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MODERN SCEPTICISM.

MODERN SCEPTICISM,

COURSE OF LECTURES

DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST OF THE

CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY,

WITH AN EXPLANA TOR Y PAPER
BY THE EIGHT REVEREND
C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.

NEW YORK:
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO.,
770, BROADWAY.
MDCCCLXXI.

Issued in this Country
by special arrangement with the English Publishers^
Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton.

!\l

50

C*k

PREFACE.

The following Lectures, delivered at the request of
the Christian Evidence Society, are now, for the con
venience of the reader, gathered together into one
volume, and earnestly commended to his serious
consideration. A short account of the general designs of the
Society, of the plan of the Lectures, and the
reasons for their appearing in a different order from
that in which they were delivered, will be found in
an explanatory paper which the Bishop of Gloucester
and Bristol has been kind enough to draw up at
the request of the Committee. Though placed, as
last written, at the end of the volume, the attention of
the reader should be early directed to this paper.

PREFACE.

The Committee take this opportunity of offering
their best thanks to the eminent men who have
found time, in the midst of their varied and laborious
avocations, to lend such able and efficient service to
the great cause in hand, — the maintenance of the
truth of the Christian Revelation.

HARROWBY,
Chairman of Committee.

CONTENTS.

Page
design in nature  i
By the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of
York. tf&^sf\tW*&4Fl*~
PANTHEISM  33
By the Rev. J. H. Rigg, D.D., Principal of Westminster
Training College.
POSITIVISM  79
By the Rev. W. Jackson, M.A., F.S.A., late Fellow of
Worcester College, Oxford.
SCIENCE AND REVELATION  1 39
By the Very Rev. R. Payne Smith, D.D., Dean of
Canterbury ; late Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford.
THE NATURE AND VALUE OF THE MIRACULOUS TESTI
MONY TO CHRISTIANITY  179
By the Rev. John Stoughton, D.D. '
the gradual development of revelation . . 229
By the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.

CONTENTS.

Page
THE ALLEGED HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD
AND NEW TESTAMENTS, AND THE LIGHT THROWN
ON THEM BY MODERN DISCOVERIES . . . 265
By the Rev. George Rawlinson, M.A., Camden Pro
fessor of Ancient History, Oxford.
MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY . . . 305
By the Rev. Charles Row, M.A., of Pembroke College,
Oxford.
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES . 36 1
By the Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Professor of
Hebrew, King's College.
CHRIST'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD . 409
By the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ely. /y/Kirtf"?*-'
THE COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE EVIDENCES
OF CHRISTIANITY . . . . . -457
By the Rev. Canon Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter ;
Preacher at Lincoln's Inn.
EXPLANATORY PAPER  503
By the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Gloucester
AND BRISTOL. •£££/L^TjX^
NOTES  S29

DESIGN IN NATURE.
BY THE MOST REVEREND.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.

DESIGN IN NATURE.

" All things are full of God," said the father of Greek
philosophy. " We have no need of the hypothesis of God,"
said a modern French astronomer. It is with the latter
saying, which is descriptive of the attitude of modern
science at this time, that the present address will have to
do. Atheism no doubt exists ; but far more common is the
mode of thinking which would dispense with all questions
about the Divine nature in dealing with the world and its
phenomena; which considers that the introduction of
the name of God into scientific research, complicates what
is simple, obscures the rules of observation, introduces con
troversies that are useless to science, restrains the free
course of inductive reasoning by an apprehension of con
sequences, and entangles physical inquiry which leads to
sure and clear results, with mental and with spiritual
inquiry which have produced nothing but disputation.
Those who hold such views would think it unphilosophidal
3

DESIGN IN NATURE.

to deny, just as they would regard it to affirm, the existence
of God. But the popular mind is not equal to nice dis
tinctions; and it seems almost the same thing to most
people to deny the existence of God as to exclude the
thought of Him when exploring His creation.
I am not without hope that a few words delivered here
upon " the argument from design," as it is called, may tend
to diminish the growing estrangement between science and
religion, and at the same time to revindicate for religion
her legitimate share in matters of scientific interest.
I may undertake that the subject, however unworthily
treated in other respects, shall be discussed without bitter
ness, and with a fitting respect for those who have done so
much for physical science during the present generation.
It is necessary to sketch in a few sentences that field of
creation with which the argument from design has to do.
The world presents to us four kingdoms or classes of facts.
One of these, and the first in point of order, is the mineral
kingdom. A few so-called elements, as metals, earthy
bases, and the like, acted upon by certain forces, known to
us as gravitation, motion, heat, electricity, magnetism,
chemical affinity, have formed the mountain and the valley,
the wind and the clouds, the sea margin and the cave ; in a
word, all the grand substructure on which the higher kingdoms
are to take their places. Modern science has discovered
4

DESIGN IN NATURE.

however, thatthesephysico-chemicalforces are interchangeable
or convertible ; that retarded motion turns to heat, as in the
railway break, that heat generates electricity, and the elec
tric current magnetises the iron round which it passes. Not
omy this, but each force generates a certain equivalent of
another — so much and no more ; and no force is lost, though
a force may pass from an active to a potential state. For
example, two tuns of water are raised by evaporation from
the sea, and one of them falls in rain in a valley drained by
a river, and in its downward motion back to the sea it will
turn the water-wheel, lift the tilt-hammer, bear the barge
swiftly in its current, leap over the rocky ledge a foaming
cataract, and iu all these it is only sending back a portion
of the force which was spent upon its evaporation ; and the
real source of all this work is, and must be, the sun's heat.
And ere the water rests again in the sea it will have
accounted for the whole of the force, neither less nor more,
that had operated upon it ; part of it in friction on its bed
and in consequent heat ; part of it in tasks imposed by hu
man skill. The other tun of water shall fall into some land
locked tarn, high in the hills, where it cannot at once render
back its force in work or duty, but the force is there, held
in suspense or in reserve. Water lifted from the sea level
to the valley of the Engadine, a mile higher, has used much
of the sun's heat ; it will restore that heat or some equivalent
5

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

force, as soon as you make a way for it to the sea level
again ; and it will have parted with all the force, neither
more nor less, which raised it to that height. That forces
are convertible, and that whether converted or not they
are conserved, so that nothing is lost, are propositions demon
strated. It is not, I believe, demonstrated, but it is a probable
supposition, that all forces are but one force manifested in
different modes.
Then as to the material elements on which these forces
work'; the hydrogen, carbon, iron, lime, and the like, the name
of elements must be held to mean no more than that they
have not as yet been resolved into simpler substances. Of
their ultimate composition we know nothing. They may be
so many modifications of an ultimate matter ; but whether
this ultimate matter exists, whether it be, as modern mate
rialists tell us with such confidence, eternal and indestructi
ble, whether impenetrability be one of its properties, whether
it be not a kind of polar opposite to the physico-chemical
forces, and engendered with them, so that in a different
universe, with other forces at work, there must have
been different elements, these are all questions of mere
speculation, incapable of proof. The physical enquirer has
bound himself to consider only the facts which he can
observe ; and when he tells us that matter is eternal, and
that therefore creation is impossible, he is deserting the

DESIGN IN NATURE.

ground where alone he is strong. Bishop Berkeley's and
Collier's denial that matter truly exists is quite as probable
as this affirmation. But both alike are speculative guesses
and not science.
There is a second kmgdom to add to the first. The
world is not a mere agglomeration of rocks and mountains,
seas and lakes. Before the physical forces had completed
their work, a new force had been added to them ; that of
life. The bare rocks became clothed with living moss. In
marshy places, warm and moist, a rich vegetation grew and
decayed. Along the slopes the interlacing roots of grasses
detained the particles of soil which would otherwise have
been washed down to some lower bed. The vegetable
world, with thousands of varieties, clothed and adorned the
stony earth. England's greatness in the present was taken
order for in those ages when her coal measures were
formed out of the forests which grew rank and died in a
climate different in all respects from that which forms the
subject of our daily animadversion.
Third in order comes the Animal Kmgdom. I do not
attempt to define life, whether animal or vegetable, with
exactness. Every one has failed in that attempt. As a
rough description of animal life, it may, perhaps, suffice to
say that the living being is one endowed with sensation and
spontaneous motion, of which each of the parts contributes
7

DESIGN IN NATURE.

something to the continuance of the whole, and is in turn
preserved or defended by the whole. If those who find
fault with this, look for another definition in Dr. Whewell's
comprehensive work,* they will find my excuse in the
variety and the inadequacy of the definitions there collected.
The animal life spread out over the globe from the first is
profuse, is beautiful and various. " The oolitic limestone and
the white chalk are almost wholly made up of shells of Fora-
minifera. On the river Columbia is a bed of clay 500 feet
thick, which consists largely of the shells of Diatoms, if, in
deed, these are to be ranked in the animal kingdom. The
shells of the Foraminifera, which can only be examined by
the microscope, exhibit wonderful variety and beauty. Still
more remarkable in this respect are the Polycystina, whose
shells, as figured in Mr. Ponton's book, recall censers and
vases, jewelled crosses and stars, pendants and tripods, such
as a London goldsmith would do well to reproduce. Until
the microscope was mvented no eye can have explored this
wonderful dust. The shells of both these humble tribes, the
Foraminifera and Polycystina resemble the shells of other
animals much higher in the scale of organization ; but nearly
as they are related in organization to each other, the forms are
very different, and each in itself presents a wonderful diversity
* " Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences."
8

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

of fornls. In higher families of animals there are the same
characters. The globe teems with life in earth, and air,
and water. If you will permit me, so early in my argument,
to speak of the Maker of them all, I will say that the
creative power is inexhaustible in invention, both of useful
and beautiful parts. And in the ceaseless activity of these
creatures, great and small, we recognise the physical happi
ness which accompanies so much life. It is a chorus of
thanksgiving and praise, from pool and jungle, from tree-
top and soft grass, from the creatures that revel in the life
that God has given them.
In demanding the right to regardjnan as the fourth kingdom
of nature, I am aware that some may demur to the claim.
No doubt he must take rank in the kingdom of the animals,
by reason of his identity with animals in all the vital func
tions. Disparaging things have been said of his brain ; and
Moleschott has remarked, I think, that all its finest things
are but modified phosphorus after all. " No phosphorus,
no thinking ! " The slight projection on the outer margin
of the ear has lately assumed portentous proportions. The
possession of that precious relic, which has turned up suddenly
like the locket of the long lost child in a stimulating
novel, proves our kinship to the Simian race, from some
balder specimens of which we are supposed to have de
scended, and gives us a place on an unsuspected family tree.
9

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

But, after all that has been said by the naturalists to teach
us humility, there do remain some facts, which entitle man
to a separate place, to one at least of which the modern
school have given greater prominence than before. They are
these. Man can control nature. He canreadnatureandunder-
stand it. He has a power of self-regulation, which we call
conscience. And lie can and does think much about God.
As to the power of man to control nature, I prefer to em
ploy the words of Mr. Wallace, one of the first to put for
ward what is called " the law of natural selection," who will
not be suspected of claiming any transcendental place or
privilege for man. " With a naked and unprotected body,"
he says, man's intelligence " gave him clothing against the
varying inclemencies of the seasons. Though unable to
compete with the deer in swiftness, or with the wild bull in
strength, it has given him weapons wherewith to capture and
overcome both. Though less capable than most other
animals, of living on the herbs and the fruits which unaided
nature supplies, this wonderful faculty taught him to govern
and direct nature to his own benefit, and to make her
produce food for him when and where he pleased. From
the moment when the first skin was used as a covering,
when the first rude spear was formed to assist in the chase,
the first seed sown or root planted, a grand revolution was
effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

ages of the world had had no parallel, for a being had arisen
who was no longer necessarily subject to change with the
changing universe, a being who was, in some degree,
superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control
and regulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony
with her, not by a change in body, but by an advance in
mind. Here, then, we see the true grandeur and dignity of
man. On this view of his special attributes we may admit
that even those who claim for him a position and an order
a class or a sub-kingdom by himself, have some reason on
their side. He is indeed a being apart, since he is not
influenced by the great laws which irresistibly modify all
other organic beings. Nay, more, this victory which he
has gained for himself gives him a directing influence over
other existences. Man has not only escaped natural selec
tion himself, but he is actually able to take away some of
that power from nature which before his appearance she
universally exercised. We can anticipate the time when
the earth will produce only cultivated plants and domestic
animals; when man's selection shall have supplanted
natural selection ; and when the ocean will be the only
domain in which that power can be exerted, which for
countless cycles of ages ruled supreme over the earth."*
* Mr. Wallace, in the "Anthropological Journal," I864; see also
Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," last chapter.

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

Thus eloquently andforcibly speaks Mr. Wallace ; and I do
not stop now to criticise the exaggeration of language which
treats thelaw of natural selection as supreme ruler of the earth.
Let me say a few words next upon man's power to reflect
on, and to understand nature. For this was the second
mark by which, man was distinguished from the animal crea
tion, with which he has so much in common.
Man alone is capable of an unselfish interest in the world
around him ; that is, an interest that does not bear imme
diately on his bodily wants. How far he has carried this
interest, let modern science bear witness. The common
feat of foretelling all the eclipses of sun and moon for a
given year, is performed for our almanack yearly, without
exciting surprise or gratitude. Yet it means that man can
so follow the heavenly bodies in their path, for years and
years to come, for all the years that are gone, that he can
tell, without fear of error, on what day the cone of shadow
thrown by the sun-lighted earth into space, shall sweep over
the face of the moon and blot out her light, completely or a
little. But this is an old triumph, hardly worth quoting, but
for its aptness to impress all kinds of minds. A clerk in one
of our public offices, using only such leisure as official work
allowed, has told us lately wonders about the composition of
the sun ; and here in London, armed with a little instru
ment (the spectroscope), this distinguished man has been

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

able to ascertain that in yonder photosphere the same ele
ments are found which the chemist seeks and finds in
the crust of our little earth. What proofs can be more
convincing of the fitness of man to play his part in the
scene in which he is placed ? His senses are adapted
to the facts he is to observe ; his eye to light, his ear
to sonorous vibrations, his touch to resistance and to
weight. But the naked organ soon falls short of his
wishes. And soon the microscope unfolds the beautiful
forms of the Polycystina shells, the minute fibril of the
muscle, and the components of the blood of life. The tele
scope brings near the world of stars, and resolves the bright
mist into clusters of distinct orbs. The balance weighs
quantities of matter too small for the touch to appreciate.
And lastly, the spectroscope takes the picture, so to speak, of
chemical phenomena too distant to be realised by these
means ; and so the composition of the heavenly bodies,
about which the most sanguine observer twenty years ago
would have admitted that we should never know anything
firmer than conjecture, is already the subject of exact ob
servation. The names of Homer, Plato, and Shakspeare remind us
how marvellously the world is imaged and reproduced in the
minds of some great men, and of the share which we smaller
men can take in their work by an admiring sympathy. A
13

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

production of art, whether literary, pictorial, or plastic, is a
creation. The things of Troy were not so touching nor so
grand in their reality as they became in the form which the
poet gave them. Legend enters largely into the stories of
Macbeth and Hamlet. The histories are shadowy, but the
plays are substantial ; they contain some touch of truth. Old
and young read them, and lend to the author all their feelings
to work on as he will. Weigh this fact well. It seems to
me to show so plainly that man's constitution has been fitted
by foresight and preparation for the place in earth that he
was to fill.
Supposing that Moleschott was right in his startling aphor
ism, " Without phosphorus there is no thought," what a
wonder are we forced to recognise here. The rage of Achilles,
the death of Socrates, the resolute wickedness of Lady
Macbeth, the character of her husband, so weak in his crime,
so grand in his remorse and ruin ; the refined and gentle
Hamlet, forced by a preternatural command to assume the
character of an avenger; to all these the presence of
phosphorus in the brain is indispensable. How comes so
small a cause to work such grand effects. It is sufficiently
wonderful to hear Joachim discourse eloquent music upon
the simplest of instruments, a violin ; take away the violin
and substitute a bit of wood ; if the music still continues
what was before a wonderful exercise of skill is now miraculous.
'4

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

If great thoughts are but phosphorus burnt in the closed stove
of a poet's brain, I am more ready than ever to admire that
creative wisdom which could bring this out of that, which
:ould so dispense with ordinary means in His highest pro
ductions. But the aphorism is not true as it stands. I
beheve there is no free phosphorus in the brain. "Without
time, no thought ; without oxygen, no thought ; without
water, no thought." All these are true, and they import a
well-known fact, that man who thinks is a creature in a
material world, and that certain forms of matter are need
ful to his existence as an organised being.*
" Two things are awful to me," said Kant, "the starry firma
ment and the sense of responsibility in man." In his "Meta
physics of Ethics" he has treated this sense of responsibility
with singular logical power. It is one of the marks that
separate man from all other creatures. No doubt this
principle has allowed men to come to very wrong and absurd
conclusions. Because the savage practises cannibalism,
and knows no rules of chastity but those which flow from
the husband's right of property in the wife, it is inferred that
the savage has no moral sense. It would be as fair to infer
that because England once traded in slaves, fought cocks,
baited bulls, and oppressed the native races in India and
* Moleschott, " Circulation of Life:" Letter XVIII., with Liebig's
opinion there quoted. IS

DESIGN IN NATURE.

her colonies, therefore there was no sense of right and
wrong in England. It is for the existence of the principle
that I contend, and not for its perfect education and en
lightenment The principle is that something is right to will
and to do, and something is not right. The existence of
the principle is proved if the poor savage of whom I spoke
would consider his manhood disgraced by fleeing, even for
his life's sake, before the foe, or by suffering one cry to es
cape him under the tortures, wherewith his captors are doing
him to death. The education of this principle is a different
matter ; no one could say that even now his conscience was
completely educated. " So act that your principle of action
would bear to be made a law for the whole world,"* is a noble
maxim ; but it requires knowledge and light, as well as right
intention. If you twit us with the fact that men have been
cruel, impure, capricious, and absurd in their conduct, we
answer that they had still a right and a wrong. One who
has the sense of sight may find himself compelled to live
in some narrow cleft or ravine, where there is little to see,
but the sense is there still. The bathing-men at
Pfeffers, with the earth closed almost over their heads,
see little of the scenery of Switzerland : but they have eyes
not the less. We are claiming for men now, not the fine

*Kant, "Metaphysics of Ethics."
IS

DESIGN IN NATURE.

sweep of moral prospect, but the moral sense of sight ; and
this is never wanting. Upon this sense every artifice has
been used to make it look like something else ; * for until it
can be so transformed, it is a powerful witness for another
world than this. The commonest explanation is that it is
only a principle of enlightened self-interest. Study it for
yourself in the savage, in the little child ; you will find that
these two principles run on different lines.
The last mark of man, that distinguishes him from all
animals is, that he believes in God. One half the human
race at this moment profess some creed in which God is the
great first cause, the Creator and Governor of the world.
Of the other half, hardly any are quite without religion.
" Obliged as I am,'' says M. Quatrefages, in words which
I have had occasion to quote elsewhere,! "even by my edu
cation, to pass in review the races of men, I have sought
for atheism in the lowest and in the highest, but nowhere
have I met with it, except in an individual, or at most in
some school of men, more or less known, as we have seen
in Europe in the last century, and as we see at the present
day. Everywhere and always the masses of the people have
escaped it." But for my present argument it is not neces-
*See, for example, Renouvier, "Science de la Morale," 1869.
t "Limits of Philosophical Enquiry." 1868.
17 2

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

sary to insist that a right belief in God prevails. There is
a belief in God, and it cannot have come from experience
or observation of visible facts. You may lower the position
of man, by comparing him to the apes, and by chemical analy
sis of his brain; all the more wonderful is it that a creature
in such sorry case should pretend to hold communion with
the divine. His feet are in the earthy clay, but his head
is lifted up towards heaven. Heir to a hundred maladies,
the sport of a hundred passions, holding on this life, so
chequered in its complexion, but for a few days, this crea
ture cries out of his trouble : " God exists ; and he can see
and hear me."
Man, if I have proved my position, stands quite alone at
the head of the kingdoms of nature, alone in his power of
controlling it, alone in his appreciation of its beauty, alone
in the self-government of conscience, the first of all the crea-
. tures of God, to pronounce the name of Him who had made
all things, in a world which for ages had been blind to its
Maker, and thankless because blind.
Now it has become, and will probably continue to be, a
question of the deepest interest to mankind, how these four
kingdoms came into being. And at present there is a ten
dency towards a theory purely material and mechanical. It
is so in Germany, the country of Biichner, Vogt, and
Moleschott; it is so in France, where Comte and Littre
iS

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

have written ; it is so here in England, where it is needless
to quote distinguished names. I purpose, in the remainder
of this lecture, to attempt an interpretation of the facts
before us, quite different from this prevalent notion; and
also to show how vicious and how inadequate in a scientific
point of view the system known as materialism appears to
be. The time is all too short for such a purpose : but any
address like this can only aim to scatter germs of thought,
not to present a system.
That the creation was gradual, appears alike from the
account of the Bible and from scientific observation. Matter
and motion must have existed before the ball of
earth was formed; and the physico-chemical forces
must have been in full play when the first lichen clothed the
rocks, or the first plants were formed in the sea. The first
appearance of life on the globe was a mighty step in crea
tion, and from this point the question of design becomes a
very urgent one. Observe : the plant world is a new world,
with a series of wonders all its own. There was nothing in
the heat of the sun, nor in the earth's motion or magnetic
currents, to give any promise or presage of the marvels of
the forest. Supposing that we admit that these were evolved
by law, that is to say, that as a matter of fact plants only
appeared where certain conditions of light and heat and
moisture combined to favour them,- and that wherever these
19

DESIGN IN NATURE.

conditions were combined they never failed to appear. The
question next arises whether matter and force evolved
them from their own inherent nature, or force and matter
were created with the intention to produce them, so that
the plant was intended and prepared then when the other
forces began to stir the formless void. Is the plant world
the accidental or necessary outcome of the forces that made
the mineral world ? or must we say * that it bears marks of
design ? Here we must observe that it is a wider and richer
world than that which preceded -it : more full by far of
forms of beauty and grace, each of them sustained by a
vascular system of which the mineral world affords no parallel.
You stand before the gnarled and twisted oak that rises
out of the feathering ferns ; you never think that this giant
of two centuries, endued with a certain power of self-
protection against the storms of two hundred years, is an
accidental product. It is so grandly strong, so richly
clothed with a myriad leaves, alike but yet in something
different each from each. The cattle count upon its friendly
shade ; the fowls of the air make it their resting-place. This
a result of certain motions in the universe and certain
properties of matter, not designed at all, foreseen by no
eye? To no one would such a thought naturally occur.
The world, full in its first stage of marks of order and pur
pose, shows more of the same marks in its second and

DESIGN IN NATURE.

more complicated state. The change that has taken place
is not towards confusion and exhaustion from unforeseen
defects in mechanism, but a higher development The
mineral kingdom was wonderful ; that it should be able to
clothe itself with a mantle of verdure, and pass into another
kingdom much more complex, heightens the wonder. But
then comes the further change, the pouring out of animal
life upon the globe. Was this too an inevitable consequence
of physical forces ? All the animal creation teems with
marks of purpose. Consider only some of the contrivances
by which the fowls of the air are fitted for their peculiar
life. Describing a night of extreme coldness, the poet -says :
" The owl, for all her feathers, is a-cold:"
That warm covering of the bird must be portable as well as
warm; it weighs about an ounce and a half. But the covering
of birds would be useless to them if the showers to which they
must be exposed were absorbed by the plumage, so that it
became a heavy clinging mass. An oily secretion makes it
waterproof; we have all seen the duck free itself by one shake
from every trace of its recent bath. The heavy skeleton
that befits pedestrian creatures, would disable the bird from
flight ; so it is provided with tubes of thin bone, surround
ing a cavity filled with air. Its pinions must be light as
well as strong ; observe how the light barbs of the feather
have roughened edges so that they form one strong con-

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

tinuous surface, almost impervious to the air which they
strike. The air in the bones of birds and in other cavities
of the body, heated too by an inner warmth much greater
than that of man, contributes something to their buoyancy.
Their speed and endurance are enormous. It is said that
the swallow's flight is ninety miles an hour. One long
stretch across the North Sea brings the sea-fowl from
Norway to Flamborough Head; they rest for a short
time after this flight, and pass inland, not the worse
for their exploit. You may infer from the beak of a
bird its habits and its food. The bill of a woodpecker is a
pointed tool, tipped with hardest horn, to break open the
bark of the tree for insects. The flat bill of the duck has
plates of horn at the side ; an excellent instrument for strain
ing off the water and retaining the food. The bill of the
snipe is long, and narrow, and sensitive, to pierce the marshy
ground, and feel after its food. We might go on for hours
multiplying such instances, and from every part of the field
of creation.
Now, any mind in its natural state knows that in human
works such adaptations could only proceed from contrivance,
and is willing to regard these in the same way as proofs of
design in creation. The physicist has to tutor himself to a
different view. All these things are evolutions, under pres
sure of circumstances, of the original forces of creation. For

DESIGN IN NATURE.

example, out of certain birds tenanting marshy places, one
has a somewhat larger beak, and this gives him an advantage
in piercing the ground for food ; and so his share of food
is larger, and his strength and courage greater, and he
has a freer choice of a mate ; and so the long beak grows
longer in the next generation, and the grandson's beak is
longer than the son's, from the same causes ; and thus the
law works, until in course of time there stands confessed a
new species — a perfect snipe. Is the scientific theory better
in this case than the popular? It is not. It does not account
for the facts so well. But is not our belief that God made
the fowl of the air with fitting instruments for a peculiar life
because He saw that it was good, and wished all portions of
His varied earth to be the scene of the joy and energy of
appropriate tenants, a mere hypothesis ? The worship
of God is universal, and exists without any explicit
opinion that He is the Creator, the first Cause. Because
you are able to conceive of Him, and are willing to accept
Him as the Ruler of your will and conscience, He must
exist. Does this seem too rapid an assumption? Consider
the alternative. If He exists not, the sound of worship has
gone up from all lands in vain, and in vain have all good
men consecrated their lives to an obedience to the law of
duty. Were such deceit felt to be possible, a darkness that
might be felt would settle upon our spirits, and the hands
n

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

would indeed hang down, and the feeble knees be paralyzed,
and a strict silence on all moral subjects become us best.
But we must see with such eyes as God has given us ; and
scepticism about faith and conscience is perhaps as un
profitable as scepticism about touch and sight. God exists
then, it is assured to us by the common faith of mankind,
by the highest law within ourselves. And as He exists, to
Him, and to no other, must we assign the place of Creator.
There cannot be two Gods. I cannot give my conscience to
one as its guide, and adore another for the wisdom of the
universe God exists then, and His existence is not merely
assumed in order to account for marks of design in nature.
And we maintain that the easier supposition is also the
truer. These marks of purpose are what they appear to
be, tokens of the wisdom of God. "Thou hast made
heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth
and all things that are therein, the sea and all that is therein,
and thou preservest them all."*
If I were to venture to express in a few sentences the be
lief of a man of ordinary education upon this subject I
should say that God alone is and can be the first cause of
this universe, the mover of its motion, the giver of its
Hfe. The wise purposes which shine forth for us in
* Nehem. ix. 6.
24

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

nature, were in the mind of God from the first act of
creation. In saying that He has wrought by laws, we do not
detract from His power ; we seem rather to enhance it to
our minds in attributing to Him constancy as well as wis
dom. A law is not a restraint; it is a fixed manner of work
ing. To say of a painter that he never produces any but
fine works, does not affirm that he is less free than an inferior
artist; just because producing bad work is no power or
privilege but a defect. And so, when we admit that God
works by law, and expect to find the same spectrum from
the sun's rays, which we have once made with our own
prism, at every time and in every place where the
sun's light shines, and so on, we do not narrow the power
of the Great Artificer, unless it can be shown that caprice
is a privilege and a good. The subject of miracles is not
here to be discussed; I will only observe that they are pre
sented to us as parts of a great purpose for the good of
man ; and that our Lord refused, when He was tempted,
to work wonders out of wilfulness, or only to astonish.
The extreme jealousy of scientific men of admitting any
allusion to theology, in connection with the course of nature,
proceeds from erroneous conceptions of God. Mr. Wallace,
whom I have already quoted with respect, is ready to admit
that the Creator works in the beginning as the founder of the
laws on which the world is to proceed; but he is afraid of

25

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

admitting that there has been continual interference and re
arrangement of details.* But this eminent naturalist at
tributes to us a conception of the Most High which we do
not hold, nay, which we energetically reject. If the laws
were wise and good, whence would come the need of inter
ference or re-arrangement? Who are we that we should
bid God speak once, and forbid Him twice to speak ? The
laws of nature are God's laws, and God's laws are His
utterance of Himself through the speech of nature. God is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and so His laws remain
the same. They are, if I may say so without irreverence, the
veil and vesture over the form of God, too bright in itself
for us to look on ; they take their outline from Him who is
beneath them. You may continue your researches in full
confidence that the laws will stand sure, not because you
have the slightest guarantee as a man of science that these
laws will never be interfered with ; such a guarantee you
have on your own principles no right to ask. You are to
observe that the facts are so ; that they shall eternally be so
is not for you, forthat is all beyond experience. But the wis
dom that made the laws needs not to revise its work, and
erase and insert and amend its code. In the days of crea
tion God saw that it was good ; the eye that so approved it
* See Duke of Argyll's " Reign of Law."
26

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

changes not. Until the purpose that runs through the ages
is completed the laws will stand sure. But each new king
dom of nature has introduced a change amounting to a revo
lution, which neither the theologian nor the naturalist
regards as an interference or a caprice. When the principle
of plant-life was introduced, the mineral world became the
material on which the plant-life worked ; it gathered into
itself the lower elements, carbon, silica, nitrogen, and used
them as means of its own organic life. The plant partook of
the nature of the class below it, whilst it dominated and used
that class. This same took place when animal life was intro
duced. Thebeautiful plants become thematerial whereon the
animal life worked, the food whereby it sustained itself. It
was the same when man was added, in whom instinct is re
placed by reason, and ethical action supervenes over action
by impulse and appetite. Each of these kingdoms has
much in common with that which is below it. The animal
is in many respects a plant ; for the diatomaceous creatures
one knows hardly in which kingdom to find their place. The
man is an animal in much, and perhaps his animal instincts
play a larger part in the world's history and in his own develop
ment than we are wont to allow. But each higher step brings
in something wholly new. " An animal," says Hegel, " is a
miracle for the vegetable world." Each step is a revolution
in one point of view ; but then the lower state prepared itself
27

DESIGN IN NATURE.

for the higher, prophesied, so to speak, of its coming,
and the higher seated itself so easily on the throne prepared
for it, that we do not wonder to find it there. You call it
evolution ; we call it a creative act. We think that God
exists, and if He acts anywhere it must be in this, the uni
verse of things. E| ivhs to. Travra ylyve<r8ai is an old saying
long before Christianity. But you and we may work by the
same calculus and rales of observation. The facts are the
same, the interpretation of what is behind them is different.
Nor need we deny that the principle of which Mr. Wallace
spoke as " supreme in the world," has its truth and its use in
explaining the facts of creation. It never raised an inert
mineral mass into a vegetable organism ; itneverraised aplant
intoananimal. Itneverraisedanapeintoaman. Nofactshave
yet been produced that go to prove any such leaps, and
if our logic is to be improved in anything by the light of ex
perience, it is in this, that facts should be recorded and
generalised, but not assumed. But that climatic con
ditions, and the struggles for life, have modified species, and
worked out new varieties, or new species, we may fearlessly
admit ; it is one more proof, perhaps, that the world is a
meet school and training ground for the creatures placed in
it for discipline. But a law is not a god ; it never ruled
supreme ; never was other than one precept out of many in
the Divine code of the world. 28

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

It has become the fashion with some naturalists to speak
of God as " the Unknowable." Mr. Martmeau has finely
observed, somewhere, that this name is self-contradictory ;
for we affirm by the use of it that we know so much, that
He cannot be known. I go much further. It assumes the
existence of God, and in the same breath separates us from
Him for ever. Theologians have ever been ready to confess
that God cannot be known in His own essence to creatures
such as we. " Lo ! these are parts of His ways : but how
httle a portion is known of Him ? but the thunder of His
power who can understand ? "* An uninspired writer speaks
the same language as the inspired. " For us that are men
to talk about divine things is as when the unmusical dis
course of music or civilians of strategy."f But shall
we then sit down in despair, and no more look up to God ?
We shall be untrue to our own best instincts ; we shall not
have used all our means of enlightenment. I grant that the
mere contemplation of God in nature is not enough. Like
the pillar of cloud of old, it is at once light and darkness ;
a light to us in contemplating the book of nature, a darkness
to our hearts, shut in with their own sins and sorrows.
Naturalists have never done justice, as it seems to me, to

* Job xxvi. 14.
t Plutarch, "De Justitia."
29

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

the most important facts of man's nature. Not only can he
study nature, but he can act in it and upon it. And this
power of action assures him of his freedom. Possessed of
this gift, that places him a little lower than the angels, he
knows that he can use it either way. He may follow his
own foolish vanity, his own evil wishes, and set up for his
own law, and be his own God ; or he may return to Him,
whence he came out, and offer to God the homage of his
own will, of his love, and his obedience. To one who has
performed this great act God is no more " the Unknowable."
In the mutual commerce of two wills, two spirits, the
finite and the infinite, the finite rises more and more, and
sees more and more of Him who has manifested Himself to
us in His creation of the world out of free love, in His crea
tion of a free being to rule in the same world, crowned with
glory and honor, in His giving that free being a law of duty
wherewith to ru]_e himself, in His having planted in him
hopes and longings that will be satisfied only in eternity.
Yes ; man is humble and low. By every organ, and by
every fibre he is mated with some analogous creature in the
brute world. He surpasses them in the variety of his ail
ments, and the profundity of his pains. He is part of a
system, which naturalists tell us is hastening towards night
and death ;* the motion of the power of nature tending plainly
* Buchner. 3°

DESIGN IN NA TURE.

towards universal rest. But
"Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great,"
he has that in him which unites him to another sphere. To
be able to conceive of God at all; to have within him a will
and a power of worship, these make him one with God,
and assure him against death and darkness. To deny one
self this privilege of viewing the earth in its relation to God,
to shut out God artificially from that sphere where the
natural understanding has always found Him without
assistance, is a pedantry for which we shall surely suffer.
God will find us out. There is often a certain irritation in
those who would exclude Him from their sphere of view.
They lose their philosophic calmness when they speak of
religious things. These are the tokens of past conflicts and
past quarrels, of a soul that might know more of God if it
had not refused. God is reflected in the world, in the
man's intelligence, in his conscience, in his will. "Whither
shall I go from His presence ?" we seem to be saying. It
is better to be able to say, " Whom have I in heaven and
earth but Thee?"

3i

PANTHEISM.
BY THE
REV. J. H. RIGG, D.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF WESTMINSTER TRAINING COLLEGE.

PANTHEISM

A hundred years ago the controversy of Christianity in
England was with Deism, and in France with Atheism ;
while at that time the transcendental infidelity of Germany
was as yet undeveloped, and the name of Spinoza was
nowhere held in honour. Now, however, deistic infidelity
appears to be obsolete, and it is universally felt by those
who have entered truly into the thought and controversies
of the age, that the question for the present is between
Christian Theism and that style of philosophy which recog
nises an impersonal divinity in all things.
Deism grants too much to the Christian. If a man really
believes in a living and personal God, a Divine Maker and
Ruler of the universe, with a moral character and will, he
finds it hard to deny the possibility and probability of a
revelation, and impossible to maintain the impossibility of
35

PANTHEISM.
miracles. Having been obliged to yield thus far to the
Christian argument, the deist is unable thereafter to with
stand the positive evidence in favour of Christianity. More
over Deism is beset by the same difficulties in effect which
surround the Christian revelation, without its lights, its con
solations, its blessings. The man, therefore, who rejects
Christianity seldom finds his resting-place in Deism. He
becomes a pantheist or an atheist.
Naked atheism, however, is a repulsive creed. It is a
heart-withering negation. It touches no sympathy; it sti
mulates no play of intellect ; under the deadly chill of its
unlighted vacancy, imagination cannot breathe. There is
nothing about it refined, or subtle, or profound. It is the
barest and hardest form of infidelity, and has been professed
by the coarsest minds. It demands no effort to compre
hend its one universal negation and it taxes no skill to
expound it. It is an arid and barren, a cold and dreary,
hypothesis, which no genius, not even that of Lucretius,
could make attractive. The old illustration is conclusive as
to its absurdity. It would be immensely less monstrous to
maintain that the Iliad, in its full perfection, might have
been the product of the " fortuitous concourse " of the
letters of the Greek alphabet, than that this infinitely won
derful and glorious universe is the result of the "fortuitous
concourse of atoms." Stark atheism, therefore, however it
36

PANTHEISM.

may have flourished in the heartless and hopeless France
of a hundred years ago, was never likely to take root in the
soil of European scepticism as the alternative of Christianity.
In England it has had very few votaries. Nor has atheism,
as such, ever found favour in the land of Luther and
Melancthon, the favourite soil of mysticism and pietism.
English deism and Scottish scepticism did, indeed, produce
potent effects in Germany a hundred years ago; but the
result was neither deism, nor such scepticism as that of
Hume, nor atheism, but a dreamy idealistic pantheism.
And now Germany, with a disastrous fidelity, by an infusion
into our literature of its pantheistic unbelief, has repaid to
Britain the debt which it contracted by its importation of
English deism and Scottish scepticism. At the present
moment a pantheistic philosophy is the philosophy in which
unbelief for the most part invests itself in England.
Hence the task which falls to me to-day cannot but be
felt by myself to be one of very grave importance. I could
unfeignedly have wished that it had fallen into other and
more competent hands. Perhaps, however, I may venture
to claim two qualifications which may, in some measure,
help to fit me for dealing with the subject on which I have
to speak. One is, that the subject of Pantheism is one
which has much and frequently exercised my thoughts for
many years past, ever since I learnt from the writings of
37

PANTHEISM.

Coleridge, Hare, and others the meaning of what Hare
spoke of as the " fascination of Pantheism ;" ever since I
was led to the study of philosophy and its development, and
especially of the thoughts of the early Greek wrestlers with
the mysteries of being, of the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists,
and of the modern thinkers of Germany, who have filled
with transcendental exhalations of verbal dialectics the
vacuum in speculation which had been created by the de
structive logic of Kant. The other qualification which I
venture to claim for my task to-day is that I have some
knowledge of the difficulties of thought and belief which may
lead honest men to become pantheists ; that I understand
the manner of thought of one who has become entangled
in the mazy coil of pantheistic reasonings ; at all events,
that I know that honest searchers after truth may reluctantly
become intellectually pantheists, while yet their heart longs
to retain faith and worship towards a personal God. If,
therefore, one necessary condition of true success in argu
ment is an intellectual and, as far as possible, a moral
sympathy with one's opponents, that condition, I believe, is
fulfilled in my case. And I cannot but think that all
Christian controversialists ought to feel a tender sympathy
towards honest thinkers who are involved in the bewildering
confusions of a philosophy which they do not love, even
although they may, after many a struggle and in sadness of
38

PANTHEISM.

heart, have succumbed at length to Pantheism as the only
conclusion of controversy in which they are able to abide.
My subject to-day is not the history of Pantheism, but its
principles. The history could not be dealt with in one lec
ture ; the principles, I hope, may. And whatever may be
the intellectual genesis, the descent and derivation, or the
special character, of any particular form of Pantheism, all
its forms will be found to coincide in certain respects. The
semi-Hegelian of Oxford, and the pantheist who falls back
on the lines of Mr. Herbert Spencer's speculations as his
place of defence, may both be regarded as standing on
common ground for the purpose of my present argument.
In attempting a criticism of the principles of Pantheism,
the first thing to be done is to obtain as clear an idea as
possible of what is to be understood by Pantheism, as dis
tinguished from Theism on the one hand, and from Atheism
on the other. There can be no doubt that the difficulties,
both metaphysical and moral, which attach to the concep
tion of a personal God, the Creator and Governor of the
universe, have, more than any other cause, constrained
thoughtful men who have pondered the problem of the
universe, to endeavour to escape from their perplexities and
bewilderments by taking refuge in the notion of a diffused
impersonal divinity. And it must be confessed that these
difficulties are so oppressive and so staggering to our incom-
39

PANTHEISM.

petent human reason, that they might well tempt the mere
reasoner, the mere logician, the mere metaphysician, to give
up faith in a personal God, if so to do were not really to
involve one's self in more than equivalent difficulties of the
very same class, besides many other difficulties, and in truth
contradictions, both intellectual and also moral, which are
involved in the pantheistic hypothesis. That the alter
native is such as I have now stated, that the pantheistic
hypothesis is necessarily beset with such difficulties and
contradictions, will in part be shown by the inquiry which,
as I have intimated, must needs come first of all in the
criticism I am to attempt. An investigation of the mean
ing of Pantheism, of the characteristic idea proper to the
intermediate hypothesis which rejects equally A-Theism and
Theism, will open to view the metaphysical difficulties and
contradictions involved in the hypothesis. I shall after
wards try to show the incompatibility of the principles of
Pantheism with the true principles of natural science.
The moral considerations belonging to the Christian con
troversy with Pantheism I shall reserve till the final stage in
my argument.
Pantheism agrees with atheism in its denial of a personal
Deity. Its divinity of the universe is a divinity without a
will and without conscious intelligence. In what respect,
then, does Pantheism really differ from atheism ? If we
40

PANTHEISM.

eliminate from our idea of the divinity of the universe all
consciousness, all sympathy, all will, what sort of a divinity
remains, what sense of a present and real divine power
is left to the man that shrinks from atheism? Atheism
denies that in, or over, or with nature there is anything
whatever besides nature. Does not Pantheism do the very
same? If not, what is there, let the pantheist tell us,
in nature besides nature ? What sort of a divinity is that
which is separate from conscious intelligence and from
voluntary will or power ? Is it said that though there be no
Deity in the universe, yet there is a harmony, a unity, an
unfolding plan and purpose, which must be recognised as
transcending all limitation, as unerring, inexhaustible, in
finite, and therefore as divine ? Let us ask ourselves what
unity that can be which is above mere nature, as such,
and yet stands in no relation to a personal Lord and Ruler
of the universe ; what plan and purpose that can be which
is the product of no intelligence, which no mind ever
planned ; what infinite and unerring harmony can mean,
when there is no harmonist to inspire and regulate the life
and movement of the whole. Do not the points of dis
tinction which the pantheist makes between his philosophy
and the bald tenets of the atheist amount in effect to so
many admissions that the facts of the universe cannot be
stated, that the phenomena of nature cannot be described,
41

PANTHEISM.

with anything like fidelity or accuracy, without the use
of language such as has no real meaning unless it implies
the existence and operation throughout universal nature of a
supreme actuative and providential Mind and Will ?
The least and lowest implication which is involved in
Pantheism, the most elementary idea which the word pan
theism can be held to connote, the barest minimum of mean
ing which the creed of the pantheist can be presumed to
contain, is that there is in the whole of nature — in this
universe of being — a divine unity. Let us then look at
this word unity, and consider closely what it must mean.
Those who believe in a divine unity pervading all nature
must imply that in the midst of the infinite complexity and
variety of the universe there is everywhere to be recognised
a grand law and order of nature — a method, plan, and har
mony in the great whole, which must consequently be
traceable through all the parts. But whose and whence is
this grand law? Is it indeed a reality? Are all things fitted to
each other, part to part, law to law, force to force, through
out the infinite depths of microscopic disclosures, through
out the infinite exuberance of nature's grandest provinces,
throughout all space and all duration ? Do all things work
to meet each other ? Is every several life-cell, each organic
fibre, moving, tending, developing, making escapes or over
tures, as if a separate angel of unerring sympathy and

PANTHEISM.
insight, of illimitable plastic skill and power, of creative
energy and perfect providence, inhabited, inspired, and
actuated it? Is it so that the man of science, who enters
into communion with nature's actual life, and movement,
and purpose, seems to see and feel divinities, unrestingly,
unweariedly, in silent omnipotence, in infinite diffusion,
everywhere at work, so that the reverent inquirer and gazer
to whom this wondrous spectacle is unveiled, could almost,
in his own pantheistic sense, adopt the invocation of
Coleridge, and address the powers he sees at work in such
words as these :
"Spirits that hover o'er
The immeasurable fount,
Ebullient with creative Deity !
And ye of plastic power that inteifused
Roll through the grosser and material mass,
In organizing surge ! Holies of God !
(And what if Monads of the Infinite Mind?)"
Is it so ? I ask. Then, what does such a real harmony and
such universal correspondence and providence as this imply?
Surely we must perforce adopt one of two alternatives.
If we refuse to believe in One Ruling, Organizing, Creative
Mind, One Living, Universal Mind and Will and Providence,
which works through all, we must endow each separate be
ing, or at least each form of life, with creative energy, illimit
able and all-answering sensibility and sympathy, unerring
43

PANTHEISM.
wisdom, and veritable will. Nay, ultimately, as it seems to
me, the alternative must be between accepting the faith in
an infinite God, and attributing to even the particles of inor
ganic matter, amenable as these are to the laws of gravi
tation and chemical combination, a wisdom, will, and power
of their own, the power of intelligence and of self-direction.
As to what are called the laws of gravitation and of chemi
cal combination, we know that a law, like "an idol," is
"nothing in the world" but a name. "There is no power
but of God ; the powers that be, are ordained of God."
A law is not a power ; the laws of science do but define
observed methods of movement or forms of customary
relation between thing and thing.
Of one thing, at any rate, I think we may be sure, that a
mere order of nature, ascertained though it may have been
by the truest and surest induction, cannot have made and
cannot sustain itself, cannot be self-originated and self-
impelled. So also it is certain that a mere plastic universal
power, apart from any creative or providential mind, how
ever its products might seem to imply intelligence, could
be animated by no conscious purpose, and could not
be conceived as working with blind automatic certainty
conformably to a grand cosmical plan or towards a provi
dential end. And if the divinity of the pantheist is nothing
more than a personified law or order of nature, his personi-
44

PANTHEISM.

fication of this order or law can add nothing to its virtue or
potency, can by no means transform it from a phrase into a
living power, from a figure of speech into a real and intelli
gent force, can never constitute it into a diving. The
more I reflect upon the subject, the more assured the con
clusion appears to be, that any conception of a real unity
in and of nature is self-contradictory and unmeaning, except
upon the assumption of a conscious and intelligent Creator.
The unity of nature, to a man who denies the existence of
a real God, cannot be a unity inherent in nature, cannot be
a unity according to which nature itself has been planned,
and is really working ; it is an imputed unity, the conception
of the pantheistic philosophers own mind. Unity, indeed,
as apprehended by us — and it can only be known through
our apprehension of it — is essentially a conception, a relative
idea. If one could conceive nature as existing destitute of
a mind either to work on a plan, or to recognise a plan in
working, in such nature there could be no unity. Unity in
action implies a plan of voluntary working, and therefore
a regulating mind. Unity of conception and exposition
implies an intelligent observer. The unity of nature, if it
be not the plan and work of the very God, can be nothing
more than a scheme and conception which has been invented
and imputed by man.
But perhaps it may be thought that the word unity,
45

PANTHEISM.
as used by pantheists, should be understood rather as
referring to the ultimate oneness and identity of all force
throughout the universe, than to harmony of universal plan
and purpose. Various as are the appearances of nature,
and the modes in which the laws of nature operate, it may
yet be set forth by the pantheist as his belief, — a belief, he
will say, which the modern advance of science tends con
tinually to establish as the true theory of the universe, — that
all force is ultimately one, that the different forces of nature
are mutually convertible and equivalent, that one energy of
nature, Protean, universal, of infinite plasticity and power of
variation or adaptation, pervades and actuates all things.
It may be called gravitation, or electricity, or light, or heat,
or nervous energy, or vital force ; but ultimately and essen
tially it is one and the same ; it is, to quote well-worn lines
which will be held here strictly to apply —
" Changed thro' all, and yet in all the same."
It " Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ;
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent :
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
• ******«
To it no high, no low, no great, no small,
It fills, it bounds, connects, and equals all."
Now if this be the pantheistic unity which is admitted by
46

PANTHEISM.

men who deny a personal Deity, I will not stay to object
that such a view is hardly consistent with the essential dis
tinction in nature which even Professor Huxley and
men of his school unwaveringly and powerfully maintain,
between inorganic matter and living forms. It is more to
my purpose to remark that it is much simpler and easier to
believe in a personal God, than in such an impersonal
divinity as this Protean Force. Every difficulty which be
longs to the thought of God's existence belongs to this
also. This force must be self-originated, must have been
from everlasting, must be creative, omnipresent, providen
tial, equal to all plans, purposes, contrivances, inspirations,
which have been, or ever will be, in this deedalean and
infinite universe; must be the source of all intelligence,
though itself unintelligent; of all sympathy, although
itself incapable of sympathy ; must have formed the eye,
though it cannot see, and the ear, though it cannot
hear; must have blossomed and developed into personal
intelligences, although personal intelligence is a property
which cannot be attributed to it ; must unquestionably be
omniscient as well as omnipresent, or it could not, in its in
finite convertibility, anticipate all needs, meet all demands,
answer in absolute and universal harmony to every faculty,
capability, and tendency of all things that are and all things
that become. Now is it reasonable to object to the doctrine
47

PANTHEISM.
of a personal Deity because of its inconceivability and its
stupendous difficulties, and yet to believe in such a primal,
essential, immaterial, creative, infinite, blind and unintelligent
force as this? Surely no contradiction could be greater.
The conception of God as from everlasting is stupendous.
But an infinite Protean Force from everlasting, destitute of
intelligence and will, yet continually operative as the life,
soul, wisdom, and providence, of all things, is nothing less
than contradictory and absurd.
I can come to no conclusion, accordingly, but that Pan
theism really only differs from atheism, in so far as it confesses
that it is impossible to speak with ordinary propriety, or in
any such way as to meet the necessities either of science itself
or of the common sense and feelings of mankind, without
employing theistic language. It has been said that hypo
crisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. So a' profes
sion of Pantheism is the tribute of compliance at least in
speech, is the outward language of homage, which theism
has power to extort from atheism. " Pantheism," as is said
by the author of Lothair, "is but atheism in domino. Nothing,"
as the same writer adds, "can surely be more monstrous than
to represent a creator as unconscious of creating."
Yes, Pantheism is but veiled atheism. Strip Pantheism
of all involutions of thought and all investitures of language,
and in its naked truth it stands forth as mere atheism.
48

PANTHEISM.

Every form which Pantheism takes, every disguise which it
assumes, to hide from itself and from the world its real cha
racter, is a testimony borne by atheism to the necessity
which all men feel for assuming the existence of Deity ;
What Robespierre is reported to have said with reference to
political government and national well-being, that if there
were not a God, it would be necessary to invent one, is felt
by pantheistic philosophers to be true in regard to nature.
So monstrous a conception is that of this universe without
a governing mind ; so clearly and directly to the common
sense of mankind do the infinite harmonies of the universe
seem to imply a designing and governing Intelligence ; so
indubitably does the might and life of the universe, ever
coming forth anew, ever springing up afresh, ever unfolding
and advancing, imply a central living Power, One with the
infinite governing Intelligence ; that pantheists, in order to
speak and write intelligibly, are compelled to invest nature
with the qualities which they deny to the Deity, to attribute
a spirit and intelligence to the whole machine, because they
deny the existence of the great Mechanist ; to personify a
harmony and unity which is but an abstraction, which, on
their own hypothesis, is but a grand accident, a result with
out a cause, because they refuse to believe in a personal
God. I am very far indeed from wishing to come under the
49 4

PANTHEISM.
definition of what Mr. Hutton has spoken of as the " Hard
Church," or to carry my positions merely by the use of the
dilemma, yet I cannot refrain from saying, parenthetically,
that the argument of the dilemma, carefully and truly ap
plied, is not only always legitimate but often necessary, and
I must affirm that it applies very closely in the present in
stance. The pantheist cannot maintain his position mid
way between atheism and theism. If he absolutely refuses
to be a theist, it is necessary to show him that he will have
to yield to the cruel necessity of acknowledging himself to
be an atheist. Standing midway, his position is altogether
untenable, from whichever side it is assailed. On the one
side, the pantheist is condemned by the same arguments
which condemn atheism ; on the other side, the atheist may
justly allege against the position of the pantheist the self
same difficulties which both pantheist and atheist uro-e
against theism.
But if pantheism be in reality only atheism, I may hence
forth disregard the verbal distinction between the two, and
bring forward considerations and arguments which apply
indifferently to either. In pursuing the discussion I shall
take up in detail some points of argument already, as to
their general scope, more or less distinctly intimated in the
preliminary considerations which I have advanced.
To explode any view of the world which excludes from it
5°

PANTHEISM.

the presence and government of a personal God, nothing
more is needed than to realize and truly understand the
atheistic view in its various aspects. Let us try the atheist's
theory on the history of the universe, and see whether it can
be made to fit, or must be broken in the attempt to fit it.
The will and interference of God, as the Lord and Ruler
of the universe, is excluded. The universe is held to have
been from the beginning without a shaping and ruling intel
ligence and will. No mind has presided over its destinies,
has aminated its energies ; no providence of Divine power
and wisdom has guided its changes and progress, has re
newed and replenished and sustained it. It follows that no
power or will from beyond itself has ever touched the uni
verse. Its own unaided and unguided powers have done all.
If the universe did not make itself, it has developed itself : all
that has been, or is to be, was included potentially in that
which was at the beginning, and has unfolded in necessary
order. The vision presented is to certain minds very fasci
nating : it is a vision of vast unbroken progress, of continual
and infinite self-development. But let it be worked out, and
let us consider what it really means. Such an hypothesis
must lead us back, in the infinite dim distance of the original
and indistinguishable past, into a universe-mist of germinal
powers from which all has since developed.— But stay. Was
this mist and expanse of universal nature in its origines all
5i

PANTHEISM.

homogeneous and at one stage of existence ? Then I have
to ask, whence came it ? What, going ever further and fur
ther back, where were the infinitely earlier, fainter, evanish
ing entities or powers, into which infinite creative force and
potentiality was diffused? and what the one life and grand har
mony of influences and impulses, tending towards an infinite
goal of progress and perfection, which pervaded the whole ?
What does all this mean ? Is this easier, simpler, more ra
tional, than to believe in God from everlasting ? Is anything
gained in simplicity, comprehensibility, probability, or in
scientific character, by denying that in the " increasing pur
pose " which " runs through the ages" there is any guidance
of a divine intelligence or working of a divine will ; and call
ing the whole process from first to last, from everlasting to
everlasting, "development"? What is this word development
but a name ? Does the use of the word explain anything ?
Does the use of the word reduce the mystery of the universe
to the simplicity of an axiom ? Does the use of the word
provide a simple equivalent for all that divine wisdom, power,
and providence, have ever been imagined to do for the uni
verse ? Men call the mystery of being and becoming by
the name of development, and then say that all things are
effected by development, and that development explains all !
Whereas this development of which they talk so familiarly,
as though they understood all its secrets, and were privy to
52

PANTHEISM.

its infinitely various and mighty workings, and could unfold
its source and meaning, is itself all the time the very mystery
to be resolved and explained. Development is in truth as
amazing and incomprehensible a mystery as creation. It
seems to be but another word for creation. Only they who
affect its use instead of the word creation, insist upon crea
tion without a creator. The unintelligent and unconscious
universe, on their view, is continually creating itself.
The hypothesis of development, however, is not only un
intelligible and utterly devoid of reality, when criticized in
its general principle; as might be expected, it altogether
breaks down when it is tested in detail. Professor Huxley's
protoplasm breaks it down. All the scientific evidence, as
that eminent teacher of science showed at Liverpool last
autumn, is opposed to the idea that protoplasm was deve
loped out of inorganic matter. The hypothesis of sponta
neous life-generation appears to be exploded. Science, at
any rate, on its own positive principles, has no right what
ever to pretend that life has ever been developed out of
what was not living. Here, then, a great and, so far as
science can help us to form a judgment, an altogether
impassable barrier rises to view against any development
hypothesis. At a certain stage in the history of the universe
protoplasm, organized life, made its appearance on the scene,
starting up as a perfectly new, an original, an undeveloped
53

PANTHEISM.

phenomenon. Before, all had been inorganic and dead;
now Life was abroad in the world, destined to increase and
multiply, and replenish the universe. Let those who deny
divine and creative will and government, inform us whence
came this life. It was not developed. Must it not have
been created. If not, then whence, I ask, whence did it
spring ?
The argument which I have just urged should, as I ven
ture to think, be conclusive even with those who know, and
seek to know, nothing more of science than the order and
method of its phenomenal processes. I will now bring
forward a consideration which will, I hope, be admitted to
have weight by those men of science — it is to be greatly
lamented that there should be so few of these — who have
studied the nature and working of the mind as well as the
phenomena of sense. We have seen that protoplasm — that
Life— was not developed out of inorganic matter, but ap
pears to have been an entirely new and primary fact on the
face of the universe. Life came in and appropriated, put
to its own uses, bound up under its own seal, impreg
nated with its own specific virtue, the raw inorganic
materials which it found in nature ; but the power of Life
itself was altogether new. A fact in some sort analogous to
this confronts us in a higher sphere, in the sphere of living
intelligence itself. I refer to the emergence of personal
54

PANTHEISM.
consciousness among the world of living creatures. To me
it appears that the sense of personality is an altogether new
and original fact, one which cannot be conceived .as de
veloped or developable out of any pre-existing phenomena
or conditions. Whence it conies, or how it arises, I know
not. But it appears to be, in and of itself, the assertion of
an essential separateness between One's Self and all pheno
mena, all constituents, all conditions whatever. The sense
of an I Myself, of Personality, asserts an antithesis between
the Man, and all that the Man uses, takes up into his person
ality, makes his own. As Life binds up inorganic matter
under its seal, but is not developed out of inorganic matter,
so the voluntary and responsible Self binds up under the
seal of its own personality all that belongs, to the manifold
life of its complex being. As life brings into the universe a
new world of phenomena, higher and more manifold than
those of mere inorganic matter, yet embodying and adopt
ing these, so personality brings into the universe a new
world of vastly higher and rarer phenomena than those of
mere vitality, yet embodies and adopts these : — it intro
duces all that belongs to reflection and morality, giving
birth to an intelligence and a world of thought, in which
all the lower and anterior phenomena of the world become
matters of cognisance, and are mirrored as obj ects of thought.
As I venture to think that this sense of personality, with
55

PANTHEISM.
the new world of reflective consciousness and morality
which it brings in, is a fact, starting up in the midst of a
universe of anterior developments, such as all Mr. Darwin's
solvents utterly fail to touch, a phenomenon which remains
as far from explanation as before he wrote his last book, so
it appears to me that the power of human speech is another
fact starting up in the midst of the line of supposed develop
ments which no hypothesis of evolution can afford any
help towards explaining. Miraculously developed reason,
something higher, as it seems to me, than any development
of human reason our race has, in its highest culture, as yet
put forth, must have been necessary in order to the inven
tion of language by any race even of the most sagacious
mammals. And yet, again, speech itself is a necessity, a
necessary instrument, in order to the high development of rea
son, We have some idea what deaf mutes of our human
family are like, when no painstaking and kindly culture has
been bestowed on their intelligence, and temper, and affec
tions, and conscience. Let us conceive the whole race of
man to be, and to have been from the beginning, not in
deed deaf, but congenitally and irreversibly dumb, with no
more power of articulate expression than a horse, or let us
say, a dog. What would the development of human reason
have been under such conditions ? How, then, is it possible
to conceive that the wondrous faculty and instrument of
56

PANTHEISM.

speech was ever invented and perfected by mammals of
infra-human faculty and development, and that they were
afterwards through this invention developed yet more
highly, until they attained to the dignity and advancement
of humanity ? Such infra-human mammals must have been
more miraculously endowed in order to such an invention
than ever man. himself has been.
After all that Mr. Darwin has written, does or can any
reasonable man or woman actuallybelieve in the possibility, —
apart from the Divine Power and Will and Guidance, — for
that is the point, — of the self-development, the spontaneous
upgrowth of articulate language ? Let us study our quadru
pedal familiars, for the sake of illustration and analogy.
We see daily how our noble dogs strain and groan after
speech, do all but speak: we mark their eloquent looks,
their speaking gestures, their wonderfully expressive move
ments, how they watch us speak, and seem as if they
understood what speech is to us, and as if they craved
most longingly the power for themselves. We cannot but
sympathetically admire the intelligent, the benevolent, the
noble, the sagacious physiognomies which they show. If
any creature ever could, would, or did develop speech in
any rudimentary form, are not they just in the circumstances
to do it? And when once rudimentally begun, however
uncouthly and imperfectly, should not their organs continu-
57

PANTHEISM.
ally improve by the continual effort and the increasing
intelligence ? Is it not immensely less hard of belief, and
>less difficult to imagine, that dogs should develop speech,
than that man should have been developed from the larvae
of the ascidice ? Yet is there even a beginning made to
wards the canine development of articulate language, or
does any living man believe that such a beginning' ever
could be made ?
To me it appears that human speech and human per
sonality are in some way bound up with each other, that
the one, in some sort, implies the other, and that these two
characteristics of our race present an insuperable obstacle
to the acceptance by really scientific thinkers of any
hypothesis of evolution which, leaving God out of nature,
would account for the whole existence and progress of the
universe on the principle of spontaneous development
But again, let me be allowed to test the development
hypothesis in detail at another point. This hypothesis —
and any pantheistic or atheistic view of the universe which
professes to be scientific — is obliged to confess that all
living beings, of whatever sort, have been developed out of
a single primary cell — called often a germ-cell — of proto
plasm. Here they find the beginning of every kind of life.
The plant, the animal, of every sort, — the lichen, the cedar,
the sponge, the bird, the mammal, the minutest entozoon,
58

PANTHEISM.
the most microscopic infusorium, and man, — have been
developed out of these primary cells. What then do the
same men who teach us this, find to be the constitution of
these same cells, when microscopically examined ? They
find them to be, for the most part, and indeed always, if
allowance be made for very trivial exceptions, identically
the same. The matter is identically the same, the appear
ance identically the same ; no difference whatever of con
stitution, form, or properties, is to be detected. They can
not tell whether the nettle, or the frog, or the eagle, or the
man, is to be developed out of any given cell : for anything
their science can teach them, any of these might be de
veloped, as they call it, out of any cell. But if this be so,
is it scientific, is it real or true, is it not altogether mislead
ing, to speak of mere development in such a case ? The
flower may be said to be developed out of the bud because
the bud is the flower in miniature, the flower is really folded
up in the bud. But surely here is no case of mere develop
ment ; here is no unfolding out of the germ-cell of what is
potentially contained in the cell, regarded as a merely material
organism. Judged by every test of physical experiment, the
primary cells are identically the same ; and yet they grow
into forms essentially and infinitely dissimilar. Does it not
clearly appear that here is a matter in which some power
above and beyond the mere physical constitution and nature
59

PANTHEISM.

of the primary cell must be admitted, on every principle of
science, on every ground of pure candour and truth, to be
of necessity present ? Is it not evident that with each germ-
cell there must be associated some individual life-power
which animates the cell, which uses it as a unit to multiply,
as a foundation to build upon, which does build and weave
and work into it and upon it continually new material,
which, for its own use in its work of weaving and fabricating,
and for the completion of its own distinctive form and
vehicle, takes toll of air and earth and water and heat-
power — the ancient elements — selecting out of them its ap
propriate pabulum, in whatever chemical combinations of the
primary elements known to our modern scientific analysis
may be fit and needful ? Surely not development, but life,
the mystery of individual life, is here. And if the philoso
pher will deny the omnipresent creative and sustaining-
power of God, it appears to me that he must be prepared
to animate each germ-cell with an individual intelligence
which works with divine power, on a definite and most
miraculous plan, and towards a distinct goal of perfection.
To call such various powers and processes, such diverse
and generically different operations, in every sphere of life,
by the same term, appears to me to be unscientific ; to speak
of them all alike as processes of unfolding or development,
when results the most infinitely unlike and separate are ob-
60

PANTHEISM.

tained from beginnings which are identically alike, appears
to be not only unscientific but altogether misleading.
I do not think it arrogant or unwarranted to conclude
from such considerations as I have been trying to set forth,
that evolution, or development, apart from the power and
guidance of the Living God, is an unphilosophical, an un
scientific idea, an empty, an unmeaning word. It is a thing
of naught, utterly impotent to solve the mysteries of the uni
verse, even when expounded and reinforced by Mr. Darwin's
" Natural Selection." I have not a word to say here against
the views of Mr. Darwin, as defined and modified by the
requirements of scientific modesty and precision. If I had
any pretensions to be called a student of natural science, I
should sit at the feet of Mr. Darwin when he speaks, not
as a philosophic theorist, but as a scientific observer and a
truly inductive naturalist. But I must say here in respect
to Natural Selection, regarded as, according to Mr. Dar
win's hypothesis, the handmaid of development, that, like
development, it is but a name, and not a power. It de
scribes the order and mode according to which Providence
works; it is not itself a force — a working energy. Mr.
Darwin himself indeed often speaks as if Natural Selection
were itself a power and a providence. I find to my hand
in Mr. Kingsley's fine, suggestive paper on The Natural
Theology of the Future, recently published in Macmittaris
61

PANTHEISM.
Magazine, a sentence of Mr. Darwin's in regard to Natural
Selection which I will quote. " It may be metaphorically
said," writes Mr. Darwin, " that natural selection is daily
and hourly scrutinizing throughout the world every variation
even the slightest ; rejecting that which is bad, preserving
and adding up that which is good, silently and necessarily
working whenever and wherever opportunity offers at the
improvement of every organic being." " It may be meta
phorically said," are Mr. Darwin's words. But in fact he is
using, not a metaphor, but a personification. The distinction
Mr. Darwin 'does not see. He repeatedly speaks of his
personifications as metaphors. But the distinction notwith
standing is most important. By personifying Natural Selec
tion Mr. Darwin makes it appear to be a cause, attributes
to it a real power, nay, wisdom and providence, as well as
power. He speaks in one place of " Nature's power of selec
tion ; " contrasting this with the " powers of artificial selec-
tion exercised by feeble man," by which, however, man can
do so much ; and arguing that " Nature's power of selec
tion " must be incomparably greater, and competent to
produce incomparably superior effects in respect of "the
beauty and, infinite complexity of the co-adaptations be
tween all organic beings, one with another, and with their
physical conditions of life." Language of a similar sort he
very frequently uses. He has, therefore, as a scientific man
62

PANTHEISM.
laid himself open to the reproof of M. Flourens, whom no
one will deny to be a scientific critic. " Either," says M.
Flourens, " Natural Selection is nothing, or it is nature, but
nature endowed with the attribute of selection — nature per
sonified, which is the last error of the last century; the
nineteenth century has done with personifications." The
nineteenth century ought to have done with personifications ;
but with the spirit of Lamarck's speculations the style of
the French atheistic philosophy of the last century reappears.
Mr. Darwin, in the passage quoted by Mr. Kingsley,
describes the manner in which his Natural Selection may be
conceived as operating. What, if his meaning were expressed
with strict scientific truth, he ought to intend to say, is that
such as he describes is the result of providential working
according to the mode and order which he designates by the
phrase Natural Selection. " All we ask," says one of Mr.
Darwin's ablest critics, "is that we may be allowed to believe
in a God and a real Divine Providence, as powerful and
wise and good as Mr. Darwin's Natural Selection."
But, moreover, it must not be forgotten that there is some
thing besides the mere process of change and growth, of
what our philosophers call development, to be accounted
for. There is a, fact on which the growth, the change, the
evolution, must be held in a true sense to depend : a prior
fact to be taken account of. The growth proceeds upon a
63

PANTHEISM.

plan, and fulfils an idea : protoplasm itself embodies a
scientific principle. But as the seal must be before the im
pression, the original before the copy, so the principle must be
before its embodiment, the plan and the idea must be before
the growth : the end, towards which as its goal the growth
or development proceeds, must have been conceived and
set up as an aim before its fulfilment began. We are bound
therefore, if we would exhaust the problem, nay, if we would
truly conceive, and justly state it, to ask how and whence the
principle, the plan, the idea, the end, had their existence ?
These are realities ; they are the most inner and essential reali
ties in every instance of growth or development ; to deal only
with the development of the physical basis, is to leave un
touched the kernel of the matter, is altogether superficial and
unreal. But principles, plans, types and ideas, ends contem
plated in movement and progress, these at any rate are
not physical, are not matters of sense and organization.
*
They are, as I have said, prior to what is physical,
they are conditions antecedent to organization and growth.
Moreover, they are mental conceptions, not physical affec
tions. They are only possible, they have no meaning,
except as the thoughts of some mind. Here, then, we are
brought back by an inevitable necessity to an antecedent
mind, the seat and origin of all the principles, the plans
the ideas, the ends, embodied in organized beings, and ful-
64

PANTHEISM.

filled in their existence, growth, and perfection. In short,
from whatever side we contemplate the problems of nature,
and whencesoever we take our point of departure in their
investigation, we find ourselves brought face to face with
creative mind. The things which are " seen and temporal "
lead us always inwards to "the things which are unseen
and eternal ; " man and creaturely existence conduct us to
the living God.
If any one would escape from the pressure of this argu
ment by hardily denying that living organization involves
principle or plan, type or idea, purpose or end, it can only
follow that the living forms of the universe are an infinite
congeries of accidental combinations, that in reality there
are no such things as organs, that there can be no such
thing as development, and that there is no such thing as
law. What men call law is mere sequence that happens to
follow regularly. The whole universe has been constituted
and regulated by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. Against
such a conclusion as this I do not need to argue. It is the
naked and repulsive atheism of which I spoke in the intro
duction to this lecture. The line of argument which I have
been pursuing seems to force us to the conclusion that there
is no logical resting-place between such theism as Christianity
teaches and such Democritean atheism as that of which we
have now had a glimpse.
5

PANTHEISM.
But if this be so, it follows that it is impossible to deny
design and final causes in creation, and the sway and over
sight of a universal Divine Providence, the providence of a
living God, except by denying all law. To the Christian
theist, science is living science indeed ; to the pantheist, no
less than the atheist, science is hardly better than a dead
register. He may talk of the wisdom, the power, the order,
the benevolence, of nature. But such expressions on the
lips of a pantheist are utterly illusive. All the wisdom, all
the marvellous adjustments of nature, are but the happy
conjunctures, the exquisite chance unisons, of he knows not
what. When lost in admiration of marvellous organizations,
complexly apt and beautiful contrivances, of what seem like
the most studied and beneficent provisions, the soul that is
beginning to glow with wonder at this seeming wisdom, and
to swell with thankfulness because of this seeming love,
must be chilled into blank confusion and amazement by the
thought that there is no Being of Wisdom and Benevolence
Who is to be thanked and adored because of these His
marvellous works. Surely this is enough to darken the uni
verse to the explorer of nature's mysteries, and to fill his
soul with perpetual melancholy. Nor is it easy to under
stand how any man of true science, any real inductive
philosopher, who comes into contact with nature's living
processes and hears the perpetual whisper of her living voice,
66

PANTHEISM.

can be ensnared into the acceptance of such a hard mystery
of sceptical belief as this.
Surely, then, on purely scientific grounds, — the grounds
not only of metaphysical but also of natural science, on
every ground which can be appealed to by high and pure
philosophy, we are at liberty, I should say we are bound, to
reject the hypothesis which attempts to expound nature and
to solve its mysteries, without the admission of a divine
mind. Sense and matter and the observed order of pheno
mena do not constitute the whole of our science. There
are some words written by a poet, too much neglected at the
present time, which I cannot forbear from quoting here.
" How should matter occupy a charge
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law,
So vast in its demands, unless impelled
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause ?
The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire
By which the mighty process is maintained,
Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days ;
Whose work is without labour ; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.''
Surely, if I may here quote some words of Mr. Kingsley's
67

PANTHEISM.

in the lecture to which I have already referred, this is
what men of science " are finding, more and more, below
their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel and the
microscope can show, a something nameless, invisible, im
ponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent,
retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they
delve, that which the old schoolmen called ' forma forma-
tiva,' the mystery of that unknown and truly miraculous
element invnature which is always escaping them, though
they cannot escape it, that of which it was written of
old, 'Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither
shall I flee from Thy Spirit ? ' "
The observations which I have thus far offered are
directed wholly to' the philosophical and scientific aspect
of the argument respecting Pantheism. I cannot bring
this lecture to an end without referring to the moral
branch of the argument. The existence of evil in the uni
verse is alleged as an argument against the existence of
God and divine government. Doubtless, the existence of
evil is a painful mystery. Many good Christians have felt
it to be an oppressive and almost an overwhelming mystery.
It is one of the difficulties attendant on the Christian's
belief; it is, in fact, the one moral difficulty. But difficul
ties and mysteries cannot annul the positive necessities of
thought and argument. If such arguments as I have en-
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PANTHEISM.
deavoured to state make all science to be contradictory and
unintelligible which speaks, in one breath, of the laws and
wisdom of nature, and, in the next, denies the existence of
a God, then we are bound to accept theism with its inevi
table consequences, notwithstanding the mysteries, whether
metaphysical or moral, which our faith may involve. Mys
teries are not contradictions, and, in whichever- direction we
move, we shall find it impossible to escape from them.
Mysteries surround the position of the sceptic or the
atheist, no less than that of the Christian theist ; not only
mysteries, but, as we have seen, contradictions, beset him
round, in whichever direction he turns. The Christian
theist, by his faith in God, accepts the mysteries which are
involved in the thought of God, but, unlike the unbeliever,
he escapes from contradictions and absurdities. It appears
that the morality of man — his great glory — that his sense of
responsibility and of voluntary moral power, that which
most peculiarly constitutes him man, involves the law of
moral influence as between man and man. It appears
further that the power and faculty of moral influence for
good must needs involve the law of moral influence for evil.
From the fact of man's own moral nature and moral re-
ponsibility, and the consequent fact of his moral influence
over his fellow-men, is derived, not only the possibility of
moral evil in the case of a solitary individual, but the possi-
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PANTHEISM.

bility, perhaps I may say the naturalness, the probability, of
a contagion of moral evil spreading throughout the race,
the effect of which can only be counteracted or limited by
moral arrangements and influences specially constituted for
that end. So much I may perhaps say in general, although
the subject is one on which I think it wiser, as a rule, to say
nothing. I feel it to be a profound and perilous mystery,
however gloriously it may have been made the occasion for
the manifestation in Christ Jesus our Lord of the Divine
superabounding wisdom, mercy, and power. But if we
admit the subject to be involved in profound, even terrible
mystery, is that a reason why, making shipwreck at one
plunge of all that belongs to humanity, faith and hope and
philosophy should commit suicide, and descend together
into the gulf of everlasting darkness and despair ! Reason
may reel and grow dizzy while it looks too long and too
absorbedly down the fearful and fathomless depths of the
mystery of sin, but that is no sufficient cause why reason
should cast itself headlong into the abyss.
Pantheism has only one way in which to escape from the
mystery of evil,, and that is to deny all distinction between
right and wrong, between moral good and moral evil. Of
course there can be no such thing as sin for the pantheist,
because all, according to his creed, is nature and develop
ment and necessity. Holiness is a matter of taste or senti-
7o

PANTHEISM.

ment. Conscience is an illusive development ; what we
regard as divine morality is but utilitarianism sentimentalized
and exalted into sacred law under- the influence of unen
lightened impulse and antique superstition, a mere affair of
the association of ideas which science will some day explain
away. The ontology and ethics of Pantheism may be sum
med up in one sentence, " Whatever is, is ; and there is
neither right nor wrong, but all is fate and nature." Pan
theism — I say Pantheism just as truly and completely as
atheism, for the difference between the two, as we have seen,
is but one of name and phrase, and both alike deny God and
conscience — Pantheism thus does cruel violence to every
better instinct of our nature, outrages all the demands of
religion and government, whether human or divine, and
makes itself the direst foe of human progress and wellbeing.
Many pantheists, doubtless, have been and are virtuous,
even noble, men ; some, I am prepared to believe, may even,
in a certain sense, be religious men. But the direct tendency
of the pantheistic philosophy is confessedly what I have
now stated. When moral and pure, its pure morality can be
nothing more, at least in theory, than a refined utilitarianism.
Only as such can any pantheist pretend to impose morality
as law.
To sum up, may I not say that Pantheism, whether in its
metaphysical or its moral aspect, is the dream of men who
7i

PANTHEISM.
will not admit that there is in the universe anything beyond
what their senses immediately reveal to them ? Its philoso
phy was represented in the last century in its lower and
more popular form by Condorcet; the basis of whose
system was laid in the principle, " penser c'est sentir," —
thought is nothing more than sense or feeling ; in its higher
and more intellectual form it was represented by the
sceptical sense-idealism of Hume. At the present day Bain
and Mill have endeavoured to develop the principle of
Condorcet in harmony with the higher and more subtle
philosophy of Hume. The result appears to be a sort of
nihilistic sense-idealism. Matter is probably nothing dif
ferent from our mental ideas — so far Berkeley, no less than
Hume, is followed ; our ideas, however developed, are yet
essentially only the combination and interfusion of our
sensations and sense-associations; meantime there is no evi
dence of the real and substantial existence either of the world
outside us, or of ourselves as true and separate selves or
persons, or of God. Such at least would seem to be the
metaphysics of the distinctively English school of Pantheism,
/. e., of Pantheism rendered into philosophic system by the
English mind. The German Pantheism has infected the ten
dencies of English thought and criticism, but, notwithstanding
the influence of Hegel at Oxford, has not been reproduced
in any English system of egoistic Pantheism, In their aspects
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PANTHEISM.
and results, in relation to theism and Christian faith, the
German egoistic Pantheism and the English sense-idealistic
Pantheism strictly coincide.
Such then is the highest philosophy to-day of those
who, refusing to be called atheists, nevertheless reject all
faith in God ; of those who, rejecting Christian theism, claim
to be positively neither more nor less than the men of
science. Men of science though they be, their philoso
phy is the philosophy of nescience and the philosophy of
despair. We need be under no apprehension that such a
philosophy will ever be generally accepted. It is too strong,
too sorrowful, too nauseous a composition to suit the com
mon taste. It not only dissolves morality and its foundations,
but it precludes all hope of immortality. The race indeed
may be immortal and progressively great and glorious, al
though how even so much can be known is more than I can
see ; but the individual man by man, woman by woman,
child by child, perishes each one for ever. Men and women
with yearning, loving hearts, with tender and passionate
affections, who have buried their dead out of their sight,
and who could not endure to live if they were doomed to
sorrow without hope, cannot but reject with loathing and
horror such doctrines as these. Men of various culture,
of manifold intellectual resources, who live in the midst of
refined and accomplished society, and who are not suffering
73

PANTHEISM.

from the pang of immedicable anguish and irreparable
bereavement, may possibly live so merely intellectual and
speculative a life, may be so wholly absorbed in mere
science, may have so far separated themselves from all that
belongs to the heart's affections and the trembling religious
sensibilities of human nature, as to adopt the philosophy of
nihilism with hardy calmness, although I confess that it
passes my power to understand or conceive this ; such men
may be content to follow their speculative conclusions into
the " blackness of darkness " for ever, and may thus, if not
less, be more than the common crowd of humanity. But
such a philosophy will not content those who share the
ordinary wants and sensibilities of our race. The working,
sorrowing, loving, hoping men and women of this human
race will no more be able to satisfy themselves with any
atheistic or, if any should prefer so to call it, pantheistic
philosophy, than they can " feast upon the east wind."
They will cleave to that Christian truth and faith which has
"brought life and immortality to light," and which, in "show
ing" to the craving heart of needy, sorrowing, sinful man
"the Father " reconciled in Christ, has blessedly " sufficed"
a longing world.
Indeed, it would seem that, when it comes to the point,
even distinguished leaders in the ranks of those against
whose views I have been arguing, find it impossible to give
74

PANTHEISM.

up their faith, at least in immortality. Renan is unquestion
ably one of the most distinguished leaders among those men
of learning and culture who deny the existence of a creative
will and Personal God. Yet Kenan cannot make up his
mind that he has lost for ever his beloved sister ; that she
has passed into the night of nothingness into which he must
soon follow her. In the dedication to her memory of his
"Life of Jesus," he addresses an invocation to "the pure
soul of his sister Henriette, who died at Byblos, Sept. 24th,
1861;" and appeals to her "to reveal to him, from the
bosom of God in which she rests, those truths which are
mightier than death, and take away the fear of death."
Renan, then, after all, cannot give up his sister, nor, if it
were only for her sake, his belief in immortality. And yet
how utterly unscientific is such a belief, if science is to be
defined and limited in accordance with the principles of the
anti-theistic philosophy. Where can our men of mere sense-
science find any physical basis of immortality ? There is no
hope, no instinct or faith, at once so indissolubly bound up
with our nature, so necessary to the development of all that
is best in man, and so utterly destitute of evidence and basis
in merely natural science, as our assurance of immortality.
If we are to retain our belief in immortality, we must main
tain our faith in realities above and apart from sense, in
realities which cannot be tested or investigated by any
75

PANTHEISM.

appliances of natural science. If immortality be true, Pan
theism cannot be tme.
What, then, have we found respecting the seductive and
too fashionable illusion which has led astray so many minds,
especially of speculative, restless, and daring intelligence, in
the present age ? We have found that Pantheism is essen
tially only atheism in disguise, and occupies a position in
which it combines against itself the arguments which theists
have to allege against atheism, and atheists against theism ;
that, while it dethrones the true God, it sets up in His place
Development and Natural Selection as its divinities, cloth
ing them with the attributes which it denies to deity ; that
its development hypothesis will not bear the test of science,
of the natural science to which it professes to appeal ; that
the origin of protoplasm, the attributes of man, and the
growth and transformation of germ-cells, alike refuse to
accord with the hypothesis ; that the very nature of science
itself, as recognizing law and organization, is incompatible
with any philosophy which denies theism ; that the moral
difficulties which rise up as a barrier against a denial of the
Christian theism are no less insurmountable than the meta
physical and scientific difficulties ; that morality, conscience,
natural affection, immortal hope, every deepest, most tender
and sacred, most blessed and humanising, instinct of our
nature is violated by the denial of a personal and holy Gcd
76

PANTHEISM.
and Judge; in a word, that our whole humanity revolts
against it.
May I venture to hope that the views which I have now
endeavoured to set forth may have some weight with young
and inquiring spirits ? No more terrible suffering can there
be, than for an honest, loving, and virtuous nature to be
come involved in the" meshes of pantheistic doubt and
unbelief. We must make up our minds to bear with many
profound and painful mysteries which are not to be solved
by man; but may the good Spirit of God save us each
and all from losing our childlike faith in His almighty,
omnipresent, and absolutely good and holy government and
providence 1

77

POSITIVISM. BY THE
REV. W. JACKSON, M.A., F.S.A.
LATE FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD.

POSITIVISM.

Everybody in this room has, I suppose, heard of the " posi
tive" sciences, or " Positivism '' in some shape or other.
What does " Positivism " mean?
A system based on positive facts. But what are facts ?
They are (says the Positivist) observed phenomena.. As
for metaphysical conceptions of all sorts, these are negatives
with nothing real, nothing positively true in them. Truth
must be sought amongst observed phenomena.
It is worth our while to examine this last proposition.
Take a "phenomenon." You have all observed colour, —
what is it ?
A physicist, if you ask him, will tell you of a modification
in a ray of light variously produced — by refraction, for ex
ample — as when sunlight breaks a dark cloud into many-
tinted beauty. But how if all the world of men and animals
were blind ?
The physiologist will step in and speak to you of the
81 6

POSITIVISM.

structure of the eye — the susceptibility of its retina for special
impressions ; there he says you may find colour.
Put botli accounts together, and they appear as part-
causes, each a factor helping to make up a result ; which
result physicist and physiologist would agree to call colour.
Yet again : Suppose the human and animal world were
deprived of all consciousness, all which in the widest mean
ing we call mind — their eyes remaining like mirrors, tele
scopes, microscopes ; perfect instruments, only every kind
of intelligence, instinctive or rational, gone. Where would
colour then be ? The sun might play upon cloud or rain,
the light of a rainbow be reflected in the eye. Were there
but perceiving mind, the impression would exist. But we
are supposing the impressible to be wanting ; there is no
sensation, no percipient ; colour must remain unknown, for
there is nothing capable of observing it
Now this shows you, first, how important it is to emphasize
the word observed aaded to phenomenon. It shows you,
secondly, where the ultimate seat of every observation really
lies; each observed phenomenon, each positive fact, is at
last neither more nor less than a mental state. The evi
dence for each fact is the condition of your own mind, your
consciousness as it is called. You may sift the thing wit
nessed, verify, examine, and cross-examine ; but after all, your
own consciousness is the first real evidence you have got.
82

POSITIVISM.

It would seem, then, that the most positive of all sciences
would be the science of mind ; and the next most positive
the sciences which enable us to draw conclusions from our
positively existing mental states; the statements, we may
call them, which our minds make to us. Yet, strange to
say, the very first thing Positivism does is to dispense with
a science of mind, as mind, altogether. Mr. Mill makes it
a severe reproach against Comte, that he ignores both
psychology and logic; recognizes no power in the mind,
even of self-observation ; accepts no theory even of the in
ductive process. Mr. Mill characterises Comte's want of
mental science as " a grave aberration."* It is indeed so.
This appears plainly enough in the example just adduced
from our commonest sensation, the every-day phenomenon
of colour. It was made up, you saw, of three factors, a phy
sical antecedent, a condition of the sensitive apparatus, and
a mind which received into its consciousness the impression
instrumentally conveyed to it. This last, you will remem
ber, was the. first fact to us. It is the fact : the revelation of
an outward world, its changes and its continuing presence,
its rest and its constant motion. Without this fact of in
ward consciousness, nature would have possessed no more
significance than pictures seen in the eyes of the newly dead.
Such being the case, it needs no argument to show the
* See Mill on Comte, p. 62, sea.
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POSITIVISM.
importance of making quite sure that our interpretation of
nature is correct. If there be any unobserved illusion in
our sensory instruments, or what must evidently be much
worse, in our percipient mind, truth is at an end, and false
hood received in its stead. Hence the necessity of observ
ing our own observations, subjecting our consciousness to
scrutiny, and being acquainted with the criteria, not only of
our perceptions, but of our judgments. It is this process of
analysis and criticism which forms a large part of the
method of verification, — a method the value of which did
not escape the great Greek philosophers, though some
recent writers seem to fancy it a modern discovery.
Inexperienced observers are often so little aware of the
pre-eminent importance of this critical process, that I will
detain you with an illustration of it for the benefit of my
younger auditors. My example shall be taken from per
ception par excellence — our eyesight, the sense pronounced
surest both in poetry arlrl prose. You will remember your
Horace Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.
And almost everybody else has said the same, as witness
the old proverb, " Seeing is believing." Now I will men
tion five instances in which people believe they see some-
84

POSITIVISM.
thing, and do not see it ; in other words, the objective
antecedent is wanting, and the impression is produced
partly by the sensory apparatus, partly by the mind itself.
As I describe these instances one by one, let my hearers
ask themselves, How does this illusion come about ? Is it
produced by our optic instrument or by our mental
activity ?
First, then, Take a lighted stick, and whirl it rapidly round
and round. You believe you see a circle of sparks — in
reality it is no more than a simple train, and on a hke illu
sion the Catherine-wheel is constructed. Again, put yourself
in the hands of an optically inclined friend, and let him ope
rate upon you thus. He shall place a cardboard down the
middle axis of your face, quite close against your nose — one
side of his board, say the right, coloured a brilliant red,
the left a vivid green. After an instant or two let him sud
denly substitute another board, white on both sides. Do my
young friends guess what will follow ? Your right eye will
see green, your left red — the reverse of what they saw be
fore ; yet neither will see correctly, for both eyes are looking
at uncoloured surfaces.
Thirdly, Watch the full moon rising — how large and
round she looks, resting as it were upon that eastern hill,
and seen amidst the tops of its forest trees ! How much
larger and broader than when she hangs aloft in upper sky !
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POSITIVISM.

Has every one here learned the true reason why ? If not,
look at her through a slit in a card, and her diameter will be
the same. Fourthly, A schoolboy is crossing his bedroom in
the deep dark night, anxiously hoping that his head may not
come into collision with the bed-post Though carefully and
successfully avoiding- it, he imagines of a sudden that the blow
is imminent Quick as thought he stops to save his head, and,
behold, the room is as quickly filled with sparks or flames
of fire. Another moment, and all becomes dark once more.
I have heard many a schoolboy exclaim over this pheno
menon, but never knew one who could explain it. Finally,
did you ever, on opening your eyes in a morning, close them
quickly again, and keep them shut, directing them as if to look
straight forwards ? Most persons of active nervous power,
after a few trials— say a dozen, or a score — are surprised to
see colours appear and flit before the sight. Some years ago,
Germany's greatest poet tried, at the suggestion of her great
est physiologist, a series of experiments on these coloured
images. He found that by an effort of will he could cause
them to come and go, govern their movement, march, and
succession. And this took place under no conditions of
impaired sensation, nor any hallucination of a diseased mind.
A thoroughly healthy will succeeded in impressing itself upon
physical instruments, controlling their law, and creating at
its own pleasure an unfailingly bright phantasmagoria.
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POSITIVISM.

Some here may, others may not, have apprehended the
distinctions between our five cases. The first two are due
to the sensory apparatus, its optical laws of continued im
pression and complementary colour. In the latter three,
mind intervenes. The enlarged size of the moon occurs
through rapid comparison, the fiery lights in a dark room
through instinctive apprehension, both influences of mind
on the sensory system. The fifth and most interesting of
all is no bad example of interference between moral and
material law. The will truly causative (you may remark)
overrules the natural process of physical impression, alters
it, and creates a designed effect. I wish I could induce my
young friends to devise a number of experiments on similar
mixed cases, and, having tried them, to dissect out their
real laws. These sharpenings of the critical faculty are
exceedingly useful — they cultivate clearness ; and most
people know that two-thirds among our mistakes in life are
caused by confusion of thought.
Besides all other uses, such lessons teach at once the
necessity, as we said before, of observing your-own obser
vations. And as, first, the real witness of every observation
is our mind ; every fact 'which comes through our bodily
senses being to us a mental impression, it seems but common
sense to hear above all things what mind has to say for and
about itself. Then, secondly, where would be the benefit
87

C

POSITIVISM.

derived from our observations, if we could not reason upon
them, or could place no confidence in our own reason
ings ? Yet the art of reasoning is so purely a mental pro
cess, that it can be represented by symbols as abstract and
free from material meaning as if they were bare algebraic
signs. Thirdly, in the most accurate of sciences mind
extends our knowledge far beyond the circle of observation,
and gives us axiomatic assurance of its own accuracy. Who
ever saw, or ever can see, all straight lines in all conceivable
positions, yet who doubts that throughout the whole universe
no two straight lines ever did inclose or can inclose a space ?
And, fourthly, can it be a matter of indifference to any of
us what evidence the mind offers concerning its own moral
nature, and what is the value of that] evidence, and the laws
deducible therefrom? How true it thus appears that "know
thyself " lies at the root of all knowledge, and that the man
who receives no witness from within can know nothing as he
ought to know it !
Comte swept away all these and the like considerations
by a neat little fiction of his own. We cannot observe our
selves observing, he said, we cannot observe ourselves
reasoning. So, then, logic becomes a chimera, and psycho
logy a word of contempt. Respecting this fallacy, Mr.
Mill thinks the only wonder is that it should impose on any
one. Clearly it imposed on Comte himself. But, " what

POSITIVISM.

organon," asks Mill, " for the study of our moral and intel
lectual functions does M. Comte offer in lieu of the direct
mental observation which he repudiates ? We are almost
ashamed to say it is phrenology ! " Mill regards this state
ment as a reductio ad absurdum, but the actual organon
substituted is more absurd still. Comte's phrenology was
not the phrenology of Gall or Spurzheim, but a funny small
bantling of his own, a sort of " infant phenomenon," called
into existence not without a Positive purpose. In plain
words, mind was no longer to give evidence respecting itself.
We must study its laws in brain. How any true correspond
ence of brain and mind could be known unless both were
studied, does not appear. Comte overlooked the question
in his anxiety to substitute for psychology and its laws a
bodily function and its laws. Yet his motive appears to
have been excellent ! He regarded this dwarfed superficial
phrenology, Mr. Mill tells us, "as extricating the mental
study of man from the metaphysical stage, and elevating it
to the positive." The chief gist of which sentence, bewilder
ing to the uninitiated, opens up the very core and centre of
the Positive system — a subject for dissection of some con
siderable human interest.
Each science is brought into the positive stage when it is
co-ordinated according to positive laws — "systematized,"
Comte would say. He has a perfect mania for systematiza-

POSITIVISM.

tion; system is with him almost an equivalent for truth. Of
course, the real value of every system turns entirely on its
co-ordinating method, or principle of formation; and Comte's,
we see, was one of positive laws. The nature of these
laws is, therefore, the essence and turning-point of the
whole matter. I cannot impress upon you too strongly the
paramount importance of keeping this truth steadily in view.
But if any one inquires exactly what these laws are, he
asks, I fear, a puzzling question. Puzzling, for this reason
that, say what one will — employ any words, however care
fully selected — one may become liable to the charge of
raising a false impression. Positivist savans themselves do
not use any uniform phraseology, and many phrases they do
use are necessarily derived from philosophies most dis-
edifying to Positive ears.
Examples showing what sort of law is really meant are
therefore always welcome ; and few could be more instruct
ive than this way of making mind Positive. Comte did not
falter in his purpose. Later on he explained the necessity
(for his system, you understand) of bringing our intellectual
and moral phenomena under the same law with other phe
nomena of animal life; and reduced them, not to brain
action pure and simple, but to cerebral functions, controlled
by the viscera and vegetative movements of our bodily
existence. 90

POSITIVISM.

Let us look at the meaning of all this. Soul used to be
conceived of as different in kind from body. The brain, the
nervous system, the body, were its organs, allies, machines.
Sometimes they, especially the instruments through which
the soul more immediately works, exercised reaction on
their sovereign employer ; they impeded or suspended her
functions, and troubled her serenity. But though they might
cloud the manifestation, they could not destroy the essence
of a living soul. What they did was temporal and transitory;
but they shall pass away and be dissolved, while soul will
endure for ever.
The word mind has been much used to signify soul, as
acting in and through body. There is, however, some
vagueness in its employment. Yet we constantly speak of
the laws of mind, because soul is in this life the partner of
body ; and therefore known to us as mind, and as mind is
studied through its laws. One psychological task has always
been to separate the pure activity of soul from the mixed
workings of mind, by examination and cross-examination of
our internal consciousness.
You will now easily understand how vast the change
Comte intended by his physiological organon for the study
of our moral and intellectual functions. You will see what
is meant by elevating mental science to the Positive stage,
and systematizing it under laws which people may variously
9i

POSITIVISM.

describe as phenomenal, mechanical, or material; adjectives
all roughly used to express the same general idea. What
we took for a spiritual essence is only a developed animal
nature, the difference between men and beasts of the field
is not one of kind, but of degree. ManKiND is a misnomer.
Humanity is (as Comte thought) a higher degree of ani-
mality. We have no right to suppose a personal immor
tality. Man may be said to live after death in the memory
of his fellow-men, but the truly Positive philosopher believes
in no other deathless existence. What we really can see
and investigate is a vast moving mechanism, our universe.
Beyond this all knowledge is a blank. We know of nothing
which set this mechanism in motion ; it may have moved
from all eternity ; it may go on moving everlastingly ; or it
may wear itself out. Philosophy can teach us no more than
distinctions and degrees in the phenomenal law which per
vades and rules a universe without a God.
Yet Comte said that he was no Atheist. He even de
nounced Atheism, and declared it as bad as theology. He
did not wish to deny, only to ignore God. Neither did he
desire to appear ungrateful ; (pardon words which sound in
your ears profanity;) God was a really useful hypothesis
once ; in the days when men had recentby issued from their
primaeval forests. Thanking the Deity for His provisional
services, Comte courteously dismissed Him from His throne.

POSITIVISM.

All this will have seemed to you a most monstrous tissue
of negations. But Comte held it to be a code of Positive
faith ; a faith firmly grounded on the self-sufficingness of
human nature, read according to his version of course —
void of belief in a personality which survives the grave,
without knowledge of, trust in, or prayer to God. The
blessings of this advanced faith he desired to extend far and
wide. At the present moment his desire is realizing itself;
for the like attitude of thought has become a favourite posi
tion among the savans of our Western world. When it
penetrates the more active classes, we shall discern it easily
by its fruits I what those fruits will be, is a qnestion for
statesmen and for us all.
The chief hindrance opposing its spread amongst unso
phisticated minds has been a point much dwelt upon of
old by Plato, and by Cicero after him. It is the protest
which that irrepressible entity called soul perseveres in
alleging. We are all apt to shrink from the picture of bodily
dissolution : " To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod ! "
But what if the " delighted spirit " has been developed by
brain, and with brain must be dissolved ? Our whole distinct
ive human life, our mind, moral, intellectual, spiritual, rebels
93

POSITIVISM.

against a doom of subjection to that crass material law !
Yet can we establish a difference ? Can we show that the law
of our true being differs from the law of things outside us ?
This question, unspeakably interesting to every one of
us, might be put in various shapes. We might ask, Can the
protest of soul be set down as a mere sentiment only?
If it were no more than an instinct of our nature, it would
deserve consideration ; for why should so high and noble an
instinct be aimless and misleading ? If we cannot trust our
own souls, what are we to trust ? Phenomena themselves
are given us within. Mathematical truths, which Positiv-
ists are obliged to exempt from phenomenal law, have a
subjective validity — we cannot help thinking them, and we
cannot think their contradictories.
But suppose that a future state of recompence with its
inferential moralities cannot be denied without denying our
own consciousness — pronouncing the clearest of our intui
tions a will o' tie wisp — or, sadder still, a corpse light on
the grave of hope — nay, more, without subverting the law
which makes human society to differ from animal gregarious-
ness, and gives to human action its spring, its liberty, its
life — suppose all this true, what shall, what can we say?
And such is the issue I propose to try this morning.
The plan I have devised for trying it fairly is, first, to
get as clear an idea as short compass will allow of what
94

POSITIVISM.

Positivism says on our question. Afterwards to state a case
for moral law by way of antithesis. It is through the law of
our moral being that we may most readily look for something
to difference our souls from creatures below them. The
strain I shall have to put on your attention lies in this; after
grasping in brief the Positivist attitude, I must ask that
you will not take my facts or arguments on trust, but will
verify each severally by an appeal to your own conscious
ness. It is always upon the law deduced from or applied to
facts that you ought to exercise your greatest vigilance.
For law interprets facts to us — we might almost say that
under its manipulation they bend like a nose of wax ;
nothing, you will remember, so flexible as figures, except
facts. Let me represent these maxims to you under a similitude.
Everybody has looked (when young at least) through a
kaleidoscope, and has observed the beauty of its many-
coloured figures, their symmetrical shapes, and the enchant
ment of their succession. What magic creates this phantas
magoria ? Some pretty bits of coloured glass, shining
gewgaws, scraps of lace, fripperies, and other odds and
ends, are put into a translucent box, and beheld through a
tube fitted with mirrors which are set at an angle determined
by optical law. The broken knick-knacks represent the
facts of everybody's phenomenal kaleidoscope; the reflect-
95

POSITIVISM.

ing angle under which they are seen is its law ; the coloured
images are everybody's impressions of things, nature, and
mankind. As long as you live, remember that whenever
you are contemplating the world's phenomena — whenever
you see facts of life, either great or small, you are looking
at them through some optical instrument or another. If its
law accords with their law, your view is truthful ; but then
it will be all the less pretty, the less symmetrical. There
are dark spots in our real world, checks of all sorts, moral
evil, anguish of heart and conscience foresights, stern ac
countabilities ! You have lost your childhood's magic glass,
and have got a clear reflecting telescope in its stead ! Pity
to forego the nice kaleidoscope where all was so bright,
so harmonious, and arrayed in such regular shapes. Yet
the view it gave was worth what most people's views are
worth — precisely nothing !
Comte had his kaleidoscope. Every systematizer who
allows no mystery, no darkness anywhere, must keep the
article; in point of fact, most people enjoy having one.
Alas ! for the 19th century ! It has such a feverish viewi-
ness, such a fashion of incessantly turning its magic tube,
that life seems little else than a dreamy phantasmagoria !
To construct a steady reflecting instrument for yourseh
requires industry, time, and thought, three things which few
people care to bestow upon their beliefs. Therefore the
96

POSITIVISM.

practice is to pick up kaleidoscopes ready-made at a cheap
rate, and to feel as easy as stern realities will permit on the
subject of their truthfulness. Romances are the kaleido
scopes of one class, cram-books of a second, newspapers of
a third, self-love the optical law of the greatest number.
We are met this morning to break up a grand kaleidoscope,
and to look into its construction. I shall do my endeavour
to prevent you all from replacing it by any instrument of a
ready-made sort. The easiest plan for all lecturers is to
display a series of transparent conclusions ; but I shall pre
fer furnishing you with facts and arguments, letting you put
them together, look at them, and verify their law of true
vision for yourselves.
Let us see Comte's law first. It was, strictly speaking, a
law of succession and resemblance. You will guess at once
that were this all we could see in the phenomenal world, our
insight would be very limited. And Comte's object was to
limit us. We can never know, Positively speaking, final
causes ; those which make up the common notion of design,
purpose, intention. Nor yet any efficient causes ; nothing
truly productive of an effect, as men usually say. AU we
can know is the middle of a chain of successive phenomena.
The two ends are absolutely hidden from our eyes. It was
in this sense that Comte denied causation — his language was
vigorous; he denounced it as metaphysical, and when Comt*
97 7

POSITIVISM.

nicknames anything metaphysical or theological, he means,
as everybody knows, Anathema maranatha.
The difficulty here is palpable. A law of averages — a
statistical law, as it is often called, does not profess to
account for anything ; it merely generalizes crude material,
and gets it ready for scientific thought to work out the true
law. But a law of succession has an imposing sound, and
it does in the worst sense impose. The fallacy may be
shown in an instant Day and night succeed each other
regularly. Does either account for the other ? The rotation
iof the earth is simultaneous with both — it accounts for both.
jits effect is to expose the earth's two hemispheres alternately
ito the sun's rays. This rotation coincides again with other
laws of our planetary system, and they account for it. It
is on these laws, and not on such grounds as Hume, Comte's
great Positive antecedent, alleged, that we look for sunset
and sunrise. When they fail, the system of which our globe
forms part will have collapsed.
Such then was the original kaleidoscope of Positivism.
It was condemned for reasons which will have plainly ap
peared to you. Other eyes have swept the field of vision
this world offers, and other instruments to aid our insight
have been adopted.
You will not have failed already to remark the extreme
vagueness of that word "law.'' There are very few English

POSITIVISM.
words more vague : it is applied to almost every sort .of
formula, force, principle, idea; besides being misused in
ways almost innumerable. You must therefore, when busy
with questions like the present, fix your attention upon the
adjectives added to it, and the examples selected by way of
illustration. The Positive system is, according to Littre, of immeasur
able extent, embracing the whole universe. Thus, whatever
was conceived in dark preparatory ages, theological or meta
physical ; whatsoever persons, who philosophize in either of
those antiquated ways may even now dream ; — if the concep
tion cannot be reduced under Positive laws, it must be re
garded as non-existent. All that really exists is included
within such laws, the definition of which, therefore, becomes
a subject of the greatest possible importance. They are,
he says, immanent causes. The room we are in contains
intelligent and educated people, but how many here could
define this word "immanent"? It and its correlative,
transcendent, are in truth metaphysical terms. If you will
turn to Mellin's Encyclopaedic Word-Book (favourably known
to metaphysicians for purposes of pillage), you will find
immanent explained, under the German einheimisch, into ten
shades of usage. Probably, in common English Littre'
might have said "inherent." "The universe," he writes,
" now appears to us as a whole, having its causes within
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POSITIVISM.

itself, causes which we name its laws. The long conflict
between immanence and transcendence is touching its close.
Transcendence is theology or metaphysic, explaining the
universe by causes outside it; immanence is science, ex
plaining the universe by causes within itself."* Now, one
stock-in-trade example is that a stone falls to the ground by
virtue of an immanent cause. In plainer words, the stone
belongs to universal matter of which gravity is an inherent
law. Next, we find this same example Positively applied to
the human will. Volition is free just as a falling stone is free ;
it obeys its own inherent law. Further, we read of " the
rigorous fatalities which make the world what it is." Comte,
Littre", and others object against calling these fatalities
materialistic, because they distinguish gradations of law.
Yet they limit all human knowledge within the materialistic
circle, and Janet, who refuses to acquit them of Material
ism, dwells on the point that, instead of defining mind as
an unknown cause of thought, emotion, and will, it is said
to be, "when anatomically considered, the sum of the func
tions of brain and spinal cord; and when considered
physiologically, the sum of the functions of brain in con
sciously receiving impressions. "f We need not wish to dis-

* Paroles de Philosophie Positive, p. 54.
f Janet refers to Nysten's Dictionnaire de M6decine, etc., by Littre'
and Robin.

POSITIVISM.

pute about words. But suppose it had been stated in plain
French or English that all known or knowable objects in the
universe are placed by Positivism under the rule of laws as
rigorous in their fatality as the laws of matter, would not
the ultimate point in question have been more tangible,
more intelligible? People might indeed have said, "Why,
after all Positivism comes to the same thing as Fatalism, or
Materialism ; " and with certain writers this risk may very
possibly be held a decisive objection.
Once more, — another explanation given by Littre- is, that
Positivism lies strictly within the "relative." Many here are
aware how, since Kant's time, England, France, and Ger
many have been flooded with metaphysic, good, bad, and
indifferent, on the relative and the conditioned. Pity that
Littre should have plunged into these whirlpools ! Ra
vaisson refers to Herbert Spencer and Sophie St. Germain
for the point that this conception, the relative, must always '
imply the existence of an absolute, known or unknown. 2 I
cannot follow him now, but any one interested in doing so
will find the subject commenced at page 66 of his " Philo
sophic en France," (one of the Imperial Reports), and con
tinued through sections 9 and 10. It is a very important
discussion. Ravaisson stands out amongst Frenchmen as a
consummate master of his science ; and he inclines to infer
that Comte tended, and that Positivism generally now tends,

POSITIVISM.

towards a final return to metaphysic. However this may
be, I fear I have tired you, and am glad to quit this dry
part of my lecture, and get away to more common-sense
ground. By way of introducing our most interesting topic, let me
draw one common-sense conclusion from the difficult tract
just shot over. During our passage, a thought may have
flashed upon you which I remember hearing in a Bampton
Lecture, somewhat to this effect — " Positivism is the most
negative system of all." It appears hard to avoid this idea;
for Positivism denies in express terms that human beings
have any knowledge outside those generalized laws of ex
perience which make up the Positive sciences. It denies
(in a word) the most essential part of what was formerly held
to be a knowledge of mind, both human and Divine.
Positive thinkers rebut the charge of negativism this way.
We confine ourselves, they say, to what we know; we do
not venture, like" Pantheists and Atheists, into the unknow
able. We do not deny God, we only ignore Him. We do
not ask about the first cause of the world, or whether it has
a constructural final end. Such questions as these are " dis-
edifying." "The Positive philosophy," says Littre, "does
not busy itself with the beginning of the universe, if the
universe had a beginning — nor yet with what happens to
hving tlungs, plants, animals, men, after their death, or at
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the consummation of the ages, if the ages have a con
summation."* Littre's sentence, which I have rendered
verbatim, reminds one of the prayer told to Bishop Atterbury,
as offered by a soldier on the eve of battle : " O God, if there
be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul ! " I am sorry to
repeat ill-sounding words again ; but is not this really the
exact religious attitude of an honest Positivist, who feels
sometimes touched by visions of possible life after death,
" Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught ;"
that is, if we conceive his attitude according to the least
negative interpretation put upon the system ?
Continuing this least negative interpretation, let us view
under its light the Positive cosmology or theory of the
world's existence ; of creation, — that is to say, if there ever
was a creation. A stone falls to the ground. Trying to
account for the phenomenon, we grasp a law inherent in the
material world. Other phenomena lead us to other laws.
We contemplate the material world with its laws in opera
tion, a magnificent -spectacle of moving forces ; an organic
whole, shining through its own intrinsic glory of never-
ceasing development. If we turn and pursue the reverse
road, and trace evolution back to its elementary principles,
we may dissolve worlds into primordial force, or we may,
* Paroles de Philosophie Positive, p. 53.
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POSITIVISM.

as Professor Tyndall suggested at Liverpool, find the All
in a fiery cloud occupying space. Then comes the com
plex question, "What beyond? What before? Whence, and
How produced ? a Positivist thinker may return one of two
answers. He may either say, " We do not know," or he may
say, " Nothing can be known." Take the least negative
first, as we proposed; it surely deserves this rejoinder: If
you plead ignorance, but surmise that knowledge is possi
ble, you ought not, for reasons valid with every true lover of
wisdom, to stop here. You are substituting for the ideas of
creation and first cause, what you call a primordial uni
verse, a material condition of some kind, producing pheno
mena regulated by inherent laws, successive, perishable,
and nothing more ! All once believed beyond, a blank !
Even the very name of philosophy consecrated by consent
of ages to the First and to the Last, admonishes you. Re
nounce your vocation, deny your name, or proceed. We
demand a Positive result in the highest sense, not a fog of
ignorance, not a slough of despond. But if the second
answer be the true one, if the teaching of Positivism is that
nothing more can be known, let us be told so in plain
words. Let no one be charmed into the Positive circle by
false allurements ; for of all vices treachery and hypocrisy
are the most cowardly. Are you really wiser than the pagan
Lucretius? If not, why boast of 19th century discoveries
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POSITIVISM.

in wisdom, insight, happiness ? If you have examined the
relics of a primaeval world, explored the races of living and
thinking creatures, if you have ascended to the starry firma
ment, and traversed its shining hosts, to come back with
shame and disappointment, and tell us this is your all, our
all, then indeed the wages of your science is death. While
you speak your final verdict at least cover your faces,
" And, sad as angels for a good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in ! "
These thoughts have brought us to the most essential consi
derations of this lecture. Whether the Positive savant puts
in a plea of ignorance or of blank negation, we care not.
We will treat it as a challenge thrown down, and do our
best to meet it. Succeed or not, we will take no refuge in
ambiguities, but maintain a truly positive assertion. We
say that the world we live in is not one world, but two,4
distinguishable through the laws by which each is governed.
There exists such a thing as phenomenal law ; we accept the
fact. But distinct, broadly distinct, apart in its working, its
elements, and its final result, is moral law. An appeal lies
to facts, and we shall try to justify our assertion.
The mode of proof now to be adopted is not metaphy
sical. I mention the circumstance because investigations
into mind are apt to be confounded with metaphysic, and
i°5

POSITIVISM.

are then supposed too difficult to deserve attention. My
argument will demand nothing beyond a hearing and a scru
tiny. It will consist of just so much mental dissection as
may be needful to show, first, a structural law of our inward
nature, and, secondly, to illustrate its workings and effects.
These two sets of facts will be placed side by side, in
order that each may check the other, and that their coinci
dence may also (as I hope it will) furnish a fresh and suffi
cient proof of the contrast between moral and material law.
Everybody knows how convincing are, and ought to be, facts
separately ascertainable, yet converging into one and the
same conclusion.
One form of speech almost unavoidable ought to be re
marked beforehand. I mean the word freedom as applied
to the human will and its volitions. When compelled to
use it, I shall do so only in the sense of philosophic as con
trasted with theological free will. By philosophic freedom
I understand that sort and degree of active choice free from
constraint which is required for the idea of responsibility,
an idea universally agreed on by divines opposed to each
other on the point of theological freewill-. By this last-
named idea I understand supposed powers of spiritual
attainment, which go to make up a notion of self-sufficing
moral strength. With it the present lecture, being purely
philosophical, can have nothing whatever to do, but I
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POSITIVISM.

should much deplore misconception, because any theory of
self-sufficingness would be repugnant to my own personal
convictions. Look now at the life of an animal, with senses often more
instrumen tally accurate than ours. Survey the world around,
which furnishes the objects of his perception and his intel
ligence. The mode in which that intelligence acts is held
to be more or less under the absolute rule of instinct, and
creatures below man are commonly described as those
"that nourish a blind life within the brain." Whether
this be or be not perfectly correct makes no difference to
our present purpose. The point I want you to fix your
thoughts upon is the directness of relation between the feel
ing or intelligent principle of mere animal life, and the
object perceived, felt, or apprehended. Perhaps it may
give vividness to your thought, if you figure this relation
under the similitude of a right line connecting two points —
object without, apprehension within. The line itself will
then represent the impulsive activity of a creature, as, for
example, when a hungry tiger leaps upon his prey.
Now this directness of action is not the thing most marked
in our own proper human existence. What is really marked is
the exact reverse ; the more truly human any action appears,
the farther is it away from resemblance to that animal charac
teristic. Suppose a man acts like a tiger, he is simply brutal ;
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POSITIVISM.

if he be governed by his feelings, however amiable, we pro
nounce him weak or unreasoning.
Absolutely impulsive doings, such as the indulgence of
an appetite, blows struck in passion, or even in self-defence,
we separate from our volitions proper, and call them irrational
and instinctive. In educating children we check displays
of impulse, we bid them pause and reflect. And it is
obvious that education presupposes an educable power or
principle, which principle selF-education (the most important
training of all) will place in a clear light before you. In
terrogate yourselves, then. You will see that the mental
power you most wish to train and augment is distinguishable
enough even in the commonest affairs of life. Take a case of
feeling. Some object — no matter what — kindles an emotion
within you — anger, wish affection, pursuit, dislike, avoid
ance — and you feel strongly impelled to take action there
upon. This would be the movement which was imaged to
our minds as a sinfple line. But to launch along it incon
siderately you would feel neither proper per se — nor yet
doing what is due to yourself, because it is your human pre
rogative to act, not according to impulse, but according to
reason. And observe, to do, or to forbear doing, is a ques
tion by no means determined by finding whether another
emotion be or be not stronger than the first. What reason
demands is that the impulse you feel, or it may chance the
108

POSITIVISM.

strongest of a dozen impulses, shall become to you an
object of careful scrutiny. You are bound in honesty to
scrutinize it ; not only because it exists as an incitement
felt within yourself, but much, much more because it is felt
to be your actual self. It is your character which gave the
spring, and lives in the movement to action. Perchance
this point of character is a hidden nook, an unknown depth
of feeling or desire, undiscovered, unsuspected by your
fellow-creatures — a secret of your inner self. Nevertheless
it is amenable to the tribunal of a more inward self still,
to be brought before it as an object that shall be examined
and cross-examined, sentenced either to vivid freedom or
present suppression — it may be even to extinction ever
more ! Each human being possesses this wonderful self-
objectivizing power. He is able to look at himself as a
NOT-self— a something partitioned off, and external; to be
thought about, felt about, reasoned about ; to be controlled,
chastened, corrected. This power is our inalienable heri
tage ; we cannot resign it if we would ; we cannot finally
suspend its exercise. Mountains could not crush, nor
oceans drown it ; flames of fire never burned it out from
the breast of one single martyr. Whether we use our birth
right for good or for evil, it still remains with us ; when
we act, our will is not a feeling, an appetition, travelling
simply from one point to another. It is a movement of
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our world within, a movement of that microcosm called
Man. Suppose a person resolves to employ this power aright.
Some wish or feeling, such as might drive a lower creature
to instinctive action, stirs within him, and becomes the
object of his contemplation. To the sessions of silent
thought he summons whatever assistants he can get; the
witnesses of experience, prudence, duty, the golden rules
of the Gospel ; whatever seems most proper to determine
the question at issue, — fitness or unfitness, to act or to ab
stain from acting. He says to himself (as all here have
done a thousand times), " This longing, thought, state of
mind, is wise or foolish, good or bad, right or wrong ; nay,
'tis I myself that am so ! " And in thus saying he is con
scious of that sort of freedom to will or not to will, which
makes up responsibility. He does not deny — contrariwise,
with the might of his whole essential humanity he asserts —
that the act of will is thus taken out of the direct line of
inevitable antecedency, away from the physico-mechanical
series, and enabled to commence a series of its own. In
a word, his consciousness evidences to him that functional
law which makes the human soul a thing more wonderful
than all the inorganic or all the animated universe besides.
And the law thus evidenced is the law of moral causation.
I said that our own soul thus becomes to us more wonder-
no

POSITIVISM.
ful than all the known universe besides. I might have said
more mysterious ; so truly sui generis and different from all
things not ensouled, as to be inexplicable by human sciences,
an enigma to itself, dwelling alone in its own awful isola
tion. Do but think what cause is — nothing less than origin
ating power ; what then must it be in stern and sad reality
for a soul to originate a sin ! Yet we cannot deny the fact.
We confess it every day, not only in our hearts and deeper
utterances, but in the commonest though most tremendous
of words, the word responsibility. If a man were in no true
sense the cause of his own actions, he could never be held
responsible either by God or Man. But as long as Justice
maintains her seat, each criminal will be so held, so judged,
so recompensed. And the only principle under which Justice
can justify her judgments is the reality of moral causation.
If, then, this law be established, we have proved our point.
Just as we recognize a material world by mechanical law —
and indeed our knowledge of matter itself is only a know
ledge of its laws — so in like manner, and pari passu, we
recognize a moral world by its distinctive law. We live,
therefore, not in one world, but in two :

' Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him. "

The point is of surpassing importance ! Upon it turns

POSITIVISM.

the whole issue. " Can mechanism — or, as it is vaguely
called, materialism — be or be not accepted, with its attendant
theories, as the truth ; that is, our whole truth, all we have to
live by and to die by ? " Infinitely important issue ! having
much to do at this very moment with the happiness and real
good of millions amongst our fellow-creatures and fellow-
countrymen. It is for this reason we must not spare pains
to demonstrate our moral law, for this reason also we will
give some passing sentences to show how worthless in argu
ment is the sophism most commonly circulated against it.
Men speak of a "law of motives," with complete assurance,
and without seeming to be aware of the twofold fallacy
underlying it. Writers on the subject furnish statistics of
suicide, murder, and the like; and then ask how the free
dom of moral cause can be compatible with so visible a
law? But what sort of a law is this ? Clearly not a law
upon which the results are conditioned, as sunrise on the
earth's rotation ; but a mere generalization, like the laws
of average before mentioned. Such a law does not govern
the acts, but the acts the law, or, in plain words, they are
the law. It is an epitomized result, inferring no more
consequence to our free moral causation, than a life assur
ance infers to the contingency of our individual life or
death. The sophism would be readily detected if it were
not for that unfortunate word "motive." People forget that
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POSITIVISM.

a motive is not a power that compels us, but an object which
we choose to seek. "Will," we are seriously told, "must be
determined by the strongest motive." Now if, in thus .speak
ing, the strongest motive objectively be meant, that is the
motive essentially and in its own nature the strongest, then
indeed we may exclaim, "Would that this were true ! " For
are not right, justice, goodness, absolutely and in them
selves the strongest? Yet men in general fail to pursue
them ; they are chosen by those of whom the world is not
worthy. But if, on the other hand, the phrase " strongest
motive " is to be understood subjectively, and means that
which on each occasion is felt to be the strongest ; what
form of sounding words has ever yielded a more barren sense,
a simpler truism ? " Will must be determined by the choice
of will." It means this, and nothing more.
We may sum the whole matter of motive in a single
sentence. Motives do not make the man, but the man his
motives. To conceive it otherwise would be to imagine
each man a mere bundle of instincts, such instincts as we
calculate with certainty in the brute animals we wish to allure,
to subdue, or to destroy.
" Be not like dumb driven cattle,"
says the Psalm of Life, and old Herbert exhorts—
" Not rudely, as a beast,
To run into an action. "

"3

POSITIVISM.

The beast feels an incitement, and rushes direct upon the
pitfall. It is the prerogative of a true man to subsume (as
logicians speak) each line of impulse into the circle of his
own soul ; to deliberate in the secret chambers of a being
impenetrable even to his own understanding, and to put in
force the result which becomes as it were the free manifesta
tion of himself. When therefore you examine the actions of
a fellow-creature, and discern his motives, you praise* or
blame what ? not the motives, but the man.
Permit me to close this discussion by an example of the
manner in which we make and unmake our own motives.
No one present is so young, or so careless, as never to
have felt the pains of self-reproach. Some light or shade
of life projects before us the outline of ourself. By virtue
of the law described, we view and review it, as if it were
the picture of another being. In contrast with it, we place
our own ideal, all that our boyhood fondly fancied our
manhood would* become ; the semblances of those we have
loved and lost ; of the father, who taught us to prize truth
and virtue above earthly wealth and distinction; of the
mother, at whose knee we knelt in prayer, and whose up
raised eye imaged the serenity of that heaven to which she
implored us to aspire. These beloved forms, robed in the
unfading freshness of a love stronger than death, stir our
heart of hearts, with accents unmistakable. They remind
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POSITIVISM.

us of what we resolved and trusted one day to be found, in
thought, in feeling, and in life. But, close to the glowing
portrait of our purposed self stands the dwindled figure
of what we actually are ; and, oh, the shame, the anguish
of that stern, disappointing comparison !
Among the lower creatures (we ask in passing) what is
there to resemble this self-reforming principle ? In the
domesticated animal, both beast and bird, we see wounded
affection, grief under a master's anger, and desire to win
back his love. In the gregarious tribes we find respect for
a common bond of what we almost may call utility ; but has
any sense of wrong as wrong, or sin as sin, ever been found
educable ? Man shows the mighty strength of this principle
within him, even when he shows it in its most repulsive
shapes. The remorseful wretch who throws himself beneath
the wheel of Juggernaut, is a different kind of being from
the horse or dog. And considering the self-interest, self-
flattery, and self-indulgence arrayed against it, may we not
say that the root of such passionate remorse has something
sound in it, else it would long ago have been trodden
out from the life and heart of mankind ?
For now, as always, our honest anguish and shame sow
the appointed seed of our noblest attainments. Those steps
by which we climb our steep ascent are hewn in the travail
of our souls. David found it so, when he heard the voice
"5

POSITIVISM.

of Nathan saying, "Thou art the man!" and wrote words
which have come down near three thousand years ; — " The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." " Of all acts," asks
Mr. Carlyle, " is not, for a man, repentance the most divine ?
The deadliest sin, I say, were that same supercilious con
sciousness of no sin ; that is death ; the heart so conscious
is divorced from sincerity, humility, and fact ; is dead ; it is
1 pure ' as dead dry sand is pure. David's hfe and history,
as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the
truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and
warfare here below." Truest emblem indeed ! In it, we
see, as in a glass, how living in two worlds we cannot but
have a sympathy with each ; insomuch that every man feels
himself to be two selves, not one ; a spiritual and a psychical
man. "There is," says Sir Thomas Browne, "another man
within me, that's angry with me, rebukes, commands, and
dastards me." A double consciousness which grows upon
many a soul, Until its truer choice and better motives are
attained : "The life which is, and that which is to come,
Suspended hang in such nice equipoise
A breath disturbs the balance ; and that scale
In which we throw our hearts preponderates. "
This lecture started from the question, what is a pheno
menon, and how do we know of its existence ? Seeing that
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POSITIVISM.

our knowledge rests primarily on the evidence of our own
mind, we drew the inference that Comte committed a fatal
error when he banished the science of mind, as mind, from
his cycle. Reviewing his various devices, and some devices
of his successors, for eliminating psychology, and reducing the
study of mind to a study of bodily functions, we approached
the stronghold of Positivism, — law. And, after discussing
the theories maintained respecting it, we boldly threw down
our challenge to this effect : law phenomenal or mechanical
admitted, we assert, the existence of another kind of law.
We say that the freedom of human choice between evil and
good is utterly unlike the freedom of a stone which falls by
mechanical law, and cannot choose but fall. The inference
from phenomenal law is the existence of a phenomenal
world. The inference from another existent law is that
there is another existent world. Man, we affirm, lives in
both ; has sympathies with both ; and, by virtue of his
double nature, is a true citizen of both. The ultimate
principle of man's higher nature is to us inscrutable ; for,
even as the eye sees not itself, so neither does the spirit of
a man discern that which makes it spirit. But, though we
cannot know the soul, we can know much and many things
about it ; things most important — nay, all-important for us
to know, since they distinguish the spirit that burns within
us from matter, from mechanism, and from mere ammality.
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POSITIVISM.

Hence we do not, with the Positivist, ignore the unknowable.
Contrariwise, confessing our ignorance, where we are igno
rant, we strive to observe and gather all we can.
One thing that can be thus known is the principle
of moral causation; and this we have inductively investi
gated. We began by observing a process in our own minds,
a process or law of self- objectivity. I am sorry to use such
an uncouth word ; but it saves a long description, and you
will all remember the fact. That process carries, on the
very face of it, adaptation to the purposes of moral choice,
free from the material necessity which governs a falling
stone, and disengaged from the control of such impulses as
the incitement of ruling instincts. We next verify this law
by observing its operation ; first, in single acts of the Will
accompanied, as you will recollect, by distinct consciousness
of choice and responsibility. It was in respect of this con
scious certainty that Dr. Johnson said, " We know we are
free, and there* ends the matter." We verified, a second
time, the self-objectivising law, by its working and effects
upon our motives, which it makes and unmakes ; eliminat-
•ing some, adopting others, so as to modify and alter our
whole real character. Any one who is happy enough to re
call the slow advances of successful self-education, or a less
ordinary process" by which old things passed away and all
things became new, may recollect with pleasure how this law
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POSITIVISM.

served as an instrument of change; how it placed himself
before his own inward eye, even daily, in freshly instructive
lights, awakening new self-questionings, emotions, aversions,
desires, hopes, and stimulating to new exertions; how it
opposed itself to the mastery of any single dominant passion,
under which we say a man acts mechanically, because he
has aheady surrendered himself a slave to its sway ; how
it became a check upon all day-dreaming or drifting with
the tide, when again we are said to act mechanically be
cause we yield to circumstances as they flow, and live a
blind life, like creatures that cannot escape the chain of
Instinct. For, observe : let any instinct, even the noblest,
be ever so nobly developed, if we act from its impulse only,
and not from a reflective choice of the prompting which it
gives, we are living below the image of our true nature,
because we are not striving to become a law unto
ourselves. You may verify our moral law in numberless ways among
the common walks of .ife ; and it 'really is a task of no great
difficulty, if you take with you the truth that the whole issue
is summed in one word — Responsibility. A falling stone
cannot choose but fall ; were a man subject to material law,
he could have no choice whatever. Neither would it make
any real difference, if the Will were impelled by overpower
ing motive, and did not make its motive to itself. The
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slate which slides from a roof, and kills a child, we do not
accuse of murder; we do not attach moral accountability to
the hungry tiger. It is because man is not impelled like
stones or tigers, that we hold him responsible. And we
praise or blame in the highest degree his most deliberate
acts. The wrong he does with malice aforethought is a
crime in the strongest sense ; the good he works with con
siderate purpose we esteem his highest well-doing. In our
time the wills of individual men have changed the destinies
of nations ; and any one who reads books, reviews, or news
papers sees a vigorous use of that word responsibility. No
one doubts that these powerful wills are the true causes of
effects felt throughout all Europe, effects which will remain
when those who caused them are in the grave ; nay, even
when generations — perchance dynasties — shall have passed
away. In lower life, we honour the truly causative man who
conquers a habit of intemperance or any evil passion : it is
greater to overcome one's self than to conquer many cities.
We deem every one accountable for what he allows, or dis
allows, in relation to his God, his fellows, or himself. In a
word, we consider each man so far the true cause of his own
conduct, as to load him with responsibility
Yes, responsibility ! Do not shrink from the thought ;
it is wholesome for all. Do but practise self-control 'enough

POSITIVISM.

to look yourself with honest purpose in the face when you
are about to act, you will never suppose that you act
mechanically, and you will seldom act amiss. If you wish
to benefit your countrymen, inculcate the grand lesson of
responsibility ; for what well-informed person doubts that
one main root of our present social and religious ailments
lies in compromise with known immoralities, indolent ac-
quiesence in hollow words, and lifeless outside shows, where
ought to be heard and seen the rigid truths of account
ability, duty, consistency? — all impossible without a practical
law of self-scrutiny and self-control. Yet further : Responsi
bility is also an undeniable witness to a world of life beyond
death. Just as even Herbert Spencer himself has remarked,
that the idea of relativity involves the correlative idea of an
absolute ; even so, in thought, responsibility involves its
correlative belief, a recompence ! But, in morality, the
evidence is stringent beyond expression. For, the idea of
responsibility is fixed in the nature of things ; unchange
able, eternal. And it contains in itself the loftier idea of
personality. Leading us to look for a world of righteous
recompence, it leads also to belief in a personal Being,
before whom we are responsible, and who will award to each
of us our recompence. David travelled the same road to
the same conclusion, when he looked round upon men, who
lacked mercy because they lacked justice, and said, " Unto

POSITIVISM.
thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy : for thou renderest to every
man according to his work."
Did I not feel that my strain upon your attention must
now cease, I should have liked to show at length how the
law by which we discover moral causation, may be verified
everywhere in the whole province of mind. It is difficult,
for instance, to look at the perplexing questions raised about
language, without perceiving that there runs through its
purely human formation the articulate results of an element
resembling internal dialogue ; in other words, a law of self-
objectivising representation. In art, again, the perpetual
efforts of ages is to present our human manifoldness of
thought, feeling, and idea, before our one individual self.
Hence the art formula of multeity in unity. And what is
the true bond of society as distinguished from gregarious-
ness? Is it not the Gospel's golden rule? But how can
our neighbour be viewed as a second self, unless self has
been already objectivised before our moral intuitions ? We
might follow the same thread throughout the conditions of
all philosophy.
The one thing we have to remember in every research
concerning man is that education, whether of self or others,
implies an educable principle ; a germ, of which education
and attainment are the bud, the blossom, and the fruit.
Therefore, if we want to know Humanity, we must look to

POSITIVISM.

the educated human being. The philosopher, the artist, the
thinker of every sort, must have risen into clearness ere he
can become a typical man. Is it not, therefore, a mistake
to appeal for theories of human nature to the statistics
(always statistics !) of ignorance and savagery ? When
modelling our physical form, Buonarotti did not seek his
type in hospitals for maimed or distorted limbs, and exclaim,
Behold, such is man ! Curious too, and contradictory, the
way in which appeals to barbarism have worked. In the
1 8th century we used always to hear of that golden age,
" When free in woods the noble savage ran,
And man, the brother, lived the friend of man. "
In the 19th, savage life is cannibalism, superstition, cruelty,
terrible, revolting, loathsome; perchance, time must yet pass
before we learn justice to our fellows of any age ! Meanwhile,
we may feel sure that our human ideal is not to be found in
the frost-bitten rickety infant species ; nor yet in its dwarfed
and stunted adult ; the cretin and the imbecile will not give
its lineaments ; and it may be hard to say which is least
like a true man, the undeveloped or the perverted creature.
For example, what superiority in moral height has the savant,
whose self-satisfied science ignores or denies a God, over
the poor pigmy barbarian, unskilled in the use of fire, and
living upon berries and insects, who props himself against a
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tree with earthward face, and prays, saying, " Yere, if indeed
thou art, why dost thou suffer us to be killed ? Thou hast
raised us up. Why dost thou cast us down ? " * Better
perhaps the rude stammering of our race's childhood than
its half-speechless, half-paralyzed old age !
And here the argument of this lecture ends. Of causation
in general, and the grand subject of design, it has not been
my hint to speak. These vast topics have fallen into higher
hands than mine. My aim was limited to finding the
differentia of man — the moral characteristic which places
him in contrast with physico-mechanical laws.
It occurs to me, however, that you may employ ten
minutes not unpleasantly, upon what we can hardly help
calling the romance of Positivism. The story, taken from
first to last — part comic, part tragic — is as wild and weird
as one of the Frenchman Dord's pictures, — a story too
strange to be thought true, if it did not happen to have
been true ! It "has also its stinging lessons, and they follow
naturally ; evolved, as it were, from the motley and mystify
ing commencement.
Comte's life has been written "by friend and foe. For
fulness of detail the right book is by his disciple and
executor, Dr. Robinet, who has just figured among those
who rule in the Commune of Paris. Robinet is very in-
* Harris's Highlands of (Ethiopia, vol. iii. p. 63,
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POSITIVISM.

teresting, for he thoroughly believes in his master, and
accepts the whole Comtist religion, calendar and all, which
Littre" and others reject. No reproach this to Comte's
biographer, for that same worship is celebrated in our cooler
atmosphere of England. The Pall Mall Gazette has, by its
notices, made the celebrations widely known. There is an
account of the grandest yearly solemnity which will suffice
many, and excite the curiosity of more, in its number for
January 7th, 1868. It is not hard to see that the worshippers
differ from the recusants by a strong feeling that they cannot
live upon axioms sounding like negatives. They want senti
ment, emotion, excitement to sustain them. Let us observe
how Comte caught the first glimpse of this requirement
His life was sombre — a boy delicate and fractious, dis
liked by his masters, turned out of the Polytechnique,
repudiated by his great socialist teacher St. Simon. His
family relations not happy, his marriage least of all. We
cannot wonder at vagaries, for he had a real fit of rampant
insanity, and after release from an asylum had nearly
drowned himself in the Seine. His wife found him in
tolerable, and left her home. Mr. Mill speaks of her
respect for him ; — it was oddly testified after his death, for
she pleads in law that he was a madman, an atheist, and
immoral ; repudiates his will, and seizes the consecrated
relics of his dwelling. Littre" supported her against those
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who, like Robinet, thought her little less than blasphemous.
If she had appeared in an English law court, we should
have known more truth than we do.
Let us now look at such facts as we have from the more
favourable side. The man lived a lonely life, as became a
sort of conceptual alchemist, sustained by a belief that he
was turning men's leaden thoughts into his own pure gold.
One brilliant projection of his has made him the idol of
Positivists. I confess it puzzles me, among many others, to
imagine how a qualified critic can treat such a philosophic
solvent either as true or as original. It supposes the history of
all humaii thinking to pass necessarily through three stages,
theology, metaphysics, positive truth ; and that the world
makes progress accordingly. We will hope that the thing
called theology, a benighted belief in the government and
intervention of supreme will, is not altogether extinct in this
age of progress ; if it be so, Mr. Froude encourages us to
look for a revival. Among lesser matters, the hypothesis of
metaphysical cookery is an idea one fails to realise. Was it
a banquet with joints cut Laputa-like, after some fashion of
concepts, or syllogistic figures ? Was it a " feast of reason
and a flow of soul," or, more probably, an abstraction pure
and simple, as if a man could

" Cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast " ?
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POSITIVISM.

Comte's comicalities strike most people all the more
because he writes on, always utterly insensible to his own
comedy. If any one wishes for a serious critique in small
compass, I may mention Stirling's appendix to his transla
tion of Schwegler's Handbook ; Whewell in his Philosophy
of Discovery, and elsewhere.
Comte was most confiding in his own theory. Littre" is
not so confident, for he has another theory of his own. But,
putting aside the question of its verification, we may remark
that in the rough idea Comte showed himself before his age.
Positive thinkers have busied themselves with physical
evolution ; for example, the development of a brain from an
oyster or an eozoon ; but Comte was intent upon mental
evolution.5 Man need not much care about the congeners
of a body sprung from earth ; but soul is another thing.
We trust our own spirit, as carrying some image and super
scription of God ; we feel and conceive it to be different in
kind from sensitive life ; we love to think of it in its finality as
a spark flowing out from Divine Light; a breath breathed into
body from above. In the reverse of this belief there is doubt
less an element unfavourable to happiness ; it makes some
men cynics, some pessimists, some simply victims. Comte's
infinite self-satisfaction probably saved him from self-torture.
But we judge that he felt his condition deeply, from the rap
ture with which he hailed a new and brilliant discovery !
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POSITIVISM.

Yes, it was the most wonderful of all his discoveries ; he
one day found an unsuspected law of life within himself; he
discovered that he had a heart.
To many, this is the black spot on Comte's memory;
they cannot receive his love, nay, his frantic adoration, of
the lonely wife of a convict, absent in the gallies, as a piece
of pure Platonism. Had Madame Comte's allegations been
sifted fully, we might have known all. As it is, I for my
own part like to think him innocent; he was mad from
disease, and perhaps from conceit ; a conceit, says Mr. Mill,
too colossal to be believed without reading him up ; but I
trust he was not immoral. His letters are against it, the
lady's face is against it, and above all, there is against it the
lasting effect upon himself. After a year's happiness to
Comte, she died and left him, as he thoroughly supposed,
an enlightened and a religious man.
Poor Comte ! His sweeter life was buried with the
dead, who to him could never rise again. His religion was
no more than a funereal cult; a veil thrown over it, no
hope, no thought of reunion ! The episode of Clotilde was,
in itself, one of those touches of nature which make the
whole world kin ; the brief, bright, and long sad' experience
the solitary had of his heart ; the love, the loss, the unfor-
getting sorrow ! But, did it not prove, beyond the force of
reclamation to disprove, that Comte's system ends, at last,
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POSITIVISM.

in what is commonly called materialism ? its faith (or nega
tion of faith) being in effect this, that we look for entire
human dissolution coincident with bodily death. And the
end flows naturally from the beginning; all we think is
phenomenal, all we know is phenomenal, first and last.
Our life is only a phenomenon; and death, death joins us to
the unreturning past. We are absorbed, all that is good
of us, into general and generic humanity; an Eidolon,
called the Great Being for our comfort ; as if a name (what's
in a name ?) could console us ! The race we may have
tried to serve is to be our Euthanasia, our sepulchre, I had
almost said our cenotaph !
Strange thought, not without a kind of serpent-fascina
tion ! Epidemic in England now, gaining force from its
unhallowed audacity ! The consistent pessimist, who rates
men at the worst, thinks the worst in himself, and does the
worst by all others, and by himself, if he is but fixed in this
unbelief, need not fear what the world, man, or God shall
do unto him. It is the old whisper, " Ye shall be as gods ! "
'Tis superhuman to sit and watch the storm ; to have our
strong sensations, illusions they are called in France ; blood-
poisons which circulate in our life, working hot passion and
mischief ; sorrow to many a loving, many a confiding heart ;
passion, mischief, sorrow, what matters it ? there comes an .
opiate by-and-by ! The man of overwrought brain, used
129 9

POSITIVISM.
up, worn-out feelings ; the distempered dreamer ; the reck
less worker of wrongs ; the disappointed striver for an
earthly crown, all shall have their common slumber at last ;
unconscious, impervious, unbroken. I will read you three
stanzas from a longer piece written by one not unknown always
where that tree of knowledge grew : —

" Cessation is true rest,
And sleep for them opprest ;
And not to be, — were blest.
Annihilation is
A better state than this ;
Better than woe or bliss.
The name is dread ; — the thing
Is death without its sting ;
An overshadowing."

If such be the thought to them whose natural heritage
stands strong, fringed with luxurious hope to live beloved,
to die regretted ; what will the " overshadowing " be when it
passes, like a plague breath, over the children of toil and
anxiety, over them whose life is at best hard, and their lot
depressed and without " illusions " ? Will they not want
their strong sensations ? Will they respect any law, human
or divine, which stands between them and their enjoyments?
Will they not crush all who bar their pleasures, aye, choke
them in their own blood ? Why not ? The opiate comes
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POSITIVISM.

to "all at last. 'Tis an act of oblivion 1 The overshadowing
will cover all.
And this is the coming creed of the 19th century. To
return to Comte, about whom I might say much, but must
not ; — of course, he had no foresight of anything worse than
an immediate realization of his crowning ideas — sociality,
fraternity, Positivism. Europe split into small states ;
women made incapable of property, but held objects of
religious worship ; men worked on a communistic principle ;
an oligarchy of rich ; a' spirituality of Positive believers,
with a supreme infallible pontiff at their head ; Paris the
seat of infallibility and of order. Clotilde had shown
Comte a principle antagonistic to, and predominating over,
all egoism ; Altruism was to burn out of men all selfish
aims, nay, the ordinary feelings of a man ! A rigorous rule of
life was to aid, and a religion without a God to enforce, this
new law. Two hours a day, divided into three private
services, were to be spent in the adoration of Humanity
under the form of a living or dead woman. The image of
the fair idol, dress, posture, everything was to be brought
distinctly to mind ; and the whole soul to be prostrated in
her honour. Comte, it has been said, gave woman every
thing except justice.
There is a grave moral in this tale. Theology was ex
tinguished ; but the desire to worship burned on — a fire un-
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POSITIVISM.
quenchable. Is that desire, or is it not, a broad reality, an
inalienable truth of our nature ? Comte accepted it for him
self, and not for himself alone, but for our whole human race.
Along with it he accepted the only principle which could
bestow universal validity. Our moral intuitions were ac
knowledged safe guides, and something more ; the rulers of
an intellectual world, the revealers of truth higher than all
beside. Often and often he asserted the dominion of
heart over mind. Probably, if Comte had lived longer he
would have acknowledged other 'revelations of our moral
nature. Moral causation, for example. That strange phrase
of his — " a modifiable fatality," self-contradiction in words,
suicide in sense, what did it portend ? Was it the first sound
of a marriage-bell, freedom and duty once again united ? A
change of his system wonderful to contemplate, yet not more
wonderful than the state in which he left it.
One cannot help here asking how matters would have
stood if Cornte had died without knowing his Clotilde.
How incomplete according to his own account his philoso
phy ! how wanting in that which perfected the whole ! A
notable fact this, throwing great light on the value of such
like systematization which, after all, much resembles secre
tion from that interesting viscus, the system-maker's own
particular brain. And there is another fact quite as notable.
How curious that Comte should have lived so long without
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discovering whatever truth his own heart and a strong
human affection disclosed to him ! Hence we might illus
trate and confirm a previous remark, that any one not living
a truly human life — call him undeveloped, uneducated,
dwarfed, or immature — is no typical man; and if we believe
ancient maxims, scarcely a learner in philosophy, certainly
not a judge of its highest and widest problems.
The most notable fact and greatest surprise of all is, that
Comte's prayer without petition, his passionate self-mesme
rizing adoration, his religion without a God, should have
taken any hold -on men. No one can transfer to others his
private sorrow or his private joy; it is hard for a. man to
get his thought understood, harder still to make common
pasture of his heart. But Comte devised extraordinary pro
pagandist expedients ; those who consider his developments
mere madness, should explain why sane people have ac
cepted them. Comte set no value on Protestantism in any
shape. The religion of his own country he carried back to
mediaeval forms, and then travestied it There were many
festivals, a calendar of saints, nine sacraments, and a horri
ble caricature of the Christian Trinity. This idea crowned
his sociology, which I need hardly say was communistic
socialism, enfolding (as socialism always must enfold) and
scarcely veiling the most iron of despotisms, both temporal
and spiritual. His mind delighted in contemplating a.
i33

POSITIVISM.
synthesis of the great Fetish, Earth, with the great Being
Humanity; which last somehow assumes on occasion a
feminine gender.
To Clotilde, symbolizing that supreme object, Clotilde,
his noble and tender patroness, he transferred Dante's hom
age of Beatrice : addresses to the mother of our Lord ; and
stranger than all, the prayer of Thomas a Kempis to Almighty
God, "Amem te plusquam me, nee me nisi propter te" —
"May I love Thee more than self, nor self at all except for
Thee." Now consider : when Comte died, sixty-four years
had not quite elapsed since goddesses of Reason were wor
shipped in the cathedral and other churches of Paris. Upon
each high altar a fair woman, chosen for her faultless beauty,
sate enthroned, her feet resting upon the consecrated slab.
Gaily clothed in tunic and Greek mantle, she was so dis
played by a torch behind her throne, so elevated above her
worshippers, as to attract from Phrygian cap to Italic shoe
their passionate gaze and adoration. Low down beneath
her footstool lay the broken symbols of a faith then declared
effete and passed away ; just as half a century afterwards
Comte declared theology passed away. Music sounded,
incense smoked, Bishop Gobel, who assisted at a parody of
sacred rites, wept tears of shame, but in fear and trembling
he assisted. The object of this mad mockery of religion,
this empire of heart over mind, this woman-worship, was
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POSITIVISM.

to proclaim afresh Fraternity, Progress, Sociality. Sociality,
for the supposed law of which final development Comte
worshipped humanity and Clotilde — but disowned immor
tality and God.
These two madnesses, how near akin, how far apart were
they ? The world is not really made young by destroying
old things; yet the path of 18th century madness lay through
fire and blood. Its deeds are sometimes spoken of, even
now, as great crimes ; but no great crime is criminal in the
sight of men whose life is godless, dark, and unsubstantial.
Horrors pass before them like unrealities. " The world,"
writes Mercier on the trial of Louis XVI, — " The world is
all an optical shadow." In our 19th century life, 'tis a skil
fully prepared overshadowing, beneath which men beat their
brows till their blood-shot eyes see red. "I see red," ex
claimed Eugene Sue's ruffian, " and then I strike with the
knife."* * While these sheets were passing through the press, I read in the
Pall Mall Gazette for April 24th, as follows : One of the Communist
papers, the Montagne, writes : " Education has made sceptics of us ; the
Revolution of 1871 is atheistic ; our Republic wears a bouquet of immor
telles in her bosom. We take our dead to their homes, and our wives
to our hearts without a prayer. Priests ! throw aside your frocks, turn
up your sleeves, lay your hands upon the plough, for a song to the lark
in the morning air is better than a mumbling of psalms, and an ode to
sparkling wine is preferable to a chanting of hymns. Our dogs that
used only to growl when a bishop passed will bite him now, and not a
voice will be raised to curse the day which dawns for the sacrifice of the
Archbishop of Paris. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the world.
I3S

POSITIVISM.

Let me end by telling you a dream, which is not all a
dream. A company of savans were seen in the visions of the
night, busy with a new scientific invention. Earth, they
argued, earth has her volcanoes, her burning exhalations;
men have electric lights, fires, gas lamps, furnaces. These
make up the world's proper illumination. The effect in
tended was, therefore, to darken the air we breathe, so that
no rays from the upper sky should pass through it. The
inventors hoped that a district, a country, nay, even a world,
might thus be overshadowed by a gloom impervious to
moon and stars by night, to sun by day ; and the human
eye see no changes, save those which the earth's activity, or
human power and skill, might produce. Terrestrial and
artificial alternations excepted, all was to be changeless as
winter midnight — deep impenetrable darkness ! It was seen
slowly, very slowly, to descend. In thirty years the men
of science hoped and purposed its perfection.
Did those who had previously known the beautiful light
of heaven, who had bathed and basked in the life-giving
sunbeam, feel happy, or even calm, when they saw their

The Commune has promised us an eye for an eye, and has given us
Monseigneur Darboy as a hostage. The justice of the tribunals shall
commence, said Danton, when the wrath of the people is appeased ;
and he was right. Darboy ! tremble in your cell, tor your day is past,
your end is close at hand."

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children and children's children robbed of celestial glory
and gladness ?
Yet there is one thing worse than a world without a sun —
you know what I mean — Humanity without a GOD.

Postscript.

The Lecturer purposely abstained from reading Professor
Huxley's acute critique on Positivism until this Lecture had
gone to press. He now strongly recommends his auditors
to read No. viii. of the Lay Sermons.
Should any reader find difficulties in pages 23 — 25 of the
foregoing Lecture, he will do well to peruse Littre"'s "Auguste
Comte et la Philosophie Positive," chapter iii., particularly
PP- 42, 43-

137

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
BY THE VERY REVEREND
R. PAYNE SMITH, D.D.,
DEAN OF CANTERBURY ; LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, OXFORD.

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

The duty which has been imposed upon me to-day by
the Christian Evidence Society is, I conceive, to state as
clearly as I can, what is our ground for believing that
a revelation is not only possible, but is a necessary
part of the system of this world. As the programme
further joins science and revelation, I conceive that I am
debarred from any but a strictly scientific proof. We
may reasonably infer the probability of a revelation from
God's necessary attribute of love. We may ourselves feel
morally sure that a creature, approaching so nearly to the
spiritual world, and capable of so much good as is man, would
not be left by his Maker in that miserable state of vice and
misery in which we find ourselves. There are many good
and weighty reasons for believing that God would give us
a revelation, and that the Christian religion is God's re
velation — reasons drawn from the nature of God, from the
actual condition in which man is placed, and from the
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

direct teachings of Holy Scripture — all these, like a cord
of many threads that cannot easily be broken, serve to
confirm the faith of the believer, but I must forego their
use. In confining myself to what I conceive to be the
strictly scientific basis of a revelation, I would, never
theless, beg you to remember that the evidences of Chris
tianity are cumulative. They cover a vast field, and it is
in their united force that their strength lies. The very
vastness of the field often invites attack. Some outlying
work seems capable of overthrow. Some discovery in
the domains of history, of philology, or of physical science,
seems to provide new weapons for the assault. Possibly
not all the arguments used in defence of Christianity will
endure the test of close and accurate examination. Pos
sibly, too, in our views of the nature of Christianity, and
in our exegesis of the Scriptures, we have arrived only at
partial truth, and do not distinguish with sufficient accuracy
between what is certainly revealed, and what is nothing more
that a possible explanation of the Divine word. There are,
moreover, I will candidly confess, difficulties in the way of
faith. However new may be the form of the attack, and how
ever modern the materials which it uses, yet the strength of
the attack lies in real difficulties, which are no new matter, but
have ever lain deep in the minds of thoughtful men. I do
not believe that belief is a thing easy of attainment, any
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more than virtue is. I believe that both are victories,
gained by a struggle — gained over opposing forces.6 But
as certain as I am that this present state of things was in
tended to train man to virtue, though I cannot answer all the
objections brought against the system of the world being
exactly what it is, nor solve all the doubts and difficulties,
moral and metaphysical, which surround us : so I am
convinced, in spite of similar difficulties in the way of re
ligion, that belief, and not unbelief, is the end at which
man ought to aim. I believe that man was intended, to
attain to a higher and more perfect state than that in which
he now finds himself, and that he can only attain to it by
virtue and faith ; but as the very value of these lies appa
rently in their being won by an effort, long and earnestly
maintained, I am not surprised at the existence of diffi
culties, least of all of such difficulties as arise from our
ignorance. Still belief would be unnecessarily * difficult,.
and we may even say, morally impossible, if the sum of
the arguments in defence of a revelation did not largely
exceed the sum of the arguments against one. With
these arguments I have to-day nothing to do. The evi
dences of Christianity, external and internal, will be treated
* I use this word because if the value of faith and virtue consists in
their being a discipline, while this implies the existence of difficulty, it
also limits the degree of the difficulty. J43

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

of by others. My business is to show that a revelation
was to be expected ; that it was probable, or at all events
possible, and, therefore, that the evidences of Christianity
have a claim upon the consideration of every right think
ing man. In showing that a revelation was to be expected,
I shall at the same time show what is the exact position
which it holds, and in what way revealed knowledge differs
from all other knowledge, scientific and unscientific.
Now the argument which I shall use as my proof of
the possibility of a revelation is simply this, that in the
present system of things we find no being endowed with
any faculties without there being also provided a proper
field for their exercise, and a necessity imposed upon
that being of using those faculties. In this statement I
assume nothing. I do not assume that there is a God
who made these beings. I do not assume that they were
made or created ; still less do I assume that they were in
tended to use^heir faculties. I put aside all theories of
design and causation, not because I do not believe that
they possess force, but because the actual facts which I
see around me, or which I am taught by scientific men,
are enough for my proof. The only thing which I assume
is, that the laws of nature are universal ; and I assume
this simply because it will be readily granted me. The
universality of nature's laws compels us to admit that a law
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

which holds good in all known cases, will necessarily hold
good in all cases whatsoever.
Our whole language is so essentially based upon re
ligious ideas that it would be very difficult for me to use
only neutral words. But in using religious words, I wish
them to be understood in a neutral sense, If I speak of
creatures, I mean only beings, things which exist now, or
have existed. If I speak of them as endowed with
faculties, I merely mean that they possess them. By
nature, I mean simply the present state of things,
whether designed by an intelligent mind, or a mere
come-by-chance. I look simply around me at what is —
or at all events appears to be — and I find myself in a
world in which there is a very exact correspondence be
tween the endowments and faculties of every existent
being, and the state of things in which it happens to be.
So exact is this correspondence, that if you give Pro
fessor Owen a bone, he will tell you to what order of
animals its owner belonged, what were its habits, the
nature of its food, of its habitat, and mode of life. Nature
works out this correspondence even to the most minute
detail. By looking at the bone of a quadruped we can tell,
not merely great things about it, but such trifles as which
leg it used first in getting up from the ground. For nature
is so undeviating that the outward habits, even in things

i45

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

of no apparent moment, correspond to the internal con
formation. Now, possibly, it will readily be granted that such is the
present state of things. Whatever may have been the
stages through which we have, or have not, passed, we now
find ourselves in a world of apparent cause and effect —
full of infinitely varied forms of life, but of which none are
purposeless. I cannot upon this point bring forward a
better witness than Professor Huxley, who, in his most in
teresting essay on Geological Contemporaneity (Lay Ser
mons, p. 236) speaks as follows : — " All who are competent
to express an opinion upon the subject are, at present,
agreed that the manifold varieties of animal and vegetable
form have not either come into existence by chance, nor
result from capricious exertions of creative power ; but that
they have taken place in a definite order, the statement of
which order is what men of science term a natural law."
The whole chain of animal and vegetable life seems to
this great authority so perfect and complete, that even the
variations which have taken place in it, have been governed,
he considers, by a law, that is, a regular and orderly suc
cession. These variations have been the result, apparently,
of certain changes in the external state of things, to which
the external conformation of the animal has somehow or
other been made to correspond. But as Professor Huxley
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

points out, these variations have been confined to very
narrow limits. When people speak of the enormous
changes which have taken place in the living population
of the globe during geological eras, they refer, he says, to
the presence in the later rocks of fossil remains of a vast
number of animals not discoverable in the earlier rocks ;
but the fossils which you do find in the early rocks differ
but little from existing species. (See p. 238.) He' thus
negatives on sure grounds the idea that a state of things
ever existed on this globe essentially unlike what exists now.
What then exists now ? I answer, first of all a vast
chain of vegetable life, fitted in every portion of it to find
its own subsistence, and to propagate its species. Its main
function is to " manufacture out of mineral substances that
protoplasm, upon which, in the long run, all animal life
depends." (Lay Sermons, p. 138.) I need not detain you
by enumerating the many various contrivances by which
plants are enabled to manufacture food for us out of carbon>
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen — substances upon which,
in their original state, animals cannot feed — nor the still
more curious and elaborate processes by which their fecun
dation, and the propagation of each species is provided for
— processes which seem often to require the intervention
of animal life. I need not detain you upon this point :
you will readily grant that this correspondence does
H7

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

exist. If a plant is not suited to its habitat, and
cannot use its natural powers, nature imposes upon it
the severe penalties — first, of degradation, and then of
death. Upon the animal world she imposes just the same
penalties. There is neither excess nor defect in her
operations.* Whatever she gives must be used, but
animals, being governed in the main by instincts, have no
choice. They necessarily employ all their living powers,
and apparently have no powers beyond those indispensable
for their existence. This point, however, I will not press,
though it seems to follow from the fact asserted by Pro
fessor Huxley, that no important difference can be observed
between the fossil remains found in the earliest strata, and
animals of the same species and order existent now. (See
pp. 241, 242, and for vegetables, p. 240.) For, as he
tells you, facts establish a scientific law — law in the
mouths of scientific men, meaning an established order of
facts. Well then ! I will put this fact of absence of progress
aside, and with it the corollary of the absence of latent

•"Rudiments," so far from disproving, prove this. A rudiment
shows that nature might have given more, but has not done so. Why ?
Because the further gift would have been useless, for instance, man
would not have been benefited by being able to feel with his eye-brows.
(See Darwin, "Descent of Man," L 25.)
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

powers.* But of actual powers it is evident that animals
do use them all, and have to use them all. So close, too,
is the agreement between the powers and the external
position of every animal, that a change in its external
relations will modify its powers to a certain extent. But
only to a certain extent; there are fixed limits to the
adaptability of those living powers. If the changes are
sue ash to occasion a more active exercise of its living
powers, the animal increases in strength, size, and beauty ;
if unfavourable, but still permitting some use of its powers,
it dwindles and decays. But pass the appointed bounds
and the animal dies. Nature is exacting the penalty of
the non-use of what it has given. Nature exacts a severe
penalty for the mis-use, and the last and final penalty for
the violation of her laws. I do not know that an ascidian
jelly-bag has any other faculties than those of sucking in
water, and of sticking to a stone.f But this I know, that
if it does not use all the powers it possesses and suck in
* Professor Huxley's words are, '-'In these groups there is abundant
evidence of variation — none of what is ordinarily understood as pro
gression ; and if the known geological record is to be regarded as even
any considerable fragment of tbe whole, it is inconceivable that any
theory of anecessarily progressive development can stand, for the nume
rous orders and families cited afford no trace of such a process."
(P- 245-)
f Darwin, " Descent of Man," i. 205. 8
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

it's water, and stick to its stone, no process of natural
selection will ever develop it into a monkey : it will go
to the limbo of nonentity* But what an alarming thought,
that at a period separated from us by such vast geologic
ages, that, according to the nebular hypothesis, held by so
many of our leading astronmeors as a probable theory,
this whole universe was a mass of heated vapour ;
what an alarming thought that the very existence of man
should have depended upon a jelly bag sticking to a stone
and sucking up water ! Alas ! there was then no water,
no stones, no jelly bags, and therefore there are now no
men ! Man escapes, poor thing, from his humble
parentage : he need not feel his ears to find the proof
there of his monkeyhood :f but his escape costs him dear.
What with astronomy and biology, men of science be
tween them have cleared us out of existence. Scientifi
cally, man is no more.
My argument, fortunately, depends upon matters of
fact: facts for which the believer accounts by holding
* It is a curious fact that these Ascidians possess a heart and a
circulation, but that after the heart has beaten a certain number of
times it stops, and then beats the opposite way, so as to reverse the
circulation. (Lay Sermons, p. 95.) In what stage of its progress
did it so degenerate as to lose this remarkable power ?
f Darwin, "Descent of Man," i. 22.9
r50

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

that this world is the work of a Being possessed of in
finite wisdom and power, and who therefore has endowed
all His creatures with those faculties which they needed, and
with no others ; because to give useless faculties would be
a violation of God's attribute of wisdom. The student of
natural science may take another view. It is no part of
his business to do so. His office is to discover and tabulate
the order of facts, of phenomena, and this order he calls
a natural law. Well and good. But teleology, the science
of ends, which gives the reason why a thing is what it is
— teleology belongs to the metaphysician. It is his
business to inquire into causes and effects. Still, as a
matter of fact, scientific men do try their hand at account
ing for the present state of things, and they say, perhaps,
10
that there is a struggle, a competition in nature, so sharp
and close that no creature can continue to exist save by
the vigorous exercise of all its necessary faculties, while
all useless qualities will be cast away as mere overweight
and incumbrance. I need no decision upon this point ;
the fact is all I want. I do not want you to decide
whether mind preceded matter, and consequently that there
is a God: or whether matter and mind came into existence
contemporaneously, in which case there is no room for
the theory of development, but abundant room for im
possibilities, metaphysical and actual ; or, lastly, whether
i5t

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

matter preceded mind, the latter being simply the result
of a high corporeal organisation, slowly attained to by the
processes of selection, natural and sexual. Whether this
present state of things was worked out intelligently, by a
Being possessed of will and understanding, or is the re
sult of blind and unintelligent powers, working fortuitously,
this, to my argument, matters not. All I want is the ad
mitted fact — that every living organisation fully possesses
all those faculties which it needs, and must use all its
faculties under penalty, first of degradation, and, finally,
in the long run, of extinction.
But man is a living organization, and must, therefore,
come under this law. Let us see whether the fact con
firms this deduction. Now, in all the long line, from the
ascidian upwards to man, nature had supplied none but
physical wants. Her children need food ; she gives them
each those senses and that conformation which enables them
to get each their Swn food. They need safety : she uses
much ingenuity in providing for their safety. She is,
moreover, liberal. Their food is, in general, gained so
easily, and their safety so well provided for, that their lives
are full of enjoyment. Her care, however, is taken
in the main for the species, and not for the individual.
He enjoys his food because nature has taken loving care
for the whole family to which he belongs ; and she further
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takes care that that family shall continue to exist. If it
perish, it is because by some change in temperature, or
the like, the correspondence is destroyed between its
faculties and its external position. Short of this, the in
genuity employed by nature in providing for the con
tinued existence of every species of insect and animal is
as wonderful as that employed by her in continuing vege
table life ; and, as a rule, the lower the creature is in the
scale of being, the more curious the contrivances used
for its preservation.
Well, when we come to man we find these three leading
necessities equally well provided for. Man is provided with
the means for obtaining food, for providing for his safety,
and for propagating his species. But, though nature's
ends are the same, and reached with equal certainty, her
means are, in the main, different. The animals are moved
to gain their existence by their senses working upon their
instincts. This is a great advance upon vegetable life.
You had there neither senses nor instincts, but simply
powers. But man rises above the animals as much as
they transcend vegetables. He attains to these same
ends of food, safety, and continued existence by the use
of his reason.
Now, I wish you to notice this. Nature is not limited
in her resources, nor confined to one method* She is not
153

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

obliged to plant animals in the ground that they may
suck up food through their legs ; she can and does give
them instincts by which they can get their food in a very
different way. But perfect as these instincts are, nature
can do still better. She can produce an animal capable
of reasoning upon causes and effects, and who, therefore,
provides for everything which he imagines to be good for
him by setting those causes in motion which produce the
desired effect.*
But with the possession of reason there also goes the
possession of what we call mental faculties. Not only
can man by the use of his reason obtain food, provide
for his safety, and continue his race, but higher ends are
made possible for him, to be attained to by the use of
this higher endowment. Man has the power of articulate
speech, and upon this follows the power of learning to
read, to write, and to cypher; and upon the power of
doing these three things follows a plenitude of other
powers. Now, I shall not stop to enquire how man
gained these powers, whether by natural and sexual
selection or not ; but I venture to point out that there is

* There is something of this in animals just as, on the other hand
man is not altogether devoid of instincts. I should have expected this
from the teaching of the first chapter of Genesis, which represents men
not as a dMDct creation but as the last act of creation.
'54

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

a vast chasm between physical and intellectual powers.
The most sensible monkey is a parody rather than an
imitation of man, and the difference between the two is
enormous.* The points of agreement serve rather to
enable us to measure this interval, and see how wide it is,
than to bridge it over. Now, let us suppose ourselves
philosophers come, we will say, from the planet Jupiter, on
a mission intrusted to us by the Jovians, to examine and
report upon the nature of the creatures which people the
four inferior planets, Terra, Venus, Mercury, and Mars. Of
course, we should look upon the inhabitants of such small
communities with contempt, but, being philosophers, we
should not neglect anything because it was trifling. Well,
when we came to Terra we should report that it was a
very curious region, inhabited by a long scale of beings,
each one fitted to its place, and that at their head there
was a rather noxious, troublesome, and uppish creature
* Physically the monkey is man's superior. Anatomists assure us
that they can find no very great difference between his brain and ours.
His larynx also is as well fitted as ours to produce articulate sounds.
So far we are equal. But he has four hands, and we have but two.
Read SirC. Bell's "Bridgewater Treatise upon the Hand," and you will
see at once that a vast superiority is implied in this. I can never be
lieve that when, by natural and sexual selection, a creature had been
attained possessed of four hands, nature could so degradate in her
work as to fall back upon two.- No well-bred monkey would have
mated with one zo deformed." 155

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

called man, whose examination had caused us an infinity
of trouble.
In examining this creature we should find that it shared
in all the wants of those beneath him, but that it supplied
its wants, not by the use of instincts, but of reason. Over
and above, however, man's physical wants, we should find
that he had mental wants ; and with these wants faculties
also, by which he could supply them. Supply all the phy
sical wants of an animal, and having none besides, it will
lie still for hours or days until hunger stirs it to renewed
exertion. Supply all man's physical wants, and his men
tal wants then develop into full activity. Give him the
lowest and basest drudgery ; make him work morning,
noon, and night in the meanest occupations, for the
supply of merely physical necessities, and, though you can
infinitely degrade, you cannot destroy his mental powers.
He still thinks, still connects causes and effects. But our
purpose will be best answered by taking the case of those
whose faculties are most highly cultivated. Has nature
supplied a proper field for the exercise of the mental
powers, not merely of Fuegians, but of the most highly
developed man ? You know that she has. Take the
senses which he has in common with the animals, but see
what vast means have been provided by which he can
make an. intellectual use of them. What arts and sciences

156

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painting, music, harmony, numbers, eloquence, have
grown out of their use. As for our mental powers, think
only of the vast number of ologies which are claiming ad
mission into our very normal schools. Think only of all
our learned Associations, our Royal Societies, our Social
Congresses, our British Museums full of books, which have
been written, and are waiting only to be read, and you
must own that men do use their mental powers, and have
means enough for a more ample use of them. Nature
makes us use our mental powers to some extent. She
encourages us to use them thoroughly and earnestly.
Use them we must. Man is placed is such a position
that he must study what passes round him. Man learns
by experience. Instincts are but slightly progressive.
Unless brought into contact with man, the animals learn
little — perhaps nothing. I do not doubt but that those
huge monsters, whose remains we behold in geological
museums, were the most dull and stupid creatures possible.
I think this simply because I suppose that man did not then
exist, and, therefore, that these monsters had nothing to
waken them up out of theif sluggish torpor. But scientific
men* tell me that existing mammals actually have larger
brains than their ancient tertiary prototypes of the same

* Lartet, quoted by Darwin, "Descent," i. 51.
157

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

order, Let man enter the stage, and the instincts of
animals are quickened. Nature did not create man with
out taking care to guard the inferior animals from his des
tructive powers. But man in himself, essentially, is
at opce progressive and retrogressive. Bound up with
him is an infinite possibility of advance and decay. He
is never stationary. Both individuals and communities are
perpetually either ascending or descending in the scale,
morally and intellectually. But this law of nature obliges
man to perpetual mental effort under the usual penalty of
degradation. We have not merely to advance, to win new
ground. If this were all, at length we should have nothing
to do. We have to win back lost ground. Our gains are,
I hope, greater than our losses ; but the progress of no
community will ever be fast enough, continued enough,
and assured enough, to justify the members of it in living
in a fool's paradise. This, then, was our second point.
The first was, that nature has provided us with a proper
field for the exercise of our mental faculties ; the second,
that she imposes upon us the necessity of using them.
We may add, that the law of scientific progress also
makes it certain that no advance of science will ever
deliver us from the necessity of using our faculties. The
valuable part of every science is its theory — the mental
part. Facts and fossils are of no value, except as being

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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

the materials for thought. No geologist would care much
for a discovery of fossils in agreement with an established
theory, but if the theory were still debated, then every
discovery that tended to prove or disprove it, would be
canvassed with intelligent interest. The pure sciences
can grow, I am well aware, only by additions. But then
they are simply instrumental. They are to the mixed
sciences what arithmetic is to the ordinary business of life.
Logarithms, algebra, the integral and differential calcu
luses, are simply easy ways of doing difficult sums. It is
a great thing, no doubt, for science to perfect its instru
ments and processes, but scientific progress lies in the
mixed sciences themselves, and these are constantly under
going modification. The spectrum analysis is largely
modifying the science of astronomy. Deep sea dredging,
and other fresh means of information, have so modified
geology, that no one holds now that similar strata are neces
sarily of the same date. A vast cretaceous formation is
probably going on at this very day in the bed of the At
lantic. (Huxley,"Lay Sermons," p. 206.) The law, then, of
scientific progress is constant modification ; fresh facts
are discovered, new theories started, old theories revived,
existing theories altered, recast, newly shaped. Should a
science become, practically, complete and perfect, scientific
men would care for it no longer. The manufacturer and
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

merchant would then seize upon it. In this way what was
once a problem in the mind of the student, becomes an
article of use, comfort, and enjoyment in our daily lives.
Meanwhile, new sciences spring up, and old sciences
take new shape, and, as a matter of fact, so large has
become the scientific domain, that no one man can master
it. Division of labour has become as necessary here as in
the manual crafts. We are no longer encyclopaedists,
but each one must stick to his own page in the great
book of learning.
Many of these sciences relate to our social condition.
And of these the importance and value every day rapidly
increases. Good government largely depends upon know
ledge of all those natural laws upon which moral and
physical well-being depends. Upon good government
follow increased wealth, active trade, higher wages, and
larger consumption of commodities. Upon these follows
increased population, and that population concentrated upon
spots favourable for all this activity. And upon this follow
new social difficulties ; fresh problems arise to be solved, and
new questions to occupy the mind both of the student and
of the statesman. Unless solved, society will retrograde ; it
will suffer in health, in wealth, and morality ; turbulence will
take the place of quiet industry ; and that community will
decay. Here again nature provides a field for the employ-
160

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

ment of our faculties, and compels us to use them. If not
there is the same penalty, degradation. I do not know how
many geological periods it would take before, by the neglect
of our powers, we could retrograde back to our ascidian
progenitor ; but I see everywhere around me the proofs
that retrogression is as much a law of man's nature as pro
gress. We can only continue what we are by using all our
powers.* But I may have lingered over this part of my subject too
long. No one perhaps will deny that man both can and
must use his mental powers as thoroughly as an animal must
use its instincts, and a plant its vegetative powers, or it will
suffer for its neglect. Only remember that my argument has
nothing to do with individuals ; I am treating of man as a
species, and investigating the general laws which regulate his
well being. Well, now, has man any other powers than

* The body politic is in fact very much like the natural body. There
is a constant waste and a constant repair. The waste may be greater
than the repair — and in that case the body dwindles — but the repair
may be greater than the waste, in which case there is growth, progress.
In both alike real growth can only be by assimilation. The new must
be taken up into the old, and become part with it. That which is
losino- vitality must be put away ; but that which is to take its place
must become one with the old. After a certain time, however, natural
bodies lose their powers of assimilation, and old age and death are the
result : I cannot enter into the question how far this is also the case
with political bodies. ,2
161 n

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

those already described ? Has he merely physical powers to
enable him to get food, and other bodily necessaries ; and
mental powers to enable him to read, write, and cypher ?
Is this all ? You know that it is not all. There is another
broad distinction between man and all the other inhabitants
of this earth. He alone distinguishes between right and
wrong.* Now if man possesses this faculty, however acquired, and
by whatever name called, then if nature's laws are uni
versal, he is both bound to use it, will suffer from not using
it, and will have a proper field provided for its use. Nature
gives no faculty without imposing an obligation of exercising
it : an obligation, however, which rests in its full force upon
the species, and upon the individual only as belonging
to the species. Some powers every individual must use or
he would die ; there are other powers which, if he does not
use, nature will be content with a lighter penalty. Far be it
from me to affirm that every one here uses his reasoning
powers. I hope he does ; but if he does not use them, I am
quite sure that nature will exact of him the penalty of stupid
ity. But the species must use them; if not, upon degradation
* Animals brought into contact with man attain some small sh;re in
this power. The influence of man over domesticated animals is most
remarkable. I should doubt whether a wild animal was at all capable of
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

would soon follow extinction. Nature, for instance, would
not let man exist as a mere animal. If he did not use his
reason, the instincts of other animals are so superior to his,
that while they found food he would be unable to do so.
Even if necessity quickened his instincts, he would yet have
ceased to be a man, and would be retrograding back to the
ascidian. To continue to be a man he must make some low
use at all events of his mental powers. Now, can you
establish any such difference between man's intellectual and
moral powers, as will justify you, while acknowledging that
you must use the one, in neglecting the other ? Can you
give any reason why you need not use the faculty which un
doubtedly you possess of distinguishing between right and
wrong, and the- faculty, let us say, of " using the imagination
in matters of science." I am sure you cannot. By not using
your mental powers you will be in an inferior mental
position ; by not using your moral powers you will hold an
inferior moral position.
But you may say the penalty is slight, and we will pay it.
We will use our physical powers, and become grand animals
and we will use our mental powers, and become grand in
tellectual men. Not men I answer. Add intellectuality to
animality, and you merely get an intellectual animal. Your
moral powers are an essential part of yourselves. Con
fessedly too, there is ample field for using them. The whole

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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

world is so constituted that morning, noon, and night, the
question perpetually arises of right and wrong. You cannot
take a step in life without conscience intervening. It is so
inseparably a part of yourselves that constantly it acts as a
mere instinct, and approves or condemns your conduct as
spontaneously as your palate distinguishes between sweet
and bitter. You may render your palate dull, so that you
cannot taste what you eat and drink ; you may render your
conscience dull, but it has a strong recuperative force, and,
after years of dullness, will awaken, and exercise again its
judicial functions with stern and decisive energy. Struggle
as much as you like, but the conclusion cannot be evaded,
that you can distinguish between right and wrong, that you
ought to do so, and that you must do so.
If so, what follows 1 I answer, the necessity of religion,
and therefore of revelation. Resist as men will and do
they have buf a choice between two alternatives. Either
all this present state of things, in which every faculty has
its appropriate field of exercise, and every external possi
bility has opposite to it an internal faculty ; either all this is
an illusion and deceit, a purposeless and objectless piece
of jugglery;* or if it be a reality, then the existence in man

I have taken these words from the "Vedanta Philosophy. " It teaches
that the apparent reality of this world is mdyd, i.e., deceit, illusion,
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

of faculties, obliging him to distinguish between right and
wrong, constitute him a responsible agent. If he is respon
sible, he is responsible to some one : and certain penalties
are necessarily attached to the neglect, the misuse, and tbe
violation of his moral powers. The person to whom man
is responsible must be capable of forming an equitable
judgment, and therefore must know the motives as well as
the outward acts, and for this nothing less than omniscience
will suffice. He must have the power of apportioning
adequate rewards and punishments to human actions, which
will need little less than omnipotence. And as no adequate
reward or punishment follows in this life, there must be
some other state in which men will be dealt with according
to their true deserts. If not, then there exists in man a
whole class of faculties, moral faculties, which seem to find
in this present state of things an appropriate field for their
exercise, but which man is under no necessity of using. A
man who lives in the habitual violation of every moral
obligation, but does so with discretion, may have a very
large enjoyment of the things of this world : while generally
a man whose conscience is tender, and whose life is regu-
jugglery : " "naught besides the One exists : " the world was made out
of nothing and is nothing. " All that is real in this visible, is the God
who is invisible." See Ballantyne's "Christianity compared with
Hindu Philosophy," pp. xxxi— xxxvii, 43— 50.
165

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

lated by the highest motives, necessarily and voluntarily
abandons much, both of pleasure and prosperity. Nature
cannot have so bungled her work. The highest
possible exercise of the powers which she has given
us must necessarily lead to the highest possible good.
It does not matter to the argument whether conscience and
your other moral faculties be natural or acquired. If nature
endowed an ascidian with the power of acquiring moral
faculties, it was bound to use them as soon as it had got them.
The question whether you are bound to use your mental
faculties does not depend in the least upon the question
whether man is an improved monkey. You "are bound to
use them simply because you have them. So you are bound
to live as a responsible being simply because you have the
faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong. You
know, too, that you act yourselves upon this principle. If
any one were to push one of you out of your seat
and take it himself, not only would you be angry, but
our chairman would call in a policeman to expel the
disturber, and give you your seat back again. Why ?
Because the man would have been doing wrong, and
need not have done it ; and because it was wrong you
are angry and punish him. But can you stop there ?
There are things which we know to be wrong, but which
hurt none but ourselves ; things we know to be wrong, but
1 66

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

which benefit society. A man may liberally support useful
institutions from motives of ostentation, or as a bribe, if he is
a candidate, let us say, for a seat in parliament. An act may
be apparently right, but the inner motive wrong. Now,
conscience judges of things absolutely ; it condemns or ap
proves of things, not as they seem, but as they really are :
not by results, but by their intrinsic character. What is
there which answers to this outside of man ? Must there
not be a judge who also judges men absolutely? You can
find no such judge but God. Either, then, nature is a sham,
and her laws not universal, and this present state pf things
a delusion, or there is a universal judge, and a future state in
which reward and punishment will be meted out in strict ac
cordance with the Tightness and wrongness of human
action. A being omniscient and almighty can alone judge
actions absolutely in the same way as conscience judges us,
both for our thoughts, words, and deeds.
I have chiefly spoken of conscience, but the argument
takes in all man's moral and spiritual powers.* No man
* It is the examination of these moral and spiritual faculties which
makes it so, probable that man possesses something more than a highly
organised body and mental powers, which, though superior in degree,
are still of the same kind as those possessed by the animals. And it
should be remembered that the proof that man possesses a soul, and
that the soul is immortal, is entirely independent of revelation. It is
based upon the intelligent study of the facts of psychology. If, how-
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SCIENCE AND RE VELA Ti ON.

can doubt but that man has within him powers which ex
actly answer to religion outside of him. The power of faith
is as much a faculty as that of sight ; and so also is that
instinct, I had almost called it, which makes a man
ever turn away in discontent from the present to struggle
for the future. And what is more, man's moral and
religious faculties develop with advancing civilization just
as his mental faculties do. The mental questions which
agitate our minds would be entirely void of interest to a
savage ; the social difficulties which occupy the attention
of our political economists and statesmen would be mere
trash to a peasant : so, too, with religion. I do not see any
reason why a race may not sink so low as to lose the very
idea of a God ; but I am sure that such a race would hold
the very lowest place in the scale of humanity. Whatever
round in the ladder of human progress you like to
examine, I will make bold to say that you will find the
religious and moral state of mankind there holding a very
close relation to the degree of mental culture and civilization
to which it has attained.
Now, the only thing that acts powerfully upon man's
ever, it is said that man does not really possess, but only seems to possess
these faculties, I answer that then nature is a mere deceiver, and its
works a sham : and that, consequently, all physical science would be
the study of the illusive. 168

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

moral faculties is religion. I do not say that this ought or
ought not to be so; all I assert is that it is so. Call, if you
like, the great mass of your fellow men Philistines, and des
pise their low culture, but you will find nothing that acts
powerfully upon these Philistines to give them culture, to
raise, refine, and purify them, except religion. Conscience,
too, holds a most direct and evident relation to religion.
You will not find conscience amenable to reasoning. When
virtue begins to reason, the proverb tells you it is lost.
When conscience condemns, it is because the thing con
demned is a sin against God ; when it approves, it is be
cause the thing done is absolutely right, and as God com
manded. Conscience never asks whether a thing is a sin
against society ; itnever troubles about consequences, knows
nothing about political economy, or political morality either.
It judges by a higher and absolute rule. By so doing it
makes man a responsible agent absolutely, brings him into
direct relation with God as the absolute judge, and renders
necessary a more exact apportionment of rewards and
punishments than exists at present. There must be some
other state of existence in which man will be judged in the
same way as now he judges himself, and in which the
natural effects of this judgment will be fully carried out.
But, if there is thus a future judgment, and a state
in which happiness and misery will follow as the
169

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

natural* results of our actions here, man will require a certain
amount of knowledge concerning this judgment. By the
possession of conscience and other religious faculties, man
holds a definite relation towards God. Plainly the most
tremendous results may follow from this relation, and man
ought to have some sure knowledge of these results. Now
it is conceivably possible that God might have given us this
knowledge by means of the light of nature, as we call it.
But He has not. Confessedly natural religion is neither
clear enough nor certain enough to affect powerfully the
masses. Man is not a quiet, orderly, neutral sort of being ;
he bears about with him a nature fraught and fully charged
with the most dangerous passions. Reason, with its pru
dential maxims, has never done much to restrain these
passions. To take, then, the lowest possible ground. As
nature has given us moral qualities, I suppose that moral
excellence is a thing as necessarily to be attained to as
physical and mental excellence. But while nature has
provided ample means for attaining to the two last, she will
not, without a revelation, have provided sufficient means for
the attainment of the first. By the aid of religion, about

* Though we draw a distinction between the natural and the super
natural, this distinction is tenable only when we look at things from
below, and not when we look at them from above. We call those pro
cesses natural of which we know or might know the secondary causes.
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

as many men probably attain to moral excellence, as by other
natural means attain to physical and mental excellence.*
Without religion nature will have broken down. You would
have universally a state of things like that in ancient Greece
— one Plato, surrounded by the mass leading the most grossly
sensual life.
Nature cannot develop any being higher than herself,
nor endow it with wants which she cannot supply. If
nature develops intellect, morality, religion, then that power
which developed these faculties must also be intellectual,
moral, religious. What, then, can this power in nature be
but the working of God ? Out of nothing comes nothing.
The effect cannot be greater than the cause. The
existence of man, with his mental, moral, and religious
powers, forbids us to believe that that which caused man to
exist can be less possessed of these powers than he is.
* It is no argument against revelation that it does not make us all
holy and devout. It is not the law of this present state of things that all
men attain to the highest possible physical and mental excellence. All
that we can say is, that they ought to aim at nothing less. So neither
do all men attain to moral and religious excellence. Equally it ought to
be their aim ; but why they so often fail in attaining to it is more than
any one can answer. The failure of individuals to attain to tbe highest
good possible for the species is one of nature's universal laws. Why
this present state of things is so constituted is a mystery, which cannot
be solved here; but which will certainly be solved when we have the
perfect knowledge promised us in I Cor. xiii. 12.
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

Infinitely higher he may be, lower he cannot be. And as
surely as man's physical and mental wants are provided
for by that power which called these wants into being, so
surely will man's moral and religious wants be supplied.
They are not supplied by the light of nature ; nothing
then remains but revelation. Into the formal proof of re
velation I must not enter ; all that devolved upon me was
to show the a priori probability, or at least possibility, of a
revelation. I have endeavoured to show this by a conside
ration of what man is, viewed simply as a natural being, and
by the consideration of his natural wants. I have not taken
into consideration any of the additional knowledge given us
in the Bible concerning man. I have treated him in much
the same way as I might one of the creatures in the Zoolo
gical Gardens, if I had been asked to study it in order that
I might see what its wants were, and tell the keeper what
to give it to maintain it in the full possession of its powers.
No doubt it would have helped me if I had been told what
and where the creature had been before. I should then
have had no difficulty in explaining and accounting for
everything. Such knowledge, however, even revelation
does not give us, because it is not indispensable. It gives
us that only which is necessary for the supply of our wants.
Even with this knowledge my argument is not concerned ;
but certain general principles about revelation follow from
172

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

what I have laid down. And first, revelation has nothing
to do with our physical state. Reason is quite sufficient to
teach us all those sanitary laws by which our bodies will be
maintained in healthful vigour. If the Bible condemns
drunkenness, gluttony, and the like, it does so not for sani
tary reasons, but for moral reasons, because they are sins.
So revelation has nothing to do with our mental powers ;
whatever we can attain to by our mental powers we are to
attain to by them. Physical and metaphysical science
alike lie remote from the object-matter of revelation. Be
cause God has, in the Bible, given us revelation in an in
formal way, in order, perhaps, to commend it to our entire
nature, people often forget that its proper object-matter is
simply the moral relation in which man stands to God,
especially with reference to a future state of being. Religious
men forget this. They often take up an antagonistic posi
tion to science, and try to make out systems of geo
logy and astronomy and anthropology from the Bible^
and by these judge all that scientific men say. Really the
Bible never gives us any scientific knowledge in a scien
tific way. If it did, it would be leaving its own pro
per domain. When it does seem to give us any such know
ledge, as in the first chapter of Genesis, there is a very im
portant differentia about it. What it says has always refe
rence to man. The first chapter of Genesis does not tell
'73

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

us how the earth was formed absolutely ; geology ought
to tell us that. It tells us how it was prepared and fitted
for man. Look at the work of the fourth day. Does any
man suppose that the stars were set in the expanse of
heaven absolutely that men might know what time of year it
was ? But that is their special service, and in old time a
most important service for man. To the geologist man is just
as much and just as little as a trilobite or a megatherium.
To the student of the Bible man is everything, and the first
chapter of Genesis teaches him that man was the cause of
all other terrestrial creation, the sum and crown of the
Creator's work.13
But if believers mix up science and revelation, so do the
students of physical science. No sooner is a theory started,
than it is immediately compared with what the Bible says,
or is supposed to say. Now, no doubt, the comparison
between the teachings of revelation and science is inevitable.
Whatever is mixed up with revelation, owing to the manner
in which God has been pleased to bestow it, must, at least,
be true. It would be impossible for us to accept the
authority of the Bible upon those points in which we cannot
judge of its truth, if in those points in which we are compe
tent judges we found it erroneous. The teachings, there
fore, of science and of revelation must be compared ; but
in this comparison not only must we remember that it is not
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SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

the object of the Bible to teach science, and that, as it
speaks to all people at all times, it must use popular lan
guage, but also that the comparison must be made, not with
the floating theories of the hour, but only with established
truths. If the wisest geologist of our days could show that
there was an exact agreement between geology and the
Bible, it would rather disprove than prove its truth. For, as
geology is a growing science, it would prove the agreement
of the Bible with that which is receiving daily additions, and
is constantly undergoing modification, and ten years hence
the two would be at hopeless variance. At the same time
there is a good side to the discussion, and the theologian
especially is the gainer. In the present day the attack upon
revelation draws its weapons from our increased knowledge
of physical science, of philology, and of history, and
the theologian can no longer neglect these studies.
I have no scruple in saying that I look with
pride upon what my countrymen have done, and
are doing, in enlarging the bounds of our scientific know
ledge, even if I do not always approve of their spirit, or
accept their conclusions ; and I am quite sure theologians
must study, intelligently and dispassionately, all those
branches of knowledge which are brought into contact with
revelation, or they will lose their influence over the intel
lect of the country. It is no use treating physical science
175

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

as a bugbear. Let our theologians master it, and they will
find it a manly study, which will give their minds breadth,
will teach them what are the difficulties which press heavily
on many thoughtful minds, and which must be fairly met.
An opposition between an old science like theology and
new sciences there must be : but let both sides remember
that revelation was never intended to teach us anything.
that we could learn by the use of our natural faculties, and
that what the Bible teaches must be compared not with
floating and probable theories, but with proved theories.
These proved theories will, I believe, fall into their place
in due course of time, as easily as Galileo's theory about the
revolution of the earth round the sun. If not, I do not see
how the claims of the Bible to be the Word of God can be
maintained : for I cannot believe that there is any chasm
between the teachings of God in nature and in revelation.
But I think it perfectly possible that men may misinterpret
and misunderstand both one and the other.
I have detained you too long. But I must make one
more remark. If the proper object matter of revelation is
that knowledge, which being necessary for us as moral
agents, was yet unattainable by our natural powers, then
reason is no judge of what revelation teaches. There may
be in our relations to God, things which we never should
have expected : deep truths opening onwards into mysteries
176

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

past our present finite comprehension. If everything had
been plain, easy, commonplace, revelation would not have
been needed. Nevertheless, reason holds a very high office
with respect to revelation. In a matter of so high conse
quence, as whether God has spoken to us or not, we are
bound to examine most scrupulously the evidence upon
which the fact of the revelation rests. And this examination
involves an enquiry into the teachings of revelation. The
existence of mysteries in a revelation is reasonable : the
existence of immorality in it would be fatal to its claims. For
if the scientific basis for my belief in the gift of a revelation is
the existence in me of conscience, and of moral faculties which
make me a responsible being, I am left absolutely without a
basis for a revelation which makes me violate my conscience.
A revelation which degrades my moral and spiritual powers is
as much against nature as anything that degraded my physi
cal or mental powers. If religion be true, it must ennoble,
elevate, purify, and perfect me, here as far as the present
condition of my existence permits, entirely in that other
state to which our present responsibility points, provided,
of course, that I submit myself to its teachings. I know of no
way by which I can make this examination except by reason
and experience. And I hold this further, because I hold
that a true religion must be commensurate with the whole
of man. It must make him better physically, mentally,
177 12

SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

morally, and spiritually, and consecrate all his powers to
God. I am only too well aware that much which I have said has
been put in a feeble and confused manner. Much also
necessary for the support and elucidation of the argument had
to be omitted because of the necessity of compressing it into
so short an essay ; but I trust that the main line of thought
is clear, namely, that religion outside of us stands in so plain
a relation to what we are internally, that either it is real, or
this whole state of things is a delusion. Man, without a
revelation, and therefore without religion, is the only one
thing of all that exist upon the face of the earth that is a
bungle,* a failure, and a mistake.

* Professor Huxley considers that man is a bungle. At all events he
would be glad to be "turned into a sort of clock, and wound up every
morning before he got out of bed, " on condition that he should always
"think what is true, and do what is right." (Lay Sermons, p. 373.) I
suppose this means that we should like to be governed by very perfect
instincts, but I question whether he would not find his new kind of life
dull. At present both right thinking and right doing require of him
an effort, which, from the spirit of his writings, I should think he en
joys. But, after all, what he says has a true foundation. Sin is not a
necessary part of man's lot. It cleaves to him because he is fallen ; and
this world apparently offers us a state of moral and religious discipline,
by the aid of which, in a future state, we shall be free from sin. But
those who do not wish to retrograde would prefer to have this freedom
by the force of perfected habits than by the force of instinct.

178

THE
NATURE AND VALUE
OF THE
MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO
CHRISTIANITY. BY
JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.,
KENSINGTON.

MIRACLES,

One of the most touching narratives in the New Testament
relates to a want of faith in miracles. It is said that when
Thomas was told of his Master's resurrection, he replied,
" Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails,
and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my
hand into His side, I will not believe." He was not de
nounced for this. No word of withering scorn, or cutting
ridicule, or threatening anger, fell on the ear of the doubting
disciple. But evidence was offered. " Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and
thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing."
As far as rebuke appeared, it was only by implication, in
words respecting those whose faith is of keener eye, and
swifter foot : " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed."
I think that every one who speaks, of miracles to doubting
minds should from this narrative take a lesson. Surely the
181

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

gist and purpose of it is, that we should distinguish between
intellectual difficulty and moral prejudice, and deal patiently
and convincingly with honest seekers after truth. Some
times the subject before us has been so handled as to drive
the unbeliever into deeper unbelieving — I would rather strive
to work upon a little faith, and make it more.
I.
I am to speak to you respecting the nature of the mira
culous testimony to Christianity. My business is with mighty
works, recorded in the New Testament as having been
wrought for the purpose of testifying to a Divine mission.
No definition of their character in relation to physical law
can anywhere be found in this ancient record. They are
not spoken of as violations of law, or as suspensions of law, or
as interferences with law, or as contradictions to law. They
are described, not on the side of their physical nature, but
on the side of thaar moral signification. They are depicted,
not in their connection with the obvious order of the ma
terial universe, or with any hidden powers and principles
of a higher and harmonious description ; but in their con
nection with Him who claimed to be the Redeemer of
mankind, who came, according to His own words, to seek
and save that which was lost. They are denominated " won
ders" startling occurrences, things contrary to common
182

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
experience; and "signs," — not mere marvels bursting idly
on the public gaze, and exciting in a multitude of spectators a
barren curiosity, but signs, — replete with an ulterior meaning,
and testifying to the character and work of Him through
whom they were accomplished.
There is no necessity, then, for us at the outset to define
a miracle on the physical side of it — to call it a violation of
law, or a suspension of law— an interference with it, or a con
tradiction to it In other words, there is no need imposed
by the conditions of our argument, to inquire into the mode
in which such a phenomenon can be produced. It is
enough to show that it did occur, and to dwell upon the
religious significancy of its occurrence first to the witnesses,
and next to ourselves. What is the exact position which
miracles may be thought to occupy as wonders in the uni
verse, whether, through breaking in upon common experience,
they are referable to the operation of occult laws, known and
controlled at a fitting moment by the mysterious touch of the
wonder-worker; or whether they are to be considered as
resulting simply from the immediate fiat of the Supreme will,
are questions which may with advantage be relegated for
consideration elsewhere.
i. But, at the very threshold of our inquiry we are met
by the assertion, that a miracle, however defined, is in itself
simply impossible. Impossible ! In what sense impossible ?
"83

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

Does it mean impossible to man, or impossible to God?
Impossible to man, of course, it is. That impossibility enters
into the popular idea of a miracle. Man has no such control
over nature as to be able to produce one. But if it be said
a miracle is impossible to God, such an impossibility
involves the extension of human inability to God Himself.
It involves either the idea, that nature has ever been inde
pendent of God, or the idea, that if produced by Him, He
is no longer Lord of His own works — this Lordship having
been surrendered by His will, or having escaped from His
hands. Summarily disposing of this gross anthropomorphism,
we find behind it the dogma of Spinoza, that there is nothing
transcendental anywhere, no transcendental beginnings, no
transcendental interpositions ; for God and nature are one
through the eternities. In the wake of Spinoza's philosophy
foUows the modern axiom—" to recognise the impossibility
even of any two material atoms subsisting together without
a determinate relation — of any action of the one on the other,
whether of equilibrium or of motion, without reference to a
physical cause — of any modification whatsoever in the
existing conditions of material agents, unless through the in
variable operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences,
following in some necessary chain of orderly connexion."*
* " Essays and Reviews " (Baden Powell), p. 133. The italics are
mine, simply to call attention to the point of the quotation.
184

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
Here, in limine, before examining this principle, let me
observe, once for all, that miracles do by no means cast any
slur upon the settled order of nature, as if it were faulty and
imperfect, and required correction or supplement for effect
uating its proper ends — as frail constructions in engineering
departments of human contrivance need subsequent repairs.
Nature is perfect enough for her own ends ; miracles are
introduced for other and higher purposes. This requires to
be borne in mind throughout our entire discussion.
But to come to the antagonist principle, that there is
a development in nature through the agency of physical
laws, apart from an original Creator and an everlasting
Lord. I do not say — far from it — that the principle de
nies the existence of such a Creator and Lord, but it
supposes at least that the physical order of the universe is
fixed in such a sense, as to have ever excluded from it the
action, directly or indirectly, of a Divine will, beyond the
inflexible maintenance of ordinary operations. It is said,
" The enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural
world cannot but tend powerfully to evince the incon-
ceivableness of imagined interruptions of natural order, or
supposed suspensions of the laws of matter, and of that
vast series of dependent causation which constitutes the
legitimate field for the investigation of science, whose
constancy is the sole warrant for its generalization." In
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

reply to this it may be fairly urged that science, whilst she
maintains the invariable sequence of causes and effects, and
the uninterrupted order of physical events, is a prophetess
of truth and wisdom. She enunciates lessons bound up
with the welfare of the race. Thus far there is no an
tagonism between her and religion. She can, without
abandonment of her principles, nay, in the act of carrying
them out, officiate as a priestess at the altar of God ; nor
is there anything in the position for which she stipulates
contrary to the claims of Revelation. For Revelation, in
appealing to miracles, supposes the ordinary course of
physical phenomena to be inviolable, and no book more
than the Bible exhibits the normal constancy of natural
agencies. But when science pronounces as impossible all
such signs and wonders as are recorded in Scripture, she
steps out of her province. In her own province she may
justly affirm there are no signs of miracles ; she may sweep
her telescope over tfie fields of the sky, and ply her micro
scope amidst the growths of the earth, and say, I can see
no traces anywhere but of inflexible law. These realms of
existence are full of order. It is the perfection of their
beauty, that they are free from violations, suspensions,
disturbances, and interferences. But to say this — and I
fully concur in it — is not to demonstrate that the Scrip
tures relate impossibilities. To do so, philosophy must
186

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
pass beyond the range of physical observation, since there
no place can be found for working out the desired demon
stration. Philosophers do not always remember how
difficult it is to prove a negative. Showing that certain
things are, they are apt to slide into a belief that therefore
certain other things cannot be, the conclusion proving on
logical examination a simple non sequitur. Doubtless it is a
fact, that we can detect nowhere in nature a provision made
for producing miracles such as come under our review in
this lecture, that no prophecy nor hint of them can be
discerned throughout her measured realms ; but this is a
very different thing from saying, that nature teaches the
belief of them»to be absurd. So far from its being absurd,
there may, after all, be found in nature something analogous
to a miracle. In nature there are distinct worlds, worlds
between which there are gaps and gulfs. I do not dispute
that there are striking approximations in the phenomena of
some realms to the phenomena of others ; but there are also
broad deep spaces, here and there, never bridged over by
the discoveries of science. Hence, " an animal," as you
have been told already, in the words of Hegel, "is a
miracle for the vegetable world." It is a new creation in
some way, and a new creation in any way is a miracle.
After wandering amongst rocks, we find in plants a new
world. Organized life is so ; so also, compared with
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

animal instinct, is the mind of man, with its spiritual reason,
and its moral consciousness.
Not only do Coleridge, Kant, and Plato regard man's
highest faculty as essentially different from the mere adaptive
understanding of an animal nature; but what is still more
remarkable, Aristotle himself, whose turn of mind was so
different from theirs, differentiates man from other creatures
on the ground of his being endowed with the faculty of
reason. In his work on the Generation of Animals, he says
that there is no resource except to believe, that the reason
has no affinity with the material elements out of which the
human embryo is formed, but that it comes from without,
and that it alone, of all the component parts of man, is
divine.* Thus, in the opinion of one of the greatest philo
sophers the world has ever known, the line of demarcation
between man and all lower creatures is broad and clear,
a line which in the simple order and development of nature
they could never cross. The superior attributes of humanity,
according to him, come from without; here, then, amongst
the component parts of humanity is something divine. In
other words, we have a new world ; a new creation. I do
not say there is a strict parallel between any new race or
species in nature and the occurrence of individual miracles
* De Gen. An. II. iii. io. See article by Sir Alexander Grant in
the Contemporary, May, 1871, p. 277.
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
on rare occasions, but I do say that there is enough of
resemblance between these two descriptions of change to
exempt a believer in both of them from the charge of being
absurd. Furthermore, there are in human minds varieties of power
of an astonishing description : although there be faculties
common to all men, the vigour of those faculties in some
cases is such as perfectly to eclipse the vigour of them in
others. The superiority of individual minds, whose works
have filled the world with wonder, is such as to leave
behind, at an unapproachable distance, the ordinary mea
sure of human endowment. Certain intellects (I need not
name them) have long exercised a formative power upon
the civilized portions of our race. They have been as
crystals inserted in a solution, and other crystals have
received shape from them. Whence have come these
typical energies in the intellectual world? No law of
development will account for a resplendent genius now
and then flashing on the world ; for the appearance of
a master mind, after humanity has kept on a low level
through generation after generation ; for the ascent again of
gifted spirits into the highest heaven of invention, after
another lapse into mere mediocrity. No known laws of
causality account for such facts in the realms of intellectual
existence. If, in the case of man, as compared with other
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

animals, the difference, as Aristotle says, is something which
comes from without, the same may be said with respect to
the difference between ordinary mortals and William Shake-
spere or John Milton. There is forced upon us the1 con
viction, that these stars which dwell apart are kindled by fires
burning in superhuman spheres. I do not say, in this case,
any more than in the others I have cited, that we find an
exact parallel to a miracle ; but I do maintain, that we dis
cover here a kind of inspiration which, like the miraculous,
transcends all known laws, and brings to mind what was
said by the first of those just named :
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "
What is called physical science must change her name,
and renounce her office, and assume functions of another
order, before she can pronounce a peremptory negative
upon the point in controversy.* Physical science needs to
* Since writing the above, I have lighted on the following passage in
an able university sermon by one of the lecturers in the present course.
I am glad to confirm what had struck my own mind, by quoting the
words of so careful a reasoner. In reference to philosophic doubts
directed against the idea of design, and the analogy between human and
natural productions, he remarks: "This is evidently a very hard ques
tion, and if it properly belonged to the province of physical inquiry I
should shrink from hazarding any investigation of its merits. But the
question has overstepped the boundary of such sciences, and become a
branch of philosophy. I may seem obscure in making this assertion,
but yon -wil see its truth if you consider for a moment the limit which
390

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
become metaphysical, and to pass into fields of abstract
reasoning in order to the utterance of a universal dictum.
To this kind of mental employment in itself I make no
objection; for the science of merely physical nature, without
any outlook into higher regions, keeps the soul in humi
liating imprisonment. The excursions of thought, however,
now before us are regarded in some quarters under the
singular delusion of being strictly scientific, whilst employed
in devising a theory of the universe which excludes the
constant control of a personal God, an Almighty will.
The assaults on what is miraculous can be carried on
only with metaphysical weapons. The facts of phy
sical nature do not supply them ; only from theories
of physical nature, taking a metaphysical form, can
they be gathered. Even Positivism, with all its doubt
fulness and denial — strange contradiction that — must, in
order to deny the possibility of miracles, build up a wall
divides science from philosophy. Sciences are often content to accept
their principles, the lower from the higher (as Aristotle puts the case) in
an ascending scale up to metaphysic, which, if it is anything at all, is the
philosophy of first grounds so far as they are discoverable. While the
various kinds of inquiry assume their several grounds as postulates, each
keeps its separate and subordinate place. But one prime impulse of
the human mind is unification, and thus, in every science, there springs
up a tendency to ground itself. The moment this attempt is made, a
science becomes a philosophy, and must be tested by the ordinary
criteria of philosophic procedure." — Right and Wrong, by the Rev. W.
Jackson, M.A. J9l

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

to shut them out, by trenching first on ground beyond its
own domain. Pure Positivism, consistently with itself, is not
competent to contradict the existence of the supernatural ;
it can but leave it an open question. The common
method of distinctly denying miracles is one involving
either some atheistic or pantheistic principle. Assume —
and it is but an assumption — that matter is eternal and self-
sufficient ; that natural laws have not originated in, or are
not administered by, a personal will; and thus assuming
what prepares for, if it does not necessitate, some atheistic
or pantheistic hypothesis, you can plausibly maintain that
the wonders of which we speak are utterly inconceivable.
But, as you see, it is not physical science simply considered
which brings out this result ; the result comes through add
ing to physical science what is really a metaphysical element.
At what a tremendous cost, it may be observed by the
way, is such a result achieved. The philosophy of universal
necessity places man in the same predicament as it does
simple matter. If all nature excludes voluntary control,
and is subject only to an iron rule of invariable succession,
then man also must himself be incapable of voluntary
control, whether it comes from a supreme will or from his
own. Thus the warfare which assails miracles, threatens to
destroy all ideas of freedom and moral responsibility. And
this dark foreshadowing is not concealed. " Step by step," we
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
are confidently and calmly told, " the notion of evolution by
law is transforming the whole field of our knowledge and
opinion. Not the physical world alone is now the domain
of inductive (?) science, but the moral, the intellectual, and
the spiritual are being added to the empire. It is the crown
of philosophy to see the immutable even in the complex
action of human life."*
But when all assumptions are denied, the whole ques
tion presents another aspect. Given the fundamental dis
tinction between things physical and things moral; given
the higher nature of man, the personal existence of God, a
moral element in the Divine rule, the immortality of the
human soul, and the present vicinity of invisible spiritual
realms ; and, immediately, miracles wrought by the Divine
will for men's moral welfare are completely removed out of
the sphere of the impossible.
Positivism, Atheism, and Pantheism are considered in
other lectures of this course, and therefore it is not my office
to examine them. To what has been said by the Arch
bishop of York and the Rev. Mr. Jackson, and to what may
be said by the Rev. Dr. Rigg, I must refer my hearers;
I would only observe in passing, what, indeed, I have
hinted at already, that it puzzles me beyond description to
conceive how, by any course of natural evolution, inde-
* Westminster Review, Oct., i860. Art. on New Christianity.
193 13

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

pendent of the introduction of a new force by an overruling
power, the phenomena of the human will with its morally
creative energy for good and evil could have been produced.
To solve, on the principle of pure development, the problem
of the genesis of that mysterious faculty, is an insuperable
task. If we may speak of what is inconceivable — and scien
tific men set us the example — we should say the existence
of volition in man, with its moral accompaniments, is
utterly inconceivable, apart from belief in a Divine will, of
which ours is the offspring.
It appears, then, that science really presents no antece
dent grounds for rejecting miracles, and that if we believe
in a personal God, the presumed impossibility melts away.
This point has been conceded by one of the masters of
modern reasoning. "A miracle," as was justly remarked
by Brown, " is no contradiction to the law of cause and
effect ; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the
introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that
cause, if present, there can be no doubt, and the only
antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the
miracle, is the improbability that any such cause existed."*
2. When we have disposed of the preliminary objection
which, in some way or other, says miracles are impossible,
we are met by another objection, namely, that they are
* Mill's "System of Logic," ii., 160.
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
immensely improbable. Hume's ingenious position,*—
that miracles are contrary to human experience, that no
amount of human testimony is sufficient to establish them,
and that it is far more likely men should be deceived or
mistaken, than that such events as miracles must be, could
ever take place, — has been made to do abundant service in
this controversy ; very little, if anything, has been added by
those who have persistently used the argument, to improve
its form or to increase its plausibility. One of its latest
modifications is, that incidents out of the common course
of things, said to happen in the present day, are by all of
us sceptically regarded, that supernatural pretensions are
felt by us to be inadmissible, and that where we are com
pelled to allow the honesty of witnesses, if they affirm any
thing involving a miraculous nature, we at once dispose of
the whole matter by saying ' there must be a mistake some
where.' Undoubtedly it is true that miracles are contrary
to common experience. They must be so, or they would
not be what they are. If they were of frequent occurrence,
* " The argument in Hume's celebrated Essay on Miracles was very
far from being a new one. It had, as Mr. Coleridge has pointed out,
been distinctly indicated by South in his sermon on the incredulity of
St. Thomas ; and there is a remarkable statement of much the same
argument put into the mouth of Woolston's Advocate, in Sherlock's
Trial of the Witnesses."— Art. on Miracles in Smith's "Dictionary of
the Bible." 195

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

if they had happened in the history of the world so often
as to become familiar to mankind, they would change their
character completely. Their nature and purpose, in the
view of those who receive them, is such as to render it
necessary that we should bear this in mind. But to allege
that they are contrary to human experience, taken in the
widest point of view, is to beg the question at issue,
a fact remarked a thousand times. That they are not
contrary to the experience of certain persons who lived
eighteen hundred years ago, is what Christians affirm ;
to say that they are, is illogically to cut the controversy
short, and, by a general denial of everything of the kind,
to put out of court the very case about to be tried, in sup
port of which there are credible witnesses waiting to give
evidence. The question of probability must be looked at
all round. The circumstances under which any alleged
wonders may have happened must be taken into account,
before we pronounce upon their probability or improba
bility. When extraordinary things, coloured with a super
natural tinge, are related to us as having occurred without
any assignable purpose, or only for some sectarian or party
end, in connection with beliefs long cherished and avowed,
of course we look on them suspiciously ; giving to the
authorities relating the narratives, credit for integrity and
truthfulness, we naturally say 'there must be a mistake
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
somewhere.' And, no doubt, the general culture of the
present age, however superficial that culture may be, makes
us far less ready than our fathers were, to endorse popular
tales of wonder. There is a salutary scepticism which
grows out of extensive knowledge. Truth is of such im
mense value, that we should "not be indifferent to it in the
smallest communications and concernments of life. Most
assuredly any wayward, eccentric, unmeaning, and useless
departure from the common course of things, tending only
to shake our faith in nature, — as if men might gather grapes
of thorns, or figs of thistles, as if barley being sown, wheat
should spring up, or an apple tree by a sudden freak should
bear oranges, — would deserve to be stigmatized as unworthy
of belief. But the wonders in question come under another
category. They are represented in the history which has
recorded them, not only as being exceptional incidents in
themselves, but as having been accomplished under excep
tional circumstances. They are not waifs and strays on the
stream of time, floating no one knows why and whither ;
but growths rooted in what appears as a unique system
of moral instruction and improvement, designed by the
loving Father of spirits for His lost children. They do not
produce what may be called a disturbance of nature — that
is, a throwing things in the physical world out of gear, so
that men are thereby puzzled to make out what nature is,
197

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

and how far it may be trusted. The documents which
contain our miraculous chronicles attest the immutability
of Him who is the King of nature, and the unchangeable
foundation of His government and law, with a pre-eminent
luminousness and with an unparalleled force.
The wonders chronicled were avowedly wrought for pur
poses of the highest order; and here, again, we fall back
upon the distinction between what is physical and what is
moral. Those purposes of the highest order to which we
refer are moral. They bear on the noblest destinies of
humanity, and they link themselves with the principles of
natural religion, with the being and sway of a mighty, wise,
and gracious God, with our conscience and responsibility,
and with the future existence of the soul. Natural religion,
though it speaks not a word of miracles, though it gives no
prophecies of their advent, yet prepares for their appear
ance so far, that its teachings, fairly considered, cut off all
antecedent unlikelihood of their occurrence. For natural
religion suggests the desirableness of revealed religion,
and revealed religion is only another name for supernatural
interposition. In a lecture upon Science and Revelation, by the Dean
of Canterbury, it has been shown that man's moral nature,
man's religious susceptibilities, render religion a necessity
for the supply of his deepest wants ; but that what is called
198

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
natural religion is not clear enough, nor certain enough, to
affect the generality of our race. Revelation, then, it may
be fairly argued, looking at man, is a desideratum, looking
at God, is a probability ; and Revelation, being obviously a
supernatural bestowment, seems to imply some authentica
tion of itself, in part at least, by means of evidence corre
sponding with its own supernatural origin and character.
The conditions under which Scripture miracles are said
to have been performed must be kept in view when we are
told they are improbable. They were not performed in one
continued series by a succession of Thaumaturgists ; but
they are found grouped together in certain clusters. As
science indicates particular epochs of the energizing power
of nature, so the Bible records particular epochs of an ener
gizing power above nature.
The first great cluster of Bible wonders we find gathered
round the Lawgiver of Israel ; the second round the great
Reformer of God's ancient Church ; the third round Him
who is spoken of as The Word made flesh, who dwelt
among us, and who imparted to His apostles miraculous
powers akin to His own. Miracles, for the most part, are
halos of divine light encircling three grand names — Moses,
Elijah, Jesus, — the last the greatest of the three.
Physical wonders we meet with in company with spiritual
ones — wonders in outward nature in company with wonders
199

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

in the. great soul-world, of which sensible things are the
types and shadows. In other words, miracles occur in con
nection with inspiration, and, whilst marvels startle the eye,
new truths or new applications of truth are addressed to the
mind. In harmony with facts in the intellectual universe
already noticed,, resembling the exceptional illuminations
of genius which at intervals have flashed on the rest of
mankind, — like the lightning that lighteneth out of the one
part under heaven, and shineth unto the other part under
heaven, — souls inspired with a grand moral message have
come forth from the secret place of the Most High ; and
it has been in the pathway of these inspired souls that
physical miracles have started up ; rather, it has been by
their hands that physical miracles have been wrought.
There have been surprising coincidences in modern times
between the wonderful in nature and the wonderful in his
tory ; for example, between the sailing of the invincible
Spanish Armada, and the storm which strewed the shores
of Great Britain with its ponderous wrecks — between the
march of Napoleon's army and the winter's snow which
blinded, benumbed, and destroyed so many thousands.
The connection is unexplained except on the principle of
a Divine providence.* And so in ancient times there were
coincidences between the lightning and thunder of Sinai,
* See Martensen's ' ' Christian Dogmatics, "222.
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
and the legislative wisdom of Moses — between the fire that
fell on Carmel, and the reforming zeal of Elijah. The con
nection is explicable only on the principle of these men
having been the internunciators of the Divine will. This
explication is strengthened by what they did with their own
fingers or their own lips.
It may be considered as entrenching too much on the
domain of doctrine to speak in this lecture of the Incarna
tion; but I would venture to say thus much, that Jesus
appears on the face of the evangelical narratives, as the Son
of God, in a sense in which no other being can be rightly
called so ; that in the opinions of early Christendom, the
lowest as well as the highest, He was esteemed as a super
natural Person;* and that, by common consent, amidst
diversities of theological sentiment, it is acknowledged,
never man spake like this man, or lived like this man, or
died like this man, or was like this man. And being, by
the perfection of His moral character, and by the purpose
of His benevolent mission, a truly exceptional person, it is
only in keeping with the first blush, and with the deeper
study of His wondrous life, to believe in signs and wonders
attending His earthly career, showing whence He came, and
illustrating what He came to do. Christ Himself is the
* I must here refer to Domer's " Doctrine of the Person of Christ,"
where evidence is afforded of what I say.
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

greatest of wonders in the history of the world. No other
approaches Him in wisdom, love, beautifulness, and glory.
In more senses than one His name is " above every name."
Taking the four Gospels together, the Incarnation of the
Word is associated with a supernatural birth. The miracle
in the spiritual world of the manifestation of God in Jesus
Christ, is coupled with the miracle in the physical world of
the Virgin's conception. If Christianity be more than the
republication of natural religion, if it be the revelation of
God's redeeming love, it involves a miracle as the very
starting-point of the process ; and the unfolding of the idea
in the New Testament includes a divine manifestation,
which is a miracle in history, and a divine birth, which is a
miracle in nature.*
His advent in the world comes out in the four Gospels
as a central sunlike marvel, and therefore it seems no impro
bability, but rather the clearest of all probabilities, that around
Him there should "revolve a planetary circle of miracles.
Difficulties are needlessly created by forgetfulness of the
character ascribed to this extraordinary Person. To argue
as to what He did, or as to what He did not do, without a
recognition of the actual One painted in the Gospels, is
really to argue about another Christ, not the one whom
Christians follow.
* See again Martensen's " Christian Dogmatics," 220.
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THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
In accordance with the view I have taken, is the manner
in which the New Testament miracles are narrated. It
seems assumed that such things might be expected in the
wake of such a personage as the Son of God. They are not
introduced as a procession of facts challenging supreme
admiration. No flourish of trumpets heralds their march;
but they follow as the fitting and humble retinue of Him
who walked the earth its undisputed Master. The Evan
gelists write as men who were not astounded at what their
Master did, because they were so filled with reverence and
admiration, at the thought of what their Master was.
Having considered the antecedent objections made to
miracles, we are now prepared to look at what is really the
nature of the miraculous testimony afforded to Christianity.
And here, for the sake of simplifying the argument, I shall
confine myself to the miracles ascribed to Christ. Faith in
His miracles will lead to faith in the miracles of His
apostles. If it be granted, as we contend from what has
been said it ought to be, that this is a case in which
historical proof is admissible, then it is impossible to find
stronger historical proof than comes to hand in support
of the truth of the evangelical narratives. The historical
proof, as such, has of late been comparatively little impugned;
the assaults made on the prior credibility of supernatural
facts being the main opposition with which believers in
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

Christianity have to contend. That opposition overcome,
and the validity of competent witnesses, as to the
question at issue, established, the course is free for an
accumulation of evidence, such as Dr. Lardner, with rare
erudition, has piled up in his volumes on the Credibility of
the Gospel History : such as Archdeacon Paley, with unique
ingenuity, and with singular felicity of arrangement and
illustration, has condensed in his view of the Evidences of
Christianity.* The works now mentioned do not, it must
be confessed, supply all that is wanted for the settlement of
the question, according to the phase it assumes at present.
But when scientific and metaphysical difficulties of modern
creation have been grappled with and removed, the array
of pagan and Christian testimonies in support of the original
credibility of the Evangelists, as collected by these and other
writers, comes to render service of immense value. It is
more than any one has yet attempted, to overturn, by
citation against citation, criticism against criticism, argument
against argument, the bulwarks of historical defence built up
by the researches of learned advocates. Indeed, the early
historical evidence all goes one way. It is evidence without
counter-evidence. And to pass for a moment to foreign literature. After the
* I would also mention "The Divine Origin of Christianity," by
John Sheppard. A work less known than it deserves to be.
204

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
endeavours of Strauss and others to resolve much of the
Gospel story into myths of a later age, and of Renan, to
construct out of the original documents a French philo
sophical romance, we are provided with the works of
Ebrard and Pressense", who have vindicated the truth of the
New Testament story.
It would be idle to attempt, within the compass of this
lecture, any outline of the mass of matter brought together
in this service. But I may be allowed to indicate that it
may be arranged in three divisions. First, the concessions
of the Jews. Talmudical writings imply that Jesus of
Nazareth did many mighty works. The Toldoth jfeschu
relates a number of things, such as raising the dead, healing
lepers, and restoring the lame. It represents people as
falling down before Him, exclaiming, "Truly Thou art the
Son of God."* The Christian miracles are allowed, but
they are attributed to magic. " There can be no doubt,"
says Whately, "that this must have been (as our sacred
writers tell us it was) what the adversaries of Jesus main
tained from the first. For if those who lived on the spot in
His time had denied or doubted the facts of the miracles,
and had declared that the accounts of them were false tales,
and that no miracles had ever really been wrought, we may
* Wagenseil's Confutation of the Toldoth Jeschu : Sheppard's
" Divine Origin of Christianity, " ii. 205, el seq.

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

te sure that the same would have been said ever after by
their descendants."* Secondly, the admissions of heathens.
The extracts from Celsus in Origen afford an abridged
history of Jesus Christ, and acknowledge that He did many
marvellous things. Celsus explains the fact by saying, Jesus
went into Egypt, and having made trial of powers practised
there, returned highly elated, and pronounced Himself a
God.f Porphry speaks of Christian miracles as wrought by
poor rustics through magical arts. J Julian does not con
tradict them when he contemptuously affirms, that Jesus did
nothing in His lifetime worthy of remembrance, unless any
one thinks it a mighty matter to heal lame and blind people,
and exorcise demons in the villages of Bethsaida and
Bethany. § To these heathen admissions, which are of
considerable value, are to be added, thirdly, the affirmations
of Christians. Miracles are asserted by them in manifold
forms and in manifold writings. The Fathers follow in the
wake of Apostles and Evangelists ; and, be it remembered,
each New Testament author who testifies to these super
human achievements is an independent witness, so that their
statements bear the value of as many concurrent proofs : and
* Lessons on Christian Evidence, 33.
f Celsus in Orig., L. i., § 28.
\ Hieron, T. ii. 334.
§ Cyril contra Jul., L. vi., p. 191. See, respecting these and similar
passages, Lardner's Credibility, vii. 225, 442, 627.
206

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.

if it should be said that, because they were Christians, they
are partial witnesses, on the other hand it can be said that
some of the Fathers, and all the New Testament writers, had
become so, contrary to former habits and prejudices, in
part, at least, through the very force of miracles, and that
too at the cost of extraordinary self-sacrifice and suffering.
I have not sufficient space to exhibit adequately the
argument for the credibility of the New Testament witnesses.
I must, however, observe that the force has not departed
from the old-fashioned method of stating the case, namely,
that you must accept them as competent and satisfactory;
or you must believe either that they were dishonest men,
intending to deceive, or that they were dupes of their own
or of other people's fancies. I am disposed to extend the
dilemma, and to say, that there is a third supposition,
growing out of the junction of these two, the supposition
(according to a not uncommon occurrence in the mysteries
of human nature) that the witnesses might be partly the
victims of delusion, and partly the inventors of fiction, that
credulity and imagination might be both at work, the result
being a fabrication of miracles, having no basis, or but an ex
ceedingly slender one, in facts occurring before men's eyes.
With these alternatives under our view, the inquiry is,
Which shall we apply to the witnesses of the miracles of
Christ ? Renan has applied the composite supposition to
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THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

the witnesses of the resurrection. " On the Sunday morning,
Mary Magdalene first came very early to the tomb. The
stone was displaced from the opening, and the body was
no longer in the place where they had laid it. At the same
time the strangest rumours were spread in the Christian
community. The cry, 'He is risen,' quickly spread
amongst the disciples. Love caused it to find ready
credence everywhere." "Such was the impression He had
left in the hearts of His disciples, and of a few devoted
women, that during some weeks more, it was as if He were
living and consoling them. Had His body been taken
away, or did enthusiasm, always credulous, create afterwards
the group of narratives by which it was sought to establish
faith in the resurrection ? In the absence of opposing
documents this can never be ascertained. Let us say,
however, that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene
played an important part in this circumstance. Divine
power of love ! * Sacred moments in which the passion of
one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God ! " No
one is more ready than I am to do justice to the extra
ordinary literary merits of the " Vie de jfhus," its lucid style,
its descriptive power, its manifold charms ; but I cannot con
ceal my amazement that the author, with his exquisite genius,
should adopt such a travestied rendering of the noblest of
Bible stories. There are no documents, as he confesses, to
208

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
work upon but the four Gospels ; and from these Gospels it
distinctly appears that, so far from the witnesses produced
being of the character he indicates, so far from their love
snatching at anything within reach, however airy, out of
which to weave a web of wonders, there were men amongst
them slow of heart to believe what the prophets had written,
and what Jesus had said about the resurrection ; men who
counted the report of that resurrection, when they first heard
of it, as an idle tale, — one of whom even would not yield to
sight itself, but demanded to touch the nail-prints in the
holy palms, and to thrust his hand into the sacred side.
And as to the women, when they came to the sepulchre on
the third day, it was not to hail a risen Jesus, but to anoint
a buried one. That persons represented by the histo
rians as burdened with doubts, and fears, and unbelief,
and demanding demonstrative evidence, should have been
finally convinced, and should have staked their all upon
that conviction, removes them for ever utterly beyond
all reasonable suspicion of dreaming strangely coloured
dreams of their Lord's risen life, — to say nothing of
collusion and fraud, — and places them at once amongst
witnesses, who well knew what they said, and whereof they
affirmed. The credibility of the witness borne to another resur
rection is also well established. For evidence of the
209 14

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

authenticity of the Gospel of St. John, I refer to Professor
Lightfoot's lecture, and would only remark upon the narra
tive in this Gospel— a narrative so full of pathetic beauty —
that it is impossible to explain away its details by possi
bilities of misapprehension, and pardonable exaggerations
of extraordinary incidents. Thus much is indisputable,
Lazarus was sick unto death. To all human appear
ance he died. He died, and was buried, and remained
so long in the grave that it was believed the corruption of
his corpse had commenced. Coincident with the utter
ance by Jesus, at the door of the tomb, of the words,
" Lazarus, come forth ! " the body moved, arose, came
forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes ; in con
sequence of which, "many of the Jews which came to
Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on
Him." Here were presented to the senses of witnesses
phenomena involving the performance of a miracle. A dis-
tinction has been justly drawn between testimony to pheno
mena cognizable by the senses, and miracles completely
considered on their invisible and divine side, as well as their
visible and human one. "Testimony," it is said, "can
apply only to apparent sensible facts ; testimony can only
prove an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence
or phenomenon; that it is due to supernatural causes is
entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
the parties."* With the omission of the words "previous
belief and assumption,'' and the substitution of the words
" reflection and conviction," — whether exercised and expe
rienced at the time or afterwards, — I accept the statement.
Phenomena are immediately apprehensible; the cause is
not so. A persuasion that the cause is miraculous arises in
the mind as an inference from what is directly witnessed.
But what is directly witnessed may be of such a nature as
to compel the witness, as a reasonable person, to believe
that what has taken place results from a supernatural
interposition. This conviction implies, indeed, that the
person believes in the existence of supernatural power
— in other words, believes in the existence and agency of
God — which belief may be described as a " previous belief:"
but a conviction that particular phenomena are the result of
a supernatural cause, depends on the exercise of reason in
regard to the phenomena themselves. " No testimony," I
admit, "can reach to the supernatural," directly, but it may
reach it by implication.
Keeping in view the distinction laid down, we say of the
narrative of the resurrection of Lazarus, that no natural
solution of the event recorded is within reach. Fraud,
collusion, trickery,! are excluded by the character of Christ
* "Essays and Reviews" (Baden Powell), 107.
f That Renan should treat the Resurrection of Lazarus as a pious

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

and of Lazarus : no reference to accidental coincidences, or
to mesmerism, or to electric influences, or to any known
physical agencies, meets the case. Nor is there room for the
anticipation that the advancement of science will ever solve
this problem. If a solution be attainable, we are shut up to
the one solution accepted by Christians. To leave it un
solved, to refer it to the class of unaccountable phenomena,
through a persistent determination not to believe in any
thing supernatural, in the face of all which can be said in
reply to antecedent objections, is most unphilosophical.
Let me here add, in reference to narratives of the
miraculous, that it is easy to marshal a number of general
reflections together, casting a slur upon evidence, and to
invest with some plausibility its denial or non-acceptance.
But, when we think how fallaciously, yet plausibly, general
reflections may be employed for the contradiction of
evidence, — how, by reference to the proverbial exaggerations
of travellers' stories, accounts of other countries, of their
customs and productions, may be discredited ; how, by in
sisting upon men's liability to illusion, the observations of
scientific inquirers may be set aside; how, by dwelling
on credulity and passion, party spirit, and the like, historic
fraud, and the one moral blot in the story of Christ, is the greatest
literary, as well as moral, blot in his " Vie de Jesus." See Hutton's
Essays, i., 297. 212

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
doubts may be conjectured respecting the existence of Na
poleon I., and how, in the same way, historic doubts may be
hereafter raised respecting a large part of the career of Na
poleon III. ; we see how little such general reflections are
to be trusted, how much more they may do to hinder the
interests of truth than to help them.* The absurdity of the
conclusions in such cases discredits the process by which
they are reached.
Let us not pass from this part of the subject without
saying one word as to the presumption in favour of the New
Testament narratives of miracles, when compared with narra
tives of miracles found elsewhere. Place side by side with
the Scripture narratives the miraculous stories in the Apocry
phal Gospels, in the writings of the Fathers, in mediaeval chro
nicles, in modern legends of Saints, and one sees the force of
a remark by an eminent German theologian : " The critical
acumen of Niebuhr was, as is admitted, inferior to that of
no man, and he has done away with only too much of the
ancient history of Rome. Yet he acknowledged, 'with
respect to a miracle, in the strictest sense of the word, it
needs but an unprejudiced and searching investigation of
nature to perceive, that the miracles related are anything but
absurd, and a comparison of them with the legends or so-
called miracles of other religions, to recognize what a different
* See Art. on Miracles in Smith's Die.
213

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

spirit dwells in them.' " * To take only one step farther in this
direction, when it is asked, " What, if so many apparently
competent witnesses were to assure you, that they had seen
such and such a miracle — mentioning the most monstrous
absurd, fantastic, and ludicrous confusion of nature — would
you believe them?" We answer in the words of a modern
Writer : "We are only concerned with the miraculous
under that form and those conditions under which it has
actually by trustworthy report taken place, as subordinated
to what has been called ' a general law of wisdom,' i.e.
to a wise plan and design in the Divine mind under which
check the course of miracles has, so to speak, kept near to
nature, just diverging enqughfor the purpose, and no more."f
II.
It is time to attend to the second part of our subject, the
value of the miraculous testimony to Christianity.
i. The miracles must not be taken alone ; they form a part
of Christianity"; and therefore, to 'be rightly understood,
they should hold in the mind an inseparable relation to the
rest of Christianity. Christianity is its own evidence. Each
portion harmonizes with the other portions. They yield
mutual support. Miracles, therefore, are concurrent with
* Niebuhr's "Lebensnachrichten," quoted in Luthardt's "Apologetic
Lectures," 2co.
f Mozley's "Lectures on Miracles," 120.
214

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
other proofs. " External " and " internal " are convenient
words, but they are liable to mischievous application. One
objection to the word " external," as designating the evi
dence of miracles, is that it assumes them to be outside the
Gospel — only bulwarks for defence, not pillars identical
with the inner structure. It is curious that opposite classes
of persons have attributed to miracles an externality which
their place in Scripture will not allow. By one class, con
sisting of advocates for the evidence, miracles are presented
as the chief part of the evidence, as marks indispensable for
the authentication of Divine truth, yet quite ab extra things,
placed round about the temple to ward off evil-disposed
persons who would dare to violate the shrine. By another
class, consisting of those who take exception to the miracles,
they are also treated as things ab exh-a, things which may
well be cut off from Christianity — burdens which there
is no necessity it should be made to bear — a dress which
disfigures it rather than otherwise, and which, for the sake
of its progress in the world, had better be stripped off and
cast away. These two modes of assuming one and the
same thing, are as objectionable in themselves, as they are
curious in their coincidence.
The miracles really run into and intersect the lines of
New Testament teaching from end to end. They are not
seals externally attached, but contents deposited inside —
215

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

not post-marks showing simply whence the letter comes, but
paragraphs written in the folded sheet. The "internal" and"
the "external" — if we may use the words in their popular
currency— must occupy our attention together. Miracles
cannot be torn from the life of Christ. His nature, charac
ter, teaching, wonders, constitute an unparalleled spiritual
unity. Criticism here, of course, has its own department of
duty to fulfil. What really constitute the synoptical Gospels
and the Gospel of St. John, is its province to determine.
Readings of MSS. require to be examined with an honest
desire to render the textus receptus as perfect as possible — a
desire which a reverential regard for the genuine contents of
the record must serve to stimulate. When all that labour
has been accomplished, the miracles of the genuine rolls of
Scripture are to be regarded as integral elements of faith.
" The facts of Christianity," says Archdeacon Lee, " are re
presented by some as forming no part of its essential doc-
trines ; they rank, «it is argued, no higher than its external
accessories. It is impossible to maintain this distinction.
In the Christian Revelation the fact of the Resurrection is
the cardinal doctrme, the doctrine of the Incarnation is the
fundamental fact. Christianity exhibits its most momentous
truths as actual realities > by founding them upon an histo
rical basis, and by interweaving them with transactions and
events winch rest upon the evidence of sense."*
* " Lectures on Miracles," 5.
216

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
2. Miracles are reasonable attestations of a Divine
mission. As such our Lord appeals to them, they "beai
witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." As such
Nicodemus received them : "We know that Thou art a teacher
come from God : for no man can do these miracles that Thou
doest, except God be with him." As such the poor blind man
regarded them in that exquisite piece of naivete', in which he
says, " Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not
from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes." As
it is reasonable, in the case of an ambassador, to refer to his
credentials in proof of his legitimate authority ; so it is
reasonable, in the case of a professedly Divine teacher, to
refer to signs and wonders he is capable of working, in proof
of his Divine commission.
Of vast importance is it that we should note precisely the
point touched by the finger of miraculous evidence. It may
be said, not only are miracles incapable of enforcing a train
of argument, but they are incapable of establishing any
moral or religious proposition. No physical demonstration,
it may be alleged, can ever link itself on to a spiritual truth,
because the two things belong to totally different spheres.
We should get involved in metaphysical subtleties, were
I to inquire thoroughly into this position. It is enough
to say, that, admitting it, the exact point touched by mi
raculous evidence, is, according to the teachmg of Scripture
217

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

itself, the office sustained and the commission borne by a person.
"The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same
works that I do, bear witness of me." "Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and won
ders, and signs, which God did by Him." In these passages,
the witness of miracles is attached to a person. " My works
bear witness of me," says Jesus. They are the approval of
" a man," says Peter. The evidential force of them bears
on Christ Himself, the sent of God. Thus considered,
miracles free themselves from objections made to their com
petency to serve as direct proofs of spiritual truths.
The miracles of Moses afford evidence of his Divine
legation : in like manner the miracles of Jesus afford
evidence of His Divine Messiahship. It is said of Him that
" He taught them as one having authority, and not as the
scribes." Authoritativeness is characteristic of His mode of
teaching. "Verily, verily, I say unto you." He claimed a
right to speak, as* one who had power to command men
that they should obey. There is in His utterance little of
argument, but much of law. Miracles can add no force to a
chain of reasoning, and you may say they cannot imme
diately demonstrate spiritual truth, but they afford a basis
for the enunciation of a Divine message, a mandate of the
Divine will.
Miracles, no doubt, come within relations to spiritual truth,
218

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
through the medium of the miraculously demonstrated
authority of its utterer; but spiritual truth has other dis
tinct and appropriate marks of its Divine origin and cha
racter. It contains an inward witness — it shines by its own
light It commends itself to men's consciences in the sight
of God, and when believed, vindicates the justness and wis
dom of such belief.
It cannot be too much insisted on, that miraculous
evidence comes not out in Scripture by itself. The works
of Jesus include more than His miracles. The whole benefi
cent influence of His life is covered by the words, "who
went about doing good." With the thought of what He did,
stands associated the thought of what He was ; and with the
character of His matchless life is interwoven the character
of His matchless teaching. Miracles form but one strand in
the cable which binds the Church's faith to Him who is the
Anchor of her hope ; and they expose the ship to peril who
untwist the rope, and lay upon that single strand the whole
amount of strain — the entire stress of tension. Holy
Writ warrants no such course ; but warns against it. " If
there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams,
and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the
wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying,
' Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and
let us serve them ; ' thou shalt not hearken unto the words
219

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams." Moses, himself
a worker of miracles, appeals to something beyond miracles
as essential to the final establishment of religious authority.
The moral proof is put in the foremost place, and no mere
physical achievement can exercise exclusive force apart from
that. And, as if to remind us of these words in Deuteronomy,
we read in the last chapters of Revelation of men being de
ceived by the miracles of the beast, of the spirits of devils
working miracles, and of the false prophet that wrought mira
cles. Thus the New Testament teaches us to bind the evi
dence of Christian miracles to that which shows how utterly
different they are from all the pretensions of deceivers, from
all the delusions of fanatics. To dwell on extraordinary
incidents, apart from other considerations, is to open a door
to superstition, and even revolting credulity. In this way,
a belief in witchcraft, sanctioning most unrighteous and
cruel laws, maintained its ground in England to the end of
the seventeenth century. From anything like the unrea
sonableness of staking religious faith upon physical events
or historical circumstances, simply because they are unac
countable upon any ordinary hypothesis of human affairs,
the Gospel is perfectly free. He who appeals to His own
mighty works, appeals also to His own self-evidencing
words, and to the moral disposition of His disciples. "To
this end was I born, and for this cause came I into
220

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.
Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." " My
doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will
do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of
God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of
himself, seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh his
glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness
is in him."
The solitary position assigned to the evidence of miracles
in the controversies of the last century was mischievous to
the interests of religion. I believe with Coleridge, " how little
of divine, how little fitting to our nature a miracle is, when in
sulated from spiritual truths, and disconnected from religion
as its end : " — and I would ask with him, " What then can we
think of a theological theory, which, adopting a scheme of
prudential legality, common to it with ' the sty of Epicurus,'
as far at least as the springs of moral action are concerned,
makes its whole religion consist in the belief of miracles ! "
There is some room for this severe censure of theologians in
the last century, who failed to insist " on the creating of a
new heart, which collects the energies of a man's whole
being in the focus of the conscience — the one essential
miracle, the same, and of the same evidence to the ignorant
and the learned, which no superior skill can counterfeit,
human or demoniacal." I should assign a higher place to

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

the physical miracle than Coleridge did, — but there is to my
mind a true and deep sense in what he asks respecting the moral
one : — " Is it not that implication of doctrine in the miracle,
and of miracle in the doctrine, which is the bridge of com
munication between the senses and the soul ?" * Christianity
as a whole, at the present time, establishes its claims by
the new spiritual creation which it effects in its sincere
disciples. And here, let me add : looking at the position
of our inquiry at the present day, it appears of great
importance, not to lay down as a principle, that miracles
are indispensable in the authorization of a Divine message.
To do so hampers our argument. To do so contradicts
Scripture, — " John did no miracle." If one eminent servant
of the Most High could make good his authority without
effecting any physical marvel, so might another. Regarding
Jesus simply as a Divine Teacher, there would, then, be no
absolute necessity for His working wonders in the fields of
material nature. * His moral acts, His freedom from moral
defects, and the whole moral tenor of His life, would evince
the holiness of His character, and the oneness of His own
spirit with that of the Father of spirits, the fountain of love
and truth ; for what He said of men applied to Himself, "By
their fruits ye shall know them." Yet, though I cannot see
that miracles, as some think, were essential to the proof of
* Coleridge's "Friend," iii., 104-6.
222

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
what He said respecting Himself, they are, as indicated
already, what might be expected in one who was all that
Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be ; they also corroborate
claims to spiritual authority, resting on other grounds ;
and, still further, the manner in which some of them were
performed, points to the higher nature which tabernacled
in His humanity.
The place in the sphere of evidence occupied by the
miracles of Jesus, is not exactly the same to us that it was
to the multitudes who witnessed them. I fully agree in the
remark, " We do not ask any one to begin with the miracles,
¦ — to regard power, and still more the record of power,
centuries afterwards, as the one irresistible proof of the
truth and Divine origin of a Revelation. This has been
done — done perhaps too long — done certainly in this age
without conviction."* A miracle never was the one irre
sistible proof. It never was more than one amongst others.
But at first it had a power of awakening attention, which it
does not possess now. Seen, it irresistibly produced excite
ment, which led to inquiry. Recorded, it fails of that effect.
It is wise, at this time of day, to begin the exposition of
Christian evidence by insisting on Christianity as a fact— as
a moral spiritual power in the world ; and then, examining
its principles, and tracing its achievements to the beginning,
* Dr. Vaughan's " Christ the Light of the World," 172.
223

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

to bring out the evidential worth of Christ's miracles as a
crown on the head of other proofs. At the same, time it
should be observed, that their pertinency as proofs remains
unaltered. They are not less true for being old. They are
as good witnesses now as they were eighteen centuries ago.
What was done by Julius Caesar, what was done by Alex
ander the Great, as it appears on record, is still as valid an
indication as ever, of the genius and prowess which the
men possessed. So, what Jesus did, as we find it recorded in
His fourfold memoirs, produces undiminished assurance of
His superhuman character. If any one asks for miracles
now, I reply, they are not wanted, they could not be used as
credentials of one who left the world ages since. His own
miracles, ascertained by history, will, to the end of time,
in connection with His whole life, avail as guarantees for
faith in His Divine might and goodness.
3. And, finally, the miracles promote the acceptance of
Christian truths *by the illustrations of them which they
afford. Christ's miracles are of the same description as the
principles and precepts in Christ's teaching. They are ani
mated with benevolence, instinct with love. The Gospel
perpetually offers to men a spiritual salvation ; Miracles at
the beginning brought them salvation of a lower kind, which
nevertheless pointed to a higher. Of the author of Chris
tianity it might be said literally, " He is the Saviour of the
224

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
body." His wondrous works of healing sparkled with a
tenderness, compassion, and help, like those with which His
main mission to mankind was filled. And, as they were
eminently beneficial to human beings, and so were of the
same class as the other bestowments the Christ of God
came to confer, they exhibited types of the nobler bless
ings themselves. They are mirrors reflecting larger and
better gifts. Signs they are as well as wonders ; parables
as well as proofs. In cures of the blind, there are parables
of spiritual illumination; in the cleansing of lepers, parables
of spiritual purification ; and in exorcisms, parables of spiritual
disenthralment. The benevolent animus, and the didactic form of the
miracles of Jesus seized the attention of early Christian
writers, and were employed by them for the purpose of
establishing and recommending the Christian religion. They
used them much more under their illustrative than under
their strictly evidential aspect. Arnobius (a.d. 306), in
ten chapters of his seven books, " Adversus Gentes," lays
special stress upon their kind and beneficent tendency. *
Lactantius, his contemporary in his " Institutions," whilst
regarding Christ's miracles as proofs of His higher nature,
manifests particular delight in searching out their ethical
significance. He goes through the mighty works of our
* Ad. Gen. 1. i. c. 42. ei seq.
225 J5

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF

Lord in order, and points out, how they demonstrated the
renewal of the human soul, the opening of its eyes, the un
stopping of its ears, the loosening of its tongue.* And
Athanasius (a.d. 326) takes special pains to show that the
miracles of Jesus were revelations — self-representations of
His Person as Divine Creator, not mere credentials of His
doctrine, but veritable victories over nature, so that no one
can doubt who Christ is, when once he beholds His
works : — and moreover, that by the manner of His working
miracles, He at once proved his Divinity, and His humanity,
His Godhead and His incarnation, t And Augustine insists
much on their design as symbolical of redemption, as in
structive acts, charged with prophetical import, and calcu
lated to inspire delight more than wonder. J
These remarks and quotations bear chiefly on the relation
of miracles to the spiritual blessings of the Gospel at the
beginning. But miracles also sustain a veiy interesting
relation to the like blessings as bestowed in after, and in
present times. When the spring is over, and its produce of
blossoms has passed away, it is found, that though the
ground is covered with leaves of white and pink, the
* Inst. L. iv. c. 25.
f Domer, in his Person of Christ (Claik's Trans.), ii. 254, dwells
upon this subject as unfolded by Athanasius. See also Athanasius' third
discourse against the Arians, § 32.
% In Johan. Evan. Tract, 16, 24, 49.
226

THE MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO CHRISTIANITY.
blossoms have set into precious fruit. They have be
queathed more than blossoms. Each folded up a promise
of what is richer than itself. The peach flower, the peach
— the pear flower, the pear. We read in the Apocalypse,
of the Tree of Life. Is not the Gospel the Tree of Life ?
Is not Christ the Tree of Life ? It is not fanciful to speak
of the miracles as early blossoms. Long since they burst
out profusely. Long since they fell. To some eyes,
they may seem to lie in the paths of history, as withered
leaves. But if the spring-time is past, the autumn-time has
long since come. Christianity can tell of spiritual blessings
which it has conferred on the children of men down to this
day, and is conferring still. A tranquil conscience, a pure
heart, a holy life, a hope that maketh not ashamed, — these
are the clustering felicities, the manifold beatitudes, of the
Gospel of Love. Thank God ! abundant has been the
ingathering. Thank God ! abundant is the harvest, still
waiting to be gathered. In nature the bloom is more
plentiful than the fruit, but here the fruit is more plentiful
than the bloom.

2:7

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF
REVELATION.
BY THE RIGHT REVEREND
THE LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE.

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF
REVELATION.

When I undertook, at the request of the Christian Evi
dence Society, to deliver a lecture having for its title The
Gradual Development of Revelation, I confess that I did
not perceive that the title was open to criticism. I thought
that I understood the terms employed, and I still trust
that this is so ; but a little consideration showed me that
the language was not used very strictly, and that there
was in it a confusion of metaphors, which might possibly
be connected with a confusion of thought.
This being so, I propose to introduce what I have to
say by a short examination of the words which express the
subject of my lecture : and I do so, as I need hardly say,
not for the purpose of finding fault, but because it seems
to me that I shall in this manner most easily explain the
nature of the subject which I conceive to be committed to
me, and indicate the manner in which I purpose to treat it.
231

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
Now the word development, which like many other long
words has become very common, is also, like many other
words, not unfrequently used somewhat loosely. The root
of it, the word velop, is unknown in any other form than
the two words envelope and developed In mathematics, the
word develope is used, as all words are, with the utmost
precision. We speak of developing a function, that is, putting
it into a new and unfolded form, which, however, shall be
essentially equivalent to the original. So also we speak of
developable surfaces, that is, surfaces such as cones and
cylinders, which can be unfolded and laid flat upon a plane
without tearing. It will be seen that in these applications
of the word the essential thought is that of a change, by a
process of unfolding, in the condition of something which
you already possess ; and this I take to be the true defini
tion of development.
From this, however, we easily pass to a cognate meaning
of the term. Thustwe speak of the development of an idea,
that is, the unfolding and applying of the results of an
original thought, a discovery or principle, which were truly
contained in it from the first, but were not from the first
perceived to be so contained. For example, we say that
railways are only a development of the original idea of
* See Brachet's " Dictionnaire Etymologique, " sub voc : Developper.
232

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
turning to account the expansive force of steam ; or that
Newton's "Principia" and Laplace's " Mecanique Celeste,"
and, in fact, the whole of modern physical astronomy, are
developments of the idea, or fact, call it which you will, of
the universal gravitation of matter ; or that the British consti
tution of this century is a development of Magna Charta j
and so forth. What we mean by this language is that the
essential principles of the development were implicitly con
tained in the original idea, and that one has been derived
from the other somewhat in the same way as that in which
the bird comes from the egg and the plant from the seed.
Dr. Newman, in his Essay " On the Development of
Christian Doctrine," takes a somewhat different view. He
speaks of the development of an idea as follows : " When
some great enunciation, whether true or false, about human
nature, or present good, or government, or duty, or religion,
is carried forward into the public throng and draws atten
tion, then it is not only passively admitted in this or that
form into the minds of men, but it becomes a living prin
ciple within them, leading them to an ever-new contempla
tion of itself, an acting upon it, and a propagation of it.
Such is the doctrine of the natural bondage of the will, or
of individual responsibility, or of the immortality of the
soul, or of the rights of man, or of the divine right of kings,
or of the hypocrisy and tyranny of priestcraft, or of the
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
lawfulness of self-indulgence  Let one such idea get
possession of the popular mind, or the mind of any set
of persons, and it is not difficult to understand the effects
which will ensue." * Taking this view, there is manifestly
a difficulty in determining whether an idea has been rightly
or wrongly developed, whether the growth be wholly from
the root or partly parasitical ; and the prime intention of
Dr. Newman's book is to supply tests of genuine develop
ment, and to apply them in one particular case ; but I wish
it to be perceived that whether we take this wider view, or
the stricter one which I endeavoured to present to you just
now, it is essentially necessary to regard development as
the exhibition in a new unfolded form of that which already
existed in another.
When therefore we speak of development with reference
to God, we must regard Him as the developer, and His
eternal purposes as the thing developed : the point which
I have to bring before you with reference to its bearing
upon the faith of Christians, and the unbelief of those who
scruple to be regarded as disciples of Christ, is the gradual
character of the process by which God has developed His
purposes. And this being the meaning of development, I think it is
* " Essay on Development, " page 35.
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
manifest that it is a confusion of figures to speak of the
development of a revelation. To reveal is to draw back a veil,
and so to uncover something which was concealed before.
Hence we can properly speak of God as revealing to us His
person, His character, His will. His person is eternal and
unchangeable ; so is His character ; so is His will ; but He
uncovers and shows these to us ; it may be by Holy Scrip
ture, it may be by the living voice, or the life, or the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; but however it be, the conception
appropriate to the word revelation is that of something which
exists independently of our minds, and which" is uncovered,
so that our minds can perceive it. Revelation, therefore,
cannot be developed ; if we use the word as meaning the
process of revealing, then this is a different process from that
of developing ; and if we use the word as meaning object
ively the knowledge which has been revealed, the knowledge
which we obtain of God by revelation, then this knowledge
comes to us in an already developed form : it is not an idea
to be developed, but a truth to be received.
On the whole, I regard as the most important word in the
title of my lecture, the word gradual: whether we speak of
the development of His eternal purposes and intentions, or
the revelation of His person and character, the process
appears to have been a gradual one, and in a certain sense
a slow one : and this gradualness of operation may be vari-
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
ously estimated according to the turn of mind and habits of
thought of him who considers it : some will be content simply
to bow their heads and worship as being in the presence of
Him whose ways are past finding out : some will say that
that which Christians believe to be the development of His
purposes and the revelation of His person is inconsistent
with their conceptions of God, and so will reject it : others
will hesitate to reject on d priori grounds that which, to say
the least, admits of a strong argument in its favour, but will
confess that they feel the difficulties which have been urged
against the creed of Christendom ; and with regard to that
particular phase of difficulty with which I am professing to
deal in this lecture, they will say, and perhaps say with sad
ness, that the revelation which the volume of Holy Scripture
purports to contain, does not commend itself to their minds,
as corresponding to their highest thoughts of that which God
might be expected to do in making Himself known to man.
Now it is to minds in this condition that considerations con
cerning the doings of God may be hopefully offered. I do
not see how it is possible to treat such a subject as mine, if
I consider myself as speaking to persons who deny the
impossibility of revelation as distinct from human knowledge :
if a revelation be impossible, per se, it is useless to discuss
the qualities of that particular form of revelation which
Christians profess to have received ; but if a man is willing
230

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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
to receive a revelation, and has something of the spirit indi
cated by the words, " Oh, that I knew where I might find
Him," then it does seem to be possible to offer some sug
gestions which shall tend to show that the manner of reve
lation which Holy Scripture exhibits is in harmony with all
that we know of our Creator from other sources, and that
the gradual character of the Divine operations, as exhibited
in that history which culminates in the Lord Jesus Christ, is
wonderfully analogous to the character of every other opera
tion which we can rightly call divine.
Let us then observe what the revelation of God purports
to be ; and for the special end which I have in view, I
think we may suitably divide it into the following principal
steps : — i. That made to Adam and Eve ;
2. That made to Abraham ;
3. That made to Moses ;
4. That made in and by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us look at each of these for a moment.
The revelation to Adam and Eve is represented as being
of the simplest kind possible. In fact it is difficult to conceive
how anything beyond a very simple and partial revelation
could be possible in the very infancy of humanity. It
amounts to little more than the revelation of God as a
personal governor, whose will must be obeyed : a command
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
is given; that command is broken, and a punishment is
inflicted ; and then mankind is represented as cast out
of Eden into the wild, uncultivated world. It is neces
sary to realize the extreme simplicity of this history, and
the imperfect character of the revelation : the more so,
because there is some temptation to imagine Adam and
Eve as being in the possession of more knowledge than
Scripture attributes to them ; Scripture in reality attributes
no knowledge to them, but rather represents the tree of
knowledge as having been the cause of their fall. Philoso
phically speaking, we may describe the condition of things
which existed in Eden as being the dawn of man's religious
consciousness ; he has no responsibility, and no sin ; but a
law is imposed upon him, and thus comes responsibility,
and thus by the breach of law comes sin : man " was alive
without the law once, but when the commandment came
sin revived," and man " died."
The sacred history represents the world as engaged, so to
speak, in working out the results of this primitive revelation
till the time of Abraham. God is represented as punishing
' the evil and rewarding the good, the punishment of the
evil being the more conspicuous conduct of the two ; thus
Cain is punished, the people in the days of Noah are
punished, the builders of the tower of Babel are punished:
but I do not think it can be said that the being and cha-
238

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
racter of God are any further revealed till the time of
Abraham. Then we have the new fact of God calling out
a family; granting to that family special promises and special
privileges, and making it (as it were) the depository of the
fortunes of the world. Probably this is a step which we
should not have expected ; possibly it may even be argued
that it is no real step in advance ; but, be this as it may, it
is represented in Scripture as the next step in the process of
revelation ; whether it strike us as strange or not, we are
compelled, on the hypothesis that Scripture contains the
history of revelation, to regard Abraham and his family as
a point, a station, in the process.
And so we come to Moses. I am disposed, however, to
regard the Mosaic revelation as differing in degree rather
than in kind from that made to Abraham. A family was
called in Abraham, a nation in Moses ; but in the one case
as in the other, the fortunes of the whole world were bound
up with the history and conduct of a chosen few ; the family
of Abraham was a peculiar and chosen family, the Israelites
whom Moses made into a nation were a peculiar and chosen
people : the principle was the same, namely that of selec
tion, and whatever difficulty belongs to one case, belongs
equally to the other.
It would be a long task, and for my purpose an un
necessary one, to trace the gradual progress of the revela-
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
tion made "in sundry times and in divers manners" to the
Israelitish church and people ; beginning with the grand
announcement of the Name of God from the Burning Bush,
and continued by the declaration of the law in the wilder
ness, rendered visible, so to speak, by the sacrificial ritual,
and expounded by priests and prophets, it gradually became
clearer and clearer, until "the fulness of time'' came, and
" God sent forth His Son made of a woman." I need not
say that to Christians this is emphatically the revelation of
God — " he who has seen the Son has seen the Father." All
previous revelations are only preparatory for this ; and when
we have received this, all others seem to be lost, just as the
moon and stars which shine so brightly at night are abso
lutely extinguished as soon as the sun is risen. Assuming
all this, however, it may be worth while to remark, first,
that Jesus Christ expressly connected Himself with all that
had gone before, saying that He " came not to destroy, but
to fulfil;" and secondly, that He, like Moses and Abraham
before Him, founded an IkkXtjo-io, or church, as a deposi
tory of the fortunes of mankind, oiily with this difference
or extension of principle, that whereas the church of Abra
ham was a family, and the church of Moses was a nation,
the church of Christ was catholic, knowing no distinction
of family or nation, but embracing all who were willing to
take Him as their Captain, and His Cross as their banner.
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
This sketch, slight as it is, of the progress of revelation,
as presented to us in Holy Scripture, will be abundantly
sufficient for my present purpose. In considering its claims
to be received by mankind, I think it should be at once
candidly owned, as seems indeed to be conceded in Holy
Scripture, that the method of revelation is probably different
from anything which we should have expected on general
grounds of reason. Perhaps it is difficult, it may be im
possible, to say very precisely what we should have ex
pected ; but certainly I think we should not have expected
to have found the principal revelations of God made, as
they are alleged to have been made, to a selected
family, a selected nation, a selected corporate body. It
is only candid to acknowledge that, from a philosophical
point of view, we may here see a great difficulty ; and the
difficulty becomes more salient when we look out of the
narrow groove of sacred history into the wide history of
the world at large. There we find a remarkable growth of
knowledge, and an exhibition of the highest powers and
gifts of humanity, quite separated from that region which
is asserted to have been specially illuminated with light
from heaven. The progress of our knowledge of the litera
ture of ancient nations, and a greater familiarity with the
thoughts and feelings of people outside the Christian pale,
have tended to throw this difficulty into stronger relief : our
24i 16

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
old acquaintance with Greece and Rome, our more recent
acquaintance with such countries as India and China, have
made us aware that, somehow or other, great light did shine
upon these countries in olden days, and it is harsh to say
that the light did not come from heaven. Let, therefore, the
difficulty be frankly acknowledged ; while at the same time
it is also acknowledged that in a matter so much beyond
the scope of our faculties as that of saying in what manner
God can best reveal Himself to mankind, all difficulties
depending upon the strangeness or unexpectedness of a
method alleged to have been adopted, must in the nature
of things be of less than first-rate magnitude,, and must give
way to sufficient evidence.
Acknowledging, however, as frankly as can be desired,
the difficulty here stated, I observe that there is anyhow a
remarkable consistency in the scheme of revelation which
Scripture contains. One step leads naturally to another;
and looking at the whole course of Scripture history, from
the first verse of the Book of Genesis to the last verse
of the Book of Revelation, it is wonderful (perhaps upon
any infidel hypothesis, more than wonderful) how the
various parts hang together, and how the beginning, the
middle, and the end seem to dovetail themselves together
into one connected and consistent whole. I do not know
that I have ever been more struck with this, than when
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
reading the recent work on " The History and Literature of
the Israelites," by C. and A. de Rothschild. In this work
we have the advantage of seeing the Old Testament ex
hibited in a reverent and loving spirit without the New, and
as it might have appeared if Jesus Christ had not been
born. Any one reading the book would be impelled to say
that the influence of the literature of the Israelites must
be for the improvement and enlightenment of mankind ; but
the questions press upon the mind of the reader — at least
they did upon mine — " What does all this lead to ? What
has become of these Israelites ? and what is the meaning of
the language of their prophets ? " In fact, the book seems
to put the reader very much in the position of the Ethiopian
nobleman in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, who
was prepared by reading some of the "literature of the
Israelites " to receive from Philip the evangelist the preach
ing of the name of Jesus. The New Testament seems
exactly to fit upon the Old ; and that gradual progress of
revelation which we notice in the Old Testament, seems to
lead up to, and find its completion and explanation in, the
history which is contained in the New.
On the whole, looking at the scheme of revelation as
it appears in Scripture, and as it has been illustrated by
history, both profane and sacred, I believe that I discern
these features. I see the knowledge of God emerging from
243

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
very obscure beginnings, and imparted in very unexpected
ways ; I see, however, that this knowledge does somehow or
another not merely remain with mankind, but increase and
become clearer and more influential; I see a particular
family and nation selected for the reception and spread of
this knowledge, and the family and nation so selected, after
going through much education and many vicissitudes, pro
ducing at length One in whom the whole history appears to
culminate, and then disappearing from all position of influ
ence upon the fortunes of the world except through this one
pre-eminent member. Still further, I perceive, and it is
absolutely impossible for the most sceptical to deny, that the
name of this remarkable member of the selected family and
nation has been the most potent that has ever been named,
and that His influence in the world has been and is far
greater, more extended, and more intense in its action, than
any other influence which has ever been brought to bear
upon the human heart and mind. Even in the work to which
I referred just now, in which the Old Testament alone comes
under consideration, the dates of the history are given by
reference to the birth of Jesus Christ ; and whatever view
men may be disposed to take of the more mysterious and
transcendental allegations concerning the life of Jesus of
Nazareth, it is impossible to deny that the civilization and
improvement of the world, and the purification of human
244

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
society and the like, are more connected with His Name
than with that of any other philosopher or teacher or leader
of mankind. When I say that it is impossible to deny this,
I am of course aware that it has been denied, and that theie
are and have been persons who have asserted that Christi
anity has not only not been that which Christians believe it
to have been, but has been positively detrimental to human
progress ; but what I mean is, that to make the denial to
which I refer, is so contrary to the general verdict of man
kind that it is hard for any one to make it, and impossible
for any one who is at all likely to be influenced by anything
that I can say. For those who are at all likely to be influ
enced are persons who are sceptical, not those who are
antagonistic; a man may doubt — who has not doubted? —
and a man may be tortured by his doubts, and it may be
possible to relieve him ; but I see no probability of helping
that man who has come to the conclusion that the influence
of Jesus Christ has been a mischievous and obstructive in
fluence in the history of human progress ; with such a man,
I, at least, as a Christian apologist, do not feel that I have
any common ground.
Taking then the view of revelation to which I have re
ferred as being that contained in Holy Scripture, and ac
knowledging that such a view presents difficulties to thought
ful and inquiring minds, I wish to examine and see whether
Mi

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
we cannot find sorae help towards a right appreciation of
God's method of revelation by examining the course of
nature, or that which is supposed to be its course.
And when we look to nature with this purpose, it is im
possible not to be struck by this general fact, namely, that
gradualness of development appears to be a universal law.
The manner in which the original design of the Creator (for
I assume that there was an original design) has been carried
out, so far from being sudden, has been very slow;* and more
than this, the method of operation has been frequently such
as we should scarcely have expected, and greatly opposed to
those notions of creative majesty which most of us are very
* I will here quote the words of a great man, who has for many years
been one of the chief scientific ornaments of this countiy, and whose de
parture from this life, at the ripe age of seventy-nine years, I see, with
much sorrow, recorded in the Times of this day.
Speaking of the manner in which the universe has come into its pre
sent condition, and isjpreserved in that condition, and of the possibility
of collision amongst the constituent bodies, Sir John Herschel says :
" Ages, which to us may well appear indefinite, may easily be conceived
to pass without a single instance of collision, in the nature of a catas
trophe. Such may have gradually become rarer as the system has
emerged from what must be considered as its chaotic state, till at length,
in the fulness of time, and under the pre-arranging guidance of that
DESIGN which pervades universal nature, each individual may have
taken up such a course as to annul the possibility of further destructive
interference." — Outlines oj Astronomy, p. 600.
I quote these words for the sake of the phrase which they contain,
and the importance of which it is impossible to exaggerate, " The pre
arranging guidance of that Design which pervades universal nature."
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.

much disposed to preconceive. In order to put this clearly
before you, let me call your attention to the very picturesque
and poetical view of creation, contained in Chateaubriand's
" Genie du Christianisme." That work appeared after the
explosion of the volcano of the first great French revolution,
and was intended to reconcile the minds of men, weary with
the infidelity and atheism which had so long been rampant,
to the views of God contained in Holy Scripture, and
maintained by Christians. Writing with this purpose,
M. Chateaubriand tells us that we may conceive of the
Creator as having called the world into existence in a condi
tion as complete, and having as many marks of antiquity, as
we now see about us : when this earth was created there
would be already ancient forests, and abundance of animals,
some in their maturity, others dancing about in the friskiness
of youth ; the trees would be furnished with birds' nests,
and the crows and pigeons would be hatching their eggs, or
tending their young; the butterflies and moths would be
sporting on the plants ; the bees would be making honey
from the new-formed flowers ; the sheep would be followed
by their lambs ; and the nightingales would be astonishing
themselves with their first, yet perfect songs, in all the
groves. Finally, Adam would be a man of thirty, and Eve
a girl .of sixteen. "Without this original antiquity," says
our author, "there would have been neither pomp nor
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
majesty in the work of the Eternal ; and, which could not
well be, nature in her innocence would have been less fair
than she is now in her corruption. An insipid infancy of
plants, animals, elements, would have crowned a world de
void of poetry." * No doubt this description is anything but
devoid of poetry ; it is perhaps the only way in which a
poet would be disposed to conceive of creation ; it is difficult
to imagine the music of Haydn set to any other description
of the creative work ; but undoubtedly it is not scientific,
and, what is more, it is not Scriptural. Chateaubriand no
more got his picture of creation from the Book of Genesis
than Ernest Renan got his picture of Jesus Christ from
the four Gospels ; and that there may be no mistake about
this latter point, let me ask you to observe that the most
marked and salient feature of the Bible picture of creation is
the gradualness of the creative work. I do not say that the
picture is not poetical ; I believe it to be quite as poetical
as that which Chateaubriand would substitute for it, and I
quite admit that it ought to be regarded from a poetical
rather than a scientific point of view ; still gradualness of
development is the most marked and salient of its features :
first, a chaos of matter without life ; then vegetable life ;
then the lower forms of animal life ; then mammals ;
and lastly, man. No one can deny that these and other
* "Le Genie du Christianisme," Bk. iv., chap. v.
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.

steps, spread over the time which is indicated by the myste
rious creative days, do together make up the Bible history
of physical creation ; and no one can fail to perceive that the
order of proceeding is as different as possible from that de
scribed by the French apologist. According to this latter
view, creation starts forth, Minerva-like, from the mind of
God ; according to Scripture, the work is expressly gradual
and presumably slow. We are so accustomed to the first
chapter of Genesis, that I think we sometimes scarcely per
ceive its peculiarities ; but suppose that the reverse order of
arrangement had been adopted, and that man in deference
to his dignity had been represented as coming in first, and
that other creatures had been represented as being made
afterwards for his use and pleasure, would not this have made
a radical change, and introduced an enormous scientific
difficulty ? I remember once being told by a person, who
held strong views with regard to the dangerous character of
the conclusions of geology, that it seemed to him abso
lutely incredible that a period should have existed when the
earth was inhabited by nothing but fishes, reptiles, and the
like; yet this is precisely what Scripture affirms to have been
the fact ; and if the creative work had been concluded with
the fifth day, there would have been no mammals upon the
earth, and no man.
Gradualness in creative work, therefore, is so far from
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
being contrary to the indications of God's method given
in Scripture, that it is one of the few things which stand out
from the scriptural account with undeniable prominence.
That this same feature is not less prominent in the results
of all the physical sciences, it would take more time and
more ability to demonstrate than are at my command ;
nevertheless it is necessary that I should ask you kindly to
accompany me, while I endeavour to ' show you that the
conclusions of science, and even the guesses of scientific
men, point to this conclusion, and tend to make un
tenable any objections to the revelation of God con
tained in Scripture, on the ground of the gradual man
ner in which that revelation is alleged to have been
made. The general evidence of geology is familiar probably to
most of us, and it is only the general evidence with which
I can desire to deal on such an occasion as this; but
pray observe that while the particular conclusions of geology,
like those of other physical sciepces, are liable to continued
modification and amendment, the general drift of the con
clusions is sufficiently clear and certain. No one can doubt,
for instance, the great antiquity of our globe, and the fact
that it has gone through successive changes with regard to
the character of its surface, the nature of its inhabitants,
and the like. Undoubtedly there was a time when civilized
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
men did not dwell upon it ; undoubtedly there was a still
more distant period -when men did not dwell upon it in
any form, civilized or uncivilized ; perhaps there was a
period even more distant, when life was not to be found
upon the earth's surface at all. And physical astronomy
will take us even beyond geology, and will make it probable
that the earth was originally in a fluid condition, in which
from the excessive temperature no form of life could have
existed. Few problems are more curious than that which
deduces the present figure of our globe from the hypothesis
of original fluidity. Take a mass of fluid, and set it revolving
slowly about an axis, as our earth revolves, and it can be
shown that it will assume such a form as that which our
earth has. I do not lay stress upon the remarkable numeri
cal coincidence of the ellipticity of the earth, as derived by
Laplace from theory, with that which is discovered by obser
vation, because this involves certain arbitrary hypotheses ;
but taking those results which involve nothing arbitrary at
all, it is almost impossible not to believe that the earth was
at one time a hot fluid mass, and that.it has gradually
cooled down and hardened into its present permanent
condition. Look upon the earth then as being once in this hot fluid
condition. It turns slowly round upon its axis and cools.
I cannot trace the whole of the process, but before it
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
arrived at its present condition there must have been
crackings and burstings and eruptions ; and so continents
and islands and mountains would be formed ; but upon the
whole, even in the wildest times, the process would be very
gentle, for the highest mountains on the earth's surface are
but as the down upon the surface of a peach. Then upon
this globe appear creatures suited to its condition ; and the
eye which could have watched the world in its progress
would have seen animals of successively higher types
occupying the earth's surface, till at length that surface was
spotted with cities built by the hand of man, and the ocean
studded with his ships. It is impossible to guess the time
which must have elapsed between the epoch when the earth
was a hot revolving mass of fluid, and the epoch in which
we live ; neither is it very possible to say, though it is
possible to guess, what would have been the successive
scenes presented by tlje earth to the eye which should have
witnessed the whole of the changes ; but whatever may have
been the nature of the changes, this conclusion is inevitable,
namely, that there has been a progression of some kind
from the fluidity of the primaeval dead revolving mass to
the inhabited world of this nineteenth century ; it matters
not for my argument whether the progression, so far as
animal life is concerned, has been due to natural selection,
or to such a process as that advocated by the author of
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
" Vestiges of Creation," or to successive and distinct creative
acts; the fact holds good, upon any hypothesis, that the
Almighty Creator has produced that universe which we see,
not by one act, but by a gradual and apparently very slow
creative process, whether continuous or discontinuous it
matters not for my purpose to inquire.
Now this course of nature is strikingly analogous to that
gradual mode of proceeding which is alleged to belong to
revelation ; and any difficulty which belongs to one appears
to attach equally to the other. Nay, if we are to give any
weight to the most recent physical speculations, it may be
fairly argued that the difficulties connected with revelation
are but as trifles compared with those which nature presents.
I refer to those views of which the latest exposition is to be
found in Mr. Darwin's " Descent of Man." Let me touch
upon those views for a moment.
It seems that " the early progenitors of man were once
covered with hair, both sexes having beards ; their ears were
pointed and capable of movement ; and their bodies were
provided with a tail, having the proper muscles. . . . The
males were provided with great canine teeth, which served
them as formidable weapons. ... At a still earlier period,
the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their
habits." And lastly, " the most ancient progenitors in the
kingdom of the Vertebrata, at which we are able to obtain
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
an obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group of marine
animals resembling the larvae of existing ascidians." This is
certainly a somewhat alarming conclusion ; looking however
to the ascent (for so I think it ought to be called) rather than
the descent, it would seem to be the view of some of our
advanced natural investigators, that the marine animals in
question produced certain lowly organized fishes; these
produced ganoids and the like; these produced amphi
bians ; — here there seems to be a difficulty—" No one,"
writes Mr. Darwin, "cap at present say by what line of
descent the three higher and related classes, namely, mam
mals, birds, and reptiles, were derived from either of the two
lower vertebrate classes, namely, amphibians and fishes."
However, once get to the mammals, and all difficulty ceases :
the Monotremata produced the Marsupials ; these the pla-
cental Mammals : thus we come to the Lemuridse, and from
them the interval is not great to the Simiadx ; the Simiadaa
branched off into two great stems, — the New World and Old
World Monkeys ; and " from the latter at a remote period,
Man, the wonder and glory of the universe, proceeded." *
Of this pedigree, which, "if not of noble quality," is " of
prodigious length," Mr. Darwin tells us " we need not feel
ashamed." Perhaps not; though certainly the nerves of
any one unaccustomed to anthropological investigations may
* "Descent of Man," p. 208.
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THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.

be excused for trembling slightly as he hears it recited; but
the point which I wish to press is this, that supposing (for
argument's sake) this view of man's origin, or anything like
it, to be true, it is impossible to imagine a more thorough
case of gradual development ; there is nothing in the religi
ous history of mankind as expounded in Holy Scripture so
amazingly marvellous as that which is contained in this
physical history ; and certainly those who are prepared to
receive the Darwinian view of the development of man's
body, ought not to find anything to offend them on the
ground of improbability in the Scriptural account of the reve
lation made by God to the human soul.
I do not know to what extent Mr. Darwin's views are
likely to be permanent ; but supposing that they, or any view
of the same class, should eventually overcome all existing
difficulties, and be generally regarded as representing the
process by which it has pleased God to bring about man's
physical and mental supremacy, then it can hardly seem
strange that the same God should have adopted a course of
progress and development in the spiritual and religious
world. I say, emphatically, " if it has pleased God " to act
thus ; because if I accept the hypothesis of the nebular origin
of planetary systems, or the supposition of the earth being
a fluid globe gradually cooled, or even the assertion that our
most ancient progenitors were marine animals, I must do so
255

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
with the underlying assumption that it has pleased God so
to work. I do not find fault with scientific men for not put
ting their theories in this form ; but looking at the question
from a religious, or even from a philosophical, point of view,
I cannot consent to lose sight of God, as the intelligent
maker of the whole. If this earth was originally a fluid mass,
then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I know
to the contrary, the only way of making a world ; if the
marine animals, which Mr. Darwin sees through his scientific
telescope, did become fish, and those fish eventually became
men, then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I
know to the contrary, the only way of making men ; and this
being so, why may I not deal in the same manner with the
alleged course of man's spiritual history? I have in my
hands something which purports to be a revelation to my
intellect, and to my soul, of the God who made me : that
revelation is contained in a history which tells me that God
spake at sundry times and in divers manners to the people
of olden time, and that finally He spake by One who is
called His Son. Now I do not say that this revelation is or
is not a real one ; but I do say that there is nothing to render
us suspicious of its reality in the fact that it has been com
municated gradually, that it has grown as the human race
has grown, and that some of the steps in the process of
revelation appear strange, or even, at first sight, unworthy of
256

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
the grand scheme of which they form a part. No one has a
right to find fault on this ground who has read the lessons of
natural science, and observed how it points to gradual pro
gression as a characteristic of the doings of God. Least
of all can they find fault on this ground, who receive in
whole, or even in part, the recent theories concerning the
origin of man. I will not undertake to answer for those
students who have gone deeply into these physical ques
tions ; but I do assert, without fear of contradiction, that
to men of ordinary education, and ordinary habits ot
thought, the difficulties of accepting Scripture as the reve
lation of God to the human soul, however much those
difficulties may be expounded or even exaggerated, are
absolutely nothing as compared with the difficulty of ac
cepting recent views of man's prodigious pedigree.
The fact is, that it is not so much the process by which
a result has been brought about, as the result itself, which
is the all-important thing. Whatever may have been the
history of our earth in the dark dim distance of incalculable
ages, we know that its present condition is very beautiful,
and that it answers admirably well the purpose for which it
seems to have been originally designed, namely, that of
serving for the residence of intelligent man ; and whatever
may have been the process by which that creative work, was
consummated, which is described in Scripture as the making
257 i7

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.

of man out of the dust, and breathing into his nostrils the
breath of life, we know that man is high above all the rest
of creation, and worthy of being spoken of as being made in
the image of God. And so in the case of man's spiritual
history, we need not be over-careful to criticize the several
steps when we are able to see the result ; the question is,
not so much, whether the steps of God which we trace in
Old Testament history be such steps as we should imagine
that the Most High would have left, as whether the mystery
of the Incarnation, and the truth that God has spoken to us
by His own Son, be not worthy of all acceptation. If Christ
be worthy of our adoration and love, then, though the way
may have been long, and strange, and dark, and sometimes
even weary, yet we may be sure that it is the right way,
because it has led us to Him.
For there is this further analogy between nature and
revelation, namely, that in each the progress is not in
definite, but tends to a limit. Whatever theory be adopted
with regard to the history of the earth, we seem to see in
its present settled condition the limit towards which every
thing has been moving in past geological ages ; and even if
man has been a progressive animal, and has only gradually
attained his present physical perfection, I presume it is not
anticipated that the process of natural selection, or any
other process, will carry him beyond the point which he
has now reached. Or, if we take the divine picture of
258

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
creation, we see the creative work tendmg from the limit of
chaos to the limit of man ; then physics cease and religion
begins, and we hear utterances of the voice of God
beginning with whispers, and becoming more and more
distinct, until we are permitted to listen to divine oracles
uttered by human lips. Beyond this the dreams of philo
sophy, and the aspirations of the human heart, and the
longings of the weary and heavy-laden cannot carry our
thoughts or raise our desires.
Those who are acquainted with Bishop Butler's great work
will perceive that I have now been endeavouring — how imper
fectly no one knows better than myself — to apply to the ques
tion of " the gradual development of revelation," those prin
ciples of reasoning which Bishop Butler has taught us to use.
I was very sorry to see it stated in the evidence taken before
the select committee of the House of Lords on University
Tests, that Bishop Butler's Analogy was " out of fashion "
in Oxford.* I trust that the witness only intended to assert
* Report of Evidence, 1870 : —
Q. 376. I thought you said Bishop Butler had been excluded? — It is
not excluded, but being an optional subject it is one that has been dis-

Q. 377. Why ? — He is gone out of fashion ; I do not know why.
Q. 378. Who makes the fashion ?— I suppose the particular set of ex
aminers at one time.
Q. 379- What are the works of Bishop Butler which have so gone
out of fashion ? — The Analogy and the Sermons were the books which
we used to take up.

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
that the Analogy was not now so commonly chosen for
examinations as formerly, for it will be an evil day for us
all when the method of reasoning which Bishop Butler
taught us shall be " out of fashion " with thinking people.
In truth, the advantage of the method is that, properly
speaking, it never can be out of fashion ; it. is like the
method of Euclid, or that of the Differential Calculus ; it is
an organum, an instrument, a machine, which may be
applied in all the varying circumstances of theological
controversy, and to almost all religious difficulties. For the
principle of the method is this. You find; certain difficulties
in that which professes to be a revelation of God ; you
think to get rid of these difficulties by denying the revela
tion ; will you succeed in doing so ? Not if you find
precisely analogous difficulties in the course of nature ;
unless you go further, and deny not only that there is a
God of revelation, but a God of nature too. Nay, the
argument carries you beyond this point, and suggests- to
you that if there be difficulties in God's natural world, and
if He be pleased to reveal the spiritual world to us, then
we ought to expect to find the same general method of
proceeding in matters spiritual which we have been able to
observe in the natural world. I quite admit that this reason
ing has no force for the man who says " There is no God;"
he must be dealt with in another way ; but it has force and
260

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
it has comfort for the doubting inquiring soul, by assuring
it that it can find a logical resting-place, and that the
refuge from the misery of blank and hopeless atheism is
to be found in simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.*
With the atheist, I honestly confess, that I have little
or no sympathy ; certainly I should not think it worth while
to compose a lecture intended for his special behoof. I
should feel disposed rather to send him for his answer to
the fourteenth and fifty-third Psalms. The difficulty of
supposing the framework of the universe to have had no
architect, appears to me to be so great, so absolutely im
measurable, that the man who can fancy that he has got
over it must, as I . believe, either not have understood the
difficulty, or else have deceived himself as to his power of
* The subject of this Lecture is touched upon, but not expanded, in
the following pregnant passage of Butler's Analogy: "The thing
objected against this scheme of the Gospel is, that it seems to suppose
God was reduced to the necessity of a long series of intricate means in
order to accomplish His ends, the recovery and salvation of the world :
in like sort as men, for want of understanding or power, not being able
to come to their ends readily, are forced to go roundabout ways, and
make use of many perplexed contrivances to arrive at them. Now,
everything which'we see shows the folly of this, considered as an objec
tion against the truth of Christianity. For, according to our manner of
conception, God makes use of a variety of means, what we often think
tedious ones, in the natural course of providence, for the accomplish
ment of all His ends. Indeed, it is certain there is somewhat in this
matter quite beyond our comprehension : but the mystery is as great in
nature as*in Christianity." — Analogy, Part II., chap. iv.
261

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
solving it ; anyhow, I feel that he has cut away all ground
of argument, as between him and me. Not so the man
whose mind is sceptically inclined. Be it ever remembered
that the word sceptic is derived from a word which means to
look or to see — it is the same word which forms the root
of the word bishop or overseer ; and accordingly there is
nothing radically reproachful in the name of sceptic. It
implies that a man is determined to look into matters for
himself, not to trust every assertion, not to repeat a parrot
creed ; and so far as this determination is concerned, it is
high and noble, and is in fact the very root and spring of all
human knowledge ; but who can wonder if looking should
lead to doubting, and that so the name of sceptic should
popularly imply,- not the man who looks and believes, but
the man who looks and doubts ? And I am not ashamed
to confess that I - have much sympathy with this sceptical
frame of mind. ^Tot only is ' it closely connected with a
noble instinct of inquiry and search for truth which God
has implanted in the human mind, but also, as I believe,
it is well-nigh impossible that an inquiring mind should
deal seriously with religious subjects and remain entirely
free from doubt In my opinion, the amount of scepticism
which has, during some period of his life, occupied the
mind of each thoughtful earnest man, will be merely a
question of degree; while, at the same time, I most sincerely
262

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION.
believe that scepticism ought not to bfe, and need not be
the lasting condition of the human soul, and that all doubts
may be made to vanish in the light which God has given
to " lighten every man who is born into the world."
I know not what may be the condition of mind of those
to whom I have been speaking to-day. I presume the
hope of the Christian Evidence Society is that some
persons who feel practically the pressure of doubt and
unbelief, will come and see whether any of their difficulties
can be resolved by this course of Lectures. If there be
such in this company, I beg them, in concluding this
Lecture, to believe that they have been listening to one
who does not wish to treat their speculative difficulties as
trifles, but who would consider it as an unspeakable privilege
to be able to help a doubting brother to get rid of his
doubts, and to exchange them for the steady assurance of
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

263

THE ALLEGED HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES
OF THE
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS,
AND THE
LIGHT THROWN ON THEM BY MODERN DISCOVERIES.
BY THE
REV. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY, OXFORD.

ALLEGED HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES
OF THE
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

In addressing you on the historical difficulties of the Old
and New Testaments — a large subject, which it will be hard
to treat adequately within the time allowed to me — I must
in the first place premise, that with difficulties which lie on
the verge or outskirts of the historic field, on the debatable
ground between Science and History, I do not on the pre
sent occasion profess to deal. Questions as to the origin of
man, whether by development or by direct creation, whe
ther from one pair or from more ; questions as to his pri
maeval condition, his possession from the first of the faculty
of speech, his original savagery or civilisation, and the like,
lie (I think) beyond the domain of history proper, belonging
to what has been properly termed the " pre-historic period"
of our race, and so not coming within the terms of the sub-
267

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

ject on which I have undertaken to speak to-day. History
deals with man from the time to which written records reach
back. Historical difficulties arise from divergence, real or
apparent, between the different accounts contained in those
records. Now the profane records, to which any modern
critical school would attribute an historical value, do not
reach back within many ages of the origin of man, and thus
no "historical difficulty" can arise with respect to these
primitive times. It is only when we descend to an age of
records, when the apparently authentic accounts of ancient
countries preserved to our day can be compared with the
Scriptural narrative that difficulty arises and that either
agreement or disagreement can be shown.
The first difficulty, really historical, which meets us when
we open the volume of Scripture, is the shortness of the
time into which all history is (or at any rate appears to be)
compressed, by the chjonological statements, especially those
of Genesis. The exodus of the Jews is fixed by many con
siderations to about the fifteenth or sixteenth century before
our era. The period between the Flood and the Exodus,
according to the numbers of our English version, but a very
little exceeds a thousand years. Consequently, it has been
usual to regard Scripture as authoritatively laying it down
that all mankind sprang from a single pair within twenty-five
or twenty-six centuries of the Christian era, and therefore
268

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

that all history, and not only so, but all the changes by
which the various races of men were formed, by which lan
guages developed into their numerous and diverse types, by
which civilization and art emerged and gradually perfected
themselves, are shut up within the narrow space of 2,500
or 2,600 years before the birth of our Lord. Now this
time is said with reason to be quite insufficient. Egypt and
Babylonia have histories, as settled kingdoms, which reach
back (according to the most moderate of modern critical
historians) to about the time at which the numbers of our
English Bible place the Deluge. Considerable diversities of
language can be proved to have existed at that date ; mark
edly different physical types appear not much subsequently ;
civilization in Egypt has, about the Pyramid period, which few
now place later than B.C. 2,450, an advanced character ; the
arts exist nearly in the shape in which they were known in the
country at its most flourishing period. Clearly, a consider
able space is wanted anterior to the pyramid age for. the
gradual development of Egyptian life into the condition
which the monuments show to have been then reached.
This space the numbers of our English Bible do not allow.
Such is the difficulty. Now how is it to be met ? In the
first place, candour should (I think) induce all those who
urge it to let their readers, or hearers, know that a special
uncertainty attaches to the numbers in question, from the
269

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

fact that they are given differently in the different ancient
versions. We possess the Pentateuch in three very ancient
forms, in Hebrew, in the Greek version known as the Sep
tuagint, and in Samaritan. Our English numbers represent
those of the Hebrew text. The numbers of the Septuagint
and the Samaritan version are different. Those of the
Samaritan version extend the period between the Deluge
and the birth of Abraham from the 292 years of the Hebrew
text to 942 years, — an addition of six centuries and a half —
while those of the Septuagint, according to some copies,
give 1,072 years as the interval, according to others 1,172
years, thus increasing the period between the Deluge and
Abraham by a space of nearly eight, or nearly nine centuries.
Now if the Greek, or even if the Samaritan, numbers are
the right ones, if they represent, that is, the original text, it
may be questioned whether anything more is wanted. It
may be questioned whether a term of from six to eight cen
turies is not enougl» for the production of that state of things
which we find existing in Babylonia and in Egypt when the
light of history first dawns upon them, whether within that
space might not have been produced such a state of civili
zation, so much progress in art, such differences of physical
type, and such diversities of language as appear to have
existed at that period.
If, however, the ultimate verdict of calm reason, and
270

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
rigid scientific inquiry should be against this view, if more
time seem to be absolutely wanted for the development of
settled government, of art, science, language, ethnical diver
sities, varieties of physical type, and the like, than even the
enlarged chronology of the Septuagint allows, then I should
not be afraid to grant that the original record of Scripture
on this point may have been lost, and that, as it is certain
that we cannot possess the actual chronological scheme of
Moses in more than one of the three extant versions of his
words which have come to us with almost equal authority, so
it is quite possible that we may not posses his real scheme
in any. Nothing in ancient MSS. is so liable to corruption
from the mistakes of copyists as the numbers ; the original
. mode of writing them appears in all countries of which we
have any knowledge to have been by signs, not very differ
ent from one another; the absence of any context determining
in favour of one number rather than another, where the copy
is blotted or faded, increases the chance of error, and thus it
happens that in almost all ancient works the numbers are
found to be deserving of very little reliance. Where they
to any extent check one another, they are generally self-con
tradictory ; where they do not, they are frequently in the
highest degree improbable.
A second historical difficulty connected with Genesis was
much insisted upon by the late Baron Bunsen. The primi-
271

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

tive Babylonian kingdom is declared in the tenth chapter of
Genesis to have been Cushite. Baron Bunsen held that
there were no Cushites out of Africa, and that " an Asiatic
\ Cush existed only in the imagination of Biblical interpreters,
and was the child of their despair."* But an analysis of the
earliest documents recovered from Babylonia has shown that
the primitive Babylonian people, that which raised the first
structures whereof any trace remains, in the country, and
whose buildings had gone to ruin in the days of Nebuchad
nezzar, was (at any rate to a large extent) Cushite, its voca
bulary being " undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian," and
presenting numerous analogies with those of the non-Semitic
races of modern Abyssinia. Hence, modern historical
science, in the person of one of its best representatives, M.
Lenormant, commences now the history of the East with a
" First Cushite Empire," which it regards as dominant in
Babylonia for several centuries before the earliest Semitic
Empire arose. + •
A difficulty less noticed, yet one which was, in the state of
our historical knowledge a few years since, more real, may be
found in the narrative contained in the 14th chapter of Gene
sis with respect to the invasion of Palestine in the time of
Abraham by a number of kings from the vicinity of the

* Philos. of Univ. Hist. i. p. 191.
f Manuel d'Histoire, torn. ii. p. 16.
272

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
Persian Gulf. These kings act under the presidency of a mon
arch, called Chedorlaomer (or Chedor-lagomer), who is stated
to be " king of Elam.J' Now till very recently there was no
profane evidence thatElam — which is notPersia, as many have
supposed, but Elymais or Susiana, the country between Baby
lonia and Persia — had ever been an independent state, much
less a powerful kingdom, and still less one that at so remote a
date could have exercised suzerainty over so many and such
important nations. But the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions
have shown that throughout almost the whole of the Assy
rian period Elam maintained herself as an independent state
and one of considerable military strength on the south-eastern
borders of the empire ; and very recently* it has further been
discovered that, according to the Assyrian belief, an Elam-
itic king was strong enough to invade and plunder Babylonia
at a date, which expressed in our ordinary manner would be
B.C. 2,286, or somewhat earlier than the time commonly
assigned to Abraham. Further, the primitive Babylonian
remains bear traces of the extension of Elamitic influence
into Babylonia at a remote era ; and the possibility of such
distant military expeditions at this far-off period of the
world's history, receives illustration at once from the epithet
" Ravager of Syria," which is borne by a Babylonian mon
arch of about this date, and also from the numerous expedi-
* Zeitschrift f. CEgypt. Sp. Nov. 186S.
273 l8

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

tions conducted not very much later by the Egyptian princes
from the valley of the Nile into Mesopotamia.
No other historical difficulties, so far as I know, present
themselves in the narrative of Genesis. Some attempts were
made in Germany, about thirty or forty years ago, to prove
that the description of Egypt contained in the latter portion
of the book exhibited numerous " mistakes and inaccura
cies ; " but the " mistakes and inaccuracies " alleged were
scarcely of an historical character, and the writers who alleged
them have been so triumphantly refuted by Hengstenberg,
and others, that the sceptical school has ceased to urge the
point, and now allows the entire truthfulness and accuracy
of the whole account. Few things are in truth more remark
able than the complete harmony and accordance which exist
between the picture of ancient Egypt and the ancient Egyp
tians, as drawn for us by Moses, and that portraiture of
them which is now obtainable from their own contemporary
writings and monuments.
With regard to the narrative contained in the last four
books of the Pentateuch, modern criticism has chiefly em
ployed itself in objections turning upon the numbers. The
multiplication of the Israelites, as related in Genesis and
Exodus, has been declared to be utterly and absolutely incre
dible. The sudden exodus from Egypt of a body of two
millions of persons in the way narrated has been pronounced
274

THE OLD AND NEW- TESTAMENTS.
an impossibility. The subsistence of such a multitude, with
their flocks and herds, in the Desert of Till for forty years, or
even a single year, has been said to be inconceivable. Many
minor objections, turning on the same point of numerical
difficulty, have been urged, and the conclusion has been
drawn that the entire narrative of Exodus, Numbers, Le
viticus, and Deuteronomy is unhistorical — a romance drawn
up at a comparatively late period of the nation's history,
having perhaps a certain historic foundation, but in its
details wholly and entirely imaginary.*
Now, with respect to these objections, let it be observed,
in the first place, that they all turn upon the one point of
number ; and that the numbers of the sacred texts are (as has
been aheady observed) exactly the part of it which is most
liable to corruption and least to be depended upon. So
that if the difficulties of the multiplication, as stated, of the
exit from Egypt, the march, the passage of the Red Sea,
and the sojourn in the wilderness, were all allowed to be as
great as represented, it would be enough to reply that
there may have been a corruption of the numbers — the
addition (say) of a cipher in each case — and that the whole
narrative would stand good, and the difficulties disappear, if
for " six hundred thousand that were men " in Exodus xii. 37,
we were to read 60,000, and so on — the entire exodus being
* Colenso. " The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua."
275

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

thus made one of 200,000 instead of two million souls. But
this mode of meeting the difficulty is not, perhaps, here the
right one; The numbers may be defended as they stand.
In Germany the best critics, including so subtle and little
credulous a writer as Ewald, accept them. They seem
required by the general tenor of the whole narrative, es
pecially by the great unwillingness of the Egyptians to let the
people go, and by their power, within little more than a
generation to conquer and occupy Canaan. Assuming
therefore the numbers to be sound, to have come to us
as they were delivered by Moses, let us inquire what the
great difficulties are of which so much has been made, and
see if they are really so insuperable.
In the first place, as to the multiplication in Egypt. Now
here, before we can form any judgment, two things have to
be determined — "What was the number of the Israelites
when they entered Egypt," and " What was the duration of
their stay there?" What was their number when they
entered Egypt ? We are commonly told, " seventy souls."
Now, no doubt, these words occur in Scripture, "All the
souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were
threescore and ten."* But, when we come to look into
details, we find first, that the seventy souls of Jacob's descen
dants comprise only two women, the married daughters and
* Gen. xlvi. 27 ; compare Ex. i. 5.
276

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
grand-daughters of Jacob not being mentioned, who yet, we
are told, followed the migrations of the tribe,* and no ac
count being taken of the wives of his sons and grandsons.
Supplying these omissions, we have for the family of Jacob
as it entered Egypt, the number 267, instead of the number
seventy, or nearly four times the ordinary estimate. But
this is far from being all. The children of Israel entered
Egypt with their households, or retainers.! What the size
of a patriarchal household was we may gather from the
history of Abraham, who had 318 trained servants born in
his house, capable of active military service. It has been
well observed that " we shall scarcely find so many in a
clan of three thousand souls." | Jacob's retainers are likely
to have been more numerous rather than less numer
ous than those of Abraham ; and the conclusion of Kurtz,
that they amounted to "several thousands'^ is therefore
perfectly reasonable. It appears to me quite probable that
the tribe which took possession of the Land of Goshen on the
invitation of Joseph and Pharaoh was a body of five or six
thousand persons.
Next, as to the duration of the sojourn in Egypt, the
* Gen. xlvi. J.
+ Gen. xlvi. 5. The word taph (Pjt3) here, translated "little ones"
means " households." The Septuagint translate it by old* or ffuryfreio.
X Payne Smith, "Bampton Lectures." p. 89.
§ History of Old Covenant, vol. ii. p. 149. E. T.
277

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

Hebrew text lays it down very positively that it was 430
years.* The best MSS. of the Septuagint agree. There was
a tradition among the later Jews which brought down the
term to 215 years; but this tradition cannot reasonably be
set against the plain words of Exodus ; and consequently
we must take 430 years as the duration of the sojourn.
Is it then, or is it not, conceivable, that under the circum
stances of the time and country, a tribe or clan of 5,000
persons may have increased in 430 years to one of two
millions ? Here it has to be remembered that the.re were
two modes whereby they might increase, one that of ordinary
natural increase, the other by augmentation of the number
of their retainers. The natural tendency of population has
been shown by Mr. Malthus, to be to double itself, if
unchecked, every 25 years, t The Israelites, having the
land of Goshen, a large fertile territory, capable of support
ing a population of several millions, assigned them, would
be in a position where the checks on the natural tendency,
especially at first, would be very slight. Now, according to
the estimate of Mr. Malthus, a body of 5,000 persons increas
ing without check, would have become more than two
millions at the end of 225 years; a body of 267 persons
would have exceeded the same amount at the close of 325
* Ex. xii. 40, 41.
t Essay on Population, vol. i. p. 8 ; Encycl. Brit. vol. xviii. p. 340.
278

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
years ; and a body even of seventy persons would have
done the same at the expiration of 375 years; so that,
except for the operation of artificial checks, the family of
Jacob, had it really consisted of seventy persons only, would
have become one of above two millions fifty-five years before
the time of the exodus. But, no doubt, as the increase took
place, the artificial checks, which keep down the natural
tendency of population, began to operate, and the result
was, that if the original immigrants were, as I have supposed,
about 5,000, the actual rate of increase had been a doubling,
not once each twenty-five years, but once each forty-eight
years, or not very much beyond the rate which prevails in
our own country at the present time.
If we add to this the consideration that the Israelites,
being in a very flourishing condition during the earlier por
tion of their sojourn in Egypt, would naturally augment, by
purchase, the number of their households, and might even
receive, by agreement, whole tribes into their body, we shall
not be surprised that at the end of the 430 years, the clan
had grown to be a nation of two million souls.
With respect to the difficulties of the exit of this large
body of persons from Egypt in the sudden way which
the narrative in Exodus seems to describe, they depend (I
think) mainlv on the broad and general manner of description
habitual to Oriental writers, who do not trouble themselves
279

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

with details, or with exceptions, but describe in the mass,
stating that to be done by all which was done by most, or
by those of most account; regarding a nation as concentrated
in its heads ; and directing attention to the main events, to the
neglect of the various details into which they were broken
up. A candid reader, making fair allowance for these cha
racteristics of Oriental style, and for the brevity of the sacred
narrative, will scarcely be much troubled by the difficulties
of the start and the march, as they have been urged by some
critics. It is certain migrations of tribes, quite as large as
that of Israel is said to have been, have from time to time
taken place in the east, and indeed in the west also. Such
migrations have frequently been sudden — the emigrants
have started off with their women, children, and all their
possessions on a certain day* — they have traversed enormous
distances, much greater ones than the Israelites traversed,
and have finally settled themselves in new abodes. That
the Israelites fnade such a migration there cannot be a
doubt. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, all accepted the
fact as certain. Cavils as to their exact numbers, or as to
the particular expressions used in Exodus, do not touch the
* It was on the 5th of January, 1771, the day appointed by the high
priests, that Oubacha began his march, with seventy thousand families.
Most of the hordes were then assembled in the steppes, on the left bank
of the Volga, and the whole multitude followed him." — Hommaire de
Hell, Travels, p. 227, E. T. 2S0

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

main fact, but show (if they show anything) either that our
ancient manuscripts are here and there defective, or that an
early Oriental historian does not write in the exact and ac
curate style of a nineteenth-century occidental critic.
The difficulty which attaches to the subsistence of the
Israelites for forty years in the wilderness of Tih, concerns
almost wholly the sustenance of their flocks and herds, which
are said to have been numerous, and have been calculated
at two million head of cattle. The answer to this difficulty
may be very brief. In the first place, we are not told that
the cattle did not very rapidly decrease ; for no mention is
made of the people possessing any considerable number in
the later portion of the sojourn, until an enormous booty is
captured from the Midianites;* and in the second place,
there is ample reason to believe that the wilderness was
anciently very much more fertile than it is at present, and
quite capable of furnishing pasturage to flocks and herds of
a large size. The recent explorations of Mr. Tristram and
Mr. Holland have placed this fact beyond a doubt, and have
shown that the Sinaitic peninsula, at any rate, was a "desert"
merely in comparison with the richly agricultural countries of
Egypt and Palestine.
Historical difficulties are scarcely alleged with respect to
the portion of the Biblical narrative which follows upon the
* Num. xxxi. 32, 33.
281

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

sojourn in the wilderness. The conquest of Canaan by the
immigrant Israelites is a fact too well attested to be denied ;
and the subsequent chequered history of the race, as delivered
to us in Judges and in the First Book of Samuel, is for the most
part too modest and unpretending an account to tempt the
assaults of sceptics. The exploits of Gideon and Samson are
viewed indeed with incredulity ; but merely on the ground
that they are intrinsically improbable. It is not until we
come to the time of David and Solomon that any further
difficulties, really of an historical character, present them
selves, and that an examination of the difficulties by the
light of historical documents becomes possible.
The sudden rise of the Israelites to power and greatness
in the reign of David, the grandeur, magnificence, and
extent of the kingdom of Solomon, and the entire collapse
of the empire at his death appear to some, not merely in
themselves strange and improbable, but incompatible with
what is known from history of the condition of the neigh
bouring countries. The little country of Palestine was
placed midway between the territories of two great and
powerful monarchies, of which it may be said, in a general
way, that for a thousand years before the rise of the Persians
to power, they contested the sovereignty of the East Over
shadowed by the grand forms of Egypt and Assyria, how
could Israel (it may be asked) emerge from obscurity, how
282

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
especially advance at a bound from a dependent to a dominant
position, asserting, and for above fifty years maintaining, her
place among the great ones of the earth ? We may answer,
that, in the first place such a revolution has numerous
analogies in the history of the East, where the rapid rise of
petty states to greatness, the sudden conversion of an op
pressed into a dominant power, is the rule rather than the
exception; where Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, where
the histories of Timur, Yenghis Khan, Nadir Shah, all illus
trate it. But further, in this particular case, we can see
not only a general analogy, but a fitness in the peculiar cir
cumstances of the time for the production of such a pheno
menon as that which Scripture places before us. The
monumental evidence of the two countries shows, that
exactly at the time when the conquests of David and the
Empire of Solomon are placed, both Egypt and Assyria
were exceptionally weak. Egypt, after the time of Ramesses
III. (ab. B.C. 1,200). ceased to be aggressive on the side of
Syria, and continued until the accession of Sheshonk or
Shishak, (ab. B.C. 990) to be a quiet and unwarlike power.
Assyria, which, about B.C. 1,100, extended her sway into the
valley of the Orontes, and threatened Palestine with sub
jection, passed under a cloud soon afterwards, and did not
again become a terror to Syria, till about B.C. 880. For a
Jewish Empire to arise it was necessary that Egypt and
283

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

Assyria should be simultaneously weak. Such simultaneous
weakness is found for the hundred or hundred and twenty
years between B.C. 1,100 and B.C. 990. And exactly into
this interval fall the rise of the Jews to power under Saul
and David, and the establishment of their empire under
Solomon. Doubts were thrown a few years since, by an able writer,
on the expeditions of Shishak against Rehoboam, Solomon's
son, and of Zerah, the Ethiopian, against Asa, Rehoboam's
grandson;* which, it was suggested, might be mere em
bellishments of a history, otherwise tame and uninteresting.
The careful analysis which the inscription of Shishak at
Karnac has undergone at the hands of Mr. Stuart Poole,*
and Dr. Brugsch,t not to mention other scholars, and the
evidence thus furnished of the reality and the importance of
his expedition into Palestine, render the continuance of
incredulity, as to the former of these attacks, impossible.
The analysis has thrown a flood of light on what was pre
viously obscure in the scriptural narrative. It has shown
that Shishak went up, not so much with any extensive
scheme of conquest, as to settle his protege, Jeroboam, in his
kingdom, where he was in great danger from the Levitical
* F. Newman's " Hebrew Monarchy," pp. 160, 161.
f " Dictionary of the Bible,'' ad voc. Shishak.
X " Geographische Inschriften," vol. ii., p. 32, et seq,
284

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
and Canaanite towns not being in his hands. These Shishak
reduced and made over to Jeroboam, thus giving him a firm
hold on the northern kingdom. Having done this, he was
content to receive the mere submission of Rehoboam, and
allowed him to retain the southern kingdom, perhaps not
wishing to make Jeroboam too strong. It was the constant
practice of the great monarchs of Egypt, Assyria, and Baby
lon, to maintain, on dependent thrones, a large number of
petty princes, who were checks upon each other, and could
easily be dealt with, if they shewed any inclination to rebellion.
The expedition of Zerah has not yet received any. distinct
confirmation from monuments. But the recent discovery
that there reigned about this time a king called Azerch-
Amen in Ethiopia, has removed the difficulties which attached
to the name and the description of the invader, and has
indicated to the dispassionate and candid student, that here,
too, the Jewish historian had probably contemporary records
to guide him, and related real facts of history, not figments
drawn from his imagination.
A real historical difficulty meets us soon after this, in the
sacred narrative, in the invasion of the kingdom of Samaria,
by Pul, who is called a " king of Assyria," and is said to
have put Menahem to a tribute of a thousand talents of
silver.* We possess the history of Assyria for this period,
* 2 Kings xv. 19.
2S5

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

apparently in a state of completeness; and this history
shows us no monarch at this time (or indeed at any other
time), bearing a name in the least resembling that of Pul.
The predecessor of Tiglath-pileser on the throne of Assyria,
was a certain Asshur-lush (or Asshur-likkis), whose pre
decessor was Asshur-dayan, who followed on Shalmaneser
III. It seems impossible that any one of these kings can
be Pul. Moreover, Assyria, in the time immediately pre
ceding the accession of Tiglath-pileser, instead of being a
great, aggressive power, capable of marching armies into
Palestine, was in a depressed state, troubled by frequent
insurrections among her own subjects, and quite incapable
of sending out distant military expeditions. Thus " Pul,
king of Assyria," constitutes to the modern historical
inquirer a real difficulty — a difficulty which it has been
proposed to meet in various ways.
The best explanation hitherto suggested is, I think, the
following. Pul, who was called by Berosus, the great Babylon
historian, "king of the Chaldeans," was probably a monarch
who reigned at Babylon, while Assur-lush was reigning at
Nineveh. In the troublous decade of years which preceded
Tiglath-pileser's accession, he became a powerful prince,
perhaps deprived Assyria of her western provinces, and
invaded Syria and Palestine from the quarter from which
Assyrian invasions had been wont to come. Presenting him-
286

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
self to the Israelites as the representative of the great Meso-
potamian power, with which they had been contending for
centuries, they termed him loosely "king of Assyria" when
he was in reality a king of Babylon, who had possessed
himself of a portion of the Assyrian dominions. In the
same way, they subsequently termed Nabopolassar, the
father of Nebuchadnezzar, and even Darius Hystaspis,
"kings of Assyria." *
A difficulty used to be felt with respect to " Sargon, king
of Assyria," who is said to have taken Ashdod by the hand
of one of his captains.f Sargon's name is not contained in
the historical books of Scripture, nor is he mentioned by
any of the classical writers, who speak of Shalmaneser,
Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. The occurrence of his name
in Isaiah was thought to indicate an irreconcilable difference
between the historical, data possessed by that prophet and
those of the writer of Kings. Even his existence was
doubted, and different writers proposed to regard his name
as a mere variant for those of each of the three princes just
mentioned. The Assyrian inscriptions have completely
cleared up all this obscurity. Sargon is found to have been
the successor of Shalmaneser ; the predecessor and father of
Sennacherib. He speaks of having captured Ashdod. All
that Isaiah says of him is confirmed ; and it appears to have
* 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; Ezra vi. 22. f Isaiah xx. I.
287

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

been quite accidental that the writer of Kings, who more
than once alludes to him,* does not mention his name.
The strictly historical character of the later portion of the
Old Testament narrative, especially of that delivered to us
in Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and in the con
temporary prophets, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Haggai, is
generally admitted, even by sceptics. The only writings
belonging to this period, whereto exception is taken are the
Books of Daniel and Esther, which many still regard as full
of historical inaccuracies, and as quite unworthy of credence.
I shall therefore conclude my observation on the alleged
historical difficulties of the Old Testament, and the light
thrown on them by modern discoveries, by a brief consider
ation of these two books and of the objections taken to
them. The chief historical inaccuracies alleged against Daniel
are the following : He is said to have invented two kings,
Belshazzar, and Darius the Mede, whose existence is not
merely unknown to history, but precluded by it ; to have
falsely ascribed a government by satraps to the Babylonians ;
to have incorrectly represented the condition of their "wise
men " ; to have made Susa a residence of the Persian mon-
archs when it was not even built ; to have wrongly made the
last king of Babylon a son of Nebuchadnezzar, and to have
* 2 Kings xvii. 6 ; xviii. 7, n.
2SS

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
misrepresented his fate ; to have misconceived the relative
position of the Medes and Persians at the time of the cap
ture of Babylon ; and to have related an utterly incredible
circumstance, viz. that Daniel was admitted among the
Babylonian "wise men," and even constituted their head.*
Now of these charges some are quite incapable of being
either substantiated or distinctly refuted from our insuffi
cient knowledge of the times to which they refer. Nothing
is really known of the classes into which the " wise men"
of Babylon were divided in Nebuchadnezzar's time, except
ing what we learn from Daniel himself. The authors sup
posed to contradict Daniel on this point, write of the state
of things in their own day, which happens to be eight cen
turies later ! And they do not write about the Babylonian
" wise men '' at all, but about the divisions of the Persian
magi, an entirely different class. We do not even know
enough about the " wise men " to say whether there was
anything strange and unusual in a foreigner being placed
at their head. We may suspect that it was so, but we have
really no sufficient evidence ou the subject. The little
evidence that we have is to the effect that the " wise men "
were a learned, not a priestly, body ; and that they admitted
* Von Lengerke, "Das Buch Daniel; Einleitung," § 13; p. lxiii. "De
Wette, Einleitung in d. Abte Testament," p. 225, a; Davison, "Intro
duction to the Old Testament," vol. iii. pp. 174-192.
289 I9

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

foreigners among them — more we do not know ; but there is
certainly not the slightest difficulty in supposing that the
despotic power of a Babylonian monarch would have been
amply sufficient to overcome any repugnance which any
class of his subjects might have felt towards one of his ap
pointments. Similarly, we have no sufficient knowledge of the Baby
lonian governmental system to say that it was not, at any
rate, to some extent, satrapial. A satrapial system is simply
one in which governors are appointed over the provinces,
instead of their being suffered to remain under the rule of
native kings. Our present Indian system is in part satrapial,
in part a government by means of kings. The Assyrian
government was one of the same kind ; and, on the whole, it
is most probable that so was the Babylonian. Gedaliah,
who succeeded to King Zedekiah in Judea, was a "governor,"*
that is, a satrap, appointed by Nebuchadnezzar; and Berosus
speaks of a " satrap of Egypt, Ccele-Syria, and Phoenicia," as
holding office under Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar's father.
Thus there is no "inaccuracy" in Daniel's speaking of
Nebuchadnezzar as summoning, among his other great
officers, his " satraps."t That the word, which is Persian,
* 2 Kings xxv. 23.
f Dan. iii. 2. N^STlETlN' translated in our version, "princes,"
but really the Hebrew equivalent of the Persian khshalrapa, "satraps."
290

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

was not used in Babylonia is probable ; but Daniel, writing
for Jews under Persian government, who were perfectly
familiar with the term, employed it for a corresponding
Babylonian expression.
The charge that Daniel misapprehended the relative
position of the Medes and Persians at the capture of
Babylon, regarding the supremacy of the Medes as still
continuing, is unjust, and rests on an omission to look care
fully to the original text. It is true that the Medes are
placed before the Persians in the words of the handwriting
upon the wall, and also in the formula, "according to the
law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." But
this honorary precedence assigned to the Medes is a mere
trace of their ancient supremacy — a trace much more strongly
marked in Greek writers, who actually call Cyrus and his
successors " Medes " — and is not an indication of its con
tinuance. Daniel twice marks very strongly the subordinate
position of the Medes, stating in one place* that Darius the
Mede " received the kingdom" — i.e.,wa.s given it by another;
and further declaring that he "was made king over the
nation of the Chaldseans, "t using in this case an expression
which distinctly implies that he derived his position from
some superior authority, which made him king. J
* Dan. v. 31. f Dan. ix. I.
X See Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel," pp. 124, 12$. 3rd edition.
291

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

The notion that Susa, or at any rate, its palace, was not
built at the time when Daniel says that he saw himself in
vision there, rests wholly upon a statement made by Pliny,
six hundred years later, that " Susa, the ancient regal city of
the Persians, was built by Darius Hystaspis."* Now this
statement, one of very weak authority, had we nothing
to set against it, is contrary to the declarations of various
other classical authorities, among them notably of Herodotus;
and is completely disproved by the Assyrian inscriptions,
which show that Susa was one of the most ancient of all the
Mesapotamian cities, and that its "palace" was famous for
many centuries before the time of Daniel. The truth which
underlies Pliny's statement, is the fact that Darius Hystaspis
was the first Persian monarch to build a palace at Susa
after. the Persian fashion ; but the ancient residence of the
Susian kings, the Memnonium, as the Greeks called it, had
existed for considerably more than a thousand years when
the son. of Hystaspes began his edifice.
Of the two remaining charges, which concern Darius the
Mede, and Belshazzar, one— and that the more important
of the two — has been completely rebutted by the evidence
of the Babylonian monuments. These monuments show
that Nabonnedus (or Labynetus), the king of Babylon
attacked by Cyrus, had a son named Bel-shar-ezer, or Bel-
* H. N. vi. 27.
292

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
shazzar, whom during some years he associated with him in
the government. This son may well have been on the
mother's side descended from Nebuchadnezzar, as Daniel
says that Belshazzar was;* he may have played the part in
the siege which Daniel states that he did, while his father
(as Berosus mentioned) defended the fortress of Borsippa ;
and he may have fallen in the general massacre during the
night in which Babylon was taken, while his father was
subsequently made prisoner, and kindly treated by Cyrus.
All the supposed contradictions of profane history by Daniel
in connection with this matter, are entirely removed by one
little document, exhumed in our own day from the soil of
Mesopotamia, by the exertions of an English gentleman.
With respect to Darius the Mede, nothing has been as
yet discovered. It is clear from Daniel that he was not a
king in his own right, but a viceroy set up by Cyrus. He
held his government probably for not more than two years.
Perhaps he is to be identified with Astyages, the Median
king, whom Cyrus deposed but treated kindly ; perhaps he
was merely a Median noble, whom Cyrus advanced, as he
did other Medes, to a position of trust and importance.
The monuments have not at present thrown any light on
this matter ; but he would be a bold person, who, after the
discovery with respect to Belshazzar, would undertake to
* Dan. v. II.
293

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

say that there may not, ere many years are past, be as much
light thrown upon the obscure history of this monarch, as
has been recently thrown on the history, formerly at least
as obscure, of his predecessor.
I cannot leave this matter and turn to another without
strongly advising those who have any doubts as to the
genuineness and authenticity of the Book of Daniel, which
have been of late so fiercely attacked, to study carefully the
recent work of Professor Pusey upon the subject. They
will find in it a complete answer to all the objections, histo
rical, and critical, which have been urged against this portion
of Scripture.
The historical difficulties alleged against the Book of
Esther, are chiefly the following. Assuming Ahasuerus to
be Xerxes, which is no doubt a highly probable identification,
it is said that Esther's position is impossible, since Xerxes
had but one wife, Amestris, who cannot be Esther. Nor
could any Persian king have married a Jewess, since there
was a law that the kings should take all their wives out of
seven noble Persian families. Such a feast as that described
in the first chapter, where all the princes of the provinces
were entertained for 180 days, could not have taken place,
since the governors could not without ruin to the empire
have been so long absent from their governments. It is
incredible that a Persian king should have given the com-
294

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
mand, said to have been given by Ahasuerus to Vashti.
The edicts ascribed to Ahasuerus are all incredible — especially
the second and third. No king would have consented to the
murder of 2,000,000 of his subjects ; nor would any king ever
have allowed at a later time those two millions to stand up
and slay as many as they pleased of their enemies. Finally,
the honours granted to Mordecai are said to be excessive,
and such as no monarch would have allowed to a subject.
With respect to the first of these objections, we may reply
that though Amestris cannot be Esther, she may well be
Vashti ; and that though the classical writers tell us of no
other wife of Xerxes, yet it is quite possible that he may
have had several. Polygamy was the rule with the Persian
kings. Amestris was no doubt on the whole the chief wife of
Xerxes, and if she at one time fell into disgrace, must have
been afterwards restored to favour ; but the accounts which
we have from the Greeks do not at all preclude the possi
bility of such a temporary disgrace, and of the elevation of
another wife to ' the first place for a time. As to its being
impossible that any Persian king could have married a
Jewess, it is sufficient to remark, that though the Persians
had laws, the Persian kings were above the law, and could
always disregard its restraints. When Cambyses having
conceived an affection for his full sister, Atossa. asked the
royal judges if they could find a law allowing a Persian to
295

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

marry such a near relative, their reply was, that they could
find no law permitting the marriage of brothers and sisters,
but that they found a law, that the king of the Persians might
do what he liked.*
The objection to Xerxes feasting all his princes for 180
days is an objection, not to anything contained in the Book
of Esther, but to something which the critic who makes it
has intmded into the book. The writer of the book tells
us that Xerxes " made a feast to all his princes and his ser
vants" (ch. i. 3), and subsequently relates that the feast lasted
" an hundred and fourscore days " (verse 4) ; but he no
where states that the princes were all present during the
whole of the time. Indeed, the reader possessed of com
mon sense sees clearly enough that the very duration of the
festivity was probably contrived, in order that all the princes
might in their turn partake of it. The critic says, " it is not
so stated in the text," which is true : but neither is that
stated which he has thought that he saw in it.
The command given to Vashti is undoubtedly strange
and abnormal. It was an outrage on Oriental custom ; and
as such the narrative sets it before us. The king does not
issue the order until he is "merry with wine"; and the
Queen refuses to obey, because she feels the order to be an
insult But can we say that no Oriental king could possibly
•Herod, iii. 31.
296

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
have issued such a command ? Is it not more reasonable
to allow, with a German critic of the sceptical school, that
the narrative is here " possible on account of the advancing
corruption in Xerxes' time, and through the folly of Xerxes
himself"?* Indeed is it not clear that we can set no limit
to the caprices of absolute power, or to the orders that may
not be issued by a proud and silly despot ?
Considerations of this kind go far also to remove the diffi
culty which has been felt as to the main facts of the narra
tive of Esther, the intended massacre of the Jews, and the
counter-edict allowing them to defend themselves and slay
their enemies. Such facts are altogether out of the ordinary
experience of Western nations ; and it is not surprising that
they have been met with incredulity on the part of those
whose knowledge of the past is limited to an acquaintance
with the course of European, and especially of modern
European, history. But can it be said that they are alto
gether out of nature ? that they have no counterpart in the
history of the East? that they transcend altogether what
authentic history relates of the doings of Oriental tyrants ?
Here again the German sceptic is more cautious than some
of those who have sought to popularise him, and allows that
from what we know of the base character and despotism of
Xerxes it may perhaps be believed that Haman obtained from
* De Wette, "Einleitung," p. 267.
297

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

him a decree for the extirpation of the Jews, and Mordecai
in return a corresponding counter-decree*'. All that he ob
jects to is, the fierceness with which the Jews set to work,
and the consequent massacre by them of above 75,000 per
sons. This fact he thinks "incredible." It maybe allowed
that had the persons slain been, as the objectors suppose,
"Persians," the circumstances related would have been
extremely hard of belief; but it is on the whole most pro
bable that there were few or no " Persians " among them.
A religious sympathy united the Persians with the Jews ;
and it is scarcely likely that any of them would have taken
part in the proposed destruction of the Jewish nation. The
adversaries of the Jews were to be found in the ranks of the
conquered nations, not of the conquering one. They were
Persian subjects, not Persians. There is no reason to think
that the loss even of 75,000 of such persons would have
been felt by Xerxes as a matter of much importance. We
must remember, htwever, that the number 75,000 is doubtful.
The Septuagint version has 15,000; and this number is
more in harmony than the other with the 800 slain in the
capital. Finally, to the objection that the honours granted to
Mordecai are excessive, it may be replied, in the first place,
that they, are analogous to those granted to Joseph,t and
* Ibid. loc. cit f Gen. xii. 42, 43.
298

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
Daniel,* and therefore such as were occasionally allowed
to subjects by Oriental sovereigns; and secondly, that if
there were anything abnormal in them, it would be suffi
ciently accounted for by the wild and extravagant temper of
Xerxes, which delighted in strange acts and exhibitions of
an unusual character. Haman, who knew his master's
weakness, might well speculate upon it, and suggest extraor
dinary honours, since he imagined that it was himself for
whom they were intended.
I have now noticed all the historical difficulties of any
force or weight, which have come before me in the course
of my studies on the history of the Old Testament. I have
dwelt particularly on those connected with the Pentateuch
and with the two Books of Daniel and Esther, because of
late years the attacks of sceptics have been especially directed
against those portions of the Sacred volume. I have left
myself but scant time for noticing historical difficulties con
nected with the narrative of the New Testament ; but this
is of the less consequence, since there are no more than one
or two such difficulties on which any stress has recently
been laid by our opponents.
It has been said that St. Luke, in connecting the name of
Cyrenius with the " taxing " which caused Joseph and Mary
to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, "undeniably contradicts
* Dan. v. 29.
299

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

history." * Cyrenius (or Quirinus) was appointed governor
of S)'ria about ten years after the death of Herod the Great,
and made a census of his province shortly afterwards. This
census St. Luke is accused of placing ten years too early.
The answer to this charge is, that the words of St. Luke
(chap. ii. 2) cannot possibly mean that Cyrenius was governor
at the time of the taxing ; had it been St. Luke's intention
to express this, the verse would have run thus : " This tax
ing was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria," and
not " this taxing was first made," etc. " First," that is, which
is manifestly the emphatic word of the sentence, would then
have been absent from it. Evidently, therefore, St. Luke's
words must bear some other meaning. They may signify,
"this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor," and so
before that better known taxing which he ordered. This is
an allowable translation of the passage. Or they may mean,
and I think they do mean, " this taxing was first completed
— first took full effect — when Cyrenius was governor ; " that
is to say, the taxing ordered by Augustus, and commenced
under Herod the Great, was interrupted (as it may easily
have been, since the Jews were very bitter against it), and
the business was first accomplished under Cyrenius. This is
a sense which the Greek verb translated in our version " was
made " sometimes has.
* Strauss, "Leben Jesu," § 32.
300

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
Again, it has been said that St. Luke erred in stating that
Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene (iii. i) in the fifteenth year
of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.* Lysanias, it is said, died
sixty years previously ; and St. Luke has ignorantly made
him alive, being deceived by the fact that Abilene continued
to be called " the Abilene of Lysanias," after its former
ruler, for sixty or seventy years subsequently. Now here
it is in the first place assumed, without any word of
proof, that the Lysanias who died B.C. 34 once ruled over
Abilene. Secondly, it is assumed, also without any word of
proof, that Abilene came to be known as " the Abilene of
Lysanias," from him. I venture to assert that there is abso
lutely no ground for believing that the old Lysanias was ever
ruler of Abilene ; and I venture to maintain that Abilene
came to be called " the Abilene of Lysanias " from a second
or later Lysanias, a son of the former one, who is the person
intended by St. Luke. Till recently, Christian apologists
were defied to show historically that there was ever more
than one Lysanias, and were accused of inventing a second
to escape a difficulty. But a few years since, a discovery
was made which must be regarded by all reasonable persons
as having set the whole matter at rest. This was an inscrip
tion found near Baalbek,! containing a dedication of a
* Strauss, "Lebenjesu," §44.
f See Krafft, "Topografie Jerusalems," Inscr. 29.
301

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES OF

memorial tablet or statue to " Zenodorus, son of the tetrarch
Lysanias, and to Lysanias, her children," by (apparently) the
widow of the first, and the mother of the second Lysanias.
Zenodorus was aheady known as having succeeded the first
Lysanias in his government. It is thus clear, that there were,
as previously suspected, two persons of the name, a father,
and a son, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting
St. Luke's statement that the latter was tetrarch of Abilene
in the fifteenth of Tiberius.
I know of no other cavil against the historical accuracy
of the New Testament, that I can regard as worthy of
being dignified with the name of difficulty. It has been
denied that any decree ever went out from Caesar Augustus,
that all the world should be taxed,* but as Savigny, the
best authority on Roman antiquities, holds the contrary to
be certain, this denial need not detain us. It has been
asserted that if the massacre of the Innocents had taken
place, it must Have been noticed by Josephus ;t but this
argument from omission is too weak to deserve more than
a passing notice. Nothing is more familiar to historical
students than the unaccountable omissions which occur in
the works of almost all historians. Scepticism has searched
in the most minute and unsparing way every detail of the
Gospel and the Acts, and has endeavoured earnestly to find
* Strauss, L. J. § 32. f Ibid. § 34.
302

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
"differences" and "divergences" between these facts and
those of profane history ; but again and again has it been
compelled to own that the divergences are slight, and the
differences such as may be reconciled by natural and
probable suppositions. The entire result of the searching
criticism, whereto the historical character of the New
Testament has been exposed, has been to show that not only
the general narrative, but all its minutiee, are trustworthy.
No evangelist has been convicted of error in respect of any
historical statements. Where a shallow learning and a
defective knowledge of the records of the past have led men
to think that they had found a slip or a mistake, and a
shout of triumph has been raised, profounder research has
always demonstrated the veracity and accuracy of the
sacred writer, and has exposed the ignorance of his assailant.
The historical character of the New Testament is, I think
I may say, in the eyes of all sober historical critics
established.

3°3

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
BY THE
REV. CHARLES ROW, M.A.,
OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF
CHRISTIANITY.

It is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance of the
issues to which it will be my duty to address myself in this
lecture. They involve the central position of Christianity ;
viz., the all-important question whether Jesus Christ was an
historical person, or a creation of the imagination. Is the
Church which is erected on Him founded on an historic
fact, which had an objective existence ; or is the Jesus of the
Evangelists a subjective creation which existed only in the
minds of its originators ?
Many of the attacks which have been made on Revelation
are directed against its outworks merely ; this is one directed
against the very key of the Christian position. If it can be
carried by our opponents, the whole line of our defences
becomes untenable. Let us not deceive ourselves. If the
Gospels are not in their main outlines historically true,
Christianity is no more divine than Shakespeare. It may be
307

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
the highest development of man ; but it can have no pre
tence to be esteemed a revelation from God.
The objections of this school have done more to under
mine the belief of the educated classes in Christianity as a
divine revelation than any one single cause. They have
largely created the so-called rationalism of the Continent
They are widely diffused in America. In our own country,
a numerous class of writers who obtain ready access to our
periodical literature are not only imbued with similar views,
but write with the quiet assumption that the historical found
ation of Christianity cannot be defended.
As my subject is a wide one, I must address myself to it
without any preliminary observations. The question before
us is simply this, Are the Gospels credible histories, in the
sense that other writings of the same description are ? or
are the larger portion of their contents fictitious ?
It should be observed that although these schools sup-
«
port their views by an immense critical apparatus, the
real oicav$a\ov of the Gospels is the supernatural element
which they contain. Apart from this, their historical cha
racter would never have been questioned. The theory that
miracles are impossible underlies the entire mass of these
objections. But the question of the miraculous has been
already handled by another lecturer. I shall therefore
only observe on it that it forms no portion of a strictly
308

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
historical inquiry. It appertains to the abstract regions of
thought. History has to deal with evidence, not with ab
stract dogmas or philosophical questions. To begin an
historical inquiry with the assumption that miracles are
impossible, and that any event which involves the super
natural must be a fiction, is quietly to assume the point at
issue. But as the Christian Church is an institution which
actually exists, and as its origin can be traced up to the times
of Jesus Christ, and as it is erected on the Gospels as its
foundation, these schools are fully aware that the question
cannot be settled by the quiet assumption that miracles are
impossible. The case stands thus. The Christian Church
exists. It has had its origin in the events of past history.
The Church itself asserts now, and has asserted in all ages,
that it is founded on the historical truth of the divine person
of Christ our Lord, as He is depicted in the Gospels.. If the
Gospels are true, they give a rational account of its origin,
But those with whom I am reasoning deny that they are a
statement of historic facts, and consequently that they are
not the true account of it But as the Church is an
historic fact, they are quite aware that any mere general
assumption that miracles are impossible is not sufficient.
They find themselves, therefore, compelled to do two things,
— first, to invent a critical apparatus to destroy the credibility
3°9

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
of the Gospels ; and, secondly, to propound a theory which
shall account for the origin of the Church on principles
purely human. The solution propounded is the mythical
and Tubingen theories.
This critical apparatus keeps two aims in view, — first, to
prove the existence of statements in the Gospels at variance
with those of contemporaneous history ; secondly, to show
that these narratives abound with a multitude of contra
dictions. To effect this latter purpose, every variation of
statement is made to assume the character of a contradiction.
The extent to which this has been carried is scarcely credible.
This process having as they hope destroyed the substance
of the Gospels, the next procedure is to invent a theory out
of the imagination as the account of the origin of Christi
anity, and to propound it as true history.
At first sight it would appear to have been the easiest
course to assert that they are simple forgeries, in the same,
sense in which the Donation of Constantine or the False
Decretals are forgeries. But this is what no unbeliever of
the present day who regards his literary reputation ventures
to propound as the alternative to their historical credibility,
Why is the simple course abandoned, and an infinitely com
plicated theory substituted in its place? The answer is
that their entire phenomena negative the supposition that
they could have originated in directly conscious fraud.
310

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
A more elaborate theory, therefore, has to be substituted
for the simple one. It must be observed that I can only
speak of it in its general aspect, for its modifications
are extremely numerous, and hardly any two writers can
be found who take precisely the same view. But the
following may be stated as the principles which underlie
these systems of modern unbelief, throwing aside their minor
details. First. That miracles being impossible, no supernatural
element whatever enters into the character of the historical
Jesus. Second. That He was probably a very great man, though,
whenever the exigencies of the system require it, it is
necessary to assume that He was deeply implicated in the
prejudices and superstitions of the age in which He lived.
Third. That He probably believed Himself to be the
Messiah expected by His countrymen, though as to the
precise nature of His Messianic claims my opponents are
not agreed.
Fourth. That He succeeded in inspiring a crowd of fol
lowers with an enthusiastic attachment to Him.
Fifth. That they were honest people after their fashion ;
but were impelled by an enthusiasm only equalled by their
credulity. Sixth. That they invented a multitude of fabulous
3"

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
stories, ascribed them to Jesus, and in time mistook them
for facts.
Seventh. That out of these and kindred elements, aided
by a succession of developments, the human Jesus was
gradually metamorphosed, in the course of the seventy years
which followed the crucifixion, into the Christ of the
Synoptic Gospels, and in a hundred and thirty into that
of the Gospel of St. John.
Now, as these schools deny the existence of the super
natural, this whole development must have been due to
causes which are purely human ; in one word, to the laws
which regulate the developments of the moral and spiritual
worlds. As those of the natural world have been effected
through the agency of natural laws, so the creation of the
Jesus of the Evangelists is due to laws which regulate with
equal potency the action of the mind. Both sets of laws
are equally constant and invariable.
To examine the critical apparatus which has been applied
to the Gospels for the purpose of proving their unhistorical
character, could only be accomplished in a work of con
siderable length. I shall therefore only make two observa
tions on the principles adopted.
First. These schools assault the Gospels by charging
them with containing a multitude of inaccuracies, discre
pancies, and contradictions. While they do this they care-
312

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
fully keep in the background the minute accuracies, agree
ments with contemporaneous history, and plain indications
of autoptic testimony with which they abound. Such a
line of conduct is the same thing as to place before the
Court which is to try the cause everything which an acute
counsel can adduce in opposition, and to suppress the
whole evidence for the defence.
Secondly. A great majority of these objections are
founded on a view of the Gospels which their writers ex
pressly repudiate. It is taken for granted that the Gospels
are histories in the strictest sense of that word. By a strict
history I mean a narrative in which the events are con
nected together in accordance with the sequences of time
and place. This is the arrangement which is generally
adopted in modern histories and biographies. But the
Gospels expressly assert that they belong to a different class
of writings. They are not histories, but memoirs. In a
memoir, the arrangement of events in the strict sequence
of time and place is not the predominant idea. The
Gospels are not only memoirs, but memoirs of a peculiar
character. They are details of the actions and teachings
of Jesus Christ written for the express purpose of teaching
the Christian religion. In works of this kind the arrangement
and grouping of events are formed on very different principles
from those adopted in the composition of pure histories.
313

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
As this is a most important point, I must adduce proof
of it which is beyond all contradiction. St John's Gospel
asserts, in as many words, that it was the purpose of
its author to write such a memoir, and not a strict history.
At chap, xx., ver. 30, 31, he says, "And many other signs
truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are
not written in this book : but these are written, that ye may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye may have life through His name." Again, in
the last verse of the Gospel it is expressly stated that Jesus
did many things which the writer has not recorded.
The author therefore clearly asserts that he has made a
selection of certain events in the life of Jesus Christ, from a
very much larger number, with which he was acquainted,
and that the principle which guided him, both in the selec
tion and arrangement, was a religious one. "These are
written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ," etc.
It is impossible more distinctly to assert that the Gospel is
a religious memoir.
No less clear is the statement of St. Luke. He says
" that he wrote in order to the most excellent Theophilus,
that he might know the certainty of the things in which he
had been instructed." The original shows that the in
struction was given with a definite religious purpose. The
Gospel is "a declaration of those things most sureh-
3H

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
believed among Cliristians." In one word, the work is a
memoir, and not a history.
If it be replied that Luke says that he wrote " in order,"
(ev ra^Ei), I answer that there are other orderly arrange
ments besides those of time and place ; and that if a work
is a religious memoir, the arrangement would be regulated,
though not exclusively, by the reference of the facts to the
religious end in view.
The assertions of the other two Gospels are not so ex
press, but' viewed in connection with their contents they
prove that they belong to the same class of writings. Mark
writes, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God." Here a religious purpose is asserted to
be the guiding principle of the work. Matthew, in accord
ance with Hebrew phraseology, entitles his work "The
book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David,
the son of Abraham." The whole contents of the Gospel
answer to this description. It was written to prove that
Jesus was the Messiah of prophecy according to the con
ceptions of Jewish Christianity.
Such being the distinct assertions of the writers of the
Gospels as .to the character of their works, it is absurd to
criticize them as one might be justly entitled to do if four
Boswells had set forth four lives of Dr. Johnson, the arrange
ment of which was professedly regulated by the historica1
3 iS

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
sequence. The writer of a religious memoir is entitled to
adopt a very different order of events in his narrative from
that which ought to be adopted by the writer of a history.
An illustration will make this matter plain. If I were to
compose a biography of Wesley, I should be bound to nar
rate the events in the order of time, with a distinct specifi
cation of the order of place ; but if I were to compose a
memoir for the purpose of teaching the doctrines of Wesley
anism, I should follow a very different arrangement. Still
more remarkable would be the variation in the arrangement
if I wrote his memoir for the purpose of proving that Wesley
never designed that the Church which he founded should
dissent from the Church of England.-
Such being the character of the Gospels, objections which
would be serious as against regular histories are harmless
against compositions of this description. A large portion
of their alleged discrepancies arise from the different ar
rangement of the events narrated in them, owing to the
predominance in them of the religious idea
Now observe that in compositions of this description it
frequently happens that the connecting links which would
make events perfectly harmonize together, are wanting, simply
because the purpose of the writer has not led him to record
them. I adduce a single instance where the connecting
link has been accidentally preserved, and which at once
3i6

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
converts a narrative against which most serious objections
might have been alleged, into one of the strongest proofs of
the historical truthfulness of the Evangelists.
We all remember the account of the murder of John the
Baptist. It is told with all those minute and delicate
touches which are the peculiar indication of autoptic
testimony. It places before our eyes the great feast — the
young lady dancing her lascivious dance — the words of
Herod's vow — the girl's going out with excitement to her
mother — the demand of the Baptist's head in a large dish —
the sorrow and reluctant consent of Herod — the mission of
the executioner — the presentation of the head to the girl,
and by her to her mother. Everything betokens the pre
sence of an eye-witness.
The narrative is open to this obvious objection : How
could the disciples of Christ, mean and low as they were,
procure so accurate a description of an event which hap
pened in the palace at the great feast ? There were neither
newspapers nor reporters in those days. But this is only
the beginning of the difficulty. The authors of the Gospels
profess to give us the ipsissima verba which were uttered by
Herod, in the retirement of his palace, when the reports
brought him of the fame of Jesus rendered him conscience-
stricken. The words are most remarkable, and leave no
alternative between their being the words of Herod or a
3i7

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
forgery. "It is John," says he, "whom I beheaded: he
is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show
forth themselves in him." Our version spoils the force of
the last words — ai Svvd/ieiQ kvtpyovcriv Iv ai>T(£ — which,
rendered literally, are, " The powers energize in him."
This is certainly a most singular expression, and one open
to a strong suspicion of forgery ; for how could the followers
of Jesus have got hold of the very words of an utterance
of Herod spoken in the retirement of the palace ?
But besides all this, the words ai §uva/mc Ivtpyovaiv
Iv avrty plainly imply that it was the general idea
that a large number of miracles had been wrought by
our Lord. My opponents suppose that the historic Jesus
only attempted to work miracles in a very few ques
tionable cases, and that the multitude of miracles which
have been subsequently ascribed to Him are the inventions
of His deluded followers. Such are the difficulties. Now
for their solution.
It has been observed that the author of the Acts of the
Apostles tells us that among the teachers of the Church at
Antioch during Paul's sojourn there, was Manaen, who was
a foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch. This is told us in
a manner which is purely incidental, and supplies us with a
possible source from whence the information might have
been derived. Still it by no means follows that a man who
3i8

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
had the same wet-nurse as Herod was an inmate of his
palace, or witnessed the great feast.
But a passage of the most incidental character in St. Luke's
Gospel supplies us with the source of information which we
want. In narrating our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem,
Luke tells us that He was accompanied by the twelve
apostles, and several women who ministered to Him. Of
these he designates three byname. One of these is described
as Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward.
Here then we have the very person we are in want
of. Chuza's office of tTrirpoTrog, or steward, imposed on
him the duty of superintending the great feast. He there
fore witnessed the whole procedure, and his wife was in
constant communication with the disciples. His office
must have brought him into daily communication with his
master. What more likely than when he waited on Herod
for his orders, he would ask him the news ; and that he
should report to him the fame of the great teacher with
whom his wife was in attendance ? He was therefore in the
exact situation to have heard Herod's conscience-stricken
exclamation. The source of information is before us. The
incidental mention of Joanna and her husband affords to
this narrative an attestation such as few events in past his
tory possess. If this incident had been lost, the difficulty
would have been insuperable. The manner in which little cir-
319

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
cumstances dovetail into one another in the Gospels is only
consistent with their historical character. It would be im
possible if they were bundles of myths or legends.
I adduce one instance of the manner in which the Gos
pels fulfil the conditions of history, even where the absence
of the connecting link has occasioned serious difficulty.
You all know that the want of any reference in the Synop
tics to the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus is the
stronghold of those who deny its historical credibility. In
the absence of any direct information, we are driven for the
solution of the difficulty to the regions of conjecture.
Let us suppose, then, that the story is a myth. If so, it
is obvious that it is a very grand and perfect one. The
inventor must have been a man of the highest genius in
his way. If a person wished to invent a description of
a resurrection, he would find it impossible, in the same
number of words, to surpass its perfection. If the author
of St. Johift Gospel has failed to depict another
resurrection in an equally graphic manner, it was not for
want of sufficient genius. Yet the Gospel asserts the
fact of another resurrection — that of Jesus Christ ; but it
utters not one word descriptive of it. All that it says is
that Mary Magdalene came in the morning, and found the
tomb empty.
I put it to your common sense to determine, on the sup-
320

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
position that this Gospel was written by a partisan for the
purpose of throwing a halo of glory around the person of
his Master, whether the author of the resurrection of Lazarus
would not have forged a still more magnificent description
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His failure to do so is
clearly not owing to lack of ability.
But how stands the case on the supposition that the
Gospel is historical? Everything is exactly as it should
be. The Evangelist has given his pictorial description of
the resurrection of Lazarus, because he witnessed it. He
has not done so with respect to the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, because no human eye beheld it. The narrative
therefore fulfils the conditions of history, and breaks down
under the tests which belong to fiction.
The limits of a single lecture necessarily preclude me from
entering on any minor consideration.* I therefore proceed
at once to address myself to the demolition of the central
position of my opponents, that while the Gospels contain a
few grains of historic truth, buried beneath a multitude of
fables, the greater portion of their contents is a spontaneous
growth which sprung up in the bosom of the Christian
society in the last seventy years of the first century ; and that
by means of a number of mythical and legendary inventions,
* Those who wish to see the cumulative force of the entire argument
will find it in " the Jesus of the Evangelists." It is impossible to com
press its reasonings. 321 2l

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
and a succession of developments, a good and holy Jew,
named Jesus, was metamorphosed into the divine Christ of
the Evangelists. In reasoning on this point, I shall assume
nothing but what is conceded by the Schools in question.
What are the concessions which I ask as the foundations
of my reasoning ? Very simple ones indeed, and such that
no man can deny me. First, that the Gospels exist ;
secondly, that the three first Gospels were in existence
about a.d. ioo, and the fourth about 160; thirdly, that in
addition to the facts or fictions which make up our Gos
pels, they contain the delineation of a great character — Jesus
Christ On the existence of this character my argument is
founded. I now concentrate your attention on it, which
I shall call for the future the portraiture of Jesus Christ
our Lord. I need not prove that it exists in the Gos
pels, for the most ordinary reader perceives that it is
there. The question is, How did it get there ? It is very
tasy to say that the Gospels consist of a mass of fictions.
But this is no account of the origin of the portraiture. St.
Paul's Cathedral undoubtedly consists of an immense mul
titude of stones. But to say that a multitude of quarrymen
dug them, and that a multitude of masons arranged them
according to their spontaneous impulses, is no account of
the origin of that magnificent structure.
322

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
Let us carefully observe what this great portraiture of
Jesus Christ, as it is exhibited in the Gospels, consists of.
It is the delineation of a great moral and spiritual character
dramatized over a wide sphere of action. This portraiture
is not the result of the artificial delineation of a character
such as we see very commonly presented to us by historians,
and of which we see very numerous examples in Lord
Macaulay's History of England. Such characters are the
artificial creations of the historian, and exhibit his view of
what his heroes actually were. But neither of the authors
of the Gospels have once attempted thus to delineate the
character of his Master. But the portraiture of Jesus Christ
is delineated in the Gospels most clearly and most distinctly.
Of what materials then does it consist ? Only one answer
can be returned. It is the combined result of all the facts,
or, as my opponents say, fictions, which compose the Gospels.
Now as the existence of this portraiture is not a theory,
but a fact, it is plain that it must be accounted for. The
assumption that the Gospels are historically true, and that
their authors have truly delineated the actions and sayings
of one who had an historical existence, is a rational account
of its origin. But as these Schools deny their historical
character, they are bound to tell us how the portraiture got
there. The only answers which they propound are the
mythic and Tubingen theories. 323 '- -

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
According to these theories, a good and holy Jew, who had
attracted a crowd of enthusiastic and credulous followers, was
gradually metamorphosed by them into, the divine Christ
of the Evangelists. The inventors of the character were
impelled by purely spontaneous instincts. They had no in
tention of conscious deception. They mistook their Master
for the Messiah. In the depths of their enthusiastic credulity,
they invented multitudes of fictions, and in time mistook
them for realities, and innocently ascribed them to Jesus.-
Development succeeded development. The fruitful mind of
the infant Church created myth after myth. Party spirit
raged. Compromise followed compromise. Spontaneous
impulse by the end of the century had created the materials
of our present Gospels. At last three unknown men ap
peared wlio arranged these materials into their present form,
and produced the Synoptics. Sixty years later, another great
unknown arose, whose character must have been a compound
of mysticism, enthusiasm, and imposture, and produced the
fourth Gospel, which he successfully palmed off on the Church
as the work of the Apostle John, some seventy or eighty
years after he was silent in the grave. Such is the alternative
which modern unbelief presents as a substitute for the his
torical reality of the portraiture of Jesus Christ as we behold
it in the Gospels.
One cannot help pausing to observe the kind of analogy
324

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
which exists between these theories and thosS" of a certain
class of philosophers who attempt to prove that the moral
and religious being whom we designate man has been slowly
developed out of the lower forms of life by causes purely
physical. Like as in the one case each development be
came an improvement on its predecessor, so in the other
the lower fabulous creations must have died out, and the
nobler ones prevailed, until at last there emerged from them
Christianity and the glorious Christ of the Gospels. Physical
philosophers, however, work at a great advantage in deve
loping an ape into a moral being, compared with the mytho-
logists who developed a Jew of the year 30 into a Christ.
The one can draw cheques to any extent on the bank of
eternity. If a million of years is not sufficient, a million of
millions may be easily had. But in the other case my
opponents are limited by the stern conditions of history ;
and the respective periods of seventy and one hundred and
thirty years are all that they venture even to demand.
Now, observe ; the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evan
gelists consists of a multitude of parts which harmoniously
blend into a complicated whole. It is composed, in fact,
of as many distinct portions as there .are incidents re
corded in the Gospels, which all concur in imparting to it a
common effect. Those with whom I am contending admit
that the character is a very great one. Many of them allow
335

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
that it is greater and more perfect than any which has ever
existed as a fact or been conceived as a fiction. Yet the
character, taken as a whole, presents us with an essential
unity. This is obviously the case in the three first Gospels,
and will hardly be disputed except on a very few subordi
nate points. But it is equally remarkable that of the various
traits which compose the character, and which are very
numerous, each presents us with a similar unity, although
they are dramatized over a very wide sphere of action. To
this fact I earnestly invite your attention. In the portraiture
of Jesus at least twenty distinct aspects of moral character
are blended together, and a number of subordinate ones not
easy to be counted ; and each of these constitutes a sepa
rate unity, which harmoniously blends with the others, and
together compose the great unity of the portraiture. Nume
rous as they are, and dramatized over a wide sphere of
action, they are yet depicted with a faultless propriety,
even in the most minute details. Nor does it to any
serious extent differ with the fourth Gospel. This is
certainly the case as far as the actions attributed to Jesus
are concerned, though it is not so obvious in the case of
the discourses. Still even in these an underlying unity of
conception can be found.* The four Gospels contain, in
* See Appendix to " St. John's Testimony to Christ," in Professor
Leathes' Boyle Lectures. No one who has not read this can form an
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
fact, four portraitures of one and the same Christ, only dif
fering from each other in the point of view from which they
are taken.
Now the obvious course would have been to have assumed
that the conception of the original character was the creation
of some great poet, and that the fourfold modification of it
which our present Gospels exhibit has been the work of
four subsequent poets. But this supposition the facts and
phenomena of the case consign to the region of hopeless
impossibilities. It is therefore necessary to assume that the
character itself, and the Christianity of the New Testament,
have been gradually elaborated bit by bit, not by a succession
of great poets, but of credulous, enthusiastic mythologists ;
and that the Synoptic Gospels originated in piecing together
a multitude of tales which in the latter end of the first cen
tury were floating on the surface of the Christian Church.
It is impossible to deny that the Jesus of the Evangelists
is an immeasurably finer conception than either the Prome
theus of ^Eschylus, which exhibits the divine in suffering,
or the Macbeth or Hamlet of Shakspeare. Each of these
characters is distinguished by a unity of conception which
proves that as characters they are the creation of a single
mind. But supposing we were to be told that these, and the
idea of the extent of similarity of thought and expression to the fourth
Gospel which underlies the Synoptics. 327

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
dramas which contain them, were not the creations of single
poets, nor even of a succession of poets, hut had been
slowly elaborated, step by step, during a considerable in
terval of time by a number of credulous enthusiasts. My
opponents would be the first to receive such a suggestion
with shouts of derision.
It is plain that if the portraiture of our Lord be an ideal
creation, those who framed it must have been gifted with a
high order of genius.
Let me illustrate the position by the art of painting.
High genius in painting is analogous to high genius in
poetry. Let us suppose that we are contemplating a great
ideal picture, — e.g., the Marriage Feast in Cana of Galilee,
at the Louvre, — and that we are told that it is not the work
of a single artist, nor even of four, but of a succession who
gradually developed it.
Nor, to make the case a parallel one, is this all which we
should be aslftd to believe. As I have already observed,
the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists is made up
of a multitude of parts, each of which has a separate unity,
from the union of which the unity of the whole results.
These are said to have been elaborated out of a number of
myths and developments which have been the creations of
many minds. In a similar manner the picture of the Mar
riage Feast at Cana consists of a number of separate figures
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
which harmoniously blend into a whole, and to which the
magnificent colouring has been adapted. Now suppose
that we were told that each of these figures had been gradu
ally developed into its present form by a set of improve
ments effected unconsciously by a succession of painters ;
and that all that the artist who formed the picture did was
skilfully to combine these separate figures, and place them
in juxtaposition. Surely one would not be uncharitable in
assuming that the author of such a suggestion had escaped
from a lunatic asylum.
Similar is the theory of these Schools as to the origin of
the Gospels, and of the great character contained in them.
Such a theory of their origin demands our acquiescence in a
greater miracle than all the miracles of the New Testament
united together.
Viewed in its great outlines, this theory is self-condemned
by its inherent absurdity. But when we apply a sound logic
to its details, it vanishes like one of the palaces of the Ara
bian Nights. Professing to be based on rational principles, it
violates all the laws of reason. For historic truth it substi
tutes wild dreams of the imagination.
You will please to keep steadily in mind that the means
by which my opponents undertake to metamorphose a
Jew of the year 30 into a divine Christ, stated generally,
are a succession of mythical and legendary creations and
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
developments, contests and compromises, between hostile
sects evolved in conformity with the laws of the intellectual
and moral world. Let us now assume the truth of their
position, and see how it will work.
If the Jesus of the Evangelists be a development, it is
evident that it must have had a starting-point. This could
have been none other than the atmosphere of thought and
feeling which existed in Judsea during the first thirty years of
the first century.*
But none more firmly profess their belief in the reign
of law in the world of mind and matter than those
whose theories I am controverting. In consequence of this
belief they pronounce all supernatural interventions in
human affairs impossible. I thankfully concede to them
the fact that all developments affecting the mind of man
which are of purely human origin must be brought about in
conformity with law. Let it be clearly understood, there
fore, that my reasoning is based on this assumption.
This point being clear, the question immediately presents
itself, what is the nature of the laws which regulate the mental
developments of man, especially in his character of a moral
and religious being ? Are they rapid, or do they require
* To give precision to the argument, it is necessary to determine its
definite character. But it is impossible to do so within the limits of a
single lecture. 33°

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
long intervals of time for their elaboration? Are great
changes in our moral or religious ideas of aquick or a slow
growth ? The answer to these questions is of vital import
ance to the argument, because on the showing of my op
ponents they have only seventy years at their command
during which they can develop the Christ of the Synoptics,
and the Christianity of nearly all the Epistles, from the
religious and moral ideas of the Judaism of the year 30.
Fortunately for us, the universal testimony of history
answers these questions with no ambiguous voice. The de
velopments of man, whether moral, social, or religious, are
slow. The whole course of civilization, including within
that term everything which relates to the growth of the
mind of man, and which tends to his refinement and higher
culture, is a very gradual one ; and its successive stages re
quire long intervals of time for their development. When
ever unbelievers attempt to account for the growth of human
civilization from a savage state, or to develop a man out of
an ape, in the one case they demand tens of thousands and
in the other millions of years for its accomplishment. As
this point is of great importance to the argument, I must
adduce distinctive proof of it.
No truth is more certain than that it is impossible for men,
. either individually or collectively, to raise themselves except
by very gradual stages above that moral and spiritual atmo-
33i

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
sphere in which they were born. We are united by the
closest ties of habit and education with the past. We breathe
from the dawn of our consciousness the very atmosphere of
its thought and feeling. Every succeeding state of society
is most closely bound to that which preceded it. Every
great change in thought or feeling, has been produced by a
succession of changes leaving no deep gulf between. Indi
vidual progress, unless external influences are brought to
bear on the mind, follows the same law of gradual growth.
Even genius, and what are called the creative powers of
the mind, are fettered by these conditions. All greatness
is relative to and bears the impress of the age which pro
duced it. Great men differ from others only in being able
to advance a few stages beyond ordinary humanity. But
the greatest genius is unable to elevate itself into a very high
region of thought or feeling at a single bound, or to sever
the links which unite it with the past. The utmost effect
which the greatest of men have been able to produce on
those by whom they have been surrounded is to cause their
actual developments to advance at a somewhat accelerated
ratio. To the truth of these general principles all history
testifies. When we measure each stage of human growth,
we find that it has occupied long intervals of time. So
gradual is the process, that considerable changes can only
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.

be discovered after the lapse of lengthened periods. The
whole history of philosophy, art, morality, and religion
testifies to this. All philosophic schools of thought have
been of gradual growth. The daub of a savage has never
suddenly developed itself into the creations of a Michael
Angelo or a Rubens, nor have his rough imitations of
the human form passed but by a succession of gradual
stages into the perfection of a Phidias. Poetry, the most
creative of arts, is subject to similar conditions. The ideas
with which the poet works are those of the age in which he
lives. He paints the phenomena and reflects the line of
thought, the morality, the religion, the intellectual and social
conditions of the times which gave him birth. What he
accomplishes is to exhibit them under new combinations.
A bushman never at a single bound became a Homer or a
Shakspeare. The history of philosophy bears witness that the universal
law of our nature is a gradual growth. Each of its develop
ments was closely allied to that which preceded it, and
directly grew out of it. Each School has occupied a con
siderable time in its development, has grown out of that
which preceded it, and prepared the way for its successor.
The interval which separates the respective stages is small.
Each great race of mankind has also created a philosophy
stamped with its own impress, and du'Cptly related to its
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
peculiar character. A native of Australia has never suddenly
elevated himself into a Socrates.
The same law is no less applicable to religions. We
know no instance of the direct creation of one. It is true
that the origin of many is buried in the obscurity of the
past Yet as soon as they emerge into the light of history,
it is clear that they are subject to a law of gradual growth ;
and after they have attained their full development, to a no
less remarkable law of gradual decay. All the religions on
earth, with the exception of Christianity, bear witness to
this rule. What have been called new religions, have been
evolved out of previously existing materials, modified and
adapted to the growth and decay of civilization. No
Fetish worshipper, however lofty his genius, could have
evolved the systems of Brahmanism or Buddhism by a
single bound of his imagination.
If the law of the growth of religions is a very gradual one,
that of our moral ideas is far more so. Improvements in
the great moral principles which regulate the life of man
are most painfully slow. All the great races of mankind
have presented the same general outlines of character, with
only slight improvements, from age to age. I quote only
two examples, the modern French and Germans. How
strikingly like are certain portions of the character of the
former, to the picture of the Gauls given in the pages of
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
Caesar ; or to the descriptions of the same race inhabiting a
distant region which the great apostle has drawn in the
Epistle to the Galatians. We may still read the general
outline of the character of the German race in the pages of
Tacitus. Developments there have been, and the slowness
is sadly disappointing to the philanthropist. To be able
even to recognize progress, we must survey long intervals
of time. The optimist has indeed need of patience ; and
the most enthusiastic may be certain that long ages before
any considerable advance is made, according to the mere
laws of natural development, he will be slumbering in the
grave. But it must not be forgotten that the developments which
our opponents postulate are always in the way of progres
sive improvements. Stern historical fact compels us to
assert that developments are frequently retrogressive.
No less gradual is the moral progress of the individual.
It is also a painful but undeniable fact that retrogressive
ones are much more rapid than progressive ones. The
moral ideas in the midst of which we are educated cling
to us with the firmest grasp. The best men exhibit only a
slight advance above the general morality of their age.
I. now draw your attention to the fact that the inventive
powers of the composer of fiction are limited by the same
laws. He too, in the strict sense of that term, is unable
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
to create the new. The materials with which he can work
are the idealization of the times in which he lives.
Whether he be poet or novel writer, he can neither invent
a new religion or a new morality. Mythical inventions of
every kind embody the state of thought, feeling, and general
idealization of the times which produced them. The entire
mass of existing mythology testifies to this fact.
Such, then, are the instruments and materials with which
my opponents have to work in the elaboration of Christianity
out of Judaism, and in metamorphosing a human Jesus into
a divine Christ. Let us examine the possibility of the
attempt. We must place ourselves in the position of the followers
of Jesus on the evening of the crucifixion. His individual
influence had gathered around Him a number of enthusi
astic and credulous followers who mistook Him for the
Messiah of popular expectation. The crucifixion certainly
dashed their hopes. But according to the theory of my
opponents, in the height of their enthusiasm they deter
mined to believe in Him as the Messiah still. To carry
out this resolution, it is obvious that new ground had- to be
taken. A development of some kind was absolutely necessary.
No amount of credulity could mistake a dead body moulder
ing in the grave for the Messiah of Jewish expectation.
It was absolutely necessary, therefore, if His Messiahship
336

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
could become a possibility, that the crucified Jesus should
be rescued from the tomb. If a resurrection could not be
effected in reality, it was indispensable that one should be
in imagination. Until His followers could be brought in
considerable numbers to believe that this had happened, no
developments in the direction of the Gospels were possible.
The most obvious expedient to have accomplished this
would have been for some of the disciples to have done
that which, according to one of the Evangelists, the Jews ac
cused them of, viz., to have stolen the body, and report that
Jesus was risen from the dead. But those against whom I
am reasoning do not venture to accuse them of conscious
fraud. This assumption all educated unbelievers have long
abandoned as hopelessly untenable. Such a basis will cer
tainly not bear the weight of the Christianity of the New
Testament. In place of this, they assume that the credulity,
idealism, and enthusiasm of the followers of Jesus was
bottomless. With this machinery they think that He can
be rescued from the grave.
Two theories have been propounded for this purpose.
One is that some enthusiastic woman — Mary Magdalene, for
example — thought that she saw Jesus with the mind's eye, or
mistook the gardener for Him, and converted this appear
ance into a bodily reality. She communicated her en
thusiasm to the rest Others may have imagined that they
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
saw Him in a similar manner, and committed a similar mis
take. The other theory is that He was buried in a swoon,
that He managed to creep out of His grave, that He partially
recovered, and died shortly after in retirement. On such a
foundation my opponents propose to erect the whole weight
of the historic Church, and from such a chimera to develop
the portraiture of the divine Christ.
The second theory I should not have mentioned if it had
not been dignified by the name of Bunsen. It is obvious
that it will not support the weight of the Christian Church.
What ! a man who died from weakness shortly after creeping
out of his grave, metamorphised by his followers into a
divine Messiah, and seated on the right hand of God ! If
He lived in retirement, and died in Phoenicia shortly
afterwards, — according to ah assumption for which there is
not even the ghost of historical testimony, — His followers
had access to Him or they had not. If we adopt the
former part of the alternative, no amount of credulity
could have mistaken Him for a glorious Messiah rescued
from the tomb. The very sight of Him must have
acted as a complete extinguisher on the powers of the
imagination. If we adopt the latter, it falls under the
general head that the belief in the resurrection was merely
due to an excited imagination. All the assistance which it
renders is to dispose of the dead body.
338

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
Now, in theory, nothing is easier than to say that an
excited woman saw Jesus with her mental eye, mistook it for
a bodily reality, and communicated her enthusiasm to the
rest of His followers. But in practice, such things are not
quite so easy. Although it is no hard matter to persuade
the credulous to believe in the appearance of ghosts and
phantoms, yet I do not know that the whole history of man
presents us with a single example of a great institution
which owes its origin to such a belief. But even the
credulous believers in such apparitions are very difficult
to persuade that they have actually seen a man who once
had died again restored to life. I doubt whether the entire
mass of fictitious literature presents us with anything at all
analogous to the supposed belief of the credulous followers
of Jesus in the resurrection of their Master. Even persons
who have a most imperfect knowledge that nature is
governed by law, are quite aware that dead men do not
revive. The followers of Jesus could have been hardly
more credulous than modern spiritualists, yet these lattei
have not yet succeeded in erecting a great institution on the
basis of an actual resurrection from the dead, or even on
the presence of a spirit in a table. Supposing, therefore,
that some fanatic follower of our Lord made the mistake
in question, it could really have been no easy matter to
have communicated this enthusiasm to the rest, damped
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF' CHRISTIANITY.

as their spirits were by the crucifixion. Still more difficult
would -it have been for any considerable number to have
made the mistake of converting a flight of the imagination
into an objective fact At any rate my opponents must
concede that to have persuaded any number of men under
such, circumstances that the crucified Jesus was actually
risen from the dead must have required a considerable
interval of time.
It would be much more easy to create a belief in a
resurrection after the lapse of a century, than within a few
years of the event When we survey a past event through
the haze of time, it helps to confuse oiir ideas as to
what is possible. But long intervals of time so convenient for
the physical speculator are precisely the things which my
opponents have not at their disposal. Seventy years is all
which they themselves think it possible to ask for ; and as
all developments are slow, one or two entirely exhaust it,
and they require a multitude to effect their purpose. But
not only was it necessary to get some of the enthusiastic
followers of our Lord to believe in His resurrection, but
also to constitute a society founded on its basis. Until
this was done, all development was impossible. But each
step requires a considerable interval of time. But how
could the Church be held together while the belief in the
resurrection was forming ? 340

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
But even supposing that Jesus by the power of the
imagination had been rescued from the grave, it became a
very serious question what to do with Him. No amount of
credulity could have brought Him into daily communication
with His followers. If He continued on earth, His not
doing so was a very serious affair. The obvious expedient
was that He should be taken up into heaven, from which at
some future day he should come back again and take
possession of his Messianic throne. Such is the idea
adopted by these schools of thought, and they are never
wearied with telling us that the chief if not the only article.
in the primitive belief of the followers of Jesus was His
speedy return to realize their expectations of His Messianic
glory. Be it so ; for the consequences are very serious to the
position of those whose views I am combating. His followers
then expected Him to return as the Jewish Messiah. Now
nothing is more certain than as long as this expectation lasted
there could have been no development in the direction of
the Christ of the Gospels. How long, then, did this state
of stagnation last in the bosom of the Church ? When did
it occur to the followers of Jesus that the expectation of the
speedy return of their Master was a baseless one, and that
they must set themselves to work to develop a different
conception of a Christ ? It is a fact that such beliefs do.
34i.

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
not speedily die out, and that they can survive many a
disappointment. The modern prophetic School affords a
striking proof of the tenacity of such hopes. They have repeat
edly prophesied that the Advent will happen in our times ;
and notwithstanding the falsification of their predictions, I
believe that they still cling to this belief. At any rate it
has required a long interval of time to undeceive them ;
and as credulity was, according to the views which I am
combating, the leading trait of the followers of Jesus, it
must have been a considerable interval of time before they
could have been persuaded to part company with their
darling expectation. But as long as a Jewish Messiah satis
fied their aspirations, the Church could have developed no
new Messianic conceptions.
But to afford something like a basis for reasoning, I will
suppose these obstacles to have been surmounted ; that the
work of development has commenced, and that the womb
of the Church *is at last become pregnant with its future
Christ. Fresh and ever-increasing difficulties present them
selves for solution.
Let it be observed that, after they have effected the
resurrection, all which has been accomplished was to repair
the damage inflicted on the Church by the crucifixion, and
to restore to it, as a necessity of its existence, a living
instead of a dead Messiah. That Messiah was still the
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
Messiah of Judaism. They have scarcely advanced a stage
in the creation of the Gospels, and of the Christ therein
delineated, — not to say of the entire moral and spiritual
teaching of the New Testament.
Let us observe the steps of the process by which the
metamorphose must have been effected. It is, say my
opponents, very uncertain whether the historic Jesus ever
attempted to perform a miracle. But according to the
conceptions of the times, His followers thought that the
Messiah ought to have performed them. To supply the
defect, they invented a mass of miraculous stories, and in
their fond credulity thought that Jesus had actually per
formed them, and thus the delusion of His miraculous
wonder-working was propagated in the Church. But all
experience proves that mythic and legendary miracles are
grotesque. Yet those in the Gospels are all sober ones,
and stamped with a high moral tone. They must therefore
have undergone a succession of developments before they
could have assumed their present form. Still a Jewish
Messiah has yet to be transformed into the Jesus of the
Evangelists. After a while a happy thought occurs to these
uninstructed Jews. They determine to invest the Teacher
with whom they had habitually conversed with a character
at once divine and human. The mythic faculty is again
invoked, and the human Jesus, by the aid of development
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
after development, gradually assumes the aspect of the
divine Christ. In a similar manner they feel that the moral
aspect of the Messiah of their fondest expectations must
undergo a change, and in due time the triumphant King
becomes the meek and the lowly Jesus, and the morality of
Pharisaism becomes that of the New Testament.
Few persons are at all aware of the enormous difficulties
which would have beset any persons who, whether con
sciously or unconsciously, set themselves to metamorphise a
Jew of the year 30 into the Christ of the Gospels. Fami
liarity with the character induces numbers to think that
poets or fabulists, inventors of myths and legends, might
easily have created it. To form a correct estimate of the
difficulty, it is necessary to transport ourselves out of the
nineteenth century into the Jewish atmosphere of thought
and feeling of the century which preceded the Advent. A
starting-point it must have had. There could have been no
other than it. *
Let it be observed that before the elaboration of the
Jesus of the Gospels, those who fabricated the conception
were wholly without a model to guide them. All ancient
fact or fable fails to furnish anything at all analogous to this
great character. Such models as they had would have
guided its inventors wrong. The only ones which they
possessed were the popular Messianic conceptions of the
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
period, and the prevailing Jewish ideas of religion and
morality. Besides these, they might have fallen back on the
general ideas contained in the Old Testament Scriptures
and the apocryphal books. The ideal of a Jewish hero
would certainly not have helped them in forming the con
ception of the Evangelical Jesus. One apocryphal book
has been frequently referred to as affording considerable aid
— the Book of Enoch. I have fully discussed this subject
elsewhere,* and the conclusion to which I have arrived
is, I think, incontrovertible, that even if we grant that its
Messianic portions were composed prior to the Christian
era (a concession which I am by no means prepared to
make), the aid which it would have afforded the mytho-
logists who invented the Christ of the Gospels would have
been inconsiderable. To avoid a lengthened controversy
as to its date, I am quite willing that these schools of
thought should make all the use they can of them.
Let me point out a few of the difficulties which must have
beset the path of the inventors of the great portraiture of
the Gospels.
Every reader at once recognizes that the character who is
there depicted is a superhuman one ; or rather, to speak
more accurately, it is exhibited as uniting the human and
the divine. This is a plain matter of fact, and is quite
"Jesus of the Evangelists,'' chap. x.
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
independent of the question whether the Evangelists were
right in so representing it. Nor is my argument at all
affected by any supposed difficulty in defining, in the terms
of an abstract creed, the precise measure of the divine
which they have ascribed to it. All that I contend for is
that the Jesus of the Evangelists is dramatized as uniting a
divine and human consciousness, and that it is exhibited
with a faultless propriety.
Now the moment the mythologists made a movement in
this direction, a hundred problems of a most difficult cha
racter must have demanded their solution before they could
advance a single step. I can only adduce one or two
examples. How was the human to be represented as acting
in union with the divine, and the divine with the human ?
In what proportions were they to be combined ? How was
the one to be prevented from swallowing up the other? Let
it be observed that there was no model to guide them. The
attempt to exhibit the divine and human in a single per
sonality had never been attempted before.
The difficulty will be at once seen from a reference to the
Old Testament. The nearest approach which it exhibits to
uniting the human and the divine is in the act of prophetic
inspiration. But in this the two factors are invariably dis
tinct. The Old Testament prophet, when under the in
fluence of the prophetical illapse, invariably prefaces his
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
utterances with " Thus saith the Lord." These words are
never once placed in the mouth of Jesus throughout the
entire Gospels. Instead of them, His most solemn utter
ances are introduced with the words, " I say unto you."
The prophet is generally vehemently excited. The Jesus of
the Evangelists is invariably calm.
You must never forget that the position of those against
whose theories I am reasoning compels them to assume that
the contents of the Gospels have been elaborated by the
action of a multitude of minds. Be it so. It follows that
these problems must have received as many different solu
tions as there were minds engaged in the attempt. Instead
of the character which resulted therefrom presenting a unity
of aspect, it would have been a mass of hopeless confusion.
My limits will only allow me to draw your attention to
one or two of these difficulties out of the vast multitude.
The historical Jesus was unquestionably crucified. How
was a crucified man to be represented as divine ? He died
in agony. How was an artist to dramatize the divine in
suffering ? If my hearers are not aware of the difficulties
which would have attended the solution of these and
kindred questions, I advise them to study the creation of
the great Grecian dramatist, the Prometheus Vinctus of
iEschylus, and compare it with the Jesus of the Gospels. I
am sure that correct taste will pronounce that the creation
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MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
of the fishermen of Galilee utterly transcends that of the
genius of the great tragedian.
Nothing is more difficult, even in works of fiction, than to
combine the attributes of holiness and benevolence as har
moniously acting in the same person. In living men they
almost invariably jar. They possess them imperfectly, and
one generally counteracts the action of the other. The
difficulty of combining them is greatly increased if the being
uniting them is to be represented as both human and divine.
Holiness and benevolence are in fact opposite sides of
character, and no more difficult problem can be presented
to the imagination than to exhibit them as acting har
moniously in the same character. No question in theology
is more embarrassing than the mode in which they coexist
in God.
It follows that if the contents of the Gospels were due to
a multitude of minds, they must have exhibited as many
aspects of trie character of a Christ as there were fabulists
engaged in its creation. But the character of the Jesus of
the Gospels, in its combination of holiness with benevolence,
presents us with a complete unity. Not only is the unity ,
complete, but the perfection of the picture is inimitable.
Where can we find, either in fact or fiction, anything like
the perfection of the holiness and benevolence of the Jesus
of the Evangelists ? Yet we are asked to believe that it has
348

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
been a gradual growth created by successions of credulous
mythologists. The moral and religious teaching of the Gospels forms
a subject by itself of large dimensions, and it is impos
sible for me within the limits of a lecture to do more
than glance at it* It consists of two perfectly distinct
portions : first, the subject of morality and religion as it
is exhibited in the person of Jesus Christ ; secondly, as
He taught them for the use of ordinary men. Most un
believers will admit that the portraiture of Jesus Christ,
as it is exhibited in the Gospels, is one of the most
spotless moral beauty, and the greatest elevation. I am
quite aware that a few exceptions have been made to
it ; but some of them are obviously founded on misappre
hension, and others are evidently incorrect. At any rate
it cannot be denied that the entire moral aspect of the
person of Christ is unique in human literature.
No less remarkable is His moral teaching for the use of
ordinary men. It is pure, elevated, beneficent, grand. It
bears the unquestionable marks of having been the elabora
tion of a single mind. The parts are adapted to each other
and to the whole.
But our Lord's moral character, and His moral teaching
as they are exhibited in the Gospels, consist of a number of
* See "Jesus of the Evangelists," chap. v.
349

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
detached portions, which together make up a complicated
whole. Their solution involves such a multiplicity of
questions, as to render it difficult to count them. They are
questions which the profoundest thinkers have solved in the
most varied manner. Yet in the Gospels the mode of their
solution is a complete unity. They coalesce with an
inimitable beauty. Let unbelievers cavil as they may, an
overwhelming majority of the holiest and the best of men
have bowed before the character of the Jesus of the Evan
gelists in humble adoration, and felt that it was immeasurably
above them. Numbers of these subjects were inquired into by
ancient philosophers with the keenest interest, but they found
no adequate solution. My opponents assert that this great
character, around which the entire morality of Christianity
centres, is not an historical one. How did it then originate ?
The answer is, that it is founded on the traditional remi
niscences of the teaching of a Jewish peasant who died in
early manhood ; and that the numerous parts of which the
character and His teaching consist were unconsciously ela
borated in the course of many years by a multitude of
credulous, enthusiastic mythologists.
I must now advance to another stage of my argument.
As my opponents assert that the development of the
Gospels, and of the portraiture of the Christ which they
contain, were entirely due to natural causes, it is evident
35°

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
that they must have been effected in conformity with the
laws which regulate the developments of the human mind.
Let us test this principle.
Taking the atmosphere of Jewish thought and feeling as
it existed in the year 30 as the starting-point, it is evident
to every one at all acquainted with the subject, that the
interval which separates its conceptions from those of the
Gospels is far greater than that which separates any two
types of human thought. To take a single example. The
interval between the free spirit of morality as it is exhibited
in the New Testament, and the casuistic and ritualistic
tendencies of moral thought which ultimately developed
themselves into Rabbinism, is profound. If, therefore,
Christianity grew out of Judaism by a succession of natural
causes, the interval between them must have been bridged
over by a succession of developments. So, again, with
respect to Messianic conceptions. A profound interval
separates that of Christ from that of Barchocebas, to which
Jewish Messianism was then tending. That of Barchocebas
was a natural growth out of the popular Messianic concep
tions of the year 30, and separated from them by no great
interval. But their development occupied no less than
a century. But if the Jesus of the Evangelists grew out of
the popular idea of the year 30, it is evident that the suc
cession of developments must have been very numerous, and
3Si

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
have required long intervals of time, before it was possible
to create the portraiture of Christ.
Let me take another example, which those against
whom I am reasoning cannot refuse to accept. The
interval which separates the state of religious and moral
thought involved in the primitive Mosaic institutions
from that of the year 30 is considerable, though far
less than that which separates the latter from that con
tained in the Gospels. In adducing this example, I use
one most favourable to my opponents. Christians maintain
that this development was accelerated by supernatural
causes. The proper subject of comparison would have been
one which both sides are agreed to have been effected by
causes purely natural. I need not however fear making the
concession, for it will more than bear the weight of my argu
ment. We will suppose that the entire history of Judaism, as
those with whom I am reasoning say, contained in it no
thing supernatural. I ask you therefore to observe that the
development in question was completed only after an interval
of more than a thousand years from its commencement.
Yet we are invited to believe that the Christianity of the
Synoptics, and of the larger portion of the Epistles, was
evolved in a period of seventy years, and the Christian
Church erected on them, as its foundation, and that of the
fourth Gospel in 130 years. 352

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
Let us take another mode of measurement of my oppo
nents' own choosing. The Synoptic Gospels, as they say,
are separated from that of St. John by an interval of sixty
years. Is it possible to bridge over the interval which
separates the Synoptics from the Jewish atmosphere of
thought and feeling of the year 30, in seventy years, if it
required sixty years to effect the development in question ?
Against one convenient assumption I must present a
most respectful protest Whenever it suits their purpose,
the human Jesus is represented as a very great man, who
towered high above the ordinary conditions of humanity.
Again, when it is convenient He is represented to have
been a very little man, the prey of all the superstitions of
His age. I am prepared to reason on either side of this
alternative, but not on both. These Schools postulate
greatness whenever they want to make a prodigious leap in
religion and morality ; littleness when they want to account
for the miraculous element in Christianity. But while I am
ready to assume as the basis of the argument that the
human Jesus was a great man, let it be understood that He
could have been great only in the sense in which all other
great men have been great. Those who deny the possibility
of physical miracles must not, when it suits their purpose,
assume the existence of moral ones. His greatness must
have been limited by the conditions imposed on it by the
353 23

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
environment of a Jew of the year 30 who was born a peasant,
and perished at thirty-five years of age.
Observe again, the miracles of the Gospels have to be
invented somehow. I am ready to concede that miraculous
stories of a certain type have been invented in rich abund
ance. But the whole class of fictitious miracles invented in
credulous ages are stamped with a peculiar trait from which
those of the Gospels are free. The one are monstrous,
undignified, and grotesque. The others are sober, dignified,
and I think that my opponents will allow, if miracles are
possible, worthy of God. The preservation of the apocry
phal Gospels enables us to know what sort of miracles the
mythic spirit commencing with the next century attributed
to Jesus Christ I have examined the subject elsewhere.
The following passage sums up the result : —
" The case stands thus : our Gospels present us with the
picture of a glorious Christ ; the mythic Gospels with that
of a contemptiMe one. Our Gospels have invested Him
with the highest conceivable form of moral greatness ; the-
mythic ones have not ascribed to Him one action which is
elevated. In our Gospels He exhibits a superhuman wisdom ;
in the mythic ones a nearly equal superhuman absurdity. In
our Gospels He is arrayed in all the beauty of holiness ; in
the mythic ones, this aspect is entirely wanting. In our
Gospels, not one stain of selfishness defiles His character ;
354

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
in the mythic ones, the Lord Jesus is both pettish and ma
licious. Our Gospels exhibit to us a sublime morality ;
not a ray of it shines in those of the mythologists. The
miracles of the one and the other are contrasted in every
point. A similar opposition of character runs through the
whole current of thought, feeling, morality, and religion." *
I ask my opponents to account for this difference, and
specially to say why in the second century the mythic
spirit began to create a ridiculous Christ, and in the first it
produced a glorious one ; and through how many stages of
development the creation passed until it culminated in what
we read in the Gospels, and the interval of time to be
assigned to each.
But according to the theories I am combating, the
Messianic aspects of the character of the Jesus of the
Evangelists must have passed through a succession of
developments before they could have attained their present
form. Different parties had to invent different aspects ot
it. Next, these had to procure acceptance in the various
Churches. Each party would cling to its own views. The
formation of hostile sects in the Church was a certain con-
* "Jesus of the Evangelists," p. 381. The entire collection of
apocryphal Gospels has been translated by Mr. Cowper. I am sure
that their perusal will greatly confirm our faith in the historical character
of the true. The order of mind which invented the one could not have
invented the other. 355

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
sequence. If they gradually wore themselves out, all ex
perience of sectarian warfare proves that the interval must
have been long. We know as fact that nothing is more
difficult than to effect compromises between contending
religious factions ; and that they are only, if at all, possible
after long and bitter experience. I ask you to compute for
yourselves how many developments and compromises must
have been required, and the interval of time each must have
occupied ?
Far more difficult and more numerous must have been
the developments by which the moral aspects of the Gospels
and of their divine Christ must have been elaborated out of
the Judaism of the year 30, and the popular conceptions of
its Messiah. I shall select for illustration only two ex
amples out of a vast multitude. One of the most marked
distinctions between Gospel and ancient moral teaching is
this : the whole aspect of ancient moral teaching assigned
the highest place to the heroic and political virtues, and a
subordinate one to the mild, meek, benevolent, and humbler
ones. This is precisely reversed in the morality of the New
Testament Again : the aspect of a Jewish saint and hero,
as it is depicted in the Old Testament, forms a singular
contrast to that which the New Testament has assigned to
Jesus Christ I have proved that moral developments in
the direction of improvement are very slow. I propose,
356

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
therefore, the following problem for my opponents to
solve. Through how many stages must these have passed
before the creation of the Gospels became a possibility, and
how many years must they have occupied ?
But all the while that the Christian Church was creating
a mythology, and struggling with developments and conten
tions and external opposition, it is an historical fact that it
succeeded in extending itself over a wide geographical
area. This greatly aggravates the difficulty of developing an
improved Christ out of her pregnant womb. The wider
the geographical area over which she gradually extended
herself, the more difficult would have become the inter
change of ideas necessary for developments and compro
mises. It by no means follows that one little society would
immediately swallow the mythic creation of another.
I must observe that this" portion of -the argument is cumu
lative, and admits of being pressed to an indefinite extent.
It now remains for those against whose theories I have
been reasoning to count the number of these developments,
and to assign a reasonable interval for each. If they will
do so, they will then find that these theories are hopelessly
untenable. I have hitherto argued, on the chosen position of my
opponents, that the Synoptic Gospels were written about
the year ioo, and the fourth about 160. Such dates are
357

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
entirely fallacious, and against all evidence. But as far as
my reasoning is concerned, it matters little when the Gos
pels were composed. If I can prove that the portraiture of
Christ and the general aspect of the Gospels were fami
liarly known in the Church at a much earlier period, it is
not the smallest difference for my argument whether they
existed in an oral or a written form. The concession
of seventy years for the creation of the Synoptic Gospels,
and one hundred and thirty for that of St. John, has now to
be entirely revoked.
The most extreme of the School that I am opposing
concede that the four most important epistles of St. Paul
are unquestionably genuine, and written by him within less
than thirty years after the resurrection. The genuineness
of at least four others is conceded by the most eminent
unbelievers. We have, then, before us genuine historical
documents of Christianity, composed by its most active mis
sionary at aboftt the same distance of time from the resur
rection as that which separates us from the repeal of the
Corn Law Act.
Now by the aid of these epistles it is possible to prove by
a multitude of incidental allusions that all the great features
of the portraiture of Jesus Christ were fully developed when
St. Paul wrote them. Nay, what is more, the manner in which
the allusions are made prove that this portraiture was not a
358

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
new one, but that it had been long known in the Christian
Society. To exhibit this proof would require a lecture of
equal length to the present. As I have given it already
elsewhere,* and it has not been assailed, I shall assume that
my position is incontestable.
The period of time during which the human Jesus must
have been developed into the divine Christ of the Gospels,
if the portraiture be a fictitious creation, must be reduced to
one of less than ten years. But whether it be ten, seventy,
or one hundred and thirty, it contradicts the laws by which
all human developments are regulated. Its creation involves
a moral miracle of the most stupendous character.
My opponents postulate a number of conditions which
history and philosophy refuse to concede. They require a
long interval of time ; history will only grant them a short
one. They require that developments should be rapid;
they are always slow, especially moral ones. They require
the creation of elevated moral sentiment ; their only instru
ments with which to work are credulous mythologists. They
require that developments should be always progressive
towards higher perfection ; history declares that they are
frequently retrogade ones. They postulate party spirit, but
it produces endless division. They require compromises,
but they must be made by credulous enthusiasts. They
* "Jesus of the Evangelists,'' chap. xvii.
359

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
require unity of result; they postulate a multitude of
agents. They ask for credulity, and are confronted by
sobriety. They ask for seventy years ; historical fact will
concede them less than ten. They deny physical miracles,
and ask us to believe in moral ones.
Such is the position of the school of thought against
whom I have been reasoning. They are called by a sad
misnomer rationalistic. I ask, are these theories rational,
probable, or possible? Defenders of revelation have no
grounds for dreading an appeal to reason. If the Gospels,
and the glorious Christ therein delineated, have been evolved
in accord mce with the various theories against which I have
been contending, it involves a greater miracle than all the
miracles of the New Testament united together.13

360

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S
EPISTLES.
BY THE
REV. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A.,
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, KING'S COLLEGE.

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF
ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

The attacks upon that body of traditional belief and re
ceived thought which is conveniently expressed and con-
monly understood by the term Christianity have turned
very much of late years upon the authenticity of the several
books composing the New Testament. Inquiries of this
nature have commended themselves to an age which we
need not shrink from characterising as critical and discrimi
nating. There is a manifest and a very intelligible pleasure
to be derived from reopening questions which many have
been accustomed to regard as settled, from proving former
conclusions erroneous, or showing that considerable doubt
still remains where certainty was believed to exist ; and in
the natural enthusiasm attending investigations of this kind,
it is by no means a matter of surprise if the actual import
ance of the results has been somewhat overrated. The
inferences following from the conclusions arrived at, have
been estimated in proportion to the supposed certainty of
the conclusions. If a particular Gospel can be shown to be
363

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

falsely, or at any rate with doubtful truth, ascribed to its
traditional author, the inference drawn, or at least suggested,
is the comparative depreciation, if not worthlessness, of that
Gospel. We know not why, but it is frequently assumed
that if everything is not in exact accordance with the
popular belief in any matter, nothing which is popularly
associated with that belief can reasonably be maintained.
The whole edifice will fall, or must even be destroyed,
because a stone here or there is faulty, or out of place.
Because investigation shows that the foundation does not
lie as it was thought to lie, therefore there is no foundation
at all. The rashness and precipitancy of any such inference
will be at once apparent to every thoughtful mind. Because
the reasons usually assigned are inconclusive, it by no means
follows that no reasons can be given. The central questions
really involved, may be altogether unaffected by the techni
cal and subordinate question, who was actually the .writer of
some particular book. The critical investigation of author
ship may have positively no bearing at all on the opinions
expressed, or the facts recorded in the book. Whether or
not this be so in any given instance, it is at any rate con
ceivably possible in the abstract.
In the case now before us, however, we have to deal with
a converse position. There are four Epistles in the New
Testament which have been admitted on all hands to be the
3^4

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

veritable productions of the Apostle Paul. These are the
two Epistles to Corinth, the Epistle to the Church at Rome,
and the Epistle to the Galatians. The writers, if any, who
have ventured to call in question the authenticity of these
Epistles are so few, and so insignificant, as to be unworthy
of mention. We may safely pass them by without fear of
challenge or dispute. There is absolutely no room for any
reasonable doubt that we have in our hands in these four
letters the true and genuine compositions of Saul of Tarsus,
after he had become a Christian.
It will be my business, then, on the present occasion, to
examine and weigh the precise value of this admission of
authenticity, which can only be spoken of as universally
made. What is the evidence in support of Christianity
which can be fairly adduced from it ? In endeavouring to
estimate the nature and amount of this evidence, I shall not
assume these Epistles to be what we commonly understand
by inspired. I shall regard them only as the natural human
productions of a certain man whose personal history, to a
considerable extent, can be discovered from them. If, on
internal or other grounds, there is cause to believe they
have any higher authority, that will be another matter. But
we shall not assume it in dealing with them. Our aim in
the first place must simply be to inquire what the accept
ance of these four Epistles as the work of St. Paul legiti-
3^5

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

mately demands of us ; what are the inferences fairly
deducible from their statements ; what insight they give
us into the character and motives of the writer, and what
information they convey as to the nature and consti
tution of the early Christian society to which they were
addressed. And first, as to their date. We cannot place the death of
the Apostle Paul later than the year of our Lord 68. It
may have been the year before ; but as he is said by
Jerome and Eusebius to have suffered under Nero, and
Galba succeeded "Nero in a.d. 68, it cannot have been
afterwards. Again, we are safe in saying that, on the sup
position of the latter date, these four Epistles had been
written ten years before the Apostle Paul died ; that is to say,
they were all written before the end of a.d. 58. Festus pro
bably succeeded Felix in the year of our Lord 60. But Paul
had been two years a prisoner at Csesarea, when Festus came
into the province ;* and these letters were written while he
was still at liberty. We have, then, in St. Paul's Epistles,
by which we mean always and exclusively these particular
Epistles, undoubted genuine productions of about five-and-
twenty years, or not much more, after the death of Jesus
Christ. Making all due allowance for possible variation in
the requisite dates, we are warranted in saying that the
* Acts xxiv. 27.
366

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

interval between the Crucifixion and the sending of these
letters to their several destinations, did not exceed by more
than two or three years the quarter of a century. It was
certainly less than thirty years.
The best way of appreciating such an interval as this is
to take a corresponding period in our own lives. We have
most of us a very clear recollection, probably, of events
which happened in the year 1844 or I845- The war in the
Punjaub, and the -Irish famine, which happened shortly
afterwards, in 1846, and the great European events of 1848,
some two years later, are fresh and vivid in the memory of
every person who has arrived at middle age. To others yet
more advanced, an interval of five-and-twenty or thirty years
can effect but little in effacing events or circumstances
which at the time produced a deep and powerful impres
sion. They remember them as yesterday. So it must have
been with many who were living at Corinth when the first
Epistle to the Church there was written, and who read it on
its arrival. But from this Epistle we know* that more than
250 persons who had seen the risen Jesus at one time were
still alive and able to give their testimony to that effect.
These persons, therefore, must have had as vivid a recollec
tion of the circumstance referred to, as we ourselves have of
the battles on the Sutlej. The Queen's coronation is to us an
* 1 Cor. xv. 6.
367

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

event farther in the background of the past than the vision of
the crucified Jesus was to the 250 brethren who still survived.
And the way in which their experience is mentioned is
one which is the more striking because it is so casual. St.
Paul alludes to it incidentally as a thing of which he had
often spoken to the Corinthians. He could not have done
so had this not been the case. They knew perfectly well
that he had mentioned it to them. They had not forgotten
that it formed a part of his oral communications. He could
not have referred to it in this way had it not been so. But
so neither is it possible that he could have spoken of the
fact had the 250 witnesses been the mere invention of his
own brain. Were there no shrewd men of common sense
in the Church of Corinth who could have detected an im
position so gross as this, if it had been one ? Had there
been even a small minority of such men, we should have
had no second Epistle to the Corinthians, or the second
Epistle would*surely have been very different from what
it is. We are obliged, in accepting the first Epistle to
Corinth as the veritable work of St. Paul, to conclude
that during his stay in that city he had habitually spoken of
the fact, which none could call in question or deny, that
there were living at that time more than 250 persons who
had a distinct recollection of having seen Jesus Christ at
some period less than six weeks after He had been cru-
368

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

cified, but who never saw Him again. St. Paul not only
said this, but the whole Corinthian Church knew that what
he said was true, for otherwise he would not in this way
have dared to say it.
There is no occasion now to discuss the question what it
was these people saw, because that would carry us far astray.
All we need for the present insist upon is the fact that we
have contemporary evidence of the very best kind, in the form,
namely, of a genuine letter, that a large number of persons
were still alive, say in the year of our Lord 58, who believed
that they had seen a person, not merely as a spectre or vision,
but as a living and substantial man, whom they knew to
have been crucified and buried but a short time before, and
who likewise knew that there were many more who could
have corroborated their evidence on this point if they had
not been dead.
We fully admit, then, that this is a circumstance which
is open to explanation in various ways, the true explanation
being determinable upon other and additional considerations;
but what we do maintain is that upon the premises conceded
to us by the most rigid criticism, it is not possible to set aside
the evidence on which it rests, be its explanation what it may.
And here it is worth while asking, before we pass on,
how we should feel ourselves justified in regarding the
testimony of 500 persons now, not more credulous or weak-
369 24

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

minded than ourselves, to an event which had passed under
the cognisance of then own senses, even though that event
were the posthumous appearance of a man who had been
put to death as a malefactor ? Is it not certain that any
such supposed appearance would be calculated to make an
impression on the beholders which might well last for five-
and-twenty or thirty years, and should we not regard their
uniform agreement in the matter as a very remarkable cir
cumstance imperatively demanding some solution ?
The first point, then, which the existence of this Epistle
establishes, is the fact that at the time it was written there
were living many competent eye-witnesses of what was
believed by them to have been the reanimation of a body
which had been dead and buried, and that their testimony
was accepted by a very large number of persons who
implicitly believed it. Here, then, we have written evi
dence to the effect that a particular event was amply testified
and very generally believed upon the testimony.
But, again, the same Epistle shows that this belief was
by no means unquestioning. The very same chapter proves
that there were those at Corinth who said there was no
resurrection of the dead.* They did not believe, that is,
in the doctrine that the dead will ultimately rise. They
held no doubt in common with others that the resurrection
* I Cor. xv. 12.
37°

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

was "past already; " that the change which had passed upon
the Christian upon belief in Christ was so radical and so
complete, that he might literally, without any violent figure of
speech, be said to have risen again from the dead. They
acquiesced so fully in the truth expressed by St. Paul in the
second Epistle, " If any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature,"* that the felt newness of that spiritual creation
seemed to satisfy all their longings after life, and they rele
gated to the insignificance of a non-essential and a dreamy
unreality the thought of a resurrection of the body yet to
come. The way, then, in which the Apostle meets this
form of unbelief is in the highest degree noteworthy. He
argues from the known to the unknown, from what was
believed to what was not believed, from what these early
doubters implicitly accepted to that which they sceptically
rejected. " Now, if Christ be preached that He rose from the
dead, and ye believe it, how say some among you that there
is no future resurrection of the dead? For if there be no
future resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen ?
but ye know and believe Him to be risen, otherwise ye would
not be what ye are."
This, and nothing else than this, is the drift of the
Apostle's argument. It shows us plainly, therefore, that there
was a discriminating exercise of reason at work in men's

* 2 Cor. v. 17.
371

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

minds at Corinth. The struggle between reason and faith
had landed them in a logical inconsistency. They rejected
the future resurrection on what seemed to be rational
grounds, because it appeared to them contrary to reason
and experience, but they forgot that they had already sub
mitted their reason to a belief no less absolute and imperi
ous, which, if logically held, would stultify their scepticism.
And there is no setting aside the inference from this
argument, that the tendency of the mind which rejected the
future resurrection was to reject likewise the personal resur
rection- of the Lord Jesus, and the testimony of the greater
part of the 500 brethren yet surviving who had seen Him
after He was -risen. That is to say, the character of the
faith in the one case is enhanced by the scepticism in the
other. Just as the belief of Thomas after his doubt,
accepting for the sake of illustration the narrative in St.
John,* was the stronger and more convincing because he
had only adopted it upon conclusive evidence, so is the
belief of the Corinthians in the resurrection of Jesus of the
greater value evidentially, because we know it to have been
their habit of mind not unquestioningly to believe.
We arrive, then, at this further position that we may not
lightly regard the belief of the Corinthian Church in the
* For evidence as to the authenticity of this Gospel see the Boyle
Lectures for 1870, " The witness of St. John to Christ."
372

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

validity of the evidence for Christ's resurrection as the belief
of persons who were credulous enough to believe anything.
Upon fairly estimating all the circumstances, there is
abundant and conclusive proof, which we may call con
temporary, that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was
believed in as a fact by a vast number of persons who were
convinced they had received that fact upon ample or
sufficient testimony.
We must not forget, also, the nature of the fact that was
believed. The resurrection of a dead body is so contrary
to all reason and experience, that the difficulties in the way
of believing it may be estimated as practically equal in all
cases. No one can profess to believe it without being fully
conscious of the absurdity of that which he professes- to
believe. It is a point in which the imagination can scarcely
hope to take the reason at a disadvantage, or at unawares.
In only two ways is deception possible. First, on the sup
position of the unreality of the previous death ; and secondly,
that the subsequent appearance was unreal. Now in the
first case the notion of unreality is precluded, because it was
firmly and universally believed, and not by Christians only,
that Christ had died ; and there is no vestige of any evidence
to show that He died in any other way than on the cross.
This death was as needful an element in the creed of the Corin
thian Church as His resurrection, not to say that any true
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THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

belief in His resurrection involved the belief in His death.
It will not do to explain His supposed resurrection on the
ground that His death was unreal. Where would have been
the foolishness of the cross, if Christ had not died ? To
secure the resurrection of Christ at the expense of His death
would have been simply absurd, for two reasons : first,
because that would have made the resurrection after all no
resurrection — an unreality ; and secondly, because the death
of Christ alone and by itself was a fact that was implicitly
believed, and without which the faith of the Church cannot
be conceived or comprehended. We are reduced, therefore,
to the necessity of explaining the resurrection of Christ on
the alternative supposition that the subsequent appearance
was unreal. And here we are met by the transcendent
difficulty, that it is antecedently in the highest degree im
probable that any sane man should be found to believe that
the appearance of a person after death, who had been cruci-
fied and buried, could be other than imaginary and delusive.
And we become, in fact, bound to determine whether
in the abstract it is more improbable that multitudes of
competent persons should believe in what was contradicted
by universal experience, and especially by their own, or that
something may have occurred which, in spite of themselves
and their experience, had compelled them to this belief.
For we must not fail to remember that the two sup-
374

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

positions are mutually destructive. If Christ died, then the
belief in His resurrection can only be explained on the
theory that His subsequent appearance was unreal. If His
subsequent appearance was unreal, then, to say the least, it
is entirely gratuitous to deny the fact of His having died, be
cause if He did not truly die, there is no discoverable reason
why His supposed appearance after death should not have
been real. We may choose which explanation we deem pre
ferable. We cannot alternately or simultaneously adopt both.
I am not now called upon to prove more than what is
clearly proved, that the existence of this one Epistle as the
genuine work of St. Paul affords abundant evidence that
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was accepted
as a fact by large numbers of men, some of whom, at least,
can only have accepted it on evidence which seemed to them
sufficient to counteract the adverse testimony of their ex
perience, their reason, and their senses. And it is almost
needless to observe that the belief in the resurrection as
here depicted, involved also a belief in the burial * of Jesus
Christ, in the main and essential features of His death, j- that
it was on the third day that He arose, J that His appearances
after His resurrection were distinct and manifold, § and that
the Apostle who depicted it had himself been among the
* I Cor. xv. 4. { I Cor. xv. 4.
+ 1 Cor. xi. 27. § 1 Cor. xv. 5 — 8
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THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

most vehement opponents of this very belief in the person
of the Lord, whose resurrection he proclaimed. * All this is
established by the admission of this letter as genuine, and
by the admission which cannot be denied, that the writer
was giving a natural and plain statement of the truth, and
not a fabricated or ideal narrative of fictitious occurrences.
That is to say, so far the testimony of this Epistle is in
conformity with the framework of the Gospel history.' If
the four Gospels were lost to us, the life, and death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ would still remain firmly and
distinctly imbedded in the original faith of the Corinthian
Church. We know from this letter that less than thirty
years after the death of Christ, there was a very large body
of men at Corinth who believed implicitly that He had risen
from the dead, and that they knew that many persons were
still alive who were eye-witnesses of the fact.
I ask you, then, very carefully to observe that this does not
prove the fact. It only shows us conclusively that less than
thirty years after the fact there were many persons who
believed in it as such.
And let us put a parallel case. Suppose a person coming
to London in the present day, and declaring that less than
thirty years ago a certain man in a distant country who had
been put to death as a malefactor, had risen from the dead
* I Cor. xv. 9.

376

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

the third day, and was still alive. What success think you
would he meet with ? Most assuredly there would not be
half-a-dozen people who would believe him. But if, on the
contrary, a new society should be formed, consisting exclu
sively of persons professing to believe all this, would not
the circumstance be so remarkable as to lead us to infer
that there must be some adequate cause for it ? If the per
sons professing this belief were of all stations and classes,
and many of them, as is proved by this Epistle, men of
intelligence and discernment, should we not be constrained
to confess that the only reasonable supposition was that there
was something in the evidence which could not be lightly set
aside ? However strange and mysterious the tale might be,
it could not be altogether a cunningly devised fable. There
must be something at the bottom of it. No effect can exist
without an adequate cause. Here is clear evidence of a
very considerable effect existing. What was the cause of it ?
The cause alleged would doubtless be a sufficient cause, for
truth is not only stranger, but mightier than fiction. And
it may be fairly questioned whether, under all the circum
stances, any other cause can be discovered which would be
sufficient. There is so far, therefore, an antecedent pro
bability that the cause alleged was the true cause.
Again, it is to be observed throughout all these Epistles of
St. Paul that the resurrection of Christ was to him not a
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THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

past influence, but a present power. If the evidence of the
first Epistle to Corinth is less than thirty years after the
death of Christ, the evidence of the second carries us back
to nearly half that time. The writer speaks of himself as
being in Christ more than fourteen years before.* This
brings us virtually to not more than a dozen or fifteen years
from the actual occurrence of the resurrection ; and in all
probability the Epistle to the Galatians carries us back even
further still. Critics are divided as to the computation of
the time mentioned in it. But if the " fourteen years after"
of chap. ii. are to be added to the " three years " after
which Paul " went up to Jerusalem to see Peter," then the
whole period can be little less than twenty, and the extreme
limit referred to scarcely more than ten years after the
resurrection. t At that time, then, St. Paul himself fully and
implicitly believed in it. At that time he had made great
sacrifices for his belief in it. At that time, or shortly after,
he had not improbably suffered privation and persecution
because of it. But the faith which he held then he is found
holding as tenaciously as ever fourteen or twenty years after
wards, holding it, in fact, so tenaciously that he is able to
bring many others to share it with him. A man must be
something more than an enthusiast who for fourteen years
could retain a conviction so monstrous as this, if false, and
* 2 Cor. xii. 2. f Gal. ii. i, and i. 18.
378

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

at the end of that time could make more converts than
before. Surely this is not the ordinary experience of man
kind, that it is so easy to get men to believe as a fact, con
tradicting their own experience, what after all is no fact at
all. It is one thing to win converts to our opinions or our
principles, and quite another to gain credence for a. fact that
it is every one's interest to disprove.
For at that time what secondary advantage could there be
in the profession of a faith which was universally despised,
and which exposed its more prominent votaries to imminent
peril, as the eleventh chapter of the second letter to Corinth
abundantly shows. It is obvious that at fifteen years after
the death of Christ many of the 500 brethren who were
afterwards dead were still alive, and it is not too much to
infer that St Paul, from the position he held in the Church,
was personally acquainted with many or most of them. He
therefore personally must have had numerous opportunities
of amply satisfying himself as to the truth of the fact which
he proclaimed so persistently. But still it is evident that it
possessed for him a power and an influence totally different
from that of any ordinary occurrence or event. It was not
the Christ who once rose, but the Christ who was risen that
he proclaimed. His first rising from the grave was the
work of a distinct moment of time. The influence of which
He thereby revealed Himself as the centre and source was
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THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

continuous and inexhaustible. It was this influence which
the Apostle felt in his life. He could tell the Galatians in
language it would be impossible to counterfeit, "I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me,
and gave Himself for me."* A declaration such as this
is worth volumes of evidence; it is its own evidence; it
bubbles up clear and sparkling from the very fountain and
well-head of truth. No man could have said it who did not
feel it, and no man could have felt it, and not known that
what he felt was an intense reality, defying all explanation
except on the hypothesis that the central core of it was
truth, and not falsehood. If an influence thus operating on
the life was derived from the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, there must have been something very unusual
in that death, and something more than a mistake or an
illusion in that rising again to set such a force in operation.
No other man's death would produce the same effect, (who
cares for the death of Socrates ?) and no other man's resur
rection, whether alleged or proved, could do so ; but if this
man's death and resurrection did produce it, as it plainly
did, then the result speaks for itself. The Epistle to the
Galatians, though written more than eighteen centuries ago,
* Gal. ii. 20.
380

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

is a standing witness to it. There is no wonder that such
an influence was felt then in every part of the known world,
and especially in the centres of its life, such as Rome and
Corinth, because we cannot but feel it now ; and a principle
so instinct with life cannot but be superior to and inde
pendent of the power of death. Here is the present power of
the resurrection acting concurrently with the mass of cumu
lative evidence converging in the point when it was an event
of actual history, and combining therewith to show the
truth of it. Nothing can prove more conspicuously the
strength of this influence in the personal life of St. Paul
than his great Epistle to the Romans. Everywhere Christ is
present with him as an energising power, which is vastly more
than a mere memory of the past, and is a vital and potent
agency still in operation. He did indeed die unto sin once,
but evermore He liveth unto God.* The gift of God is
eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who was de
clared to be the Son of God with power according to the
spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.t
But what is not the least remarkable feature about the
Epistle to the Romans is the fact that it was written to a
Church of which St. Paul was personally ignorant. He had
never been at Rome. It is evident, however, that there
were many Christians there. These Christians were not his
* Rom. vi. io. f Rom. vi. 23 ; i. 3, 4,
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converts. He says he had had a great desire for many
years to come unto them.* Then there had been Christians
at Rome for many years. The many can be scarcely less
than ten or a dozen ; but if so, this brings us again to little
more than fifteen years after the death of Christ. We find,
however, these Christians professing identically the same
belief in the same person and the same facts as St. Paul
himself. They also believed in a Jesus Christ who had been
crucified, and who had been raised from the dead. How
they came to believe in Him we cannot tell. It is plain they
did believe in Him. It is also probable in the highest
degree, nay, it is impossible but that many of them from
whom they received their faith, had either been eye-wit
nesses, or companions of eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus
Christ. At any rate, it is obvious that the substantial frame
work of belief was identical with that which was current
among the Churches of Galatia, and in the Church at Corinth.
A man who had been crucified and risen again, was the
centre of their hope, their affection, their joy, their confi
dence. In Him they all felt they were supernaturally united
in a supernatural life; and as their knowledge of Christ
was altogether independent of St. Paul's preaching, it
possesses the value of independent testimony, and presents
an additional amount of difficulty in the face of any attempt
* Rom. xv. 23.
3S2

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

to account for the belief in Christ's resurrection on the
hypothesis of some error or deception. However unrea
sonable it was to attempt to account for it in that way
at Corinth, the difficulty becomes greater when the case
of Rome is added to that of Corinth. Here the personal
influence of the enthusiastic Paul is removed, and yet the
results produced are manifestly undistinguishable. Their
faith had been spoken of throughout the whole world,* and
it was faith in a crucified and risen Jesus; a faith which
they as Gentiles were not ashamed to profess in the Jew
Christ Jesus, and to be confirmed in by the Jew Saul of
Tarsus. There is something very remarkable in these re
sults. How many national and personal prejudices must
have been overcome ; how many rooted and inherent
animosities must have been eradicated ; how much stubborn
pride must have been bent and mortified ; and how many
acute sensibilities deadened, before results such as these
could have been obtained. And what was it all for? No
earthly advantage had been or was likely to be secured.
No hope of visible reward was offered. Simply the loss
of self-respect, in having believed what was only a gross
absurdity if it was not the truth, was incurred. The know
ledge that under any circumstances their temporal condition
would have been far better if they had never heard of Christ
* Rom. i. 8.
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THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

Jesus ; that the belief in His name could give them neither
lands nor houses, but only lay upon them additional hin
drances in the way of gratifying their natural inclinations,
only expose them more and more to the hatred and con
tempt of men. If in this life only they had hope in Christ,
they were of all men most miserable ; there was no one
redeeming point, no one compensating advantage. They
had believed a lie, and they were all the worse for it.
These two points at least are clear : that they thought
it no lie, and that under the circumstances they must
have been strangely constituted, if, being a lie, it had
the power to sustain them as it did.
For observe, connected with the faith of Christ there was
not even the gratification of flattered vanity in the case of
these first believers. There is an intelligible pleasure that
a man can find nowadays in constituting himself the
apostle of unbelief. There is the promise of a certain
intellectual glory in the effort to overthrow an ancient faith
like that of Christianity. The hope of possible triumph is
dazzling. There is a pleasure in seeming to be so much
wiser than so many others, in having outstripped the accu
mulated wisdom of ages, in being the pioneer of intellectual
emancipation, the harbinger of light that has emerged from
every trace of religious darkness, the forerunner of the
downfall of superstitious prejudices, the demolition of the
3§4

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

last and oldest of the creeds. There is something to attract
the imagination in all this, something to foster a self-com
placent estimate of self, together with a kind of malevolent
joy in indulging the passion of destructiveness. But what
was there to flatter the vanity in the belief of a proclamation
, which was foolishness to the Greeks ? What was there to
exalt the intellect, or to magnify the self, in the doctrme of
Christ crucified ? We do not deny that it was possible for
the self to enter in and mix even with the doctrine of the
cross ; but it could only do so as a principle that was fatally
antagonistic to it. The two could not co-exist; one must
destroy the other. The belief that a crucified malefactor
had risen in triumph from the grave, was subversive of
everything calculated to honour the intellect, or to please
the natural desire of man to worship and admire himself.
There was no harvest to be reaped from belief in the Cruci
fied on this score. We are at a loss to discover in any one
point what secondary motive can, with any show of proba
bility, be attributed to the first believers, as predisposing
them to their belief, if the motive was not a simple and
sincere conviction of its truth. And yet if so, the diffi
culty becomes still greater in assuming that what they be
lieved was not the truth, but a flagrant lie. For it must
ever be remembered that it is an assumption after all. It is
certainly not less difficult to prove in the face of all the evi-
385 25

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

dence that Christ did not rise, than it is to prove upon that
evidence that He did. If the result of the whole argument
in the one case is a. presumption, it most assuredly is not leas
so in the other.
Once more, it cannot for one moment be asserted that the
Epistle to the Romans originated in any way the faith which
it assumes. It is absurd to suppose that an unknown man
merely on the credit of his reputation could have substan
tially modified the belief of a particular Church by simply
inditing a letter to it. The state of things assumed at Rome,
and the faith depicted in the Epistle to the Romans, are only
intelligible on the supposition that they are true. It is obvious
that the body. of the writer's faith was substantially identical
with that of those to whom he was writing. Both were
attached to a particular person whom they believed to be
the Son of God, who had been crucified, dead, and buried,
had risen again, and was then sitting at the right hand of God
as an intercessor.* And more than that, both believed that
this person was the giver of a new Spirit which influenced
both, and animated all believers, and made them all one, and
was not only the evidence to them of the actual truth and re
surrection of Christ, but was also the pledge that they them
selves were accepted in a new relation to God by Christ. +
This gift of the new Spirit was the invisible bond between
* Rom. i. 4; vi. 6 — g; viii. 34. f Rom. viii. 14, 16, 17.
3S6

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

them and Christ, between them and one another, between
them and the Macedonian Christians, between them and the
brethren of Corinth, between them and St. Paul himself.
Nothing the least like this Spirit had been known before
in their own experience or in that of the ages past. It was
a new phenomenon which they felt, and saw, and acknow
ledged, and could not deny. Now the eighth chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans contains incontrovertible proof of the
operation of this Spirit. No letters from Paul could have
made the Christians at Rome imagine they were influenced
by it We can see for ourselves that it was not less familiar
to them than it was to him. No message of his had made
it familiar to them. Years before they had known it, although
from whom they had received it none can tell, but it is per
fectly certain that a condition of belief like that at Rome
could not have been the work of a day. It must have taken
time to grow. And yet at the same time it is no less clear
that it was a product of the existing generation. There was
not one of those to whom the Apostle wrote who had not in
his own being the consciousness of a prior condition of un
belief. Many of them had probably been defiled with some
of the dark catalogue of crimes enumerated in the first
chapter, but they had been justified by faith, and had found
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ* They
* Rom. v. i.
3§7

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

knew this; they were conscious of the double experience;
they could compare the one with the other. The Apostle's
letter had not originated these experiences of their conscious
ness : it had reflected and expressed them. The notion of
the Epistle to the Romans being an imaginary letter written
under imaginary circumstances to imaginary persons, de
scribing imaginary incidents and imaginary feelings, is too
monstrously preposterous to be for one moment entertained.
It has preserved the real and irresistible evidence of a vast
spiritual influence at work among a large body of men which
was precisely contemporaneous with one event — their belief,
namely, in the resurrection of a man who had been crucified
in Palestine.
Now it must be admitted that in this alone and by
itself, if it was not true, there is nothing that can be
discovered which is adequate to the production of results
so remarkable. When it is asserted that the death of Jesus
Christ is surpassed in excellence and sublimity by any other
death, the one question that suggests itself is, If this be so, how
is it that the results which followed that death were not more
remarkable than or so remarkable as those which followed the
death of Jesus? This is a simple fact that no criticism or
scepticism can destroy, that the preaching of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ in the first thirty years afterwards
did produce results, as testified by these Epistles, which are
388

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

simply unparalleled in the history of the world. If the death
was not a real death, or the resurrection not a true resurrec
tion, then the responsibility must rest upon us of discover
ing some other explanation sufficient to account for effects
which are too palpable to be ignored, and can assuredly be
accounted for on this supposition, but have not yet been
adequately accounted for on any other.
It is no part of my present design, and time would fail
me, to enlarge upon all the points in which the history of
the Gospels is confirmed by these Epistles. I am not now
concerned to establish the credibility of the Gospels, but
only the general credibility of the Gospel history ; and
therefore it may suffice to say that we find St. Paul and
the Romans believing that Jesus Christ " was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh," * an admission
which, coming from the pupil of Gamaliel, who must
have had the requisite technical information, is very re
markable ; but " separated as the Son of God with power,"
which is at least consistent with our Gospel narrative,
that makes Him the Son of God, but born of a virgin,
and especially characterised during His ministry by mira
culous powers ; that in each of these Epistles the custom
of baptism is expressly mentioned or implied ; t that if the
* Rom. i. 3, 4.
t Rom. vi. 3 ; I Cor. i. 13 ; Gal. iii. 27 ; cf. 2 Cor. i. 22.
389

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

origin of this rite is not directly to be referred to the insti
tution of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, we are alto
gether ignorant of its origin; that the practice of it was
clearly universal, which is so far consistent with the belief
that it was derived from the express command of Christ;
that in the first Epistle to the Corinthians * the writer speaks
of Jesus Christ taking bread the same night that He was
betrayed, and blessing it, and speaks of it in terms almost
identical with those of the Gospels, thus showing not only
that the death of Christ, but that the main circumstances of
His death were commonly known, and the record of them so
far unvarying, and that consequently the supposition of any
great or substantial divergence is precluded; that the por
trait of Jesus which all recognised was, in all its principal and
important features, identical with that which we recognise
now; and that, therefore, as the existence of some Gospels
is, under the circumstances, a matter of necessity, the
question is not so much whether our Gospels are true, as
whether there are any others which can be regarded as
truer and more trustworthy.
And when we bear in mind that at this time the interval
of thirty years had not yet elapsed since the death of Christ,
we can partly estimate the possibility of dim or uncertain
recollection in the case of events so clearly defined, and so
* I Cor. xi. 23.
39°

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

simple, and so important, by the freshness with which we
ourselves remember other events more complicated that
have happened within a similar period of time. There is,
moreover, clear evidence that at the date of these Epistles
two practices were universal in the Church — those, namely,
of baptising converts, and of commemorating what was
called the Lord's Supper. These practices must have had
a commencement, and have had an origin. The period of
thirty years, before which there is no trace of the second,
even if the first existed in other forms, is too short a time
for their origin to have been forgotten, or for the practice of
them to have become materially modified. But the com
memoration of the Lord's Supper is unmeaning, except in
connection with the death of Christ, and St. Paul declared,
" As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do
show the Lord's death till He come; "* and whatever relation
there may have been between baptism as practised by the
Jews or by John the Baptist, and Christian baptism, it is
certain that baptism in the name of Jesus is unintelligible,
except on the supposition of His having risen from the dead,
or having in some way established His claim to be the Son
of God, or the founder of a new society. St. Paul, however,
distinctly says that Christ sent him " not to baptise, but to
preach the Gospel,"t as though He had sent others to do
* I Cor. xi. 26. t I Cor. i. 17.
39i

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OP

both ; or at any rate, had sent others to baptise. The pre
valence, therefore, of these significant practices, which is
clearly traceable less than thirty years after the death of
Christ, is well-nigh equivalent to contemporary evidence,
both as to their origin and to the reality of the events they
signified. If Christ had been a shadow, or a myth, or a mere
crystallised idea, it is absolutely impossible that we should
have the kind of evidence we have as to the universality of
these practices. We can account for them on no theory but
the express command of Christ, which must have been sub
stantially identical with that recorded in the Gospels.
It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the known writings of
St. Paul contain incontrovertible evidence of the whole
framework of the life of Christ, which was the basis of the
Christian faith less than thirty years after His death. They
show us the existence of a large and organised society,
which was held together solely by the attachment of its
members to His* person ; and which, but for faith in Him,
would have had no existence at all. This society was noto
rious for the profession and the practice of a very high
morality, such as had never before been seen, and can never
be surpassed, — at least, it is such a morality these Epistles
inculcate. The occurrence of one or two flagrant breaches
of this morality in the Church at Corinth, only serves as a
foil to what was, beyond all question, its general standard ;
392

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

but, in addition to this, there were other features in it of a
wholly exceptional and unprecedented character. One of
these was what we may call, for want of a better name, its
unworldhness. Every one must feel that there is that in the
writings of St. Paul which is distasteful to the common
humanity of the world. It is as if a new sense had been
suddenly created, and the writer was bent upon satisfying it.
The whole range of sympathies and requirements and tastes
is new. It is not a natural thing for men to care about
communion with Jesus, or prayer to God, or participation in
the Holy Spirit, to have hearts overflowing with gratitude to
the Divine Being for having redeemed them, for adopting
them into His family, and making them partakers of the
holiness of His own nature. However this is to be accounted
for — if it can be accounted for — it was not then, and is not
now, a condition of mind natural to man. Now, take away
the expression of these feelings, and the letters of St. Paul
come to an end, and the occasion for writing them comes
to an end, and the existence of the society for which they
were written comes to an end. But as the letters exist, the
occasion for writing them must have existed, and the society
for which they were written must have existed; and none of
these things can have existed without a sufficient and analo
gous cause. They are inseparably connected with the
preaching of Jesus and the belief in His name. Take away
393

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

these two things, and they would not have existed at all.
But their very existence is a proof at the same time that they
can only have made their way in opposition to the prevailing
tendencies of human nature, because they cherished and
exhibited a condition of mind which is foreign to the natural
tastes and inclinations of mankind. There is internal
evidence, therefore, in the writings of St. Paul that the faith
which he preached had only succeeded, wherever it was suc
cessful, by triumphing over much that was naturally and
fatally opposed to it; thus showing that we cannot refer
to any natural causes the success of a scheme of religious
belief which was itself contrary to nature, and is still felt
to be contrary to nature.
But there is another feature, wholly exceptional and
unprecedented, which characterised the new society ; the
evidence for which is too distinct to be set aside or
explained away — the first Epistle to Corinth affords con
clusive proof of*the existence of miraculous gifts in the
Church there. These gifts were of various kinds ; the most
mysterious of them being the gift of tongues. Whatever
this was, it is sufficiently clear that it was over-estimated, and
that it was abused. The possessors of it were puffed up on
account of it. They were disposed to prefer it before
charity, and the less obtrusive gifts of the Spirit. We can
only conclude, therefore, that this gift was a reality which
394

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

was acknowledged and envied by others, but a reality like
wise which was peculiar to the Church, and which was limited
to the area of belief in Christ. Now we must not assume
that the possession of this gift was miraculous ; all we may
insist upon is the validity of the evidence that it was real,
and of this the fourteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the
Corinthians presents incontestable proof, and consequently
the existence of this gift is a distinguishing characteristic of
the effects which followed the original profession of the faith
of Jesus. Not only was the standard of morality raised by
it, not only were new dispositions awakened by it, and new
capacities and tastes created, and new desires and hopes
implanted, not only were the original propensities, in
clinations, and antipathies of nature resisted, thwarted,
and overcome; but in addition to this, there is a plain
evidence of new powers and endowments being conferred
upon the first believers concurrently with their belief in
Christ. Now it is obviously impossible that delusion can
have operated in all these cases ; but unless it did, the mul
tiplicity and combination of them supply no inconsiderable
confirmation of the reality of that event, the belief in which
was the very basis of their existence. Multitudes believed
in the fact that Christ had risen from the dead, and the
profession of that belief was followed by one or other of
these results. A great change was wrought in numerous
395

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

instances which was unprecedented in the experience of the
individual, and which could find no counterpart in the
experience of the heathen world ; and if the results which
followed the proclamation of a fact were conspicuously so
real, is it possible that the fact itself was less so ? For there
is only one alternative — if the cause producing these results
was not a fact — namely, that belief in a particular event which
was not a fact, produced them. In other words, not only
was the faith of the early Church self-originated, but more
over, all the phenomena of its existence were the product of
that which itself had no existence.
We need not fear to admit that a very strong conviction
may suffice to produce considerable results, even though the
conviction may be based upon a falsehood ; but we may well
question whether all the results here manifested, combined,
could have been produced by mere belief in the resurrection
of a man whose resurrection was not a fact. What was there
in this belief, supposing it to have been based upon a lie,
which could have wrought so powerfully and so generally on
the minds of men as it did ? Could such a belief have made
them morally new, have made them willing to encounter
shame and contempt, and endowed them with powers which
rendered them the objects of envy to their fellow-believers ?
If we think it could, we must still confess that a combination
of circumstances like these, taken all together, is so excep-
396

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

tional as to be virtually without a parallel in the history of
the world.
There is, however, another point in the Epistles of St.
Paul which deserves our notice when estimating their value
as evidence, and that is the witness they afford us of his own
altered feelings with regard to Christ. He speaks, in his letter
to the Galatians, of having been formerly a devoted Jew, and
having persecuted the Church of God and laid it waste.* If
we had no other evidence than this, it would be sufficient.
There is no reason to doubt what the Apostle says. He had
been a bitter enemy of Christ. But there is no evidence what
ever that while he was thus hostile to Christ he had ever believed
His death and His resurrection to have been an unreality.
Had he disbelieved in these events as facts, it is more than
probable that some trace of such disbelief would have escaped
him in his writings. But it is not so. The death of Christ
was manifestly a notorious fact which neither he nor any one
cared to deny. The resurrection of Christ, though perhaps
received more questioningly, was nevertheless put by or
explained away rather than actually denied. The tradition
mentioned at the end of St. Matthew's Gospel, as commonly
reported among the Jews,t is probably a fair sample of the
indolent spirit in which the story of Christ's resurrection was
met by them, and, perhaps, regarded by Saul of Tarsus. In
* Gal. i. 13. t St. Matt, xxviii. 15,
397

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

his own case it was not so much that he disbelieved these
things as facts, as that he was ignorant of their power. The
death of Christ was no more to him than the death of any
one else. The resurrection of Christ was to him nothing
more than an idle Christian tale. He disregarded "both
rather because of the principles associated with them than
because of their intrinsic falsehood. But the time came
when it was otherwise. "It pleased God, who separated
him from his mother's womb, and called him by His grace to
reveal His Son in him."* He then found that the man whose
death he had known as a fact, though not as a power, was
intimately connected with himself, that he had a share in His
death, and had been crucified with Him, and the resurrection,
which had .been to him before but as an idle tale, he now
found to be the unfailing source of a new spiritual life to him.
This was probably more than twenty years before he wrote
any one of these Epistles. If we place his escape from Damas
cus under Aretas*in the year of our Lord 39, this will bring
his conversion to the year of our Lord 36. Now, I ask you
notice this date very carefully. It is as late as we can
well fix the conversion of Saul ; some have fixed it much
earlier. But supposing it to have happened as late as a.d. 36,
this was but five or at the most six years after the death of
Jesus Christ, which happened in a.d. 30, or, as I believe, in
* Gal. i. 15, 16.
398

.S-7: PAUL'S EPISTLES.

a.d. 31. Now, if the death of Christ was an unreality, He
would in all probability at that time have been still alive, as
He would not yet have been forty years old, and His death
by natural means was not likely to have occurred. But
conceive for one moment the impossible absurdity of
the conversion of Saul taking place and the active life
of the Christian Church going on for many years while
Christ, who was supposed to have died upon the cross, was
actually living in obscurity in some unknown corner of
the world. The idea is simply preposterous. The sup
position of Christ not having died as He was believed to
have died is too impossible to be maintained.
If we have got Christ's death then as a positive historical
fact which is unquestionable, we have a platform of reality on
which to rear our superstructure of evidence for the reality
of His resurrection. If Christ did not truly rise, there is one
very important question to be answered which has not been,
and which never will be answered, namely — What became of
His dead body ? The production of that dead body by the
enemies of Christ would have been absolutely fatal to all the
preaching and the faith of the Christians; the Christian
Church would have been effectually stifled in its very birth.
I should not now, after an interval of almost nineteen cen
turies, be lecturing in St. George's Hall on the evidences of
Christianity if the dead body of Christ had been produced,
399

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

and yet nothing, surely, would have been easier for His
enemies to do. If, then, the disciples stole Him away from
the sepulchre while the soldiers slept, and so made away
with the body, we must admit that these Epistles of St. Paul,
which at least are unrivalled in the literature of the world, and
which cannot again be produced at will, owe their origin to
a deliberate lie ; and that after an interval of five-and-twenty
years, which might have sufficed for it to have been success
fully exposed. And we must confess that one of the most
distinguished and highly educated of the Jews of that time,
who himself had been a violent persecutor of the Christians,
was induced against his will, and apparently not by Chris
tian influence, to connive at this collusion or become the
victim of it, and that in such a way as to ruin all his worldly
prospects, to entail upon him years of hardship, and to inspire
him, or at least to leave him, after almost a quarter of a
century, with all the tact, wisdom, and discretion which are
so conspicuous in his letters to the Churches at Rome and
Corinth. Verily this supposition is absolutely precluded by
the very nature of the case.
There remains then but one other to be advanced, and
that is this. The primitive Christians and St. Paul himself
were alike the victims of delusion. The testimony of the
f.rst disciples was based upon an error. The vision which
had arrested Saul on his journey to Damascus, and changed
400

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

the whole current of his life, was nothing more than the
hallucination of a sunstroke. The preaching in which he
passed so many years of his life, and breasted so much resist
ance, was only an infatuation; the hope, and peace, and joy
of which his letters are so full, and which had taken perma
nent possession of him upon belief in Christ, were all a lie.
He had sacrificed himself for nothing, he had toiled and
suffered for nought. He had thrown away his life for a
dream. We do not deny that such a position is conceivable;
but we do deny that the letters of St. Paul give evidence of
it. Had the resurrection of Christ been merely a delusion,
the Epistles to Rome, Corinth, and Galatia are not the kind
of fruits we should have expected it to produce after so long
an interval; nay, there is room for the gravest possible doubt
whether, being a delusion, it could have produced them.
This, then, is our standing ground. We do not assume
that St. Paul was inspired. We do not say that his writings
are authoritative or binding upon our faith. We take up no
such position. We take only what we find — the genuine
letters of an early convert to Christ, which were certainly
written less than thirty years after the death of Christ, which
contain internal evidence on the part of their writer to his
belief in the central facts they proclaim, at an interval of little
more than five years after those facts occurred. We treat
these letters as the natural productions of any ordinary man.
401 26

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

We deduce from them only such evidence as we should de
duce from the letters of Cicero, or any one else. We do not
affirm that they are in any way supernatural, but we say that
they supply conclusive evidence to the very wide-spread
belief in centres of life so far removed as Rome, Corinth,
and Galatia, in a supernatural fact less than thirty years after
it occurred. We do not say that this wide-spread beliel
proves the fact to have occurred ; but we do say that if the
fact really did occur, it would account for the belief, and we
do say that taking all the circumstances into consideration
there is at least room for the very gravest possible doubt
whether had it not occurred, the phenomena we witness
would have been presented. Given the resurrection, and
St. Paul's Epistles are explained ; deny the resurrection, and
you cannot account for them. Given the resurrection, and
St. Paul's own character is the natural consequence of it,
St. Paul's conversion its natural product ; deny the resurrec
tion, and he is*the greatest of all inconsistencies, and his
conversion, with its effects, the most inexplicable of all
enigmas. And here we might be content to leave the case, con
fident that we have not overstrained it, and confident in its
own intrinsic soundness and inherent strength, for the more
the character, the history, and the writings of St. Paul are
fairly studied, the more disciples they will win to Christ;
402

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

but it may, perhaps, be expedient to notice briefly one or
two points in their bearing on this position. It will, of
course, be said that no amount of belief in a fact will prove it
to have been a fact, which is obviously true. The resurrection,
if a fact, is a miraculous fact, so far removed from the limits
of ordinary experience and natural law as to be well-nigh
sufficient to cover almost any contradiction of the one, or
any violation of the other. It is no part of my present
business to discuss the question to what extent a belief in
miracles is defensible; that has already been done in a
previous lecture of this course ; but I may make this obser
vation, that, granting the actual occurrence of a miracle like
the resurrection, there are those to whom it would be im
possible to prove it by any testimony whatever. Nay, there
are those who would not believe it on the evidence of their
own senses, or, at least, who say so. Any demonstration,
therefore, of a miracle, even if it could be demonstrated,
would be clearly useless for them. It would, of course, on
this hypothesis, fail to reach them. Now, we may concede
at once that Christianity is wholly unable to offer any such
demonstration ; nay, we may go further, and say that if it
could, it would be no nearer to the overcoming of such op
position. But let it be observed that the existence of such
opposition by no means proves the evidences of Christianity
to be unsatisfactory or unsound. The person who declares
4°3

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

that he would not believe a miracle like the resurrection
even though he were himself the witness of it, is not likely
to believe it on the testimony of a second person, be he
never so trustworthy, even if it had actually occurred. And
this is a fact that deserves to be borne in mind, because so
far from showing that the evidences of the great Christian
miracle are inadequate, it rather shows the absolute impossi
bility of their being adequate to meet successfully the case
in point. It rather concedes the strength of those evidences,
from mere eagerness to affirm that nothing could make
them strong enough.
But, besides this, it must be remembered that, granting
the reality of a miracle like the resurrection, it is obvious
that, having heen witnessed by a limited number of wit
nesses, it must necessarily be dependent afterwards for its
acceptance upon testimony. On the supposition of its
actual occurrence, a few only could receive it upon ocular
demonstration* and the vast majority of mankind, if they
received it, could only do so upon the testimony of others.
It is therefore clearly conceivable on the hypothesis that
many who rejected it might do so in direct contravention of
the truth. Indeed, all who rejected it must do so.
Because, then, there are found those who reject the evi
dence of the resurrection of Christ, it by no means follows
they have not done so in contravention of the fact. The
404

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

question really is not whether there is still left any possible
room for doubt — for that we have seen there always must
be — but whether the existing testimony is sufficiently un
broken, and sufficiently uniform, and sufficiently valid, to be
reasonably conclusive. And on this point the known Epis
tles of St. Paul are singularly clear. They witness to the
fact of five hundred persons having seen the risen Jesus at
one time, of the universal acceptance of belief in the resur-
section, so that neither in the Churches of Rome, Corinth,
or Galatia, does there seem to have been a single Christian
who doubted it. They witness to the fact that St Paul
himself had lived in familiar intercourse with Peter, James,
and others, who had known the Lord, and that he had
originally joined the Christian body at the most six or seven
years after the resurrection, when he must have had abun
dant opportunities of testing the validity of its evidence,
and when it would have been impossible for him to have
given in his allegiance to an event so contrary to his
experience, except Upon conclusive proof.
Bearing in mind that under any circumstances some- must
content themselves with belief on testimony, it is difficult
to conceive of any testimony which could be more convinc
ing or more satisfactory than that of this Apostle ; especially
seeing that he was at the first a violent persecutor of the
faith he preached ; that he must have had ample means of
4°5

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF

sifting the evidence on which it rested ; and, because, living at
the time he did, so near to the death of Christ, that which his
testimony loses in the matter of personal eye-witness it more
than gains, all things considered, in the matter of deliberate
conviction and devoted lifelong service.
That is to say, the conversion of the persecutor Saul of
Tarsus is itself a wondrous evidence of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. The letters of the Apostle are the expression
of his mature belief; but at the time when that belief was
formed he must have had ample means of knowing how far
he had followed a cunningly devised fable, and how far that
which he believed was truth and was no lie.
Lastly, it may be said, If the evidence for Christ's resurrec
tion was so satisfactory when it was first proclaimed, why was
it not universally believed ? To this we may answer, Why
was Paul the Apostle at any period of his history Saul the
persecutor ? or Why were there any that believed if there were
some who doubted ? It is gratuitous to affirm that the want
of universality on the one side is more remarkable than on the
other. We can only say that faith is the great touchstone of
man's moral nature. To the end of time it will be true that
some will believe the things that are spoken, and some be
lieve them not.* Why are there now any intelligent and able
men who believe in Christ's resurrection if it is absolute folly
* Acts xxviii. 24.
406

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

to believe in it ? That it is not folly to believe in it we can
show to demonstration, while if, as a matter of fact, it did
occur, as for the moment we may assume it did, it is obvious
that the actual effects are what we see them now to be.
There are those who believe, but there are those also who
disbelieve. It is from the nature of the case impossible
that a fact like the resurrection should appeal to man's ac
ceptance like any ordinary fact of history, a battle or an
earthquake. It cannot do so. If it did, there were no
place for the question, " Why should it be thought a thing
incredible with you that God should raise the dead?"*
In accepting the resurrection of Christ, we accept also the
inference that it was God who raised Him from the dead,
and that He did so for a special purpose — the purpose,
namely, of testifying to His life, His character, His mission,
His teaching, and His claims, which are inseparable from
His teaching. In accepting the resurrection, we accept not
only a bare fact, but a fact that influences our relation to
God and our thoughts of God — a fact involving antecedently
many important principles, and resulting in momentous con
sequences. But be it remembered that if the resurrection is established
as a fact at all, it is established as a fact for all time ; no
progress of mind, no advancement of science, no change of
* Acts xxvi. 8.
407

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.

circumstances, no distance of time, no lapse of ages can
affect its truth. That which has happened once has hap
pened for ever. The undisputed Epistles of St. Paul furnish
what may be regarded virtually as evidence of a contempo
rary character to the truth of Christ's resurrection. Had it
not truly happened, they could not have been written ; for
the pulse of resurrection life beats strong in every page.
Had it not truly happened, those exigencies of the early
Church would never have occurred which were the occasion
of their being written, for without the death and resurrection
of the Redeemer the Church of the redeemed is an impos
sibility. Had it not truly happened, the Christian Church
would have had no existence now, and the commentary of
eighteen centuries on the advice and judgment of Gamaliel,
when confronted with the first preaching of the resurrection,
would have been quite other than it is : " And now I say
unto you, Refrain from these men and let them alone ; for if
this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought ;
but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be
found even to fight against God."

For further treatment of this subject the reader is referred to the
Boyle Lectures for i%€g—"TAe Witness of St. Paul to Christ."

408

CHRIST'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE
ON THE WORLD.
BY THE RIGHT REVEREND
THE LORD BISHOP OF ELY.

CHRIST'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE
ON THE WORLD.

My subject isa large one, and my time is short; therefore, I
will say but very few words of preface. I propose to assume
nothing but the patent facts of history, admitted even by the
most advanced sceptics of the day. Heartily as I myself
believe in all the canonical scriptures, and in all that they
teach us, I do not ask you to admit the truth of miracles, or
the inspiration of the Apostles, or the genuineness of the
fourth Gospel, or anything which any moderately reasonable
man can doubt of. All I would assume is this, that we
have in history a general outline of the life and teachmg of
Jesus Christ, that that outline corresponds with what we read
in the three Synoptical Gospels. There is really no discor
dant account or contradictory tradition either among the
early Christians or the early heretics, or the contemporary
411

CHRISTS TEACHING

heathens. It is everywhere one and the same. It may be
more filled up, more coloured, more draped in one picture
than another; but the features and the lineaments belong
unmistakably to one Man. In all the biographies, all the
letters, all the traditions, and they are many and most
unusually numerous and diversified though not diverse,
there is in reality nothing like the discrepancy which we
observe in the character of Socrates as portrayed by his
disciple Xenophon, and the character of the same Socrates
as drawn by his other and more famous disciple Plato.
The account in the first three Gospels is uncontradicted
by that in the fourth, by what we read in the Acts, by the
letters of the early disciples, by the traditions carefully
gathered up by men like Papias, some seventy years after the
events, by the general belief of after ages, or by the few
notices to be found in the writings of enemies and unbelievers.
I shall ask, then, that you admit the general truth of the
history of Jesus as handed down to us by St. Matthew, St.
Mark, and St. Luke, just as you would generally admit the
evidence of common men, even if some choose to think that
they were credulous mea
I. Let us first look at the character of Christ as so depicted.
I venture to say, in the first place, that it exhibits the most
perfect picture of sublime simplicity ever drawn. The Gos
pels seem very much like notes taken from memory by men
412

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.

who were anxious not to lose some record of One whom
they had known and loved. It is impossible to imagine
anything more simple or more simply graphic than their
style — it is still more impossible to imagine anything more
removed from the vulgarity of rhetoric or display or effort
at effect, than the character of Jesus Christ. People have
spoken as though He had been merely a first-rate political
reformer, a demagogue belonging to a type of unusual dis
interestedness. Surely His retired, unseen youth, His gentle,
quiet manhood, His calm, dignified, unimpassioned words are
the very opposite in tone and character to those of the noblest
demagogue or the purest political leader that was ever heard
of. " He went about doing good," seems almost to record
His history. " He was meek and lowly of heart," seems
almost to sum up His character. The most untiring energy,
the most patient endurance, the most tender and affectionate
benevolence strike us in every act and every word of Christ.
And yet there was nothing feeble, nothing effeminate, nothing
sentimental about Him. Simple as the gentlest child, He
was brave as the hardest warrior. Weeping with the tender
ness of a woman for the sad and the suffering, He rebuked
with inflexible sternness the base, the cruel, and the hypo
critical. With the most unsullied purity of thought and life,
He had yet a heart of such large and gentle sympathy that
the very outcasts of mankind could come to Him for heJ.r>
4'3

CHRIST'S TEACHING

and counsel, and He never rejected them. He did not
shrink from touching the leper, and the leprous sinner went
away from Him a new man, with a new heart and a new life.
But the covetous, the proud, the treacherous, the actor in
religion, were rebuked by Him in words which have made a
new language in Christendom ; Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites,
sounding to us no longer as writers of the law, members of
a religious body in Palestine, and actors in dramatic per
formances, but as synonyms for all that is untrue in religion
and in life. And there is one thing which signally sepa
rates Him as a teacher from all other teachers of religion and
morality, viz., that the great lesson was Himself. I must
speak further of this presently. What I mean here is, that
the biographies, though they give many of His discourses,
set before us most of all, not what He said, but what He
did ; and His actions are to us, and have been in all time,
the most impressive lessons ever given to man. Probably
all men — even those who do not believe in Him —
would confess, that if they could see anyone living just
the life which is related to have been the life of Jesus,
the man so living would be perfect in all parts, the very
ideal of humble-hearted, active-spirited, pure-minded, high-
souled humanity. He taught Himself, by simply living
Himself; and His life is the great lesson to every age of
man. 414

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
And the originality of His character is almost as ob
servable as its excellence. He was not simply the Great
Teacher, like the philosophers of old, to whom crowds of
disciples were gathered to listen. He was not the contem
plative thinker, living retired from human society. He was
no ascetic, frowning coldly on the innocent happiness of
man. On the other hand, with all His marvellous activity,
there is not the smallest appearance of restlessness, excite
ment, impetuosity. He was, if He be rightly described
by His biographers, what no other man ever was — perfectly
unselfish, living, acting, thinking, speaking, always with
reference either to the service of God or the good of
man. Of course, as I do not assume the truth of miracles, I am
unable to ask you to give unlimited credence to all that His
followers have recorded concerning Him. But this is evi
dently the impression that He left upon their minds, viz.,
that He possessed amazing power, but that it was united
with infinite condescension, and that it was constantly en
gaged in doing good, and never exerting itself to do mis
chief. They believed that He had power to do all things,
but that he restrained it from doing evil even to His greatest
enemies ; that He never used it to gratify Himself, nor to
save Himself from trouble, or even from suffering ; that it
was always exercised for the benefit of others ; that in fact
4i5

CHRISTS TEACHING

the Self which was unspeakably grand was incessantly re
strained and denied.
II. Now let us turn for a few moments to His teaching.
It was as remarkable as Himself. Other moral philosophers,
or teachers of the art of living, argued with their followers,
setting forth moral systems or propounding theological
theories. He used no arguments, propounded no theories,
weaved no elaborate systems. All He said was with an
authority which astonished His hearers, and all the more,
because of the humility of His life and the self-denial of
His character. His whole system of casuistry would be
contained in four or five pages of common printing ; and
though much of it was new, and all of it of the severest
stringency, it yet commended itself at once to the con
sciences of them that heard Him ; it has commended itself
in the main to the consciences of all subsequent ages, and
in principle at least it yet rules the morality of all Christen
dom, and in great measure even the morality of the fol
lowers of Mohammed.*
It is easy to sketch out a few of the great principles
which He thus set forth. At the root of all lay truth. The
Easterns, among whom He taught, have always been ac
counted as too ready to practise deceit. There was nothing
* It must always be remembered that Mohammed learned the best of
his morals and his theology from Jews or Cliristians.
416

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
Jesus Christ condemned so much as dishonesty or hypo
crisy — the veiy word hypocrisy, as I have said already, and
all our instinctive hatred and contempt of it, being due to
His denunciations of it to His disciples. Closely connected
with this was the stress which He laid on purity of thought.
To impose a weight and put a strain on outward conduct
was all too little : it would very likely lead to superficial
character, to the dreaded and denounced hypocrisy. From
the heart come evil thoughts, and evil words, and evil
actions. And the axe must be laid to the root of the tree.
Make the tree good, and its fruit will be good. To give
way to the desire of evil is to do evil.
Again : there was plenty of partial goodness. The hea
thens and even the Jews had learned an ardent patriotism,
but it was linked, as to its alter ego, with a burning hatred of
their country's enemies, never stronger in Palestine than when
Jesus taught there. And this principle of love to country
and hostility to aliens came home, too, into private life. It
was an axiom that men should " love their neighbours and
hate their enemies." Never before were those words clearly
uttered upon earth, " I say unto you, love your enemies."
Imperfectly, miserably ill indeed, as they have been acted
on, they have revolutionized human thought. It was not
only " Spare your enemies," not only " Forgive your ene
mies," but " Love your enemies." Like everything that He
4i7 27

CHRIST'S TEACHING

taught, it was to have its seat deep down in the heart. It
was essential to every Christian that he should from his
heart forgive everyone his brother their trespasses. It has
been objected to His teaching that it undermined the prin
ciple of heroic virtue, absorbing active patriotism in a dreamy
philanthropy. But the objection is false. His teaching was
at the farthest possible distance from dreaminess or sickli
ness. The benevolence He taught was, like His own, active
and energetic, busying itself, as everything practical must,
first on those most easily and most naturally within its reach,
but then extending to every created being, made by the
same God, and loved by the common Father. There did,
indeed, arise a new kind of patriotism, to which I may, per
haps, allude hereafter; but can anyone read our Lord's
lamentations over Jerusalem, or St. Paul's utterances of his
heart's desire for Israel, his almost wish that he himself might
be lost if he could save them, and yet maintain that patriotism
in its truest essence was quenched either in the heart of Jesus
or in the feelings of His most devoted followers ?
But whatever else may have been peculiar and exceptional
in the teaching of Christ, that which chiefly distinguishes
Him from all other teachers is this. Moral philosophers like
Socrates, ever kept themselves in the background. It was
philosophy that was everything, Socrates was but the humble
tyro, feebly feeling after truth. Prophets of every religion, —
418

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
Moses, Zoroaster, Mohammed, all spoke the word which God
put into their mouths. He was all ; and they were at the
best His honoured subjects and servants. But Jesus Christ,
the meek, the gentle, the humble, the unselfish, the self-
denied, the self-devoted, not only showed Himself as the
Pattern of life, but even propounded Himself as the Object
of faith, hope, love, obedience, loyalty, devotion, adoration,
worship. It is impossible to deny this without rending to
pieces every Christian record. It is argued, I know, that
this was no part of Christ's original teaching, that it grew up
after His death among His devoted followers, who looked
back upon Him as a loved and lost friend and teacher, and
who by degrees invested Him with Divine attributes and
paid Him Divine honours ; and especially it is thought that
the writings of St. John, or rather writings in the second cen
tury falsely ascribed to St. John, and the later epistles attri
buted to St. Paul, fostered this exaggerated belief. I may
well leave the genuineness of these later writings to those who
have so ably and so amply dealt with them before me. All
I wish to say now is, that if St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's
Epistles had never come down to us, we should still be just
where we are. This special teaching of Christ by Himself
is fully developed in every portion of the three synoptical
Gospels., They are interpenetrated by it from end to end.
If it never came from Christ, the writers of those Gospels
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CHRIST'S TEACHING

have misconceived Him altogether, and their record is mere
fiction and falsehood. And so it is of every document which
we possess — history, letters, traditions, anecdotes, apoca
lypses — they all turn the same way, they all speak the same
tongue. Nay ; I have often thought that if we had only the
three synoptical Gospels left, though we should suffer terribly
indeed by losing the deep theology of St. John the Divine, we
should still have the clearest possible statements — though
of the character sometimes called undesigned, or more pro
perly indirect and incidental — as to the Godhead, King
ship, Priesthood of Christ ; and that we should have none,
or at most but one or two of those passages which have been
thought' by many to be inconsistent with the highest belief
in our Lord's supreme, co-equal, co-eternal Deity. It is in
fact in St. John and in St. Paul that we find the most de
veloped form of the New Testament theology, but on that
very account the appearance, for appearance it is only, of
inconsistency and difficulty.*
Let us briefly recall our Lord's words in the first
* In answer to this theory of development or afterthought it may be
said that all the early records, the writings of the Apostles and Evan
gelists, the writings of the Apostolic fathers, are clear about the God
head of Christ. It was comparatively late that doubters arose, heretics
like Cerinthus and Theodotus, and philosophic Christians like Justin
Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, accepting the gospel indeed,
but diluting it by their reasonings upon it.
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AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
three Gospels. Constantly He calls Himself the Son of
Man, meaning — -(can we doubt?) — one who had no ordi
nary interest in mankind, in manhood, in all humanity ;
constantly He confesses Himself, and is confessed to be,
the Son of God ; constantly He claims to be King : He
demands absolute obedience, boundless love ("he that
loveth father or mother more than Him is not worthy of
Him") ; He forgives sins; He has authority over the Sabbath;
He baptizes with the Holy Ghost ; He promulgates His
own law even where it seems to contradict Moses' law ; He is
at least represented (as I do not assume miracles I must say no
more) as with creative power, multiplying bread, restoring
sight, calling the dead to life, saying to the tempest, " Peace,
be still ;" He proclaims Himself the Judge of all the earth,
about to sit upon His throne, with all nations, the dead, small
and great, gathered before Him, and the angels of God wait
ing to do His pleasure ; He pronounces the sentence, and
it runs in words which indicate that the great act of obe
dience was waiting on Himself in prison, in sickness, in
need, and in suffering, that the great sin was neglecting Him,
Him as represented by His servants. There is one other
scene which seems to me even more telling than all these.
Each of -the three Evangelists relate, St. John alone omits to
relate, the institution of the Last Supper. There distinctly —
whatever may be held by differing sects as to its meaning
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CHRIST'S TEACHING

and its blessing — there distinctly Jesus Christ presents Him
self to our faith as the Power which sustains all spiritual life;
pointing to Himself as the great Sacrifice, the anti-typical
Paschal Lamb, and then professing that His Body and Blood
can feed and sustain the souls of all disciples in all coming
time. What is this but, first to proclaim Himself the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world ; and then
to attribute that sustaining, strengthening, life-giving power
to Himself which can be predicated of nothing short of
God? I therefore fearlessly assert that, if our Christian records
be in any way better than waste paper, if they be any records
of Christ at all, we cannot but learn from them that He pre
sented Himself to His followers, not as Prophet merely,
not as Teacher only, but as their Priest, their King, their
God Now, observe, first, the perfect originality of this. No
one ever profeSsed anything like it before. All the heathen
fables about gods coming down among men, all their belief
or half belief that some men were the offspring of deity,
meant nothing like this. Their gods were themselves but
deified men or personified powers of nature. It was easy to
make mythic stories about their bodily appearance, or about
their earthly loves and their earthly progeny.
Or, to speak of something grander, though perhaps less
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AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
poetical, the great pantheistic religions gave ready room
for the fancy that there was a spark of deity in every
sentient being, and that it might be more and more de
veloped into God. In them, indeed, God is but the general
principle of life and intelligence which runs throughout all the
universe ; it is duller in one spot and brighter in another ;
here it may almost go out in darkness, and there it may
burst forth into the light of heaven and of glory. But it is
not a person ; at the highest it is an impersonal power. It
may dwell therefore in the Bull Apis, it may reside in the
Lama of Thibet, it may grow to be the highest intelligence
in Buddha. In none of them is it really God. It is but
the embodiment and the kindling up of a spark of Divine
Being, but not a living, thinking, willing maker of the
universe and ruler of all things. But Jesus Christ, when He
was upon earth, lived among the only people on the earth
who had a clear conception of one great and personal God,
so one and so personal as each separate man is one and
personal, man having been made in the express likeness of
God. Jesus Christ lived among a people who esteemed that
one personal God so great and so awful that they dared
not even speak His name, the name by which He had
specially revealed Himself, for they thought that that name,
if human lips should utter it, would shake heaven and
earth. Yet it was this great, only, incommunicable, un-
423

CHRIST'S TEACHING

utterable Being, whose Son He called Himself, whose very
essence He claimed for His own.
Let it not be said, that He came at a moment when
Jewish hopes were all centred on some heavenly Messenger
to redeem and restore them, that He only fell into their
notions, took advantage of their expectations and flattered
their prejudices. They expected a Messiah, no doubt,
with much in him that was heavenly (if you will, Divine) ;
they expected Him to redeem their nation, to overthrow
their enemies, to advance their kingdom. But they never
thought that their Messiah would claim to be the Supreme
Jehovah, they never thought that He was to redeem, not
their bodies, but their souls, by dying as a lamb sacrificed
upon the altar ; they never thought that, instead of satisfying
their patriotism and elevating their nation, He would teach
them .to subordinate patriotism to universal love of man,
and that instead of extending the earthly kingdom of Israel
through the world, He would found a kingdom which should
be wholly moral and spiritual, and which would place the
Greek, the Roman and the Samaritan on the same footing
with the long-favoured children of Abraham. So far were
they from any thoughts like these, that it was because of all
this that they crucified their Christ.
And if all this were original in Jesus, it was as bold as it
was original. The humble, unostentatious, unselfish, Jewish
424

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
peasant declares Himself the One Eternal God. If it was
assumption only, it deserved the death which was its con
sequence. But just let us consider it for a moment. Was it fanati
cism ? I have already pointed to the calmness, self-posses
sion, soberness of Christ. No character in history exhibits
these qualities so markedly. There is not a symptom of
restlessness, excitement, intemperance, of any kind in one
of His discourses. His eloquence — and no one can doubt
His eloquence who has read, " Consider the lilies of the
field," who has heard "Come unto Me, all ye that travail and
are heavy laden " — but His eloquence, though more heart-
thrilling than any human eloquence, was never rhetorical,
never emotional. It carried conviction because it sounded
like truth uttered by love. In fact, fanaticism or insanity are
charges that cannot be made against Him on any ground
whatever, except on the ground that He believed what He
taught, and that no reasonable man could believe it. And if
so, I think the charge must be abandoned, for Bacon,
Locke, Leibnitz, Newton have believed it, and it is still
believed by the most reasoning minds in Christendom.
Imposture is another charge. I have reminded you that
the great principle of Christ's teaching was truth. If there
was one point on which it could with some colour of proba
bility be said that He was an enthusiast, it would be in His
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CHRISTS TEACHING

love of truth, and His scorn for all that was false and
hypocritical. It would be strange indeed that such a
teacher should lay the foundation of His teaching in false
hood. And be it remembered, that the supposed falsehood
was not to please popular tastes, or to take advantage oi
popular prejudices, but to run counter to and offend them
all, having apparently no purpose, but the purely disin
terested purpose of mending men's manners against their
wills, and having evidently no earthly end but persecution,
suffering, and death. The fanaticism is the most inexplica
ble, the imposture the most improbable ever heard or
thought of.
III. And now let us see what the teaching of this so-
called fanatic or impostor has done.
I suppose it will be acknowledged that He lived at a time
when the world was singularly in- want. Heathenism had
failed to satisfy it. The world had outgrown its infancy, and
had tossed away its dolls. The philosophers derided, even
the poets could hardly play with, their old heathen deities.
Society was corrupt to its core. The old monarchies had
sunk one by one, — Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Mace
donia — oppressed with their own vices. Rome had indeed
reached the height of power, but it was power to be vile
and so to be miserable. And there was a groan uttered
from universal humanity for something to save it from the
426

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
utter exhaustion of sensuality hard by suffering, of moral,
social, and political degradation. Judea itself, where still
God was worshipped, was no exception to the general rule,
though it had yet hardly fallen to the depth of imperial
Rome. And what of philosophy ? Certainly it could
never have had a better trial. The greatest moral philoso
phers the world ever knew, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, had
taught at Athens. The sound of their voices reached
Rome, and echoed through all the civilized world. Without
doubt, their teaching was valued, without doubt it was
valuable to the thinking few ; but the effect produced upon
the many is too truly described by Ovid, " Video meliora
proboque, Deteriora sequor." The salt of society had not
been discovered; for society stank, and was corrupt
throughout. And then Jesus Christ set forth a remedy, and it was
Himself. It cannot be too emphatically said, or too
steadily borne in memory, that Christianity is Christ.
So He taught ; so His disciples after Him— not a law— not
a theory — not a code of morals — not a system of casuistry —
not even an elaborate theology— but " they ceased not to
teach and to preach Jesus Christ."
And this did satisfy human wants.
(i) Moral philosophy never moved more than a few
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CHRIST'S TEACHING

thoughtful minds. A strong law, like the law of Moses or
the laws of Rome, may put a curb on men's passions and
keep them in by bit and bridle, lest they fall upon you.
But there was something vastly more powerful in the
teachmg of Christ. He propounded Himself to His fol
lowers, as the one great object of their loyalty and love.
Now love and loyalty are the very groundsprings of noble
and disinterested life. The servant of law lives in obe
dience to law, because to break law is to incur its penalties.
The moralist trains himself with special reference to himself.
The very necessity of his training turns the moral eye in
ward, creates self-consciousness, and produces, perhaps de
spondency from failure, perhaps self-confidence from suc
cess. The effect of loyalty is altogether otherwise. The
eye, the heart, the hope, are all turned outwards — and in
the case of the Christian — not outwards only but upwards.
The result is, not the calculating morality, which may easily
make a man selfish, but the absorbing love of a master,
which makes him self-devoted. And coincident with the
love and loyalty to the Master, came the brotherhood of all
who loved and obeyed that Master ; a close tie of brother
hood towards them, and earnest desire to bring others into
that brotherhood, and so an universal charity to mankind.
Thus did the Great Teacher provide for the wants of man,
considered as a moral being. 428

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD. '
(2) Let us see how He provided for His wants as a
spiritual being. It is the witness of all religious antiquity,
that, whilst the soul longed to look up to, and rest in some
thing above it, it was ever striding to bring that which was
above it down to a level with itself. It could not grasp in
finity, and it was ever trying to make it finite. So it de
vised man-gods and idol-gods. So it degraded God to be
no higher than man, nay, "likened its Maker to the grazed
ox." What Jesus Christ did was to bring God down to
man, but not to degrade and lower Him by doing so. He
professed not to be a Man-God, — like the Saturn and
Jupiter of Latium, like the Lama of Thibet, or like the
Buddha of Ceylon and China; but the God-Man, God
dwelling in human flesh, and manifesting all the character
of infinity in the person of the finite. So He satisfied the
yearnings of the human soul, without lowering the dignity
of the Divine Spirit. It is impossible to remember the
fables of heathenism without feeling that Deity is not only
lowered, but utterly lost in them. But I appeal to your ex
perience and to your hearts, whether the conception of God
conveyed to us through Christ is not raised, rather than
depressed — raised even above the conception of the High
and Lofty One which mhabiteth eternity, as discovered by
our reasonings, or as revealed to our faith, in the theism of
the philosopher or the writings of the Jewish prophets.
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CHRIST'S TEACHING

(3) Once more, He provided for man's wants as a social
and political being. Social polity has ever oscillated between
an absolute despotism and a pure democracy. There are
many who say that the only ideal of good government is
either a paternal despotism, or "liberty, equality, and fra
ternity." It is most true that our Lord declined persistently
to mingle Himself with earthly politics, or to meddle in the
affairs of earthly kingdoms. But He declared that His
mission was to set up in this world a kingdom not of this
world. And the principles, the polity of that kingdom com
bined in a marvellous manner the unopposed will of the
Father-King with the fraternal equality of all the people.
As King of the kingdom of God He exacted the most de
voted loyalty and the most unswerving obedience ; but to
the members of the kingdom He said, "All ye are brethren."
He forbade any to aspire to pre-eminence, or authority, like
the kings of the Gentiles ; to those who desired to sit on
His right hanfi and on His left He only promised that they
should drink of His cup of suffering, and be baptized with
His baptism of blood.
(4) Lastly, He provided for man's natural wants as a
sinful being. Every religion witnesses to the anxiety of the
religious mind to throw off a weight from the conscience by
austerities, or by sacrifices, or by gifts. I am aware that I
am treading on ground which may lead me into controversy,
43°

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
and from this I must guard myself. Still I think every one
who reads the Gospels must confess that the Christian his
tory and the Christian faith culminate in sacrifice. I do not
wish to reason on it ; I readily admit its deep mystery, and
the great difficulty of explaining it ; I only assert, and I
assert without fear of contradiction, that Christ set forth
Himself, and that His disciples set Him forth to the world
as One who suffered for the sins of that race which He had
made His own ; that He first bound them closely to Him
self, and then drained off to the dregs that cup which their
sins had prepared for them. He came into mankind that
He might carry off the curse which sin had cast into the
midst of it. And I know, indeed, that there are some, and
some for whose scruples and difficulties I feel deep respect,
who, acknowledging all the debts due to Christianity, for
raising, ennobling, and purifying human life and human
thought, yet say that they could accept every portion of it
save only its doctrine of atonement and sacrifice. They
think it derogatory to the mercy and to the love of God,
and they doubt if the sins of feeble beings like ourselves
can ever be so offensive to His majesty as to need such an
intervention, or to cost so tremendous a price. I say I
respect their scruples, for in some cases I believe they have
been the scruples of' men very pure in life and very loving
in heart. But of this I am most certain, that there is
431

CHRIST'S TEACHING

nothing in Christianity which has so commended it to the
acceptance of mankind at large. And certainly its effect, if
fully exhibited, is very remarkable. Its effect is first to
enhance our sense of sin, and secondly to enhance our
sense of the love of God. WeUnigh every other system of
forgiveness tends to make light of sin. If repentance be
easy, sin cannot be so very hard. WeUnigh every other
system of religion has created a dread of the Sovereign
Ruler of the Universe, and has seldom, if ever, led to de
voted love of Him. Strangely enough, too, all past religions
had treated sin, when great, as inexpiable, and gave no room
for repentance, even though sought carefully and with tears.
But the Christian faith in the atoning love of Christ has
deepened, beyond all comparison with aught besides, our
conviction of the darkness and the danger of sin ; has yet
assured us that repentance for sin is not impossible, but to
be attained and then certain to be accepted ; and, lastly,
has been the ene only convincing evidence that, for all the
clouds and darkness in which nature and natural religion
have enveloped the Deity, there is yet a loving Heart in
heaven, and that we may, with undoubting, filial confidence
cast our orphan souls upon the Fatherhood of God. And
so it is a fact, which nothing can take away, that, with all its
admitted mystery and deep obscurity, the cross of Christ
has been, even more than all else in His marvellous history,
432

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
that which has won human hearts, and which has satisfied
human yearnings.
IV. Let us pass to the reception of Christ's teaching
in the world. There is not much that is new to be said
about this. Fust, as to the mode of its propagation : it
was not propagated by force, like the religion of Mohammed ;
nor was it a political revolution, as Buddhism was a great
rising against the caste system of the Brahmins, joined with
a modification or so-called reformation of their theological
and philosophical theories. Christ forbade His followers to
mix themselves up in the politics either of the Jews or of
the heathens; and, as to force, He told them, in words
which all Christian history since has verified, that "they
who take the sword shall perish with the sword." In fact,
the mode of the propagation of the faith of Christ was the
simplest conceivable : it was merely a proclaiming of Christ
as the Prince and the Saviour of the world. Apostles
preached the kingdom of God, invited men to come into it,
declared that Christ was its King, claimed from His subjects
obedience to His sovereignty, and promised them peace in
their hearts here and happiness in His home hereafter. It
is a matter of perfect indifference to my present argument
whether you acknowledge that this preaching was accom
panied with miracles or not. If it was, then cadit quastio.
Probably no one in this company will say, as the Jews said
433 28

CHRIST'S TEACHING

and as some of the heathens said, that those miracles were
due to Satanic agency. If there were miracles therefore,
they were of God. But, if you refuse your assent to mira
cles, then I only say the result was all the more miraculous.
If there was nothing but a simple teaching of Christ — if
only men narrated the life of the Jewish carpenter, told of
His death, declared him to be their King, set up His cross
as their hope, and claimed submission to Him as their God;
and if thereupon, in the midst of Jerusalem and Rome, and
Athens and Corinth, and Ephesus and Philippi, and Smyrna,
and Antioch, and Alexandria, at a time when art and science,
and civilization and philosophy were at the greatest height
ever known; if then and there, in the space of a single
generation, thousands and hundreds of thousands, of all
ages and all classes, bowed their heads and gave up their
hearts to Christ, I ask what was it that gave such magic
power to the so-called " foolishness of preaching ?'' I
answer, It was the force of truth; and I ask again, Has
any other answer ever been given ?
The progress of Christianity in every stronghold of
heathenism soon roused the jealousy of the governors of
the world. We need not dwell upon the cruelties with
which its votaries were persecuted. Men clothed in gar
ments smeared with pitch, and then lighted up as living
torches, to add a horrid lustre to the festivities of the
434

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
Emperor. Men crucified with their heads downwards.
Men thrown to wild beasts. The heart sickens at the
recital of their sufferings, and still more at the ferocity of
their torturers. But nothing stopped them. Every human
power was exerted. Every device was tried. But neither
skill nor force availed. The stream flowed onwards till it
became a river ; the river spread out till it became a flood.
In the short space of three centuries from the death of
Jesus, Europe, Asia, and Africa, as far as civilization had
reached, owned Him as their sovereign, and marched under
His banner. Not a blow had been struck in His favour,
though thousands and hundreds of thousands had died
rather than disown Him. And then the heathen oracles
were silent, the heathen altars were deserted, the heathen
philosophers were changed to Christians; Christian presbyters
ministered where heathen priests had sacrificed; Christian
orators spoke where heathen advocates had pleaded ;
Christian judges decreed justice in the seats of the praetors
and the proconsuls ; a Christian Emperor sat upon the
throne of the Caesars. It is so still ; the great bulk of the
civilized world still retains, and professes to be guided by,
laws, customs, and morals, which are really drawn from the
teaching of Jesus Christ.
(i) It is said that the spread of Christianity is at least
435

CHRISTS TEACHING

partly due to mere human and common-place causes. * It
is said for instance, that the civilization of the heathen
empire was effete, that society was corrupt, that the very
world was wearied with its own wickedness. Very true :
yet it was in the Augustan age that Christ lived and taught,
the very climax of ancient art and letters, and refinement,
and philosophy. Very true ; but still, that which will be
our only refuge if we are driven out of our faith, had offered
everything that it can ever have to offer. Moral philosophy
had done its best. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus,
Seneca, had done all that could be done by reasoning and
moral teaching, to win men from vice, and to train them to
virtue. And earth, for all that, was wearing the very
semblance of hell. Men, no doubt, were weary of it, and
they listened the more readily to Him who promised to
the weary rest. Is it no mark of design and wisdom, that
the remedy was offered at that very time when it was the
most needed, and when the need was the most keenly felt?
(2) It is said, that the world then, in its deep dissatisfied
restlessness and inquietude, was turning right and left for
satisfaction, and that thus it readily lent an ear to the super
stitious and the supernatural. It may have been so. It
had apparently given up all faith ; and the unbeliever passes
* The arguments here considered are those propounded in Lecky's
" History of European Morals." 436

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
readily into the credulous. But I cannot think it reasonable
to conclude, that an age of philosophical scepticism, of un
bridled licentiousness, even though it might combine with
these some disposition in favour of the marvellous, would
be likely to admit the pretensions of Christianity without
careful investigation ; when Christianity bore with it require
ments of the most rigid morality, offered in exchange for its
philosophy simple faith, in exchange for its licentiousness
the sternest self-denial, and gave it no promise in this life,
but of contempt and suffering, and very likely martyrdom.
(3) It is said once more, that the unequalled organization
of the Primitive Church made it a firm phalanx sure to win
its way through the ranks of the fiercest foes. Very true.
The economy of the Primitive Church, with its bishops,
priests, deacons, and deaconesses in every city and suburb,
with its strict and unbroken unity throughout the world
which it had won and was winning, was, no doubt, an
organization, a freemasonry, a secret society if you will,
which constituted the best possible machinery for preserving
and propagating its faith. Is it no sign of the superhuman
wisdom of its Founder, that He not only taught the great
secret of life ; but that He devised means whereby that
secret should be guarded and handed on to men ?
I must here consider for a moment one of the gravest
questions which arises in many minds about the progress of
Christianity. Granted that its speed was rapid at the first,
437

CHRIST'S TEACHING

why has it ever stagnated since ? If it be the great remedy
for human woes, and the great prompter of human virtue
and morality, why did not its Divine Author, if Divine He
be, ordain that it should at once find its way everywhere,
and should never fail anywhere ? I am ready to admit the
gravity of the question. I doubt if there be any greater
mystery connected with the faith of Christ. It was objected
to that faith by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, perhaps the most
eminent of the deists of the last century, and it has tried
many a believing, as well as many a doubting spirit, since.
We naturally feel, that a religion meant to save all men
ought to be made known to all men. In the few words I can
say on it now, I do not pretend to clear up all the mystery.
I cannot clear up all the mystery of God's actions or of
God's will. I would only remind you first, that this is at
all events but one specimen of the working of that general
law, which seems to rule in creation, in Providence, and in
grace. The analogy between the development of nature
and the development of revelation was ably traced in the
lecture of one who preceded me some fortnight or three
weeks back. It certainly seems the principle of the Divine
action, that all things should rise up into maturity by steady
gradual progress and growth. So the infancy of mankind
was left in the glimmer of twilight; then there was a
dawning light in the ages of the patriarchs and the prophets,
438

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
till the day broke full upon the world in the coming into it
of Jesus Christ. By the same kind of gradual working, that
day-spring from on high has extended its brightness first to
one land and then to another. It is no more marvellous
that China and India and Central Africa should not yet
have seen it all, than that for thousands of years of man's
past history, the whole human race, except at most a very
small portion of it, should have known nothing of Christ or
even of God. There has been an infancy of man, as there
has been an infancy of the Universe ; and we may well
•believe, that there may have been a preparation for Christ's
coming, and elsewhere a preparation for the knowledge of
His coming, corresponding with the preparation through
countless ages past for the habitation of man upon the
earth. And as to the imperfect reception of Christianity in some
places and times, and its actual retrogression, as from the
Mohammedan conquest, in others ; is it not plain that we
have to expect Christianity to advance by moral means and
not by mechanical? Christ left a leaven in the world, that
it might work and leaven mankind. We are apt to expect
that it should work by magic, and not by its own moral
influence. Now, our Lord never so worked on earth. If
He worked in His miracles by a mechanical force on nature,
He never applied such a force to human wills, nor does His
435

CHRIST'S TEACHING

Gospel work so now in the world. He called His church
the salt of the earth ; but He warned it that the salt
might lose its savour. He said it was a grain of mustard
seed, which should grow into a tree and fill the earth ; but
He never said that there should be no blights, no frosts, no
tempests which might check its growth, or nip its leaves or
rend off its branches. The apostles themselves knew that
they had the Gospel treasure in earthen vessels, and when
the vessel was injured the treasure could not be safely con
veyed by it It is very natural to expect that a potent
remedy should produce an instantaneous cure. But we are-
constantly taught by experience that maladies are too deep-
seated, or constitutions too sickly, for rapid or perfect
restoration. We naturally expect every man under the true
influence of Christianity to become perfect : we expect
Christianized society to exhibit no defects. But, in reality,
we only find that both the man and the people have a new
principle, which gradually raises them, that they become
instinct with a new life, which shows itself sometimes indeed
by vigorous action, but which sometimes, too, becomes lan
guid and feeble. If we make these allowances, there will
be nothing to stagger our faith in the slow progress of the
Gospel through the world. In the beginning, Christianity
was thrown into mortal conflict with heathenism. That
heathenism it steadily extirpated, whilst the sounder philo-
440

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
sophy which had lived in the midst of heathenism it
adopted for its own. In the midst of this there came too
often an attempt at compromise. There sprang up a fusion
between Christian verity and philosophy, and philosophy,
too, of the corrupter heathen type, not of the purest or most
divine type. Hence the strange forms of heresy which
meet us in the earlier centuries. After the barbarian con
quests, Christendom indeed took its fierce captors captive.
They who had trod down imperial Rome, bowed lowly
before Him whom Roman governors had crucified and
Roman emperors had persecuted. Then came a struggle
between barbarism and faith, the faith gradually subduing
the barbarism, but the barbarism still clouding the faith.
And I think we do not enough remember how through the
Middle Ages, on which we often look so contemptuously
back, there was ever going on a great mission work of the
church and of the Gospel, the fierce barons and the rude
churls being as hard to win to the obedience of faith as the
heathen: with whom the apostles pleaded in the early ages
of the faith.
On the whole there has been a constant progress, greatest
certainly at first, but never seriously slackened, till Mo
hammed devised a great Christian heresy (for a Christian
heresy it was, as much as that of the Gnostics, or that of
the Manichees before him,) thereby blighting the growth of
441

CHRIST'S TEACHING

the Eastern Church for centuries ; still, however, there was
progress again in the west, among Germans, and Slaves
and Scandinavians ; stagnation for a time from the twelfth to
the eighteenth century, as far at least as visible increase was
concerned; and now, again, progress, through the over
spreading of new continents by Christian colonists, and the
bringing in of newly-known heathen tribes to the faith of
the Church. Unless we insist that the world should be won
by miracle, I do not see that we can ask more evidence to
the winning power of the teaching of Christ
V. And now for its effect on those taught by it, and on
the world at large through them. I have argued that phi- •
losophy failed ; has Christianity succeeded ? With the
allowances which must be made for the matter on which it
has to work, and with the premised condition that it was
not intended so to act as a spell that man's will would sim
ply be enslaved by it, his moral responsibility lost, and his
state of probation done away with ; then I assert that it has
succeeded incomparably beyond anything else that has ever
been devised, or ever attempted by man.
Let us take great and acknowledged facts. It is confessed
that under the influence of Christianity gladiatorial shows,
and the throwing of prisoners to wild beasts, were given up
and done away with. It is impossible to deny that the
worst forms of licentiousness, which were not only tolerated
442

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
in Greece and Rome, but indulged in openly by their
heroes, attributed to their deities, and celebrated in verse by
their poets, have been universally reprobated in Christendom,
and dare not now show their heads abroad even in the most
corrupted centres of modern society. The respect paid to
woman is due before any other cause to the honour with
which the Great Founder of our faith treated those women
who waited on Him, and to His filial reverence for the
mother that bare Him. The laws of marriage which now
rule in Europe are not heathen, not even Jewish, but pre
eminently Christian. What Christ spoke concerning mar
riage and divorce regulated the principles of the Church,
and the first Christian rulers incorporated those principles
into the laws of the empire. Our domestic morals have
thus been governed by a few sentences from the lips of
one Man. The existence of hospitals for the sick and
wounded is entirely due to the charity of the early Chris
tian Church. The softening of the horrors of war, and
the better treatment of prisoners, are equally the result of
Christian influence. Contrast, for instance, the conduct
of the most humane of heathen conquerors with the con
duct of any great Christian general. No one among
the ancients is more celebrated for his humanity than
Titus; yet when Titus had taken Jerusalem, he crucified
by thousands its undoubtedly brave defenders, and the
443

CHRIST'S TEACHING

historian tells us that " there lacked crosses for the bodies
and room for erecting the crosses." When Gustavus
Adolphus took a city, he so guarded the lives of its in
habitants, that it is said that no injury passed upon the
head of one of them. In the war we have just witnessed,
the German army marched into Paris, after fierce fights and
long sieges, yet the first care of the invaders was not to slay
or torture, but to feed the famished inhabitants of the city
they had taken, the conquering army even giving up its
rations to supply food to their enemies, who might else have
perished for hunger. And as for the prisoners in modern
warfare, the wounded and the sick are tended by the sur
geons, and nursed in the hospitals of those against whom
they have been fighting, and against whom it is possible
they may yet live to fight.* This regard for human life is
justly regarded by philanthropists as the truest test of a high
• The terrible scenes just enacted, and even now enacting, in Paris,
almost seem to contradict my words concerning mercy in war, words
written and even printed before Paris was bumed and wasted. But let us
remember that eighty years ago France threw away its Christianity, and
took Atheism for its creed ; that in-the last fifty years it has been slowly
and painfully recovering its faith ; that Paris has been the centre of the
unbelief of Europe ; that so, a large portion of its inhabitants have
grown up utterly without religion ; that, according to a friendly witness,
' ' the people of Paris believe not in any God, nor in any man ; "* or,
according to another statement, "the Communists acknowledge no God,
no man, no faith, no hope, nothing but better wages and more pleasure ;"+
that the chief perpetrators of the horrors of the past week not only
* Fortnightly Review, quoted in Times, May 31, 1871.
t Times, May 31, 1871. 444

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
civilization ; and I confidently ask whether it has ever come
but from the influence of Christian teaching and the effect
of Christian sympathy.
Let us turn to the question of slavery. It is objected by
some that there is no direct denunciation of slavery in the
Scriptures. I am not now concerned with the Old Testa
ment; but I may yet, in passing, say, that whilst Moses
could hardly refuse to recognise slavery as a prevailing
institution, he still gave laws concerning it which mitigated
its horrors to the utmost, and placed the Jewish slave in a
condition, moral, social, and spiritual, utterly unlike to his
condition in any heathen state. As regards the Gospel, we
must remember, once more, that Christ was not a political
reformer, not professedly a social reformer, not even prima
rily a moral reformer. His mission was to elevate men's
whole spiritual nature; and this He did by the infusion
into society of a new religious or spiritual principle. It did
not fall in with the purposes of that mission to descend to
every detail of social life, still less to regulate political
institutions. So, He never denounces war, nor imperial
abhorred Christianity, but murdered priests, only because they were
ministers of Christ, and proclaimed Atheism and Materialism to be the
very basis of their theory, both in politics and in life. There is nothing
to surprise us when we find that those who deliberately cast off religion
and humanity, faith in God, and faith in man, fall lower than those who
are simply ignorant of the true principles of either. Atheists in the
midst of faith are very likely to be much worse than heathens.
445

CHRIST'S TEACHING

tyranny, nor even the political factions of the Jews. It is
scarcely a question that sudden emancipation of a great
slave population is never desirable. And if the first
Christians had preached against a deeply-rooted social insti
tution, they might easily have produced great political con
vulsions, and have ultimately rendered less tolerable than
ever the conditions of those whom they desired to befriend.
But the principles of Christ's teaching are directly adverse
to slavery, and their progress has invariably tended to
mitigate, and at length to eradicate it. The principle of
the brotherhood of all men, of their common interest in
God, of their common humanity with Christ ; the principle
that there was neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor
female, neither bond nor free, in the great Christian com
monwealth, but that all were one in Christ — this principle
cannot be worked out without destroying the abject servi
tude of one man to another. And, as a matter of fact, this
is what it fias done. " The change brought about was
gradual, but it was sure. At first monks, especially eastern
monks, refused to be waited on by slaves. Then mission
aries never lost an opportunity of redeeming slaves ....
Ecclesiastical legislation declared the slave to be a man,
and not a thing, or chattel ; laid it down as a rule that his
life was his own, and could not be taken without public
trial; enforced on a master guilty of involuntary murder
446

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
of his slave penance and exclusion from the communion ;
opened asylums to those who fled from their master's
cruelty ; declared the enfranchisement of the serf a work
acceptable to God. The abolition of domestic slavery
was one of the most important duties incumbent on the
missionary energies of the mediaeval Church." * It is sad,
indeed, to think how the plague of slavery again broke
out on the discovery of the West Indies and of
America — slavery, too, in one of its most revolting and
debasing forms ; but it still is true that Christianity and
Christian missions have struggled with it from the first,
and that now, at length, it seems to be yielding, and
there is good hope that it may ere long be utterly
subdued. In every way Christianity has been the pioneer of civili
zation, and the giver of social comfort and peace. Very
truly, many colonists from Christian lands have given to
the colonies which they founded not comfort, nor peace,
nor civilization ; but it has been because they have left
Christian lands and not carried their Christianity out along
with them. Often, indeed, they have only laid waste
heathen lands and oppressed heathen races ; and Christianity
following after them, has had to undo the evil, which
* Maclear's " History of the Christian Missions in the Middle
Ages," p. 417. Macmillan, 1863. 447

CHRIST'S TEACHING

apostate Christians had inflicted. Still we may challenge
any one to show a single instance, in which civilization in
modern times has spread to any place to which Christianity
has not first found its way. We may challenge any one to
deny, that, where Christianity has been forsaken or neglected,
there have sprung up, instead of it, as in revolutionary
France, cruelty, licentiousness, and social degradation.
Christianity, once more, has been favourable at least to
the development of mind, the cultivation of letters, the
advancement of science. It is easy, of course, to say that
there have often been efforts among Christians to check
the progress of science, still more frequently panic terrors
as to its unexpected discoveries. It is easy, to point to
Galileo, easy to speak of the fate of geology in the earlier
days of the present century, of the reception of Mr. Darwin's
theory now. As to Galileo, we may at once disown the
Inquisition as representing the Christian faith. But it is
unnecessary to deny that an appearance of antagonism
between faith and science, or faith and literary criticism,
will alarm timid believers, and so may lead to temporary
misunderstandings between Cliristians and men of science
or of literature. Yet look at past history and say, first,
whether science and philosophy and literature did not for
centuries find their only shelter in the Church, even under the
deepest shadows of its cathedrals and monasteries. When
448

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
all the world besides was unlettered and ignorant, learning
flourished among the schoolmen, philosophy and even
physical science were pursued, as far as they then could be
pursued, by ecclesiastics and divines. The name of Roger
Bacon stands out conspicuously as one who, in the cell of
a convent and under the garb of a friar, carried inquiries
into physical truth to a height which, considering his date
and his difficulties, may compare even with the great and
rapid discoveries of the present day. In short, it may be
said truly and fearlessly, that whilst the only other re
ligious systems in the world, which deserve consideration,
Mohammedanism, Brahminism, and Buddhism, have either
stifled, or at the best stunted science and made stagnant
civilization ; Christianity has fostered learning of all kinds,
and has been in itself the highest civilization ever known.
I have naturally dwelt upon the external development of
the religious life of Christians, not upon its inner being. A
lecture on evidence, must of necessity appeal to that which
can be known and read of all men. Yet I might, if there
were time, point to the characters of individual Christians as
proof of the elevating, ennobling, purifying, sanctifying
power of the teaching of Christ, of the contemplation of
Christ, and of the love of Christ. I will content myself
with quoting words which many here have read, and read
with interest, long ago. The author of " Ecce Homo "
449 29

CHRIST'S TEACHING

writes : " That Christ's method, when rightly applied, is
really of mighty force, may be shown by an argument which
the severest censor of Christians will hardly refuse to admit.
Compare the ancient with the modern world. 'Look on-
this picture and on that.' One broad distinction in the
characters of men forces itself into prominence. Among all
men of the ancient heathen world, there were scarcely one
or two to whom we may venture to apply the epithet 'holy.'
In other words, there were not more than one or two, if
any, who, besides being virtuous in their actions, were pos
sessed with an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness, and be
sides abstaining from vice, regarded even a vicious thought
with horror. Probably no one will deny that in Christian
countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness,
has existed. Few will maintain that it is exceedingly rare.
Perhaps the truth is, that there has been scarcely a town in
any Christian country since the time of Christ, where a cen
tury has pasifed without exhibiting a character of such eleva
tion that his mere presence has shamed the bad and made
the good better, and has been felt at times like the presence
of God Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed ? or
can Christianity die ? "*
Let us apply this test to one or two of the greatest and
best of the heathen philosophers. Take Socrates first. Is
* " Ecce Homo," p. 71. Second edition, 1866.
450

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
it possible to imagine an apostle of Christ joining, as we
know that Socrates joined, in drinking bouts where many
were intoxicated, not himself drinking willingly, but when
pressed making deeper potations than any one besides, yet
never exhibiting symptoms of drunkenness ? * It cannot be
conceived that the unutterable licentiousness of Alcibiades,
manifested during one of those drinking bouts, could have
been so manifested, I will not say in the presence of St.
Paul or St. John, or in the presence of any Christian
clergyman since them, but even in the lowest assembly of
English drunkards.
Take Marcus Aurelius : Mr. Lecky, the eloquent and able
writer on " European Morals," has held him up as an ex
ample of what pure philosophy can do, and has challenged
comparison between him and the most exalted and sanctified
of the followers of Christ. We may well acknowledge the
nobleness, the disinterestedness, the simplicity, and the
elevation of his character. No absolute and irresponsible
governor of men has ever been more "clear in his high
office." Yet the concessions, which his panegyrist has made
concerning him, separate him off by a broad line of demar
cation from the highest types of Christian holiness. When
his wife died, for his children's sake he would not contract
a second marriage ; but he preferred the society of a mis-
* Platon. Symposium. Steph. iii., 220.
451

CHRIST'S TEACHING

tress. When he persecuted the Christians, an act which we
may perhaps attribute to mistaken conscientiousness, he not
only persecuted them, but he derided their sufferings.
Could we in these days even call a man Christian who
could so err? Professed Christians, no doubt, fall into
licentiousness, but then they know they are in act repudiat
ing their Christianity. Christians, alas ! have persecuted
those whom they regarded as heretics. But we must
look fairly at the sad history of persecution before we
simply say that Roman emperors did no more. In
the first place, persecution was not inconsistent with
the principles of heathenism, nor is it inconsistent with
the principles, if such there be, of atheism or of atheistic
philosophy; but it is wholly inconsistent with the prin
ciples taught by Christ, and can only have been tolerated
when those principles had been perverted or obscured.
In the next place, Christian persecutors, believing that their
own form of Christianity was the only faith that could save
mankind, esteeming therefore 'those who defiled that faith
as more dangerous to mankind than any robbers or mur
derers, thought consistently, though erroneously, that they
were bound to stamp out heresy as they would stamp out
pestilence in their cattle sheds, or moral pestilence in their
homes and villages. In the third place, though deeds of
violence always harden the hearts of those that do them, it
452

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
is well known that even inquisitors, so far from ridiculing
the sufferings of their victims, often decreed those sufferings
with trembling hands and broken accents, and eyes filled
with tears. Persecutors are no types of Christian excel
lence ; the truest Christianity utterly repudiates them ; but
even persecutors have generally been so, not from love of
persecution, but from a deep and painful conviction that
persecution was a duty and a necessity.
It will be replied, and very truly, that for all this,
Socrates and Marcus Aurelius were grand specimens of
humanity, rising to a noble height of moral greatness in an
age of cruelty and licentiousness, and that we cannot expect
them to have been all that we should expect from a Chris
tian apostle or from a Christian king. Granted most
heartily this. It only proves that Christianity has raised
our standard of excellence and has raised the characters of
those who embrace and follow it immeasurably above the
highest standard and the noblest characters of the world,
which had never heard of Christ.
I must bring my words, my most feeble and imperfect
words in this high argument, to a close. I have tried to
show that the life of Christ, and the teaching of Christ, as
we have them recorded in the most unsuspicious records, — ¦
records which could not possibly have been the gradual
concoctions and concretions of subsequent times, the careful
453

CHRIST'S TEACHI.\G

afterthoughts of enthusiasts or impostors ; that the life and
teaching of Christ were original in the highest degree, not
calculated to attract from any pandering to prejudice or to
passion, that they exhibit the most marvellous ideal of
simple grandeur or grand simplicity ; that the power which
they exercise is from no apparent effort — not even from
reasoning and argumentation, — but from the strength
of truth, arid from their satisfaction to human want; that
the power which they exercised, and yet exercise, is the
greatest moral power ever tried upon man ; that they have
raised, and yet do raise, men and nations to a greater height
Of civilization, humanity, and purity, than anything has ever
raised them before. And I ask, How can we account for
the fact that all this has been done by the teaching of one
unlettered Peasant in the most despised corner of a despised
land ? Is there any phenomenon in moral science, or in .
physical science, which demands a patient and honest
investigation mere seriously than this ?
There are those who think the influence of Christianity is
-on the wane. I confess I can see no sign of this ; though,
without doubt, its enemies are many, and the wish is father
to the thought. But I will just put my case in one other
shape, which will more or less deal with this question of
decay, and then I will end.
If an assembly of 500 or 1,000 persons could be gathered
454

AND INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD.
together, in any city of Europe, or European America, it
being provided that all of them should be intelligent, well-
educated, high-principled, and well-living men and women ;
and if the question were put to each of them, " To what
influences do you attribute your high character, your moral
and social excellence ? " I feel no doubt that nineteen out
of twenty of them would, on reflection, reply, " To the
influence of Christianity on my education, my conscience,
and my heart." I will suppose a yet further question to be
put to them, and it shall be this : " If you were to be assured
that the object you hold dearest on earth would be taken
from you to-morrow, and if at the same time you could be
assured with undoubting certainty that Jesus Christ was a
myth or an impostor, and His Gospel a fable and a false
hood, whether of the two assurances would strike upon
your heart with the more chilling and more hope-destroying
misery?" And I believe that nine-tenths of the company,
being such as I have stipulated they should be, would
answer, " Take from me my best earthly treasure, but leave
me my hope in the Saviour of the world." This is the
effect produced upon the most civilized nations of the world
by the teaching of four years, and the agony of a few hours,
of One who lived as a peasant, and died as a malefactor and
a slave. "Whence had this man this wisdom and these
mighty works ?" 455

THE COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY
OF THE
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.
BY THE
REV. F. C. COOK, M.A.,
CANON OF EXETER ; PREACHER AT LINCOLN'S INN.

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

The evidences of Christianity form a department of sacred
literature of vast extent, to which the most valuable con
tributions have been made in ages when the faith of the
Church was most vehemently assailed, and her powers were
developed by severe and protracted struggles.
It was the subject to which the ablest Christian writers of
the first three centuries devoted their energies, carrying on
in no alien spirit the work of the Apostles, meeting
assailants at every point, demolishing with comparative
ease the fabric of heathen superstition ; winning a nobler
and more fertile triumph over the intellect of Greece. Nor
was the work thus well begun wholly intermitted during
the ages which intervened between the overthrow of ancient,
and the full development of modern, civilization; a civili
zation which owes whatever it has of life and power to its
459

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
reception and assimilation of Christian principles.* But,
as might be expected, the work had to be begun anew,
new difficulties were to be met, new victories were to be
achieved, when the spiritual and intellectual energies of
Europe were set free by the vast upheaval of mind at the
Reformation. The way was opened by representative
men. Grotius, who combined in a most remarkable degree
the accurate and profound learning and the clear dis
passionate judgment characteristic of his countrymen, pro
duced the first complete treatise, " De Veritate Christiana
Religionis," soon adopted as the standard work by Pro
testants, translated into every language of Europe, and by
our own Pocock into Arabic, for the use of the East.
England followed early in the field, and in the last century
fairly won the place, which she still retains, among the
foremost champions of the Cross. Nor did the persecution
which arrested the progress of the Reformation in France,
then, as ever'unhappy in her struggles for light and air,
suppress the workings of spiritual thought. Of all advocates
of the faith, none penetrated more deeply into its founda
tion, none ascended with a stronger flight or keener vision
into its highest sphere, none combined more varied gifts ot
* Midway stands Anselm, the father of modern metaphysics, with the
scientific demonstration of the two fundamental truths of all religion,
the existence of God and the Incarnation. 460

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

intellect and spirit than Pascal, a name bright with the
gracious gleam of letters, dear to " science," dearest above
all to Christian truth.* Germany, too, great in every field
of intellectual power, has not been unmindful of the duty
of maintaining and defending the deposit of truth — a duty
specially incumbent upon her as first leader in the revolt
against usurped authority — not wholly unmindful, though
as yet she is far from having discharged her debt to Chris
tendom, of late years perplexed and harassed by her reckless
abuse of power. Still in the past, among other great names,
Leibnitz, who represents, perhaps more fully than any one
man, the peculiar characteristics of German intellect, laid
the foundations of a system, in which the true relation
between the Christian revelation and God's universe is ex
amined. And at this present hour men sound in the faith,
full of the love and light of Christ, are bringing the re
sources of profound learning and vigorous intellect to bear
upon the chaotic turmoil of anti-Christian influences. Within
this present year several works have appeared in which
infidelity is confronted, both in the sphere of general culti
vation, and in the abstrusest fastnesses of philosophy, by
Luthardt, Steinmeyer, and Delitzsch.f One of the greatest
* Pascal, " Fragmens d'une Apologie du Christianisme, " in the 2nd
vol. of " Pensees du Blaise Pascal." Paris, 1814.
f Luthardt (Apologetische Vortrage, in two parts), presents in a form
peculiarly adapted for general readers, a very complete survey both of
461

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
works at present incumbent upon the Church of Christ is to
bring together into a compact and systematic body the re
sults of previous investigations, which from their very extent
are inaccessible to the generality of inquirers. It is a work
for which this society has been formed ; it will only be
accomplished by the combined efforts of men varying in
gifts and powers, but animated alike by one spirit of fealty
and love to our Lord.
On this occasion I propose, with all possible brevity,
to show that those evidences of Christianity which are
accessible to every careful inquirer are complete and
adequate ; complete inasmuch as they meet the fair re
quirements of our moral and rational nature, and ade
quate with reference to their purpose, which is to bring
us into contact with the central and fundamental truths
of our religion, and with the Person of its Founder. It
may be assumed that persons who meet to consider the
evidences of •revealed religion have previously satisfied
themselves of the existence and the personality of God ;
the internal and external evidences. Steinmeyer, Apologetische Vor-
trage, in three parts, discusses the historical evidence for the miracles,
the death and the resurrection of our Lord, with special reference to the
latest criticisms. Delitzsch's System der Christlichen Apologetik is of a
more exclusively philosophical and dogmatic character. It has been
reviewed in the Studien u. Kritiken, by Dr. Sack, of Bonn, whose own
work, Christliche Apologetik, 1841, is one of the best on the whole sub
ject of evidences. 462

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

or at least that they have not accepted the theory,
once deemed too irrational to need refutation, that the
universe is but an assemblage of forces, self-existent, and un
controlled by a conscious will. That is a question ante
cedent to our present inquiry. It would be useless to
discuss the proofs of a supernatural intervention with one
who held that there is no supernatural power to intervene.
Materialism under any form, and Christianity in any stage,
are mutually exclusive. They are not even, properly
speaking, antagonistic ; since antagonism implies a common
field of action, and the recognition of some principle to
which disputants can appeal. We can only argue now
with those who admit the possibility of a revelation, and
are therefore willing to examine the evidences, and to
accept the conclusions to which those evidences may lead.
Our first object will be to see what conclusions are fairly
drawn from those broad facts which first present themselves
in the history of Christianity, and which no one thinks of
disputing. Put yourselves, if possible, in the position of
an inquirer to whom the facts might be new, and who had
simply to satisfy himself as to their bearings upon his own
convictions and upon the state of man.
Here is one fact. At the central point of the world's
history, central both in time and in historical import, equi
distant from the end of what men are agreed to call the
463

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
prehistoric period and our own time, the man Jesus arose,
and claimed to be, in a sense altogther apart from other
men, the teacher and the Saviour of the world. He claimed a
direct mission from God, — nay, more, to be, in a sense here
after to be ascertained, the Son of God. He assumed that
the truth which He had to teach was new, inasmuch as
it was one which man could not discover for himself, but at
the same time one to which man's conscience would bear
testimony, which could not therefore be rejected without sin.
As credentials of His mission, He appealed to works which
those who accepted Him and those who opposed Him ad
mitted could not be wrought without supernatural aid.* To
one work, as the crowning work of all, He directed His
followers to appeal, as one capable of being attested, and
incapable of being explained away, even His own resurrec
tion from the dead.
And now observe, the fact of this assumption, quite inde
pendent of th« evidence by which it was supported, stands
absolutely alone in the world's history. Consider the exist
ing religions of the world. Three are associated with the
names of individuals as their founders. Of Mahomet we
need not speak. His doctrine was avowedly derived from
* It is well known that both Jews and Gentiles admitted that the
works were wrought, though they denied that the power came from
God. Superstition, then- as ever, opposed the faith of which it is the
counterfeit. 464

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

Judaism, he claimed no special relationship to God, nor
did he profess to work miracles ; as coming after our Lord,
we might have expected a far nearer resemblance in pre
tensions advanced by himself, and to some extent at a later
period advanced by his followers. Two other men, how
ever, stand before us with characteristics which attract our
warmest interest, and enable us to understand the permanent
influence they have exerted over the countless myriads of
Asia. I know nothing in history more touching than the
account of Siddaitha * (called Sakya Monni, that is,
monk of the royal race of the Sakyas), the founder of
Bhuddism, whose tender and noble spirit was driven by
the contemplation of human misery into desperate struggles
to escape from this prison of the universe even at the cost
* The most interesting and accessible accounts of this man are given
by M. Barthelemi S. Hilaire, "Le Bonddha et sa Religion ; " and by
M. Ampere, in " La Science et les Lettres en Orient." Siddartha lived
about the end of the seventh century, B.C. The name " Sakya Monni "
is an appellative, meaning the monk or hermit of the Sakyas, the royal
race to which he belonged. The true end of all philosophy and religion
in his system is to enter into Nirvana, i. e. (according to M. Eugene
Bumouf, the highest authority on this subject), the complete annihila
tion, not only of the material elements of existence, but also, and more
specially, of the thinking principle. In this view the majority of Oriental
scholars agree ; the few who differ, as Colebrook does, identify Nirvana
with an endless and dreamless sleep. See M. S. Hilaire, I.e., p. 133.
M. Ampere (p. 215) thus characterizes the system, " La fin supreme de
1'homme a e^e de perdre le sentiment de son moi, de renoncer a sa
liberte, de s'elever au dessus des affections les plus pures, d'arriver a
un 6tat, oil il ne restat plus que le vide. ''

465 30

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
of personal annihilation ; but observe this, he did not even
profess to support his strange gospel of despair by assertions
or attestations which would necessarily imply the personality
of God, and His sovereignty over the universe. If, again, you
consult the four books in which Confucius * sets forth with
singular simplicity and force the great principles of moral
truth, you will find that he never presents them as revela
tions, as a message supernaturally imparted or attested, but
as evolutions of man's inner conscience, as the product of a
faculty inherent equally in all. Seekers after truth, honest,
earnest, and noble seekers, to whom no Christian should
refuse a tribute of admiration, the world has produced, but
you will find no one man, save Jesus only, among the
founders of existing religions, no one indeed within the his
toric period, who ever professed to be the giver of a truth
at once absolutely new and attested by works such as God.
only could enable him to perform.
•
* The four books of Khung-fu-tseu were written in the second half of
the sixth century, B. C They contain the religions and philosophy of
China in a dogmatic form. The second book, called " Tchuiig yung, "
represents most fully his moral code, of which the principle is obedience
to natural reason, and the rule is observance of the via media, with due
regard to times and circumstances. In one passage, ccxi., iv., Confucius
says a man of strong virtue goes beyond this via media which prescribes
indifference and exact conformity to natural law. For a just appre
ciation of the Confucian system, the reader may consult M. Ampere,
' ' La Science et les Lettres en Orient, " p . 98 ff.
466

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

And now consider this fact. The appearance of this
man Jesus, unparalleled as it is shown to have been, was
nevertheless expected. At present I have not to show that
His person, His offices, His work, together with their
permanent effect, had actually been foretold, or that the
predictions referred to Him as accomplisher of a divine
purpose ; but this we know, as a fact beyond controversy,,
that when He began to teach and work, his countrymen
were familiar with a long series of texts, beginning with the
first, and continued to the end, of their sacred books, in
which they recognized descriptions of such a teacher. You
will remember that those descriptions included all particulars
by which an individual could be identified. As for their
accurate coincidence with what is recorded of our Lord, it
is scarcely necessary to argue, since our ablest opponents
hold that it is too close to be accounted for, save on the
supposition that the records, whether consciously or uncon
sciously, were moulded so to produce the conformity. Witii
that theory Mr. Row and others have dealt. I do not
believe that it is likely to retain a hold on the minds of
our countrymen, but it is a most striking attestation to
an all-important fact which I request you most seriously
to weigh, remembering that of this man Jesus alone in the
world's history can it be asserted that such an expectation
existed. 467

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
The next fact, again, is so obvious that men are in real
danger of overlooking its significance. The faith in this
Man took root. It took root at once, and so deeply that
storms which might have sufficed to tear up any human
institution, served only to fix it more firmly. This Man
died, His followers were hounded to the death, man's
passions, man's superstitions, man's intellect, during centuries
of struggle, were opposed to this religion, and yet it pre
vailed. Will you say it did not prevail universally ? Well,
what is its actual extent ? I answer, it is co-extensive with
the civilization of the world. Is this assertion too strong?
Look at the facts. Beyond the pale of Christendom, the
great races of humanity, which in past ages have shown
equal capacities for the highest culture, have at this present
time no single .representative nation, Turanian, Semitic, or
Aryan, in which liberty, philosophy, nay, even physical
science, with its serene indifference to moral or spiritual truth,
have a settled nome or practical development. The elements
of-civilization are there, capable undoubtedly of being evoked
and energized, but as a plain matter of fact at this present
time, after thousands of years for development, throughout
the -vast regions of Islamism, Buddhism, and Confucianism,
not to speak of lower forms of paganism, they are stunted,
distorted, and, to all human ken, in hopeless and chaotic
ruin. It would not be diffcult to prove that the special
468

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

evils which have choked the human mind, and blighted its
energies, are in each case distinctly traceable to evils
inherent in those religious systems ; but we are dealing now
with facts not depending upon argument, nor. demanding
lengthened inquiries. It suffices to state the bare fact that
the religion of the crucified Jesus, with its doctrines that
were a stumbling-block to the Jews, and. foolishness to the
Gentiles, is at this day conterminous with human progress,
with all advance in liberty, science, and social culture, with
all that is substantially precious in the civilization of the
world. To these facts others might be added of a similar cha
racter, such as the recognition of our Lord Jesus as the true
Master and Teacher of the world, by men- acknowledged in
every age of Christendom to- be conspicuous for moral
worth and intellectual power; such, again, as the pre-eminence
in Christendom, in every age, of nations which profess at
least to acknowledge Him as their Lord, and as the
rapid disintegration or ruin of communities which have
corrupted or abjured His religion. But the- broadest
and simplest facts thus stated are sufficient for the one
purpose we have now in view; sufficient to induce every
one who cares to know the truth to go at once to
that Man, to ask what He has to teach. The inquirer
will do this, as I should think, before he enters into
469

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
the lengthened and very difficult inquiry into the origin
or interpretation of the predictions or the words of
which we have spoken. He will do it because, after all, no
evidence has anything approaching the weight which
attaches to the personal influence of a teacher, in this case,
of one who declares Himself to be ready to receive in
quirers, and to satisfy their wants, who claims to be the
living and ever-present Teacher of man. The inquirer will
certainly do this if he feels the same moral wants, and
experiences the same moral difficulties and perplexities
which beset the most thoughtful heathen before the coming
of this Man ; feelings well expressed in the Pheedo of Plato
by Simmias, a good representative of sturdy, even sceptical,
but thoroughly honest seekers after truth. These are his
words : " It seems to me, Socrates, as probably to you also,
that to know the certainty about such questions in this
present life is a thing either impossible or exceedingly
difficult ; yet that, nevertheless, not to test thoroughly what
ever is said about them, or to desist until we have done our
utmost by inquiring in every direction, would be sheer
cowardice. For some one at least of the following
results we ought to attain about them, either to learn from
others how the" truth stands, or discover it for ourselves ; or,
if neither should be possible, then, at any rate, to take the
best and most irrefragable of human theories, and use it as
470

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

a raft, so to speak, to convey us, though in much danger,
through the sea of life, unless, indeed, one were enabled to
accomplish the passage, with no risk of error or mishap, upon
the firmer conveyance of a word from God."*
The question now meets us, Plow can we be sure that we
have His teaching ? Where can we find His own words ?
Where can we learn what He really did ? Have we a
thoroughly trustworthy, not to say unquestioned, record of
the words He uttered ? of the works He is asserted to have
wrought ?
Now there can be no doubt, that of all assaults upon the
faith, the most effective in this age are those which have
been made upon the documents which compose the New
Testament. The reason for this is obvious. An investiga
tion into the authenticity of any ancient book demands an
amount of knowledge and critical ability, a soundness and
keenness of judgment, which are the very rarest of qualifica
tions. Turn to secular literature, and you will find critics
arguing for ages, without any approximation to a settlement,
touching the genuineness of works attributed to men whose
peculiarities of genius and of style would seem to defy imi
tation. Who would venture on his own judgment to deter
mine how much of the Homeric poems belong to
* For a very remarkable echo of this passage, showing the depth and
permanence of such feelings, see the words of Mr. Hutton, quoted
further on. 471

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
"That Lord of loftiest song,
Who above others like an eagle soars ? "
"Quel Signor dell' altissimo canto,
Che sovra gli altri com' aquila vola. " *
Look at the controversy between Grote, Jowett, and the
latest German critics touching the authenticity of no small
portion of the Platonic dialogues. Taken simply as a
question of critical inquiry, no man of sense would venture
to determine, on internal data, the authorship of any book
in the New Testament, without years of laborious prepara
tion. I will add, no prudent man at all conversant with the
history of criticism would accept assertions, however confi
dent, of critics whose known and avowed prepossessions
would make it i priori certain that they would be averse
to the acceptance of documents which, if genuine, supply
substantial grounds for belief in supernatural works and a
supernatural Person.
What then are we to do? Well, in the first place we
may inquire whether any portion of the documents in that
book is admitted to be wholly unaffected by the corrosive
solvent of negative criticism. This will give us at once a
most important set of documents, no less than those epistles
of St. Paul f which contain the fullest exposition of Christ's
* Dante, Inferno, c. iv.
f Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, accepted by all the Tubingen
School. (See Mr. Leathes' lecture.) 472

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

doctrine, and the most explicit statements of the supernatu
ral facts on which that doctrine is based ; above all, the fact
of the Resurrection. There you will find Christ speaking,
according to His own promise, by His Spirit. But we are
not to be cheated of our heritage by a criticism of which the
main negative results are repudiated, not only by all who
believe in any form or degree of objective revelation, but
by a great majority of avowed rationalists. One by one we
recover, with their concurrence, the other general epistles of
St. Paul, the first of St. Peter and of St. John, the Gospel of
St. Mark, the discourses in St. Matthew, the two treatises of
St Luke, and, though hotly contested, as might be expected,
considering its vital importance, still triumphantly, and I do
not fear to say irrevocably, secured, attested by external
evidence ever more perfect, and by internal evidence * daily
more convincing, as you can witness, the Gospel of St. John.
I might go farther still, and point to the reception of nearly
all contested portions by some or other of our opponents, and
show the cogency of the reasons which overcame deep-seated

* In addition to the well-known work of Tischendorf, and German,
French, and English commentaries, attention may be called to a valu
able treatise by P. H. de Groot, of Groningen, "Basilides als erster
Zeuge des Johannesevangeliums." Leipzig, 1868. The internal evidence
has already been discussed by Dr. Lightfoot, who promises a complete
treatise on the subject, with which no one can deal more effectively.
Some good points are made by Mr. Hutton in Essays, vol. i.
473

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
prejudices ; but it is sufficient for our immediate purpose to
argue ex concessis. If we take at first those books only which
the severest critics, with the exception of certain scholars
of the Tubingen school hold to be indisputable, we have
Christ before us, the characteristics of His Personality, the
cardinal events of His life, the subject matter of His teaching.
Even Keim and R6nan admit that His mark is unmistakably
stamped upon those discourses to which every inquirer will na
turally turn at once, when he seeks to know what Jesus taught.
And here let me speak out frankly my own opinion. The
whole result of inquiry into the truth of Christianity will
depend upon the effect produced upon you by the Person
ality of Jesus Christ. If a careful study of His words, of
His works, does not constrain you to recognize in Him a
divine Teacher, if it does not lead you to discern the Being
in whom alone humanity attained to that ideal perfection of
which philosophers had ever dreamed, but of which they
deemed that the realization was impossible, nay, more, a
Being in whom the moral and spiritual attributes of Deity,
perfect holiness, and perfect love, were manifested, then
indeed I admit, nay, I am in truth convinced, that no other
evidences will have any real or permanent effect upon your
spirit. The completeness of those evidences may fill your
minds with anxious questionings, their adequacy may leave
you without excuse for their rejection; but without a per-
474

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

sonal influence they will also leave you cold, and in a posi
tion, if not of outward antagonism, yet of inward alienation.
If, on the other hand, you accept Jesus as your Teacher
and Master, simply and wholly because He has won your
heart and conquered your spirit, then all other evidences
will fall into their proper place ; they will not be set aside,
contemned, or neglected — had they been needless, they
would not have been given— but they will be used as sub
sidiary and supplementary ; enabling you to give a reason
for the faith which is in you, both for your own satisfaction,
and for the defence and advancement of Christian truth.
The one great evidence, the master evidence, the evidence
with which all other evidences will stand or fall, is Christ
Himself speaking by His own word.
Our first endeavour must therefore be to acquire a dis
tinct and, so far as may be possible, a complete conception
of the personal character of Jesus Christ. Here, however,
we are met by the question, Are we to consider Him
at first in His human nature separately, or must we, in
order to appreciate Him truly, contemplate Him at once
in the completeness of His Personality, combining the
human with the divine ? I answer, not without some hesi
tation, that the line seems pointed out by Holy Scripture.
We are told there that His nature is twofold, that in Him we
see God in man, that the whole work which He came to
475

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
accomplish depended upon that nature ; but, on the other
hand, we find that the form in which He presented Himself
to His contemporaries, and through the medium of historical
records to the Church, in which and by which He drew
mankind to Himself, was thoroughly human; and so it
seems to me clear that our first duty must be to collect from
the Gospel narrative all the characteristic traits of His
humanity, and so learn to know Him as perfect man. We
may or may not avail ourselves of external help in this part
of the inquiry ; but if we do, the utmost caution and dis
crimination will be needed. It is certain that all so-called
lives of Jesus are written under some kind of prepossession,
and convey impressions which, however fair and honest
they may be, have a strong colouring of personal feelings.
Doubtless by such lives as those by Neander, Baumgarten,
Pressense, not to speak of the " Ecce Homo," a student
may have his attention drawn to traits which he might
otherwise fail to appreciate : but I believe that, until the
mind is saturated with the truth set forth with all plainness
and in all completeness in Scripture, the loss will outweigh
the gain. I do not say that, in an advanced stage of
inquiry, those among us especially who have to consult the
wants of other minds, may not profitably resort to these and
similar writings for supplementary information or sugges
tions : but this observation is to some extent true of other
476

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

works in which the false infinitely preponderates over the
true ; and if you once go outside of the Gospels for aid in
the natural attempt to gain an independent position as an
impartial inquirer, you may entangle yourself in the subtle
webs of sophistry, such as are woven by Renan, Keim,
or Strauss. Speaking indeed of Pressense"'s work on our
Saviour's life, 'which,, on the whole, approaches most nearly
to a faithful and complete portraiture, a friend remarkable for
sound strong sense.. remarked to me that a careful perusal
served but to convince him of the needlessness of such
remouldings of the sacred history. And for my own part, I
do not hesitate to say that you will act most wisely if you
keep to the gospel narrative exclusively until you have
ascertained to your own satisfaction what are the true
characteristics of our Lord. I do not entertain any doubt
as to the result. No healthy moral nature ever came into
contact with that Personality without recognizing its unap-
proached and unapproachable excellence. Nay, I will add,
no human heart susceptible of tender or noble emotions
ever fixed its gaze upon Jesus without acknowledging in
Him the embodiment of love. Attestations to this effect
might be adduced in abundance from writings of men who
have passed their lives in ineffectual efforts to extricate
themselves from the perplexity arising from their inability to
reconcile that impression with their intellectual system : but
477

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
we need no testimony from without. Go to Christ, hear
Him speak, watch His actions, and you will have an
evidence, at once complete and adequate, that in Him was
a human nature which, in its entire freedom from all moral
evil, and in its perfect development of all moral goodness,
stands absolutely alone.
You may say this is mere assumption. I can only answer,
You have to judge for yourselves. I do not profess to draw
out the evidence, but simply to show what is its nature, and
where it is to be found. I do not attempt to delineate that
character ; at the utmost, I could but give you but a very
imperfect account of the impression which it has made on
my own very imperfect nature. I simply assert that the
evidence is there, and that upon you rests the responsibility
of examining it. Its effect, as I doubt not, will depend
upon your moral nature ; not indeed upon your moral
goodness — Christ speaks to sinners — but upon your moral
susceptibility, your capacity to discern and appreciate moral
goodness. If that character does not attract, subdue, and
win you, I freely admit all other evidence will be useless so
far as your innermost convictions are concerned. But
numerous as are the cases o individuals who have remained
in, or relapsed into, a state of scepticism from- various
causes, intellectual or moral, few indeed are the cases of
men who have not borne with them into that dreary region
478

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

an abiding sense of the personal and supreme goodness
of Jesus.
But the more carefully you examine that character, the
more forcibly you will be struck by the fact that this Man,
of whom the most special and most distinctive characteris
tics are absolute truthfulness and absolute humility, speaks
throughout with an authority which involves the assumption
of a divine nature. This statement does not rest on parti
cular texts open to misconstruction or evasion, but on the
tenor of each and every discourse, on His acts not less than
His words. He addresses man as man's Master ; He speaks
as the Son of God, as one with God. This fact is stated
in strong, not to say irreverent, terms by the author of
" Ecce Homo " : " During His whole public life Jesus is
distinguished from the other prominent characters of Jew
ish history by His unbounded personal pretensions." Two
writers, differing widely in tone of mind, but alike in
depth of thought and earnestness of purpose, prove, were
proof needed, that those pretensions are justified by the
truth of the Incarnation, and by that alone. (See the Rev.
M. F. Sadler, " Immanuel," pp. 264 — 309 ; and Mr. Hutton's
" Essay on the Incarnation.") You will, in fact, soon find
that you have no alternative but either to give up all that has
wrought itself into your moral nature, and intwined itself
around the fibres of your affections, all your convictions of
479

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
the moral excellence of Jesus, or to accept Him, even as
He presents Himself, the God-man. His enemies felt this.
They persecuted Him because He made Himself, as they
said truly, equal with God. They crucified Him because
He claimed the powers and attributes of the Son of God.
Modern sceptics of loftier strain feel this keenly. They
might be content to accept Him as a moral teacher ; for, in
that case, they could deal with Him as their equal by
nature, receiving or rejecting His teaching as it might accord
or not with their own judgment; if they reject Him. it is
simply or mainly, as they will tell you, because He claims to
be more than man, and, as they well know, to be no less than
God. They ask (perhaps you will ask), how did He justify
the claim ? The answer, of course, involves the whole con
troversy ; but I will once more state my own conviction.
If you put yourselves under His teaching, He will not leave
you in doubt. You will attain by degrees only to any real
appreciation of His human goodness ; but together with
the growth of that appreciation will dawn upon you the
consciousness, ever increasing in clearness and intensity,
that in Him you are gazing upon the Incarnate God. You
will have a twofold evidence : the evidence of a perfectly
logical conviction, founded on sure inferences from sure
premises, upon the inseparability of truth and goodness,
self-knowledge and perfect wisdom, and the evidence of
480

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

direct intuition ; you will feel yourselves in the presence of
God. And now let me read a passage which is a very remark
able attestation to the effect produced upon a man of strong
sense and thorough independence of character, by an
honest and reverent study of our Lord's Person and teach
ing. You will find it in the treatise on the Incarnation,
published within the last few months, in Mr. Hutton's
Essays : " And now let me honestly ask myself, and an
swer the question as truly as I can, whether this great, this
stupendous fact of the Incarnation is honestly believable
by an ordinary man of modern times, who has not been
educated into it, but educated to distrust it ; who has no
leaning to the orthodox creed, as such, but has generally
preferred to associate with heretics ; who is quite alive to the
force of the scientific and literary criticisms of his day ; who
has no antiquarian tastes, no predilection for the venerable
past; who does not regard this truth as part of a great
system, dogmatic or ecclesiastical, but merely for itself; who
is, in a word, simply anxious to take hold, if he so may, of
any divine hand stretched out to help him through the
excitement and the languor, the joy, the sorrow, the storm
and sunshine, of this unintelligible life. From my heart I
answer, Yes — believable, and more than believable, in any
mood in which we can rise above ourselves to that super-
481 31

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
. natural spirit which orders the unruly wills and affections of
sinful men ; more than believable, I say, because it so vivifies
and supplements that fundamental faith in God as to realize
what were else abstract, and, without dissolving the mystery,
to clothe eternal love with breathing life."*
Let me call your attention to the remarkable resemblance,
of which I believe the writer to have been unconscious,
between these most striking words and those which I quoted
from Plato. What the ancient inquirer longed for, but sought
in vain, the modern has sought and found, and with it the
one and the only imaginable solution of the mystery of life.
I speak to persons able to bring the stores of varied
reading to bear upon these questions, and we live in a time
when learning has fairly rivalled science in bringing regions
of thought hitherto unknown, or known only to solitary
students, within the cognizance of men of general culti
vation. As a matter of a deep interest and importance, I
would ask you, when you have attained to a complete
conception of our Lord's Person, to compare His teaching
with that of men whose influence has been most widely
and abidingly felt in the world. I will not insult our
Master by placing His name in juxtaposition with the
founder of Islamism, nor indeed would it fairly enter into
the inquiry; for if you separate the elements of truth
* Essays Theological and Literary, by R. H. Hutton ; vol. i., p. 282.
482

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

derived from Judaism and from Christianity, through the
medium of a corrupt tradition, the Koran will yield you
but a mass of idle legends. It is indeed the fashion at
present to speak of Mahomet as "a great and genuine
prophet, with a Divine mission " (see Hutton's Essays, i.
p. 277). Now I do not doubt his sincerity at the begin
ning of his career, or his steadfast adherence to the one
great truth which he proclaimed ; but it must never be
forgotten that he invented a special revelation to justify
indulgence in his master-sin (see the Koran, c. 66), and
that he commanded the propagation of his religion by the
sword. There are, however, three great names connected
with those mighty revolutions of thought which have per
manently affected the moral or religious convictions of
mankind ; I speak of them specially, because their character
and teachmg were wholly uninfluenced by revelation, and
because they severally represent the highest development of
pre-Christian character : Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates.
Of two I have already spoken, and will now simply refer
you to the clear and impartial accounts given by Ampere,
Francke, and Barthe"lemi St. Hilaire, to justify my statement,
that although, as might be expected, in some points of
their moral teachmg and in their spiritual aspirations they
bear a true resemblance to Him in whom human nature
was perfectly represented, yet each of them differed, as
483

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
indeed all other men differ, from Him, in one special
characteristic ; each of them is the creature of his race and
of his age ; the influence of each is felt in the full develop
ment of the peculiar tendencies of his own section of the
human family; in the one case, of physical languor and
mental dreaminess ; in the other, of a formal and con
ventional morality, and of political unity secured by the
sacrifice of all independent action and thought. I turn to
Socrates. There is a special reason why we should direct
our attention to his character. It has at various times
been brought into comparison with that of our Lord ; even
when that comparison is not distinctly brought out, it is
often intentionally, or it may be unintentionally, suggested.
That character has been delineated by Mr. Jowett, in the
prefaces of his translation of the Platonic dialogues, with a
sagacity beyond all praise, with an impartiality which
trenches upon indifference, not merely in questions of merely
speculative interest, but of moral concernment* It is a
noble work, representing the labour of long years devoted
almost exclusively to the study of the master-mind of
Greece. Socrates there stands before us. We enter into
* Notice the faint condemnation, if it be a condemnation at all, of the
peculiar shame of Athens, as "greatly at variance with modern and
Christian notions, but in accordance with Hellenic sentiment" (vol. i.,
p. 482, and compare p. 555). 484

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

his thoughts, we know him as a living man. His character
may indeed have undergone some change of representation
in passing through the mind of the most imaginative of
human teachers, his greatest disciple, Plato; but it is a
change which does but magnify and idealize his loftiest
characteristics. Let us see, then, in what respects this
wisest and best of men, this teacher whom the great Fathers
of Christendom justly reverenced as a true though uncon
scious preparer of men's spirits ¦ for the coming Teacher,
resembles, in what respects, not less than the other two, he
especially differs, from our Lord.
This strikes us at a glance. Socrates is altogether and
throughout a Greek. His intellect, his character,., is Greek.
The stamp of an exclusive nationality is upon him. He has
the feelings, the prejudices, of a singularly exclusive, section
of an exclusive race. His code of morals tolerates, I will not
say sanctions, habits and feelings " quite at variance," as Mr.
Jowett says, "with modern and Christian notions." Characters
moulded to a great extent under his influence became living
embodiments of some of the worst characteristics of heathen
ism, of force, pride (vfipig), and licentiousness, as, for instance,
Critias, Charmides, and Alcibiades. Exquisite and perfect
as was his sympathy with all that was noble, all that was
graceful and beautiful in Hellenic culture, it went no further.
Graces which to the Christian are the very foundation of
4«5

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
spiritualist life, had no place, no name even, in his philo
sophy. I cannot recall, among all his sayings, one that
expresses sympathy with man in his extremest degradation
and misery, or indignation with his countrymen for their
treatment of their slaves. I would not be unjust. I
never turn to the pages in which his spirit breathes
without recognizing its attractions for the lover of man
and the seeker after God ; but still the fact remains, and
stands out more clearly the more fully that spirit is
made known, that Socrates, in his best and in his worst
characteristics, was out and out an Athenian by character,
by temperament, by moral sympathy, and by religion also,
not less than Confucius was a Chinese, and Siddartha a
Hindoo. I touch briefly on another important point Socrates was
a true, honest, earnest seeker after truth. I give this high
praise unreservedly. As such, he represents the best tenden-
cies.of Gentile thought. As an honest seeker he had the
fitting reward. So far as his search was not impeded by
moral causes to which I have alluded, it was successful.
He apprehended and taught truths of infinite value. But
note this ; he had not, did not profess to have, definite con
victions upon the most important of all truths. Mr. Jowett
says deliberately,* and as I think truly, " Socrates cannot
* See the preface to the Republic, in vol. ii. Compare also the words
486

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

be proved to have believed in the immortality of the soul."
His speculations concerning a future state of retribution,
recorded doubtless with a considerable admixture of Platon-
ism in the Phaedo, are deeply interesting ; but they are
speculations only, resting partly on grounds of which he
recognises the insufficiency, or of which we cannot doubt
the unsoundness. Socrates gave what he found. He sought
for life and immortality ; he drew very near to the region
where they are to be found ; he prepared the spirit of man
for their announcement ; but he did not bring them to light
That was the work of Him who at once declares the truth,
and justifies its reception.
And now, keeping these characteristics in mind, let
me ask you to consider them in reference to our Lord's
teaching. One of our most popular and graceful writers
— the Dean of Westminster — has done good service to the
truth by pointing out repeatedly the very conspicuous and
utterly peculiar characteristic of the Saviour, that He is
wholly devoid of national exclusiveness. This is the more
striking since His birth and all the circumstances of His
early life would naturally have imbued Him with the pre-
of Socrates on his trial (p. 40 m the Greek, vol. i., p. 354, Jowett) ; they
probably represent his views more truly than the brilliant speculations
in the Phsedo. One alternative which he seems disposed to accept,
viz. , that death may be " a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed
by dreams," resembles veiy nearly the Nirvana of Buddhism.
487

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
judices of the most exclusive of all nations : a nation which
was intended to be exclusive, which could only fulfil its
special mission by exclusiveness. Mr. Hutton puts this
with his usual force, but somewhat harshly : " To trust in
Him really, to believe that He can help us to reduce the
vulgar chaos of our English life to any order resting on
an eternal basis, is far easier if we believe that the very
same mind is shining on our consciences which entered
into the poorest of lots among nearly the most de
graded generation of the most narrow-minded race that
the world has ever known, and made it the birth
place of a new earth " (Essays, vol. i., p. 283). Christ
speaks ever to man as man ; His words find an echo in
universal consciousness ; in Him there is neither Jew nor
Gentile, and, note specially this point, neither bond nor
free. At this point, however, we may be met with an objection
which has bee» presented with considerable skill, and ap
pears to have seriously affected the judgment of inquirers.
It is asserted that, after all, our Lord was but a Jewish
Rabbi, differing indeed in some remarkable characteristics
from other teachers of the synagogue, but only to an extent
which may be accounted for, partly by His position and
education, and the influence of Essenian principles, partly
by peculiarity of nature and gifts which our opponents ad-
488

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

mit to have been of the highest order, marking Him, as they
would say, as a man of transcendent genius, one of the
few in the world's history in whom men are compelled to
recognise a master of the soul. Hebrew writers of great
learning, by whom this notion is gladly accepted, in their ef
forts to establish it have done signal if unwitting service to
our cause. They have enabled readers of general culture
and unbiassed judgment to ascertain for themselves some
important facts which were formerly known thoroughly to
those only who had sufficient learning and leisure to enable
them to penetrate into the depths of Rabbinical literature,
the most intricate and repulsive which human labour ever
produced. It is now comparatively easy to ascertain what
was the true character of the Jewish Rabbi, and of Rab
binical teaching ; what, too, was the special character of the
Essenian teaching,* at and about the period when our Lord
impressed His stamp upon the mind of man. Now I would
challenge any controversialist to deny that our Lord's
teaching differed from that of all the Rabbis, not merely in
degree, but in kind. It differed in principle, in its pro
cesses, in its results, in its tone, its spirit, in every essential
characteristic. This was felt at once by His hearers : the
Ritschl shows very conclusively that the Essenian principle was
even more exclusive than the Rabbinical, and more antagonistic in
principle to Christianity. See Altkatholische Kirche, pp. 179—203.
489

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
first and most abiding impression made upon the mass of
His countrymen was that He taught not as the scribes.
This was the secret of the attraction which drew and re
tained disciples. " Where shall we go ? TJwu hast the words
of eternal life." This was the cause of the fierce antagonism
on the part of the Rabbis. They felt that His system was
incompatible with their own. The scribe, as such, was a
mechanical instrument ; his authority was that of the system
under which he worked, he held the minds of his hearers
bound down and crippled by fetters by which he was him
self bound even more tightly. Properly speaking, he was
not even an interpreter of the law, with the principles of
which he was little concerned, but simply a referee on
points of casuistry or of formal observance which had been
settled in past ages. The one merit which he claimed was
that of unswerving adherence to the old customs, the old
interpretations, the old applications of the law. Of all dis-
qualifications for the office of a scribe, the most fatal would
be independence of spirit, originality of thought or feeling.
Many sayings of the Rabbis express this principle with the
utmost naivet'e: e.g., "A scribe will have no portion in the
world to come, even should he be faithful to the law of God,
and full of good works, if his teaching be not wholly in ac
cordance with tradition." Our Lord's charge against them,
that they made the word of God of none effect by their
490

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

tradition, scarcely puts this point in a stronger light than their
declaration " that it is highly perilous for any learned man
to read the Bible, since he may be induced to trust to its
guidance rather than to his teacher." For the more ad
vanced disciple the rule was, " that for one hour given to the
study of the Bible, two should be devoted to the Talmud."
When we read of different schools of Rabbis, and learn
that they represented different tendencies, we naturally sup
pose that there must have been some movements of spirit,
some struggles of moral and intellectual spontaneity. And
it is true that between the school of Shammai and that of
Hillel and the Gamaliels there was a wide divergence, the
one relaxing and the other enforcing rigorous observances,
the one encouraging, the other condemning all genial culture ;
but when we compare the teaching of the two parties which
is fully represented in the Talmud, we see that the liberality
of the most advanced is bounded within very narrow
limits. Hillel, the best of all, had the spirit of his caste.
Eternal life, according to him, was the portion of those who
had attained to a perfect knowledge of the unwritten and
traditional system to which he devoted his own life.
It is quite possible to cull from the Talmud, especially
from one section (the Pirke Aboth, i.e., decisions of the
Fathers) a set of maxims which breathe a high and grave
morality, which enjoin temperance, chastity, gentleness, love
49i

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
of country, earnestness in the study of God's law, contempt
for wealth, celebrity, and power ; but the general spirit is
cold, formal, casuistical, and the decisions are, on the
whole, determined by considerations of interest and ex
pediency. In short, errors of every kind, — errors of inter
pretation, errors in the foundations of moral truth, errors in
the representation of God's attributes, errors originating
in the grossest superstitions, and above all in narrow, bitter,
exclusive prejudices,- — bear an overwhelming proportion to
the whole compilation, and belong unquestionably to that
Talmudic atmosphere in which we are told that the pure
and lofty spirit of our Master attained its natural develop
ment. It is true that the second portion of the Talmud,
the Gemara, presents those characteristics in an exaggerated
form; but the first part, the Mishna, is replete with a
casuistry so trifling and repulsive as to make a continuous
perusal almost impossible, save to one who has some special
motive for the study. It contains not less than 4,008
mishnaioth, that is, decisions or precepts, of which the
largest proportion is attributed to Hillel or his followers.
Out of this vast collection it would be difficult to fix upon
any consecutive series of maxims, say fifty, which would
approve themselves to the moral sense.
Widely as our Lord's teaching differs from that of the
Greek or the Asiatic, far more does it differ from that of
,492

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

His Hebrew contemporaries : it belongs altogether to a
different sphere, the sphere in which the human spirit was
emancipated from all narrow, dark, exclusive prejudices, and
all its powers developed by that Spirit which rested on
Him without measure, which He received as man, and
which He bestowed as God.
It may be said that if the evidence supplied by know
ledge of the Person of our Lord be of itself complete and
adequate for the highest purpose, further inquiries may be
dismissed as superfluous. Nor is the remark unfair. It is,
I believe, quite true that of the myriads who accept the
Christian revelation an immense proportion, including
spirits of every class, are moved chiefly, if not exclusively,
by the personal influence of Jesus, by the intuition, so to
speak, which they thus attain into the manifested truth.
The sun shines with its own lustre, and needs no evidence
to prove its existence. But our nature is full of incon
sistencies. Our strongest convictions, after all, are held
with a feeble grasp, and are liable to be wrenched from us
by sudden assaults, most especially when they depend upon
what in modern parlance are called subjective impressions.
It is well, therefore, that even this strongest and deepest of
all convictions should have outward and independent sup
port, that it should appeal to palpable and ascertainable
facts, never indeed surrendering its true position in the
493

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE

central stronghold of our spirits, but going forth when
challenged, and examining at frequent intervals the state of
its defences and outposts. Let us, then, very briefly con
sider some of those evidences which the Christian apologist
recognizes as most important for the confirmation of
faith. Here, undoubtedly, we have first to look at the evidence
of miracles, which has been discussed by Dr. Stoughton,
and, among all miracles, first and foremost — with which all
other proofs of miraculous intervention stand or fall —
the miracle of the resurrection.* I take it in this place,
not as it is often taken, as an antecedent evidence to
be examined or rejected previous to examination of the
character of our Saviour ; but as an evidence of which the
true force is inseparably bound up with the result of that
* Within the few last months, Steinmeyer has published a treatise on
the history of the resurrection, with reference to the latest criticisms,
which I would commend to readers of German. Serious attempts have
been made in Engfend to disjoin this cardinal truth from the doctrinal
system of St. Paul, attempts which seem passing strange on the part of
critics who accept him as a thoroughly truthful man, nay, as an inspired
apostle, and who must know that he makes the resurrection the very
centre or foundation of his teaching. Even Hegel, the very Corypheus
of idealism, declares " Die Auferstehung gehort wesentlich dem Glauben
an ; " i. e., the resurrection belongs essentially to the faith. See
" Die Philosophie der Religion," p. 300. In a note on the same page,
Hegel shows that he takes it as a real objective event : " wie alles
Bisherige in der Weise der Wirklichkeit fur das unmittelbare Bewuisstsein
zur Erscheinung gekommen, so auch die? e Erhebung. "
494

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

preliminary inquiry. The mind may indeed submit to
logical inferences drawn from undisputed or demonstrated
facts, but it will submit reluctantly, and will, sooner or later,
shake off its shackles, unless those inferences accord with
its sense of moral fitness, of harmony between the outward
manifestation of power and the inward demands of con
science. All moral antecedent objection to the resur
rection of Christ disappears when it is acknowledged that
His character satisfies those conditions. The first apologist
of Christianity — St. Peter at Pentecost — puts this in the
very foreground of his argument : " God raised Him up,
having loosed the pains of death, because it was not
possible that He should be holden of it." It was impos
sible, considering the relation of the Son to the Father, and
of the Father to the universe. The expectation, in fact,
of the resurrection of one " approved by God " as perfect
in holiness, such as Christians believe their Master to be,
is actually admitted to be so natural that the most subtle
opponents of revelation assume that it must have existed in
the minds of the first disciples, bringing them into a state
which prepared them to receive without questioning the
rumours which were gradually moulded into a semblance of
historical consistency. This theory at least proves this, —
given the two facts of God's power and justice, and of
Christ's nature, as acknowledged by the Christian, the
495

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
resurrection, if proved on other grounds, will find no
obstacle to its reception in our moral consciousness.
But the very fact that such a hope exists, one which, if
fulfilled, transcends all human longings, carrying with it, as
St. Paul shows, the pledge and the only pledge of our
personal redintegration, will but make the inquirer careful
to prove every link in the chain of evidence. And here we
have to remark that, so far from having that assumed ex
pectation, His disciples were utterly in despair after the
crucifixion. With their Master's last breath their last hope
departed. They treated the first accounts which reached
them as idle, they did not believe till they had the evidence
of their senses ; " then were they glad, when they saw the
Lord." It is a remarkable, not to say unique, combination
of two conditions for the perfect establishment of an
ascertainable fact, that on the one side it should be in
perfect congruity with an eternal principle, and on the
other that it sftould be witnessed by persons wholly unpre
pared for its occurrence, and attested under circumstances
which make it impossible to doubt their sincerity. That the
attestation was given, that it was confirmed by outward effects
otherwise psychologically inexplicable, by an immediate and
complete change in the character of the disciples, and by the
rapid triumph of the religion so attested, these and kindred
points you will find discussed in every treatise on Christian
496

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

evidences : they are, in fact, not open to reasonable doubt.
Weigh more especially the attestation of St. Paul, both as one
who knew previously all that could be alleged against the
belief, as one whose strong intellect and strong prejudices
rendered him inaccessible to mere subjective impressions,
and as a man of whose conversion no rational, no intelligible
account has ever been given which does not involve the fact
of a personal manifestation of Christ, and then you will
have all that can be needed for steadfast conviction, evidence
complete and adequate for its purpose, proving that Jesus
was shown "to be the Son of God with power by the
resurrection from the dead." (Rom. i.)
With an equal interest the student of evidence will now
turn back to the inquiry into the teaching of prophecy.
At the outset it sufficed to know the broad fact that the
characteristics of the coming Christ were believed by His
contemporaries to have been announced in predictions
which, whether of divine origin or not, unquestionably
moulded their anticipations. He is now able to test
their accuracy, to satisfy himself as to their origin, and
to study them with a far deeper and more intelligent
interest than would be possible without the previous
appreciation of our Lord's nature. At first his attention
will naturally be caught by separate predictions, by their
correspondence with outward occurrences in the Gospel
497 32

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
narration ; but as he advances in the study his whole spirit
will be gradually absorbed in contemplation of their internal
coherence, their unbroken continuity, their ever progressing
development. Distinct, accurate, and in the strictest sense
of the word evidential, those predictions are, taken sepa
rately and independently ; as such they are recognised by
one and all the sacred writers — by none more fully than
by the two who stand pre-eminent among the disciples of
Jesus — by St. Paul, who represents the highest develop
ment of the intellectual forces in Christianity, the acute
disputant, the subtle reasoner, the spiritualist philosopher,
or, as he has been lately called, the metaphysician of
Christianity — and by St. John, whose spirit, insphered
in the region of love, came into nearest contact with the
divine, who represents the very highest of all faculties, that
of spiritual intuition. Nay, those predictions are repeatedly
and distinctly recognised as conclusive evidences by our
Lord Himself. But their full significance is only discerned
when we contemplate them as parts of a mighty whole, as
a continuous and complete testimony of the Spirit of God.
Two lines of light traverse the realm of spiritual manifesta
tion, the one revealing the divine, the other the human
characteristics of the future Saviour : the one ever expand
ing, but from the beginning broad, luminous, equable ; the
other advancing, so to speak, with varying progress, ever
498

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY,

and anon bursting out in sudden flashes, each bringing into
vivid light some event in the life, above all each event in
the crowning work, of the Saviour. These two lines gradu
ally converge until they meet in the Incarnation. From
that point of meeting the Christian goes back ; then he
learns to combine and to comprehend their intimations.
Under Christ's teaching, prophecy becomes to him a guiding
light — an evidence so complete that if it stood alone he
might dispense with other proofs, and feel it adequate for
the support of his faith.
You will, however, remember that besides those predic
tions which apply directly to our Lord's person, an inex
haustible treasury of predictions refer to events in the
providential history of the world, and they, too, are strictly
evidential. Even writers to whom the very word revelation
is distasteful, acknowledge in the Hebrew prophets true
seers ; that is, men whose spirit was in unison with the ever
lasting harmonies of the universe. But it is only when we
know Christ as He reveals Himself, as the Lord of history,
that the long series of prophetic intimations present them
selves in their true light to our minds. The exact explana
tion of each specific prediction, such as are found in Isaiah
and Daniel, taxes and rewards the industry of students, but
the real interest consists not in the satisfaction of a rational
curiosity, or the bearing upon controversy, but in the help
499

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE
which is thus supplied, enabling us to realize vividly the
presence of Christ foreordering all events so as to make
them work together for the accomplishment of His will.
If time allowed, I might here dwell on other topics. I
might point out how deep thinkers, Pascal perhaps most
powerfully, have shown that Christianity, and Christianity
alone, fully recognises the two opposite and apparently irre
concilable aspects of our common humanity, its unspeakable
misery and degradation out of God, and its capacity for
restoration and reunion with the Divine, and, again, that it
corresponds to an extent wholly incomprehensible, save on
the admission of its divine origin, with those requirements of
man's conscience and spirit which every system of philosophy
recognises, but which one and all admit that they fail to
satisfy. I might dwell upon the fact that between the ac
ceptance of the entire truth thus made known to us, and
utter negation of the supernatural and divine, the inter-
*
mediate positions long defended as tenable have been, both
here and on the continent, all but universally abandoned by
the representatives of modern thought. I might point out
that together with that abandonment, and as a direct result of
that abandonment, a dark, drear hopelessness, not merely as
to the immediate issue of the storms which convulse the
atmosphere we breathe as spiritual, social, and intellectual
beings, but as to the future and abiding consequences of
500

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

those convulsions, appears to be settling down upon men's
minds : a hopelessness for which there is no remedy save
that which depends upon the triumph of righteousness and
truth, a triumph to be achieved only under the banner of
Christ. What I have attempted to do, none can feel as I
do how imperfectly, has been to set before you in orderly
sequence facts within the reach of all ; facts of which the truth
and power and far-reaching influences will be felt more and
more in proportion to the earnestness and sincerity of your
own inquiry ; facts which once admitted are evidences com
plete in themselves, and adequate for their purpose in each
stage of our spiritual development : evidences sufficient to
constrain all who believe in God to believe also in the Son
whom He has sent ; to know Him as the way, the truth, and
the life. In His school that rational conviction, retaining
all its clearness, will undergo a process at once of develop
ment and transfigurement, and become a living faith.

EXPLANATORY PAPER

BY THE RIGHT REV, THE
LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.

EXPLANATORY PAPER,

Having been requested by the Committee of the Christian
Evidence Society to draw up a short paper which might
serve as a partial introduction to the Lectures, and espe
cially might set forth their general plan and connexion, as
originally designed by the Committee, I have much pleasure
in submitting the following brief comments to the many
readers of this valuable series. The Lectures were de
livered in the course of the spring in the present year, to
large audiences, in St. George's Hall, Langham Place, and
were specially designed to meet some of the current forms
of unbelief among the educated classes.
They were delivered at the request of the Christian
Evidence Society, and represent a portion . of the work
undertaken by the Committee of that Society in the pre
sent year.
As they thus stand in such close connection with our
Society, it may not be unsuitable for me to make a few
5°5

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

explanatory remarks on the Society itself, and its general
objects, as well as on the plan of the lectures which have
been delivered at its request, and which are now presented
to the reader in a collected and continuous form.
First, then, as to the Society, and its present working and
design. I. The Society was established in the spring of the past
year. It had long been felt by earnest and thoughtful
persons, both Churchmen and Nonconformists, that some
combined attempt ought to be made to meet in fair argu
ment the scepticism and unbelief which for the last few
years have been distinctly traceable in all classes of society.
Into all the causes of this state of things it is not now
our object to inquire. These are, probably, many and
various, and may defy any formal classification. It is,
indeed, seldom that those who live in the stream and
current of a quickly moving generation can properly
estimate the"variously combined movements around them,
or can always very successfully refer them even to their
more proximate causes. We may, however, very profitably,
as thus illustrating the general design of the lectures,
pause to advert to two or three of what would seem to be
leading causes of this present prevalence of doubt and
scepticism. We may, in the first place then, venture to express the
506

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

opinion that it does seem to stand in some degree of
connection with the historical criticism, or, to speak more
exactly, with the philosophical mode of treating ancient
history, which, especially since the time of Niebuhr, has so
honourably marked the present and the latter half of the
preceding generation. It was obviously impossible that a
system which appeared to yield results judged to be
eminently satisfactory and trustworthy in regard of the
general history of the past, should not be applied to sacred
history, and to the various documents which together make
up the Holy Bible. And it has been applied, sometimes
cautiously and reverently, and with a due regard for the
religious convictions of Christian readers, but sometimes
also with an eagerness and persistence which may not
unfairly be characterized as both inconsiderate and un
justifiable. This method of criticism, especially in its more
unfavourable manifestations, may certainly be specified as
one of the earlier causes of that suspended belief in the
historical truth of several portions of the Old and New
Testament, which many entertain at the present ti.tie, and
. make no scruple of avowing and justifying.
We may also as certainly specify as a second cause
the tendency to over-hasty generalization that has of late
marked the rapid development of some of the natural
sciences. From true science true religion has nothing to
5°7

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

fear. But it is otherwise when results newly obtained,
and at present, from the very circumstances of the case,
imperfectly tested and verified, are confidently put forward ;
and when inferences of perhaps doubtful validity are set,
if not in actual opposition to the statements of Revelation,
yet in such a studious juxtaposition, that comparison is
challenged, and by consequence many an early conviction
weakened and impaired. We say by consequence, — for
no acute observer of the heart and its mysteries can have
failed to mark how, even in minds of higher strain there
is often a secret sympathy with the attacking party, not so
much on the merits of the case, as from the simple fact
that it is the attacking party; and that while on this side
there is only the passivity of prescription, on the other
there is all the vigour of assault and progress. This
obvious fact, which, — like some other mental facts of a
similar nature, — is, we fear, proved by almost daily ex
perience, has not been sufficiently taken into consideration ;
but if estimated properly, it will account for much that is
otherwise perplexing. It will even tend to reassure us, as it
will enable us to assign to its true though hidden reason
much of the present startling readiness with which scientific
inferences, supposed generally to be unfavourable to received
views, have received at least some measure of sympathy
and approval. It may be, too, that this latent feeling of
508

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

sympathy with the attack will be neutralized when it is
found that the defence is not deficient in energy or
vigour, and when English fair play seems to suggest that
each side should be allowed to fight it out without having
any advantages arising from prepensions or prejudice.
However this may be, there is no doubt that the cause
we have specified is a real and a prevailing one. Over-
hasty scientific generalization is certainly one of the causes
of the present state of modern religious belief.
One more cause we may also pause to specify, as it in
volves in it much that will minister comfort and reassurance.
This cause is the eager and often impatient search for solid
ground whereon religion and morality may be based. With
all their faults, men are now certainly seeking for truth.
There may be misapplications of historical criticism, there
may be misuses and misapprehensions of the real testimony
of science, but amid all there is clearly a searching for truth
and firm ground. The processes of destructive criticism are
in fact nearly over, and the difficult process of reconstruc
tion is commencing. The due remembrance of this will
help us in estimating a little more calmly, and perhaps also
a little more fairly, some of the startling phenomena pre
sented by the present state of religious belief. Let us, for
example, take for a moment into consideration two remark
able characteristics of the present time, — first, the attempts
5°9

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

to form a system of morality independent of revealed
religion ; and, secondly, the acceptance on the part of
several earnest and truthful minds of such a system as
Positivism. These really would seem to be at first sight
two inexplicable phenomena. Both, however, are to be
accounted for by that searching for something to rest on,
which has just been mentioned. It has been assumed in
the one case, far too hastily, that the uncertainties connected
with the belief in the facts of revealed religion are so great,
that no system of morality could be considered securely
founded if it rested only on the Scriptures. It has been
felt by many earnest thinkers that any such system, to be a
true one, ought to rest solely on principles acknowledged
to be of universal application, and on maxims that have
received the assent of all the better part of civilized
mankind. If the teaching of Scripture be in general
harmony with such maxims and principles, its concurrence
is not to be slightefl; but it is not deemed as of more
real moment than the concurrence of any other form of
religious teaching that has exercised a real influence over
any large portion of the human family. Religion generally
is accepted as a buttress to the rising edifice of morality, but
as nothing further. The tower is being builded really with
the desire to reach heaven : if the sequel be what it was of
old, it may still be conceded, with all fairness, that the
510

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

attempt is not made in a bad spirit. To change slightly
the allusion, the effort is not made in the sphit of the Titans
who piled Pelion on Ossa, but with all the earnestness and
anxiety of hoping, enquiring, and searching, though we are
bound to add, mistaken men.
In the other case, though it may seem to many rash to
say one word to mitigate the severity of the judgment that
both is and ever will be passed on such a system as Posi
tivism, yet, even here, let us be just and sympathising.
There is, no doubt, in Positivism much that is plainly
repulsive, and really calls for severity ; still, even in this
system, we may trace the prevailing desire to find something
solid, something which appears to be proof to the changes
of opinion or the fluctuation of creeds. So the attempt is
made to secure a scientific basis, and to place thereon fact
after fact, when each has become verified and established,
and so to build onward — we cannot honestly say upward —
until something like a system is so far constructed that suc
ceeding generations may feel induced to continue it. So
even in this sombre and cheerless system there is, we
believe, really at work a desire to touch ground. To
that desire, however, it must be sorrowfully added, every
loftier aspiration, every nobler incentive, is necessarily sacri
ficed. Science and scientific truth is used in a way that
warrants the apprehension that — if such is to be the use
5»

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

made of it — the progress of science may tend, first, to im
pair, and, next, to obliterate, the sense of responsibility on
which the present and the future alike so solemnly rest. It
is not without reason, then, that this is dwelt gravely upon
by all sober thinkers ; nor is it too much to say that this is
now one of the gravest considerations connected with the
advance of modern scientific investigations. The tendencies
of such investigations certainly do appear to hinder the
due recognition of these two momentous principles — first,
the sense of responsibility; and, secondly, the sense of
dependence on something higher than law, order, and
evolution. This hindrance, we trust, is only in appearance;
still that appearance is accepted by many as reality, and it is
not without reason that we are again and again reminded
that the acceptance of the truth of the Christian creed will
with many depend on its power of assimilating the doctrine
of universal causation, or, to speak more precisely, of de-
monstrating that that doctrine is itself only a form of
a yet higher and holier truth.
We turn, however, back again to the design and working
of the Society. It was established to meet this growing
scepticism, and with a due recognition of the causes which
have just been specified. It was not started, as has been
sometimes said, with a little irony, for the purpose of
restoring a belief in Christianity, but for the purpose of
512

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

meeting argument with argument, and of supplying, the many
that are now fluctuating between belief and no belief with
sober answers and valid arguments drawn forth anew from
the great treasury of Christian evidences. This is the true
design and object of the Society. Its mode of carrying out
this design has hitherto been threefold — first, by means
of lectures addressed to the educated ; secondly, by the
formation of classes under competent class-leaders, for the
instruction of those in lower grades of society who are
exposed to the thickening dangers arising from that
organized diffusion of infidel principles which is one of
the saddest and most monitory signs of the present time.
Thirdly, the Society is endeavouring to stimulate private
study by the circulation of useful tracts, and by the offer of
prizes to such as may be willing that their private study
should be tested by competitive examination. All these
three modes of carrying out its work have been adopted
during the present year ; and, so far as can be inferred from
the work that has been done, and from the various expres
sions of public opinion, with considerable success. Popular
attention has naturally been directed more especially to the
first of the modes specified — the lectures to the educated ;
but it is satisfactory to state, ere we pass at once to our
explanatory comments on the plan of these lectures, that
the formation of classes has answered even beyond ex-
5i3 33

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

pectation,- and that, from the amount of the competition
for the prizes that have been offered, examination in
Christian evidences will form a large and most interesting
portion of the future work of the Society.
II. We may now turn our attention to the lectures
that are included in the present volume — our first year's
work. The number of the lectures was twelve. One of these, the
lecture on the Internal Evidence of the Authenticity of St.
John's Gospel, is unfortunately not included in the present
volume, owing to the desire expressed by the learned writer
that it should not be published. The absence is much to
be regretted ; first, on account of the value and importance
of the lecture; and, secondly, on account of the partial
break which has thus been caused in the sequence of the
lectures. The lectures were not delivered in the order in which
*
they are here presented to the reader. The convenience of
the active as well as distinguished men who consented to
act as lecturers, had naturally to be consulted; adjustments
had to be made, and interchanges of days of lecturing
acceded to, so as to secure the continuous delivery of the
lectures on the days specified. In this collective edition,
however, the proper order is restored, and may now be
briefly explained, as some criticisms have been passed on
5H

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

the subjects of the lectures, which would certainly have
been modified if the whole series had been delivered in
the order originally designed.
The first three lectures were designed to be prepara
tory and prelusive. They were directed against the three
systems which are now more especially, in different ways,
coming into collision with Christianity — Materialism and its
theories, Pantheism, and Positivism. It was judged by
those who sketched out the plan of the lectures, that until
these subjects were shortly dealt with, and until the objec
tions against Christianity, founded upon them or derived
from them, were briefly noticed, the evidences for Chris
tianity could hardly be expected to have a fair hearing.
The internal arguments in favour of the leading truths of
the Christian religion could scarcely be fairly estimated if
there were to be antecedent objections of a grave and
general character left wholly unnoticed and unanswered.
Hence the three opening lectures : The first of these
breaks ground by the consideration of some leading
materialistic opinions, and especially by an exposition
of the argument from design. It thus prepares the
reader more fully to accept the deep truth so well and
succinctly stated by Bishop Martensen,* that the "world

Christian Dogmatics, § 63. (Clark.)
515

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

has not merely a- cosmogonic but also a creational origin,"
and that the mysterious problem of creation and life can
"never be solved in a merely natural way, but demands a
supernatural solution, that is, a solution through a creative
teleology." The second lecture very suitably follows by a clear expo
sition of that great system which has of late been found to
exercise such a fascination over thoughtful and cultivated
minds that it becomes, to far more than we may suppose,
the conclusion of all controversy. We allude to the system
of -Pantheism, into which of late many noble spirits have
seemed willing to merge all their hopes and all their fears.
Swayed to and fro, unable to accept Law for their God,
and yet equally held back from the blessed truth that the
God of the universe is a Person, thousands fall back upon
the subtle and fascinating system which supplies a moving
Principle, but withholds the blessed idea of a holy Will;
which discloses to them a natura naturans, but denies the
existence of a loving Creator and a personal God. It
was thus very properly provided that the lecture on this
subject should follow the lecture on Design in Nature, as
exhibiting the true characteristics of that modified Atheism
which only too often becomes the refuge of men whose minds
have been shaken by the inferences of pure materialism, or
who may have been drawn, towards the disguised forms of it
5i6

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

which lurk in many of our popular treatises on the origin and
evolution of Man. After a careful study of these two
lectures, the thoughtful reader will be enabled to- recognize
the true nature and force of the argument from design,
and so will be led the better to appreciate the enduring
validity of that great natural foundation for our belief in a
personal God. Of the four great arguments by which man
is permitted to rise to the knowledge of God, the argument
from design, or, as it is technically called, the teleological
argument, is the most important, as it, in fact, includes
the moral argument, which, properly estimated, is only its
subjective aspect. Apart from revelation we rise to the
knowledge of God in two ways, by the consideration of
ourselves, and by the contemplation of the world. around
us; what the moral argument is in the former method,
that the teleological argument is in the latter. Hence the
importance to the general reader of having an argument
of such validity clearly set before him on different sides,
and from different points of view.
The third lecture, on Positivism, completes the first
group, and forms, as it were, a kind of useful appendix to
the other two. Here we have the investigation of a special
system, — a system that professes to be based on positive
and observed phenomena, and claims to extricate the mental
study of man from metaphysics and abstractions, and to
5i7

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

place it in the realm of the realizable and the positive,1
Such a system, though neither now prevailing to any extent,
nor ever likely to become prevalent or popular, is still
worthy of attention, as it stands in close connection with
current materialistic conceptions, and suggests some instruct
ive contrasts to Pantheism. In the latter system we have,
at any rate, some idea of pervading Deity ; but in Positivism,
if we understand the system aright, God, and all conceptions
of God, are not so much denied as simply and entirely
ignored. If Pantheism be deemed fascinating, Positivism
will appear to most minds utterly repellent : still it is a
system that claims some distinguished men among its pro
fessed exponents, and perhaps a larger number than we
may suppose of conscious or unconscious adherents. It
may therefore well claim from us investigation, and, in the
position it occupies in the order of these lectures, may
fairly be considered to be in its right place.
We have dwelt upon the first group of the lectures, as
both the position and the importance of the subjects
considered in it have seemed to require a fuller notice.
On the remaining groups we may speak more briefly, as
their connection and the special subjects on which they
treat are much more self-explanatory.
The first three lectures having, as it were, cleared the
ground, and having demonstrated, as we believe, success-
5'8

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

fully the untenable nature of the systems that have been
placed in competition with Christianity, the two next
lectures, which form the second group, deal with the chief
difficulties arising from the supposed conflict between
science and the Holy Scriptures. The first of these two
lectures, that on Science and Revelation, enters into the
subject generally, by showing how, on scientific consider
ations, a revelation was to be expected, and how, conse
quently, the evidences of Christianity have a strong claim
upon the attention of every right-thinking man. The
second of these two lectures is confined to a special but
prerogative case, in which science and religion are supposed
to be more particularly in opposition to each other, — viz.,
the case of miracles. Here it is necessary, not only to
investigate generally the nature of the miraculous evidence
to Christianity, but fairly to face the antecedent question,
whether miracles, however defined, are not in themselves
impossible. In facing that question, however, attention is
rightly called to the nature of the weapons that are used
in the conflict, and especially to the fact, so often over
looked, that all the assaults on the miraculous that can in
any degree be deemed worthy of consideration, are carried
on only with metaphysical weapons. The whole question
really turns upon the belief in a personal God : if it be
conceded that this belief is just and reasonable, then, as
5i9

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

the writer of the lecture rightly observes, the presumed
impossibility in reference to miracles at once melts away.
The very idea of a free-creating God carries with it the
possibility of new manifestations of the Divine will, whether
in history or nature. The sustaining power of God, which
we recognise in the form of law and orderly progress,
changes whensoever it shall have seemed good to His holy
will for it to pass into the creative ; His immanent workings
are then seen in the realm of the transcendental, and the
result is that which Pantheism, Naturalism, and all similar
systems must, if consistent, regard as impossible, a new
movement from the Divine centre, an epiphany of a creative
and overruling will, a wonder, a miracle. When Spinosa
said that God and nature are one from eternity to eternity,
he was quite consistent in adding that there is no transcend
ental beginning, and that miracles are impossible ; but for
any one who believes in a personal God, or who believes
nature to be«what it is, — not a system eternally fixed, but
a system passing through a development characterised by
design, — to deny the possibility of miraculous interpositions,
reason and consistency must certainly, in this particular, be
suspended or sacrificed.
The third group of lectures, which may be regarded as
subdivided into two portions, naturally connects itself with,
and follows, the subjects just specified. After the general
520

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

consideration of difficulties connected with religion and
Christianity, the attention ot the reader is now directed
to the more special difficulties connected with the Holy
Scriptures. In the first portion of the group the subject of
the Gradual Development of Revelation, or, as the title
was re-defined by the lecturer, the Gradual Nature of
Divine Revelation, properly occupies the first place. It
is followed by a lecture in which there will be found a
careful consideration of some special instances of difficulty
connected with the historical portions especially of the Old
Testament. These two lectures were to have been followed
by a consideration of the moral difficulties that have been
felt in reference to some parts of the Old Testament ; but
for this subject, which, if properly treated, would have
probably claimed a large share of attention, the Committee
were not able to secure the services of a lecturer for the pre
sent year. This is to be regretted, as there is no subject con
nected with the Holy Scriptures which at the present time
more requires a candid and sober consideration ; no discus
sion which, if fairly conducted, would do more to remove
many honestly felt difficulties, and to many minds to bring
probably lasting reassurance. Without presuming to enter,
however slightly, into such a subject in a discursive paper
like the present, we will venture to make this general re
mark, which perhaps may be found helpful, viz., that in
521

EXPLANA TORY- PAPER.

dealing with all such difficulties we must carefully distinguish
between those connected with Divine workings, and those
connected with human actions. The former are, in their
real nature, utterly beyond the finite judgment of man. All
that we may presume to consider is the way or manner in
which they are brought before us by the writer, and all that
we can either safely or wisely subject to criticism are the
aspects or colouring under which they are presented. We
really are not competent to sketch out theories of Divine
government, even in the simplest matters, and with all the ad
vantages of contemporaneous knowledge ; nay, in the lives
of ourselves and those around us, there are, as has been
wisely observed, -innumerable events of sorrow, and countless
circumstances of suffering, of which the economic purpose
cannot even be guessed at in our present state of knowledge,
and of the exact purposes of which no sober or reverent
thinker ever dreams of attempting to form any estimate what
ever. It is* thus utterly out of the question to attempt to
consider the difficulties connected with the Divine work
ings, except as to the manner of their representation by the
human narrator, whose human powers were the instruments
by which God was pleased to communicate the outward facts
of those workings to the children of men. In regard of the
Divine workings themselves, especially when they come
before us in the general forms of judgments on individuals
522

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

or nations, all we may presume safely to do is to regard
them as manifestations of Divine righteousness in judicial
relations or contradistinctions to the sins or transgressions
of men.
In reference, however, to the moral difficulties connected
with recorded human actions, we may venture to go farther,
and to take into consideration the fact already referred to
of the gradual nature of God's revelation, and all the
modifying thoughts which such a fact brings with it.
It is thus not only right, but necessary, to accept as our
guide in all such investigations or discussions this sober
spiritual principle, — that the Old Testament must be inter
preted from the stand-point of the New Testament, and
under the fuller light which is afforded by the later dispen
sation. If we cling to these two great truths — first, that the
history of the past, as we find it in the Old Testament, ever
involves a reference to final purposes ; and, secondly, that
every attempt to realize the deeper significance of that
history must use Christianity as its basis — we shall probably
find our way in this difficult domain of speculation as far and
as safely as the finite powers of man can be deemed capable
of advancing; we shall see as clearly as we can be per
mitted to see, when poor human reason is endeavouring to
survey the adorable mysteries that surround the recorded
workings of the manifold wisdom of God.
523

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

The second portion of this third group is more especially
devoted to difficulties connected with the New Testament,
the first place being naturally reserved for the questions
relating to the life of our Lord and the Gospel narrative.
The first lecture is thus directed to a consideration of
the Mythical Theories of Christianity; the second to the
Evidential Value of St. Paul's Epistles. As has already
been mentioned, the lecture on St. John's Gospel, which
would have occupied a position between the two just
specified, owing to the request of the writer, has not been
published, and the series in this part of it has in conse
quence suffered.
The two remaining lectures, viz., that on Christ's Teach
ing and Influence on the World, and that which follows it,
on the Completeness and Adequacy of the Evidences of
Christianity, form the last group, and worthily conclude the
interesting series. A third lecture on the additional strength
which is brcJught to the evidences of Christianity by the
convergence of various lines of independent testimony, was
intended to have been added to this group, but for this
important and comprehensive subject, as in the case of
another subject recently mentioned, the Committee were
not able to procure a lecturer.
The series, as above described, is now commended to
the thoughtful reader. It will be found to be marked
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EXPLANATORY PAPER.

throughout with learning, candour, and we believe also with
gentleness and sympathy. On this last characteristic we
ourselves lay great stress. If we would reclaim the wander
ing, or confirm the wavering, it is not by hard words and
unkindly imputations, but by the expression of that love
and gentleness which an apostle reminds us are numbered
among the fruits of the Spirit. We must regard ourselves
as far as possible in their places, endeavour to see as they
see, and feel as they feel, and then it may be permitted
to us to return from our charitable quest, bringing back
the friendly wanderers with us, and ourselves sharing some
portion of that holy joy which is felt in heaven and in earth
when the doubter is led back to belief, and the lost is found.
This rightful characteristic of all true Christian controversy
is not, we believe, anywhere wanting in this volume, and we
thus, with fullest confidence, commend it to the considera
tion of all who love the truth, and humbly seek it in history,
science, and theology.
Lastly, we may call attention to the encouraging fact,
that in this great work good men have agreed to forget
minor differences. Among the distinguished men whose
independent lectures are now, for convenience, gathered
together in a common volume, are members of the Church
of England and members of other religious communities.
It is long that this co-operation has existed in the circu-
525

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

lation of the Holy Scriptures ; it is recently that it has
again appeared in the effort to present those Scriptures in
their most accurate form to the English reader ; it is now
again happily exemplified in the present attempt to de
fend and maintain the truth as it is in Jesus Christ our
Lord. These things are of good augury. Though there may be
dissensions, sad and pitiful, within the Church, and assaults
made upon it from without, often sadly characterized with
the 'marks of political strife, yet we may thank God that in
efforts such as the present, and in the calm and serenity of
studies such as those which this volume commends, a true
union has been felt and acted on. Yes, it is a cause for
thankfulness and rejoicing that the love of Christ is more
and more binding us together in companionships of high
duty and gentle sympathy, and that reverence for His Holy
Word, His Word of Life and Truth, is making us feel that
our work is a* common one, and that as we have in com
mon freely received, so it is a blessed thing in common
freely to give.
We may humbly pray then that God's gracious favour may
rest on this Course of Lectures, and may be permitted to
bear a blessing to those that read it. May they feel anew
convinced in heart and spirit that we have not " followed
cunningly devised fables," but that in the Holy Scriptures of
526

EXPLANATORY PAPER.

the Old and New Testament there is light and truth, even
because they bring us nearer to Him who is the Truth,
as He is the Way and the Life, for evermore.
C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.
July 19, 1S71.

NOTES TO
MODERN SCEPTICISM.

NOTES.

ON POSITIVISM.
1 " Does any one fancy that he sees a solid cube ? It is easy to show
that the solidity of the figure, the relative position of its faces and edges
to each other, are inferences of the spectator — no more conveyed to his
conviction by the eye alone than they would be if he were looking at a
painted representation of a cube. The scene of nature is a picture with
out depth of substance, no less than the scene of art ; and in the one
case, as in the other, it is the mind which, by an act of its own, discovers
that colour and shape denote distance and solidity. Most men are un
conscious of this perpetual habit of reading the language of the external
world, and translating as they read. The draughtsman, indeed, is com
pelled, for his purposes, to return back in thought from the solid bodies
which he has inferred, to the shapes of surface which he really
sees. He knows that there is a mask of theory over the whole face of
nature, if it be theory to infer more than we see. But other men,
unaware of this masquerade, hold it to be a fact that they see cubes
and spheres, spacious apartments, and winding avenues. And these
things are facts to them, because they are unconscious of the mental
operation by which they have penetrated nature's disguise. . . .
' ' Our sensations require ideas to bind them together ; namely, ideas of
space, time, number, and the like. If not so bound together, sensations
do not give us any apprehension of things or objects. All things, all
objects, must exist in space and in time — must be one or many. Now
space, time, number, are not sensations or things. They are some
thing different from, and opposed to, sensations and things. We have
531

NOTES.

termed them ideas. It may be said they are relations of things, or of
sensations. But granting this form of expression, still a relation is not
a thing or a sensation ; and therefore we must still have another and
opposite element, along with our sensations. . . .
"We are often told that such a thing is a fact — a fact, and not a theory,
—with all the emphasis which, in speaking or writing, tone or italics
or capitals can give. We see from what has been said, that when this is
urged, before we can estimate the truth, or the value of the assertion,
we must ask to whom is it a fact? what habits of thought, what previous
information, what ideas does it imply, to conceive the fact as a fact ?
Does not the apprehension of the fact imply assumptions which may
with equal justice be called theory, and which are perhaps false theory ?
in which case the fact is no fact. Did not the ancients assert it as a
fact, that the earth stood still, and the stars moved ? and can any fact
have stronger apparent evidence to justify persons in asserting it em
phatically than this had?" — Whewell 's Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences, 2nd ed., vol. i., p. 42, seq.
That the solidity of figures is in truth given by mental judgment, has
been often proved experimentally ; see for examples, Huxley's Ele
mentary Physiology, Lesson x., 13 — 16. The experiment with a coin,
lens and pin, p. 259, is easy as well as conclusive, but Wheatstone's
Pseudoscope more surprising to most observers. Compare on this
curious subject Brewster's Natural Magic, Letter v.
8 It is important to bear in mind that, from an admitted incompetency
of our faculties to know the absolute, we cannot infer an impossibility of
knowing its existence. To know that a thing is, and to know what it is,
are two totally distinct degrees and sorts of knowledge. The moment
this distinction is stated, every one sees its truth ; but many persons
omit stating it to themselves when they reason upon these difficult
subjects. Ravaisson, after giving a brief account of Herbert Spencer's opinion,
goes on to say : " Comment il y a,, au fond de toute connaissance, un
absolu, auquel correspond, comme son oppose, le relatif, c'est ce qu'eta-
blissait, il y a plus de vingt siecles, contre une doctrine deja. regnante
alors de relativity et de mobilite universelles, la dialectique platonicienne,
532

NOTES.

qui fraya le chemin a la metaphysique. Ellc faisait plus : elle mor trait
que par cet absolu seul les relations sont intelligibles, parce qu'il est Ia
mesure par laquelle seule nous les estimons. La metaphysique, entre
les mains de son immortel fondateur, fit davantage encore : elle montra
que cet absolu, par lequel l'intelligence mesure le relatif, est 1' intelli
gence meme. C'est ce que redisait Leibniz, lorsque, a cette assertion,
renouvelee de la scolastique par Locke, qu'il n'etait rien dans l'intelli
gence qui d'abord n'eut ete dans le sens, il repondait : "sauf l'intelli
gence, " et que, avec Aristote, il montrait dans l'intelligence la mesure
supeneure du sens." — Rapport, p. 66.
Ravaisson then gives interesting extracts from Sophie St. Germain,
and proceeds to show how Comte, without admitting any self-contem
plating intelligence, and thus inferring the possibility of an Absolute, did
in fact pursue the idea of Unity, and extended this idea to the universe,
— a principle which, if fully grasped, must be fatal to Positive views.
" D'accord maintenant avec Platon, Aristote, Leibniz, il declarait que
I'ensemble e'tant le resultat et I'expression d'une certaine unite, a laquelle
tout concourt et se co-ordonne et qui est le but ou tout marche, c'est
dans cette unite, c'est dans le but, c'est dans la fin ou cause finale qu'est
le secret de l'organisme. " — Rapport, p. 76.
A special interest attaches to the work of Ravaisson as an authorita
tive French rating of the philosophic exchange between England and
France. It is almost unnecessary to refer for a less abstract account of
these relations to the widely known writings of M. Taine.
3 It should have been stated in the text, as it was in the delivered
lecture, that these questions were not forgotten by the eminent Professor.
The passages referred to will be found in his eloquent address on the
" Scientific use of the Imagination," p. 47, seq., or in his volume of
collected Essays, p. 163, seq. The reader may observe that, both in
Professor Tyndall's pages and two sentences back in this lecture, De
velopment is spoken of as a process or law in operation. The various
kinds of philosophy which may be engrafted on such a law are severally
determined by whatever reply is given to the questions above suggested.
It would seem inappropriate here to state the possible relations between
a law of development and such consequent (or inconsequent) philosophies,
533

NOTES.

Those who wish to consider them the writer may refer to his little
volume entitled " Right and Wrong," for a brief discussion of this sub
ject, and more particularly for the results to natural theology.
The following German sketch of an evolution-philosophy may not be
without interest :— " Vermoge einer ewigen Kreisbewegung entstehen
als Verdichtungen der Luft unzahlige Welten, himmlische Gottheiten,
in deren Mittelpunkt die cylinderformige Erde ruht, unbewegt wegen
des gleichen Abstandes von alien Punkten der Himmelskugel. Die Erde
hat sich aus einem urspriinglich fliissigen Zustande gebildet. Aus dem
Feuchten sind unter dem Einfluss der Warme in stufenweise Entwickel-
ung die lebenden Wesen hervorgegangen. Auch die Landthiere waren
anfangs fischartig und haben erst mit der Abtrocknung der Erdober-
flache ihre jetzige Gestalt gewonnen. Die Seele soil Anaximander als
luftartig bezeichnet haben. "
Anaximander of Miletus was bom about B.C. 610. Consequently he
ranks early among European theorizers on development. The extract
is from Ueberweg's Grundriss, t. I, p. 40. Cf. Plutarch de Placit. v.
19, and Sympos viii. qu. 8, with Euseb. Prcep. Evang. i. 8.
* The sight of a dualism apparently insoluble never fails to suggest
some such questions as these : Was it always so ? will it be so always ?
and were I at the centre of the universe, should I see it so now ?
There are three possible ways of conceiving otherwise : I, by reducing
mind to matter ; 2, by reducing matter to mind ; 3, by comprehending
both under a higher unity. ,
We need only write down these issues for common sense to perceive
that Nos. I and 2 arise from, and end in, one-sided speculation. A
man who lives shut up amongst machinery is apt to think of his own
mind as a machine. Great chemists have ere now taken the human
stomach for a laboratory, and were slow in awakening to those physi
ological facts which put the vital processes of assimilation in a nobler
and truer light. Comte began by reducing all sciences to mathematical
elements. Afterwards he discovered that to explain a higher order of
things by a lower is the essence of materialism.
To a meditative spirit, the inner world is nearer than the outer ; and
therefore the evidence of its reality is stronger by wanting the weakness
534

NOTES.
of a second link. But active life brings home to us the existence of
both ; we suffer by defying or neglecting the laws of either ; and pain
and sorrow are often the advanced guard of much stern unyielding
truth. In a world where we all endure the friction of things external,
it is hard not to believe in objective as well subjective realities.
The truth is, that the primary question belongs to the practical reason,
and can be settled by no other criterion. There is a philosophical maxim
that we can never speak of the Divine univocally, but only by analogy,
figure, or similitude ; the cause being that all attributes belonging to the
Infinite require words which, if taken literally, must land us in self-con
tradiction. How vivid an idea do we gain of Omniscience or Omnipo
tence by saying that it is " a circle of which the centre is everywhere,
the circumference nowhere." And what signifies the obvious inconsis
tency ? Deny the Infinite, try to find a place for its centre or circum
ference, and the inconsistency remains, together with a host of absurd
consequences. When of two hypotheses both cannot, but one must be
true, and either position lands us in logical inconsistency, it is easy to
see that our theoretical understanding will never clear up the inexplicable
issue. A rule by which we live and act becomes the. surest touchstone
of truth or falsehood.
Let us see whether the two worlds in which we live, can be practically
treated as one. Suppose a bivouac into which a shell descends, certain
in another moment, by physical law, to explode. Is the moral law — the
effort of this man or that man to escape — equally certain? Arguing
abstractedly, most people would hold it so, yet we know that the fact
lies otherwise. There is a fatalism among soldiers — " every gullet has
its billet" — as there is among nurses who believe that every epidemic
must kill its destined prey. One may have trained himself to
wish for death, another is indifferent, a third so undecided that he
leaves the event to a doctrine of chances, a fourth is simply capricious.
Each by a course of life and action has made or modified his present
moment for choice, and any one may or may not draw back from the
coming peril. Had the falling shell been a splash from a carriage wheel,
every man would have shrunk from it. The latter risk is too simple for
human ponderings or human self-direction, and in such cases people act
by a proximate straightforward instinct. 535

NOTES.

But on what principles must he who shrinks from either risk really
proceed ? He is sure that his own movements are in his own power
and contingent. He is equally sure that the movements of shell or mud
are absolutely determined in calculable curves, and not at all contingent.
Acting on these two conjoint data, he succeeds in avoiding death or dirt ;
and, whatever theorists may write, he would have perilled his success by
acting otherwise. Nay, what is much to our purpose, all theoretical
men would themselves act upon the like assumption in all cases of
practical consequence and emergency.
Suppose dualism banished from the world in fact as well as in theory,
the problems of education ought to be as demonstrable as those of
geometry or chemical experiment. The paths of men and of comets
being equally calculable, because equally subject to uniform law, how
comes it that biography and history abound in the records of grossly
falsified predictions ? Let the courses of nations be tabulated, and states
manship is made easy. We must owe it to some egregious oversight
that criminal punishments are not invariably deterrent. Perhaps the
law of the strongest motive has been neglected ; if so, re-enact the code
of Draco, and virtue will become universal. Till then the supposition
must continue only an unverified hypothesis.
If we go back to our starting-point, and ask, can the practical dualism
be reduced to a higher unity ? our answer must confess a present con
dition of ignorance. We are so'far from knowing what constitutes the
thing we call matter, or what the entity we feel within us — our soul or
mind — really*is, that we cannot tell how they act and react on each
other. We fail in tracing our own sensations from their outward ante
cedents to their impression on our consciousness ; and, vice versS, we
cannot follow our energies from the springs of our volitions outward.
While thus baffled, the longed-for unity floats before our inward eye like
a dim vision of that intuitive faculty which pronounces subject and
object to be ultimately identical, or as a revelation of that religious faith
which accepts the incomprehensible, and reposes in the bosom of God.
* Since Comte's time it has been shown that mental development is no
very difficult process, provided we assume that several principles which
consciousness distinguishes and sometimes places in antagonism, may be
536

NOTES.
treated as equivalents, and be resolved into each other interchangeably.
For example, we have been apt to reverence those who suffered the loss
of all things rather than accept the Expedient as the Right, and who died
resolute in disallowing the rule of policy to be pleaded in foro con-
scientia. We have also in common parlance asserted a distinction between
these two principles, while holding that the one claims the other for its
assured attendant. Honesty, we said, is the best policy ; and we never
meant thereby that thorough policy is the best policy. What we did
mean was that a regard to expediency fails of the success which a straight
forward observance of right deserves, and will at last obtain. But to make
mental development easy, antitheses must appear fluent, the noble be
convertible with the useful, the human with the merely animal. Thus,
when Comte adored Clotilde, and Dante immortalized Beatrice, they
rehearsed for a millionth time the loves of preadamite plants. Cole
ridge used to maintain that the test of a philosophy was its ultimate
coincidence with common sense. In the theories under consideration,
right is philosophically resolved into the greater happiness of the greater
number, and this equivalent exactly coincides with the common sense of
starving thinkers who are possessed by a fixed idea that the happiness
of the impoverished many is promoted by an opportune pillage of the
wealthy few.
It is less easy to verify mental development than to theorize upon it, yet
verification may not be impossible ! If disbelief in a future life, denial
of responsibility, duty, and morality, as opposed to expediency, make
sufficient way in the world, and if practice harmonize with speculation,
progress may become more evidently regress, and Man be proved a brute
animal at last. The promising events in France are patent to every one ;
a less known, but still more encouraging fact, which we learn on scien
tific authority, is that certain Basuto tribes have lately adopted the (to
them) novel custom of cannibalism.'
Pending the hoped-for verification, if an identity of human with animal
nature be accepted as provisionally true, it may be as well to anticipate
a few of its logical consequences. Eating the flesh of our instinctive
congeners ought positively to be discountenanced ; or, as men and women
are simply animal, all carnivorous human beings should on compulsion
become cannibals. Despotism being the form of government adopted
537

NOTES.

by us with general applause, as regards the animal kingdom, it cannot
be too soon transferred to our own mismanaged nationalities. In a
word, our practices in reference to men, women, beasts, fishes, birds,
and reptiles, ought to be made uniform. Above all, the new school-
boards should be charged with the education of our poor relations, and
the linguistic professors of Oxford and Cambridge be instructed to use
every effort for the promotion of a universal language. Charity may be
thought by some to begin at home, therefore a commencement may be
made with the domesticated irrationals, finches, spaniels, cats, hackneys,
sheep, mules, all asses, all pigs, and all monkey favourites. It is just
possible that volatile creatures unaccustomed to habits of reflection
(some tribes of light-minded birds, for example) may find abstract ideas
and declarative sentences a little difficult. Yet, after all, it need not be
such a long step in the case of contemplative owls ; and we may then
apply the old proverb, ' ' II n'y a que le premier pas qui coute. " At all
events, the "Simious process," so successful in our world of fashion, will
be likely to suffice with every well-disposed chimpanzee ; the circle of
knowledge will continually widen until the world of animals becomes
identified with the world of man. Then, but not till then, the astonished
psychologist may cease his useless labours, and record the inauguration
of a new era by acknowledging " Omnia jam fient fieri quse posse negabam ;"
or, still more conclusively,
" Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything, and everything is nought."

ON SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
6 In an answer to this lecture by "Julian," it is replied that " Belief
is the easiest thing possible for weak and ignorant minds." But Julian
by belief means acquiescence ; and every church-goer is aware that the
worthlessness of mere acquiescence is constantly being urged upon them
from the pulpit. It holds the same relation to faith that respectability —
i.e., acquiescence in the ordinary standard of morality — holds to holi-
538

NOTES.

ness. The subject is too difficult to be discussed adequately in a note ;
but in my first Bampton Lecture I have shown how belief, though gained
by a struggle, is equally possible for the unlearned and the learned, but
in every case it has to be won by an effort (Mal. xi. 12).
7 "Julian" asserts that there ought not to be any difficulty. "There
ought not to be the least shadow of doubt whether a given book is from
God or not" (p. 5) : " If the handwriting of Jehovah in the Scriptures be
doubtful, it cannot be divine." But, as Bishop Butler has shown in his
" Analogy," there are no difficulties, as regards Revelation, different in
kind from those which we daily encounter in common life. ' 'Julian's " easy
, assertions involve a tremendous difficulty ; for what he virtually affirms
is that God ought to have acted, in matters of religion, in an entirely
different way from that in which He has acted in the ordinary constitu
tion of this world. The whole question turns upon something quite as
much out of "Julian's" depth as it is out of mine ; namely, what was
God's purpose in creating man. By the study of "the constitution and
course of nature," and of what is said in Holy Scripture, I arrive at the
conclusion that God has, for some wise purpose, been pleased to place
man here in a state of discipline. Such a state implies the existence of
difficulties ; the greatness and degree of these difficulties we can know
solely by experience, being able only to guess at the reasons which have
made a state of probation necessary for us. But the difficulties must not
be insuperable ; for if they were, then this present state would be a dis
cipline no longer.
8 Mr. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man" (i. 201 — 206), enumerates the
several stages through which man is supposed to have passed, of which
the first stage is an imaginary "group of animals, resembling in many
respects the larvse of our present Ascidians, which diverged into two
great branches — the one retrograding in development, and producing
the present class of Ascidians, the other rising to the Vertebrata. " He
further describes these Ascidians as "hardly appearing like animals, and
consisting of a simple, tough, leathery sack, with two small projecting
orifices." I must own that in Mr. Darwin's book I can find no proof
either of the degradation of the present race of Ascidians or of the de-
539

NOTES.

velopment of their cousins, whom Mr. Darwin has summoned into ex
istence to serve his purpose, into apes. The work is full of interesting
facts and ingenious speculations, but the speculations can scarcely be
said to have consistency enough to merit the name even of a theory.
3 If this struggle existed, it seems unaccountable that we do not find
creatures in every stage of evolution. We must suppose that these
Ascidian larvae existed by millions — at all events, many thousand species
of animals exist, all according to this theory, evolved from them ; and,
as many have failed and become our present Ascidians, and others were
content to remain as they were, the number of possible starters in this
race must have been vast. Reasonably, then, we should expect to find
creatures in every stage of progress, and at the head numbers pressing
closely on man. Instead of this, we find an empty space between each
several order, and that between man and the animal second in the race
is enormous. "The difference between the mind of the lowest man
and that of the highest animal is immense " (Darwin, i. 104).
10 A monkey must walk, and does so quite as frequently as man, but
he walks very ill. "The gorilla runs with a sidelong shambling gait,
but more commonly progresses by resting on its bent hands. The long-
armed apes occasionally use their arms like crutches : . . . yet they
move awkwardly, and much less securely than man " (Darwin, i. 143).
Now the theory of revolution would require that, before men and
monkeys separateft from some common ancestor, their configuration was
the same. How and when did the hands become feet, or, vice versd,
the feet hands ?
u I do not think that "Julian" can have observed this note. For he
retorts upon me that dogs, monkeys, and jackdaws have a conscience, and
that what I deduce from it as regards men, would justify a similar con
clusion as regards cats and dogs. But I had already pointed out that
whatever appearance of the higher moral qualities is to be observed in
animals is apparently the result of contact with man. It is part of the
present constitution of things that certain animals have been domes
ticated, and over these the "dominion" given to man (Gen. i. 28) is
540

NOTES.

very large. I cannot see how any animal could be domesticated if it
Were quite incapable of quasi-moral qualities. I see then no difficulty
in a domestic animal having a sort of conscience : without it a dog
could scarcely be faithful. And note, too, that this rudimentary con
science in a dog implies responsibility in it quite as much as man's more
perfect conscience does in man. The dog's responsibility is to his
master ; to whom is his master responsible ? Still, as regards these
rudiments of conscience, I cannot see any real proof for more than a
very curious influence of man's qualities upon those of animals brought
into contact with him. With Mr. Darwin (i. 89) I hold that "man
only can with certainty be ranked as a moral being ; " and that as re
gards conscience "man differs profoundly frcm the lower animals" {ib.)
I do not hold, however, as ' 'Julian " imagines, that conscience is an un
erring guide. The exact contrary is implied in Matt. vi. 23. Conscience
needs more than itself to guide men aright.
12 "Julian" considers that I must be "one of those who believe a stop
occurs in the middle of the second verse of Gen. i., which severs the
preadamite world from the world as it now is." I answer that lam
one of those who know a little Hebrew, and I am therefore aware
that the verb rendered was in verse 2 is not a copula, but means con
tinued existence. As regards the geologic notions ascribed to me by
"Julian," I can only express my regret that scientific men should persist
in ascribing to theologians mere nonsense. Nothing is easier than to slay
men of straw, but is it worth the trouble ? I would recommend him to
read a discussion upon the Mosaic record in the last chaptei* of [Mr.
Capes'] " Reasons of Returning to the Church of England." He would
then see that the opinions of theologians are not so puerile as he
supposes.

ON MIRACLES.
33 The publishers have asked me whether I have any remarks to
make on "Julian's" Reply. A few lines will be sufficient for all I
have to say. 541

N07ES.

"Julian" quotes (page 16) a sentence within inverted commas, as
mine, which the reader will in vain search for in my Lecture.
He, on page 17, attributes to me, for the purpose of exciting ridi
cule, a statement which I never dreamed of making. Yet he adds :
"The words are Dr. Stoughton's, and you may read them for six
pence." He concedes the point maintained in the first twenty-six pages of
my Lecture, by remarking: "We do not say that miracles are im
probable or impossible. "
Although I distinctly explain that my argument in the remainder
of the Lecture is confined to the miracles ascribed to Christ, ' ' Julian ''
simply indulges in an attack on the authenticity and genuineness of
the Pentateuch. He concludes by saying: "The New Testament
stands on no better foundation, although we need not enter on that
question now. " Most people will think this was the very question on
which ' ' Julian '' ought to have entered, in answer to a Lecture on
" The Miraculous Evidences of Christianity."
Exception has been taken to what I have said respecting remarkable
coincidences between natural events and historical facts (p. 200). Some
of my remarks, as the foot-note indicates, were suggested by one of the
most thoughtful of modern Continental divines. I therefore subjoin the
following passage : —
"There is a mysterious harmony between the natural and the moral,
between facts of nature and facts of history, manifest in what we call the
' wonderful ' {mirabile), as distinct from what is properly called the
'miraculous' (miraculum). While the miracle, properly speaking,
implies a violation of the laws of nature, the wonderful, which is closely
connected with it, is such a coincidence and working together of nature
and history as reveals a supernatural result to the religious perceptions
while the natural explanation still holds good for the understanding.
The march of Napoleon into Russia, pregnant with results, and the
severe winter ; the invincible Armada of Philip the Second, and the
sudden storm {afflavit deus et dissiparit eos), serve as examples of the
' wonderful ' in the sense referred to. There is in these things a sur
prising and unaccountable harmony of nature and history, and yet all is
542

NOTES.
natural ; no law is broken, but the coincidence is inexplicable. Won
ders such as these continually present themselves to us, both in the
world at large and in the lives of individuals. There is, generally
speaking, an unaccountable power of nature which plays its part in the
historical and moral complications of human life ; and it cannot escape
the notice of the careful observer that wonderful coincidences often
occur, which to reason may appear only as an extraordinary, inexpli
cable chance ; to the poet as a profound play of the spirit of the world,
and an active presence of a divine phantasy in the world's progress ; —
combinations which lie beyond the range of rational computation, and
which, like genii, scorn the narrow laws of human knowledge ; — but in
which the Christian discerns the finger of God. But he who truly re
cognizes the finger of God in these strange coincidences must be led on
to a recognition of the actually miraculous. The wonderful is only the
half-developed, unperfected miracle. The wonderful possesses that
ambiguous character, half chance, half providence, half natural, half
divine, just because the coincidence of the holy and the natural is
external only ; and faith must still demand a relation wherein nature
and freedom — separate in the usual course of events — shall not only seek
one another in wonderful configurations, shall not only approach one
another, but be immediately and essentially united ; faith must still long
for an unequivocal sign, of which it can say, Here is God, and not
nature. This sign is given in the sacred history of Christ ; a sign which
is spoken against, and which is set for the fall of many, and for the
rising again of many." — Martensen's " Christian Dogmatics,'' p. 222.

ON MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
i< The following quotation from Mr. Lecky, who is a witness of the
most unexceptionable character, sets forth in a striking light the solitary
grandeur of the character of Christ as it has been depicted in the
Gospels. " It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an
ideal character which throughout all the changes of eighteen centuries
has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love ; has shown
itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and con-
543

NOTES.

ditions j has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the
strongest incentive to its practice ; and has exercised so deep an influence
that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of
active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all
the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.
This has, indeed, been the well-spring of whatever is best and purest in
the Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priest
craft and persecution and fanaticism that has defaced the Church, it has
preserved in the example and character of its Founder an enduring prin
ciple of regeneration." — Lecky's "History of Morals," vol. ii., p. 9.
Mr. Lecky distinctly admits that it is an historical fact that the Christ
of the Gospels has exerted a power compared with which that of all
characters, whether real or mythical, has been inconsiderable. A true
philosophy must account for this unique power possessed by Jesus
Christ. If the character is a fiction, why is it that it has exerted an
influence compared with which all other fictions have been feebleness ?
If Jesus Christ was a great man only, why ' ' has He done more to
regenerate mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all
the exhortations of moralists " ? Why has He left immeasurably behind
Him all other great men who have ever lived ? The historical truth of
the Divine character portrayed in the Gospels adequately accounts for
this mighty influence. Nothing else does. A character which leaves
every other human character indefinitely behind it, must belong to the
supernatural, not to the natural, order of things. It is a moral and
spiritual miracle. To suppose that such a character has been generated
by the slow and gradual action of natural laws, contradicts alike the
acts of history and the principles of philosophy. Nature recognizes
no mighty leaps in her order of production.

Watson & Hazell, Printers, London and Aylesbury.
544

& §