M.A.,
Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
Elementary Hydrostatics. With numerous Examples and
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20 MATHEMATICAL CLASS-BOOKS,
BY I. TODHUNTER, M.A.,
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge.
1. A Treatise on the Differential Calculus. With
numerous Examples. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, 10s. 6c?.
2. A Treatise on the Integral Calculus, and its
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3. A Treatise on Analytical Statics. With numerous
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4. A Treatise on Plane Co-ordinate Geometry,
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5. A Treatise 011 Algebra. For the use of Students in the
Universities and in Schools. Crown 8vo. cloth, 7s. Gd.
6. Examples of Analytical Geometry of Three
Dimensions. Crown 8vo. cloth, 4s.
7. Plane Trigonometry. For Schools and Colleges. [In the Press.
BY W. P. WILSON, M.A.,
Professor of Mathematics in tht University of Melbourne.
A. Treatise on Dynamics. 8vo. bds. 9*. 6i.

PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN AND CO. 21

CLASSICAL.
_Eschyli Eumenides. The Greek Text, with English Notes, and
an Introduction, containing an Analysis of C. O. Miiller's Disser
tations. With an English Metrical Translation. By Bernard
Drake, M.A., late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 8vo. cloth, 7s. 6c?.
Demosthenes de Corona. The Greek Text, with English Notes.
By Bernard Drake, MA., late Fellow of King's College, Cam
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Demosthenes 011. -the Crown. Translated by J. P. Norris,
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TllUCydides, Book VI. The Greek Text, with English Notes :
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Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 8vo. cloth, 7s. Gd.
Juvenal for Schools. With English Notes. By J. E. B. Mayor,
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Crown 8vo. cloth, 10s. Gd.
Sallust for Schools. With English Notes. By C. Merivale,
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Author of a "History of Rome," &c. Second Edition.
Fcp. 8vo. cloth, 4s. Gd.
The " Catiline " and the " Jugurtha '" may be had separately, price 2s. 6_.
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Exercitationes Iambicse. Or Progressive Exercises in Greek
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with copious Notes and Illustrations of the Exercises. By E. R.
Humphreys, LL.D., Head Master of Cheltenham Grammar
School. Second Edition, greatly enlarged and improved.
A First Latin Construing Book. Compiled by Edward
Turing, M.A., Head Master of tlie Royal Grammar School,
Uppingham, and formerly Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.
Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 2s. Gd.

22 GREEK AND LATIN CLASS-BOOKS,
BY J. WRIGHT, M.A,
Of Trinity College, Cambridge, Read Master of Sutton Coldjield Grammar School.
1 . A Help to Latin Grammar. With Easy Exercises, both
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" This book aims at helping the learner io overstep ihe threshold difficulties ofthe
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thoroughly explain them. It is exactly adapted for the instruction of children ;
and will, we prophecy, be ihe means of making many a good Latin scholar.
The children who are early disgusted by heaps of rules which they cannot
understand is legion. II is a great detriment to good instruction, and Mr.
Wright deserves our best thanks for removing it. No child of moderate capa
city can fail to understand his grammar, the study of which ought to pre'cede
that of every other. It will also much facilitate the acquirement of English
Grammar." — English Journal of Education.
2. The Seven Kings of Rome. An easy Narrative, abridged
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in order to serve as a First Latin Construing-book, with Gram
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mation as boys require." — Athen_!UM.
3. A Vocabulary and Exercises on " The Seven
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*#* The Vocabulary may be obtained bound up with "The Seven
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4. Hellenica ; or, a History of Greece in Greek,
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" A good plan well executed." — Guardian.

PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

23

ENGLISH.
The Elements of Grammar taught in English.
By Edward Turing, M.A., Head Master of Uppingham School.

A New Edition.

18mo. bound in cloth, 2s.

The Child's Grammar. Being the substance of the above,
with Examples for Practice. Adapted for Junior Classes. A
New Edition, 18mo. limp cloth, Is.
" The book cannot be loo strongly recommended or too widely circulated. Its
price is small and Us value great." — Athene . M.
" We acknowledge with gratitude the service he has rendered so practical end
sensible. The author has successfully attempted to show how Grammar is to
be taught. . . . The method of Mr. Thring's Grammar is the most rational we
have seen ; and il is worked out with simplicity, precision, and completeness" —
Nonconformist.

By the same Author.
School Songs. A Collection of Songs for Schools. With the
Music arranged for Four Voices. Edited by Rev. E. Thring and
H. Riccius. Music size. 7s. Gd.
CONTENTS.

Good Night.— Giebel.
Agnus Dei.
Christmas Carol.
Echoes op Uppingham.
There is a Reaper, Death.
Burial Maroh of Dundee. —
Aytom.
England's Heroes.
Ivrt. — Lord Macaulay.
The Red Cross Knight.
Charge op the Light Brigade. —
Tennyson.
May Song. — Hblty.
The Rockingham Match.
Farewell, Thou Noble Wood.
Come, Follow Me.
Ho, Ho, Ho ! Stag and Roe.

Let Me Never Choose.
Cricket Song.
With His Bow and Arrows. —
Weber.
Fives Song.
Heigho, My Brave Gallants.
There Lived a King in Rhine-
land.
Prince Eugenius.
Dirge.The Good Comrade.
We March to the Beat of the
Muffled Drum.
The Uppingham Chorus.
Lord, Have Mercy on Me.
The Two Hares.
The Dreams op Childhood.

24 RELIGIOUS CLASS-BOOKS.

RELIGIOUS.
History of the Christian Church, from Gregory the
Great to the Reformation (a.d. 590-1600).
By Charles Hardwick, M.A., Christian Advocate in the
University of Cambridge. Two Vols, crown 8vo. cloth, 21s.
Vol. I. History from Gregory the Great to the Excommunication of
Luther. With Maps.
Vol. II. History of the Reformation in the Church.
Each Volume may be had separately, price 10s. 6„.
History of the Book of Common Prayer ; with a Rationale
of its Offices. By Francis Procter, M.A., Vicar of Witton,
Norfolk, and late Fellow of St. Catherine's College. Third
Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth, 10s. 6c?.
The Catechiser's Manual ; or, The Church Catechism
Illustrated and Explained. By Arthur Ramsay, M.A.,
of Trinity College, Cambridge. 18mo. cloth, 3s. Gd.
Hand-Book to Butler's Analogy. With Notes. By c. A.
Swainson, M.A., Principal of the Theological College and Pre
bendary of Chichester. Crown 8vo. Is. 6c?.
History of the Canon of the New Testament during
the Eirst Eour Centuries. By Brooke Foss Westcott,
M. A., Assistant Master of Harrow School ; late Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. cloth, 12s. Gd.
History of the Christian Church during the First
Three Centuries, and the Reformation in England. By
William Simpson, M.A., of Queen's College, Cambridge.
Fcp. Svo. cloth, 5s.
Analysis of Paley's Evidences of Christianity, in the
form of Question and Answer, with Examination Papers. By
Charles H. Crosse, M.A., of Caius College, Cambridge. 18mo. 3s. Gd.

11. CLAY, PRINTER, DREAD STREET HILL.

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