Essays and reviews

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

LONDON :
JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND

1860.

[The Authors reserve the right of Translation. }

LONDON :

SAVILL AND EDWABD8, PBINTBKS, CHA.5DOS STBEET,
COVBNT GABDBN.

TO THE EEADEE.

IT will readily be understood that tlie Authors of
the ensuing Essays are responsible for their respective
articles only. They have written in entire indepen
dence of each other, and without concert or comparison.
The Volume, it is hoped, will be received as an
attempt to illustrate the advantage derivable to the
cause of religious and moral truth, from a free hand
ling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable
to suffer by the repetition of conventional language,
and from traditional methods of treatment.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Education of the World. By FREDERICK TEMPLE, D.D.,
Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen ; Head Master of
Rugby School j Chaplain to the Earl of Denbigh . . i

Bunseris Biblical Researches. By ROWLAND WILLIAMS, D.D.,
Vice-Principal and Professor of Hebrew, St. David s
College, Lampeter ; Vicar of Broad Chalke, Wilts . . 50

On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity. By BADEN
POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., <fec. &c., Savilian Professor of
Geometry in the University of Oxford 94

Seances Historiques de Geneve. The National Church. By
HENRY BRISTOW WILSON, B.D., Vicar of Great Staugh-
ton, Hunts 145

On the Mosaic Cosmogony. By C. W. GOODWIN, M.A. . . 207

Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688 1750.

By MARK PATTISON, B.D 254

On the Interpretation of Scripture. By BENJAMIN JOWETT
M.A., Regius Professor of Greek, in the University o
Oxford 330

Note on Bunseris Biblical Researches .434

THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD.

IK a world of mere phenomena, where all events are
bound to one another by a rigid law of cause and
effect, it is possible to imagine the course of a long
period bringing all things at the end of it into exactly
the same relations as they occupied at the beginning.
We should, then, obviously have a succession of cycles
rigidly similar to one another, both in events and in
the sequence of them. The universe would eternally
repeat the same changes in a fixed order of recurrence,
though each cycle might be many millions of years in
length. Moreover, the precise similarity of these
cycles would render the very existence of each one of
them entirely unnecessary. We can suppose, without
any logical inconsequence, any one of them struck out,
and the two which had been destined to precede and
follow it brought into immediate contiguity.

This supposition transforms the universe into a
dead machine. The lives and the souls of men
become so indifferent, that the annihilation of a whole
human race, or of many such races, is absolutely
nothing. Every event passes away as it happens,
filling its place in the sequence, but purposeless for
the future. The order of all things becomes, not
merely an iron rule, from which nothing can ever
swerve, but an iron rule which guides to nothing and
ends in nothing .

Such a supposition is possible to the logical under
standing : it is not possible to the spirit. The human

B

2 The Education of the World.

heart refuses to believe in a universe without a pur
pose. To the spirit, all things that exist must have a
purpose, and nothing can pass away till that purpose
be fulfilled. The lapse of time is no exception to this
demand. Each moment of time, as it passes, is taken
up in the shape of permanent results into the time
that follows, and only perishes by being converted
into something more substantial than itself. A series
of recurring cycles, however conceivable to the logical
understanding, is inconceivable to the spirit ; for every
later cycle must be made different from every earlier
by the mere fact of coming after it and embodying its
results. The material world may possibly be subject
to such a rule, and may, in successive epochs, be the
cradle of successive races of spiritual beings. But the
world of spirits cannot be a mere machine.

In accordance with this difference between the
material and the spiritual worlds, we ought to be
prepared to find progress in the latter, however much
fixity there may be in the former. The earth may
still be describing precisely the same orbit as that
which was assigned to her at the creation. The sea
sons may be precisely the same. The planets, the
moon, and the stars, may be unchanged both in ap
pearance and in reality. But man is a spiritual as
well as a material creature, must be subject to the laws
of the spiritual as well as to those of the material world,
and cannot stand still because things around him do.
Now, that the individual man is capable of perpetual,
or almost perpetual, development from the day of his
birth to that of his death, is obvious of course. But
we may well expect to find something more than this
in a spiritual creature who does not stand alone, but
forms a part of a whole world of creatures like himself.
Man cannot be considered as an individual. He is,
in reality, only man by virtue of his being a member
of the human race. Any other animal that we know
would probably not be very different in its nature if

The Education of the World. 3

brought up from its very birth apart from all its
kind. A child so brought up becomes, as instances
could be adduced to prove, not a man in the full sense
at all, but rather a beast in human shape, with human
faculties, no doubt, hidden underneath, but with no
hope in this life of ever developing those faculties into
true humanity. If, then, the whole in this case, as in
so many others, is prior to the parts, we may con
clude, that we are to look for that progress which is
essential to a spiritual being subject to the lapse of
time, not only in the individual, but also quite as
much in the race taken as a whole. We may expect
to find, in the history of man, each successive age in
corporating into itself the substance of the preceding.

This power, whereby the present ever gathers into
itself the results of the past, transforms the human
race into a colossal man, whose life reaches from the
creation to the day of judgment. The successive
generations of men are days in this man s life. The
discoveries and inventions which characterize the dif
ferent epochs of the world s history are his works.
The creeds and doctrines, the opinions and principles
of the successive ages, are his thoughts. The state of
society at different times are his manners. He grows
in knowledge, in self-control, in visible size, just as we
do. And his education is in the same way and for
the same reason precisely similar to ours.

All this is no figure but only a compendious state
ment of a very comprehensive fact. The child that
is born to-day may possibly have the same faculties
as if he had been born in the days of Noah ; if it be
otherwise, we possess no means of determining the
difference. But the equality of the natural faculties
at starting will not prevent a vast difference in their
ultimate development. That development is entirely
under the control of the influences exerted by the
society in which the child may chance to live. If
such society be altogether denied, the faculties perish,

B 2

4 The Education of the World.

and the child (as remarked above) grows up a beast
and not a man; if the society be uneducated and
coarse, the growth of the faculties is early so stunted
as never afterwards to be capable of recovery ; if the
society be highly cultivated, the child will be culti
vated also, and will show, more or less, through life
the fruits of that cultivation. Hence each generation
receives the benefit of the cultivation of that which
preceded it. Not in knowledge only but in develop
ment of powers the child of twelve now stands at the
level where once stood the child of fourteen, where
ages ago stood the full-grown man. The discipline
of manners, of temper, of thought, of feeling, is trans
mitted from generation to generation, and at each
transmission there is an imperceptible but unfailing
increase. The perpetual accumulation of the stores
of knowledge is so much more visible than the change
in the other ingredients of human progress, that we
are apt to fancy that knowledge grows, and knowledge
only. I shall not stop to examine whether it be true
(as is sometimes maintained) that all progress in
human society is but the effect of the progress of
knowledge. For the present, it is enough to point
out that knowledge is not the only possession of the
human spirit in which progress can be traced.

We may, then, rightly speak of a childhood, a
youth, and a manhood of the world. The men of the
earliest ages were, in many respects, still children as
compared with ourselves, with all the blessings and with
all the disadvantages that belong to childhood. We
reap the fruits of their toil, and bear in our characters
the impress of their cultivation. Our characters have
grown out of their history, as the character of the man
grows out of the history of the child. There are
matters in which the simplicity of childhood is wiser
than the maturity of manhood, and in these they were
wiser than we. There are matters in which the child
is nothing, and the man everything, and in these we

The Education of the World. 5

are the gamers. And the process by which we have
either lost or gained corresponds, stage by stage, with
the process by which the infant is trained for youth,
and the youth for manhood.

This training has three stages. In childhood we
are subject to positive rules which we cannot under
stand, but are bound implicitly to obey. In youth
we are subject to the influence of example, and soon
break loose from all rules unless illustrated and
enforced by the higher teaching which example im
parts. In manhood we are comparatively free from
external restraints, and if we are to learn, must be our
own instructors. First come Rules, then Examples, then
Principles. First comes the Law, then the Son of
Man, then the Gift of the Spirit. The world was
once a child under tutors and governors until the
time appointed by the Father. Then, when the fit
season had arrived, the Example to which all ages
should turn was sent to teach men what they ought
to be. Then the human race was left to itself to be
guided by the teaching of the Spirit within.

The education of the world, like that of the child,
begins with Law. It is impossible to explain the
reasons of all the commands that you give to a child,
and you do not endeavour to do so. When he is to
go to bed, when he is to get up, how he is to sit,
stand, eat, drink, what answers he is to make when
spoken to, what he may touch and what he may not,
what prayers he shall say and when, what lessons he
is to learn, every detail of manners and of conduct
the careful mother teaches her child, and requires
implicit obedience. Mingled together in her teaching
are commands of the most trivial character and com
mands of the gravest importance ; their relative value
marked by a difference of manner rather than by any
thing else, since to explain it is impossible. Mean
while to the child obedience is the highest duty,
affection the highest stimulus, the mother s word the

6 The Education of the World.

highest sanction. The conscience is alive, but it is,
like the other faculties at that age, irregular, unde
veloped, easily deceived. The mother does not leave
it uncultivated, nor refuse sometimes to explain her
motives for commanding or forbidding ; but she never
thinks of putting the judgment of the child against
her own, nor of considering the child s conscience as
having a right to free action.

As the child grows older the education changes its
character, not so much in regard to the sanction of its
precepts as in regard to their tenor. More stress is
laid upon matters of real duty, less upon matters of
mere manner. Falsehood, quarrelling, bad temper,
greediness, indolence, are more attended to than times
of going to bed, or fashions of eating, or postures in
sitting. The boy is allowed to feel, and to show that
he feels, the difference between different commands.
But he is still not left to himself : and though points
of manner are not put oil a level with points of con
duct, they are by no means neglected. Moreover,
while much stress is laid upon his deeds, little is laid
upon his opinions ; he is rightly supposed not to have
any, and will not be allowed to plead them as a reason
for disobedience.

After a time, however, the intellect begins to assert
a right to enter into all questions of duty, and the
intellect accordingly is cultivated. The reason is ap
pealed to in all questions of conduct : the conse
quences of folly or sin are pointed out, and the
punishment which, without any miracle, God invariably
brings upon those who disobey His natural laws
how, for instance, falsehood destroys confidence and
incurs contempt ; how indulgence in appetite tends to*
brutal and degrading habits ; how ill-temper may end
in crime, and must end in mischief. Thus the con
science is reached through the understanding.

Now, precisely analogous to all this is the history
of the education of the early world. The earliest

The Education of the World. 7

commands almost entirely refer to bodily appetites
and animal passions. The earliest wide-spread sin
was brutal violence. That wilfulness of temper,
those germs of wanton cruelty, which the mother
corrects so easily in her infant, were developed in
the earliest form of human society into a prevailing
plague of wickedness. The few notices which are given
of that state of mankind do not present a picture of
mere lawlessness, such as we find among the medieval
nations of Europe, but of blind, gross ignorance of
themselves and all around them. Atheism is possible
now, but Lamech s presumptuous comparison of him
self with God is impossible, and the thought of
building a tower high enough to escape God s wrath
could enter no man s dreams. We sometimes see in
very little children a violence of temper which seems
hardly human : add to such a temper the strength of
a full-grown man, and we shall perhaps understand
what is meant by the expression, that the earth was
filled with violence.

Violence was followed by sensuality. Such was
the sin of Noah, Ham, Sodom, Lot s daughters, and
the guilty Canaanites. Animal appetites- -the appe
tites which must be subdued in childhood if they are
to be subdued at all were still the temptation of
mankind. Such sins are, it is true, prevalent in the
world even now. But the peculiarity of these early
forms of licentiousness is their utter disregard of
every kind of restraint, and this constitutes their
childish character.

The education of this early race may strictly be
said to begin when it was formed into the various
v masses out of which the nations of the earth have
sprung. The world, as it were, went to school, and
was broken up into classes. Before that time it can
hardly be said that any great precepts had been given.
The only commands which claim an earlier date are the
prohibitions of murder and of eating blood. And

8 The Education of tie World.

these may be considered as given to all alike. But
the whole lesson of humanity was too much to be
learned by all at once. Different parts of it fell to the
task of different parts of the human race, and for a
long time, though the education of the world flowed
in parallel channels, it did not form a single stream.

The Jewish nation, selected among all as the
depository of what may be termed, in a pre-eminent
sense, religious truth, received, after a short prepara
tion, the Mosaic system. This system is a mixture
of moral and positive commands : the latter, precise
and particular, ruling the customs, the festivals, the
worship, the daily food, the dress, the very touch ; the
former large, clear, simple, peremptory. There is
very little directly spiritual. No freedom of conduct
or of opinion is allowed. The difference between dif
ferent precepts is not forgotten; nor is all natural
judgment in morals excluded. But the reason for all
the minute commands is never given. Why they
may eat the sheep and not the pig they are not told.
The commands are not confined to general principles,
but run into such details as to forbid tattooing or dis
figuring the person, to command the wearing of a
blue fringe, and the like. That such commands
should be sanctioned by divine authority is utterly
irreconcileable with our present feelings. But in the
Mosaic system the same peremptory legislation deals
with all these matters, whether important or trivial.
The fact is, that however trivial they might be in
relation to the authority which they invoked, they were
not trivial in relation to the people who were to be
governed and taught.

The teaching of the Law was followed by the com
ments of the Prophets. It is impossible to mistake
the complete change of tone and spirit. The ordi
nances indeed remain, and the obligation to observe
them is always assumed. But they have sunk to the
second place. The national attention is distinctly

The Education of the World. 9

fixed on the higher precepts. Disregard of the ordi
nances is, in fact, rarely noticed, in comparison with
breaches of the great human laws of love and brotherly
kindness, of truth and justice. There are but two
sins against the ceremonial law which receive marked
attention idolatry and sabbath-breaking ; and these
do not occupy a third of the space devoted to the
denunciation of cruelty and oppression, of mal
administration of justice, of impurity and intem
perance. Nor is the change confined to the precepts
enforced : it extends to the sanction which enforces
them. Throughout the Prophets there is an evident
reference to the decision of individual conscience,
which can rarely be found in the Books of Moses.
Sometimes, as in Ezekiel s comment on the Second
Commandment, a distinct appeal is made from the
letter of the law to the voice of natural equity.
Sometimes, as in the opening of Isaiah, the ceremo
nial sacrifices are condemned for the sins of those who
offered them. Or, again, fasting is spiritualized into
self-denial. And the tone taken in this teaching is
such as to imply a previous breach, not so much of
positive commands, as of natural morality. It is
assumed that the hearer will find within himself a
sufficient sanction for the precepts. It is no longer,
as in the law, I am the Lord ; but, Hath not he
showed thee, man, what is good? And hence the
style becomes argumentative instead of peremptory,
and the teacher pleads instead of dogmatizing. In
the meanwhile, however, no hint is ever given of a
permission to dispense with the ordinances even in
the least degree. The child is old enough to under
stand, but not old enough to be left to himself. He
is not yet a man. He must still conform to the rules
of his father s house, whether or not those rules suit
his temper or approve themselves to his judgment.

The comments of the Prophets were followed in
their turn by the great Lesson of the Captivity. Then

10 The Education of the Wond.

for the first time the Jews learned, what that Law and
the Prophets had been for centuries vainly endea
vouring to teach them, namely, to abandon for ever
polytheism and idolatry. But though this change in
their national habits and character is unmistakeable,
it might seem at first sight as if it were no more than
an external and superficial amendment, and that their
growth in moral and spiritual clearness, though trace
able with certainty up % to this date, at any rate
received a check afterwards. For it is undeniable
that, in the time of our Lord, the Sadducees had
lost all depth of spiritual feeling, while the Pharisees
had succeeded in converting the Mosaic system
into so mischievous an idolatry of forms, that St.
Paul does not hesitate to call the law the strength
of sin. But in spite of this it is nevertheless clear
that even the Pharisaic teaching contained elements
of a more spiritual religion than the original Mosaic
system. Thus, for instance, the importance attached
by the Pharisees to prayer is not be found in the law.
The worship under the law consisted almost entirely
of sacrifices. With the sacrifices we may presume that
prayer was always offered, but it was not positively
commanded ; and, as a regular and necessary part of
worship, it first appears in the later books of the Old
Testament, and is never even there so earnestly insisted
upon as afterwards by the Pharisees. It was in fact
in the captivity, far from the temple and the sacrifices
of the temple, that the Jewish people first learned that
the spiritual part of worship could be separated from
the ceremonial, and that of the two the spiritual was
far the higher. The first introduction of preaching
and the reading of the Bible in the synagogues
belong to the same date. The careful study of the
law, though it degenerated into formality, was yet in
itself a more intellectual service than the earlier
records exhibit. And this study also, though com
mencing earlier, attains its maximum after the cap-

The Education of the World. 11

tivity ; the Psalmists who delight in the study of the
law are all, or nearly all, much later than David ; and
the enthusiasm with which the study is praised in
creases as we come down. In short, the Jewish nation
had lost very much when John the Baptist came to
prepare the way for his Master ; but time had not
stood still, nor had that course of education whereby
the Jew was to be fitted to give the last revelation
to the world.

The results of this discipline of the Jewish nation
may be summed up in two points a settled national
belief in the unity and spirituality of God, and an
acknowledgment of the paramount importance of
chastity as a point of morals.

The conviction of the unity and spirituality of God
was peculiar to the Jews among the pioneers of civili
zation. Greek philosophers had, no doubt, come to
the same conclusion by dint of reason. Noble minds
may often have been enabled to raise themselves to the
same height in moments of generous emotion. But
every one knows the difference between an opinion
and a practical conviction between a scientific deduc
tion or a momentary insight and that habit which
has become second nature. Every one, also, knows
the difference between a tenet maintained by a few
intellectual men far in advance of their age, and a
belief pervading a whole people, penetrating all their
daily life, leavening all their occupations, incorporated
into their very language. To the great mass of the
Gentiles, at the time of our Lord, polytheism was the
natural posture of the thoughts into which their
minds unconsciously settled when undisturbed by
doubt or difficulties. To every Jew, without excep
tion, monotheism was equally natural. To the Geii-
tile, even when converted, it was, for some time, still
an effort to abstain from idols ; to the Jew it was no
more an effort than it is to us. The bent of the
Jewish mind was, in fact, so nxe<J by their previous

12 The Education of the World.

training that it would have required a perpetual and
difficult strain to enable a Jew to join in such folly.
We do not readily realize how hard this was to
acquire, because we have never had to acquire it : and
in reading the Old Testament we look on the repeated
idolatries of the chosen people as wilful backslidings
from an elementary truth within the reach of children,
rather than as stumblings in learning a very difficult
lesson difficult even for cultivated men. In reality,
elementary truths are the hardest of all to learn, un
less we pass our childhood in an atmosphere
thoroughly impregnated with them ; and then w r e
imbibe them unconsciously, and find it difficult to
perceive their difficulty.

It was the fact that this belief was not the tenet of
the few, but the habit of the nation, which made the
Jews the proper instruments for communicating the
doctrine to the world. They supported it, not by
arguments, which always provoke replies, and rarely,
at the best, penetrate deeper than the intellect but
by the unconscious evidence of their lives. They
supplied that spiritual atmosphere in which alone the
faith of new converts could attain to vigorous life.
They supplied forms of language and expression fit
for immediate and constant use. They supplied devo
tions to fill the void which departed idolatry left be
hind. The rapid spread of the Primitive Church,
and the depth to which it struck its roots into the
decaying society of the Roman empire, are unques
tionably due, to a great extent, to the body of Jewish
proselytes already established in every important
city, and to the existence of the Old Testament as a
ready-made text-book of devotion and instruction.

Side by side with this freedom from idolatry there
had grown up in the Jewish mind a chaster morality
than was to be found elsewhere in the world. There
were many points, undoubtedly, in which the early
morality of the Greeks and Romans would well bear

The Education of the World. 13

a comparison with that of the Hebrews. In sim
plicity of life, in gentleness of character, in warmth
of sympathy, in kindness to the poor, in justice to all
men, the Hebrews could not have rivalled the best
days of Greece. In reverence for law, in reality of obe
dience, in calmness under trouble, in dignity of self-
respect, they could not have rivalled the best days of
Rome. But the sins of the flesh corrupted both these
races, and the flower of their finest virtues had
withered before the time of our Lord. In chastity
the Hebrews stood alone ; and this virtue, which had
grown up with them from their earliest days, was
still in the vigour of fresh life when they were com
missioned to give the Gospel to the nations. The
Hebrew morality has passed into the Christian
church, and sins of impurity (which war against the
soul) have ever since been looked on as the type of
all evil ; and our Litany selects them as the example
of deadly sin. What sort of morality the Gentiles
would have handed down to us, had they been left
to themselves, is clear from the Epistles. The excesses
of the Gentile party at Corinth (i Cor. v. 2), the first
warning given to the Thessalonians (i Thes. iv. 3),
the first warning given to the Galatians (Gal. v. 19),
the description of the Gentile world in the Epistle to
the Komans, are sufficient indications of the prevail
ing Gentile sin. But St. James, writing to the
Hebrew Christians, says not a word upon the subject,
and St. Peter barely alludes to it.

The idea of monotheism and the principle of
purity might seem hardly enough to be the chief
results of so systematic a discipline as that of the
Hebrews. But, in reality, they are the cardinal points
in education. The idea of monotheism outtops all
other ideas in dignity and worth. The spirituality of
God involves in it the supremacy of conscience, the
immortality of the soul, the final judgment of the
human race. For we know the other world, and can

14 Tkt Education of tie W .

ily know it, 1 Jog v. drawn from our own exy -

With what. then, shall we compare God ?

With the spiritual or sU ::*art of our natur >n

ie answer depends the whole bent of our religion and

of our morality. For that in ourselves which we

g - :he ne;v -: analogy of God, will, of cours
be looked on as the rav _ and lasting part of our
He be and spiritual, then the spiritual
p within us, which proclaims its own unity and
independence of matter* by the universality of i>
d - must be the rightful monarch of our 1: - but
if t: ^ many and Lords many, with bodily

app > and animal passions, then t: f eon-

ace is but one of those wide-spread delu^
which, some for a 1 _ -ie for a shorter period,

ha * JT ra Again. the same

importance which we assign to monotheism as a creed,

we must assign to chastitv as a virtu ng al]

- necessary to subdue in order to
build up the human character none to be

compared in s: _ *r in virulence, with that of

It can outlive and kill a thousand virtue^
ja OMTUpt the mos~ _ jeart ; it can madden

the soberest intell can debase tt t imagi

nation. But, besides being so poisonous in chaia

above all ott ^~ difficult to conquer. And

the people whos raordinary toughness of nature has

enabled it to on _ ptian Pharaohs, and Assyrian

gs and Eoman Caesars, and Mussulman caKpt-

ed against a power of evil which has

led wMi the human spirit ever - :-e the creation,

and has inflicted, and ni inflict, more deadly

- - _ .- . .. .. -; . . .-._, ... -- : :

Such was the training of the Hebre^ Otl. >
tions meanwhile had a training parallel to and con
temporaneous with thei natural religions,

" " . - : ." . .. " ---- ::;_:i. -" :: j

-

The Education of the World. 1 5

systems of Law, given also by God, though not given
by revelation but by the working of nature, and con
sequently so distorted and adulterated that in lapse
of time the divine element in them had almost
perished. The poetical gods of Greece, the legendary
gods of Eome, the animal worship of Egypt, the sun
worship of the East, all accompanied by systems of
law and civil government springing from the same
sources as themselves, namely, the character and
temper of the several nations, were the means of
educating these people to similar purposes in the
economy of Providence to that for which the Hebrews
were destined.

When the seed of the Gospel was first sown, the
field which had been prepared to receive it may be
divided into four chief divisions, Eome, Greece, Asia,
and Judea. Each of these contributed some thine to

<j

the growth of the future Church. And the growth
of the Church is, in this case, the development of the
human race. It cannot indeed yet be said that all
humanity has united into one stream but the
Christian nations have so unquestionably taken the
lead amongst their fellows, that although it is likely
enough the unconverted peoples may have a real part
to play, that part must be plainly quite subordinate ;
subordinate in a sense in which neither Eome, nor
Greece, nor perhaps even Asia, was subordinate to
Judea.

It is not difficult to trace the chief elements of
civilization which we owe to each of the four. Eome
contributed her admirable spirit of order and organi
zation. To her had been given the genius of govern
ment. She had been trained to it by centuries of
difficult and tumultuous historv. Storms which would

q4

have rent asunder the framework of any other polity
only practised her in the art of controlling popular
passions; and when she began to aim consciouslv
at the Empire of the World, she had already learned

16 The Education of the World.

her lesson. She had learned it as the Hebrews had
learned theirs, by an enforced obedience to her own
system. In no nation of antiquity had civil officers
the same unquestioned authority during their term of
office, or laws and judicial rules the same reverence.
That which religion was to the Jew, including even
the formalism which encrusted and fettered it, law was
to the Roman. And law was the lesson which Eome
was intended to teach the world. Hence the Bishop of
Eome soon became the Head of the Church. Eome
was, in fact, the centre of the traditions which had
once governed the world ; and their spirit still re
mained ; and the Eoman Church developed into the
papacy simply because a head was wanted, and no
better one could be found. Hence again in all the
doctrinal disputes of the fourth and fifth centuries the
decisive voice came from Eome. Every controversy was
finally settled by her opinion, because she alone possessed
the art of framing formulas which could hold together
in any reasonable measure the endless variety of sen
timents and feelings which the Church by that time
comprised. It was this power of administering law
which enabled the Western Church, in the time of
Charlemagne, to undertake, by means of her bishops, the
task of training and civilizing the new population of
Europe. To Eome we owe the forms of local govern
ment which in England have saved liberty and else
where have mitigated despotism. Justinian s laws
have penetrated into all modern legislation, and almost
all improvements bring us only nearer to his code.
Much of the spirit of modern politics came from
Greece ; much from the woods of Germany. But the
skeleton and framework is almost entirely Eoman.
And it is not this framework only that comes from
Eome. The moral sentiments and the moral force
which lie at the back of all political life and are abso
lutely indispensable to its vigour are in great measure
Eoman too. It is true that the life and power of all

The Education of the World. J 7

morality whatever will always be drawn from the New
Testament; yet it is in the history of Rome rather
than in the Bible that we find our models and pre
cepts of political duty, and especially of the duty of
patriotism. St. Paul bids us follow whatsoever things
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report. But
except through such general appeals to natural feeling
it would be difficult to prove from the New Testament
that cowardice was not only disgraceful but sinful,
and that love of our country was an exalted duty of
humanity. That lesson our consciences have learnt
from the teaching of Ancient Rome.

To Greece was entrusted the cultivation of the
reason and the taste. Her gift to mankind has
been science and art. There was little in her temper
of the spirit of reverence. Her morality and her
religion did not spring from the conscience. Her
gods were the creatures of imagination, not of spiritual
need. Her highest idea was, not holiness, as with the
Hebrews, nor law, as with the Romans, but beauty.
Even Aristotle, who assuredly gave way to mere
sentiment as little as any Greek that ever lived,
placed the Beautiful (TO /caXoV) at the head of his moral
system, not the Right, nor the Holy. Greece, in fact,
was not looking at another world, nor even striving
to organize the present, but rather aiming at the
development of free nature. The highest possible
cultivation of the individual, the most finished per
fection of the natural faculties, was her dream. It is
true that her philosophers are ever talking of subordi
nating the individual to the state. But in reality
there never has been a period in history nor a country
in the world, in which the peculiarities of individual
temper and character had freer play. This is not the
best atmosphere for political action ; but it is better
than any other for giving vigour and life to the im
pulses of genius, and for cultivating those faculties, the
reason and taste, in which the highest genius can be

c

18 The Education of the World.

shown. Such a cultivation needs discipline less than
any. And of all the nations Greece had the least of
systematic discipline, least of instinctive deference to
any one leading idea. But for the same reason the
cultivation required less time than any other ; and the
national life of Greece is the shortest of all. Greek
history hardly begins before Solon, and it hardly
continues after Alexander, barely covering 200 years.
But its fruits are eternal. To the Greeks we owe the
logic which has ruled the minds of all thinkers since.
All our natural and physical science really begins
with the Greeks, and indeed would have been im
possible had not Greece taught men how to reason.
To the Greeks we owe the corrective which conscience
needs to borrow from nature. Conscience, startled at
the awful truths which she has to reveal, too often
threatens to withdraw the soul into gloomy and per
verse asceticism : then is needed the beauty which
Greece taught us to admire, to show us another aspect
of the Divine Attributes. To the Greeks we owe
all modern literature. For though there is other
literature even older than the Greek, the Asiatic for
instance, and the Hebrew, yet we did not learn this
lesson from them ; they had not the genial life which
was needed to kindle other nations with the commu
nication of their own fire.

The discipline of Asia was the never-ending succes
sion of conquering dynasties, following in each other s
track like waves, an ever moving yet never advancing
ocean. Cycles of change were successively passing
over her, and yet at the end of every cycle she stood
where she had stood before, and nearly where she stands
now. The growth of Europe has dwarfed her in com
parison, and she is paralysed in presence of a gigantic
strength younger but mightier than her own. But in
herself she is no weaker than she ever was. The
monarchs who once led Assyrian, or Babylonian, or
Persian armies across half the world, impose on us by
the vast extent and rapidity of their conquests ; but

The Education of the World. 19

these conquests had in reality no substance, no inherent
strength. This perpetual baffling of all earthly pro
gress taught Asia to seek her inspiration in rest. She
learned to fix her thoughts upon another world, and was
disciplined to check by her silent protest the over-
earthly, over-practical tendency of the Western nations.
She was ever the one to refuse to measure Heaven by the
standard of earth. Her teeming imagination filled the
church with thoughts undreamt of in our philosophy/
She had been the instrument selected to teach the He
brews the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul ; for
whatever may be said of the early notions on this sub
ject, it is unquestionable that in Babylon the Jews first
attained the clearness and certaintyin regard to it which
we find in the teaching of the Pharisees. So again,
Athanasius, a thorough Asiatic in sentiment and in
mode of arguing, was the bulwark of the doctrine of the
Trinity. The Western nations are always tempted to
make reason not only supreme, but despotic, and dis
like to acknowledge mysteries even in religion. They
are inclined to confine all doctrines within the limits of
spiritual utility, and to refuse to listen to dim voices
and whispers from within, those instincts of doubt, and
reverence, and awe, which yet are, in their place and
degree, messages from the depths of our being. Asia
supplies the corrective by perpetually leaning to the
mysterious. When left to herself, she settles down to
baseless dreams, and sometimes to monstrous and re
volting fictions. But her influence has never ceased to
be felt, and could not be lost without serious damage.
Thus the Hebrews may be said to have disciplined
the human conscience, Eome the human will, Greece
the reason and taste, Asia the spiritual imagination.
Other races that have been since admitted into Chris
tendom also did their parts. And others may yet have
something to contribute ; for though the time for dis
cipline is childhood, yet there is no precise line beyond
which all discipline ceases. Even the grey -haired

c 2

20 The Education of the World.

man has yet some small capacity for learning like a
child ; and even in the maturity of the world the early
modes of teaching may yet find a place. But the
childhood of the world was over when our Lord
appeared 011 earth. The tutors and governors had
done their work. It was time that the second teacher
of the human race should begin his labour. The
second teacher is Example.

The child is not insensible to the influence of example.
Even in the earliest years the manners, the language,
the principles of the elder begin to mould the character
of the younger. There are not a few of our acquire
ments which we learn by example without any, or with
very little, direct instruction as, for instance, to speak
and to walk. But still example at that age is secondary.
The child is quite conscious that he is not on such
an equality with grown-up friends as to enable him to
do as they do. He imitates, but he knows that it is
merely play, and he is quite willing to be told that he
must not do this or that till he is older. As time goes
on, and the faculties expand, the power of discipline to
guide the actions and to mould the character decreases,
and in the same proportion the power of example grows.
The moral atmosphere must be brutish indeed which
can do deep harm to a child of four years. But what
is harmless at four is pernicious at six, and almost fatal
at twelve. The religious tone of a household will hardly
make much impression on an infant ; but it will deeply
engrave its lessons on the heart of a boy growing
towards manhood. Different faculties within us begin
to feel the power of this new guide at different times.
The moral sentiments are perhaps the first to expand
to the influence ; but gradually the example of those
among whom the life is cast lays hold of all the soul,
of the tastes, of the opinions, of the aims, of the temper.
As each restraint of discipline is successively cast off,
the soul does not gain at first a real, but only an
apparent freedom. The youth, when too old for dis
cipline, is not yet strong enough to guide his life by

The Education of the World. 21

fixed principles. He is led by his emotions and
impulses. He admires and loves, he condemns and
dislikes, with enthusiasm. And his love and admira
tion, his disapproval and dislike, are not his own, but
borrowed from his society. He can appreciate a
character, though he cannot yet appreciate a principle.
He cannot walk by reason and conscience alone ; he
still needs those supplies to the imperfection of our
nature which are given by the higher passions. He
cannot follow what his heart does not love as well as
his reason approve ; and he cannot love what is pre
sented to him as an abstract rule of life, but requires
a living person. He needs to see virtue in the concrete,
before he can recognise her aspect as a divine idea. He
instinctively copies those whomhe admires, and in doing
so imbibes whatever gives the colour to their character.
He repeats opinions without really understanding them,
and in that way admits their infection into his judg
ment. He acquires habits which seem of no conse
quence, but which are the channels of a thousand new
impulses to his soul. If he reads, he treats the cha
racters that he meets with in his book as friends or
enemies, and so unconsciously allows them to mould
his soul. When he seems most independent, most
defiant of external guidance, he is in reality only so
much the less master of himself, only so much the
more guided and formed, not indeed by the will, but by
the example and sympathy of others.

The power of example probably never ceases during
life. Even old age is not wholly uninfluenced by
society ; and a change of companions acts upon the
character long after the character would appear in
capable of further development. The influence, in
fact, dies out just as it grew ; and as it is impossible
to mark its beginning, so is it to mark its end. The
child is governed by the will of its parents ; the man by
principles and habits of his own. But neither is insen
sible to the influence of associates, though neither finds
in that influence the predominant power of his life.

22 The Education of the World.

Tliis, then, which is born with our birth and dies
with our death, attains its maximum at some point in
the passage from one to the other. And this point is
just the meeting point of the child and the man, the
brief interval which separates restraint from liberty.
Young men at this period are learning a peculiar lesson.
They seem to those who talk to them to be imbibing
from their associates and their studies principles both
of faith and conduct. But the rapid fluctuations of
their minds show that tlieir opinions have not really
the nature of principles. They are really learning, not
principles, but the materials out of which principles
are made. They drink in the lessons of generous im
pulse, warm unselfishness, courage, self-devotion,
romantic disregard of worldly calculations, without
knowing what are the grounds of their own approba
tion, or caring to analyse the laws and ascertain the
limits of such guides of conduct. They believe,
without exact attention to the evidence of their belief;
and their opinions have accordingly the richness and
warmth that belongs to sentiment, but not the clearness
or firmness that can be given by reason. These affec
tions, which are now kindled in their hearts by the
contact of their fellows, will afterwards be the reservoir
of life and light, with which their faith and their
highest conceptions will be animated and coloured.
The opinions now picked up, apparently not really,
at random, must hereafter give reality to the clearer
and more settled convictions of mature manhood. If
it were not for these, the ideas and laws afterwards
supplied by reason would be empty forms of thought,
without body or substance ; the faith would run a
risk of being the form of godliness without the power
thereof. And hence the lessons of this time have such
an attractiveness in their warmth and life, that they
are very reluctantly exchanged for the truer and pro-
founder, but at first sight colder wisdom which is
destined to follow them. To almost all men this
period is a bright spot to which the memory ever after-

The Education of the World. 23

wards loves to recur ; and even those who can remember
nothing but follyfolly too which they have repented
and relinquished yet find a nameless charm in recall
ing such folly as that. For indeed even folly itself at
this age is sometimes the cup out of which men quaff
the richest blessings of our nature simplicity, gene
rosity, affection. This is the seed time of the soul s har
vest, and contains the promise of the year. It is the
time for love and marriage, the time for forming life
long friendships. The after life may be more contented,
but can rarely be so glad and joyous. Two things we
need to crown its blessings one is, that the friends
whom we then learn to love, and the opinions which
we then learn to cherish, may stand the test of time,
and deserve the esteem and approval of calmer thoughts
and wider experience; the other, that our hearts may
have depth enough to drink largely of that which God is
holding to our lips, and never again to lose the fire and
spirit of the draught. There is nothing more beautiful
than a manhood surrounded by the friends, upholding
the principles, and filled with the energy of the spring
time of life. But even if these highest blessings be
denied, if we have been compelled to change opinions,
and to give up friends, and the cold experience of the
world has extinguished the heat of youth, still the heart
will instinctively recur to that happy time, to explain
to itself what is meant by love and what by hap
piness.

Of course, this is only one side of the picture.
This keen susceptibility to pleasure and joy implies a
keen susceptibility to pain. There is, probably, no
time of life at which pains are more intensely felt ;
no time at which the whole man more groan eth and
travaileth in pain together/ Young men are prone
to extreme melancholy, even to disgust with life. A
young preacher will preach upon afflictions much more
often than an old one. A young poet will write
more sadly. A young philosopher will moralize more
gloomily. And this seems unreal sentiment, and is

24 The Education of the World.

smiled at in after years. But it is real at the time ;
and, perhaps, is nearer the truth at all times than the
contentedness of those who ridicule it. Youth, in
fact, feels everything more keenly ; and as far as the
keenness of feeling contributes to its truth, the feeling,
whether it is pain or pleasure, is so much the truer.
But in after life it is the happiness, not the suffering
of youth, that most often returns to the memory, and
seems to gild all the past.

The period of youth *in the history of the world,
when the human race was, as it were, put under the
teaching of example, corresponds, of course, to the
meeting point of the Law and the Gospel. The
second stage, therefore, in the education of man was
the presence of our Lord upon earth. Those few
years of His divine presence seem, as it were, to
balance all the systems and creeds and worships which
preceded, all the Church s life which has followed since.
Saints had gone before, and saints have been given
since ; great men and good men had lived among the
heathen; there were never, at any time, examples
wanting to teach either the chosen people or any
other. But the one Example of all examples came in
the fulness of time/ just when the world was fitted to
feel the power of His presence. Had His revelation
been delayed till now, assuredly it would have been
hard for us to recognise His Divinity ; for the faculty
of Faith has turned inwards, and cannot now accept
any outer manifestations of the truth of God. Our
vision of the Son of God is now aided by the eyes
of the Apostles, and by that aid we can recognise the
Express Image of the Father. But in this we are
like men who are led through unknown woods by
Indian guides. We recognise the indications by
which the path was known, as soon as those indica
tions are pointed out ; but we feel that it would have
been quite vain for us to look for them unaided. We,
of course, have, in our turn, counterbalancing advan
tages. If we have lost that freshness of faith which

The Education of the World. 2 5

would be the first to say to a poor carpenter Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God yet we
possess, in the greater cultivation of our religious un
derstanding, that which, perhaps, we ought not to he
willing to give in exchange. The early Christians
could recognise, more readily than we, the greatness
and beauty of the Example set before them ; but it is
not too much to say, that we know better than they
the precise outlines of the truth. To every age is given
by God its own proper gift. They had not the same
clearness of understanding as we ; the same recogni
tion that it is Grod and not the devil who rules
the world ; the same power of discrimination between
different kinds of truth ; they had not the same calm
ness, or fixedness of conduct ; their faith was not so
quiet, so little tempted to restless vehemence. But
they had a keenness of perception which we have not,
and could see the immeasurable difference between
our Lord and all other men as we could never have
seen it. Had our Lord come later, He would have
come to mankind already beginning to stiffen into the
fixedness of maturity. The power of His life wonld
not have sunk so deeply into the world s heart ; the
truth of His Divine Nature would not have been
recognised. Seeing the Lord, would not have been
the title to Apostleship. On the other hand, had our
Lord come earlier, the world would not have been
ready to receive Him, and the Gospel, instead of being
the religion of the human race, would have been the
religion of the Hebrews only. The other systems
would have been too strong to be overthrown by the
power of preaching. The need of a higher and purer
teaching would not have been felt. Christ would have
seemed to the Gentiles the Jewish Messiah, not the
Son of Man. But He came in the fulness of time/
for which all history had been preparing, to which all
history since has been looking back. Hence the first
and largest place in the New Testament is assigned to
His Life four times told. This life we emphatically

26 The Education of the World.

call the Gospel. If there is little herein to be techni
cally called doctrine, yet here is the fountain of all
inspiration. There is no Christian who would not
rather part with all the rest of the Bible than with
these four Books. There is no part of God s Word
which the religious man more instinctively remembers.
The Sermon on the Mount, the Parables and the Mira
cles, the Last Supper, the Mount of Olives, the Garden
of Gethsemane, the Cross on Calvary these are the
companions alike of infancy and of old age, simple
enough to be read with awe and wonder by the one,
profound enough to open new depths of wisdom to
the fullest experience of the other.

Our Lord was the Example of mankind, and there
can be no other example in the same sense. But the
whole period from the closing of the Old Testament to
the close of the New was the period of the world s
youth the age of examples ; and our Lord s presence
was not the only influence of that kind which has
acted upon the human race. Three companions were
appointed by Providence to give their society to this
creature whom God was educating ; Greece, Borne,
and the Early Church. To these three mankind has
ever since looked back, and will ever hereafter look
back, with the same affection, the same lingering re
gret, with which age looks back to early manhood. In
these three mankind remembers the brilliant social
companion whose wit and fancy sharpened the intel
lect and refined the imagination ; the bold and clever
leader with whom to dare was to do, and whose very
name was a signal of success; and the earnest, heavenly-
minded friend, whose saintly aspect was a revelation
in itself.

Greece and Eome have not only given to us the
fruits of their discipline, but the companionship of
their bloom. The fruits of their discipline would
have passed into our possession, even if their memory
had utterly perished ; and just as we know not the

The Education of the World. 27

man who first discovered arithmetic, nor the man who
first invented writing benefactors with whom no
other captains of science can ever be compared so,
too, it is probable that we inherit from many a race,
whose name we shall never hear again, fruits of long
training now forgotten. But Greece and Eome have
given us more than any results of discipline in the
never-dying memory of their fresh and youthful life.
It is this, and not only the greatness or the genius of
the classical writers, which makes their literature pre
eminent above all others. There have been great
poets, great historians, great philosophers in modern
days. Greece can show few poets equal, none supe
rior, to Shakspeare. Gibbon, in many respects, stands
above all ancient historians. Bacon was as great a
master of philosophy as Aristotle. Hor, again, are
there wanting great writers of times older, as well as
of times later, than the Greek, as, for instance, the
Hebrew prophets. But the classics possess a charm
quite independent of genius. It is not their genius
only which makes them attractive. It is the classic
life, the life of the people of that day. It is the
image, there only to be seen, of our highest natural
powers in their freshest vigour. It is the unattain
able grace of the prime of manhood. It is the pervad
ing sense of youthful beauty. Hence, while we have
elsewhere great poems and great histories, we never
find again that universal radiance of fresh life which
makes even the most commonplace relics of classic
days models for our highest art. The common work
man of those times breathed the atmosphere of the
gods. What are now the ornaments of our museums
were then the every-day furniture of sitting and
sleeping rooms. In the great monuments of their
literature we can taste this pure inspiration most
largely ; but even the most commonplace fragments
of a classic writer are steeped in the waters of the
same fountain. Those who compare the moderns

28 The Education of the World.

with the ancients, genius for genius, have no difficulty
in claiming for the former equality, if not victory.
But the issue is mistaken. To combine the highest
powers of intellect with the freshness of youth was
possible only once, and that is the glory of the classic
nations. The inspiration which is drawn by the man
from the memory of those whom he loved and
admired in the spring-time of his life, is drawn by
the world now from the study of Greece and Borne.
The world goes back to rs youth in hopes to become
young again, and delights to dwell on the feats
achieved by the companions of those days. Beneath
whatever was wrong and foolish it recognises that
beauty of a fresh nature which never ceases to delight.
And the sins and vices of that joyous time are passed
over with the levity with which men think of their
young companions follies.

The Early Church stands as the example which has
most influenced our religious life, as Greece and Eome
have most influenced our political and intellectual life.
We read the New Testament, not to find there forms
of devotion, for there are few to be found ; nor laws
of church government, for there are hardly any ; nor
creeds, for there are none ; nor doctrines logically
stated, for there is no attempt at logical precision.
The New Testament is almost entirely occupied with
two lives the life of our Lord and the life of the
Early Church. Among the Epistles there are but two
which seem, even at first sight, to be treatises for the
future instead of letters for the time the Epistle to
the Komans and the Epistle to the Hebrews. But
even these, when closely examined, appear, like the
rest, to be no more than the fruit of the current his
tory. That early church does not give us precepts,
but an example. She says, Be ye followers of me, as
I also am of Christ. This had never been said by
Moses, nor by any of the prophets. But the world
was now grown old enough to be taught by seeing

The Education of the World. 29

the lives of saints, better than by bearing tbe words
of prophets. When afterwards Christians needed
creeds, and liturgies, and forms of church govern
ment and systems of theology, they could not find
them in the New Testament. They found there only
the materials out of which such needs could be sup
plied. But the combination and selection of those
materials they had to provide for themselves. In
fact, the work which the early church had to do was
peculiar. Her circumstances were still more peculiar.
Had she legislated peremptorily for posterity, her
legislation must have been set aside, as, indeed, the
prohibition to eat things strangled and to eat blood
has been already set aside. But her example will live
and teach for ever. In her we learn what is meant
by zeal, what by love of Grod, what by joy in the
Holy Ghost, what by endurance for the sake of Christ.
For the very purpose of giving us a pattern, the chief
features in her character are, as it were, magnified
into colossal proportions. Our saints must chiefly be
the saints of domestic life, the brightness of whose
light is visible to very few. But their saintliness was
forced into publicity, and its radiance illumines the
earth. So on every page of the New Testament is
written, Gro and do thou likewise. Transplant into
your modern life the same heavenly-mindedness, the
same fervour of love, the same unshaken faith, the
same devotion to your fellow- men. And to these
pages accordingly the church of our day turns for
renewal of inspiration. We even busy ourselves
in tracing the details of the early Christian life, and
we love to find that any practice of ours comes down
from apostolic times. This is an exaggeration. It is
not really following the early church, to be servile
copyists of her practices. We are not commanded to
have all things in common, because the church of
Jerusalem once had ; nor are we to make every supper
a sacrament, because the early Christians did so. To

30 The Education of the World.

copy the early church is to do as she did, not what
she did. Yet the very exaggeration is a testimony
of the power which that church has over us. "We
would fain imitate even her outward actions as a step
towards imitating her inner life. Her outward actions
were not meant for our model. She, too, had her
faults : disorders, violent quarrels, licentious reckless
ness of opinion, in regard hoth to faith and practice.
But these spots altogether disappear in the blaze of light
which streams upon us when we look back towards
her. Nay, we are impatient of being reminded that
she had faults at all. So much does her youthful
holiness surpass all that we can show, that he who
can see her faults seems necessarily insensible to the
brightness of her glory. There have been great saints
since the days of the apostles. Holiness is as possible
now as it was then. But the saintliness of that time
had a peculiar beauty which we cannot copy ; a
beauty not confined to the apostles or great leaders,
but pervading the whole church. It is not what they
endured, nor the virtues which they practised, that so
dazzle us. It is the perfect simplicity of the religious
life, the singleness of heart, the openness, the child
like earnestness. All else has been repeated since,
but this never. And this makes the religious man s
heart turn back with longing to that blessed time
when the Lord s service was the highest of all
delights, and every act of worship came fresh from
the soul. If we compare degrees of devotion, it may
be reckoned something intrinsically nobler, to serve
God and love Him now when religion is colder than
it was, and when we have not the aid of those thril
ling, heart- stirring sympathies which blessed the early
church. But even if our devotion be sometimes
nobler in itself, yet theirs still remains the more beau
tiful, the more attractive. Ours may have its own place
in the sight of Grod, but theirs remains the irresistible
example which kindles all other hearts by its fire.

The Education of the World. 31

It is nothing against the drift of this argument,
that the three friends whose companionship is most
deeply engraven on the memory of the world were no
friends one to another. This was the lot of mankind,
as it is the lot of not a few men. Greece, the child
of nature, had come to full maturity so early as to
pass away before the other two appeared ; and Borne
and the Early Church disliked each other. Yet that
dislike makes little impression on us now. "We never
identify the Eome of our admiration with the Eome
which persecuted the Christian, partly, indeed, because
the Eome that we admire was almost gone before the
church was founded ; but partly, too, because we for
get each of these while we are studying the other.
We almost make two persons of Trajan, accordingly
as we meet with him in sacred or profane history. So
natural is it to forget in after life the faulty side of
young friends characters.

The susceptibility of youth to the impression of
society wears off at last. The age of reflection begins.
From the storehouse of his youthful experience the
man begins to draw the principles of his life. The
spirit or conscience comes to full strength and assumes
the throne intended for him in the soul. As an ac
credited judge, invested with full powers, he sits in
the tribunal of our inner kingdom, decides upon the
past, and legislates upon the future without appeal
except to himself. He decides not by what is beau
tiful, or noble, or soul-inspiring, but by what is right.
Gradually he frames his code of laws, revising, adding,
abrogating, as a wider and deeper experience gives
him clearer light. He is the third great teacher and
the last.

Now the education by no means ceases when the
spirit thus begins to lead the soul ; the office of the
spirit is in fact to guide us into truth, not to give
truth. The youth who has settled down to his life s
work makes a great mistake if he fancies that be-

32 The Education of the World.

cause lie is no more under teachers and governors
his education is therefore at an end. It is only
changed in form. He has much, very much, to learn,
more perhaps than all which he has yet learned ; and
his new teacher will not give it to him all at once.
The lesson of life is in this respect like the lessons
whereby we learn any ordinary business. The barris
ter, who has filled his memory with legal forms and
imbued his mind with their spirit, knows that the
most valuable part of his education is yet to be
obtained in attending the courts of law. The physi
cian is not content with the theories of the lecture-
room, nor with the experiments of the laboratory, nor
even with the attendance at the hospitals ; he knows
that independent practice, when he will be thrown upon
his own resources, will open his eyes to much which
at present he sees through a glass darkly. In every
profession, after the principles are apparently mastered,
there yet remains much to be learnt from the applica
tion of those principles to practice, the only means by
which we ever understand principles to the bottom.
So too with the lesson which includes all others, the
lesson of life.

In this last stage of his progress a man learns in
various ways. First he learns unconsciously by the
growth of his inner powers and the secret but steady
accumulation of experience. The fire of youth is
toned down and sobered. The realities of life dissi
pate many dreams, clear up many prejudices, soften
down many roughnesses. The difference between
intention and action, between anticipating temptation
and bearing it, between drawing pictures of holiness
or nobleness and realizing them, between hopes of
success and reality of achievement, is taught by many a
painful and many an unexpected experience. In short,
as the youth puts away childish things, so does the
man put away youthful things. Secondly, the full-
grown man learns by reflection. He looks inwards

The Education of the World. 33

and not outwards only. He re-arranges the results of
past experience, re-examines by the test of reality the
principles supplied to him by books or conversation,
reduces to intelligible and practical formulas what he
has hitherto known as vague general rules. He not
only generalizes youth will generalize with great
rapidity and often with great acuteness- -but he learns
to correct one generalization by another. He gra
dually learns to disentangle his own thoughts, so as not
to be led into foolish inconsistency by want of clear
ness of purpose. He learns to distinguish between
momentary impulses and permanent determinations
of character. He learns to know the limits of his
own powers, moral and intellectual; and by slow
degrees and with much reluctance he learns to sus
pend his judgment and to be content with ignorance
where knowledge is beyond his reach. He learns to
know himself and other men, and to distinguish in
some measure his own peculiarities from the leading
features of humanity which he sliares with all men. He
learns to know both the worth and the worthlessness of
the world s judgment and of his own. Thirdly, he
learns much by mistakes, both by his own and by those
of others. He often persists in a wrong cause till it is
too late to mend what he has done, and he learns how
to use it and how to bear it. His principles, or what he
thought his principles, break down under him, and he
is forced to analyse them in order to discover what
amount of truth they really contain. He comes upon
new and quite unexpected issues of what he has done
or said, and he has to profit by such warnings as he
receives. His errors often force him, as it were, to go
back to school; not now with the happy docility of a
child, but with the chastened submission of a penitent.
Or, more often still, his mistakes inflict a sharp chastise
ment which teaches him a new lesson without much
effort on his own part to learn. Lastly, he learns much
by contradiction. The collision of society compels him

D

34 The Education of the World.

to state his opinions clearly; to defend them; to modify
tli em when indefensible ; perhaps to surrender them
altogether, consciously or unconsciously; still more
often to absorb them into larger and fuller thoughts,
less forcible but more comprehensive. The precision
which is thus often forced upon him always seems to
diminish something of the heartiness and power which
belonged to more youthful instincts. But he gains
in directness of aim, and therefore in firmness of reso
lution. But the greatest of his gains is what seems
a loss : for he learns not to attempt the solution of
insoluble problems, and to have no opinion at all on
many points of the deepest interest. Usually this
takes the form of an abandonment of speculation ;
but it may rise to the level of a philosophical humi
lity which stops where it can advance no further, and
confesses its own weakness in the presence of the mys
teries of life.

But throughout all this it must not be supposed
that he has no more to do either with that law which
guided his childhood or with any other law of any
kind. Since he is still a learner, he must learn on the
one condition of all learning obedience to rules ; not
indeed, blind obedience to rules not understood, but
obedience to the rules of his own mind an obedience
which he cannot throw off without descending below
the childish level. He is free. But freedom is not
the opposite of obedience, but of restraint. The free
man must obey, and obey as precisely as the bond
man ; and if he has not acquired the habit of obedience
he is not fit to be free. The law in fact which God
makes the standard of our conduct may have one of
two forms. It may be an external law, a law which is
in the hands of others, in the making, in the apply
ing, in the enforcing of which we have no share ; a
law which governs from the outside, compelling our
will to bow even though our understanding be un
convinced and unenlightened ; saying you must, and

The Education of the World. 35

making no effort to make you feel that you ought ;
appealing not to your conscience, but to force or fear,
and caring little whether you willingly agree or
reluctantly submit. Or, again, the law may be an
internal law ; a voice which speaks within the con
science, and carries the understanding along with it ;
a law which treats us not as slaves but as friends,
allowing us to know what our Lord doeth ; a law which
bids us yield not to blind fear or awe, but to the
majesty of truth and justice; a law which is not
imposed on us by another powder, but by our own
enlightened will. Now the first of these is the law
which governs and educates the child ; the second the
law which governs and educates the man. The second
is in reality the spirit of the first. It commands in
a different way, but with a tone not one whit less
peremptory ; and he only who can control all appe
tites and passions in obedience to it can reap the full
harvest of the last and highest education.

This need of law in the full maturity of life is so
imperative that if the requisite self-control be lost or
impaired, or have never been sufficiently acquired, the
man instinctively has recourse to a self-imposed dis
cipline if he desire to keep himself from falling. The
Christian who has fallen into sinful habits often finds
that he has no resource but to abstain from much that
is harmless in itself because he has associated it with
evil. He takes monastic vows because the world has
proved too much for him. He takes temperance
pledges because he cannot resist the temptations of
appetite. There are devils which can be cast out with
a w^ord ; there are others which go not out but by
(not prayer only, but) fasting. This is often the case
with the late converted. They are compelled to
abstain from, and sometimes they are induced to
denounce, many pleasures and many enjoyments which
they find unsuited to their spiritual health. The
world and its enjoyments have been to them a source

D 2

36 The Education of the World.

of perpetual temptation, and they cannot conceive
any religious life within such a circle of evil. Some
times these men are truly spiritual enough and humble
enough to recognise that this discipline is not es
sential in itself, but only for them and for such as they.
The discipline is then truly subordinate. It is an
instrument in the hands of their conscience. They
know what they are doing and why they do it. But
sometimes, if they are. weak, this discipline assumes
the shape of a regular external law. They look upon
many harmless things, from which they have suffered
mischief as absolutely, not relatively, hurtful. They
denounce what they cannot share without danger, as
dangerous, not only for them, but for all mankind, and
as evil in itself. They set up a conventional code of
duty founded on their own experience which they
extend to all men. Even if they are educated enougli
to see that no conventional code is intellectually tenable,
yet they still maintain their system, and defend it, as
not necessary in itself, but necessary for sinful men.
The fact is, that a merciful Providence, in order to
help such men, puts them back under the dominion of
the law. They are not aware of it themselves men
who are under the dominion of the law rarely are
aware of it. But even if they could appeal to a reve
lation from heaven, they would still be under the
law ; for a revelation speaking from without and not
from within is an external law and not a spirit.

For the same reason a strict and even severe
discipline is needed for the cure of reprobates. Phi
lanthropists complain sometimes that this teaching
ends only in making the man say, the punishment of
crime is what I cannot bear ; not, the wickedness of
crime is what I will not do/ But our nature is not
all will : and the fear of punishment is very often the
foundation on which we build the hatred of evil.
No convert would look back with any other feeling
than deep gratitude on a severity which had set free

The Education of the World. 37

his spirit by chaining down his grosser appetites. It
is true that the teaching of mere discipline, if there
be no other teaching, is useless. If you have only
killed one selfish principle by another you have done
nothing. But if while thus killing one selfish prin
ciple by another you have also succeeded in awaking
the higher faculty and giving it free power of self-
exertion, you have done everything.

This return to the teaching of discipline in mature
life is needed for the intellect even more than for
the conduct. There are many men who though they
pass from the teaching of the outer law to that
of the inner in regard to their practical life, never
emerge from the former in regard to their speculative.
They do not think ; they are contented to let others
think for them and to accept the results. How far
the average of men are from having attained the power
of free independent thought is shown by the stagger
ing and stumbling of their intellects when a completely
new subject of investigation tempts them to form a
judgment of their own on a matter which they have
not studied. In such cases a really educated intel
lect sees at once that no judgment is yet within its
reach, and acquiesces in suspense. But the unedu
cated intellect hastens to account for the phenomenon ;
to discover new laws of nature, and new relations of
truth ; to decide, and predict, and perhaps to demand
a remodelling of all previous knowledge. The dis
cussions on table-turning a few years ago, illustrated
this want of intellects able to govern themselves.
The whole analogy of physical science was not enough
to induce that suspension of judgment which was
effected in a week by the dictum of a known philo
sopher.

There are, however, some men who really think for
themselves. But even they are sometimes obliged,
especially if their speculations touch upon practical
life, to put a temporary restraint upon their intellects.

38 The Education of the World.

They refuse to speculate at all in directions where they
cannot feel sure of preserving their own "balance of
mind. If the conclusions at which they seem likely
to arrive are very strange, or very unlike the general
analogy of truth, or carry important practical conse
quences, they will pause, and turn to some other sub
ject, and try whether if they come back with fresh
minds they still come to the same results. And this
may go further, and they may find such speculations so
bewildering and so unsatisfactory, that they finally
take refuge in a refusal to think any more on the
particular questions. They content themselves with so
much of truth as they find necessary for their spiritual
life ; and, though perfectly aware that the wheat may
be mixed with tares, they despair of rooting up the
tares with safety to the wheat, and therefore let both
grow together till the harvest. All this is justifiable
in the same way that any self- discipline is justifiable.
That is, it is justifiable if really necessary. But as is
always the case with those who are under the law, such
men are sometimes tempted to prescribe for others what
they need for themselves, and to require that no others
should speculate because they dare not. They not only
refuse to think, and accept other men s thoughts,
which is often quite right, but they elevate those
into canons of faith for all men, which is not right.
This blindness is of course wrong ; but in reality it
is a blindness of the same kind as that with which
the Hebrews clung to their law; a blindness, pro
vided for them in mercy, to save their intellects from
leading them into mischief.

Some men, on the other hand, show their want of
intellectual self-control by going back not to the
dominion of law, but to the still lower level of intel
lectual anarchy. They speculate without any founda
tion at all. They confound the internal consistency
of some dream of their brains with the reality of in
dependent truth. They set up theories which have

The Education of the World. 39

no other evidence than compatibility with the few facts
that happen to be known ; and forget that many other
theories of equal claims might readily be invented.
They are as little able to be content with having no
judgment at all as those who accept judgments at
second hand. They never practically realize that
when there is not enough evidence to justify a con
clusion, it is wisdom to draw no conclusion. They
are so eager for light that they will rub their eyes in
the dark and take the resulting optical delusions for
real flashes. They need intellectual discipline but
they have little chance of getting it, for they have
burst its bands.

There is yet a further relation between the inner
law of mature life and the outer law of childhood
which must be noticed. And that is, that the outer
law is often the best vehicle in which the inner law
can be contained for the various purposes of life.
The man remembers with affection, and keeps up
with delight the customs of the home of his child
hood ; tempted perhaps to over-estimate their value,
but even when perfectly aware that they are no more
than one form out of many which a well-ordered
household might adopt, preferring them because of
his long familiarity, and because of the memories with
which they are associated. So, too, truth often seems to
him richer and fuller when expressed in some favourite
phrase of his mother s, or some maxim of his father s.
He can give no better reason very often for much that
he does every day of his life than that his father did
it before him; and provided the custom is not a
bad one the reason is valid. And he likes to go to
the same church. He likes to use the same prayers.
He likes to keep up the same festivities. There are
limits to all this. But no man is quite free from the
influence ; and it is in many cases, perhaps in most,
an influence of the highest moral value. There is
great value in the removal of many indifferent matters

40 The Education of tie World.

out of the region of discussion into that of precedent.
There is greater value still in the link of sympathy
which binds the present with the past, and fills old
age with the fresh feelings of childhood. If truth
sometimes suffers in form, it unquestionably gains
much in power ; and if its onward progress is retarded,
it gains immeasurably in solidity and in its hold on
men s hearts.

Such is the last stage in the education of a human
soul, and similar (as far as it has yet gone) has been
the last stage in the education of the human race.
Of course, so full a comparison cannot be made in this
instance as was possible in the two that preceded it.
For we are still within the boundaries of this third
period, and we cannot yet judge it as a whole. But
if the Christian Church be taken as the representative
of mankind it is easy to see that the general law ob
servable in the development of the individual may also
be found in the development of the Church.

Since the days of the Apostles no further revelation
has been granted, nor has any other system of religion
sprung up spontaneously within the limits which the
Church has covered. No prophets have communi
cated messages from Heaven. No infallible inspira
tion has guided any teacher or preacher. The claim
of infallibility still maintained by a portion of Chris
tendom has been entirely given up by the more
advanced section. The Church, in the fullest sense,
is left to herself to work out, by her natural faculties,
the principles of her own action. And whatever
assistance she is to receive in doing so, is to be through
those natural faculties, and not in spite of them or
without them.

From the very first, the Church commenced the
task by determining her leading doctrines and the
principles of her conduct. These were evolved, as
principles usually are, partly by reflection on past ex
perience, and by forrnularizing the thoughts embodied

The Education of the World. 4 1

in the record of the Church of the Apostles, partly by
perpetual collision with every variety of opinion.
This career of dogmatism in the Church was, in many
ways, similar to the hasty generalizations of early
manhood. The principle on which the controversies
of those days were conducted is that of giving an
answer to every imaginable question. It rarely
seems to occur to the early controversialists that there
are questions which even the Church cannot solve
problems which not even revelation has brought within
the reach of human faculties. That the decisions
were right, on the whole that is, that they always
embodied, if they did not always rightly define, the
truth is proved by the permanent vitality of the
Church as compared with the various heretical bodies
that broke from her. But the fact that so vast a
number of the early decisions are practically obsolete,
and that even many of the doctrinal statements are
plainly unfitted for permanent use, is a proof that the
Church was not capable, any more than a man is
capable, of extracting, at once, all the truth and wis
dom contained in the teaching of the earlier periods.
In fact, the Church of the Fathers claimed to do what
not even the Apostles had claimed namely, not only
to teach the truth, but to clothe it in logical state
ments, and that not merely as opposed to then pre
vailing heresies (which was justifiable), but for all
succeeding time. Yet this was, after all, only an
exaggeration of the proper function of the time.
Those logical statements were necessary. And it
belongs to a later epoch to see the law within the law
which absorbs such statements into something higher
than themselves.

Before this process can be said to have worked itself
out, it was interrupted by a new phenomenon, demand
ing essentially different management. A flood of new
and undisciplined races poured into Europe, on the one
hand supplying the Church with the vigour of fresh

42 The Education of the World.

life to replace the effete materials of the old Roman
Empire, and, on the other carrying her back to the
childish stage, and necessitating a return to the
dominion of outer law. The Church instinctively had
recourse to the only means that would suit the case
namely, a revival of Judaism. The Papacy of the
Middle Ages, and the Papal Hierarchy, with all its
numberless ceremonies and appliances of external
religion, with its attention fixed upon deeds and not
on thoughts, or feelings, or purposes, with its precise
apportionment of punishments and purgatory, was, in
fact, neither more nor less than the old schoolmaster
come back to bring some new scholars to Christ. Of
course, this was not the conscious intention of the then
rulers of the Church ; they believed in their own cere
monies as much as any of the people at large. The
return to the dominion of law was instinctive, not inten
tional. But its object is now as evident as the object
of the ancient Mosaic system. Nothing short of a real
system of discipline, accepted as Divine by all alike,
could have tamed the German and Celtish nature into
the self- control needed for a truly spiritual religion.
How could Chlovis, at the head of his Franks, have
made any right use of absolute freedom of conscience ?
Nor was this a case in which the less disciplined race
could have learned spirituality from the more disci
plined. This may happen when the more disciplined
is much the more vigorous of the two. But the ex
hausted Roman Empire had not such strength of life
left within it. There was no alternative but that all
alike should be put under the law to learn the lesson
of obedience.

When the work was done, men began to discover
that the law was no longer necessary. And of course
there was no reason why they should then discuss the
question whether it ever had been necessary. The
time was come when it was fit to trust to the conscience
as the supreme guide, and the yoke of the medieval

The Education of the World. 43

discipline was shaken off by a controversy which,
in many respects, was a repetition of that between St.
Paul and the Judaizers. But, as is always the case
after a temporary return to the state of discipline,
Christendom did not go back to the position or the
duty from which she had been drawn by the influx of
the barbarian races. The human mind had not stood
still through the ages of bondage, though its motions
had been hidden. The Church s whole energy was
taken up in the first six centuries of her existence in
the creation of a theology. Since that time it had
been occupied in renewing by self-discipline the self-
control which the sudden absorption of the barbarians
had destroyed. At the Reformation it might have
seemed at first as if the study of theology were about
to return. But in reality an entirely new lesson com
menced the lesson of toleration. Toleration is the
very opposite of dogmatism. It implies in reality a
confession that there are insoluble problems upon
which even revelation throws but little light. Its
tendency is to modify the early dogmatism by substi
tuting the spirit for the letter, and practical religion
for precise definitions of truth. This lesson is cer
tainly not yet fully learnt. Our toleration is at
present too often timid, too often rash, sometimes
sacrificing valuable religious elements, sometimes
fearing its own plainest conclusions. Yet there can
be no question that it is gaining on the minds of all
educated men, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic,
and is passing from them to be the common property
of educated and uneducated alike. There are occasions
when the spiritual anarchy which has necessarily fol
lowed the Reformation threatens for a moment to bring
back some temporary bondage, like the Roman Catholic
system. But on the whole the steady progress of tole
ration is unmistakeable. The mature mind of our race
is beginning to modify and soften the hardness and
severity of the principles which its early manhood had

44 The Education of the World.

elevated into immutable statements of truth. Men
are beginning to take a wider view than they did.
Physical science, researches into history, a more
thorough knowledge of the world they inhabit, have
enlarged our philosophy beyond the limits which
bounded that of the Church of the Fathers. And all
these have an influence, whether we will or no, on our
determinations of religious truth. There are found to
be more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt
of in the patristic theology. God s creation is a new
book to be read by the side of His revelation, and to
be interpreted as coming from Him. We can acknow
ledge the great value of the forms in which the first
ages of the Church defined the truth, and yet refuse to
be bound by them ; we can use them, and yet endeavour
to go beyond them, just as they also went beyond the
legacy which was left us by the Apostles.

In learning this new lesson, Christendom needed a
firm spot on which she might stand, and has found it
in the Bible. Had the Bible been drawn up in precise
statements of faith, or detailed precepts of conduct, we
should have had no alternative but either permanent
subjection to an outer law, or loss of the highest in
strument of self-education. But the Bible, from its very
form, is exactly adapted to our present want. It is a
history ; even the doctrinal parts of it are cast in a
historical form, and are best studied by considering
them as records of the time at which they were written,
and as conveying to us the highest and greatest
religious life of that time. Hence we use the Bible
some consciously, some unconsciously not to over
ride, but to evoke the voice of conscience. When
conscience and the Bible appear to differ, the pious
Christian immediately concludes that he has not really
understood the Bible. Hence, too, while the interpre
tation of the Bible varies slightly from age to age, it
varies always in one direction. The schoolmen found
purgatory in it. Later students found enough to con-

The Education of the World. 45

demn Galileo. Not long ago it would have been held
to condemn geology, and there are still many who so
interpret it. The current is all one way it evi
dently points to the identification of the Bible with the
voice of conscience. The Bible, in fact, is hindered by
its form from exercising a despotism over the human
spirit ; if it could do that, it would become an outer
law at once ; but its form is so admirably adapted to
our need, that it wins from us all the reverence of a
supreme authority, and yet imposes on us no yoke of
subjection. This it does by virtue of the principle of
private judgment, which puts conscience between us
and the Bible, making conscience the supreme inter
preter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten, but whom
it can never be a duty to disobey.

This recurrence to the Bible as the great authority
has been accompanied by a strong inclination, common
to all Protestant countries, to go back in every detail
of life to the practices of early times, chiefly, no doubt,
because such a revival of primitive practices, wherever
possible, is the greatest help to entering into the very
essence, and imbibing the spirit of the days when the
Bible was written. So, too, the observance of the
Sunday has a stronger hold on the minds of all religious
men because it penetrates the whole texture of the
Old Testament. The institution is so admirable,
indeed so necessary in itself, that without this hold it
would deserve its present position. But nothing but
its prominent position in the Bible would have made
it, what it now is, the one ordinance which all Christen
dom alike agrees in keeping. In such an observance
men feel that they are, so far, living a scriptural life,
and have come, as it were, a step nearer to the inner
power of the book from which they expect to learn
their highest lessons. Some, indeed, treat it as
enjoined by an absolutely binding decree, and thus at
once put themselves under a law. But short of that,
those who defend it only by arguments of Christian

46 The Education of the World.

expediency, are yet compelled to acknowledge that
those arguments are so strong that it would be difficult
to imagine a higher authority for any ceremonial insti
tution. And among those arguments one of the fore
most is the sympathy which the institution fosters
between the student of the Bible and the book which
he studies.

This tendency to go back to the childhood and
youth of the world has, of course, retarded the acquisi
tion of that toleration which is the chief philosophical
and religious lesson of modern days. Unquestionably
as bigoted a spirit has often been shown in defence of
some practice for which the sanction of the Bible had
been claimed, as before the Reformation in defence of
the decrees of the Church. But no lesson is well
learned all at once. To learn toleration well and really,
to let it become, not a philosophical tenet but a prac
tical principle, to join it with real religiousness of life
and character, it is absolutely necessary that it should
break in upon the mind by slow and steady degrees,
and that at every point its right to go further should
be disputed, and so forced to logical proof. For it is
only by virtue of the opposition which it has sur
mounted that any truth can stand in the human mind.
The strongest argument in favour of tolerating all
opinions is that our conviction of the truth of an
opinion is worthless unless it has established itself in
spite of the most strenuous resistance, and is still pre
pared to overcome the same resistance, if necessary.
Toleration itself is no exception to the universal law;
and those who must regret the slow progress by which
it wins its way, may remember that this slowness
makes the final victory the more certain and complete.
Nor is that all. The toleration thus obtained is
different in kind from what it would otherwise have
been. It is not only stronger, it is richer and
fuller. For the slowness of its progress gives time
to disentangle from dogmatism the really valuable

The Education of the World. 47

principles and sentiments that have been mixed up
and entwined in it, and to unite toleration, not with
indifference and worldliness, but with spiritual truth
and religiousness of life.

Even the perverted use of the Bible has therefore
not been without certain great advantages. And
meanwhile how utterly impossible it would be in the
manhood of the world to imagine any other instructor
of mankind. And for that reason, every day makes
it more and more evident that the thorough study of
the Bible, the investigation of what it teaches and
what it does not teach, the determination of the
limits of what we mean by its inspiration, the de
termination of the degree of authority to be ascribed
to the different books, if any degrees are to be ad
mitted, must take the lead of all other studies. He
is guilty of high treason against the faith who fears
the result of any investigation, whether philosophical,
or scientific, or historical. And therefore nothing
should be more welcome than the extension of know
ledge of any and every kind- -for every increase in
our accumulations of knowledge throws fresh light
upon these the real problems of our day. If geology
proves to us that we must not interpret the first
chapters of Genesis literally; if historical investiga
tions shall show us that inspiration, however it may
protect the doctrine, yet was not empowered to pro
tect the narrative of the inspired writers from occa
sional inaccuracy ; if careful criticism shall prove that
there have been occasionally interpolations and forgeries
in that Book, as in many others ; the results should
still be welcome. Even the mistakes of careful and
reverent students are more valuable now than truth
held in unthinking acquiescence. The substance of
the teaching which we derive from the Bible will
not really be affected by anything of this sort. While
its hold upon the minds of believers, and its power to
stir the depths of the spirit of man, however much

48 The Education of the World.

weakened at first, must be immeasurably strengthened
in the end, by clearing away any blunders which may
have been fastened on it by human interpretation.

The immediate work of our day is the study of the
Bible. Other studies will act upon the progress of
mankind by acting through and upon this. For
while a few highly educated men here and there who
have given their minds to special pursuits may think
the study of the Bible a thing of the past, yet
assuredly, if their science is to have its effect upon
men in the mass, it must be by affecting their moral
and religious convictions in no other way have men
been, or can men be, deeply and permanently changed.
But though this study must be for the present and
for some time the centre of all studies, there is mean
while no study of whatever kind which will not have
its share in the general effect. At this time, in the
maturity of mankind, as with each man in the matu
rity of his powers, the great lever which moves the
world is knowledge, the great force is the intellect.
St. Paul has told us that though in malice we must
be children, in understanding we ought to be men.
And this saying of his has the widest range. Not
only in the understanding of religious truth, but in
all exercise of the intellectual powers, we have no
right to stop short of any limit but that which
nature, that is, the decree of the Creator, has imposed
on us. In fact, no knowledge can be without its
effect on religious convictions ; for if not capable of
throwing direct light on some spiritual questions, yet
in its acquisition knowledge invariably throws light
on the process by which it is to be, or has been,
acquired, and thus affects all other knowledge of every
kind.

If we have made mistakes, careful study may teach
us better. If we have quarrelled about words, the
enlightenment of the understanding is the best means
to show us our folly. If we have vainly puzzled our

Tie Education of the World. 49

intellects with subjects beyond human cognizance,
better knowledge of ourselves will help us to be
humbler. Life, indeed, is higher than all else ; and
no service that man can render to his fellows is to be
compared with the heavenly power of a life of holi
ness. But next to that must be ranked, whatever
tends to make men think clearly and judge correctly.
So valuable, even above all things (excepting only god
liness) is clear thought, that the labours of the states
man are far below those of the philosopher in duration,
in power, and in beneficial results. Thought is now
higher than action, unless action be inspired with the
very breath of heaven. For we are now men, governed
by principles, if governed at all, and cannot rely any
longer on the impulses of youth or the discipline of
childhood.

E

BUNSEN S BIBLICAL RESEARCHES.

TT/^HEN geologists began to ask whether changes
V ? in the earth s structure might be explained by
causes still in operation, they did not disprove the
possibility of great convulsions, but they lessened the
necessity for imagining them. So, if a theologian
has his eyes opened to the Divine energy as continuous
and omnipresent, he lessens the sharp contrast of
epochs in Revelation, but need not assume that the
stream has never varied in its flow. Devotion raises
time present into the sacredness of the past ; while
Criticism reduces the strangeness of the past into
harmony with the present. Faith and Prayer (and
great marvels answering to them), do not pass away :
but, in prolonging their range as a whole, we make
their parts less exceptional. We hardly discern the
truth, for which they are anxious, until we distinguish
it from associations accidental to their domain. The
truth itself may have been apprehended in various
degrees by servants of God, of old, as now. Instead
of, with Tertullian, what was first is truest, we may say,
what comes of God is true, and He is not only afar,
but nigh at hand ; though His mind is not changed.

Questions of miraculous interference do not turn
merely upon our conceptions of physical law, as un
broken, or of the Divine Will, as all-pervading: but
they include inquiries into evidence, and must abide
by verdicts on the age of records. Nor should the
distinction between poetry and prose, and the possi-

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 51

bility of imagination s allying itself with affection,
be overlooked. We cannot encourage a remorseless
criticism of Gentile histories and escape its contagion
when we approach Hebrew annals ; nor acknowledge
a Providence in Jewry without owning that it may
have comprehended sanctities elsewhere. But the
moment we examine fairly the religions of India and of
Arabia, or even those of primeval Hellas and Latium,
we find they appealed to the better side of our nature,
and their essential strength lay in the elements of
good which they contained, rather than in any Satanic
corruption.

Thus considerations, religious and moral, no less
than scientific and critical, have, where discussion was
free, widened the idea of Eevelation for the old world, and
deepened it for ourselves ; not removing the footsteps
of the Eternal from Palestine, but tracing them on
other shores ; and not making the saints of old orphans,
but ourselves partakers of their sonship. Conscience
would not lose by exchanging that repressive idea of
revelation, which is put over against it as an adversary,
for one to which the echo of its best instincts should
be the witness. The moral constituents of our nature,
so often contrasted with Eevelation, should rather be
considered parts of its instrumentality. Those cases
in which we accept the miracle for the sake of the
moral lesson prove the ethical element to be the more
fundamental. We see this more clearly if we imagine
a miracle of cruelty wrought (as by Antichrist) for
immoral ends ; for then only the technically mira
culous has its value isolated ; whereas by appealing to
good WORKS (however wonderful) for his witness, Christ
has taught us to have faith mainly in goodness. This
is too much overlooked by some apologists. But there
is hardly any greater question than whether history
shows Almighty God to have trained mankind by a
faith which has reason and conscience for its kindred,
or by one to whose miraculous tests their pride must

E 2

52 Bunsens Biblical Eese arches.

bow ; that is, whether His Holy Spirit has acted
through the channels which His Providence ordained,
or whether it has departed from these so signally
that comparative mistrust of them ever afterwards
becomes a duty. The first alternative, though in
vidiously termed philosophical, is that to which free
nations and Evangelical thinkers tend ; the second has
a greater show of religion, but allies itself naturally
with priestcraft or formalism ; and not rarely with
corruptness of administration or of life.

In this issue converge many questions anciently
stirred, but recurring in our daylight with almost
uniform 1 accession of strength to the liberal side.
Such questions turn chiefly on the law of growth,
traceable throughout the Bible, as in the world ; and
partly on science, or historical inquiry : but no less on
the deeper revelations of the New Testament, as com
pared to those of the Old. If we are to retain the
old Anglican foundations of research and fair state
ment, we must revise some of the decisions provi
sionally given upon imperfect evidence ; or, if we
shrink from doing so, we must abdicate our ancient
claim to build upon the truth ; and our retreat will
be either to Rome, as some of our lost ones have
consistently seen, or to some form, equally evil, of
darkness voluntary. The attitude of too many Eng
lish scholars before the last Monster out of the Deep
is that of the degenerate senators before Tiberius.
They stand, balancing terror against mutual shame.
Even with those in our universities who no longer re-

*It is very remarkable that, amidst all our Biblical illustration from
recent travellers, Layard, Rawlinson, Robinson, Stanley, &c., no single
point lias been discovered to tell in favour of an irrational supernaturalism ;
whereas numerous discoveries have confirmed the more liberal (not to say,
rationalizing) criticism which traces Revelation historically within the
sphere of nature and humanity. Such is the moral, both of the Assyrian
discoveries, and of all travels in the East, as well as the verdict of philologers
at home, Mr. G. Rawlinson s proof of this is stronger, because undesigned.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 53

peat fully the required Shibboleths, the explicitness of
truth is rare. He who assents most, committing him
self least to baseness, is reckoned wisest.

Bunsen s enduring glory is neither to have paltered
with his conscience nor shrunk from the difficulties
of the problem ; but to have brought a vast erudition,
in the light of a Christian conscience, to unroll
tangled records, tracing frankly the Spirit of God
elsewhere, but honouring chiefly the traditions of His
Hebrew sanctuary. No living author s works could
furnish so pregnant a text for a discourse on Biblical
criticism. Passing over some specialties of Lutheran-
ism, we may meet in the field of research which is
common to scholars ; while even here, the sympathy,
which justifies respectful exposition, need not imply
entire agreement.

In the great work upon Egypt, 1 the later volumes
of which are now appearing in English, we do not
find that picture of home life which meets us in the
pages of our countryman, Sir G. Wilkinson. The
interest for robust scholars is not less, in the fruitful
comparison of the oldest traditions of our race, and
in the giant shapes of ancient empires, which flit like
dim shadows, evoked by a master s hand. But for
those who seek chiefly results, there is something weari
some in the elaborate discussion of authorities ; and, it
must be confessed, the German refinement of method
has all the effect of confusion. To give details here
is impossible (though the more any one scrutinizes
them, the more substantial he will find them), and
this sketch must combine suggestions, which the
author has scattered strangely apart, and sometimes
repeated without perfect consistency. He dwells largely
upon Herodotus, Eratosthenes, and their successors,
from Champollion and Young to Lepsius. Especially

1 Egypt s Place in Universal History, by Christian C. J. Bunsen,
London. 1848, vol. i. 1854, vol. ii.

54 Sunsens Biblical Researches.

the dynastic records of the Ptolemaic priest, Manetho, 1
are compared with the accounts of the stone monu
ments. The result, if we can receive it, is to vindicate
for the civilized kingdom of Egypt, from Menes down
ward, an antiquity of nearly four thousand years before
Christ. There is no point in which archaeologists of all
shades were so nearly unanimous as in the belief that
our Biblical chronology was too narrow in its limits ;
and the enlargement .of our views, deduced from
Egyptian records, is extended by our author s reason
ings on the development of commerce and government,
and still more of languages, and physical features of
race. He could not have vindicated the unity of
mankind if he had not asked for a vast extension of
time, whether his petition of twenty thousand years
be granted or not. The mention of such a term may
appear monstrous to those who regard six thousand
years as a part of Eevelation. Yet it is easier to throw
doubt on some of the arguments than to show that
the conclusion in favour of a vast length is impro
bable. If pottery in a river s mud proves little, its
tendency may agree with that of the discovery of very
ancient pre-historic remains in many parts of the
world. Again, how many years are needed to de-
velope modern French out of Latin, and Latin itself
out of its original crude forms? How unlike is
English to Welsh, and Greek to Sanskrit yet all
indubitably of one family of languages ! What years
were required to create the existing divergence of
members of this family ! How many more for other

1 See an account of him, and his tables, in the Byzantine Syncellus, pp.
72-145, vol. i., ed. Dind., in the Corpus Historice Byzantince, Bonn. 1829.
But with this is to be compared the Armenian version of Eusebius s Chro
nology, discovered by Cardinal Mai. The text, the interpretation, and the
historical fidelity, are all controverted. Baron Bunsen s treatment of them
deserves the provisional acceptance due to elaborate research, with no slight
concurrence of probabilities ; and if it should not ultimately win a favour
able verdict from Egyptologers, no one who summarily rejects it as
arbitrary or impossible can have a right to be on the jury. "

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 55

families, separated by a wide gulf from this, yet re
taining traces of a primaeval aboriginal affinity, to have
developed themselves, either in priority or collate
rally ? The same consonantal roots, appearing either
as verbs inflected with great variety of gram
matical form, or as nouns with case-endings in some
languages, and with none in others, plead as con
vincingly as the succession of strata in geology, for
enormous lapses of time. When, again, we have
traced our Gaelic and our Sanskrit to their inferential
pre-Hellenic stem, and when reason has convinced
us that the Semitic languages which had as distinct
an individuality four thousand years ago as they
have now, require a cradle of larger dimensions
than Archbishop Ussher s chronology, what far
ther effort is not forced upon our imagination, if we
would guess the measure of the dim background in
which the Mongolian and Egyptian languages, older
probably than the Hebrew, became fixed, growing
early into the type which they retain ? Do we see
an historical area of nations and languages extending
itself over nearly ten thousand years : and can we
imagine less than another ten thousand, during which
the possibilities of these things took body and form ?
Questions of this kind require from most of us a
special training for each : but Baron Bunsen revels
in them, and his theories are at least suggestive.
He shows what Egypt had in common with that
primaeval Asiatic stock, represented by Ham, out of
which, as raw material, he conceives the divergent
families, termed Indo-European 1 and Semitic (or the
kindreds of Europe and of Palestine) to have been

1 The common term was Indo-Germanic. Dr. Prichard, on bringing the
Gael and Cymry into the same family, required the wider term Indo-
European. Historical reasons, chiefly in connexion with Sanskrit, are
bringing the term Aryan (or Aryas) into fashion. We may adopt which
ever is intelligible, without excluding, perhaps, a Turanian or African
element surviving in South Wales. Turanian means nearly Mongolian.

56 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

later developed. Nimrod is considered as the Biblical
representative of the earlier stock, whose ruder
language is continued, by affiliation or by analogy,
in the Mongolian races of Asia and in the negroes
of Africa.

The traditions of Babylon, Sidon, Assyria, and Iran,
are brought by our author to illustrate and confirm,
though to modify onr interpretation of, Genesis. It
is strange how nearly those ancient cosmogonies 1
approach what may be termed the philosophy of
Moses, while they fall short in what Longinus called
his worthy conception of the divinity/ Our deluge
takes its place among geological phenomena, no longer
a disturbance of law from which science shrinks, but
a prolonged play of the forces of fire and water, ren
dering the primaeval regions of North Asia uninha
bitable, and urging the nations to new abodes. We
learn approximately its antiquity, and infer limitation
in its range, from finding it recorded in the traditions
of Iran and Palestine (or of Japhet and Shem) but
unknown to the Egyptians and Mongolians, who left
earlier the cradle of mankind. In the half ideal half
traditional notices 2 of the beginnings of our race,
compiled in Genesis, we are bid notice the combination
of documents, and the recurrence of barely consistent
genealogies. As the man Adam begets Cain, the
man Enos begets Cainan. Jared and Irad, Methu
selah and Methusael, are similarly compared. Seth,
like El, is an old deity s appellation, and MAN was
the son of Seth in one record, as Adam was the son
of God in the other. One could wish the puzzling
circumstance, that the etymology of some of the earlier
names seems strained to suit the present form of the
narrative had been explained. That our author would

1 Aegypten s Stelle in der WeltgescJiichte, pp. 186-400: B. v. 1-3.
Gotha. 1856.

2 Aegypteris Stelle, &c., B. v. 4-5, pp. 50-142. Gotha. 1857.

Bunsens Biblical ResearcJies. 57

not shrink from noticing this, is shown by the firmness
with which he relegates the long lives of the first
patriarchs to the domain of legend, or of symbolical
cycle. He reasonably conceives that the historical
portion begins with Abraham, where the lives be
come natural, and information was nearer. A scepti
cal criticism might, indeed, ask, by what right he
assumes that the moral dimensions of our spiritual
heroes can not have been idealized by tradition, as he
admits to have been the case with physical events
and with chronology rounded into epical shape. But
the first principles of his philosophy, which fixes on
personality (or what we might call force of character)
as the great organ of Divine manifestation in the
world, and his entire method of handling the Bible,
lead him to insist on the genuineness, and to magnify
the force, of spiritual ideas, and of the men who exem
plified them. Hence, on the side of religion, he does
not intentionally violate that reverence with which
Evangelical thinkers view the fathers of our faith.
To Abraham and Moses, Elijah and Jeremiah, he
renders grateful honour. Even in archaeology his
scepticism does not outrun the suspicions often be
trayed in our popular mind ; and he limits, while he
confirms these, by showing how far they have ground.
But as he says, with quaint strength, there is no
chronological element in Revelation/ Without bor
rowing the fifteen centuries which the Greek Church
and the Septuagint would lend us, we see, from com
paring the Bible with the Egyptian records and with
itself, that our common dates are wrong, though it is
not so easy to say how they should be rectified. The
idea of bringing Abraham into Egypt as early as 2876
B.C. is one of our author s most doubtful points, and
may seem hardly tenable. But he wanted time for
the growth of Jacob s family into a people of two
millions, and he felt bound to place Joseph under
a native Pharaoh, therefore, before the Shepherd

58 Bunxens Biblical Researches.

Kings. He also contends that Abraham s horizon in
Asia is antecedent to the first Median conquest of
Bab} 7 ! on in 2234. A famine, conveniently mentioned
under the twelfth dynasty of Egypt, completes his
proof. Sesortosis, therefore, is the Pharaoh to whom
Joseph was minister; the stay of the Israelites in
Egypt is extended to fourteen centuries ; and the date
215 represents the time of oppression. Some of these
details are sufficiently. doubtful to afford ground of
attack to writers whose real quarrel is with our author s
Biblical research, and its more certain, but not therefore
more welcome, conclusions. It is easier to follow him
implicitly when he leads us, in virtue of an overwhelm
ing concurrence of Egyptian records and of all the
probabilities of the case, to place the Exodus as late as
1320 or 1314. The event is more natural in Egypt s
decline under Menephthah, the exiled son of the great
Ramses, than amidst the splendour of the eighteenth
dynasty. It cannot well have been earlier, or the
Book of Judges must have mentioned the conquest of
Canaan by Ramses ; nor later, for then Joshua would
come in collision with the new empire of Ninus and
Semiramis. But Manetho places, under Menephthah,
what seems the Egyptian version of the event, and the
year 1314, one of our alternatives, is the date assigned
it by Jewish tradition. Not only is the historical
reality of the Exodus thus vindicated against the
dreams of the Drummonds and the Volneys, but a
new interest is given it by its connexion with the rise
and fall of great empires. We can understand how
the ruin on which Ninus rose made room in Canaan
for the Israelites, and how they fell again under the
satraps of the New Empire, who appear in the Book
of Judges as kings of the provinces. Only, if we
accept the confirmation, we must take all its parts.
Manetho makes the conquerors before whom Meneph
thah retreats into Ethiopia Syrian shepherds, and
gives the human side of an invasion, or war of libera-

Bunsen s Biblical Researches. 59

tion j 1 Baron Bunsen notices the high hand with
which Jehovah led forth his people, the spoiling of the
Egyptians, and the lingering in the peninsula, as
signs, even in the Bible, of a struggle conducted by
human means. Thus, as the pestilence of the Book
of Kings becomes in Chronicles the more visible angel,
so the avenger who slew the firstborn may have been
the Bedouin host, akin nearly to Jethro, and more
remotely to Israel.

So in the passage of the Red Sea, the description
may be interpreted with the latitude of poetry : though,
as it is not affirmed that Pharaoh was drowned, it is no
serious objection that Egyptian authorities continue
the reign of Menephthah later. A greater difficulty is
that we find but three centuries thus left us from the
Exodus to Solomon s Temple. Yet less stress will be
laid on this by whoever notices how the numbers in the
Book of Judges proceed by the eastern round number
of forty, what traces the whole book bears of embody
ing history in its most popular form, and how naturally
St. Paul or St. Stephen would speak after received
accounts.

It is not the importance severally, but the continual
recurrence of such difficulties, which bears with ever
growing induction upon the question, whether the
Pentateuch is of one age and hand, and whether sub
sequent books are contemporary with the events, or
whether the whole literature grew like a tree rooted
in the varying thoughts of successive generations, and
whether traces of editorship, if not of composition,
between the ages of Solomon and Hezekiah, are mani
fest to whoever will recognise them. Baron Bunsen

1 vop.ov eQtTO fjLT)Tf irpoo-Kweiv Geovs .... <rvvdirT<T0ai
77X77 v TCOV o-vvu>p.ocr^fva>v avros 5e .... eVe/i^e
Trpos TOVS VTTO Tedfj.d}(TU)S a7re\adevTas 7roip.evas . . . . /cat T)LOV
vvvfTTKTTpaTfveiv K.r.X. Manetho, apud Jos. c. Apion. The whole
passage has the stamp of genuine history.

60 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

finds himself compelled to adopt the alternative of
gradual growth. He makes the Pentateuch Mosaic,
as indicating the mind and embodying the developed
system of Moses, rather than as written by the great
lawgiver s hand. Numerous fragments of genealogy,
of chronicle, and of spiritual song go up to a high
antiquity, but are imbedded in a crust of later narra
tive, the allusions of which betray at least a time
when kings were established in Israel. Hence the
idea of composition out of older materials must be
admitted ; and it may in some cases be conceived that
the compiler s point of view differed from that of the
older pieces, which yet he faithfully preserved. If the
more any one scrutinizes the sacred text, the more he
finds himself impelled to these or like conclusions
respecting it, the accident of such having been alleged
by men more critical than devout should not make
Christians shrink from them. We need not fear that
what God has permitted to be true in history can be
at war with the faith in Himself taught us by His
Son.

As in his Egypt our author sifts the historical date
of the Bible, so in his Gott in der Geschichte? he
expounds its directly religious element. Lamenting,
like Pascal, the wretchedness of our feverish being,
when estranged from its eternal stay, he traces, as a
countryman of Hegel, the Divine thought bringing
order out of confusion. Unlike the despairing school,
who forbid us trust in God or in conscience, unless we
kill our souls with literalism, he finds salvation for
men and States only in becoming acquainted with the
Author of our life, by whose reason the world stands
fast, whose stamp we bear in our forethought, and
whose voice our conscience echoes. In the Bible, as
an expression of devout reason, and therefore to be

1 Gott in der Geschichte (i.e. the Divine Government in History).
Books i. and ii. Leipzig. 1857.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 61

read with reason in freedom, lie finds record of the
spiritual giants whose experience generated the reli
gious atmosphere we hreathe. For, as in law and
literature, so in religion we are debtors to our ances
tors ; but their life must find in us a kindred appre
hension, else it would not quicken ; and we must give
back what we have received, or perish by unfaithfulness
to our trust. Abraham, the friend of Grod, Moses the
inspired patriot, Elijah the preacher of the still small
voice, and Jeremiah the foreseer of a law written on
the conscience, are not ancestors of Pharisees who in
herit their flesh and name, so much as of kindred spirits
who put trust in a righteous God above offerings of
blood, who build up free nations by wisdom, who
speak truth in simplicity though four hundred priests
cry out for falsehood, and who make self-examination
before the Searcher of hearts more sacred than the
confessional. When the fierce ritual of Syria, with the
awe of a Divine voice, bade Abraham slay his son, he
did not reflect that he had no perfect theory of the
absolute to justify him in departing from traditional
revelation, but trusted that the FATHER, w r hose
voice from heaven he heard at heart, was better pleased
with mercy than with sacrifice ; and this trust was his
righteousness. Its seed was sown from heaven, but
it grew in the soil of an honest and good heart. So
in each case we trace principles of reason and right, to
which our heart perpetually responds, and our response
to which is a truer sign of faith than such deference
to a supposed external authority as would quench
these principles themselves.

It may be thought that Baron Bunsen ignores too
peremptorily the sacerdotal element in the Bible, for
getting how it moulded the form of the history. He
certainly separates the Mosaic institutions from
Egyptian affinity more than our Spencer and War-
burton would permit ; more, it seems, than Hengsten-
berg considers necessary. But the distinctively Mosaic

62 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

is with him, not the ritual, but the spiritual, which
generated the other, but was overlaid by it. Moses,
he thinks, would gladly have founded a free religious
society, in which the primitive tables written by the
Divine finger on man s heart should have been law ;
but the rudeness or hardness of his people s heart
compelled him to a sacerdotal system and formal
tablets of stone. In favour of this view, it may be
remarked, that the tone of some passages in Exodus
appears less sacerdotal than that of later books in the
Pentateuch. But, be this as it may, the truly Mosaic
(according to our author) is not the Judaic, but the
essentially human; and it is not the Semitic form, often
divergent from our modes of conception, but the eter
nal truths of a righteous God, and of the spiritual
sacrifices with which He is pleased, that we ought to
recognise as most characteristic of the Bible; and
these truths the same Spirit which spoke of old
speaks, through all variety of phrase, in ourselves.

That there was a Bible before our Bible, and that
some of our present books, as certainly Genesis and
Joshua, and perhaps Job, Jonah, Daniel, are expanded
from simpler elements, is indicated in the book before
us rather than proved as it might be. Fuller details
may be expected in the course of the revised Bible
for the People^ that grand enterprise of which three
parts have now appeared. So far as it has gone,
some amended renderings have interest, but are
less important than the survey of the whole sub
ject in the Introduction. The word JEHOVAH has
its deep significance brought out by being rendered
THE ETERNAL. The famous Shiloh (Gen. xlix. 10) is
taken in its local sense, as the sanctuary where the young
Samuel was trained; which, if doctrinal perversions
did not interfere, hardly any one would doubt to be

1 Bibel-iverlc fur die Gemeinde. I. and II. Leipzig. 1858.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 63

the true sense. The three opening verses of Genesis
are treated as ,9^-clauses (when God created, &c.), so
that the first direct utterance of the Bible is in the
fourth verse, God said, LET THERE BE LIGHT. Striking
as this is, the Hebrew permits, rather than requires it.
Less admissible is the division after verse 4 of the 2nd
chapter, as if This is> the history was a summary
of what precedes, instead of an announcement of what
follows. But the ist verse of the 2nd chapter belongs
properly to the preceding. Sometimes the translator
seems right in substance but wrong in detail. He
rightly rejects the perversions which make the cursing
Psalms evangelically inspired ; but he forgets that
the bitterest curses of Psalm 109 (from verse 6 to 19)
are not the Psalmist s own, but a speech in the mouth
of his adversary. These are trifles, when compared
with the mass of information, and the manner of
wielding it, in the prefaces to the work. There is a
grasp of materials and a breadth of view from which
the most practised theologian may learn something,
and persons least versed in Biblical studies acquire a
comprehensive idea of them. Nothing can be more
dishonest than the affectation of contempt with
which some English critics endeavoured to receive
this instalment of a glorious work. To sneer at
demonstrated criticisms as old/ and to brand fresh
discoveries as new/ is worthy of men who neither
understand the Old Testament nor love the New.
But they to whom the Bible is dear for the truth s
sake will wish its illustrious translator life to accom
plish a task as worthy of a Christian statesman s
retirement as the Tusculans of Cicero were of the
representative of Eome s lost freedom.

Already in the volume before-mentioned Baron Bun-
sen has exhibited the Hebrew Prophets as witnesses to
the Divine Government. To estimate aright his services
in this province would require from most Englishmen
years of study. Accustomed to be told that modern

64 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

history is expressed by the Prophets in a riddle,
which requires only a key to it, they are disappointed
to hear of moral lessons, however important. Such
notions are the inheritance of days when Justin could
argue, in good faith, that by the riches of Damascus
and the spoil of Samaria were intended the Magi and
their gifts, and that the King of Assyria signified
King Herod (!) ; l or when Jerome could say, No one
doubts that by Chaldeans are meant Demons^ and the
Shunammite Abishag could be no other than heavenly
wisdom, for the honour of David s old age 3 not to
mention such things as Lot s daughters symbolizing
the Jewish and dentil e Churches. 4 It was truly felt
by the early fathers that Hebrew prophecy tended to
a system more spiritual than that of Levi ; and they
argued unanswerably that circumcision and the Sab
bath 5 were symbols for a time, or means to ends.
But when, instead of using the letter as an instru
ment of the spirit, they began to accept the letter in
all its parts as their law, and twisted it into harmony
with the details of Gospel history, they fell into in-

1 Isaiah viii. 4. Trypho 77, 8, 9. Well might Trypho answer, that
such interpretations are strained, if not blasphemous.

2 On Isaiah xliii. 14-15, and again, on ch. xlviii. 12-16. He also shows
on xlviii. 22, that the Jews of that day had not lost the historical sense of
their prophecies ; though mystical renderings had already shown them
selves. But the later mysticists charitably prayed for HILLEL, because his
expositions had been historical. (See Pearson s Notes on Art. iii.) When
will our mysticists show as Christian a temper as the Jewish ones ?
Condonet Dominus hoc R. Hillel !

3 To Nepotian. Letter 52.

4 Presbyteri apud Irenaeum.

5 Trypho 41-43. This tract of Justin s shows strikingly a transition
from the utmost evangelical freedom, with simplicity of thought, to a more
learned, but confused speculation and literalism. He still thinks reason a
revelation, Socrates a Christian, prophecy a necessarv and perpetual gift of
God s people, circumcision temporary, because not natural; and lustral
washings, which he contrasts with mental baptism, superstitious. His
view of the Sabbath is quite St. Paul s. His making a millennial resur
rection the Christian doctrine, as opposed to the heathen immortality of
the soul, is embarrassing, but perhaps primitive. But his Scriptural inter
pretations are dreams, and his charge against the Jews of corrupting the
Prophets as suicidal as it is groundless.

Bansens Biblical Researches. 65

extricable contradictions ; the most rational interpre
ter among them is Jerome, and the perusal of his
criticisms is their ample confutation. 1 Nor could the
strong intellect of Augustine compensate for his de
fect of little Greek, which he shared with half, and
of less Hebrew, which he shared with most of the
Fathers. But with the revival of learning began a
reluctant and wavering, yet inevitable, retreat from
the details of patristic exposition, accompanied with
some attempts to preserve its spirit. Even Erasmus
looked that way ; Luther s and Calvin s strong sense
impelled them some strides in the same direction ;
but Grotius, who outweighs as a critic any ten oppo-
sites, went boldly on the road. In our own country
each successive defence of the prophecies, in propor
tion as its author was able, detracted something from
the extent of literal prognostication ; and either laid
stress on the moral element, or urged a second, as the
spiritual sense. Even Butler foresaw the possibility,
that every prophecy in the Old Testament might
have its elucidation in contemporaneous history ; but
literature was not his strong point, and he turned
aside, endeavouring to limit it, from an unwelcome
idea. Bishop Chandler is said to have thought twelve
passages in the Old Testament directly Messianic;
others restricted this character to five. Paley ven
tures to quote only one. Bishop Kidder 2 conceded
freely an historical sense in Old Testament texts re
mote from adaptations in the New. The apostolic
Middleton pronounced firmly for the same principle ;
Archbishop Newcome 3 and others proved in detail

1 Thus he makes Isaac s hundredfold increase, Gen. xxvi. 12. mean
multiplication of virtues, because no grain is specified ! Quasi. Hebraic,
in Gen. ch. xxvi. When Jerome Origenises, he is worse than Origen,
because he does not, like that great genius, distinguish the historical from
the mystical sense.

2 Collected in the Boyle Lectures.

3 A Literal Translation of the Prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi,vfiti\

66 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

its necessity. Coleridge, in a suggestive letter, pre
served in the memoirs of Gary, the translator of
Dante, threw secular prognostication altogether out
of the idea of prophecy. 1 Dr. Arnold, and his truest
followers, bear, not always consistently, on the same
side. On the other hand, the declamatory assertions,
so easy in pulpits or on platforms, and aided some
times by powers, which produce silence rather than
conviction, have not only kept alive but magnified
with uncritical exaggeration, whatever the Fathers
had dreamt or modern rhetoric could add, tending to
make prophecy miraculous. Keith s edition of New
ton need not be here discussed. Davison, of Oriel, with
admirable skill, threw his argument into a series as
it were of hypothetical syllogisms, with only the defect
(which some readers overlook) that his minor premise
can hardly in a single instance be proved. Yet the
stress which he lays on the moral element of prophecy
atones for his sophistry as regards the predictive.
On the whole, even in England, there is a wide gulf
between the arguments of our genuine critics, with
the convictions of our most learned clergy, on the
one side, and the assumptions of popular declamation
on the other. This may be seen on a comparison
of Kidder with Keith. 2 But in Germany there has

Notes, by Lowth, Blayney, Newcome, Wintle, Horsley, &c. London.
1836. A book unequal, but useful for want of a better, and of which a
revision, if not an entire recast, with the aid of recent expositors, might
employ our Biblical scholars.

1 Of prophecies in the sense of prognostication I utterly deny that there
is any instance delivered by one of the illustrious Diadoche, whom the Jew
ish church comprised in the name Prophets and I shall regard Cyrus as
an exception, when I believe the I37th Psalm to have been composed by
David

Na} r , I will go farther, and assert that the contrary belief, the hypothesis
of prognostication, is in irreconcileable oppugnancy to our Lord s declara
tion, that the times hath the Father reserved to Himself. Memoir of
Gary, vol. ii. p. 180.

2 Amongst recent authors, Dr. Palfrey, an American scholar, has
expounded in five learned volumes the difficulties in current traditions about
prophecy ; but instead of remedying these by restricting the idea of revela-

Bunscus Biblical Researches. 67

been a pathway streaming with light, from Eichhorn
to Ewald, aided by the poetical penetration of Herder
and the philological researches of Gresenius, through
out which the value of the moral element in prophecy
has been progressively raised, and that of the directly
predictive, whether secular or Messianic, has been
lowered. Even the conservatism of Jahn amongst
Romanists, and of Hengstenberg amongst Protestants,
is free and rational, compared to what is often in this
country required with denunciation, but seldom de
fended by argument.

To this inheritance of opinion Baron Bunsen suc
ceeds. Knowing these things, and writing for men
who know them, he has neither the advantage in

tion to Moses and the Gospels, he would have done better to seek a defini
tion of revelation which should apply to the Psalms, and Prophets, and
Epistles.

Mr. Francis Newman, in his Hebrew Monarchy, is historically consistent
in his expositions, which have not been controverted by any serious argu
ment ; but his mind seems to fail in the Ideal element ; else he would see,
that the typical ideas (of patience or of glory) in the Old Testament, find
their culminating fulfilment in the New.

Mr. Mansel s Bampton Lectures must make even those who value his
argument, regret that to his acknowledged dialectical ability he has not
added the rudiments of Biblical criticism. In all his volume not one text
of Scripture is elucidated, nor a single difficulty in the evidences of Christi
anity removed. Recognised mistranslations, and misreadings, are alleged
as arguments, and passages from the Old Testament are employed without
reference to the illustration, or inversion, which they have received in the
New. Hence, as the eristic arts of logic without knowledge of the subject-
matter become powerless, the author is a mere gladiator hitting in the
dark, and his blows fall heaviest on what it was his duty to defend. As to
his main argument (surely a strange parody of Butler), the sentence from
Sir W. Hamilton prefixed to his volume, seems to me its gem, and its
confutation. Of the reasoning, which would bias our interpretation of
Isaiah, by telling us Feuerbach was an atheist, I need not say a word.

We are promised from Oxford farther elucidations of the Minor Prophets
by the Regius Professor of Hebrew, whose book seems launched sufficiently
to catch the gales of friendship, without yet tempting out of harbour
the blasts of criticism. Let us hope that, when the work appears, its inter
pretations may differ from those of a Catena Aurea, published under high

* i i *

typical prophecy of Him who was harmless and undefiled !

F 2

68 Bunseris Biblical Researches.

argument of unique knowledge, nor of unique igno
rance. He dare not say, though it was formerly said,
that David foretold the exile, because it is mentioned
in the Psalms. He cannot quote Nahum denouncing
ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against Tyre,
without remembering that already the Babylonian
power threw its shadow across Asia, and Nebuchad
nezzar was mustering his armies. If he would
quote the book of Isaiah, he cannot conceal, after
Gesenius, Ewald, and Maurer have written, that the
book is composed of elements of different eras. Find
ing Perso-Babylonian, or new-coined words, such as
sag cms for officers, and Chaldaic forms of the Hebrew
verb, such as Aphel for HipMl, in certain portions, and
observing that the political horizon of these portions
is that of the sixth century, while that of the elder or
more purely Hebraic portions belonged to the eighth, he
must accept a theory of authorship and of prediction,
modified accordingly. So, if under the head of
Zechariah he finds three distinct styles and aspects of
affairs, he must acknowledge so much, whether he is
right or wrong in conjecturing the elder Zechariah of
the age of Isaiah to have written the second portion,
and Uriah in Jeremiah s age the third. If he would
quote Micah, as designating Bethlehem for the birth
place of the Messiah, he cannot shut his eyes to the
fact, that the Deliverer to come from thence was to be a
contemporary shield against the Assyrian. If he
would follow Pearson in quoting the second Psalm,
Thou art my son ; he knows that Hebrew idiom con
vinced even Jerome 1 the true rendering was, worship
purely. He may read in Psalm xxxiv. that, f not a
bone of the righteous shall be broken, but he must
feel a difficulty in detaching this from the context, so

1 Cavillatur .... quod posuerim, .... Adorate pure
. . . . ne violentus viderer interpres, et Jud. locum darem. Hieron.
c. Rvffin. 19.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 69

as to make it a prophecy of the crucifixion. If he
accepts mere versions of Psalm xxii. 17, he may
wonder how piercing the hands and the feet can fit
into the whole passage ; but if he prefers the most
ancient Hebrew reading, he finds, instead of piercing*
the comparison like a lion/ and this corresponds suffi
ciently with the dogs of the first clause ; though a
morally certain emendation would make the parallel
more perfect by reading the word lions in both
clauses. 1 In either case, the staring monsters are in
tended, by whom Israel is surrounded and torn. Again
he finds in Hosea that the Lord loved Israel when
he was young, and called him out of Egypt to be his
son ; but he must feel, with Bishop Kidder, that such
a citation is rather accommodated to the flight of
Joseph into Egypt, than a prediction to be a ground
of argument. Fresh from the services of Christ
mas, he may sincerely exclaim, Unto us a child is born ;

but he knows that the Hebrew translated Miahtv God.

t/ /

is at least disputable, that perhaps it means only Strong
and Mighty One, Father of an Age ; and he can never
listen to any one who pretends that the Maiden s
Child of Isaiah vii. 16, was not to be born in the
reign of Ahaz, as a sign against the Kings Pekah
and Eezin. In the case of Daniel, he may doubt
whether all parts of the book are of one age, or what
is the starting point of the seventy weeks ; but two
results are clear beyond fair doubt, that the period of
weeks ended in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and
that those portions of the book, supposed to be
specially predictive, are a history of past occurrences
up to that reign. When so vast an induction on the
destructive side has been gone through, it avails little
that some passages may be doubtful, one perhaps in
Zechariah, and one in Isaiah, capable of being made

* By reading DWlJ for DUD. The Septuagint version may have
arisen from ^ISPn, taken as from ?3.

70 Bunseris Biblical Researches.

directly Messianic, and a chapter possibly in Deutero
nomy foreshadowing the final fall of Jerusalem. Even
these few cases, the remnant of so much confident
rhetoric, tend to melt, if they are not already melted,
in the crucible of searching inquiry. If our German
had ignored all that the masters of philology have
proved on these subjects, his countrymen would have
raised a storm of ridicule, at which he must have
drowned himself in the Neekar.

Great then is Baron Bunsen s merit, in accepting
frankly the belief of scholars, and yet not despairing
of Hebrew Prophecy as a witness to the kingdom of
God. The way of doing so left open to him, was to
show, pervading the Prophets, those deep truths
which lie at the heart of Christianity, and to trace
the growth of such ideas, the belief in a righteous
God, and the nearness of man to God, the power of
prayer, and the victory of self-sacrificing patience,
ever expanding in men s hearts, until the fulness of
time came, and the ideal of the Divine thought was
fulfilled in the Son of Man. Such accordingly is the
course our author pursues, not with the critical finish
of Ewald, but with large moral grasp. Why he
should add to his moral and metaphysical basis of
prophecy, a notion of foresight by vision of particulars,
or a kind of clairvoyance, though he admits it to be 1
a natural gift, consistent with fallibility, is not so easy
to explain. One would wish he might have intended
only the power of seeing the ideal in the actual, or of
tracing the Divine Government in the movements of
men. He seems to mean more than presentiment or

1 Die Kraft des Schauens, die im Mensclien verborgen liegt, und, von
der Naturnothwendigkeit befreit, im hebraischen Prophetenthum sich zur
wahren Weltanschauung erhoben hat . . . . ist der Schliissel, &c.
Gott in der Geschickte, p. 149.

Jene Herrlichkeit besteht nicht in dem Vorhersagen .... Dieses
haben sie geraein mit manchen Ausspriichen der Pythia, .... und
mit vielen Weissagungen der Hellseherinnen dieses Jahrhunderts . . .
id. p. 151.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 71

sagacity; and this element in his system requires
proof.

The most brilliant portion of the prophetical essays
is the treatment of the later Isaiah. With the inser
tion of four chapters concerning Hezekiah from the
histories of the kings, the words and deeds of the
elder Isaiah apparently close. It does not follow that
all the prophecies arranged earlier in the book are from
his lips ; probably they are not ; but it is clear to
demonstration, 1 that the later chapters (xl., &c.,) are
upon the stooping of Nebo, and the bowing down of
Babylon, when the Lord took out of the hand of
Jerusalem the cup of trembling ; for the glad tidings
of the decree of return were heard upon the mountains ;
and the people went forth, not with haste or flight,
for their Grod went before them, and was their rereward
(ch. lii). So they went forth with joy, and were led
forth with peace (ch. liv). So the arm of the Lord was
laid bare, and his servant who had foretold it was
now counted wise, though none had believed his report.
We cannot take a portion out of this continuous song,
and by dividing it as a chapter, separate its primary
meaning from what precedes and follows. The servant
in chapters lii. and liii. must have relation to the servant
in chapters xlii.andxlix. Who was this servant, that had
foretold the exile and the return, and had been a man of
grief, rejected of his people, imprisoned and treated as
a malefactor ? The oldest Jewish tradition, preserved
in Origen, 2 and to be inferred from Justin, 3 said the
chosen people in opposition to heathen oppressors-
an opinion which suits ch. xlix. ver. 3. Nor is the 4 later

1 To prove this, let any one read Jerome s arguments against it ; if the
sacred text itself be not sufficient proof. G-o ye forth of Babylon, &c.,
ch. xlviii. 20.

* C. Celsum, i. 55. (Quoted by Pearson.)

3 For, in making the Gentiles mean Proselytes, they must have made
the servant Israel. dXXa rl ; ov nobs TOV VOLJLOV Xeya, KOL TOVS 6&mbue i/ouff

r>~ \ /T1 7 C

VTT avrov, K.T.\. ryplio, 122.

4 Later, because it implies the fall of Jerusalem. It is thought to have

72 JBunsens Biblical Researches.

exposition of the Targum altogether at variance ; for
though Jonathan speaks of the Messiah, it is in the
character of a Judaic deliverer: and his expressions
about the holy people s being multiplied , and seeing
their sanctuary rebuilt, especially when he calls the
holy people a remnant} may be fragments of a tradi
tion older than his time. It is idle, with Pearson, 2
to quote Jonathan as a witness to the Christian inter
pretation, unless his cgnception of the Messiah were
ours. But the idea of the Anointed One, which in
some of the Psalms belongs to Israel, shifted from
time to time, being applied now to people, and now
to king or prophet, until at length it assumed a
sterner form, as the Jewish spirit was hardened by
persecutions into a more vindicative hope. The first
Jewish expositor who loosened, without breaking
Eabbinical fetters, E. Saadiah, 3 in the 9th century,
named Jeremiah as the man of grief, and emphatically
the prophet of the return, rejected of his people.
Grotius, with his usual sagacity, divined the same
clue ; though Michaelis says upon it, pessime Grotius.
Baron Bun sen puts together, with masterly analysis,
the illustrative passages of Jeremiah ; and it is
difficult to resist the conclusion to which they tend.

T

Jeremiah compares his whole people to sheep going
astray, 4 and himself to a lamb or an ox, brought to
the slaughter. 5 He was taken from prison; 6 and

been compiled in the fourth century of our era. It is very doubtful,
whether the Jewish schools of the middle ages had (except in fragments)
any Hermeneutic tradition so old as what we gather from the Church fathers,
however unfairly this may be reported. My own belief is clear, that they
had not.

Nttmp JTPin ]W, and NINttf JT rTOlH. Targum on

T 1 "\---

Isaiah lin.

2 In Pearson s hands, even the Rabbins become more Rabbinical. His
citations from Jonathan and from Jarchi are most unfair ; and in general
he makes their prose more prosaic.

* Titularly styled Gaon, as president of the Sora school.

4 Jer. xxiii. 1-2 ; 1. 6-17 ; xii. 3.

5 Jer. xi. 19.

6 Jer, xxxviii. 4-6, 13; xxxvii. 16.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 73

his generation, or posterity, none took account of; 1
he interceded for his people in prayer : 2 but was not
the less despised, and a man of grief, so that no
sorrow was like his ; 3 men assigned his grave with
the wicked, 4 and his tomb with the oppressors ; all
who followed him seemed cut off out of the land of the
living, 5 yet his seed prolonged their days ; 6 his pro
phecy was fulfilled, 7 and the arm of the Eternal laid
bare ; he was counted wise on the return ; his place
in the book of Sirach 8 shows how eminently he was
enshrined in men s thoughts as the servant of God ;
and in the book of Maccabees 9 he is the gray prophet,
who is seen in vision, fulfilling his task of interceding
for the people.

This is an imperfect sketch, but may lead readers to
consider the arguments for applying Isaiah lii. and liii.
to Jeremiah. Their weight (in the master s hand) is
so great, that if any single person should be selected,
they prove Jeremiah should be the one. Nor are they
a slight illustration of the historical sense of that
famous chapter, which in the original is a history. 10
Still the general analogy of the Old Testament which
makes collective Israel, or the prophetic remnant,
especially the servant of Jehovah, and the comparison
of c. xlii., xlix. may permit us to think the oldest inter
pretation the truest ; with only this admission, that

1 Jer. xi. 19-23; xx. 10; xxxvi. 19; xlv. 2-3.

2 Jer. xviii. 20; xiv. n ; xv. i.

3 Jer. xviii. 18 ; xx. 9-17 ; Lam. iii. 1-13.

1 Lam. iii. 52, 53, 54; Jer. xxvi. 11-15, 23; xliv. 15, 16; i. 18, 19.
5 Jer. xlv. 1-3 ; xi. 19; xli. 2-3 ; with xli. 9-10.
5 Psalm cxxvi. I ; Isaiah xliii. 1-5, 10-14.

7 Lam. i. 17 ; Jer. xvi. 15 ; xxx. i, 2,3, 10, 18 ; xxxi. 6-12 ; Isaiah xliv.
7-8; xlvi. 1-9, 10; 1.5-6; lii. 10-13.

8 Eccles. xlix. 6-7, and Jer. i.

9 2 Mace. xv. 13, 14.

The tenses from verse 2 onward are rather historical than predictive ;
and in ver. 8, for he was stricken, the Hebrew is, IQ^J y^, the stroke
was upon them ; i.e. on the generation of the faithful, which was cut off;
when the blood of the Prophets was shed on every side of Jerusalem.

74 Bunseri s Biblical Eesearches.

the figure of Jeremiali stood forth, amongst the Pro
phets, and tinged the delineation of the true Israel,
that is, the faithful remnant who had been disbelieved
just as the figure of Laud or Hammond might
represent the Caroline Church in the eyes of her poet.

If this seems but a compromise, it may be justi
fied by Ewald s phrase, Die weniyen Treuen im Exile,
Jeremjah und andre, 1 though he makes the servant
idealized Israel.

If any sincere Christian now asks, is not then our
Saviour spoken of in Isaiah ; let him open his New
Testament, and ask therewith John the Baptist,
whether he was Elias ? If he finds the Baptist
answering / am not, yet our Lord testifies that in
spirit and power this was Elias ; a little reflexion will
show how the historical representation in Isaiah liii. is
of some suffering prophet or remnant, yet the truth
and patience, the grief and triumph, have their highest
fulfilment in Him who said, Father, not my will,
but thine/ But we must not distort the prophets,
to prove the Divine WORD incarnate, and then from
the incarnation reason back to the sense of prophecy.

Loudly as justice and humanity exclaim against
such traditional distortion of prophecy as makes their
own sacred writings a ground of cruel prejudice against
the Hebrew people, and the fidelity of this remarkable
race to the oracles of their fathers a handle for social
obloquy, the cause of Christianity itself would be the
greatest gainer, if we laid aside weapons, the use of
which brings shame. Israel would be acknowledged,
as in some sense still a Messiah, having borne centuries
of reproach through the sin of the nations ; but the
Saviour who fulfilled in his own person the highest
aspiration of Hebrew seers and of mankind, thereby
lifting the ancient words, so to speak, into a new and

1 Die Propheten, d. A. B. 2ter Band. pp. 438-453.

Bunseris Biblical Researches. 75

higher power, would be recognised as having eminently
the unction of a prophet whose words die not, of a
priest in a temple not made with hands, and of a king
in the realm of thought, delivering his people from a
bondage of moral evil, worse than Egypt or Babylon.
If already the vast majority of the prophecies are
acknowledged by our best authorities to require some
such rendering, in order to Christianize them, and if
this acknowledgment has become uniformly stronger
in proportion as learning was unfettered, the force of
analogy leads us to anticipate that our Isaiah too must
require a similar interpretation. No new principle is
thrust upon the Christian world, by our historical
understanding of this famous chapter ; but a case
which had been thought exceptional, is shown to
harmonize with a general principle.

Whether the great prophet, whose triumphant
thanksgiving on the return from Babylon forms the
later chapters of our Isaiah, is to remain without a
name, or whether Baron Bunsen has succeeded in
identifying him with BARUCH, the disciple, scribe, and
perhaps biographer or editor of Jeremiah, is a question
of probability. Most readers of the argument for the
identity will feel inclined to assent ; but a doubt may
occur, whether many an unnamed disciple of the pro
phetic school may not have burnt with kindred zeal, and
used diction not peculiar to any one ; while such a
doubt may be strengthened by the confidence with
which our critic ascribes a recasting of Job, and
of parts of other books, to the same favourite Baruch.
Yet, if kept within the region of critical conjecture,
his reasons are something more than ingenious. It
may weigh with some Anglicans, that a letter ascribed
to St. Athanasius mentions Baruch among the ca
nonical prophets. 1

r, KOI a-vvavra Bapov^, Opfjvoi, Errttn-oA?) /cat fier avrov
K.r.X. Ep. Fest.

76 Bunseris Biblical EesearcJies.

In distinguishing the man Daniel from our book of
Daniel, and in bringing the latter as low as the reign
of Epiphanes, our author only follows the admitted
necessities of the case. 1 Not only Macedonian words,
such as symphonic? and psanterion, but the texture of
the Chaldaic, with such late forms as 1w TT and

? *

l!?N the pronominal and n having passed into
1, and not only minute description of Antiochus s
reign, but the stoppage of such description at the
precise date 169 B.C., remove all philological and critical
doubt as to the age of the book. But what seems
peculiar to Baron Bunsen, is the interpretation of the
four empires symbols with reference to the original
Daniel s abode in Nineveh : so that the winged lion
traditionally meant the Assyrian empire ; the bear was
the Babylonian symbol ; the leopard that of the Medes
and Persians ; while the fourth beast represented, as
is not uncommonly held, the sway of Alexander. A
like reference is traced in the mention of Hiddekel, or
the Tigris, in ch. x ; for, if the scene had been
Babylon under Darius, the river must have been the
Euphrates. The truth seems, that starting like many
a patriot bard of our own, from a name traditionally
sacred, the writer used it with no deceptive intention,
as a dramatic form which dignified his encourage
ment of his countrymen in their great struggle against
Antiochus. The original place of the book, 3 amongst
the later Hagiographa of the Jewish canon, and the
absence of any mention of it by the son of Sirach,
strikingly confirm this view of its origin ; and, if some
obscurity rests upon details, the general conclusion,
that the book contains no predictions, except by

1 Auberlen indeed defends, but says, Die Unachtheit Daniels ist in der
modernen Theologie zum Axiom gevvorden. Der Prophet Daniel. Basel.
1854.

2 Compare Philosophy of Universal History (part of the Hippolytus),
vol i. pp. 217-219, with G-ott in der Gresckichte, istrTheil. pp. 514-540.

3 The saying that later Jews changed the place of the book in the canon,
seems to rest on no evidence.

Bunscns Biblical Researches. 77

analogy and type, can hardly be gainsaid. But it
may not the less, with some of the latest Psalms, have
nerved the men of Israel, when they turned to night
the armies of the aliens ; and it suggests, in the
Godless invader, no slight forecast of Caligula again
invading the Temple with like abomination, as well as
of whatever exalts itself against faith and conscience,
to the end of the world. It is time for divines to
recognise these things, since, with their opportunities
of study, the current error is as discreditable to
them, as for the well- meaning crowd, who are taught
to identify it with their creed, it is a matter of grave
compassion.

It provokes a smile on serious topics to observe the
zeal with which our critic vindicates the personality
of Jonah, and the originality of his hymn (the latter
being generally thought doubtful), while he proceeds
to explain that the narrative of our book, in which the
hymn is imbedded, contains a late legend, 1 founded on
misconception. One can imagine the cheers which
the opening of such an essay might evoke in some
of our own circles, changing into indignation as the
distinguished foreigner developed his views. After
this, he might speak more gently of mythical theo
ries.

But, if such a notion alarms those who think that,
apart from omniscience belonging to the Jews, the
proper conclusion of reason is atheism ; it is not in
consistent with the idea that Almighty Grod has been
pleased to educate men and nations, employing ima
gination no less than conscience, and suffering His
lessons to play freely within the limits of humanity
and its shortcomings. Nor will any fair reader rise
from the prophetical disquisitions without feeling that
he has been under the guidance of a master s hand.

1 The present writer feels excused from repeating- here the explanation
given in the appendix to his Sermon on Christian Freedom. London, 1858.

7S Sun-sens Biblical Researches.

The great result is to vindicate the work of the
Eternal Spirit ; that abiding influence, which as our
church teaches us in the Ordination Service, under
lies all others, and in which converge all images of
old time and means of grace now ; temple, Scripture,
finger, and hand of God ; and again, preaching, sacra
ments, waters which comfort, and flame which burns.
If such a Spirit did not dwell in the Church the Bible
would not be inspired, for the Bible is, before all
things, the written voice of the congregation. Bold
as such a theory of inspiration may sound, it was the
earliest creed of the Church, and it is the only one to
which the facts of Scripture answer. The sacred
writers acknowledge themselves men of like passions
with ourselves, and we are promised illumination
from the Spirit which dwelt in them. Hence, when
we find our Prayer-book constructed on the idea of
the Church being an inspired society, instead of ob
jecting that every one of us is fallible, we should
define inspiration consistently with the facts of Scrip
ture, and of human nature. These would neither
exclude the idea of fallibility among Israelites of old,
nor teach us to quench the Spirit in true hearts for
ever. But if any one prefers thinking the Sacred
Writers passionless machines, and calling Luther and
Milton uninspired/ let him co-operate in researches
by which his theory, if true, will be triumphant!}
confirmed. Let him join in considering it a religious
duty to print the most genuine text of those words
which he calls Divine ; let him yield no grudging
assent to the removal of demonstrated interpolations
in our text or errors in our translation ; let him give
English equivalents for its Latinisms, once natural,
but now become deceptive ; let him next trace fairly
the growth of our complex doctrines out of scriptural
germs, whether of simple thought or of Hebrew idiom;
then, if he be not prepared to trust our Church with
a larger freedom in incorporating into her language

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 79

the results of such inquiry and adapting one-sided
forms to wider experience, he will at least have ac
quired such a knowledge of this field of thought as
may induce him to treat labourers in it with respect.
A recurrence to first principles, even of Eevelation,
may, to minds prudent or timid, seem a process of more
danger than advantage ; and it is possible to defend
our traditional theology, if stated reasonably, and with
allowance for the accidents of its growth. But what
is not possible, with honesty, is to uphold a fabric
of mingled faith and speculation, and in the same
breath to violate the instinct which believed, and
blindfold the mind which reasoned. It would be
strange if God s work were preserved, by disparag
ing the instruments which His wisdom chose for it.

o

On turning to the HippolytuB l we find a congeries
of subjects, but yet a whole, pregnant and suggestive
beyond any book of our time. To lay deep the founda
tions of faith in the necessities of the human mind,
and to establish its confirmation by history, distin
guishing the local from the universal, and translat
ing the idioms of priesthoods or races into the broad
speech of humanity, are amongst parts of the great
argument, Of those wonderful aphorisms, which are
further developed in the second volume of Gott in cler
Geschichte, suffice it here, that their author stands at
the farthest pole from those who find no divine foot
steps in the Gentile world. He believes in Christ,
because he first believes in God and in mankind.
In this he harmonizes with the church Fathers be
fore Augustine, and with all our deepest Evangeli
cal school. In handling the Xew Testament he re
mains faithful to his habit of exalting spiritual ideas,

1 Hippolytus and his Age, by Chr. C. J. Bunsen. &e. London, 1852.
2nd edition, recast, London, 1854. The awakening freshness of the first
edition is hardly replaced by the fulness of the seen cL It is to be wished
that the Biblical portions of the Philosophy of Uniiatal History, vol. ii.
PP- 1 49-338, were reprinted in a cheap form.

80 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

and the leading characters by whose personal impulse
they have been stamped on the world. Other foun
dation for healthful mind or durable society he suffers
no man to lay, save that of Jesus, the Christ of God.
In Him he finds brought to perfection that religi
ous idea, which is the thought of the Eternal, with
out conformity to which our souls cannot be saved
from evil. He selects for emphasis such sayings as,
I came to cast f re upon the earth, and how I ivould it
were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized
with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!
In these he finds the innermost mind of the Son of
Man, undimmed by the haze of mingled imagination
and remembrance, with which his awi ul figure should
scarcely fail to be at length invested by affection.
The glimpses thus afforded us into the depth of our
Lord s purpose, and his law of giving rather than
receiving, explain the wonder-working power with
which he wielded the truest hearts of his genera
tion, and correspond to his life and death of self-
sacrifice.

This recognition of Christ as the moral Saviour of
mankind may seem to some Baron Bunsen s most
obvious claim to the name of Christian. For, though
he embraces with more than orthodox warmth New
Testament terms, he explains them in such a way,
that he may be charged with using Evangelical lan
guage in a philosophical sense. But in reply he would
ask, what proof is there that the reasonable sense of
St. Paul s words was not the one which the Apostle
intended ? Why may not justification by faith have
meant the peace of mind, or sense of Divine approval,
which comes of trust in a righteous God, rather than
a fiction of merit by transfer ? St. Paul would then
be teaching moral responsibility, as opposed to sacer
dotalism ; or that to obey is better than sacrifice.
Faith would be opposed, not to the good deeds which
conscience requires, but to works of appeasement

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 81

by ritual. Justification would be neither an arbitrary
ground of confidence, nor a reward upon condition of
our disclaiming merit, but rather a verdict of forgive
ness upon our repentance, and of acceptance upon the
offering of our hearts. It is not a fatal objection, to
say that St. Paul would thus teach Natural Eeligion,
unless we were sure that he was bound to contradict
it ; but it is a confirmation of the view, if it brings
his hard sayings into harmony with the Gospels and
with the Psalms, as well as with the instincts of our best
conscience. If we had dreamed of our nearest kindred
in irreconcilable combat, and felt anguish at the
thought of opposing either, it could be no greater
relief *to awake, and find them at concord, than it
would be to some minds to find the antagonism be
tween Nature and Revelation vanishing 1 in a wider
grasp and deeper perception of the one, or in a better
balanced statement of the other.

If our philosopher had persuaded us of the moral
nature of Justification, he would not shrink from
adding that Regeneration is a correspondent giving
of insight, or an awakening of forces of the soul. By
Resurrection he would mean a spiritual quickening.
Salvation would be our deliverance, not from the life-
giving God, but from evil and darkness, which are His
finite opposites, (o avriKtipwoQ.) Propitiation would be
the recovery of that peace, which cannot be while sin
divides us from the Searcher of hearts. The eternal
is what belongs to God, as spirit, therefore the negation
of things finite and unspiritual, whether world, or
letter, or rite of blood. The hateful fires of the vale
of Hinnorn, (Gehenna,) are hardly in the strict letter
imitated by the God who has pronounced them cursed,
but may serve as images of distracted remorse. Hea-

1 The doctrine of the Fall, the doctrine of Grace, and the doctrine of
the Atonement, are grounded in the instincts of mankind." Mozley on
Predestination, chap. xi. p. 331.

82 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

ven is not a place, so much, as fulfilment of the love
of God. The kingdom of God is no more Eomish
sacerdotalism than Jewish royalty, but the realization
of the Divine Will in our thoughts and lives. This
expression of spirit, in deed and form, is generically
akin to creation, and illustrates the incarnation. For
though the true substance of Deity took body in the
Son of Man, they who know the Divine Substance to
be Spirit, will conceive of such embodiment of the
Eternal Mind very differently from those who abstract
all Divine attributes, such as consciousness, fore
thought, and love, and then imagine a material
residuum, on which they confer the Holiest name.
The Divine attributes are 1 consubstantial with the
Divine essence. He who abides in love, abides in
God, and God in him. Thus the incarnation becomes
with our author as purely spiritual, as it was with St.
Paul. The son of David by birth is the Son of God
by the spirit of holiness. What is flesh, is born of
flesh, and what is spirit, is born of spirit. 2

If we would estimate the truth of such views, the
full import of which hardly lies on the surface, we find
tw^o lines of inquiry present themselves as criteria :
and each of these divides itself into two branches.
First, as regards the subject matter, both spiritual
affection and metaphysical reasoning forbid us to
confine revelations like those of Christ to the first
half century of our era, but show at least affinities of
our faith existing in men s minds, anterior to Chris
tianity, and renewed with deep echo from living hearts
in many a generation. Again, on the side of external
criticism, we find the evidences of our canonical books
and of the patristic authors nearest to them, are

1 On this point, the summary of St. Augustine at the end of his I
book, On the Trinity, is worth reading.

3 Neque sermo aliud quam Deus neque caro aliud quam homo, and * ex
came homo, ex spiritu Deus. Tertullian adv. Prax. c. xxvii. Cornp.
Romans i. 1-3.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 83

sufficient to prove illustration in outward act of prin
ciples perpetually true ; but not adequate to guarantee
narratives inherently incredible, or precepts evidently
wrong. Hence we are obliged to assume in ourselves
a verifying faculty, not unlike the discretion which a
mathematician would use in weighing a treatise on
geometry, or the liberty which a musician would
reserve in reporting a law of harmony. Thus, as we
are expressly told, we are to have the witness in our
selves. It is not our part to dictate to Almighty God,
that He ought to have spared us this strain upon our
consciences; nor in giving us through His Son a
deeper revelation of His own presence, was He bound
to accompany His gift by a special form of record. 1
Hence there is no antecedent necessity that the least
rational view of the gospel should be the truest, or
that our faith should have no human element, and its
records be exempt from historical law. Rather we
may argue, the more Divine the germ, the more human
must be the development.

Our author then believes St. Paul, because he under
stands him reasonably. Nor does his acceptance of
Christ s redemption from evil bind him to repeat
traditional fictions about our canon, or to read its
pages with that dulness which turns symbol and
poetry into materialism. On the side of history lies
the strength of his genius. His treatment of the
New Testament is not very unlike the acute criticism
of De Wette, tempered by the affectionateness of
Neander. He finds in the first three gospels divergent
forms of the tradition, once oral, and perhaps cate
chetical, in the congregations of the apostles. He thus
explains the numerous traces characteristic of a tradi
tional narrative. He does not ascribe the quadruple
division of record to the four churches of Jerusalem,
Eome, Antioch, and Alexandria, on the same principle

1 Butler s Analogy. Part ii. ch. iii. Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Books i. ii.

84 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

as liturgical families are traced ; but he requires time
enough for some development, and for the passing
of some symbol into story. By making the fourth
gospel the latest of all our genuine books, he accounts
for its style (so much more Greek than the Apocalypse),
and explains many passages. The verse, And no
man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he that came
down, 1 is intelligible as a free comment near the end
of the first century ; but has no meaning in our Lord s
mouth at a time when the ascension had not been
heard of. So the Apocalypse, if taken as a series of
poetical visions, which represent the outpouring of the
vials of wrath upon the city where the Lord was
slain, ceases to be a riddle. Its horizon answers to that
of Jerusalem already threatened by the legions of
Yespasian, and its language is partly adapted from
the older prophets, partly a repetition of our Lord s
warnings as described by the Evangelists, or as
deepened into wilder threatenings in the mouth of
the later Jesus, 2 the son of Ananus. The Epistle
to the Hebrews, so different in its conception of
faith, and in its Alexandrine rhythm, from the
doctrine and the language of St. Paul s known Epistles,
has its degree of discrepance explained by ascribing
it to some 3 companion of the apostle s ; and minute
reasons are found for fixing with probability on Apollos.
The second of the Petrine Epistles, having alike
external and internal evidence against its genuineness,
is necessarily surrendered as a whole ; and our critic s
good faith in this respect is more certain than the
ingenuity with which he reconstructs a part of it.
The second chapter may not improbably be a quotation;
but its quoter, and the author of the rest of the epistle,

1 John iii. 13.

2 Josephus B. J. b. vi. c. v. 3.

3 In my own judgment, the Epistle bears traces of being ^os^-apostolic.
iii. 14; xiii. 7; ii. 3; x. 2, 25-32.

Sunsens Biblical Researches. 85

need not therefore have been St. Peter. Where so
many points are handled, fancifulness in some may be
pardoned ; and indulgence is needed for the eagerness
with which St. Paul is made a widower, because some
fathers 1 misunderstood the texts, true yoke-fellow/
and leading about a sister/

After a survey of the Canon ; the working as of
leaven in meal, of that awakening of mankind which
took its impulse from the life of Christ, is traced
through the first seven generations of Christendom.
After Origen, the first freedom of the Gospel grows
faint, or is hardened into a system more Ecclesiastical
in form, and more dialectical in speculation, the fresh
language of feeling or symbol being transferred to
the domain of logic, like Homer turned into prose by
a scholiast. It need not, to a philosophical observer,
necessarily follow that the change was altogether a
corruption; for it may have been the Providential
condition of religious feeling brought into contact with
intellect, and of the heavenly kingdom s expansion in
the world. The elasticity with which Christianity
gathers into itself the elements of natural piety, and
assimilates the relics of Gentile form and usage, can
only be a ground of objection with those who have
reflected little on the nature of revelation. But
Baron Bunsen, as a countryman of Luther, and a
follower of those Friends of God whose profound
mysticism appears in the Theologia Germanica, takes
decided part with the first freshness of Christian free
dom, against the confused thought and furious passions
which disfigure most of the great councils. Those
who imagine that the laws of criticism are arbitrarv

/

(or as they say, subjective), may learn a different
lesson from the array of passages, the balance of
evidence, and the estimate of each author s point or
view, with which the picture of Christian antiquity

1 Clement and Origen, amongst others.

8 6 Sunsens Biblical Researches.

is unrolled in the pages of the Hippolytus. Every
tiTiimph of our faith, in purifying life, or in softening
and enlightening barbarism, is there expressed in the
lively records of Liturgies and Canons ; and again
the shadows of night approach, with monkish fana
ticism and imperial tyranny, amidst intrigues of
bishops who play the parts, alternately, of courtier
and of demagogue.

The picture was too. truly painted for that ecclesias
tical school which appeals loudest to antiquity, and
has most reason to dread it. While they imagine a
system of Divine immutability, or one in which, at
worst, holy fathers unfolded reverently Apostolic
oracles, the true history of the Church exhibits the
turbulent growth of youth ; a democracy, with all its
passions, transforming itself into sacerdotalism, and
a poetry, with its figures, partly represented by doc
trine, and partly perverted. Even the text of Scrip
ture fluctuated in sympathy with the changes of the
Church, especially in passages bearing on asceticism,
and the fuller development of the Trinity. The first
Christians held that the heart was purified by faith ; the
accompanying symbol, water, became by degrees the
instrument of purification. Holy baptism was at
first preceded by a vow, in which the young soldier
expressed his consciousness of spiritual truth; but
when it became twisted into a false analogy w T ith
circumcision, the rite degenerated into a magical
form, and the Augustinian notion, of a curse inherited
by infants, was developed in connexion with it. Sacri
fice, with the Psalmist, meant not the goat s or heifer s
blood-shedding, but the contrite heart expressed by it.
So, with St. Paul, it meant the presenting of our
souls and bodies, as an oblation of the reason, or
worship of the mind. The ancient liturgies contain
prayers that God would make our sacrifices rational/
that is spiritual. Religion was thus moralized by a
sense of the righteousness of God; and morality

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 87

transfigured into religion, by a sense of His holiness.
Vestiges of this earliest creed yet remain in our com
munion service. As in life, so in sacrament, the first
Christians offered themselves in the spirit of Christ ;
therefore, in his name. But when the priest took the
place of the congregation, when the sacramental signs
were treated as the natural body, and the bodily
sufferings of Christ enhanced above the self-sacrifice

o

of his will even to the death of the cross, the centre
of Christian faith became inverted, though its form re
mained. Men forgot that the writer to the Hebrews
exalts the blood of an everlasting, that is, of a spiritual
covenant; for what is fleshly, vanishes away. The
angels who hover with phials, catching the drops from
the cross, are pardonable in art, but make a step in theo
logy towards transubstantiation. Salvation from evil
through sharing the Saviour s spirit, was shifted into a
notion of purchase from Grod through the price of his
bodily pangs. The deep drama of heart and mind
became externalized into a commercial transfer, and this
effected by a form of ritual. So with the more specu
lative fathers, the doctrine of the Trinity was a pro
found metaphysical problem, wedded to what seemed
consequences of the incarnation. But in ruder hands,
it became a materialism almost idolatrous, or an
arithmetical enigma. 1 Even now, different accepters
of the same doctrinal terms hold many shades of con
ception between a philosophical view which recom
mends itself as easiest to believe, and one felt to
be so irrational, that it calls in the aid of terror.
4 Quasi non unitas, irrationaliter collecta, hseresin
faciat ; et Trinitas rationaliter expensa, veritatem
constituat, said Tertullian. 2

1 See this shown, with just rebuke of some Oxford sophistries, in the
learned Bishop Kaye s Council of Nicaa, London, 1853; a book of
admirable moderation, though hardly of speculative power. See pp. 163,
168, 194, 199, 219, 226, 251, 252.

2 Adv. Pray. c. iii.

88 JBunseris Biblical Researches*

The historian of such variations was not likely,
with those whose theology consists of invidious terms,
to escape the nickname of Pelagian or Sabellian.
He evidently could not state Original Sin in so exag
gerated a form as to make the design of God altered
by the first agents in his creation, or to destroy the
notion of moral choice and the foundation of ethics.
Nor could his Trinity destroy by inference that divine
Unity which all acknowledge in terms. The fall of
Adam represents with him ideally the circumscrip
tion of our spirits in limits of flesh and time, and
practically the selfish nature with which we fall from
the likeness of God, which should be fulfilled in man.
So his doctrine of the Trinity ingenuously avoids
building on texts which our Unitarian critics from
Sir Isaac Newton to Gilbert Wakefield have im
pugned, but is a philosophical rendering of the first
chapter of St. John s Gospel. The profoundest ana
lysis of our world leaves the law of thought as its
ultimate basis and bond of coherence. This thought
is consubstantial with the Being of the Eternal I AM.
Being, becoming, and animating, or substance, think
ing, and conscious life, are expressions of a Triad,
which may be also represented as will, 1 wisdom, and
love, as light, radiance, and warmth, as fountain,
stream, and united flow, as mind, thought, and con
sciousness, as person, word, and life, as Father, Son,
and Spirit. In virtue of such identity of Thought
with Being the primitive Trinity represented neither
three originant principles nor three transient phases,
but three eternal inner encies in one Divine Mind.
The unity of God, as the eternal Father, is the 2
fundamental doctrine of Christianity/ But the Di-

1 Anima hominis natura sua in se habet Ss. Trinitatis simulacrum ; in
se enim tria complectitur, Mentem, Intellectum, et Yoluntatem ; . . .
cogitat . . . percipit . . . vult. Bede i. 8. Copying almost
verbally St. Augustine.

2 Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 46. ist ed.

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 89

vine Consciousness or Wisdom, consubstantial with the
Eternal Will, becoming personal in the Son of man, is
the express image of the Father; and Jesus actually,
but also mankind ideally, is the Son of God. If all
this has a Sabellian or almost a Brahmanical sound,
its impugners are bound, even on patristic grounds, to
show how it differs from the doctrine of Justin Mar
tyr, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, and the historian
Eusebius. If the language of those very fathers who
wrote against different forms of Sabellianism, would,
if now first used, be condemned as Sabellian, are we
to follow the ancient or the modern guides? May
not a straining after orthodoxy, with all the confusion
incident to metaphysical terms, have led the scholars
beyond their masters? We have some authorities,
who, if Athanasius himself were quoted anonymously,
would neither recognise the author nor approve his
doctrine. They would judge him by the creed bear
ing his name, the sentiments of which are as difficult
to reconcile with his genuine works as its Latin terms
are with his Greek language. Baron Bunsen may ad
mire that creed as little as Jeremy Taylor * and Tillot-
son did, without necessarily contradicting the great
Father to whom it is ascribed. Still more, as a phi
losopher, sitting loose to our Articles, he may delibe
rately assign to the conclusions of councils a very sub
ordinate value ; and taking his stand on the genuine
words of Holy Scripture, and the immutable laws of
God to the human mind, he may say either the doc
trine of the Trinity agrees with these tests, or, if you
make it disagree, you make it false. If he errs in his
speculation, he gives us in his critical researches the
surest means of correcting his errors ; and his polemic
is at least triumphant against those who load the
church with the conclusions of patristic thought, and

Liberty of Prophesying pp. 491-2; vol. vii. ed. Heber. Burnet s
Own Times. Letter from Tillotsrm at the Rnrl

90 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

forbid our thinking sufficiently to understand them.
As the coolest heads at Trent said, Take care lest in
condemning Luther you condemn St. Augustine ; so
if our defenders of the faith would have men believe
the doctrine of the Trinity, they had better not forbid
metaphysics, nor even sneer at Realism.

The strong assertions in the Hippolytus concerning
the freedom of the human will, may require some
balance from the language of penitence and of prayer.
They must be left here to comparison with the
constant language of the Greek Church, with the
doctrine of the first four centuries, with the schoolmen s
practical evasions of the Augustinian standard which
they professed, and with the guarded, but earnest
protests and limitations of our own ethical divines from
Hooker and Jeremy Taylor to Butler and Hampden.

On the great hope of mankind, the immortality of
the soul, the Hippolytus left something to be desired.
It had a Brahmanical, rather than a Christian, or
Platonic, sound. But the second volume of Gott in
der Geschichte seems to imply that, if the author
recoils from the fleshly resurrection and Judaic
millennium of Justin Martyr, he still shares the aspi
ration of the noblest philosophers elsewhere, and of
the firmer believers among ourselves, to a revival
of conscious and individual life, in such a form of
immortality as may consist with union with the
Spirit of our Eternal life-giver. Remarkable in the
same volume is the generous vindication of the first
Buddhist Sakya against the misunderstandings which
fastened on him a doctrine of atheism and of anni
hilation. The penetrating prescience of Neander seems
borne out on this point by genuine texts against the
harsher judgment of recent Sanskrit scholars. He
judged as a philosopher, and they as grammarians.

It would be difficult to say on what subject Baron
Bunsen is not at home. But none is handled by him
with more familiar mastery than that of Liturgies,

Bunsens Biblical Researches. 91

ancient and modern. He has endeavoured to enlarge
the meagre stores of the Lutheran Church by a collec
tion of evangelical songs and prayers. 1 Eich in
primitive models, yet adapted to Lutheran habits,
this collection might be suggestive to any Noncon
formist congregations which desire to enrich or temper
their devotions by the aid of common prayers. Even
our own Church, though not likely to recast her ritual
in a foreign mould, might observe with profit the greater
calmness and harmony of the older forms, as com
pared with the amplifications, which she has in some
cases adopted. Our Litany is hardly equal to its germ.
Nor do our collects exhaust available stores. Yet if
it be one great test of a theology, that it shall bear to
be prayed, our author has hardly satisfied it. Either
reverence, or deference, may have prevented him from
bringing his prayers into entire harmony with his
criticisms ; or it may be that a discrepance, which we
should constantly diminish, is likely to remain between
our feelings and our logical necessities. It is not the
less certain, that some reconsideration of the polemical
element in our Liturgy, as of the harder scholasticism
in our theology, would be the natural offspring of any
age of research in which Christianity was free ; and if
this, as seems but too probable, is to be much longer
denied us, the consequence must be a lessening of moral
strength within our pale, and an accession to influences
which will not always be friendly. But to estrange our
doctrinal teaching from the convictions, and our prac
tical administration from the influence, of a Protestant
Laity, are parts of one policy, and that not always a
blind one. Nor is doctrinal narrowness of view without
practical counterpart in the rigidity which excludes the
breath of prayer from our churches for six days in seven,
rather than permit a clergyman to select such portions
as devotion suggests, and average strength permits.

1 Gesang-und Gebet-buck. Hamburgh. 1846.

92 Bunsens Biblical Researches.

It did not fall within the scope of this Essay to
define the extent of its illustrious subject s obligations
(which he would no doubt largely acknowledge) to
contemporary scholars, such as Mr. Birch, or others.
Nor was it necessary to touch questions of eth
nology and politics which might be raised by those
who value Germanism so far as it is human, rather
than so far as it is German. Sclavonians might
notice the scanty acknowledgment of the vast contri
butions of their race to the intellectual wealth of
Germany. 1 Celtic scholars might remark that tri
umph in a discovery which has yet to be proved,
regarding the law of initial mutations in their language,
is premature. 2 Nor would they assent to our author s
ethical description of their race. So, when he asks :
How long shall we bear this fiction of an external
revelation/- -that is, of one violating the heart and
conscience, instead of expressing itself through them
or when he says, All this is delusion for those who
believe it ; but what is it in the mouths of those who
teach it ? or when he exclaims, Oh the fools ! who,
if they do see the imminent perils of this age, think
to ward them off by narrow-minded persecution!
and when he repeats, * Is it not time, in truth, to
withdraw the veil from our misery ? to tear off the
mask from hypocrisy, and destroy that sham which is
undermining all real ground under our feet ? to point
out the dangers which surround, nay, threaten already
to engulf us? there will be some who think his
language too vehement for good taste. Others will
think burning words needed by the disease of our time.
They will not quarrel on points of taste with a man

1 One might ask, whether the experience of our two latest wars encourages
our looking to Germany for any unselfish sympathy with the rights of
nations ? Or has she not rather earned the curse of Meroz ?

2 So the vaunted discovery of Professor Zeuss, deriving CYMRY from an
imaginary word Combroges, is against the testimony of the best Greek
geographers.

Bunsen 8 Biblical Researches. 93

who in our darkest perplexity has reared again the
banner of truth, and uttered thoughts which give
courage to the weak, and sight to the blind. If Pro
testant Europe is to escape those shadows of the
twelfth century, which with ominous recurrence are
closing round us, to Baron Bunsen will belong a fore
most place among the champions of light and right.
Any points disputable, or partially erroneous, which
may be discovered in his many works, are as dust in
the balance, compared with the mass of solid learning,
and the elevating influence of a noble and Christian
spirit. Those who have assailed his doubtful points
are equally opposed to his strong ones. Our own
testimony is, where we have been best able to follow
him, we have generally found most reason to agree
with him. But our little survey has not traversed
his vast field, nor our plummet sounded his depth.

Bunsen, with voice, like sound of trumpet born,

Conscious of strength, and confidently bold,
Well feign the sons of Loyola the scorn

Which from thy books would scare their startled fold-
To thee our Earth disclosed her purple morn,
And Time his long-lost centuries unrolled ;
Far Realms unveiled the mystery of their Tongue ;
Thou all their garlands on the CROSS hast hung.

My lips but ill could frame thy Lutheran speech,
Nor suits thy Teuton vaunt our British pride

But ah ! not dead my soul to giant reach,
That envious Eld s vast interval defied ;

And when those fables strange, our hirelings teach,
I saw by genuine learning cast aside,

Even like Linnaeus kneeling on the sod,

For faith from falsehood severed, thank I GOD.

ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF

CHRISTIANITY.

investigation of that important and extensive
JL subject which includes what have been usually
designated as The Evidences of Revelation/ has pre-
scriptively occupied a considerable space in the field
of theological literature, especially as cultivated in
England. There is scarcely one, perhaps, of our more
eminent divines who has not in a greater or less de
gree distinguished himself in this department, and
scarcely an aspirant for theological distinction who
has not thought it one of the surest paths to that
eminence, combining so many and varied motives of
ambition, to come forward as a champion in this
arena. At the present day it might be supposed the
discussion of such a subject, taken up as it has been
successively in all its conceivable different bearings,
must be nearly exhausted. It must, however, be
borne in mind, that, unlike the essential doctrines of
Christianity, c the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever/
these external accessories constitute a subject which
of necessity is perpetually taking somewhat at least of
a new form, with the successive phases of opinion and
knowledge. And it thus becomes not an unsatisfactory
nor unimportant object, from time to time, to review the
condition in which the discussion stands, and to com
ment on the peculiar features which at any particular
epoch it most prominently presents, as indicative of
strength or weakness of the advance and security of
the cause if, in accordance with the real progress of
enlightenment, its advocates have had the wisdom to
rescind what better information showed defective, and

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 95

to substitute views in accordance with higher know
ledge ; or, on the other hand, inevitable symptoms
of weakness and inefficiency, if such salutary cautions
have been neglected. To offer some general remarks
of this kind on the existing state of these discussions
will be the object of the present Essay.

Before proceeding to the main question we may,
however, properly premise a brief reflection on the
spirit and temper in which it should be discussed.
In writings on these subjects it must be confessed
we too often find indications of a polemical acri
mony on questions where a calm discussion of argu
ments would be more becoming, as well as more
consistent with the proposed object ; the too fre
quent assumption of the part of the special partisan
and ingenious advocate, when the character to be
sustained should be rather that of the unbiassed
judge; too much of hasty and captious objection
on the one hand, or of settled and inveterate preju
dice on the other; too strong a tendency not
fairly to appreciate, or even to keep out of sight, the
broader features of the main question, in the eager
ness to single out particular salient points for attack ;
too ready a disposition to triumph in lesser details,
rather than steadily to grasp more comprehensive prin
ciples, and leave minor difficulties to await their solu
tion, or to regard this or that particular argument as
if the entire credit of the cause were staked upon it.

And if on the one side there is often a just com
plaint that objections are urged in a manner and tone
offensive to religious feeling and conscientious prepos
sessions, which are, at least, entitled to respectful
consideration ; so, on the other, there is too often
evinced a want of sympathy with the difficulties
which many so seriously feel in admitting the alleged
evidences, and which many habitual believers do not
appreciate, perhaps because they have never thought
or enquired deeply on the subject ; or, what is more,
have believed it wrong and impious to do so.

96 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

Any appeal to argument must imply perfect freedom
of conviction. It is a palpable absurdity to put
reasons before a man, and yet wish to compel him to
adopt them, or to anathematize him if he find them
unconvincing ; to repudiate him as an unbeliever,
because he is careful to find satisfactory grounds for
his belief ; or to denounce him as a sceptic, because he
is scrupulous to discriminate the truth ; to assert that
his honest doubts evin,ce a moral obliquity ; in a word,
that he is no judge of his own mind ; while it is
obviously implied that his instructor is so or, in
other words, is omniscient and infallible. When
serious difficulties have been felt and acknowledged
on any important subject, and a writer undertakes
the task of endeavouring to obviate them, it is but a
fair demand that, if the reader be one of those who
do not feel the difficulties, or do not need or appreciate
any further argument to enlighten or support his
belief, he should not cavil at the introduction of
topics, which may be valuable to others, though need
less, or distasteful to himself. Such persons are in
no way called upon to enter into the discussion, but
they are unfair if they accuse those who do so of
agitating questions of whose existence they have been
unconscious ; and of unsettling men s minds, because
their own prepossessions have been long settled, and
they do not perceive the difficulties of others, which it
is the very aim of such discussion to remove.

Perhaps most of the various parties who have at all
engaged in the discussion of these subjects are agreed
in admitting a wide distinction between the influences
of feeling and those of reason ; the impressions of
conscience and the deductions of intellect ; the dicta
tions of moral and religious sense, and the conclusions
from evidence ; in reference especially to the questions
agitated as to the grounds of belief in Divine revela
tion. Indeed, when we take into account the nature
of the objects considered, the distinction is manifest

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 97

and undeniable ; when a reference is made to matters
of external fact (insisted on as such) it is obvious that
reason and intellect can alone be the proper judges of
the evidence of such facts. When, on the other hand,
the question may be as to points of moral or religious
doctrine, it is equally clear, other and higher grounds
of judgment and conviction must be appealed to.

In the questions now under consideration, botli
classes of arguments are usually involved. It is the
professed principle of at least a large section of those
who discuss the subject, that the question is materially
connected with the truth and evidence of certain
external alleged historical facts : w r hile again, all
will admit that the most essential and vital portion of
the inquiry refers to matters of a higher of a more
internal, moral, and spiritual kind.

But while this distinction is clearly implied and
even professedly acknowledged by the disputants, it
is worthy of careful remark, how extensively it is
overlooked and kept out of sight in practice ; how
commonly almost universally, we find writers and
reasoners taking up the question, even with much
ability and eloquence, and arguing it out sometimes
on the one, sometimes on the other ground, forgetful
of their own professions, and in a way often quite
inconsistent with them.

Thus we continually find the professed advocates of
an external revelation and historical evidence, never
theless making their appeal to conscience and feeling,
and decrying the exercise of reason ; and charging
those who find critical objections in the evidence with
spiritual blindness and moral perversity ; and on the
other hand we observe the professed upholders of
faith and internal conviction as the only sound basis
of religion, nevertheless regarding the external facts
as not less essential truth which it would be profane
to question. It often seems to be rather the want of
clear apprehension in the first instance of the distinct

H

98 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

kind and character of such inquiries, when on the one
side directed to the abstract question of evidence, and
when on the other pointing to the practical object of
addressing the moral and religious feelings and affec
tions, which causes so many writers on these subjects
to betray an inconsistency between their professed
purpose and their mode of carrying it out. They avow
matter-of-fact inquiry a question of the critical
evidence for alleged events yet they pursue it as if
it were an appeal to moral sentiments ; in which case it
would be a virtue to assent, and a crime to deny : if it
be the one, it should not be proposed as the other.

Thus it is the common language of orthodox writings
and discourses to ad vise the believer, when objections
or difficulties arise, not to attempt to offer a precise
answer, or to argue the point, but rather to look at
the whole subject as of a kind which ought to be exempt
from critical scrutiny and be regarded with a submis
sion of judgment, in the spirit of humility and faith.
This advice may be very just in reference to practical
impressions ; yet if the question be one (as is so much
insisted on) of external facts, it amounts to neither
more nor less than a tacit surrender of the claims of
external evidence and historical reality. We are told
that we ought to investigate such high questions
rather with our affections than with our logic, and
approach them rather with good dispositions and
right motives, and with a desire to find the doctrine
true ; and thus shall discover the real assurance of its
truth in obeying it ; suggestions which, however
good in a moral and practical sense, are surely inap
plicable if it be made a question of facts.

If we were inquiring into historical evidence in any
other case (suppose e.g. of Caesar s landing in Britain) it
would be little to the purpose to be told that we must
look at the case through our desires rather than our
reason, and exercise a believing disposition rather than
rashly scrutinize testimony by critical cavils. Those

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 99

who speak thus on the question of religious belief, in
fact shift the basis of all belief from the alleged evidence
of facts to the influence of an internal persuasion ;
they virtually give up the evidential proof so strongly
insisted on, and confess that the whole is, after all, a
mere matter of feeling and sentiment, just as much as
those to whose views they so greatly object as openly
avowing the very same thing. *

We find certain forms of expression commonly
stereotyped among a very large class of Divines,
whenever a critical difficulty or a sceptical exception
is urged, which are very significant as to the pre
valent view of religious evidence. Their reply is
always of this tenor : c These are not subjects on
which you can expect demonstrative evidence ; you
must be satisfied to accept such general proof or
probability as the nature of the question allows : you
must not inquire too curiously into these things ; it is
sufficient that we have a general moral evidence of the
doctrines ; exact critical discussion will always rake
up difficulties, to which perhaps no satisfactory answer
can be at once given. A precise sceptical caviller will
always find new objections as soon as the first are
refuted. It is in vain to seek to convince reason
unless the conscience and the will be first well-disposed
to accept the truth. Such is the constant language
of orthodox theologians. What is it but a mere trans
lation into other phraseology, of the very assertions of
the sceptical transcendentalist ?

Indeed, with many who take up these questions,
they are almost avowedly placed on the ground of
practical expediency rather than of abstract truth.
Good and earnest men become alarmed for the
dangerous consequences they think likely to result
from certain speculations on these subjects, and
thence in arguing against them, are led to assume
a tone of superiority, as the guardians of virtue
and censors of right, rather than as unprejudiced in-

H 2

100 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

quirers into the matters-of-fact on which, nevertheless,
they professedly make the case rest. And thus a dis
position has been encouraged to regard any such
question as one of rigid or wrong, rather than one of
truth or error : to treat all objections as profane, and
to discard exceptions unanswered as shocking and
immoral.

If indeed the discussion were carried on upon the
professed ground of spiritual impression and religious
feeling, there would be a consistency in such a course ;
but when evidential arguments are avowedly addressed
to the intellect, it is especially preposterous to shift the
ground, and charge the rejection of them on moral
motives ; while those who impute such bad motives
fairly expose themselves to the retort, that their own
belief may be dictated by other considerations than
the love of truth.

Again, in such inquiries there is another mate
rial distinction very commonly lost sight of; the diffe
rence between discussing the truth of a conclusion,
or opinion, and the mode or means of arriving at it ;
or the arguments by which it is supported. Either
may clearly be impugned or upheld without impli
cating the other. We may have the best evidence,
but draw a wrong conclusion from it ; or we may
support an incontestible truth by very fallacious
arguments.

The present discussion is not intended to be of a
controversial kind, it is purely contemplative and
theoretical ; it is rather directed to a calm and un
prejudiced survey of the various opinions and argu
ments adduced, whatever may be their ulterior ten
dency, on these important questions ; and to the
attempt to state, analyse, and estimate them just as
they may seem really conducive to the high object
professedly in view.

The idea of a positive external Divine revelation of
some kind has formed the very basis of all hitherto

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 101

received systems of Christian belief. The Romanist
indeed regards that revelation as of the nature of a

o

standing oracle accessible in the living voice of the
Church ; which being infallible, of course sufficiently
accredits all the doctrines it announces, and consti
tutes them Divine. A more modified view has pre
vailed among a considerable section of Anglican theo
logians, who ground their faith on the same principles
of Church authority, divested of its divine and infal
lible character. Most Protestants, with more or less
difference of meaning, profess to regard revelation as
once for all announced, long since finally closed, per
manently recorded, and accessible only in the written
Divine word contained in the Scriptures. And the
discussion with those outside the pale of belief has
been entirely one as to the validity of those external
marks and attestations by which the truth of the
alleged fact of such communication of the Divine will,
was held to be substantiated.

The scope and character of the various discussions
raised on the evidences of religion/ have varied much
in different ages, following of course both the view
adopted of revelation itself, the nature of the ob
jections which for the time seemed most prominent,
or most necessary to be combated, and stamped with
the peculiar intellectual character, and reasoning tone,
of the age to which they belonged.

The early apologists were rather defenders of the
Christian cause generally ; but when they entered on
evidential topics, naturally did so rather in accordance
with the prevalent modes of thought, than with what
would now be deemed a philosophic investigation of
alleged facts and critical appreciation of testimony
in support of them.

In subsequent ages, as the increasing claims of
infallible Church authority gained ground, to discuss
evidence became superfluous, and even dangerous and
impious ; accordingly, of this branch of theological

102 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

literature (unless in the most entire subjection to
ecclesiastical dictation) the mediaeval church presented
hardly any specimens.

It was not perhaps till the i5th century, that any
works bearing the character of what are now called
treatises on the evidences appeared ; and these were
probably elicited by the sceptical spirit which had
already begun to show itself, arising out of the sub-
tilties of the schoolmen. 1

But in modern times, and under Protestant aus
pices, a greater disposition to follow up this kind of
discussion has naturally been developed. The sterner
genius of Protestantism required definition, argument,
and proof, where the ancient church had been content
to impress by the claims of authority, veneration, and
prescription, and thus left the conception of truth to
take the form of a mere impression of devotional feel
ing or exalted imagination.

Protestantism sought something more definite and
substantial, and its demands were seconded and sup
ported, more especially by the spirit of metaphysical
reasoning which so widely extended itself in the iyth
century, even into the domains of theology ; and di
vines, stirred up by the allegations of the Deists, aimed
at formal refutations of their objections, by drawing out
the idea and the proofs of revelation into systematic
propositions supported by logical arguments. In that
and the subsequent period the same general style of
argument on these topics prevailed among the advocates
of the Christian cause. The appeal was mainly to the
miracles of the Gospels, and here it was contended we
want merely the same testimony of eye-witnesses
which would suffice to substantiate any ordinary
matter of fact ; accordingly, the narratives were to be
traced to writers at the time, who were either them-

1 Several such treatises are enumerated and described by Eichhorn. See
Hallain s Lit. of Europe, i. p. 190.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 103

selves eye-witnesses, or recorded the testimony of
those who were so, and the direct transmission of the
evidence being thus established, everything was held
to be demonstrated. If any antecedent question was
raised, a brief reference to the Divine Omnipotence
to work the miracles, and to the Divine goodness to
vouchsafe the revelation and confirm it by such proofs,
was all that could be required to silence sceptical
cavils.

It is true, indeed, that some consideration of the
internal evidence derived from the excellence of the
doctrines and morality of the Gospel was allowed to
enter the discussion, but it formed only a subordinate
branch of the evidences of Christianity. The main
and essential point was always the consideration of
external facts, and the attestations of testimony
offered in support of them. Assuming Christianity to
be essentially connected with certain outward and
sensible events, the main thing to be inquired into and
established, was the historical evidence of those events,
and the genuineness of the records of them ; if this
were satisfactorily made out, then it was considered
the object was accomplished. The external facts
simply substantiated, the intrinsic doctrines and
declarations of the Gospel must by necessary conse
quence be Divine truths.

If we compare the general tone, character, and pre
tensions of those works which, in our schools and
colleges, have been regarded as the standard autho
rities on the subject of the evidences/ we must
acknowledge a great change in the taste or opinions
of the times from the commencement of the last
century to the present day; which has led the
student to turn from the erudite folios of Jackson and
Stillingfleet, or the more condensed arguments of
Clarke On the Attributes, Grotius de Veritate, and
Leslie s Method with the Deists, the universal text
books of a past generation, to the writings of Lardner

104 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

and Paley ; the latter of whom, in the beginning of
the present century, reigned supreme, the acknow
ledged champion of revelation, and the head of a
school to which numerous others, as Campbell,
Watson, and Douglas, contributed their labours.
But more recently, these authors have been in an emi
nent degree superseded, by a recurrence to the once
comparatively neglected resources furnished by Bishop
Butler ; of so much lass formal, technical, and positive
a kind, yet offering wider and more philosophical
views of the subject ; still, however, confessedly not
supplying altogether that comprehensive discussion
which is adapted to the peculiar tone and character of
thought and existing state of knowledge in our own
times.

The state of opinion and information in different
ages is peculiarly shown in the tone and character of
those discussions which have continually arisen, af
fecting the grounds of religious belief. The particu
lar species of difficulty or objection in the reception
of Christianity, and especially of its external manifes
tations, which have been found most formidable, have
varied greatly in different ages according to the pre
valent modes of thought and the character of the do
minant philosophy. Thus, the difficulties with re
spect to miraculous evidence in particular, will neces
sarily be very differently viewed in different stages of
philosophical and physical information. Difficulties
in the idea of suspensions of natural laws, in former
ages were not at all felt, canvassed, or thought of.
But in later times they have assumed a much deeper
importance. In an earlier period of our theological
literature, the critical investigation of the question of
miracles was a point scarcely at all appreciated. The
attacks of the Deists of the 37th and early part of
the 1 8th century were almost wholly directed to other
points. But the speculations of Woolston, and still
more the subsequent influence of the celebrated Essay

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 105

of Hume, had the effect of directing the attention
of divines more pointedly to the precise topic of mi
raculous evidence ; and to these causes was added the
agitation of the question of the ecclesiastical miracles,
giving rise to the semi- sceptical discussions of Middle-
ton, which called forth a more exact spirit of examina
tion into such distinctions as were needed to preserve
the miracles of the Gospels from the criticisms applied
to those of the Church. This distinction, in fact, in
volves a large part of the entire question ; and to
wards marking it out effectually, various precautionary
rules and principles were laid down by several writers.
Thus, Bishop Warburton suggested as a criterion the
necessity of the miracles to the ends of the dispensa
tion, 1 which he conceived answered the demands of
Middleton. Bishop Douglas made it the test to con
nect miracles with inspiration in those who wrought
them; this, he thought, would exclude the miracles
of the Church. 2

But it was long since perceived that the argument
from necessity of miracles is at best a very hazardous
one, since it implies the presumption of constituting
ourselves judges of such necessity, and admits the fair
objection- -when were miracles more needed than at
the present day, to indicate the truth amid manifold
error, or to propagate the faith ? And again, in the
other case, how is the inspiration to be ascertained
apart from the miracles ? or, if it be, what is the use
of the miracles ? In fact, in proportion as external
evidence to facts is made the professed demand, it
follows that we can only recur to those grounds and
rules by which the intellect always proceeds in the
satisfactory investigation of any questions. of fact
and evidence, especially those of physical phenomena.
By an adherence to those great principles on which

1 Div. Leg. ix. 5. 2 Criterion, pp. 239, 241,

106 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

all knowledge is acquired by a reference to the
fixed laws of belief, and our convictions of esta
blished order and analogy we estimate the credi
bility of alleged events and the value of testimony,
and weigh them more carefully in proportion as the
matter may appear of greater moment or difficulty.

In appreciating the evidence for any events of a
striking or wonderful kind, we must bear in mind
the extreme difficulty which always occurs in eliciting
the truth, dependent not on the uncertainty in the
transmission of testimony, but even in cases where we
were ourselves witnesses, on the enormous influence
exerted by our prepossessions previous to the event,
and by the momentary impressions consequent upon
it. We look at all events, through the medium of
our prejudices, or even where we may have no pre
possessions, the more sudden and remarkable any oc
currence may be, the more unprepared we are to judge
of it accurately or to view it calmly ; our after repre
sentations, especially of any extraordinary and strik
ing event, are always at the best mere recollections
of our impressions, of ideas dictated by our emotions
at the time, of surprise and astonishment which the
suddenness and hurry of the occurrence did not allow
us time to reduce to reason, or to correct by the sober
standard of experience or philosophy.

Questions of this kind are often perplexed for want
of due attention to the laws of human thought and
belief, and of due distinction in ideas and terms. The
proposition that an event may be so incredible intrin
sically as to set aside any degree of testimony/ in no
way applies to or affects the honesty or veracity of that
testimony, or the reality of the impressions on the
minds of the witnesses, so far as it relates to the
matter of sensible fact simply. It merely means this:
that from the nature of our antecedent convictions,
the probability of some kind of mistake or deception
somewhere, though we know not where, is greater than

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 107

the probability of the event really happening in the
way and from the causes assigned.

This of course turns on the general grounds of our
antecedent convictions. The question agitated is not
that of mere testimony, of its value, or of its failures.
It refers to those antecedent considerations which must
govern our entire view of the subject, and which being
dependent on higher laws of belief, must be paramount
to all attestation, or rather belong to a province
distinct from it. What is alleged is a case of the
supernatural ; but no testimony can reach to the
supernatural ; testimony can apply only to apparent
sensible facts ; testimony can only prove an extra
ordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phe
nomenon : that it is due to supernatural causes is
entirely dependent on the previous belief and assump
tions of the parties.

If at the present day any very extraordinary and
unaccountable fact were exhibited before the eyes of
an unbiassed, educated, well-informed individual, and
supposing all suspicion of imposture put out of the
question, his only conclusion would be that it was
something he was unable at present to explain ; and
if at all versed in physical studies, he would not for an
instant doubt either that it was really due to some
natural cause, or that if properly recorded and ex
amined, it would at some future time receive its
explanation by the advance of discovery.

It is thus the prevalent conviction that at the
present day miracles are not to be expected, and con
sequently alleged marvels are commonly discredited.

But as exceptions proving the rule, it cannot be
denied that amid the general scepticism, instances
sometimes occur of particular persons and parties
who, on peculiar grounds, firmly believe in the occur
rence of certain miracles even in our own times. But
we invariably find that this is only in connexion with
their own particular tenets, and restricted to the com :

108 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

munion to which they are attached. Such manifesta
tions of course are believed to have a religious object,
and afford to the votaries a strong confirmation of their
belief, or are regarded as among the high privileges
vouchsafed to an earnest faith. Yet even such persons,
almost as a matter of course, utterly discredit all
such wonders alleged as occurring within the pale of
any religion except their own ; while those of other
communions as unhesitatingly reject the belief in
theirs.

To take a single instance, we may refer to the
alleged miraculous tongues among the followers of
the late Mr. Irving some years ago. It is not, and
was not, a question of records or testimony, or fallibi
lity of witnesses, or exaggerated or fabulous narratives.
At the time, the matter was closely scrutinized and in
quired into, and many perfectly unprejudiced, and
even sceptical persons, themselves witnessed the effects,
and were fully convinced, as, indeed, were most candid
inquirers at the time, that after all reasonable or
possible allowance for the influence of delusion or
imposture, beyond all question, certain extraordinary
manifestations did occur. But just as little as the
mere fact could be disputed, did any sober-minded
person, except those immediately interested, or influenced
by peculiar views, for a moment believe those effects to
be miraculous. Even granting that they could not be
explained by any known form of nervous affection,
or on the like physiological grounds, still that they
were in some way to be ascribed to natural causes, as
yet perhaps little understood, was what no one of
ordinarily cultivated mind, or dispassionate judgment,
ever doubted.

On such questions we can only hope to form just
and legitimate conclusions from an extended and un
prejudiced study of the laws and phenomena of the
natural world. The entire range of the inductive
philosophy is at once based upon, and in every

Study of ike Evidences of Christianity. 109

instance tends to confirm, by immense accumula
tion of evidence, the grand truth of the universal
order and constancy of natural causes, as a primary
law of belief ; so strongly entertained and fixed in
the mind of every truly inductive inquirer, that he
can hardly even conceive the possibility of its failure.
Yet we sometimes hear language of a different kind.
There are still some who dwell on the idea of Spinoza,
and contend that it is idle to object to miracles as
violations of natural laws, because we know not the
extent of nature ; that all inexplicable phenomena
are, in fact, miracles, or at any rate mysteries ; that
we are surrounded by miracles in nature, and on all
sides encounter phenomena which baffle our attempts
at explanation, and limit the powers of scientific in
vestigation ; phenomena whose causes or nature we are
not, and probably never shall be, able to explain.

Such are the arguments of those who have failed
to grasp the positive scientific idea of the power of
the inductive philosophy, or the order of nature. The
boundaries of nature exist only where our present
knowledge places them ; the discoveries of to-morrow
will alter and enlarge them. The inevitable progress
of research must, within a longer or shorter period,
unravel all that seems most marvellous, and what is
at present least understood will become as familiarly
known to the science of the future, as those points
which a few centuries ago were involved in equal
obscurity, but are now thoroughly understood.

None of these, or the like instances, are at all of
the same kind, or have any characteristics in common
with the idea of what is implied by the term miracle/
which is asserted to mean something at variance with
nature and law; there is not the slightest analogy
between an unknown or inexplicable phenomenon, and
a supposed suspension of a known law : even an ex
ceptional case of a known law is included in some
larger law. Arbitrary interposition is wholly different

110 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

in kind ; no argument from the one can apply to the
other.

The enlarged critical and inductive study of the
natural world, cannot but tend powerfully to evince
the inconceivableness 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 investi
gation of science, whose constancy is the sole warrant
for its generalizations, while it forms the substantial
basis for the grand conclusions of natural theology.
Such would be the grounds on which our convictions
would be regulated as to marvellous events at the present
day ; such the rules which we should apply to the like
cases narrated in ordinary history.

But though, perhaps, the more general admission
at the present day of critical principles in the study of
history, as well as the extension of physical knowledge,
has done something to diffuse among the better in
formed class more enlightened notions on this subject,
taken abstractedly, yet they may be still much at a
loss to apply such principles in all cases : and readily
conceive that there are possible instances in which
large exceptions must be made.

The above remarks may be admitted in respect to
events at the present day and those narrated in ordinary
history ; but it will be said there may be, and there
are, cases which are not like those oftlie present times
nor of ordinary history.

Thus if we attempt any uncompromising, rigid
scrutiny of the Christian miracles, on the same grounds
on which we should investigate any ordinary narrative
of the supernatural or marvellous, we are stopped by
the admonition not to make an irreverent and pro
fane intrusion into what ought to be held sacred and
exempt from such unhallowed criticism of human
reason.

Yet the champions of the Evidences of Chris
tianity have professedly rested the discussion of the

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. Ill

miracles of the New Testament on the ground of
precise evidence of witnesses, insisting on the his
torical character of the Gospel records, and urging the
investigation of the truth of the facts on the strict
principles of criticism, as they would be applied to any
other historical narrative. On these grounds, it would
seem impossible to exempt the miraculous parts of
those narratives, from such considerations as those
which must be resorted to in regard to marvellous or
supposed supernatural events in general. Yet there
seems an unwillingness to concede the propriety of
such examination, and a disposition to regard this as
altogether an exceptional case. But in proportion as
it is so regarded, it must be remembered its strictly
historical character is forfeited, or at least tampered
with ; and those who would shield it from the criti
cisms to which history and fact are necessarily ame
nable, cannot in consistency be offended at the alter
native involved, of a more or less mythical interpre
tation.

In history generally our attention is often called to
narratives of the marvellous : and there is a sense in
which they may be viewed with reference to its general
purport and in connexion with those influences on
human nature which play so conspicuous a part in
many events. Thus it has been well remarked by
Dean Milman History to be true must condescend
to speak the language of legend ; the belief of the
times is part of the record of the times ; and though
there may occur what may baffle its more calm and
searching philosophy, it must not disdain that which
was the primal, almost universal motive of human life/ *

Yet in a more general point of view, when we con
sider the strict office of the critical historian, it is
obvious that such cases are fair subjects of analysis,
conducted with the view of ascertaining their real
relation to nature and fact.

1 Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 388.

112 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

From the general maxim that all history is open to
criticism as to its grounds of evidence, no professed
history can be exempt without forfeiting its historical
character; and in its contents, what is properly
historical, is, on the same grounds, fairly to be dis
tinguished from what may appear to be introduced
on other authority and with other objects. Thus, the
general credit of an historical narrative does not exclude
the distinct scrutiny into any statements of a super
natural kind which it may contain ; nor supersede the
careful estimation of the value of the testimony on
which they rest the directness of its transmission from
eye-witnesses, as well as the possibility of misconcep
tion of its tenor, or of our not being in possession of
all the circumstances on which a correct judgment can
be formed.

It must, however, be confessed that the propriety
of such dispassionate examination is too little appre
ciated, or the fairness of weighing well the impro
babilities on one side, against possible openings to
misapprehension on the other.

The nature of the laws of all human belief, and the
broader grounds of probability and credibility of events,
have been too little investigated, and the great extent
to which al] testimony must be modified by antecedent
credibility as determined by such general laws, too little
commonly understood to be readily applied or allowed.

Formerly (as before observed) there was no question
as to general credibility. But in later times the
most orthodox seein to assume that interposition
would be generally incredible ; yet endeavour to lay
down rules and criteria by which it may be rendered
probable, in cases of great emergency. Miracles were
formerly the rule, latterly the exception.

The arguments of Middleton and others, all assume
the antecedent incredibility of miracles in general, in
order to draw more precisely the distinction that in
certain cases of a very special nature that improbability

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 113

may be removed, as in the case of authenticating a
revelation. Locke 1 expressly contends that it is the
very extraordinary nature of such an emergency which
renders an extraordinary interposition requisite and
therefore credible.

The belief in Divine interposition must be essentially
dependent on what we previously admit or believe with
respect to the Divine attributes.

It was formerly argued that every Theist must
admit the credibility of miracles ; but this, it is now
seen, depends on the nature and degree of his Theism,
which may vary through many shades of opinion.
It depends, in fact, on the precise view taken of the
Divine attributes ; such, of course, as is attainable
prior to our admission of revelation, or we fall into an
argument in a vicious circle. The older writers on
natural theology, indeed, have professed to deduce
very exact conclusions as to the Divine perfections,
especially Omnipotence ; conclusions which, according
to the physical argument already referred to, appear
carried beyond those limits to which reason or science
are competent to lead us ; while, in fact, all our higher
and more precise ideas of the Divine perfections are
really derived from that very revelation, whose evidence
is the point in question. The Divine Omnipotence is
entirely an inference from the language of the Bible,
adopted on the assumption of a belief in revelation.
That with God nothing is impossible/ is the very
declaration of Scripture ; yet on this, the whole belief
in miracles is built, and thus, with the many, that
belief is wholly the result, not the antecedent of faith.

But were these views of the Divine attributes, on
the other hand, ever so well established, it must be
considered that the Theistic argument requires to be
applied with much caution ; since most of those, who
have adopted such theories of the Divine perfections,

1 Essay, Book i. ch. xvi. 13.
1

114 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

on abstract grounds, have made them the basis of a
precisely opposite belief, rejecting miracles altogether ;
on the plea, that our ideas of the Divine perfections
must directly discredit the notion of occasional inter
position ; that it is derogatory to the idea of Infinite
power and wisdom, to suppose an order of things so
imperfectly established that it must be occasionally
interrupted and violated when the necessity of the
case compelled, as the emergency of a revelation was
imagined to do. But all such Theistic reasonings are
but one-sided, and if pushed further must lead to a
denial of all active operation of the Deity whatever ;
as inconsistent with unchangeable, infinite perfection. 1
Such are the arguments of Theodore Parker, 2 who denies
miracles because everywhere I find law the constant
mode of operation of an infinite God or that of Weg-
scheider, 3 that the belief in miracles is irreconcilable
with the idea of an eternal God consistent with himself, &c.

Paley s grand resource is once believe in a God, and
all is easy/ Now, no men have evinced a more deep-
seated and devout belief in the Divine perfections than
the writers just named, or others differing from them by
various shades of opinion, as the late J. Sterling, Mr.
Emerson, and Professor F. W. Newman. Yet these
writers have agreed in the inference that the entire view
of Theistic principles, in their highest spiritual purity,
is utterly at variance with all conception of suspensions
of the laws of nature, or with the idea of any kind of
external manifestation addressed to the senses, as over
ruling the higher, and as they conceive, sole worthy and
fitting convictions of moral sense and religious intuition.

We here speak impartially and disinterestedly, since
we are far from agreeing in their reasonings, or even

1 See Mansel, Bampt. Led. p. 185.
2 Theism, &c. p. 263, comp, p. 1 13.

3 Persuasio de supernatural! et miraculosa eademque immediata Dei
revelatione, baud bene conciliari videtur cum idea Dei seterni, semper
sibi constantis, &e. Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. 12.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 115

their first principles. But we think it deeply incum
bent on all who would fairly reason out the case of
miraculous evidence at the present day, to give a full
and patient discussion to this entire class of arguments
which now command so many adherents.

In advancing from the argument for miracles to the
argument /row miracles ; it should, in the first instance,
be considered that the evidential force of miracles (to
whatever it may amount) is wholly relative to the
apprehensions of the parties addressed.

Thus, in an evidential point of view, it by no
means follows, supposing we at this day were able
to explain what in an ignorant age was regarded as
a miracle, that therefore that event was not equally
evidential to those immediately addressed. Columbus s
prediction of the eclipse to the native islanders was
as true an argument to them as if the event had really
been supernatural.

It is a consideration adopted by some eminent di
vines that in the very language of the Grospels the
distinction is always kept up between mere wonders
(rtpara) and miracle s or signs (mj/ia); that is to
say, the latter were occurrences not viewed as mere
matters of wonder or astonishment, but regarded as
indications of other truths, specially adapted to con
vince those to whom they were addressed in their
existing stage of enlightenment.

Archbishop Whately, besides dwelling on this dis
tinction, argues that the apostles would not only
not have been believed but not even listened to, if
they had not first roused men s attention by working,
as we are told they did, special (remarkable) miracles/ l
(Acts xix. n.)

Some have gone further, and have considered the
application of miracles as little more than is expressed
in the ancient proverb, Oavfiara pupoiq which is

Lessons on Evidences, vii. 5.
I 2

116 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

supposed to be nearly equivalent to the rebuke, c an
evil generation seeketh a sign, &C. 1 (Matt. xii. 38.)

Schleiermacher regards the miracles as only relatively
or apparently such, to the apprehensions of the age.
By the Jews we know such manifestations, especially
the power of healing, were held to constitute the dis
tinctive marks of the Messiah, according to the pro
phecies of their Scriptures. Signs of an improper or
irrelevant kind were- refused, and even those which
were granted were not necessarily nor universally con
clusive. With some they were so, but with the many
the case was different. The Pharisees set down the
miracles of Christ to the power of evil spirits ; and
in other cases no conviction 2 was produced, not even
on the apostles. 3 Even Nicodemus, notwithstanding
his logical reasoning, was but half convinced. While
Jesus himself, especially to his disciples in private, re
ferred to his works as only secondary and subsidiary
to the higher evidence of his character and doctrine, 4
which was so conspicuous and convincing even to his
enemies as to draw forth the admission, Never man
spake like this man/

The later Jews adopted the strange legend of the
Sepher Toldeth Yehsu (Book of the Generation of
Jesus), which describes his miracles substantially as
in the Grospels, but says that he obtained his power
by hiding himself in the Temple, and possessing him
self of the secret ineffable name, by virtue of which
such wonders could be wrought. 6

Letter and Spirit, by Rev. J. Wilson, 1852, p. 21.

2 As, e.g., John xi. 46; vi. 2-30; Matt. xii. 39.

3 Matt. xvi. 9; Luke xxiv. 21-25. 4 J nn x i v - rl -

5 Orobio, a Jewish writer, quoted by Limborch (De Verit. p. 12-156),
observes : * Non crediderunt Judsei non quia opera ilia quae in Evangel io,
narrantur a Jesu facta esse negabant ; sed quia iis se persuaderi non sunt
passi ut Jesum crederent Messiam. Celsus ascribed the Christian mira
cles to magic (Origen cont. Cels. i. 38 ; ii. 9.) as Julian did those of
St. Paul to superior knowledge of nature. (Ap. Cyr. iii. 100.) The
general charge of magic is noticed by Tertullian, Ap. 23. See also Dean
Lyall, Propcedia Prophetica, 439. Neander, Hist. i. 67.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 117

All moral evidence must essentially have respect to
the parties to be convinced. Signs 7 might be adapted
peculiarly to the state of moral or intellectual progress
of one age, or one class of persons, and not be suited
to that of others. With the cotemporaries of Christ
and the Apostles, it was not a question of testimony or
credibility ; it was not the mere occurrence of what
they all regarded as a supernatural event, as such, but
the particular character to be assigned to it, which was
the point in question. And it is to the entire dif
ference in the ideas, prepossession, modes, and grounds
of belief in those times that we may trace the reason
why miracles, which would be incredible now, were
not so in the age and under the circumstances in
which they are stated to have occurred.

The force and function of all moral evidence is
nullified and destroyed if we seek to apply that kind
of argument which does not find a response in the
previous views or impressions of the individual ad
dressed ; all evidential reasoning is essentially an
adaptation to the conditions of mind and thought of
the parties addressed, or it fails in its object. An
evidential appeal which in a long past age was con
vincing as made to the state of knowledge in that
age, might have not only no effect, but even an in
jurious tendency, if urged in the present, and referring
to what is at variance with existing scientific concep
tions ; just as the arguments of the present age would
have been unintelligible to a former.

In his earlier views of miracles Dr. J. H. Newman 1
maintained (agreeing therein with Paulus and Bosen-
miiller,) that most of the Christian miracles could
only be evidential at the time they were wrought, and
are not so at present, a view in which a religious
writer of a very different school, Athanase Coquerel, 2

1 Essay on Miracles, &c. p. 107.

- Christianity, &c. Davisoii s transl. 1847, p. 226,

118 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

seems to concur, alleging that they can avail only in
founding a faith not in preserving it.

This was also the argument of several of the
Reformers, as Luther, Huss, and others 1 have reason
ably contemplated the miracles as a part of the
peculiarities of the first outward manifestation and
development of Christianity ; like all other portions
of the Divine dispensations specially adapted to the age
and the condition of those to whom they were imme
diately addressed : but restricted apparently to those
ages, and at any rate, not in the same form continued
to subsequent times, when the application of them
would be inappropriate.

The force of the appeal to miracles must ever be es
sentially dependent on the preconceptions of the parties
addressed. Yet even in an age, or among a people,
entertaining an indiscriminate belief in the super
natural, the allegation of particular miracles as evi
dential may be altogether vain ; the very extent of
their belief may render it ineffective in furnishing
proofs to authenticate the communications of any
teacher as a Divine message. The constant belief in
the miraculous may neutralize all evidential distinc
tions which it may be attempted to deduce. Of this
we have a striking instance on record, in the labours
of the missionary, Henry Martyn, among the Persian
Mahometans. They believed readily all that he told
them of the Scripture miracles, but directly paralleled
them by wonders of their own; they were proof
against any argument from the resurrection, because
they held that their own Sheiks had the power of
raising the dead.

It is also stated that the later Jewish Rabbis, on
the same plea that miracles were believed to be
wrought by so many teachers, of the most different
doctrines, denied their evidential force altogether. 2

1 See Seckendorf s Hist. Luther., iii. 633.

For some instances of this class of objections, see Dean Lyall s Pro-
pcedia Prophetica, p. 437 et seq.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 119

By those wlio take a more enlarged survey of the
subject, it cannot fail to be remarked how different has
been the spirit in which miracles were contemplated
as they are exhibited to us in the earlier stages of
ecclesiastical literature, from that in which they have
been regarded in modern times ; and this especially
in respect to that particular view which has so in
timately connected them with precise evidential
arguments ; and by a school of writers, of whom
Paley may be taken as the type, and who regard
them as the sole external proof and certificate of a
Divine revelation.

But at the present day this evidential view of
miracles as the sole or even the principal external
attestation to the claims of a Divine revelation, is a
species of reasoning which appears to have lost ground
even among the most earnest advocates of Christi
anity. It is now generally admitted that Paley took
too exclusive a view in asserting that we cannot con
ceive a revelation substantiated in any other way.
And it has been even more directly asserted by some
zealous supporters of Christian doctrine that the
external evidences are altogether inappropriate and
worthless.

Thus by a school of writers of the most highly
orthodox pretensions, it is elaborately argued, to the
effect, that revelation ought to be believed though
destitute of strict evidence, either internal or external ;
and though we neither see it nor know it. 1 And again,
We must be as sure that the bishop is Christ s
appointed representative, as if we actually saw him
work miracles as St. Peter and St. Paul did/ 2 An
other writer of the same school exclaims, As if
evidence to the Word of Glod were a thing to be tolerated
by a Christian ; except as an additional condemnation
for those who reject it, or as a sort of exercise and in-

1 See Tracts for the Times, No. Ixxxv. pp. 85-100.

2 Tract No. x. p. 4.

120 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

diligence for a Christian understanding/ 1 Thus while
the highest section of Anglican orthodoxy does not
hesitate openly to disavow the old evidential argu
ment ; referring everything to the authority of the
Church, the more moderate virtually discredit it by
a general tone of vacillation between the antagonistic
claims of reason and faith ; intuition and evidence ;
while the extreme evangelical school, strongly assert
ing the literal truth of the Bible, seeks its evidence
wholly in spiritual impressions, regarding all exercise
of the reason as partaking in the nature of sin. But
even among less prejudiced thinkers, we find indica
tions of similar views ; 2 thus a very able critic writing
in express defence of the Christian cause, speaks of
that accumulation of historical testimonies/ which
the last age erroneously denominated the evidences of
Christianity/ And the poet Coleridge, than whom
no writer has been more earnest in upholding and
defending Christianity, even in its most orthodox
form, in speaking of its external attestations, im
patiently exclaims, Evidences of Christianity ! I am
weary of the word : make a man feel the want of it
. . . and you may safely trust it to its own evidence/ 3
But still further : Paley s well-known conclusion to
the ^th book of his Moral Philosophy, pronounced by
Dr. Parr to be the finest prose passage in English
literature, more especially his final summing up of
the evidential argument in the words, He alone dis
covers who proves : and no man can prove this point
(a future retribution), but the teacher who testifies by
miracles that his doctrine comes from God/ calls forth
from Coleridge an emphatic protest against the entire
principle, as being at variance with that moral election
which he would make the essential basis of religious

1 British Critic, No. xlviii. p. 304.

* Edin. Rev. No. cxli.

3 Aids to Reflexion, i. p. 333.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 121

belief; 1 to which he adds, in another place, The
cordial admiration with which I peruse the pre
ceding passage as a masterpiece of composition
would, could I convey it, serve as a measure of the
vital importance I attach to the convictions which
impelled me to animadvert on the same passage as
doctrine/ 2

Some of the most strenuous assertors of miracles
have heen foremost to disclaim the notion of their
being the sole certificate of Divine communication, and
have maintained that the true force of the Christian
evidences lies in the union and combination of the
external testimony of miracles, with the internal ex
cellence of the doctrine ; thus, in fact, practically
making the latter the real test of the admissibility of the
former.

The necessity for such a combination of the evi
dence of miracles with the test of the doctrine in
culcated is acknowledged in the Bible, both under
the old and the new dispensations. We read of false
prophets who might predict signs and wonders, which
might come to pass ; but this was to be of no avail
if they led their hearers after other gods/ 3

In like manner, if an angel from heaven preached
any other gospel to the Graiatians, they were to reject
it. 4 And even according to Christ s own admonitions,
false Christs and false prophets should show signs and
wonders such as might deceive, if possible, the very
elect. 5

According to this view, the main ground of the
admissibility of external attestations is the worthiness
of their object the doctrine ; its unworthiness will
discredit even the most distinctly alleged apparent mi
racles, and such worthiness or unworthiness appeals
solely to our moral judgment.

1 Aids to Reflexion, p. 278. 2 Ib. p. 338.

3 Deut. xiii. i. * Gal. i. 8 t s Matt. xxiv. 24.

122 Study of tJte Evidences of Christianity.

No man lias dwelt more forcibly on miraculous
evidence than Archbishop Whately; yet in relation
to the character of Christ as conspiring with the ex
ternal attestations of his mission, he strongly remarks
(speaking of some who would ascribe to Christ an
unworthy doctrine, an equivocal mode of teaching),
f If I could believe Jesus to have been guilty of such

subterfuges I not only could not

acknowledge him as sent from God, but should reject
him with the deepest moral indignation/ 1

Dean Lyall enters largely into this important qua
lification in his defence of the miraculous argument,
applying it in the most unreserved manner to the
ecclesiastical miracles, 2 which he rejects at once as
having no connexion with doctrine. We have also
on record the remark of Dr. Johnson: Why, sir,
Hume, taking the proposition simply, is right; but
the Christian revelation is not proved by miracles
alone, but as connected with prophecies and with
the doctrines in confirmation of which miracles were
wrought. 3

This has, indeed, been the common argument of
the most approved divines : it is that long ago urged
by Dr. S. Clarke, 4 and recently supported by Dean
Trench. 5 Yet what is it but to acknowledge the
right of an appeal, superior to that of all miracles,
to our own moral tribunal, to the principle that
the human mind is competent to sit in moral and
spiritual tribunal on a professed revelation/ in vir
tue of which Professor F. Newman, as well as many
other inquirers, have come to so very opposite a con
clusion.

Again, it has been strongly urged by the last-

Kingdom of Christ, Essay i. 12.
Propadia Prophetica, p. 441.
1 Boswell s Life, iii. 169. Ed. 1826.

4 Eoidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, xiv.

5 Notes on Miracles, p. 27.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 123

named writer, if miracles are made the sole criterion,
then amid the various difficulties attending the scru
tiny of evidence, and the detection of imposture, an
advantage is clearly given to the shrewd sceptic over
the simple-minded and well-disposed disciple, utterly
fatal to the purity of faith. 1

The view of miraculous evidence which allows it to
he taken only in connexion with, and in fact in sub
serviency to, the moral and internal proof derived from
the character of the doctrine, has been pushed to a
greater extent by the writer last named ; who asks,
What is the value of faith at second hand ? Ought
any external testimony to overrule internal conviction ?
Ought any moral truth to be received in mere obedience
to a miracle of sense ? 2 and observes that a miracle can
only address itself to our external senses, and that
internal and moral impressions must be deemed of a kind
paramount to external and sensible.

If it be alleged that this internal sense may be
delusive, not less so, it is replied, may the external
senses deceive us as to the world of sense and external
evidence. The same author however expressly allows
that the claims of the historical and the spiritual/ the
proofs addressed to reason and to the internal sense/
may each beproperly entertained in their respective pro
vinces- -the danger lies in confounding them or mis
taking the one for the other.

Even in the estimation of external evidence, every
thing depends on our preliminary moral convictions,
and upon deciding in the first instance whether, on
the one hand, we are to abandon moral conviction at
the bidding of a miracle/ or, on the other, to make
conformity with moral principles the sole test both of
the evidences and of the doctrines of revelation.

In point of fact, he contends that the main actual

1 See Phases of Faith, p. 154.

2 Ib. pp. 82, 108, 201, 1st Ed.

124 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

appeal of the Apostles, especially of St. Paul, was not
to outward testimony or logical argument, but to
spiritual assurances : that even when St. Pauldoes enter
on a sort of evidential discussion, his reasoning is very
unlike what a Paley would have exacted : that all
real evidence is of the spirit which alone can judge
of spiritual things ; that the Apostles did not go about
proclaiming an infallible book, but the convert was to
be convinced by his own internal judgment, not called
on to resign it to a systematized and dogmatic creed.
And altogether the reasoning of the Apostles (wher
ever they enter upon the department of reasoning),
was not according to our logic, but only in accordance
with the knowledge and philosophy of the age.

Thus in this fundamental assumption of internal
evidence, some of the most orthodox writers are in
fact in close agreement with those nominally of a very
opposite school.

It was the argument of Doderlein, that the truth
of the doctrine does not depend on the miracles, but
we must first be convinced of the doctrine by its
internal evidence/

De Wette and others of the rationalists expressly
contend, that the real evidence of the divinity of any
doctrine can only be its accordance with the dictations
of this moral sense, and this, Wegscheider further
insists, was in fact the actual appeal of Christ in his
teaching. 1

In a word, on this view, it would follow that all
external attestation would seem superfluous if it
concur with, or to be rejected if it oppose, these moral

1 Jesus ipse doctrinam quam tradidit divinam esse professus est, quantum
divina ejus indoles ab homine vere religiose proboque bene cognosci potest
atque dijudicari. Wegscheider, in Joh. vii. 17.

Nulla alia ratio et via eas [doctrinas] examinandi datur quam ut illarum
placita cum iis quie via naturali rectae rationis de Deo ejusque voluntate ipsi
innotuerint diligenter componat et ad normam sine ormii superstitione ex-
aininet. Wegscheider, Instit, Theol. Chris. Dogm., ir, p. 38.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 125

convictions. 1 Thus a considerable school have been
disposed to look to the intrinsic evidence only, and to
accept the declarations of theGrospel solely on the ground
of their intrinsic excellence and accordance with our
best and highest moral and religious convictions ; a
view which would approach very nearly to rejecting
its peculiarities altogether.

Thus considerations of a very different nature are now
introduced from those formerly entertained ; and of a
kind which affect the entire primary conception of a reve
lation and its authority, and not merely any alleged
external attestations of its truth. Thus any discussion
of the evidences at the present day, must have a
reference equally to the influence of the various systems
whether of ancient precedent or of modern illumination,
which so widely and powerfully affect the state of
opinion or belief.

In whatever light we regard the evidences of
religion, to be of any effect, whether external or inter
nal, they must always have a special reference to the
peculiar capacity and apprehension of the party addressed.
Points which may be seen to involve the greatest
difficulty to more profound inquirers, are often such
as do not occasion the least perplexity to ordinary
minds, but are allowed to pass without hesitation.
To them all difficulties are smoothed down, all objections
(if for a moment raised) are at once answered by a few
plausible commonplace generalities, which to their
minds are invested with the force of axiomatic truths,
and to question which they would regard as at once
idle and impious.

On the other hand, exceptions held forth as fatal
by the shallow caviller are seen by the more deeply
reflecting in all their actual littleness and fallacy. But
for the sake of all parties, at the present day, especially

1 Such was the argument of the Characteristics, vol. ii. p. 334.
Ed. 1727.

126 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

those who at least profess a disposition for pursuing
the serious discussion of such momentous subjects, it
becomes imperatively necessary, that such views of it
should be suggested as may be really suitable to
better informed minds, and may meet the increasing
demands of an age pretending at least to greater en
lightenment.

Those who have reflected most deeply on the nature
of the argument from external evidence, will admit
that it would naturally possess very different degrees
of force as addressed to different ages ; and in a pe
riod of advanced physical knowledge the reference to
what was believed in past times, if at variance with
principles now acknowledged, could afford little ground
of appeal : in fact, would damage the argument rather
than assist it.

Even some of the older writers assign a much lower
place to the evidence of miracles, contrasting it with
the conviction of real faith, as being merely a pre
paratory step to it. Thus, an old divine observes :

Adducuntur primum ratione exteri ad fidem,

et quasi prseparantur ; signis

ergo et miraculis via fidei per sensus et rationem
sternitur.

And here it should be especially noticed, as charac
teristic of the ideas of his age, that this writer classes
the sensible evidence of miracles along with the con
victions of reason, the very opposite to the view which
would now be adopted, indicative of the difference in
physical conceptions, which connects miracles rather
with faith as they are seen to be inconceivable to
reason.

These prevalent tendencies in the opinions of the
age cannot but be regarded as connected with the in
creasing admission of those broader views of physical
truth and universal order in nature, which have been

Melchior Camis, Loci Tkeol. ix. 6. about 1540.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 127

followed out to higher contemplations, and point to
the acknowledgment of an overruling and all-pervad
ing supreme intelligence.

In advancing beyond these conclusions to the doc
trines of revelation, we must recognise both the due
claims of science to decide on points properly belong
ing to the world of matter, and the independence of
such considerations which characterizes the disclosure
of spiritual truth, as such.

All reason and science conspire to the confession
that beyond the domain of physical causation and the
possible conceptions of intellect or knowledge, there lies
open the boundless region of spiritual things, which is
the sole dominion of faith. And while intellect and
philosophy are compelled to disown the recognition
of anything in the world of matter at variance with
the first principle of the laws of matter the universal
order and indissoluble unity of physical causes they
are the more ready to admit the higher claims of
divine mysteries in the invisible and spiritual world.
Advancing knowledge, while it asserts the dominion
of science in physical things, confirms that of faith in
spiritual ; we thus neither impugn the generalizations
of philosophy, nor allow them to invade the dominion
of faith, and admit that what is not a subject for a
problem may hold its place in a creed.

In an evidential point of view it has been admitted
by some of the most candid divines that the appeal
to miracles, however important in the early stages of
the Grospel, has become less material in later times,
and others have even expressly pointed to this as
the reason why they have been withdrawn ; whilst at
the present day the most earnest advocates of evan
gelical faith admit that outward marvels are needless
to spiritual conviction, and triumph in the greater
moral miracle of a converted and regenerate soul.

They echo the declaration of St. Chrysostom
If you are a believer as you ought to be, and love

128 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

Christ as you ought to love him, you have no need
of miracles, for these are given to unbelievers. 1

After all, the evidential argument has but little
actual weight with the generality of believers. The
high moral convictions often referred to for internal
evidence are, to say the least, probably really felt by
very few, and the appeal made to miracles as proofs
of revelation by still fewer ; a totally different feeling
actuates the many, and the spirit of faith is acknow
ledged where there is little disposition to reason at all,
or where moral and philosophical considerations are
absolutely rejected on the highest religious grounds,
and everything referred to the sovereign power of
divine grace.

Matters of clear and positive fact, investigated on
critical grounds and supported by exact evidence, are
properly matters of knowledge, not of faith. It is
rather in points of less definite character that any
exercise of faith can take place ; it is rather with
matters of religious belief belonging to a higher and
less conceivable class of truths, with the mysterious
things of the unseen world, that faith owns a con
nexion, and more readily associates itself with spiritual
ideas, than with external evidence, or physical events :
and it is generally admitted that many points of impor
tant religious instruction, even conveyed under the form
of fictions (as in the instances of doctrines inculcated
through parables) are more congenial to the spirit of
faith than any relations of historical events could be.

The more knowledge advances, the more it has
been, and will be, acknowledged that Christianity, as
a real religion, must be viewed apart from connexion
with physical things.

1 . . . ei yap TTICTTOS ei cos elvai ~^pr] KOL 0iXeis TOV Xpiarov obf <j)i\elv
, ov xfjiav fx ls r ^ v 0" 7M ct <Bl TCLVTCL yap aTrurrois de dorai. Horn, xxiii.
in Johan. To the same effect also S. Isidore, Tune oportebat mundum
miraculis credere, nunc vero credentem oportet bonis operibus coruscare,
cited in Hu&s in defence of WicklifF.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. \ 29

The first dissociation of the spiritual from the
physical was rendered necessary by the palpable con
tradictions disclosed by astronomical discovery with
the letter of Scripture. Another still wider and more
material step has been effected by the discoveries
of geology. More recently the antiquity of the
human race, and the development of species, and the
rejection of the idea of creation/ have caused new
advances in the same direction.

In all these cases there is, indeed, a direct dis
crepancy between what had been taken for revealed
truth and certain undeniable existing monuments to
the contrary.

But these monuments were interpreted by science
and reason, and there are other deductions of science
and reason referring to alleged events, which, though
they have left no monuments or permanent effects
behind them, are not the less legitimately subject to
the conclusions of positive science, and require a
similar concession and recognition of the same prin
ciple of the independence of spiritual and of physical
truth.

Thus far our observations are general : but at the
present moment some recent publications on the sub
ject seem to call for a few more detailed remarks. We
have before observed that the style and character of
works on the evidences/ has of necessity varied in
different ages. Those of Leslie and Grotius have, by
common consent, been long since superseded by that of
Paley. Paley was long the text-book at Cambridge ;
his work was never so extensively popular at Oxford
it has, of late, been entirely disused there. By the
public at large however once accepted, we do not
hesitate to express our belief, that before another
quarter of a century has elapsed it will be laid on the
shelf with its predecessors ; not that it is a work des
titute of high merit as is pre-eminently true also of
those it superseded, and of others again anterior to

K

130 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

them ; but they have all followed the irreversible des
tiny that a work, suited to convince the public mind
at any one particular period, must be accommodated to
the actual condition of knowledge, of opinion, and
mode of thought of that period. It is not a question
of abstract excellence, but of relative adaptation.

Paley caught the prevalent tone of thought in his
day. Public opinion has now taken a different turn ;
and, what is more important, the style and class of
difficulties and objections honestly felt has become
wholly different. New modes of speculation new
forms of scepticism have invaded the domain of
that settled belief which a past age had been ac
customed to rest on the Paleyan syllogism. Yet,
among several works which have of late appeared
on the subject, we recognise few which at all meet
these requirements of existing opinion. Of some of the
chief of these works, even appearing under the sanction
of eminent names, we are constrained to remark that
they are altogether behind the age ; that amid much
learned and acute remark on matters of detail, those
material points on which the modern difficulties chiefly
turn, as well as the theories advanced to meet them,
are, for the most part, not only ignored and passed
over without examination or notice, but the entire
school of those writers who, with infinitely varied
shades of view, have dwelt upon these topics and put
forth their attempts, feeble or powerful as the case
may be to solve the difficulties- -to improve the tone
of discussion, to reconcile the difficulties of reason
with the high aspirations and demands of faith are
all indiscriminately confounded in one common cate
gory of censure ; their views dismissed with ridicule
as sophistical and fallacious, abused as infinitely dan
gerous, themselves denounced as heretics and inlidels,
and libelled as scoffers and atheists.

In truth, the majority of these champions of the
evidential logic betray an almost entire unconscious-

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 131

ness of the advance of opinion around them. Hav
ing their own ideas long since cast in the stereotyped
mould of the past, they seem to expect that a pro
gressing age ought still to adhere to the same type,
and how implicitly to a solemn and pompous, but
childish parade and reiteration, of the one-sided dog
mas of an obsolete school, coupled with awful denun
ciations of heterodoxy on all who refuse to listen to
them.

Paley clearly, as some of his modern commen
tators do avowedly, occupied the position of an advocate,
not of a judge. They professedly stand up on one side,
and challenge the counsel on the other to reply.
Their object is not truth, but their client s case.
The whole argument is one of special pleading;
we may admire the ingenuity, and confess the
adroitness with which favourable points are seized,
unfavourable ones dropped, evaded, or disguised ; but
we do not find ourselves the more impressed with those
high and sacred convictions of truth, which ought to
result rather from the wary, careful, dispassionate
summing-up on both sides, which is the function of
the impartial and inflexible judge.

The one topic constantly insisted on as essential to
the grounds of belief, considered as based on outward
historical evidence, is that of the credibility of external
facts as supported by testimony. This has al ways formed
the most material point in the reasonings of the
evidential writers of former times, however imperfectly
and unsatisfactorily to existing modes of thought they
treated it. And to this point, their more recent fol
lowers have still almost as exclusively directed their
attention.

In the representations which they constantly make,
we cannot but notice a^ strong apparent tendency and
desire to uphold the mere assertion of witnesses as the
supreme evidence of fact, to the utter disparagement
of all general grounds of reasoning, analogy, and an-

K 2

132 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

tecedent credibility, by which that testimony may be
modified or discredited. Yet we remark, that all the
instances they adduce, when carefully examined, really
tend to the very conclusion they are so anxious to set
aside. Arguments of this kind are sometimes deduced
from such cases as, e. g., the belief accorded on very
slight ground of probability in all commercial trans
actions dependent on the assumed credit and charac
ter of the negotiating parties ; from the conclusions
acted upon in life assurances, notwithstanding the
proverbial instability of life;- -and the like : in all which
we can see no other real drift or tendency than to
substantiate instead of disparage the necessity for
some deeply-seated conviction of permanent order as
the basis of all probability.

A great source of misapprehension in this class of
arguments has been the undue confusion between the
force of testimony in regard to human affairs and events
in history, and in regard to physical facts. It may be
true that some of the most surprising occurrences in
ordinary history are currently, and perhaps correctly
accepted, on but slight grounds of real testimony;
but then they relate to events of a kind which,
however singular in their particular concomitant
circumstances, are not pretended to be beyond natu
ral causes, or to involve higher questions of interven
tion.

The most seemingly improbable events in human his
tory may be perfectly credible, on sufficient testimony,
however contradicting ordinary experience of human
motives and conduct simply because we cannot assign
any limits to the varieties of human dispositions,
passions, or tendencies, or the extent to which they
may be influenced by circumstances of which, perhaps,
we have little or no knowledge to guide us. But no
such cases would have the remotest applicability to
alleged violations of the laws of matter t or interruptions
of the course of physical causes.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 133

The case of the alleged external attestations of
Kevelation, is one essentially involving considerations
of physical evidence. It is not one in which such
reflexions and habits of thought as arise out of a
familiarity with human history, and moral argument,
will suffice. These no doubt and other kindred topics,
with which the scholar and the moralist are familiar,
are of great and fundamental importance to our general
views of the whole subject of Christian evidence ; but
the particular case of miracles, as such, is one specially
bearing on purely physical contemplations, and on
which no general moral principles, no common rules
of evidence or logical technicalities, can enable us to

o

form a correct judgment. It is not a question which
can be. decided by a few trite and commonplace
generalities as to the moral government of the world
and the belief in the Divine Omnipotence or as to the
validity of human testimony, or the limits of human
experience. It involves, and is essentially built upon,
those grander conceptions of the order of nature, those
comprehensive primary elements of all physical know
ledge, those ultimate ideas of universal causation,
which can only be familiar to those thoroughly versed
in cosmical philosophy in its widest sense.

In an age of physical research like the present, all
highly cultivated minds and duly advanced intellects
have imbibed, more or less, the lessons of the inductive
philosophy, and have at least in some measure learned
to appreciate the grand foundation conception of
universal law 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 invariable operation of a series of
eternally impressed consequences, following in some
necessary chain of orderly connexion however imper-

134 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

fectly known to us. So clear and indisputable indeed
has this great truth become so deeply seated has it
been now admitted to be, in the essential nature of
sensible things and of the external world, that not
only do all philosophical inquirers adopt it, as a
primary principle and guiding maxim of all their
researches but, what is most worthy of remark,
minds of a less comprehensive capacity, accus
tomed to reason on topics of another character, and
on more contracted views, have at the present day
been constrained to evince some concession to this
grand principle, even when seeming to oppose it.

Among writers on these questions, Dean Trench has
evinced a higher view of physical philosophy than we
might have expected from the mere promptings of philo
logy and literature, v/hen he affirms that we con
tinually behold lower laws held in restraint by higher ;
mechanic by dynamic chemical by vital, physical by
moral ; remarks which, if only followed out, entirely
accord with the conclusion of universal subordination
of causation ; though we must remark in passing that
the meaning of moral laws controlling physical/ is
not very clear.

It is for the most part hazardous ground for any
general moral reasoner to take, to discuss subjects of
evidence which essentially involve that higher apprecia
tion of physical truth which can be attained only from
an accurate and comprehensive acquaintance with the
connected series of the physical and mathematical
sciences. Thus, for example, the simple but grand
truth of the law of conservation, and the stability of
the heavenly motions, now well understood by all sound
cosmical philosophers, is but the type of the universal
self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which pervade
all nature. Yet the difficulty of conceiving this truth
in its simplest exemplification was formerly the chief
hindrance to the acceptance of the solar system from
the prepossession of the peripatetic dogma that there

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 135

must be a constantly acting moving force to keep it
going. This very exploded chimera, however, by a
singular infatuation, is now actually revived as the
ground of argument for miraculous interposition by
redoubtable champions who, to evince their profound
knowledge of mechanical philosophy, inform us that
the whole of nature is like a mill, which cannot go
on without the continual application of a moving
power !

Of these would-be philosophers, we find many
anxiously dwelling on the topic, so undeniably just in
itself, of the danger of incautious conclusions of the
gross errors into which men fall by over-hasty gene
ralizations. They recount with triumph the absurd
mistakes into which some even eminent philosophers
have fallen in prematurely denying what experience
has since fully shown to be true, because in the then
state of knowledge it seemed incredible. 1 They feel
an elevating sense of superiority in putting down the
arrogance of scientific pretensions by alleging the short
sighted dogmatism with which men of high repute in
science have evinced a scepticism in points of vulgar
belief, in which, after all, the vulgar belief has proved
right. They even make a considerable display of
reasoning on such cases ; but we cannot say that those
reasonings are particularly distinguished for consistency,
force, or originality. The philosopher (for example)
denies the credibility of alleged events professedly in
their nature at variance with all physical analogy. These
writers, in reply, affect to make a solemn appeal to the
bar of analogy, and support it by instances which pre
cisely defeat their own conclusion. Thus they advance
the novel and profoundly instructive story of an Indian
who denied the existence of ice as at variance with

Numerous instances of the kind referred to will be found cited in Mr.
R. Chambers s Essay on Testimony, &c. Edinburgh Papers, 1859; and in
Abp. Whately s Edition of Paley s Evidences.

136 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

experience ; and still more from the contradiction that
being solid, it could not float in water. In like
manner they dwell upon other equally interesting
stories of a butterfly, who from the experience of his
ephemeral life in summer, denied that the leaves were
ever brown or the ground covered with snow ; of a
child who watched a clock made to strike only at noon,
through many hours, and therefore concluded it could
never strike ; of a person who had observed that fish
are organized to swim, and therefore concluded there
could be no such animals ^> flying fish.

These, with a host of other equally recondite, novel,
startling, and conclusive instances are urged in a tone
of solemn wisdom, to prove w T hat ? That water is
converted into ice by a regular known law ; that it has
a specific gravity less than water by some law at present
but imperfectly understood ; that without violation of
analogy, fins may be modified into wings ; that it is
part of the great law of climate that in winter leaves
are brown and the ground sometimes white- -that
machinery may be made with action intermitting by
laws as regular as those of its more ordinary operation.
In a word, that the philosopher who looks to an
endless subordinating series of laws of successively
higher generality, is inconsistent in denying events at
variance with that subordination !

It is indeed curious to notice the elaborate multi
plication of instances adduced by some of the writers
referred to, all really tending to prove the subordi
nation of facts to laws, clearly evinced as soon as the
cases were well understood, though, till then, often
regarded in a sceptical spirit \ while of that scepticism
they furnish the real and true refutation in the prin
ciple of law ultimately established, under whatever
primary appearance and semblance of marvellous
discordance from all law. It would be beyond our
limits to notice in detail such instances as are thus
dwelt upon, and apparently regarded as of sovereign

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 137

value and importance, to discredit philosophical gene
ralization : such as the disbelief in the marvels re
counted by Marco Polo ; of the miracle of the martyrs
who spoke articulately after their tongues were cut
out ; the angel seen in the air by 2000 persons at
Milan \ the miraculous balls of fire on the spires at
Plausac ; Herodotus s story of the bird in the mouth
of the crocodile ; narratives of the sea-serpent, marvels
of mesmerism and electro-biology ; all discredited
formerly as fables ; vaccination observed and attested
by peasants, but denied and ridiculed by medical
men :

These -and the like cases are all urged as triumphant
proofs, of what ? that some men have always been
found of unduly sceptical tendencies ; and sometimes
of a rationally cautious turn ; who have heard strange,
and, perhaps, exaggerated narratives, and have main
tained sometimes a wise, sometimes an unwise, degree
of reserve and caution in admitting them ; though they
have since proved in accordance with natural causes.

Hallam and Rogers are cited as veritable witnesses
to the truth of certain effects of mesmerism in their
day generally disbelieved; and for asserting which
they were met with all but an imputation of the lie
direct/ They admitted, however, that their assertion
was founded on experience so rare as to be had only
once in a century ; but that experience has been
since universally borne out by all who have candidly
examined the question, and the apparently isolated and
marvellous cases have settled down into examples of
broad and general laws, now fully justified by experience
and analogy.

Physiological evidence is adduced (which we will
suppose well substantiated) to show that the excision
of the ivhole tongue does not take away the power of
speech, though that of the extremity does so ; hence
the denial of the story from imperfect experience.
So of other cases : the angel at Milan was the

133 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

aerial reflexion of an image on a church ; the balls of
fire, at Plausac, were electrical ; the sea-serpent was a
basking shark, or a stem of sea-weed. A committee of
the French Academy of Sciences, with Lavoisier at
its head, after a grave investigation, pronounced the
alleged fall of aerolites to be a superstitious fable. It
is, however, now substantiated, not as a miracle, but
as a well-known natural phenomenon. Instances of
undue philosophical scepticism are unfortunately com
mon ; but they are the errors, not the correct processes,
of inductive inquiry.

Granting all these instances, we merely ask what
do they prove ? except the real and paramount
dominion of the rule of law and order, of universal
subordination of physical causes, as the sole principle
and criterion of proof and evidence in the region of
physical and sensible truth ; and nowhere more em
phatically than in the history of marvels and pro
digies, do we find a verification of the truth, opin-
ionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia con-
firmat/

This in fact is the sole real result of all the profound
parallelisms and illustrative anecdotes so confidently
but unconsciously adduced by these writers with an
opposite design.

What is the real conclusion from the far-famed
Historic Doubts and the Chronicles of Ecnarf ? but
simply this there is a rational solution, a real conformity
to analogy and experience, to whatever extent a par
tially informed inquirer might be led to reject the re
counted apparent wonders on imperfect knowledge, and
from too hasty inference ; these delightful parodies
on Scripture (if they prove anything), would simply
prove that the Bible narrative is no more properly
miraculous than the marvellous exploits of Napoleon I.,
or the paradoxical events of recent history.

Just a similar scepticism has been evinced by nearly
all the first physiologists of the day, who have joined

Study of the Evidences of Christianity* 139

in rejecting the development theories of Lamarck and
the Vestiges ; and while they have strenuously main
tained successive creations, have denied and denounced
the alleged production of organic life by Messrs. Crosse
and Weekes, and stoutly maintained the impossibility
of spontaneous generation, on the alleged ground of con
tradiction to experience. Yet it is now acknowledged
under the high sanction of the name of Owen, 1 that
{ creation is only another name for our ignorance of the
mode of production ; and it has been the unanswered
and unanswerable argument of another reason er that
new species must\\%Ne originated either out of their inor
ganic elements, or out of previously organized forms ;
either development or spontaneous generation must be
true : while a work has now appeared by a naturalist
of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin s
masterly volume on The Origin of Species by the law
of natural selection/ which now substantiates on
undeniable grounds the very principle so long de
nounced by the first naturalists, the origination of
new species by natural causes : a work which must soon
bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favour of
the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature.
By parity of reason it might just as well be objected to
Archbishop Whately s theory of civilization, we have
only for a few centuries known anything of savages ;
how then can we pretend to infer that they have never
civilized themselves ? never, in all that enormous
length of time which modern discovery has now indis
putably assigned to the existence of the human race !
This theory, however, is now introduced as a com
ment on Paley in support of the credibility of revela
tion ; and an admirable argument no doubt it is,
though perhaps many would apply it in a sense some
what different from that of the author. If the use of
fire, the cultivation of the soil, and the like, were

British Association Address, 1858.

140 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

Divine revelations, the most obvious inference would
be that so likewise are printing and steam. If the
boomerang was divinely communicated to savages
ignorant of its principle, then surely the disclosure of
that principle in our time by the gyroscope, was
equally so. But no one denies revelation in this sense;
the philosophy of the age does not discredit the in
spiration of Prophets and Apostles, though it may
sometimes believe it. in poets, legislators, philosophers,
and others gifted with high genius. At all events, the
revelation of civilization does not involve the question
of external miracles, which is here the sole point in
dispute. The main assertion of Paley is that it is
impossible to conceive a revelation given except by
means of miracles. This is his primary axiom ; but
this is precisely the point which the modern turn of
reasoning most calls in question, and rather adopts
the belief that a revelation is then most credible, when
it appeals least to violations of natural causes. Thus,
if miracles were in the estimation of a former age
among the chief supports of Christianity, they are at
present among the main difficulties, and hindrances to
its acceptance.

One of the first inductive philosophers of the age,
Professor Faraday, has incurred the unlimited dis
pleasure of these profound intellectualists, because he
has urged that the mere contracted experience of the
senses is liable to deception, and that we ought to be
guided in our conclusions and, in fact, can only correct
the errors of the senses by a careful recurrence to the
consideration of natural laws and extended analogies. 1
In opposition to this heretical proposition, they 2 set
in array the dictum of two great authorities of the
Scottish school, Drs. Abercrombie and Chalmers, that
1 on a certain amount of testimony we might believe

Lecture on Mental Education. 1854.

2 See Edinburgh Papers, Testimony, &c., by K. Chambers, Esq.,
F.K.S.E., &c.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 141

any statement, however improbable ; J so that if a num
ber of respectable witnesses were to concur in asseve
rating that on a certain occasion they had seen two
and two make five, we should be bound to believe them !
This, perhaps it will be said, is an extreme case.
Let us suppose another : if a number of veracious
witnesses were to allege a real instance of witchcraft
at the present day, there might no doubt be found
some infatuated persons who would believe it; but
the strongest of such assertions to any educated man
would but .prove either that the witnesses were cun
ningly imposed upon, or the wizard himself deluded.
If the most numerous ship s company were all to
asseverate that they had seen a mermaid, would any
rational persons at the present day believe them?
That they saw something which they believed to be a
mermaid, would be easily conceded. No amount of
attestation of innumerable and honest witnesses,
would ever convince any one versed in mathematical
and mechanical science, that a person had squared
the circle or discovered perpetual motion. Antecedent
credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, and
enlarged views of the connexion and dependence of
truths ; and the value of any testimony will be modi
fied or destroyed in different degrees to minds dif
ferently enlightened.

Testimony, after all, is but a second-hand assurance ;
it is but a blind guide ; testimony can avail nothing
against reason. The essential question of miracles
stands quite apart from any consideration of testimony;
the question would remain the same, if we had the
evidence of our own senses to an alleged miracle, that
is, to an extraordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not
the mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, which
is the point at issue.

The case, indeed, of the antecedent argument of mi
racles is very clear, however little some are inclined
to perceive it. In nature and from nature, by science

142 Study of the Evidences of Christianity

and by reason, we neither have nor can possibly have
any evidence of a Deity working miracles ; for that, we
must go out of nature and beyond reason. If we
could have any such evidence from nature, it could
only prove extraordinary natural effects, which would
not be miracles in the old theological sense, as isolated,
unrelated, and uncaused ; whereas no physical fact can
be conceived as unique, or without analogy and relation
to others, and to the whole system of natural causes.

To conclude, an alleged miracle can only be re
garded in one of two ways; either (i) abstractedly
as a physical event, and therefore to be investigated
by reason and physical evidence, and referred to phy
sical causes, possibly to known causes, but at all events
to some higher cause or law, if at present unknown ;
it then ceases to be supernatural, yet still might be
appealed to in support of religious truth, especially
as referring to the state of knowledge and apprehen
sions of the parties addressed in past ages; or (3)
as connected with religious doctrine, regarded in a
sacred light, asserted on the authority of inspiration.
In this case it ceases to be capable of investigation by
reason, or to own its dominion ; it is accepted on re
ligious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle
and influence of faith.

Thus miraculous narratives become invested with the
character of articles of faith, if they be accepted in a
less positive and certain light, or perhaps as involving
more or less of the parabolic or mythic character ; or
at any rate as received in connexion with, and for the
sake of the doctrine inculcated.

Some of the most strenuous advocates of the Chris
tian evidences readily avow, indeed expressly con
tend, that the attestation of miracles is, after all, not
irresistible ; and that in the very uncertainty which
confessedly remains lies the trial of faith, 1 which it is

See, e.g., Butler s Analogy, pt. ii. ch. 6.

Study of the Evidences of Christianity. 143

thus implied must really rest on some other inde
pendent moral conviction.

In the popular acceptation, it is clear the Gospel
miracles are always objects, not evidences of faith ; and
when they are connected specially with doctrines, as
in several of the higher mysteries of the Christian faith,
the sanctity which invests the point of faith itself is
extended to the external narrative in which it is em
bodied ; the reverence due to the mystery renders the
external events sacred from examination, and shields
them also within the pale of the sanctuary ; the
miracles are merged in the doctrines with which they
are connected, and associated with the declarations of
spiritual things which are, as such, exempt from those
criticisms to which physical statements would be
necessarily amenable.

But even in a reasoning point of view, those who
insist most on the positive external proofs, allow that
moral evidence is distinguished from demonstrative, not
only in that it admits of degrees, but more especially
in that the same moral argument is of different force
to different minds. And the advocate of Christian evi
dence triumphs in the acknowledgment that the
strength of Christianity lies in the variety of its evi
dences, suited to all varieties of apprehension ; and,
that, amid all the diversities of conception, those who
cannot appreciate some one class of proofs, will always
find some other satisfactory, is itself the crowning
evidence.

With a firm belief in constant supernatural interpo
sition, the cotemporaries of the Apostles were as much
blinded to the reception of the gospel, as, with an
opposite persuasion, others have been at a later period.
Those who had access to living Divine instruction
were not superior to the prepossessions and ignorance
of their times. There never existed an infallible age
of exemption from doubt or prejudice. And if to
later times records written in the characters of a long-

o

144 Study of the Evidences of Christianity.

past epoch are left to be deciphered by the advancing
light of learning and science, the spirit of faith dis
covers continually increasing attestation of the Divine
authority of the truths they include.

The reason of the hope that is in us is not re
stricted to external signs, nor to any one kind of evi
dence, but consists of such assurance as may be most
satisfactory to each earnest individual inquirer s own
mind. And the true acceptance of the entire revealed
manifestation of Christianity will be most worthily
and satisfactorily based on that assurance of faith/
by which the Apostle affirms * we stand/ (2, Cor. ii. 24),
and which, in accordance with his emphatic declara
tion, must rest, not in the wisdom of man, but in
the power of God/ (i Cor. ii. 5.)

SEANCES HISTORIQUES DE GENEVE
THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

IN the city of Geneva, once the stronghold of
the severest creed of the Eeformation, Chris
tianity itself has of late years received some very
rude shocks. But special attempts have been re
cently made to counteract their effects and to
re-organize the Christian congregations upon Evan
gelical principles. In pursuance of this design, there
have been delivered and published during the last few
years a series of addresses by distinguished persons
holding Evangelical sentiments, entitled Seances
Historiques. The attention of the hearers was to be
conciliated by the concrete form of these discourses ;
the phenomenon of the historical Christianity to be
presented as a fact which could not be ignored, and
which must be acknowledged to have had some special
source ; while, from time to time, as occasion offered,
the more peculiar views of the speakers were to be in
stilled. But before this panorama of historic scenes
had advanced beyond the period of the fall of hea
thenism in the West, there had emerged a remarkable
discrepancy between the views of two of the authors,
otherwise agreeing in the main.

It fell to the Comte Leon de Grasparin to illustrate
the reign of Constantine. He laid it down in the
strongest manner, that the individualist principle
supplies the true basis of the Church, and that by
inaugurating the union between Church and State

L

146 Seances Historiqucs de Geneve.

Constant in e introduced into Christianity the false
and pagan principle of Multitudinism. M. Bungener
followed in two lectures upon the age of Ambrose and
Theodosius. He felt it necessary, for his own satis
faction and that of others, to express his dissent from
these opinions. He agreed in the portraiture drawn by
his predecessor of the so-called first Christian emperor,
and in his estimate of his personal character. But he
maintained, that the multitudinist principle was not
unlawful, nor essentially pagan; that it was reco
gnised and consecrated in the example of the Jewish
theocracy ; that the greatest victories of Christianity
have been won by it; that it showed itself under
Apostolic sanction as early as the day of Pentecost ;
for it would be absurd to suppose the three thousand
who were joined to the Church on the preaching of
Peter to have been all converted persons in the
modern Evangelical sense of the word. He especially
pointed out, that the Churches which claim to be
founded upon Individualism, fall back themselves,
when they become hereditary, upon the multitudi
nist principle. His brief, but very pertinent obser
vations on that subject were concluded in these
words :

Le nmltitudinisme est une force qui peut, comme
toute force, etre mal dirigee, mal exploitee, mais qui
peut aussi 1 etre au profit de la verite, de la piete, de
la vie. Les Eglises fondees sur un autre principe ont
aide a rectifier celui-la; c est un des incontestables
services qu elles ont rendus, de nos jours, a la cause de
1 Evangile. Elles ont droit a notre reconnaissance;
mais a Geneve, qu elles ne nous demandent pas ce que
nous ne pouvons faire, et qu on me permette de le
dire, ce qu elles ne font pas elles-memes. Oui ! le
multitudinisme genevois est reste vivant chez elles, et
certain ement elles lui doivent une portion notable de
]eur consistance au dedans, de leur influence au dehors.
Elles font appel, comme nous, a ses souvenirs et a ses

The National Church. 147

gloires ; elles formenfc, avec nous, ce que le monde
cliretien appelle et appellera toujours VEylise de Geneve.
Nous ne la renions, au fond, pas plus les uns que les
autres. Elle a ete, elle est, elle restera notre mere

s.

i

a tou

Such are the feelings in favour of Nationalism on
the part of M. Bungener, a member of the Genevan
Church; a Church to which many would not even con
cede that title, and of which the ecclesiastical renown
centres upon one great name ; while the civil history
of the country presents but little of interest either in
ancient or modern times. But the questions at issue
between these two Genevans are of wide Christian
concern, and especially to ourselves. If the Genevans
cannot be proud of their Calvin, as they cannot in all
things and even he is not truly their own they have
little else of which to speak before Christendom. Very
different are the recollections which are awakened by
the past history of such a Church as ours. Its
roots are found to penetrate deep into the history of
the most freely and fully developed nationality in the
world, and its firm hold upon the past is one of its
best auguries for the future. It has lived through
Saxon rudeness, Norman rapine, baronial oppression
and bloodshed ; it has survived the tyranny of Tudors,
recovered from fanatical assaults, escaped the trea
chery of Stuarts ; has not perished under coldness,
nor been stifled with patronage, nor sunk utterly in a
dull age, nor been entirely depraved in a corrupt one.
Neither as a spiritual society, nor as a national
institution, need there be any fear that the Church
of this country, which has passed through so many
ordeals, shall succumb, because we may be on the
verge of some political and ecclesiastical changes. We,
ourselves, cohere with those who have preceded us,
under very different forms of civil constitution, and

1 Seances Historiques de Geneve Le Christianisme au
Siecle, p. 153.

L 2

148 Seances Historignes de Geneve.

under a very different creed and externals of worship.
The c rude forefathers/ whose mouldering bones, layer
upon layer, have raised the soil round the foundations
of our old churches, adored the Host, worshipped the
Virgin, signed themselves with the sign of the cross,
sprinkled themselves with holy water, and paid money
for masses for the relief of souls in purgatory. But it
is no reason, because we trust that spiritually we are
at one with the best^of those who have gone before us
in better things than these, that we should revert to
their old-world practices ; nor should we content our
selves with simply transmitting to those who shall
follow us, traditions which have descended to ourselves,
if we can transmit something better. There is a time
for building up old waste places, and a time for raising
fresh structures ; a time for repairing the ancient
paths, and a time for filling the valleys and lowering
the hills in the constructing of new. The Jews, con
temporaries of Jesus and his Apostles, were fighters
against Grod, in refusing to accept a new application
of things written in the Law, the Prophets, and the
Psalms ; the Eomans in the time of Theodosius were
fighters against Him, when they resisted the new
religion with an appeal to old customs ; so were the
opponents of Wycliffe and his English Bible, and the
opponents of Cranmer and his Reformation. Meddle
not with- them that are given to change is a warning
for some times, and self-willed persons may c bring in
damnable heresies ; at others, old things are to pass
away/ and that is erroneously called heresy by the
blind, which is really a worshipping the God of the
Fathers in a better way.

When signs of the times are beheld, foretelling
change, it behoves those who think they perceive
them to indicate them to others, not in any spirit of
presumption or of haste ; and, in no spirit of presump
tion, to suggest inquiries as to the best method of
adjusting old things to new conditions.

The National Church. 149

Many evils are seen in various ages, if not to have
issued directly, to have been intimately linked with
the Christian profession such as religious wars, per
secutions, delusions, impositions, spiritual tyrannies ;
many goods of civilization in our own day, when
men have run to and fro and knowledge has
heen increased, have apparently not the remotest
connexion with the Gospel. Hence grave doubts arise
in the minds of really well-meaning persons, whether
the secular future of humanity is necessarily bound
up with the diffusion of Christianity whether the
Church is to be hereafter the life-giver to human
society. It would be idle on the part of religious
advocates to treat anxieties of this kind as if they were
forms of the old Voltairian anti-Christianism. They
are not those affectations of difficulties whereby vice
endeavours to lull asleep its fears of a judgment
to come ; nor are they the pretensions of ignorant
and presumptuous spirits, making themselves wise
beyond the limits of man s wisdom. Even if such
were, indeed, the sources of the wide-spread doubts
respecting traditional Christianity which prevail in
our own day, it would be very injudicious polemic
which should content itself with denouncing the
wickedness, or expressing pity for the blindness, of
those who entertain them. An imputation of evil
motives may embitter an opponent and add gall to
controversy, but can never dispense with the necessity
for replying to his arguments, nor with the advisable-
ness of neutralizing his objections.

If anxieties respecting the future of Christianity,
and the office of the Christian Church in time to
corne, were confined to a few students or speculative
philosophers, they might beput aside as mere theoretical
questions ; if rude criticisms upon the Scriptures, of
the Tom Paine kind, proceeding from agitators of the
masses, or from uninstructed persons, were the only
assaults to which the letter of the Bible was exposed,

150 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

it might be thought, that further instruction would
impart a more reverential and submissive spirit : if
lay people only entertained objections to established
formularies in some of their parts, a self-satisfied
sacerdotalism, confident in a supernaturally trans
mitted illumination, might succeed in keeping peace
within the walls of emptied churches. It may not
be very easy, by a statistical proof, to convince
those whose preconceptions indispose them to admit
it, of the fact of a very wide-spread alienation, both of
educated and uneducated persons, from the Christianity
which is ordinarily presented in our churches and
chapels. Whether it be their reason or their moral
sense which is shocked by what they hear there, the
ordinances of public worship and religious instruction
provided for the people of England, alike in the en
dowed and unendowed churches, are not used by them
to the extent we should expect, if they valued them very
highly, or if they were really adapted to the wants of
their nature as it is. And it has certainly not hitherto
received the attention which such a grave circumstance
demanded, that a number equal to five millions and
a quarter of persons, should have neglected to attend
means of public worship within their reach on the
census Sunday in 1851; these five millions and a
quarter being forty-two per cent, of the whole number
able and with opportunity of then attending. As an
indication, on the other hand, of a great extent of
dissatisfaction on the part of the clergy to some
portion, at least, of the formularies of the Church
of England, may be taken the fact of the existence
of various associations to procure their revision, or
some liberty in their use, especially that of omitting
one unhappy creed.

It is generally the custom of those who wish to
ignore the necessity for grappling with modern ques
tions concerning Biblical interpretation, the construc
tion of the Christian Creed, the position and prospects

The National Church. 151

of the Christian Church, to represent the disposition
to entertain them as a disease contracted by means
of German inoculation. At other times, indeed, the
tables are turned, and theological inquirers are to be
silenced with the reminder, that in the native land of
the modern scepticism, Evangelical and High Lutheran
reactions have already put it down. It may be, that
on these subjects we shall in England be much in
debted, for some time to come, to the patience of
German investigators ; but we are by no means likely
to be mystified by their philosophical speculations, nor
to be carried away by an inclination to force all facts
within the sweep of some preconceived comprehensive
theory. If the German biblical critics have gathered
together much evidence, the verdict will have to be
pronounced by the sober English judgment. But, in
fact, the influence of this foreign literature extends to
comparatively few among us, and is altogether in
sufficient to account for the wide spread of that
which has been called the negative theology. This
is rather owing to a spontaneous recoil, on the
part of large numbers of the more acute of our
population, from some of the doctrines which are to
be heard at church and chapel ; to a distrust of the old
arguments for, or proofs of, a miraculous Revelation ;
and to a misgiving as to the authority, or extent of
the authority, of the Scriptures. In the presence of
real difficulties of this kind, probably of genuine
English growth, it is vain to seek to check that open
discussion out of which alone any satisfactory settle
ment of them can issue.

There may be a certain amount of literature circula
ting among us in a cheap form, of which the purpose,
-with reference to Christianity, is simply negative and
destructive, and which is characterized by an absence
of all reverence, not only for beliefs, but for the best
human feelings which have gathered round them,
even when they have been false or superstitious. But

152 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

if those who are old enough to do so would compare
the tone generally of the sceptical publications of the
present day with that of the papers of Hone and
others about forty years ago, they would be reminded,
that assaults were made then upon the Christian
religion in far grosser form than now, and long before
opinion could have been inoculated by German philo
sophy long before the more celebrated criticisms
upon the details of the Evangelical histories had
appeared. But it was attacked then as an institution,
or by reason of the unpopularity of institutions and
methods of government connected, or supposed to be
connected, with it. The anti-christian agitation of
that day in England was a phase of radicalism, and of
a radicalism which was a terrific and uprooting force,
of which the counterpart can scarcely be said to exist
among us now.

The sceptical movements in this generation are the
result of observation and thought, not of passion.
Things come to the knowledge of almost all persons,
which were unknown a generation ago, even to the
well informed. Thus the popular knowledge, at that
time, of the surface of the earth, and of the populations
which cover it, was extremely incomplete. In our
own boyhood the world as known to the ancients was
nearly all which was known to ourselves. We have
recently become acquainted intimate with the teem
ing regions of the far East, and with empires, pagan
or even atheistic, of which the origin runs far back
beyond the historic records of Judsea or of the West,
and which were more populous than all Christendom
now is, for many ages before the Christian era. Not
any book learning not any proud exaltation of reason
not any dreamy German metaphysics not any
minute and captious Biblical criticism suggest ques
tions to those who on Sundays hear the reading and ex
position of the Scriptures as they were expounded to
our forefathers, and on Monday peruse the news of a

The National Church. 153

world of which our forefathers little dreamed; descrip
tions of great nations, in some senses barbarous com
pared with ourselves, but composed of men of flesh and
blood like our own of like passions, marrying and
domestic, congregating in great cities, buying and
selling and getting gain, agriculturists, merchants,
manufacturers, making wars, establishing dynasties,
falling down before objects of worship, constituting
priesthoods, binding themselves by oaths, honouring
the dead. In what relation does the Grospel stand to
these millions ? Is there any trace on the face of its
records that it even contemplated their existence ?
We are told, that to know and believe in Jesus Christ
is in some sense necessary to salvation. It has not
been given to these. Are they will they be, here
after, the worse off for their ignorance? As to
abstruse points of doctrine concerning the Divine
Nature itself, those subjects may be thought to lie
beyond the range of our faculties ; if one says, aye,
no other is entitled to say no to his aye ; if one says,
no, no one is entitled to say aye to his no. Besides,
the best approximative illustrations of those doctrines
must be sought in metaphysical conceptions, of which
few are capable, and in the history of old controversies,
with which fewer still are acquainted . But with respect
to the moral treatment of His creatures by Almighty
God, all men, in different degrees, are able to be judges
of the representations made of it, by reason of the
moral sense which He has given them. As to the neces
sity of faith in a Saviour to these peoples, when they
could never have had it, no one, upon reflection, can
believe in any such thing doubtless they will be equit
ably dealt with. And when we hear fine distinctions
drawn between covenanted and uncovenanted mercies^
it seems either to be a distinction without a differ
ence, or to amount to a denial of the broad and equal
justice of the Supreme Being. We cannot be content
to wrap this question up and leave it for a mystery, as

154 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

to what shall become of those myriads upon myriads
of non-christian races. First, if our traditions tell us,
that they are involved in the curse and perdition of
Adam, and may justly be punished hereafter indi
vidually for his transgression, not having been extri
cated from it by saving faith, we are disposed to think,
that our traditions cannot herein fairly declare to us
the words and inferences from Scripture ; but if on
examination it should turn out that they have, we
must say, that the authors of the Scriptural books
have, in those matters, represented to us their own
inadequate conceptions, and not the mind of the Spirit
of God ; for we must conclude with the Apostle, Yea,
let God be true and every man a liar/

If, indeed, we are at liberty to believe, that all shall
be equitably dealt \\ith according to their opportu
nities, whether they have heard or not of the name
of Jesus, then we can acknowledge the case of the
Christian and non-Christian populations to be one of
difference of advantages. And, of course, no account
can be given of the principle which determines the
unequal distribution of the divine benefits. The exhi
bition of the divine attributes is not to be brought
to measure of numbers or proportions. But human
statements concerning the dealings of God with man
kind, hypotheses and arguments about them, may
very usefully be so tested. Truly, the abstract or
philosophical difficulty may be as great concerning a
small number of persons unprovided for, or, as might
be inferred from some doctrinal statements, not equi
tably dealt with, in the divine dispensations, as con
cerning a large one ; but it does not so force itself
on the imagination and heart of the generality
of observers. The difficulty, though not new in
itself, is new as to the great increase in the numbers
of those who feel it, and in the practical urgency
for discovering an answer, solution, or neutralization
for it, if we would set many unquiet souls at rest.

The National Church. 155

From the same source of the advance of general
knowledge respecting the inhabitancy of the world
issues another inquiry concerning a promise, pro
phecy, or assertion of Scripture. For the commis
sion of Jesus to his Apostles was to preach the gos
pel to all nations/ to every creature / and St. Paul
says of the gentile world, But I say have they not
heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the
earth, and their words unto the ends of the world/
(Eom. x. 18), and speaks of the gospel which was
preached to every nation under Heaven/ (Col. i. 23),
when it has never yet been preached even to the half.
Then, again, it has often been appealed to as an evi
dence of the supernatural origin of Christianity, and
as an instance of supernatural assistance vouchsafed
to it in the first centuries, that it so soon overspread
the world. It has seemed but a small leap of about
three hundred years to the age of Constantine, if in
that time, not to insist upon the letter of the texts
already quoted, the conversion of the civilized world
could be accomplished. It may be known only to the
more learned, that it was not accomplished with respect
to the Roman empire even then ; that the Christians of
the East cannot be fairly computed at more than half
the population, nor the Christians of the West at so
much as a third, at the commencement of that em
peror s reign. But it requires no learning to be aware
that neither then nor subsequently have the Christians
amounted to more than a fourth part of the people of
the earth ; and it is seen to be impossible to appeal
any longer to the wonderful spread of Christianity in
the three first centuries, as a special evidence of the
wisdom and goodness of God.

So likewise a very grave modification of an evidence*
heretofore current must ensue in another respect, in
consequence of an increased knowledge of other facts
connected with the foregoing. It has been customary
to argue that, a priori, a supernatural revelation was to

156 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

be expected at the time when Jesus Christ was mani
fested upon the earth, by reason of the exhaustion of all
natural or unassisted human efforts for the ameliora
tion of mankind. The state of the w^orld, it has been
customary to say, had become so utterly corrupt and
hopeless under the Roman sway, that a necessity and
special occasion was presented for an express divine
intervention. Our recently enlarged ethnographical
information shows such an argument to be altogether
inapplicable to the case. If we could be judges of the
necessity for a special divine intervention, the stronger
necessity existed in the East. There immense popula
tions, like the Chinese, had never developed the idea
of a personal God, or had degenerated from a once
pure theological creed, as in India, from the reli
gion of the Yedas. Oppressions and tyrannies, caste-
distinctions, common and enormous vices, a polluted
idolatrous worship, as bad as the worst which dis
graced Eome, Greece, or Syria, had prevailed for ages.

It would not be very tasteful, as an exception to
this description, to call Buddhism the gospel of
India, preached to it five or six centuries before the
Gospel of Jesus was proclaimed in the nearer East.
But on the whole it would be more like the realities of
things, as we can now behold them, to say that the
Christian revelation was given to the western world,
because it deserved it better and was more prepared
for it than the East. Philosophers, at least, had
anticipated in speculation some of its dearest hopes,
and had prepared the way for its self-denying ethics.

There are many other sources of the modern ques
tionings of traditional Christianity which cannot now
be touched upon, originating like those which have been
mentioned, in a change of circumstances wherein ob
servers are placed; whereby their thoughts are turned in
new directions, and they are rendered dissatisfied with
old modes of speaking. But such a difficulty as that
respecting the souls of heathendom, which must now

The National Church. 157

i

come closely home to multitudes among us, will dis
appear, if it be candidly acknowledged that the words
of the New Testament, which speak of the preaching
of the Grospel to the whole world, were limited to the
understanding of the times when they were spoken ;
that doctrines concerning salvation, to be met with in
it, are for the most part applicable only to those to
whom the preaching of Christ should come ; and that
we must draw our conclusions respecting a just
dealing hereafter with the individuals who make up
the sum of heathenism, rather from reflections sug
gested by our own moral instincts than from the ex
press declarations of Scripture writers, who had no
such knowledge, as is given to ourselves, of the ampli
tude of the world, which is the scene of the divine
manifestations.

Moreover, to our great comfort, there have been
preserved to us words of the Lord Jesus himself, de
claring that the conditions of men in another world
will be determined by their moral characters in this,
and not by their hereditary or traditional creeds ; and
both many words and the practice of the great Apostle
Paul, within the range which was given him, tend to
the same result. He has been thought even to make
an allusion to the Buddhist Dkarmma, or law, when
he said, When the gentiles which have not the law
do by nature the things contained in the law, these
having not the law are a law unto themselves, which
show the work of the law written in their hearts/ &c.
(Rom. i. f4, 15.) However this may be, it is evident
that if such a solution as the above is accepted, a
variety of doctrinal statements hitherto usual, Cal-
vinistic and Lutheran theories on the one hand, and
sacramental and hierarchical ones on the other, must
be thrown into the background, if not abandoned.

There may be a long future during which the
present course of the world shall last. Instead of its
drawing near the close of its existence, as repre-

158 Seances liutoriques de Geneve.

sented in Millennarian or Rabbinical fables, and with,
so many more souls, according to some interpreta
tions of the Grospel of Salvation, lost to Satan in
every age and in every nation, than have been won
to Christ, that the victory would evidently be on the
side of the Fiend, we may yet be only at the com
mencement of the career of the great Spiritual Con
queror even in this world. Nor have we any right to
say that the effects of what He does upon earth shall
not extend and propagate themselves in worlds to
come. But under any expectation of the duration
of the present secular constitution, it is of the deepest
interest to us, both as observers and as agents, placed
evidently at an epoch when humanity finds itself
under new conditions, to form some definite con
ception to ourselves of the way in which Christianity
is henceforward to act upon the world which is our
own.

Different estimates are made of the beneficial effects
already wrought by Christianity upon the secular as
pect of the world, according to the different points of
view from which it is regarded. Some endeavour,
from an impartial standing point, to embrace in one
panorama the whole religious history of mankind, of
which Christianity then becomes the most important
phase ; others can only look at such a history from
within some narrow chamber of doctrinal and eccle
siastical prepossessions. And anticipations equally
different for like reasons will be entertained by per
sons differently imbued, as to the form under which,
and the machinery by which, it shall hereafter be
presented with success, either to the practically un-
christianized populations of countries like our own,
or to peoples of other countries never as yet even
nominally christianized.

Although the consequences of what the Gospel does
will be carried on into other worlds, its work is to be
done here ; although some of its work here must be un-

The National Church. 159

seen, yet not all; nor much even of its unseen work with
out at least some visible manifestation and effects. The
invisible Church is to us a mere abstraction. Now it
is acknowledged on all hands, that to the multitudinist
principle are due the great external victories which the
Christian name has hitherto won. On the other hand,
it is alleged by the advocates of Individualism, that
these outward acquisitions and numerical accessions
have always been made at the expense of the purity
of the Church; and, also, that Scriptural authority
and the earliest practice is in favour of Individualism,
Moreover, almost all the corruptions of Christianity
are attributed by individualists to the effecting by
the Emperor Constantirie of an unholy alliance
between Church and State. Yet a fair review, as far
as there are data for it, of the state of Christianity
before the time of that emperor will leave us in at least
very great doubt, whether the Christian character was
really, in the anterior period, superior on the average
to what it has subsequently been. We may appeal
to the most ancient records extant, and even to the
Apostolic Epistles themselves, to show, that neither
in doctrine nor in morals did the primitive Christian
communities at all approach to the ideal which has
been formed of them. The moral defects of the
earliest converts are the subject of the gravest expostu
lation on the part of the Apostolic writers : and the
doctrinal features of the early Church are much more
undetermined than would be thought by those who
read them only through the ecclesiastical creeds.

Those who belong to very different theological schools
acknowledge at times, that they cannot with any cer
tainty find in the highest ecclesiastical antiquity the
dogmas which they consider most important. It is
customary with Lutherans to represent their doctrine
of justification by subjective faith as having died out
shortly after the Apostolic age. In fact, it never was
the doctrine of any considerable portion of the Church

160 Seances Hutoriques de Geneve.

till the time of the Reformation. It is not met with
in the immediately post- Apostolic writings, nor in the
Apostolic writings, except those of St. Paul, not even
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is of the Pauline
or Paulo- Johannean school. The faith at least of that
Epistle, the substance of things hoped for/ is a very
different faith from the faith of the Epistle to the
Romans, if the Lutherans are correct in representing
that to be, a conscious apprehending of the benefits
to the individual soul, of the Saviour s merits and
passion. Then, on the other hand, it is admitted,
even maintained, by a very different body of theolo
gians, as by the learned Jesuit Petavius and many
others, that the doctrine afterwards developed into the
Nicene and Athanasian, is not to be found explicitly
in the earliest Fathers, nor even in Scripture, although
provable by it. One polemical value of this view to
those who uphold it, is to show the necessity of an
inspired Church to develope Catholic truth.

But although the primitive Christians fell far short
both of a doctrinal and ethical ideal, there is this
remarkable distinction to be noted between the primi
tive aspects of doctrine and of ethics. The morals of
the first Christians were certainly very far below
the estimate which has been formed of them ; but
the standard by which they were measured was un
varying, lofty, and peculiar ; moreover, the nearer we
approach to the fountain head, the more definite do
we find the statement of the Christian principle, that
the source of religion is in the heart. On the contrary,
the nearer we come to the original sources of the
history, the less definite do we find the statements of
doctrines, and even of the facts from which the doc
trines were afterwards inferred. And, at the very first,
with our Lord Himself and His Apostles, as repre
sented to us in the New Testament, morals come
before contemplation, ethics before theoretics. In the
patristic writings, theoretics assume continually an

The National Church. 161

increasingly disproportionate value. Even within
the compass of our New Testament there is to be
found already a wonderful contrast between the words
of our Lord and such a discourse as the Epistle
to the Hebrews. There is not wanting, indeed, to
this Epistle an earnest moral appeal, but the greater
part of it is illustrative, argumentative, and contro
versial. Our Lord s discourses have almost all of
them a direct moral bearing. This character of His
words is certainly more obvious in the three first
Gospels than in the fourth; and the remarkable
unison of those Gospels, when they recite the Lord s
words, notwithstanding their discrepancies in some
matters of fact, compel us to think, that they embody
more exact traditions of what He actually said than
the fourth does. 1

As monuments or witnesses, discrepant in a certain
degree as to other particulars, the evidence afforded
by the three Synoptics to the Lord s own words is
the most precious element in the Christian records.
We are thereby placed at the very root of the Gospel
tradition. And these words of the Lord, taken in con
junction with the Epistle of St. James, and with the
first, or genuine, Epistle of St. Peter, leave no reason
able doubt of the general character of His teaching

The fourth Gospel has always been supposed to have been written with
a controversial purpose, and not to have been composed till from sixty to
seventy years after the events which it undertakes to narrate ; some critics,
indeed, think it was not of a date anterior to the year 140, and that it pre
supposes opinions of a Valentinian character, or even Montanist, which would
make it later still. At any rate it cannot, by external evidence, be attached
the person of St. John as its author, in the sense wherein moderns under
stand the word author : that is, there is no proof that St. John gives his
voucher as an eye and ear witness of all which is related in it. Many
persons shrink from a bond fide examination of the Gospel question/
because they imagine, that unless the four Gospels are received as perfectly
genuine and authentic that is, entirely the composition of the persons
whose names they bear, and without any admixture of legendary matter
or embellishment in their narratives, the only alternative is to suppose a
fraudulent design in those who did compose them. This is a supposition
from which common sense, and the moral instinct, alike revolt; but it is
happily not an only alternative.

M

162 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

having been what, for want of a better word, we must
perhaps call moral. But to represent the Spirit of
Christ as a moral Spirit is not merely to proclaim Him
as a Lawgiver, enacting the observance of a set of
precepts, but as fulfilled with a Spirit given to Him
* without measure/ of which, indeed, all men are par
takers who have a sense of what they * ought to be
and do ; yet flowing over from Him, especially on
those who perceive in His words, and in His life,
principles of ever- widening application to the circum
stances of their own existence ; who learn from Him
to penetrate to the root of their conscience, and to
recognise themselves as being active elements in the
moral order of the universe.

We may take an illustration of the relative value
in the Apostolic age of the doctrinal and moral prin
ciples, by citing a case which will be allowed to be
extreme enough. It is evident there were among the
Christian converts in that earliest period, those who had
no belief in a corporeal resurrection. Some of these
had, perhaps, been made converts from the sect of
the Sadducees, and had brought with them into the
Christian congregation the same doubts or negative
beliefs which belonged to them before their conver
sion. The Jewish church embraced in its bosom both
Pharisees and Sadducees : but our Lord, although
he expressly taught a resurrection, and argued with
the Sadducees on the subject, never treated them as
aliens from Israel because they did not hold that doc
trine ; is much more severe on the moral defects and
hypocrisies of the Pharisees than upon the doctrinal
defects of the Sadducees. The Christian Church was
recruited in its Jewish branch chiefly from the sect of
the Pharisees, and it is somewhat difficult for us to
realize the conversion of a Sadducee to Christianity,
retaining his Sadducee disbelief or scepticism. But,
the some among you who say that there is no re
surrection of the dead/ (i Cor. xv. 12, comp. 2 Tim.

TJte National Church. 163

ii. 18), can leave us in no doubt upon the matter,
that there were Christians of Sadducee or Gentile pre
judices, like those who mocked or those who hesitated
when Paul preached at Athens the resurrection of the
dead. But St. Paul argues with such elaborately in
that chapter, without expelling them from the Church,
although he always represents faith in the resurrec
tion as the corner-stone of the Christian belief. He
endeavours rather to conciliate and to remove objec
tions. First, he represents the rising to life again,
not as miraculous or exceptional, but as a law of
humanity, or at least of Christian and spiritualized
humanity; and he treats the resurrection of Christ,
not as a wonder, but as a prerogative instance.
Secondly, he shows, upon the doctrine of a spiritual
body, how the objections against a resurrection from
the gross conception of a flesh and blood body, fall to
the ground. 1 Now, if there might thus be Sadducee,
or quasi-Sadducee, Christians in the Church, their
Christianity must have consisted in an appreciation of
the moral spirit of Jesus, and in an obedience, such
as it might be, to the Christian precepts ; they could
have been influenced by no expectation of a future
recompense. Their obedience might or might not
be of as high an order as that which is so motived ;
it might have been a mere legal habit, or an exalted
disinterested life. Now, let us compare a person of
this description with such as those who are indicated,
(i Cor. xv. 19, 32) ; and we cannot think that St. Paul
is there speaking of himself personally, but of the ge
neral run of persons reluctant to exercise self-restraint
and to expose themselves to persecution for the Gos
pel s sake, yet induced to do so by the hope of a

1 So in Luke xx. 27-35, the Sadducees are dealt with in a like argumen
tative manner. They understood the doctrine of the resurrection to
imply the rising of men with such bodies as they now have ; the case
supposed by them loses its point when the distinction is revealed between
the animal and the angelic bodies.

M 2

164 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

future recompense. Let us consider these two de
scriptions of persons. The one class is defective in
the Christian doctrine, and in the most fundamental
article of the Apostle s preaching, the other in the
Christian moral life ; can we say that the one defect
was more fatal than the other? We do not find the
Apostle excommunicating these Corinthians, who said
there was no resurrection of the dead. 1 On the other
hand, we know it was only in an extreme case that
he sanctioned excommunication for the cause of
immorality. And upon the whole, if we cannot
effectually compare the person deficient in a
true belief of the resurrection, with an immoral
or evil liver if we can only say they were both bad
Christians at least we have no reason to determine
that the good liver who disbelieved the resurrection
was treated by St. Paul as less of a Christian than the
evil liver who believed it. We cannot suppose the
evil life always to have brought on the disbelief in the
doctrine, nor the disbelief in the doctrine to have issued
always in an evil life.

Now, from what has been said we gather two im
portant conclusions : first, of the at least equal value
of the Christian life, as compared with the Christian
doctrine ; and, secondly, of the retaining within the
Church, both of those who were erroneous and defec
tive in doctrine, and of those who were by their lives
unworthy of their profession ; they who caused di-

1 St. Paul delivered to Satan (whatever that may mean), Hymenseus,
who maintained the resurrection to be past already, most likely meaning
it was only a moral one ; but it does not appear it was for this offence he
is so mentioned in conjunction with Alexander, and their provocation is not
described : where he is said to have taught that the resurrection is past
already, he is in companionship with Philetus, and nothing is added of any
punishment of either. These strange opinions afterwards hardened into
heretical doctrine. Tertull. de Prcescriptione Hcer. c. xxxiii. Paulus in
i ma ad Corinthios notat negatores et dubitatores resurrectionis. Ha9c
opinio propria Sadducseorum : partem ejus usurpat Marcion et Apelles, et
Valentinus et si qui alii resurrectionem carnis infringunt eque tangit eos
qui dicerent factam jam resurrectionem : id de se Valentini adseverant.

The National Church. 165

visions and heresies were to be marked and avoided
but not expelled, and if any called a brother were
a notoriously immoral person, the rest were enjoined,
no not to eat with him, but he was not to be refused
the name of brother or Christian, (i Cor. v. n.)

It would be difficult to devise a description of a
multitudinist Church, exhibiting more saliently the
worst defects which can attend that form, than this
which is taken from the evidence of the Apostolic
Epistles. We find the Pauline Churches to have
comprised, not only persons of the truest doctrinal in
sight, of the highest spiritual attainments, of martyr-
like self-devotion, but of the strangest and most in
congruous beliefs, and of the most unequal and incon
sistent practice. The individualist could say nothing
more derogatory of any multitudinist Church, not
even of a national one ; unless, perhaps, he might say
this, that less distinction is made within such a
Church itself, and within all modern Churches, be
tween their better and worse members, than was made
in the Apostolic Churches. Any judicial sentence of
excommunication was extremely rare in the Apostolic
age, as we have seen, and the distinction between the
worthy and unworthy members of the Church was to
be marked, not by any public and authoritative act,
but by the operation of private conduct and opinion.

The Apostolic Churches were thus multitudinist, and
they early tended to become National Churches ; from
the first they took collective names from the localities
where they were situate. And it was natural
and proper they should, except upon the Calvinistic
theory of conversion. There is some show of reason
able independence, some appearance of applying the
Protestant liberty of private judgment, in maintaining
the Christian unlawfulness of the union of Church and
State, corruption of national establishments, and like
propositions. But it will be found, that where they
are maintained by serious and religious people, they.

166 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

are parts of a Calvinistic system, and are held in con
nexion with peculiar theories of grace, immediate
conversion, and arbitrary call. It is as merely a Calvin
istic and Congregational commonplace to speak of the
unholy union of Church and State accomplished by
Constantine, as it is a Romish commonplace to
denounce the unholy schism accomplished by Henry
the Eighth. But in fact both those sovereigns only
carried out, chiefly for their own purposes, that which
was already in preparation by the course of events ;
even Henry would not have broken with the Pope it
he had not seen the public mind to be in some degree
ripe for it, nor would Constantine have taken the first
steps towards an establishment of Christianity, unless
the empire had already been growing Christian.

Unhappily, together with his inauguration of Multi-
tudinism, Constantine also inaugurated a principle
essentially at variance with it, the principle of
doctrinal limitation. It is very customary to attribute
the necessity of stricter definitions of the Christian
creed from time to time to the rise of successive
heresies. More correctly, there succeeded to the
fluid state of Christian opinion in the first century
after Christ, a gradual hardening and systematizing
of conflicting views ; and the opportunity of reverting
to the freedom of the Apostolic and immediately suc
ceeding periods, was finally lost for many ages by the
sanction given by Constantine to the decisions of
Nica3a. We cannot now be very good judges, whether
it would have been possible, together with the esta
blishment of Christianity as the imperial religion, to en
force forbearance between the great antagonisms which
were then in dispute, and to have insisted on the maxim,
that neither had a right to limit the common Christianity
to the exclusion of the other. At all events a princi
ple at variance with a true Multitudinism was then
recognised. All parties it must be acknowledged
were equally exclusive. And exclusion and definition

Tlie National Church. 167

have since been the rule for almost all Churches, more
or less, even when others of their principles might
seem to promise a greater freedom.

That the members of a Calvinistic Church, as in the
Geneva of Calvin and Beza,or in the Church of Scotland,
should coincide with the members of the State that
* election and effectual call should be hereditary, is, of
course, too absurd to suppose ; and the congregational
Calvinists are more consistent than the Calvinists of
Established Churches. Of Calvinism, as a system of
doctrine, it is not here proposed to say anything,
except, that it must of necessity be hostile to every
other creed ; and the members of a Calvinistic Church
can never consider themselves but as parted by an in
superable distinction from all other professors of the
Gospel ; they cannot stand on a common footing, in
any spiritual matter, with those who belong to the
world, that is, with all others than themselves. The
exclusiveness of a multitudinist Church, which makes,
as yet, the ecclesiastical creeds the terms of its com
munion, may cease when that test or limitation is
repealed. But the exclusiveness of a Calvinistic
Church, whether free from the creeds or not, is in
herent in its principles. There is no insuperable
barrier between Congregationalists not being Cal
vinists, and a multitudinist Church which should
liberate itself sufficiently from the traditional symbols.
Doctrinal limitations in the multitudinist form of
Church are not essential to it ; upon larger knowledge
of Christian history, upon a more thorough acquaint
ance with the mental constitution of man, upon an
understanding of the obstacles they present to a true
Catholicity, they may be cast off. Nor is a multi
tudinist Church necessarily or essentially hierarchical,
in any extreme or superstitious sense ; it can well
admit, if not pure Congregationalism, a large admix
ture of the congregational spirit. Indeed, a com
bination of the two principles will alone keep any

168 Seances Historiques de Geneve.

Church, in health and vigour. Too great importance
attached to a hierarchical order will lead into supersti
tions respecting Apostolical succession, ministerial
illumination, supernatural sacramental influence ; mere
Congregationalism tends to keep ministers and people
at a dead spiritual level. A just recognition and
balance of the two tendencies, allows the emerging of
the most eminent of the congregation into offices for
which they are suited ; so that neither are the true
hierarchs and leaders of thought and manners drawn
down and made to succumb to a mere democracy, nor
those clothed in the priests robe who have no true
unction from above. And this just balance between the
hierarchy and the congregation would be at least as
attainable in the national form of Church as in any
other, if it were free from dogmatical tests and similar
intellectual bondage. But there are some prejudices
against Nationalism which deserve to be farther con
sidered.

It was natural for a Christian in the earliest
period to look upon the heathen State in which he
found himself as if it belonged to the kingdom of
Satan and not to that of God ; and consecrated as it
was, in all its offices, to the heathen divinities, to
consider it a society having its origin from the powers
of darkness, not from the Lord of light and life. In
the Apostolic writers this view appears rather in the
First Epistle of St. John than with St. Paul. The
horizon which St. John s view embraced was much
narrower than St. Paul s ;

Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.

If the love felt and inculcated by St. John towards
the brethren was the more intense, the charity with
which St. Paul comprehended all men was the more
ample ; and it is not from every point of view we
should describe St. John as pre-eminently the Apostle
of love. With St. John, the whole world lieth in

TJte National Church. 169

wickedness/ while St. Paul exhorts prayers and sup
plications to be made for all men, for kings, and for all
that are in authority/ Taking a wide view of the world
and its history, we must acknowledge political constitu
tions of men to be the work of God Himself; they are
organizations into which human society grows by
reason of the properties of the elements which generate
it. But the primitive Christians could scarcely be ex
pected to see, that ultimately the Gospel was to have
sway in doing more perfectly that which the heathen
religions were doing imperfectly ; that its office should
be, not only to quicken the spirit of the individual and
to confirm his future hopes, but to sanctify all social
relations and civil institutions, and to enter into the
marrow of the national life ; whereas heathenism had
only decorated the surface of it.

Heathendom had its national Churches. Indeed,
the existence of a national Church is not only a per
missible thing, but is necessary to the completion of
a national life, and has shown itself in all nations,
when they have made any advance in civilization. It
has been usual, but erroneous, to style the Jewish con
stitution a theocracy in a peculiar and exclusive sense,
as if the combination of the religious and civil life
had been confined to that people. Even among bar
barous tribes the fetish-man establishes an authority
over the rest, quite as much from the yearning of others
after guidance as from his own superior cunning.
Priesthoods have always been products. Priests have
neither been, as some would represent, a set of delibe
rate conspirators against the free thoughts of man
kind ; nor, on the other hand, have they been the sole
divinely commissioned channels for communication of
spiritual truth. If all priests and ministers of religion
could at one moment be swept from the face of the
earth, they would soon be reproduced. If the human
race, or a given people and a recent generation
saw an instance of something like it in no distant

170 The National Church.

nation were resolved into its elements, and all its
social and religious institutions shattered to pieces,
it would reconstruct a political framework, and
a spiritual organization, re-constituting governors,
laws, and magistrates, educators, and ministers of
religion.

The distinction between the Jewish people and the
other nations, in respect of this so-called theocracy,
is but feebly marked on both sides. For the religious
element was much * stronger than has been supposed
in other nationalities, and the priesthood was by no
means supreme in the Hebrew State. 1

Constantly the title occurs in the Hebrew Scrip
tures, of the Lord s people/ with appeals to Jeho
vah as their Supreme Governor, Protector, and Judge.
And so it is with polytheistic nations ; they are the
offspring of the gods ; the deities are their guides and
guardians, the authors of their laws and customs ;
their worship is interwoven with the whole course of
political and social life. It will of course be said, the
entire difference is no more than this the object of
worship in the one case was the true God, in the other

1 Previous to the time of the divided kingdom, the Jewish history pre
sents little which is thoroughly reliable. The taking of Jerusalem hy
Shishak is for the Hebrew history that which the sacking of Rome by
the Gauls is for the Roman. And from no facts ascertainable is it possible
to infer there was any early period during which the Government by
the priesthood was attended with success. Indeed the greater pro
bability seems on the side of the supposition, that the priesthood, with
its distinct offices and charge, was constituted by Royalty, and that the
higher pretensions of the priests were not advanced till the reign of Josiah.
There is no evidence of the priesthood ever having claimed a supremacy
over the kings, as if it had been in possession of an oracular power; in
the earlier monarchy the kings offer sacrifice, and the rudiments of a
political and religious organization, which prevailed in the period of the
Judges, cannot be appealed to as pre-eminently a theocracy. At any rate,
nothing could be more unsuccessful, as a government, whatever it might
be called. Indeed, the theory of the Jewish theocracy, seems built chiefly
upon some expressions in I Sam. viii., xii. Samuel, however, with whose go
vernment the Israelites were dissatisfied, was not a priest but a prophet ;
and the whole of that part of the narrative is conceived in the prophe
tical, not in the priestly interest.

T7ie National Church. 171

cases idols or demons. But it is very clear to un
prejudiced persons, that the conceptions which the
Hebrews formed of Jehovah, though far superior to
the conceptions embodied in any other national reli
gion, were obscured by figurative representations of
Him in accordance with the character of His worship
pers. The passions ascribed to Him were not those
most base and degrading ones attributed to their deities
by the pagans ; and on that account it has been less easy
to separate the figurative description from the true idea
of Him. The better pagans could easily perceive the
stories of their gods to have been, at the best, alle
gories, poetical embellishments, inventions of some
kind or other. Jews did not perceive, that the attri
bution of wrath and jealousy to their God could only
be by a figure of speech ; and what is worse, it is diffi
cult to persuade many Christians of the same thing,
and solemn inferences from the figurative expressions
of the Hebrew literature have been crystallized into
Christian doctrine.

All things sanctioned among the Jews are certainly
not to be imitated by us, nor all pagan institutions to
be abhorred. In respect of a State religion, Jew and
Gentile were more alike than has been thought. All
nations have exhibited, in some form or another, the
development of a public religion, and have done so by
reason of tendencies inherent in their nationality.
The particular form of the religion has been due to
various causes. Also in periods of transition there
would, for a time, be a breaking in upon this feature
of national life. While prophets, philosophers, re
formers, were at work, or some new principle winning
its way, the national uniformity would be disturbed.
So it was at the first preaching of the Gospel ; St.
Paul and the Lord Jesus himself offered it to the
Jews as a nation, on the multitudinist principle ; but
when they put it from them, it must make pro
gress by kindling a fire in the earth, even to the

172 The National Church.

dividing families, two against three and three against
two. Thereupon Christians appear for a while to he
aliens from their countries and commonwealths, hut
only for a while. We must not confound with an
essential principle of Christianity that which only
resulted from a temporary necessity. The individu
alist principle may have been the right one for a time,
and under certain circumstances, not consequently the
right one, under all circumstances, nor even the possible
one. Tn this question, as in that of hierarchy, and in
various ceremonial discussions, the appeal to a particular
primitive antiquity is only an appeal from the whole
experience of Christendom to a partial experience
limited to a short period. Moreover, as to the mind of
Jesus himself with respect to Nationalism it is fully
revealed in those touching words, preserved both in
the first and third Gospels, How often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not/

Christianity was therefore compelled, as it were
against its will, and in contradiction to its proper
design, to make the first steps in its progress by cut
ting across old societies, filtering into the world by
individual conversions, showing, nevertheless, from
the very first, its multitudinist tendencies ; and before
it could comprehend countries or cities, embracing
families and households, the several members of which
must have been on very different spiritual levels (Acts
xvi. 31-34). The Boman world was penetrated in the
first instance by an individual and domestic Christianity,
to which was owing the first conversion of our own
country ; in the second or Saxon conversion, the people
were Christianized en masse. Such conversions as this
last may not be thought to have been worth much, but
they were worth the abolition of some of the grossness
of idolatry ; they effected all of which the subjects of
them were for the time capable, and prepared the way
for something better in another generation. The con-

The National Church. 173

versions operated by the German Apostle, Boniface,
were of the same multitudinous kind as those of Austin
and Paulinus in Britain, and for a like reason ; in both
cases the development of Christianity necessarily fol
lowed the forms of the national life.

In some parts of the West this national and natural
tendency was counteracted by the shattering which
ensued upon the breaking up of the Bom an empire.
And in those countries especially which had been
longest and most closely connected with Pagan Borne,
such as Italy itself, Spain, France, the people felt
themselves unable to stand alone in their spiritual in
stitutions, and were glad to lean on some other prop
and centre, so far as was still allowed them. The
Teutonic Churches were always more free than the
Churches of the Latinized peoples, though they them
selves had derived their Christianity from Boman Mis
sionaries ; and among the Teutonic Churches alone has
a freedom from extraneous dominion as yet established
itself. For a time even these could only adopt the
forms of doctrine and practice which were current in
other parts of the West. But those forms were neither
of the essence of a national Church, nor even of the
essence of a Christian Church. A national Church
need not, historically speaking, be Christian, nor, if it
be Christian, need it be tied down to particular forms
which have been prevalent at certain times in Christen
dom. That which is essential to a national Church is,
that it should undertake to assist the spiritual pro
gress of the nation and of the individuals of which it
is composed, in their several states and stages. Not
even a Christian Church should expect all those
who are brought under its influence to be, as a matter
of fact, of one and the same standard, but should en
deavour to raise each according to his capacities, and
should give no occasion for a reaction against itself,
nor provoke the individualist element into separatism.
It would do this if it submitted to define itself other-

174 The National Church.

wise than by its own nationality if it represented
itself as a part rather than a whole, as deriving autho
rity and not claiming it, as imitative and not original.
It will do this also, if while the civil side of the
nation is fluid, the ecclesiastical side of it is fixed ; if
thought and speech are free among all other classes,
and not free among those who hold the office of
leaders and teachers of the rest in the highest things ;
if they are to be bound to cover up instead of
opening ; and having, it is presumed, possession of
the key of knowledge, are to stand at the door with it,
permitting no one to enter, unless by force. A
national Church may also find itself in this position,
which, perhaps, is our own. Its ministers may become
isolated between two other parties between those on
the one hand who draw fanatical inferences from
formularies and principles which they themselves are
not able or are unwilling to repudiate ; and on the
other, those who have been tempted, in impatience of
old fetters, to follow free thought heedlessly wherever
it may lead them. If our own Churchmen expect to
discourage and repress a fanatical Christianity, with
out a frank appeal to reason, and a frank criticism of
Scripture, they will find themselves without any
effectual arms for that combat ; or if they attempt
to check inquiry by the repetition of old forms
and denunciations, they will be equally powerless,
and run the especial risk of turning into bitter
ness the sincerity of those who should be their best
allies, as friends of truth. They should avail
themselves of the aid of all reasonable persons
for enlightening the fanatical religionist, making
no reserve of any seemingly harmless or apparently
serviceable superstitions of their own ; they should
also endeavour to supply to the negative theologian
some positive elements in Christianity, on grounds
more sure to him than the assumption of an objective
faith once delivered to the saints/ which he cannot

The National Church. 175

identify with the creed of any Church as yet known
to him.

It has heen matter of great boast within the
Church of England, in common with other Protestant
Churches, that it is founded upon the Word of God/
a phrase which begs many a question when applied to
the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments,
a phrase which is never applied to them by any of the
Scriptural authors, and which, according to Protestant
principles, never could be applied to them by any
sufficient authority from without. In that which
may be considered the pivot Article of the Church this
expression does not occur, but only f Holy Scrip
ture/ Canonical Books/ Old and New Testaments/
It contains no declaration of the Bible being through
out supernaturally suggested, nor any intimation as
to which portions of it were owing to a special divine
illumination, nor the slightest attempt at defining
inspiration, whether mediate or immediate, whether
through, or beside, or overruling the natural faculties
of the subject of it, not the least hint of the relation
between the divine and human elements in the com
position of the Biblical books. Even if the Fathers
have usually considered canonical as synonymous
with f miraculously inspired/ there is nothing to
show that their sense of the word must necessarily
be applied in our own sixth Article. The word itself
may mean either books ruled and determined by the
Church, or regulative books ; and the employment of
it in the Article hesitates between these two significa
tions. For at one time Holy Scripture and canoni
cal books are those books c of whose authority never
was any doubt in the Church/ 1 that is, they are de-

This clause is taken from the Wirtemburg Confession (1552), which
proceeds : Hanc Scripturam credimus et confitemur esse oraculum
Spiritus Sancti, caelestibus testimoniis ita coufirraatum, ut Si Angeius de
ccelo aliud prcedicaverit, anathema sit.

176 The National Church.

termined books ; and then the other, or uncanonical
books, are described as those which the Church doth
not apply to establish any doctrine/ that is, they are
not regulative books. And if the other principal
Churches of the Reformation have gone farther in de
finition in this respect than our own, that is no rea
son we should force the silence of our Church into
unison with their expressed declarations, but rather
that we should rejoice in our comparative freedom. 1
The Protestant feeling among us has satisfied itself
in a blind way with the anti-Eoman declaration, that
1 Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to
salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor
may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any
man, that it should be believed as an article of the
faith/ &c., and without reflecting how very much is
wisely left open in that Article. For this declaration
itself is partly negative and partly positive ; as to its
negative part it declares that nothing no clause of
creed, 110 decision of council, no tradition or exposi
tion is to be required to be believed on peril of salva
tion, unless it be Scriptural ; but it does not lay down,
that everything which is contained in Scripture must
be believed on the same peril. Or it may be expressed
thus : the Word of God is contained in Scripture,
whence it does not follow that it is co-extensive with it.
The Church to which we belong does not put that stum
bling-block before the feet of her members ; it is their
own fault if they place it there for themselves, authors
of their own offence. Under the terms of the sixth
Article one may accept literally, or allegorically, or as

1 Thus the Helvetic Confession states : We believe and profess that
the Canonical Scriptures of the Holy Prophets and Apostles, of the Old
and New Testaments, are the very Word of God, and have sufficient
authority from themselves and not from men. The Saxon Confession
refers to the creeds as interpreters of Scripture nos vera fide amplecti
omnia scripta Prophetarum et Apostolorum ; et quidem in hac ipsa nativa
sententia, quse expressa est in Symbolis, Apostolico, Nicseno et Atha-
nasiano. Be Doctrina.

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parable, or poetry, or legend, the story of a serpent
tempter, of an ass speaking with man s voice, of an
arresting of the earth s motion, of a reversal of its
motion, of waters standing in a solid heap, of witches,
and a variety of apparitions. So, under the terms of
the sixth Article, every one is free in judgment as to
the primeval institution of the Sabbath, the univer
sality of the deluge, the confusion of tongues, the cor
poreal taking up of Elijah into Heaven, the nature of
angels, the reality of demoniacal possession, the person
ality of Satan, and the miraculous particulars of many
events. So the dates and author ship of the several books
received as canonical are not determined by any autho
rity, nor their relative value and importance.

Many evils have flowed to the people of England,
otherwise free enough, from an extreme and too ex
clusive Scripturalism. The rudimentary education of
a large number of our countrymen has been mainly
carried on by the reading of the Scriptures. They
are read by young children in thousands of cases,
where no attempt could be made, even if it were de
sired, to accompany the reading with the safeguard of
a reasonable interpretation. A Protestant tradition
seems to have prevailed, unsanctioned by any of our
formularies, that the words of Scripture are imbued with
a supernatural property, by which their true sense can
reveal itself even to those who, by intellectual or edu
cational defect, would naturally be incapable of appre
ciating it. There is no book indeed, or collection of
books, so rich in words which address themselves in
telligibly to the unlearned and learned alike. But those
who are able to do so ought to lead the less educated to
distinguish between the different kinds of words which
it contains, between the dark patches of human passion
and error which form a partial crust upon it, and
the bright centre of spiritual truth within.

Some years ago a vehement controversy was carried
on, whether the Scripture ought to be distributed in this

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178 The National Church.

country with or without note and comment. It was
a question at issue between two great parties and two
great organized societies. But those who advocated
the view which was the more reasonable in itself, did
so in the interest of an unreasonable theory ; they in
sisted on the authority of the Church in an hierarchi
cal sense, and carried out their commentations in dry
catenas of doctrine and precept. On the other side,
the views of those who were for circulating the Bible
without note or comment were partly superstitious,
and partly antagonistic in the way of a protest
against the hierarchical claim. The Scriptures have
no doubt been received with sufficient readiness by all
classes of English people, for there has been something
very agreeable to some of the feelings of the Englishman
in the persuasion that he possesses, independently of
priest or clergyman, the whole matter of his religion
bound up in the four corners of a portable book,
furnishing him, as he thinks, with an infallible test
of the doctrine which he hears from his preacher, with
a substitute for all teaching, if he so pleases, and
with the complete apparatus necessary, should he
desire to become the teacher of others in his turn.
But the result of this immense circulation of the
Scriptures for many years by all parties, has been
little adequate to what might have been expected
beforehand, from the circulation of that which is in
itself so excellent and divine.

It is ill to be deterred from giving expression to the
truth or from prosecuting the investigation of it, from
a fear of making concessions to revolutionary or cap
tious dispositions. For the blame of this captiousness,
when it exists, lies in part at the door of those who
ignore the difficulties of others, because they may not
feel any for themselves. To this want of wisdom on
the part of the defenders of old opinions is to be
attributed, that the noting of such differences as are
to be found in the Evangelical narratives, or in the

The National Church. 179

books of Kings and Chronicles, takes the appearance
of an attack upon a holy thing. The like ill consequen
ces follow from not acknowledging freely the extent of
the human element in the sacred books ; for if this were
freely acknowledged on the one side, the divine element
would be frankly recognised on the other. Good men
and they cannot be good without the Spirit of God
may err in facts, be weak in memory, mingle imagi
nation with memory, be feeble in inferences, confound
illustration with argument, be varying in judgment
and opinion. But the Spirit of absolute Truth cannot
err or contradict Himself, if He speak immediately, even
in small things, accessories, or accidents. Still less can
we suppose Him to suggest contradictory accounts, or
accounts only to be reconciled in the way of hypothesis
and conjecture. Some things indited by the Holy
Spirit may appear to relate to objects of which the
whole cannot be embraced by the human intellect,
and it may not, as to such objects, be possible to
reconcile opposite sides of Divine truth. Whether
this is the general character of Scripture revelations
is not now the question ; but the theory is suppo-
sable and should be treated with respect, in regard to
some portions of Scripture. To suppose, on the other
hand, a supernatural influence to cause the record of
that which can only issue in a puzzle, is to lower
infinitely our conception of the Divine dealings in
respect of a special revelation.

Thus it may be attributed to the defect of our
understandings, that we should be unable altogether
to reconcile the aspects of the Saviour as presented to
us in the three first Gospels, and in the writings of St.
Paul and St. John. At any rate, there were current
in the primitive Church very distinct Christologies.
But neither to any defect in our capacities, nor to
any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design,
nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narra
tors, can we attribute the difficulty, if not irnpossi-

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180 The National Church.

bility, of reconciling the genealogies of St. Matthew
and St. Luke, or the chronology of the Holy Week,
or the accounts of the Eesurrection ; nor to any
mystery in the subject-matter can be referred the
uncertainty in which the New Testament writings
leave us, as to the descent of Jesus Christ according
to the flesh, whether by his mother He were of the
tribe of Judah, or of the tribe of Levi.

If the national CJiurch is to be true to the multitu-
dinist principle, and to correspond ultimately to the
national character, the freedom of opinion which
belongs to the English citizen should be conceded to
the English Churchman; and the freedom which is
already practically enjoyed by the members of the
congregation, cannot without injustice be denied to
its ministers. A minister may rightly be expected to
know more of theology than the generality, or even
than the best informed of the laity ; but it is a strange
ignoring of the constitution of human minds, to expect
all ministers, however much they may know, to be of
one opinion in theoreticals, or the same person to be
subject to no variation of opinion at different periods
of his life. And it may be worth while to consider
how far a liberty of opinion is conceded by our exist
ing laws, civil and ecclesiastical. Along with great
openings for freedom it will be found there are some
restraints, or appearances of restraints, which require
to be removed.

As far as opinion privately entertained is concerned,
the liberty of the English clergyman appears already
to be complete. For no ecclesiastical person can be
obliged to answer interrogations as to his opinions,
nor be troubled for that which he has not actually
expressed, nor be made responsible for inferences which
other people may draw from his expressions. 1

Still, though there may be no power of inquisition

1 The oath ex officio in the ecclesiastical law, is defined to be an oath
whereby any person may be obliged to make any presentment of any
crime or offence, or to confess or accuse himself or herself of any criminal
matter or thing, whereby he or she may be liable to any censure, penalty,

The National Church. 181

into the private opinions either of ministers or people
in the Church of England, there may be some inter
ference with the expression of them ; and a great
restraint is supposed to be imposed upon the clergy
by reason of their subscription to the Thirty-nine
Articles. Yet it is more difficult than might be
expected, to define what is the extent of the legal
obligation of those who sign them ; and in this
case the strictly legal obligation is the measure of
the moral one. Subscription may be thought even
to be inoperative upon the conscience by reason of its
vagueness. For the act of subscription is enjoined,
but its effect or meaning nowhere plainly laid down ;
and it does not seem to amount to more than an
acceptance of the Articles of the Church as the formal
law to which the subscriber is in some sense subject.
What that subjection amounts to, must be gathered
elsewhere, for it does not appear on the face of the
subscription itself.

The ecclesiastical authority on the subject is to be
found in the Canons of 1603, the fifth and the thirty-

or punishment whatsoever. 4 Jac. The lords of the council at White
hall demanded of Pophain and Coke, chief justices, upon motion made by
the Commons in Parliament, in what cases the ordinary may examine any
person ex officio upon oath. They answered i. That the ordinary can
not constrain any man, ecclesiastical or temporal, to swear generally to
answer such interrogations as shall be administered to him, &c. 2. That
no man, ecclesiastical or temporal, shall be examined upon the secret
thoughts of his heart, or of his secret opinion, but something ought to be
objected against him, which he hath spoken or done. Thus 13 Jac.
Digkton and Holt were committed by the high commissioners because they
being convented for slanderous words against the book of Common Prayer
and the government of the Church, and being tendered the oath to be ex
amined, they refused. The case being brought before the K.B. on habeas
corpus, Coke, C.J., gave the determination of the Court. That they
ought to be delivered, because their examination is made to cause them to
accuse themselves of a breach of a penal law, which is against law, for
they ought to proceed against them by witnesses, and not intbrce them to
take an oath to accuse themselves. Then by 13 Car. 2, c. 12, it was en
acted, that it shall not be lawful for any person, exercising ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, to tender or administer to any person whatsoever the oath
usually called the oath ex-officio, or any other oath, whereby such person
to whom the same is tendered, or administered, may be charged, or com
pelled to coniess, or accuse, or to purge himself, or herself, of any criminal
matter or thing, &c. Burn s Eccl. Law, iii. 14, 15. Ed. Phillimore.

182 The National Church.

sixth. The fifth, indeed, may be applicable theoreti
cally both to lay and to ecclesiastical persons; practically
it can only concern those of whom subscription is
really required. It is entitled, Impugners of the Articles
of Religion established in this Church of England censured.
1 Whosoever shall hereafter affirm, that any of the nine
and thirty articles, &c., are in any part superstitious
or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good con
science subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated,
&c/ We need not stay to consider what the effects of
excommunication might be, but rather attend to the
definition which the canon itself supplies of impugn
ing/ It is stated to be the affirming, that any of the
Thirty-nine Articles are in any part superstitious or
erroneous/ Yet an Article may be very inexpedient,
or become so ; may be unintelligible, or not easily
intelligible to ordinary people ; it may be controversial,
and such as to provoke controversy and keep it alive
when otherwise it would subside ; it may revive un
necessarily the remembrance of dead controversies all
or any of these, without being erroneous ; and though
not superstitious/ some expressions may appear so,
such as those which seem to impute an occult opera
tion to the Sacraments. The fifth canon does not
touch the affirming any of these things, and more
especially, that the Articles present truths dis
proportionately, and relatively to ideas not now
current.

The other canon which concerns subscription is the
thirty- sixth, which contains two clauses explanatory
to some extent, of the meaning of ministerial sub
scription, That he alloweth the Book of Articles, &c/
and that he acknowledged the same to be agreeable
to the Word of Grod/ We allow many things which
we do not think wise or practically useful ; as the less
of two evils, or an evil which cannot be remedied, or
of which the remedy is not attainable, or is uncertain in
its operation, or is not in our power, or concerning
which there is much difference of opinion, or where

The National Church. 183

the initiation of any change does not belong to our
selves, nor the responsibility belong to^ ourselves,
either of the things as they are, or of searching for
something better. Many acquiesce in, submit to,
1 allow/ a law as it operates upon themselves which
they would be horror-struck to have enacted ; yet
they would gladly and in conscience, allow* and
submit to it, as part of a constitution under which
they live, against which they would never think of
rebelling, which they would on no account undermine,
for the many blessings of which they are fully grate
ful they would be silent and patient rather than
join, even in appearance, the disturbers and breakers
of its laws. Secondly, he acknowledgeth the same
to be agreeable to the Word of God. Some distinc
tions may be founded upon the word acknowledge/
He does not maintain, nor regard it as self-evident, nor
originate it as his own feeling, spontaneous opinion,
or conviction ; but when it is suggested to him, put
in a certain shape, when the intention of the framers
is borne in mind, their probable purpose and design
explained, together with the difficulties which sur
rounded them, he is not prepared to contradict, and
he acknowledges. There is a great deal to be said,
which had not at first occurred to him ; many other
better and wiser men than himself have acknowledged
the same thing why should he be obstinate ? Besides,
he is young, and has plenty of time to reconsider it ;
or he is old and continues to submit out of habit, and
it would be too absurd, at his time of life, to be setting
up as a Church reformer.

But after all, the important phrase is, that the
Articles are agreeable to the Word of God/ This
cannot mean that the Articles are precisely co-ex
tensive with the Bible, much less of equal authority
with it as a whole. Neither separately, nor alto
gether, do they embody all which is said in it, and
inferences which they draw from it are only good
relatively and secundum quid and quatenus concordant.

184 The National Church.

If their terms are Biblical terms, they must be pre
sumed to have the same sense in the Articles which
they have in the Scripture ; and if they are not all
Scriptural ones, they undertake in the pivot Article not
to contradict the Scripture. The Articles do not make
any assumption of being interpretations of Scripture
or developments of it The greater must include the
less, and the Scripture is the greater.

On the other hand, there may be some things in
the Articles which could not be contained, or have not
been contained, in the Scripture such as propositions
or clauses concerning historical facts more recent than
the Scripture itself; for instance, that there never has
been any doubt in the Church concerning the books
of the New Testament. For without including such
doubts as a fool might have, or a very conceited per
son, without carrying doubts founded upon mere cri
ticism and internal evidence only, to such an extent
as a Baur or even an Ewald, there was a time when
certain books existed and certain others were not as
yet written; for example, the Epistles of St. Paul
were anterior, probably to all of the Gospels, certainly
to that of St. John, and of course the Church could
not receive without doubt books not as yet composed.
But as the canon grew, book after book emerging into
existence and general reception, there were doubts as
to some of them, for a longer or shorter period, either
concerning their authorship or their authority. The

framers of the Articles were not deficient in learning,

.

and could not have been ignorant of the passages in
Eusebius where the different books current in Chris
tendom in his time are classified as genuine or acknow
ledged, doubtful and spurious. If there be an erro-
neousness in such a statement, as that there never was
any doubt in the Church concerning the book of the
Revelation, the Epistle to the Hebrews, or the second
of St. Peter, it cannot be an erroneousness in the sense
of the fifth canon, nor can it be at variance with
the Word of God according to the thirty-sixth. Such

The National Church. 185

tilings in the Articles as are beside the Scripture are
not in the contemplation of the canons. Much less can
historical questions not even hinted at in the Articles
be excluded from free discussion such as concern the
dates and composition of the several books, the com
pilation of the Pentateuch, the introduction of Daniel
into the Jewish canon, and the like with some books
of the New Testament the date and authorship, for
instance, of the fourth Gospel.

Many of those who would themselves wish the
Christian theology to run on in its old forms of ex
pression, nevertheless deal with the opinions of others,
which they may think objectionable, fairly as opinions.
There will always, on the other hand, be a few whose
favourite mode of warfare it will be, to endeavour to
gain a victory over some particular person who may
hold opinions they dislike, by entangling him in the
formularies. Nevertheless, our formularies do not
lend themselves very easily to this kind of warfare
Contra retiarium baculo.

We have spoken hitherto of the signification of sub
scription which may be gathered from the canons; there
is, also, a statute, a law of the land, which forbids,
under penalties, the advisedly and directly contradicting
any of them by ecclesiastics, and requires subscription
with declaration of assent from beneficed persons.
This statute (13 Eliz. c. 12), three hundred years old,
like many other old enactments, is not found to be
very applicable to modern cases; although it is only
about fifty years ago that it was said by Sir William
Scott to be in viridi observant-id.. Nevertheless, its
provisions would not easily be brought to bear on
questions likely to be raised in our own days. The
meshes are too open for modern refinements For
not to repeat concerning the word assent what
has been said concerning c allow and acknowledge/
let the Articles be taken according to an obvious
classification. Forms of expression, partly derived
from modern modes of thought on metaphysical sub-

1 8 6 The National Church .

jects, partly suggested by a better acquaintance than
heretofore with the unsettled state of Christian opinion
in the immediately post-apostolic age, may be adopted
with respect to the doctrines enunciated in the five
first Articles, without directly contradicting, impugn
ing, or refusing assent to them, but passing by the
side of them- -as with respect to the humanifying of the
Divine Word and to the Divine Personalities. Then
those which we have called the pivot Articles, concern
ing the rule of faith .and the sufficiency of Scripture,
are, happily, found to make no effectual provision for
an absolute uniformity, when once the freedom of
interpretation of Scripture is admitted ; they cannot
be considered as interpreting their own interpreter;
this has sometimes been called a circular proceeding ;
it might be resembled to a lever becoming its own
fulcrum. The Articles, again, which have a Lutheran
and Calvinistic sound, are found to be equally open,
because they are, for the most part, founded on the
very words of Scripture, and these, while worthy of
unfeigned assent, are capable of different interpreta
tions. Indeed, the Calvinistic and Arminian views
have been declared by a kind of authority to be both
of them tenable under the seventeenth Article ; and if
the Scriptural terms of election and predestina
tion may be interpreted in an anti-Calvinistic sense,
faith/ in the tenth and following Articles, need not
be understood in the Lutheran. These are instances
of legitimate affixing different significations to terms
in the Articles, by reason of different interpretations
of Scriptural passages.

If, however, the Articles of religion and the law of
the Church of England be in effect liberal, flexible, or
little stringent, is there any necessity for expressing
dissatisfaction with them, any sufficient provocation to
change ? There may be much more liberty in a Church
like our own, the law of which is always interpreted,
according to the English spirit, in the manner most

Tit e National Church . 187

favourable to those who are subject to its discipline,
than in one which, whether free or not from Articles,
might be empowered to develope doctrine and to de
nounce new heresies. Certainly the late Mr. Irving,
if he had been a clergyman of the Church of England,
could scarcely have been brought under the terms
of any ecclesiastical law of ours, for the expression
of opinions upon an abstruse question respecting the
humanity of Jesus Christ, which subjected him to
degradation in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
And this transition state may be a state of as much
liberty as the Church of England could in any way
as yet have been enabled to attain, a state of greater
practical liberty than has been attained in Churches
supposed to be more free ; it is a state of safety and
protection to those who use it wisely, under which a
farther freedom may be prepared.

But it is not a state which ought to be considered
final, either by the Church itself or by the nation.
It is very well for provisions which cease to be easily
applicable to modern cases to be suffered to fall into
desuetude, but after falling into desuetude they should
be repealed. Desuetude naturally leads to repeal.
Obsolete tests are a blot upon a modern system, and
there is always some danger lest an antiquated rule
may be unexpectedly revived for the sake of an odious
individual application ; when it has outlived its ge
neral regulative power, it may still be a trap for the
weaker consciences ; or when it has become powerless
as to penal consequences, it may serve to give a point
to invidious imputations.

And farther than this, the present apparent strin
gency of subscription as required of the clergy of the
Church of England does not belong to it as part of its
foundation, is not even coeval with its reconstruction
at the period of the Reformation. Eor the Canons are
of the date of 1-603, and the Act requiring the public
reading of the Thirty-nine Articles, with declaration

1S8 The National Church..

of assent by a benefieed person after his induction,
is the 1 3th Elizabeth. An enactment prohibiting the
bishops from requiring the subscriptions under the
third article of the thirty- sixth canon, together with
the repeal of T3th Elizabeth, except as to its second
section, would relieve many scruples, and make the
Church more national, without disturbing its ultimate
law. The Articles would then obviously become for
the clergy that which they are for the laity of the
Church, articles of - peace, not to be contradicted
by her sons/ as the wise and liberal Burnet de
scribed them : and there is forcible practical rea
son for leaving the Thirty-nine Articles as the
ultimate law of the Church, not to be contra
dicted, and for confining relaxation to the abolition
of subscription.

A large portion of the Articles were originally
directed against the corruptions of the Church of Rome,
and whatever may be thought of the unadvisableness of
retaining tests to exclude opinions which few think
of reviving in their old shape, these Roman doctrines
and practices are seen to be flourishing in full life and
vigour. And considering the many grievous provo
cations which the people of England have suffered
from the Papacy both in ancient and modern times, they
would naturally resist any change which might by
possibility weaken the barriers between the National
Church and the encroachments of the Church of Rome.
It is evident, moreover, that the act of signature to the
Thirty-nine Articles contributes nothing to the exclu
sion from the Church of Romish views. For, as it is,
opinions and practices prevail among some of the clergy,
which are extremely distasteful to the generality of
the people, by reason of their Romish character.
Those of the Articles which condemn the Romish
errors, cannot themselves be made so stringent as to
bar altogether the intrusion of some opinion of a
Roman tone, which the Reformers, if they could have
foreseen it, might have desired to exclude, and which

The National Church . 189

is equally strange and repugnant to the common sense
of the nation. No act of subscription can supply
this defect of stringency in the formulas themselves.
Now it would be impossible to secure the advantages
of freedom in one direction without making it equal
as far as it goes. We must endeavour to liberate
ourselves from the dominion of an unwise and really
unchristian principle with the fewest possible risks and
inconveniences.

Considering therefore the practical difficulties which
would beset any change, and especially those which
would attend, either the excepting of the anti-Romish
Articles from repeal or including them in it ; any
attempt at a relaxation of the clerical test should
prudently confine itself in our generation, to an aboli
tion of the act of subscription, leaving the Articles
themselves protected by the second section of the
Statute of Elizabeth and by the canons, against direct
contradiction or impugning.

For, the act of subscription being abolished, there
would disappear the invidious distinction between
the clergy and laity of the same communion, as if
there were separate standards for each of belief and
morals. There would disappear also a semblance of
a promissory oath on a subject which a promise
is incapable of reaching. No promise can reach
fluctuations of opinion and personal conviction. Open
teaching can, it is true, if it be thought wise, be
dealt with by the law and its penalties ; but the law
should content itself with saying, you shall not
teach or proclaim in derogation of my formularies ;
it should not require any act which appears to
signify I think/ Let the security be either the
penal or the moral one, not a commingling of the
two. It happens continually, that able and sincere
persons are deterred from entering the ministry of
the national Church by this consideration; they
would be willing to be subject to the law forbidding
them to teach Arianism or Pelagianism as what

190 The National Church.

sensible man in our day would desire to teacli them ?
but they do not like to say, or be thought to
say, that they assent to a certain number of anti-
Arian and anti-Pelagian propositions. And the absence
of vigorous tone not confined to one party in the
Church, which is to be lamented of late years in its
ministry, is to be attributed to the reluctance of the
stronger minds to enter an Order in which their intel
lects may not have free play. The very course of
preparation for ordination, tied down as it is in one
department to the study of the Articles, which must
perforce be proved consentaneous to the Word of God
according to some, and to Catholic antiquity according
to others, has an enervating effect upon the mind,
which is compelled to embrace much scholastic matter,
not as a history of doctrine, but as a system of truth
of which it ought to be convinced.

It may be easy to urge invidiously, with respect to
the impediments now existing to undertaking office
in the national Church, that there are other sects,
which persons dissatisfied with her formularies may
join, and where they may find scope for their activity
with little intellectual bondage. Nothing can be said
here, whether or not there might be elsewhere bondage
at least as galling, of a similar or another kind. But
the service of the national Church may well be re
garded in a different light from the service of a sect.
It is as properly an organ of the national life as a
magistracy, or a legislative estate. To set barriers
before the entrance upon its functions, by limitations
not absolutely required by public policy, is to infringe
upon the birthright of the citizens. And to lay down
as an alternative to striving for more liberty of thought
and expression within the Church of the nation, that
those who are dissatisfied may sever themselves and
join a sect, would be paralleled by declaring to poli
tical reformers, that they are welcome to expatriate
themselves, if they desire any change in the existing

The National Church . 191

forms of the constitution. The suggestion of the
alternative is an insult ; if it could be enforced, it would
be a grievous wrong.

There is another part of the subject which may
be slightly touched upon in this place --that of
the endowment of the national Church. This was
well described by Mr. Coleridge as the Nationalty.
In a certain sense, indeed, the nation or state is lord
paramount over all the property within its boun
daries. But it provides for the usufruct of the pro
perty in two different ways. The usufruct of private
property, as it is called, descends, according to our
laws, by inheritance or testamentary disposition, and
no specific services are attached to its enjoyment.
The usufruct of that which Coleridge called the
Nationalty circulates freely among all the families of
the nation. The enjoyment of it is subject to the
performance of special services, is attainable only by
the possession of certain qualifications. In accordance
with the strong tendency in England to turn every
interest into a right of so-called private property, the
nominations to the benefices of the national Church
have come, by an abuse, to be regarded as part of the
estates of patrons, instead of trusts, as they really are.
No trustee of any analogous property, of a grammar-
school for instance, would think of selling his right of
appointment ; he would consider the proper exercise of
the trust his duty ; much less would any court of law
acknowledge that a beneficial interest in the trust pro
perty was an asset belonging to the estate of the trustee.
If the nomination to the place of a schoolmaster ought
to be considered as purely fiduciary, much more should
the nomination of a spiritual person to his parochial
charge. Objections are made against our own national
Church founded upon these anomalies, which may in
time be rectified. Others are made against the very
principle of endowment.

It is said, that a fixed support of the minister

192 The National Church.

tends to paralyse both him and his people making
him independent of his congregation, and drying up
their liberality. It would be difficult, perhaps, to say
which would be the greater evil, for a minister to be
in all things independent of his people, or in all things
dependent upon them. But the endowed minister is
by no means independent of all restraints, as, for
instance, of the law of his Church and, which is much
more, of public opinion, especially of the opinion of his
own people. The unendowed minister is dependent
in all things, both upon the opinion of his people and
upon their liberality ; and frequent complaints tran
spire among Nonconformists of the want of some
greater fixity in the position and sustentation of their
ministers. In the case of a nationally endowed Church,
the people themselves contribute little or nothing to
its support. The Church of England is said to be the
richest Church in Europe, which is probably not true;
but its people contribute less to its support than the
members of any other Church in Christendom, whether
established or voluntary. And if the contributing
personally to the support of the ministry were the
only form which Christian liberality could take, the
stopping up the outflow of it would be an incalculable
evil. But it is not so ; there are a multitude of other
objects, even though the principal minister in a parish
or other locality were sufficiently provided for, to give
an outlet for Christian liberality. It may flow over
from more favoured localities where Churches are
sufficiently endowed, into more destitute districts and
into distant lands. This is so with ourselves ; and
those who are familiar with the statistics of the nume
rous voluntary societies in England for Christian and
philanthropic purposes, know to how great an extent
the bulk of the support they meet with is derived
from the contributions of churchmen. There is reason
to think on the other hand, that the means and willing
ness to give on the part of nonconforming congrega-

Tfte National Church. 193

tions are already mainly exhausted in making provision
for their ministers.

Reverting to the general interest in the Nationally,
it is evidently twofold. First, in the free circulation
of a certain portion of the real property of the country,
inherited not by blood, nor through the accident of birth,
but by merit and in requital for certain performances.
It evidently belongs to the popular interest, that this
circulation should be free from all unnecessary limi
tations and restraints speculative, antiquarian, and
the like, and be regulated, as far as attainable, by fitness
and capacity for a particular public service. Thus
by means of the national endowment there would
take place a distribution of property to every family
in the country, unencumbered by family provisions
at each succession a distribution in like manner of the
best kind of education, of which the effects would not
be worn out in one or two generations. The Church
theoretically is the most popular, it might be said, the
most democratic of all our institutions ; its ministers
as a spiritual magistracy true tribunes of the people.
Secondly, the general interest in the Nationally as the
material means whereby the highest services are
obtained for the general good, requires, that no arti
ficial discouragements should limit the number of those
who otherwise would be enabled to become candidates
for the service of the Church that nothing should pre
vent the choice and recruiting of the Church ministers
from the whole of the citizens. As a matter of fact
we find that nearly one-half of our population are at
present more or less alienated from the communion of
the national Church, and do not, therefore, supply
candidates for its ministry. Instead of securing the
excellences and highest attainments from the whole
of the people, it secures them, by means of the national
reserve, only from one-half; the rest are either not
drawn up into the Christian ministry at all, or under
take it in connexion with schismatical bodies, with as

o

1 94 The National Church.

much detriment to the national unity, as to the
ecclesiastical.

We all know how the inward moral life or spiritual
life on its moral side, if that term be preferred is
nourished into greater or less vigour by means of the
conditions in which the moral subject is placed. Hence,
if a nation is really worthy of the name, conscious of
its own corporate life, it will develop itself on one side
into a Church, wherein its citizens may grow up and
be perfected in their spiritual nature. If there is
within it a consciousness that as a nation it is fulfilling
no unimportant office in the world, and is, under the
order of Providence, an instrument in giving the
victory to good over evil and to happiness over misery,
it will not content itself with the rough adjustments
and rude lessons of law and police, but will throw its
elements, or the best of them, into another mould, and
constitute out of them a society, which is in it, though
in some sense not of it which is another, yet the same.

That each one born into the nation is, together with
his civil rights, born into a membership or privilege,
as belonging to a spiritual society, places him at once
in a relation which must tell powerfully upon his
spiritual nature. For the sake of the reaction upon
its own merely secular interests, the nation is entitled to
provide from time to time, that the Church teaching and
forms of one age do not traditionally harden, so as to
become exclusive barriers in a subsequent one, and so
the moral growth of those who are committed to the
hands of the Church be checked, or its influences con
fined to a comparatively few. And the objects of the
care of the State and of the Church will nearly co
incide; for the former desires all its people to be
brought under the improving influence, and the latter
is willing to embrace all who have even the rudiments
of the moral life.

And if the objects of the care of each nearly coincide,
when the office of the Church is properly understood,

The National Church. 195

so errors and mistakes in defining Church-membership,
or in constituting a repulsive mode of Church teaching,
are fatal to the purposes both of Church and State alike.
It is a great misrepresentation to exhibit the State
as allying itself with one out of many sects a mis
representation, the blame of which does not rest wholly
with political persons, nor with the partisans of sects
adverse to that which is supposed to be unduly pre
ferred. It cannot concern a State to develop as part
of its own organization a machinery or system of
relations founded on the possession of speculative
truth. Speculative doctrines should be left to philo
sophical schools. A national Church must be concerned
with the ethical development of its members. And
the wrong of supposing it to be otherwise, is partici
pated by those of the clericalty who consider the Church
of Christ to be founded, as a society, on the possession
of an abstractedly true and supernaturally communi
cated speculation concerning God, rather than upon
the manifestation of a divine life in man.

V

It has often been made matter of reproach to
the heathen State religions, that they took little
concern in the moral life of the citizens. To a
certain extent this is true, for the heathens of clas
sical history had not generally the same conceptions of
morals as we have. But as far as their conceptions
of morals reached, their Church and State were
mutually bound together, not by a material alliance,
nor by a gross compact of pay and preferment
passing between the civil society and the priest
hood, but by the penetrating of the whole public
and domestic life of the nation with a religious
sentiment. All the social relations were consecrated
by the feeling of their being entered into and carried
on under the sanction under the very impulse of
Deity. Treaties and boundaries, buying and selling,
marrying, judging, deliberating on affairs of State,
spectacles and all popular amusements, were under the

o 2

196 T/te Na tional Church .

protection of Divinity ; all life was a worship. It can
very well be understood how philosophers should be
esteemed atheists, when they began to speculate upon
origins, causes, abstract being, and the like.

Certainly the sense of the individual conscience was
not sufficiently developed under those old religions.
Their observances, once penetrated w r ith a feeling of
present Deity, became, in course of time, mere dry and
superstitious forms. But the glory of the Gospel
would only be partial and one-sided, if, while quicken
ing the individual conscience and the expectation of
individual immortality, it had no spirit to quicken the
national life. An isolated salvation, the rescuing of
one s self, the reward, the grace bestowed on one s own
labours, the undisturbed repose, the crown of glory in
which so many have no share, the finality of the
sentence on both hands reflections on such expecta
tions as these may make stubborn martyrs and sour
professors, but not good citizens ; rather tend to unfit
men for this world, and in so doing prepare them very
ill for that which is to come.

But in order to the possibility of recruiting any
national ministry from the whole of the nation, in
order to the operation upon the nation at large of the
special functions of its Church, no needless intellectual
or speculative obstacles should be interposed. It is
not to be expected that terms of communion could
be made so large, as by any possibility to comprehend
in the national Church the whole of such a free nation
as our own. There will always be those who, from
a conscientious scruple, or from a desire to define, or
from peculiarities of temper, will hold aloof from the
religion and the worship of the majority ; and it is not
desirable that it should be otherwise, so long as the na
tional unity and the moral action of society are not there
by seriously impaired. No doubt, speaking politically,
and regarding merely the peacefulness with which the
machinery of ordinary executive government can be car
ried on, it has proved very advantageous to the State,

The National Church. 197

that an Established Church has existed in this country,
to receive the shafts which otherwise might have been
directed against itself. Ill-humour has evaporated
harmlessly in Dissent, which might otherwise have
materially deranged the body politic; and village
Hampdens have acquired a parochial renown, sufficient
to satisfy their ambition, in resistance to a Church-
rate, whose restlessness might have urged them to
dispute, even to prison and spoiling of their goods,
the lawfulness of a war-tax. But whatever root of
conscientiousness and truth-seeking there has been
in non- conformity, whatever amount of indirect
good is produced by the emulation of the different
religious bodies, whatever safety to social order by the
escapement for temper so provided the moral influence
of the better people in their several neighbourhoods is
neutralized or lost for want of harmony and concentra
tion, when the alienation from the national Church
reaches the extent which it has done in our country.
Even in the more retired localities, industry, cleanliness,
decency in the homes of the poor, school discipline
and truthfulness, are encouraged far less than they
might otherwise be, by reason of the absence of
religious unanimity in the superior classes. And if
the points of speculation and of form which separate
Dissenters from the Church of England were far more
important than they are, and the approximative truth
preponderatingly upon the side of Dissent, it would do
infinitely more harm by the dissension which it creates,
than it possibly could accomplish of good, by a greater
correctness in doctrine and ecclesiastical constitution.
If this statement concerns Dissent itself on one side,
it concerns the Church on the other, or rather those
who so limit the terms of its communion as to pro
voke, and as human beings are constituted to
necessitate separation from it. It is stated by Neal, 1
that if the alterations in the Prayer-book, recommended

1 Hist. Pur. iv. p. 618.

1 9 8 The National Church .

by the Commissioners of 1689 had been adopted, it
would in all probability have brought in three parts
in four of the Dissenters/ No such result could be
expected from any amendments or concessions now.
Much less could anything be hoped for, by means of a
Conference/ But it concerns the State, on the
highest grounds of public policy, to rectify, as far as
possible, the mistakes committed in former times by
itself or by the Church under its sanction ; and with
out aiming at an "universal comprehension, which
would be Utopian, to suffer the perpetuation of no
unnecessary barriers excluding from the communion
or the ministry of the national Church.

There are, moreover, besides those who have joined
the ranks of Dissent, many others holding aloof from
the Church of England, by reason of its real or sup
posed dogmatism whose co-operation in its true work
would be most valuable to it and who cannot become
utterly estranged from it, without its losing ultimately
its popular influence and its national character. If
those who distinguish themselves in science and
literature cannot, in a scientific and literary age, be
effectually and cordially attached to the Church of
their nation, they must sooner or later be driven into
a position of hostility to it. They may be as indis
posed to the teaching of the majority of Dissenters as
to that which they conceive to be the teaching of the
Church ; but the Church, as an organization, will of
necessity appear to be the most damaged by a scientific
criticism of a supposed Christianity common to it with
other bodies. Many personal and social bonds have
retarded hitherto an issue which from time to time
lias threatened a controversy between our science and
our theology. It would be a deplorable day, when the
greatest names on either side should be found in con*
flict ; and theology should only learn to acknowledge,
after a defeat, that there are no irreconcileable differences
between itself and its opponents.

The National Church. 199

It is sometimes said with a sneer, that the scientific
men and the men of abstractions will never change
the religions of the world ; and yet Christianity has
certainly been very different from what it would
have been without the philosophies of a Plato and
an Aristotle ; and a Bacon and a Newton exercise
an influence upon the Biblical theology of English
men. They have modified, though they have not
made it. The more diffused science of the present
day will farther modify it. And the question seems
to narrow itself to this How can those who differ
from each other intellectually in such variety of
degrees as our more educated and our less educated
classes, be comprised under the same formularies
of one national Church be supposed to follow
them, assent to them, appropriate them, in one
spirit ? If such formularies embodied only an ethical
result addressed to the individual and to society, the
speculative difficulty would not arise. But as they
present a fair and substantial representation of the
Biblical records, incorporating their letter and pre
supposing their historical element, precisely the same
problem is presented to us intellectually, as English
Churchmen or as Biblical Christians.

It does not seem to be contradicted, that when
Church formularies adopt the words of Scripture, these
must have the same meaning, and be subject to the
same questions, in the formularies, as in the Scripture.
And we may go somewhat farther and say, that the
historical parts of the Bible, when referred to or pre
supposed in the formularies, have the same value in
them which they have in their original seat ; and this
value may consist, rather in their significance, in the
ideas which they awaken, than in the scenes themselves
which they depict. And as Churchmen, or as Christians,
we may vary as to their value in particulars that is,
as to the extent of the verbal accuracy of a history, or
of its spiritual significance, without breaking with our

200 The National Church.

communion, or denying our sacred name. These
varieties will be determined partly by the peculiarities
of men s mental constitution, partly by the nature of
their education, circumstances, and special studies.
And neither should the idealist condemn the literalist,
nor the literalist assume the right of excommunicating
the idealist. They are really fed with the same truths ;
the literalist unconsciously, the idealist with reflection.
Neither can justly say of the other that he under
values the Sacred Writings, or that he holds them as
inspired less properly than himself.

The application of ideology to the interpretation of
Scripture, to the doctrines of Christianity, to the
formularies of the Church, may undoubtedly be car
ried to an excess may be pushed so far as to leave in
the sacred records no historical residue whatever. On
the other side, there is the excess of a dull and un-
painstaking acquiescence, satisfied with accepting in
an unquestioning spirit, and as if they were literally
facts, all particulars of a wonderful history, because in
some sense it is from God. Between these extremes lie
infinite degrees of rational and irrational interpretation.

It will be observed that the ideal method is appli
cable in two ways ; both to giving account of the
origin of parts of Scripture, and also in explanation
of Scripture. It is thus either critical or exegetical.
An example of the critical ideology carried to excess
is that of Strauss, which resolves into an ideal the
whole of the historical and doctrinal person of Jesus ;
so again, much of the allegorizing of Philo and
Origen is an exegetical ideology, exaggerated and wild.
But it by no means follows, because Strauss has sub
stituted a mere shadow for the Jesus of the Evangelists,
and has frequently descended to a minute captiousness
in details, that there are not traits in the scriptural
person of Jesus, which are better explained by referring
them to an ideal than an historical origin : and without
falling into fanciful exegetics, there are parts of Scrip-

The National Church. 201

ture more usefully interpreted ideologically than in
any other manner as, for instance, the history of
the temptation of Jesus hy Satan, and accounts of
demoniacal possessions. And liberty must be left to
all as to the extent in which they apply the principle,
for there is no authority, through the expressed deter
mination of the Church, nor of any other kind, which
can define the limits within which it may be reasonably
exercised.

Thus some may consider the descent of all mankind
from Adam and Eve as an undoubted historical fact ;
others may rather perceive in that relation a form of
narrative, into which in early ages tradition would
easily throw itself spontaneously. Each race naturally
-necessarily, when races are isolated supposes itself
to be sprung from a single pair, and to be the first, or
the only one, of races. Among a particular people this
historical representation became the concrete expression
of a great moral truth of the brotherhood of all
human beings, of their community, as in other things,
so also in suffering and in frailty, in physical pains
and in moral corruption. And the force, grandeur,
and reality of these ideas are not a whit impaired in
the abstract, nor indeed the truth of the concrete his
tory as their representation, even though mankind
should have been placed upon the earth in many pairs
at once, or in distinct centres of creation. For the
brotherhood of men really depends, not upon the
material fact of their fleshly descent from a single
stock, but upon their constitution, as possessed in
common, of the same faculties and affections, fitting
them for mutual relation and association ; so that the
value of the history, if it were a history strictly so
called, would lie in its emblematic force and application.
And many narratives of marvels and catastrophes in
the Old Testament are referred to in the New, as
emblems, without either denying or asserting their
literal truth such as the destruction of Sodom and

202 , The National Church.

Gomorrah by fire from heaven, and the Noachian
deluge. And especially if we bear in mind the exist-
ence of such a school as that which produced Philo,
or even the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we
must think it would be wrong to lay down, that
whenever the New Testament writers refer to Old
Testament histories, they imply of necessity that the
historic truth was the first to them. For their pur
poses it was often wholly in the background, and the
history, valuable only in its spiritual application. The
same may take place with ourselves, and history and
tradition be employed emblematically, without, on that
account, being regarded as untrue. We do not apply
the term untrue to parable, fable, or proverb,
although their words correspond with ideas, not with
material facts; as little should we do so, when narratives
have been the spontaneous product of true ideas, and
are capable of reproducing them.

The ideologian is evidently in possession of a prin
ciple which will enable him to stand in charitable re
lation to persons of very different opinions from his
own, and of very different opinions mutually. And if
he has perceived to how great extent the history of
the origin itself of Christianity rests ultimately upon
probable evidence, his principle will relieve him from
many difficulties which might otherwise be very dis
turbing. For relations which may repose on doubt
ful grounds as matter of history, and, as history, be in
capable of being ascertained or verified, may yet be
equally suggestive of true ideas with facts absolutely
certain. The spiritual significance is the same of
the transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing
the tongue of the stammerer to speak plainly, of feed
ing multitudes with bread in the wilderness, of cleansing
leprosy, whatever links may be deficient in the tra
ditional record of particular events. Or, let us suppose
one to be uncertain, whether our Lord were born of the
house and lineage of David, or of the tribe of Levi,

The National Church. 203

and even to be driven to conclude that the genealo
gies of Him have little historic value; nevertheless,
in idea, Jesus is both Son of David and Son of Aaron,
both Prince of Peace and High Priest of our profes
sion ; as He is, under another idea, though not literally,
without father and without mother/ And He is
none the less Son of David, Priest Aaronical, or Boyal
Priest Melchizedecan, in idea and spiritually, even if
it be unproved, whether He were any of them in
historic fact. In like manner it need not trouble us,
if, in consistency, we should have to suppose both
an ideal origin and to apply an ideal meaning to the
birth in the city of David, and to other circumstances of
the infancy. So, again, the incarnification of the di
vine Immanuel remains, although the angelic appear
ances which herald it in the narratives of the Evange
lists may be of ideal origin according to the concep
tions of former days. The ideologian may sometimes
be thought sceptical, and be sceptical or doubtful, as
to the historical value of related facts ; but the histori
cal value is not always to him the most important ; fre
quently it is quite secondary. And, consequently, dis
crepancies in narratives, scientific difficulties, defects in
evidence, do not disturb him as they do the literalist.
Moreover, the same principle is capable of applica
tion to some of those inferences which have been the
source, according to different theologies, of much con
troversial acrimony and of wide ecclesiastical separa
tions ; such as those which have been drawn from the
institution of the sacraments. Some, for instance, can
not conceive a presence of Jesus Christ in His institu
tion of the Lord s Supper, unless it be a corporeal one,
nor a spiritual influence upon the moral nature of man
to be connected with baptism, unless it be superna
tural, quasi-mechanical, effecting a psychical change
then and there. But within these concrete concep
tions there lie hid the truer ideas of the virtual
presence of the Lord Jesus everywhere that He is

204 The National Church.

preached, remembered, and represented, and of the con
tinual force of His spirit in His words, and especially
in the ordinance which indicates the separation of the
Christian from the world.

The same may he said of the concrete conceptions
of an hierarchy described by its material form and
descent; also of millenarian expectations of a personal
reign of the saints with Jesus upon earth, and of the
many embodiments in which from age to age has
reappeared the vision* of a New Jerusalem shining with
mundane glory here below. These gross conceptions,
as they seem to some, may be necessary to others, as
approximations to true ideas. So, looking for re
demption in Israel was a looking for a very different
redemption, with most of the Jewish people, from that
which Jesus really came to operate, yet it was the
only expectation which they could form, and was the
shadow to them of a great reality.

Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind,
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind.

Even to the Hebrew Psalmist, He comes flying upon the
wings of the wind ; and only to the higher Prophet is He
not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire,
but in the still small voice. Not the same thoughts-
very far from the same thoughts pass through the
minds of the more and the less instructed on contem
plating the same face of the natural world. In like
manner are the thoughts of men various, in form at
least, if not in substance, when they read the same
Scripture histories and use the same Scripture phrases.
Histories to some, become parables to others ; and facts
to those, are emblems to these. The rock and the
cloud and the sea convey to the Christian admoni
tions of spiritual verities ; and so do the ordinances of
the Church and various parts of its forms of worship.

Jesus Christ has not revealed His religion as a
theology of the intellect, nor as an historical faith ;
and it is a stifling of the true Christian life, both in the

The National Church. 205

individual and in the Church, to require of many men
a unanimity in speculative doctrine, which is unattain
able, and a uniformity of historical belief, which can
never exist. The true Christian life is the conscious
ness of bearing a part in a great moral order, of which
the highest agency upon earth has been committed to
the Church. Let us not oppress this work nor com
plicate the difficulties with which it is surrounded;
not making the heart of the righteous sad, whom the
Lord hath not made sad, nor strengthening the hands
of the wicked by promising him life.

There is enough indeed to sadden us in the doubtful
warfare which the good wages with the evil, both within
us and without us. How few, under the most favour
able conditions, learn to bring themselves face to face
with the great moral law, which is the manifestation
of the Will of God ! The greater part can only detect
the evil when it comes forth from them, nearly as when
any other might observe it. We cannot, in the matter
of those who are brought under the highest influences
of the Christian Church, any more than in the case of
mankind viewed in their ordinary relations, give any ac
count of the apparently useless expenditure of power
of the apparent overbearing generally of the higher law
by the lower of the apparent poverty of result from the
operation of a wonderful machinery of the seeming
waste of myriads of germs, for the sake of a few
mature growths. Many are called but few chosen
and under the privileges of the Christian Church, as in
other mysteries,

TroXXoi [lev vap&r]KO<$>6poL, /SaK^oi Se yc iravpoi.

Calvinism has a keen perception of this truth ; and
we shrink from Calvinism and Augustinianism, not
because of their perceiving how few, even under Chris
tian privileges, attain to the highest adoption of sons ;
but because of the inferences with which they clog
that truth the inferences which they draw respecting

206 The National Church.

the rest, whom they comprehend in one mass of per
dition.

The Christian Church can only tend on those
who are committed to its care, to the verge of that
abyss which parts this world from the world un
seen. Some few of those fostered by her are now ripe
for entering on a higher career : the many are but
rudimentary spirits germinal souls. What shall
become of them ? If we look abroad in the world and
regard the neutral character of the multitude, we are
at a loss to apply to them, either the promises,
or the denunciations of revelation. So, the wise
heathens could anticipate a reunion with the great
and good of all ages ; they could represent to them
selves, at least in a figurative manner, the punishment
and the purgatory of the wicked ; but they would not
expect the reappearance in another world, for any
purpose, of a Thersites or an Hyperbolos social and
poetical justice had been sufficiently done upon them.
Yet there are such as these, and no better than these,
under the Christian name babblers, busy-bodies,
livers to get gain, and mere eaters and drinkers. The
Roman Church has imagined a limbus infantium ;
we must rather entertain a hope that there shall
be found, after the great adjudication, receptacles
suitable for those who shall be infants, not as to years
of terrestrial life, but as to spiritual development nur
series as it were and seed-grounds, where the unde
veloped may grow up under new conditions the
stunted may become strong, and the perverted be
restored. And when the Christian Church, in all its
branches, shall have fulfilled its sublunary office, and
its Founder shall have surrendered His kingdom to
the Great Father all, both small and great, shall find
a refuge in the bosom of the Universal Parent, to
repose, or be quickened into higher life, in the ages to
come, according to his Will.

MOSAIC COSMOGONY.

i 1

ON the revival of science in the i6th century, some
of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers
arrived were found to be at variance with popular and
long- established belief. The Ptolemaic system of
astronomy, which had then full possession of the
minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe
from the earth as the immovable centre of things.
Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the
beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an
inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate member of
a family of planets, which the terrestrials had until
then fondly imagined to be but pendants and orna
ments of their own habitation. The Church naturally
took a lively interest in the disputes which arose
between the philosophers of the new school and those
who adhered to the old doctrines, inasmuch as the
Hebrew records, the basis of religious faith, manifestly
countenanced the opinion of the earth s immobility
and certain other views of the universe very incom
patible with those propounded by Copernicus. Hence
arose the official proceedings against Gralileo, in con
sequence of which he submitted to sign his celebrated
recantation, acknowledging that the proposition that
the sun is the centre of the world and immovable
from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and
formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to

208 Mosaic Cosmogony.

the Scripture ; and that the proposition that the
earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable,
but that it moves and also with a diurnal motion, is
absurd, philosophically false, and at least erroneous in
faith/

The Romish Church, it is presumed, adheres to the
old views to the present day. Protestant instincts,
however, in the i;th century were strongly in
sympathy with the augmentation of science, and
consequently Reformed Churches more easily allowed
themselves to be helped over the difficulty, which,
according to the views of inspiration then held and
which have survived to the present day, was in reality
quite as formidable for them as for those of the old
faith. The solution of the difficulty offered by Galileo
and others was, that the object of a revelation or
divine unveiling of mysteries, must be to teach man
things which he is unable and must ever remain
unable to find out for himself ; but not physical truths,
for the discovery of which he has faculties specially
provided by his Creator. Hence it was not unreason
able that, in regard to matters of fact merely, the
Sacred Writings should use the common language
and assume the common belief of mankind, without
purporting to correct errors upon points morally
indifferent. So, in regard to such a text as, The
world is established, it cannot be moved/ though it
might imply the sacred penman s ignorance of the
fact that the earth does move, yet it does not put
forth this opinion as an indispensable point of faith.
And this remark is applicable to a number of texts
which present a similar difficulty.

It might be thought to have been less easy to
reconcile in men s minds the Copernican view of the
universe with the very plain and direct averments
contained in the opening chapter of Genesis. It can
scarcely be said that this chapter is not intended in
part to teach and convey at least some physical truth,

Mosaic Cosmogony. 209

and taking its words in their plain sense it manifestly
gives a view of the universe adverse to that of modern
science. It represents the sky as a watery vault in which
the sun, moon, and stars are set. But the discordance
of this description with facts does not appear to have
been so palpable to the minds of the seventeenth cen
tury as it is to us. The mobility of the earth was a
proposition startling not only to faith but to the
senses. The difficulty involved in this belief having
been successfully got over, other discrepancies
dwindled in importance. The brilliant progress of
astronomical science subdued the minds of men ; the
controversy between faith and knowledge gradually
fell to slumber ; the story of Galileo and the Inquisi
tion became a school commonplace, the doctrine of
the earth s mobility found its way into children s
catechisms, and the limited views of the nature of the
universe indicated in the Old Testament ceased to be
felt as religious difficulties.

It would have been well if theologians had made
up their minds to accept frankly the principle that
those things for the discovery of which man has
faculties specially provided are not fit objects of a
divine revelation. Had this been unhesitatingly done,
either the definition and idea of divine revelation
must have been modified, and the possibility of an
admixture of error have been allowed, or such parts
of the Hebrew writings as were found to be repugnant
to fact must have been pronounced to form no part of
revelation. The first course is that which theologians
have most generally adopted, but with such limitations,
cautels, and equivocations as to be of little use in
satisfying those who would know how and what God
really has taught mankind, and whether anything
beyond that which man is able and obviously intended
to arrive at by the use of his natural faculties.

The difficulties and disputes which attended the
first revival of science have recurred in the present

p

210 Mosaic Cosmogony.

century in consequence of the growth of geology. It
is in truth only the old question over again- -precisely
the same point of theology which is involved,
although the difficulties which present themselves are
fresh. The school-books of the present day, while
they teach the child that the earth moves, yet assure
him that it is a little less than six thousand years old,
and that it was made in six days. On the other hand,
geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the
earth has existed for an immense series of years, to
be counted by millions rather than by thousands ; and
that indubitably more than six days elapsed from its
first creation to the appearance of man upon its sur
face. By this broad discrepancy between old and
new doctrine is the modern mind startled, as were the
men of the sixteenth century when told that the earth
moved.

When this new cause of controversy first arose,
some writers more hasty than discreet, attacked the
conclusions of geologists, and declared them scientifi
cally false. This phase may now be considered past,
and although school-books probably continue to teach
much as they did, no well-instructed person now
doubts the great antiquity of the earth any more than
its motion. This being so, modern theologians, for
saking the maxim of Galileo, or only using it vaguely
as an occasional make- weight, have directed their atten
tion to the possibility of reconciling the Mosaic narra
tive with those geological facts which are admitted to
be beyond dispute. Several modes of doing this have
been proposed which have been deemed more or less
satisfactory. In a text-book of theological instruc
tion widely used, 1 we find it stated in broad terms,
Geological investigations, it is now known, all prove
the perfect harmony between scripture and geology,
in reference to the history of creation/

Home s Introduction to the Holy Scriptures (1856, tenth Edition.)

Mosaic Cosmogony. 211

In truth, however, if we refer to the plans of con
ciliation proposed, we find them at variance with each
other and mutually destructive. The conciliators are
not agreed among themselves, and each holds the
views of the other to be untenable and unsafe. The
ground is perpetually being shifted, as the advance

p i i rni i

of geological science may require. Hie plain meaning
of the Hebrew record is unscrupulously tampered
with, and in general the pith of the whole process lies
in divesting the text of all meaning whatever. We
are told that Scripture not being designed to teach us
natural philosophy, it is in vain to attempt to make
out a cosmogony from its statements. If the first
chapter of Genesis convey to us no information con
cerning the origin of the world, its statements cannot
indeed be contradicted by modern discovery. But it
is absurd to call this harmony. Statements such as
that above quoted are, we conceive, little calculated
to be serviceable to the interests of theology, still less
to religion and morality. Believing, as we do, that if
the value of the Bible as a book of religious instruc
tion is to be maintained, it must be not by striving to
prove it scientifically exact, at the expense of every
sound principle of interpretation, and in defiance of
common sense, but by the frank recognition of the
erroneous views of nature which it contains, we have
put pen to paper to analyse some of the popular con
ciliation theories. The inquiry cannot be deemed a
superfluous one, nor one which in the interests of
theology had better be let alone. Physical science
goes on unconcernedly pursuing its own paths. Theo
logy, the science whose object is the dealing of God
with man as a moral being, maintains but a shivering
existence, shouldered and jostled by the sturdy growths
of modern thought, and bemoaning itself for the hos
tility which it encounters. Why should this be, un
less because theologians persist in clinging to theories
of God s procedure towards man, which have long

p 2

212 Mosaic Cosmogony.

been seen to be untenable ? If, relinquishing theories,
they would be content to inquire from the history of
man what this procedure has actually been, the so-
called difficulties of theology would, for the most part,
vanish of themselves.

The account which astronomy gives of the relations
of our earth to the rest of the universe, and that
which geology gives of its internal structure and the
development of its surface, are sufficiently familiar
to most readers. But it will be necessary for our
purpose to go over the oft-trodden ground, which must
be done with rapid steps. Nor let the reader object
to be reminded of some of the most elementary facts
of his knowledge. The human race has been ages in
arriving at conclusions now familiar to every child.

This earth apparently so still and stedfast, lying
in majestic repose beneath the setherial vault, is a
globular body of comparatively insignificant size,
whirling fast through space round the sun as the
centre of its orbit, and completing its revolution in
the course of one year, while at the same time it
revolves daily once about its own axis, thus producing
the changes of day and night. The sun, which seems to
leap up each morning from the east, and traversing the
skyey bridge, slides down into the west, is relatively
to our earth motionless. In size and weight it incon
ceivably surpasses it. The moon, which occupies a
position in the visible heavens only second to the sun,
and far beyond that of every other celestial body in
conspicuousness, is but a subordinate globe, much
smaller than our own, and revolving round the earth
as its centre, while it accompanies it in yearly revo
lutions about the sun. Of itself it has no lustre, and
is visible to us only by the reflected sunlight. Those
beautiful stars which are perpetually changing their
position in the heavens, and shine with a soft and
moon-like light, are bodies, some much larger, some
less, than our earth, and like it revolve round the sun,

Mosaic Cosmogony. 213

by the reflection of whose rays we see them. The
telescope has revealed to us the fact that several of
these are attended by moons of their own, and that
besides those which the unassisted eye can see, there
are others belonging to the same family coursing
round the sun. As for the glittering dust which
emblazons the nocturnal sky, there is reason to believe
that each spark is a self-luminous body, perhaps of
similar material to our sun, and that the very nearest
of the whole tribe is at an incalculable distance from
us, the very least of them of enormous size compared
with our own humble globe. Thus has modern science
reversed nearly all the primd facie views to which our
senses lead us as to the constitution of the universe; but
so thoroughly are the above statements wrought into
the culture of the present day, that we are apt to
forget that mankind once saw these things very
differently, and that but a few centuries have elapsed
since such views were startling novelties.

Our earth then is but one of the lesser pendants of
a body which is itself only an inconsiderable unit in
the vast creation. And now if we withdraw our
thoughts from the immensities of space, and look into
the construction of man s obscure home, the first
question is whether it has ever been in any other con
dition than that in which we now see it, and if so,
what are the stages through which it has passed, and
what was its first traceable state. Here geology
steps in and successfully carries back the history of the
earth s crust to a very remote period, until it arrives at
a region of uncertainty, where philosophy is reduced to
mere guesses and possibilities, and pronounces nothing
definite. To this region belong the speculations which
have been ventured upon as to the original concretion of
the earth and planets out of nebular matter of which
the sun may have been the nucleus. But the first
clear view which we obtain of the early condition of the
earth, presents to us a ball of matter, fiuid with intense

214 Mosaic Cosmogony.

heat, spinning on its own axis and revolving round
the sun. How long it may have continued in this
state is beyond calculation or surmise. It can only
be believed that a prolonged period, beginning and
ending we know not when, elapsed before the surface
became cooled and hardened and capable of sustaining
organized existences. The water which now enwraps
a large portion of the face of the globe, must for ages
have existed only in the shape of steam, floating above
and enveloping the- planet in one thick curtain of
mist. When the cooling of the surface allowed it to
condense and descend, then commenced the process by
which the lowest stratified rocks were formed, and
gradually spread out in vast layers. Bains and
rivers now acted upon the scoriaceous integument,
grinding it to sand and carrying it down to the depths
and cavities. Whether organized beings co-existed with
this state of things we know not, as the early rocks
have been acted upon by interior heat to an extent
which must have destroyed all traces of animal and
vegetable life, if any such ever existed. This period
has been named by geologists the Azoic, or that in
which life was not. Its duration no one presumes to
define.

It is in the system of beds which overlies these
primitive formations that the first records of organisms
present themselves. In the so-called Silurian
system we have a vast assemblage of strata of various
kinds, together many thousands of feet thick, and
abounding in remains of animal life. These strata were
deposited at the bottom of the sea, and the remains
are exclusively marine. The creatures whose exuvia3
have been preserved belong to those classes which are
placed by naturalists the lowest with respect to
organization, the mollusca, articulata, and radiata.
Analogous beings exist at the present day, but not
their lineal descendants, unless time can effect trans
mutation of species, an hypothesis not generally

Mosaic Cosmogony. 215

accepted by naturalists. In the same strata with
these inhabitants of the early seas are found remains
of fucoid or seaweed-like plants, the lowest of the
vegetable tribe, which may have been the first of this
kind of existences introduced into the world. But, as
little has yet been discovered to throw light upon the
state of the dry land and its productions at this remote
period, nothing can be asserted positively on the
subject. 1

In the upper strata of the Silurian system is found
the commencement of the race of fishes, the lowest
creatures of the vertebrate type, and in the succeeding
beds they become abundant. These monsters clothed in
mail who must have been the terror of the seas they
inhabited, have left their indestructible coats behind
them as evidence of their existence.

Next come the carboniferous strata, containing the
remains of a gigantic and luxuriant vegetation, and
here reptiles and insects begin to maketheir appearance.
At this point geologists make a kind of artificial break,
and for the sake of distinction, denominate the whole
of the foregoing period of animated existences the
Palaeozoic, or that of antique life.

In the next great geological section, the so-called
Secondary period, in which are comprised the oolitic
and cretaceous systems, the predominant creatures
are different from those which figured conspicuously
in the preceding. The land was inhabited by gigantic
animals, half-toad, half-lizard, who hopped about,
leaving often their foot-prints like those of a clumsy
human hand, upon the sandy shores of the seas
they frequented. The waters now abounded with
monsters, half-fish, half-crocodile, the well-known
saurians, whose bones have been collected in abun
dance. Even the air had its tenantry from the same

It has been stated that a coal-bed, containing remains of land-plants,
underlying strata of the lower Silurian class, has been found in Portugal.

216 Mosaic Cosmogony.

family type, for the pterodactyls were creatures, half-
lizard, half-vampyre, provided with membranous appen
dages which must have enabled them to fly. In an
early stage of this period traces of birds appear, and
somewhat later those of mammals, but of the lowest
class belonging to that division, namely, the marsupial
or pouch-bearing animals, in which naturalists see
affinities to the oviparous tribes. The vegetation of
this period seems to have consisted principally of the
lower classes of plants, according to the scale of
organization accepted by botanists, but it was luxuriant
and gigantic.

Lastly, comes the Tertiary period, in which mam
malia of the highest forms enter upon the scene,
while the composite growths of the Secondary period
in great part disappear, and the types of creatures
approach more nearly to those which now exist.
During long ages this state of things continued,
while the earth was the abode principally of
mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, and their thick-
hided congeners, many of them of colossal propor
tions, and of species which have now passed away,
The remains of these creatures have been found in the
frozen rivers of the north, and they appear to have
roamed over regions of the globe where their more
delicate representatives of the present day would be
unable to live. During this era the ox, horse, and
deer, and perhaps other animals, destined to be ser
viceable to man, became inhabitants of the earth.
Lastly, the advent of man may be considered as in
augurating a new and distinct epoch, that in which
we now are, and during the whole of which the
physical conditions of existence cannot have been
very materially different from what they are now.
Thus, the reduction of the earth into the state in
which we now behold it has been the slowly con
tinued work of ages. The races of organic beings
which have populated its surface have from time to

Mosaic Cosmogony. 217

time passed away, and been supplanted by others,
introduced we know not certainly by what means,
but evidently according to a fixed method and order,
and with a gradually increasing complexity and
fineness of organization, until % we come to man as
the crowning point of all. Geologically speaking, the
history of his first appearance is obscure, nor does
archaeology do much to clear this obscurity. Science
has, however, made some efforts towards tracing man
to his cradle, and by patient observation and collec
tion of facts much more may perhaps be done in this
direction. As for history and tradition, they afford
little upon which anything can be built. The human
race, like each individual man, has forgotten its own
birth, and the void of its early years has been filled
up by imagination, and not from genuine recollection.
Thus much is clear, that man s existence on earth
is brief, compared with the ages during which un
reasoning creatures were the sole possessors of the
globe.

We pass to the account of the creation contained
in the Hebrew record. And it must be observed
that in reality two distinct accounts are given us in
the book of Grenesis, one being comprised in the first
chapter and the first three verses of the second, the
other commencing at the fourth verse of the second
chapter and continuing till the end. This is so philo-
logically certain that it were useless to ignore it. But
even those who may be inclined to contest the fact
that we have here the productions of two different
writers, will admit that the account beginning at the first
verse of the first chapter, and ending at the third verse
of the second, is a complete whole in itself. And to
this narrative, in order not to complicate the subject
unnecessarily, we intend to confine ourselves. It will
be sufficient for our purpose to enquire, whether this
account can be shown to be in accordance with our
astronomical and geological knowledge. And for the

218 Mosaic Cosmogony.

right understanding of it the whole must be set out,
so that the various parts may be taken in connexion
with one another.

We are told that in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth/ It has been matter of
discussion amongst theologians whether the word
created (Heb. bard) here means simply shaped or
formed, or shaped or formed out of nothing. From
the use of the verb bara in other passages, it appears
that it does not necessarily mean to make out of
nothing, 1 but it certainly might impliedly mean this
in a case so peculiar as the present. The phrase the
heaven and the earth/ is evidently used to signify
the universe of things, inasmuch as the heaven in its
proper signification has no existence until the second
day. It is asserted then that God shaped the whole
material universe, whether out of nothing, or out of
pre-existing matter. But which sense the writer
really intended is not material for our present pur
pose to enquire, since neither astronomical nor geo
logical science affects to state anything concerning
the first origin of matter.

In the second verse the earliest state of things is
described ; according to the received translation, the
earth was without form and void/ The prophet Jere
miah 2 uses the same expression to describe the deso
lation of the earth s surface occasioned by God s wrath,
and perhaps the words empty and waste would convey
to us at present something more nearly approaching the

1 This appears at once from verse 21, where it is said that God created
(bara) the great whales; and from verses 26 and 27, in the first of which
we read, God said, Let us make (kasak) man in our image, and in the
latter, So God created (bara) man in his image. In neither of these
cases, can it be supposed to be implied that the whales, or man, were made
out of nothing. In the second narrative, another word is used for the
creation of man, itzer to mould j and his formation out of the dust is
circumstantially described.

2 Chap. iv. 33.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 219

meaning of toliu va-boltu, than those which the trans
lators have used.

The earth itself is supposed to be submerged under
the waters of the deep, over which the breath of Grod
-the air or wind- -flutters while all is involved in
darkness. The first special creative command is that
winch bids the light appear, whereupon daylight
breaks over the two primeval elements of earth and
water the one lying still enveloped by the other ;
and the space of time occupied by the original dark
ness and the light which succeeded, is described as the
first day. Thus light and the measurement of time
are represented as existing before the manifestation of
the san, and this idea, although repugnant to our
modern knowledge, has not in former times appeared
absurd. Thus we find Ambrose (Hexaemeron lib. 4,
cap. 3) remarking : We must recollect that the
light of day is one thing, the light of the sun, moon,
and stars another, the sun by his rays appearing to
add lustre to the daylight. For before sunrise the
day dawns, but is not in full refulgence, for the mid-
clay sun adds still further to its splendour/ We
quote this passage to show how a mind unsophisticated
by astronomical knowledge understood the Mosaic
statement ; and we may boldly affirm that those for
whom it was first penned could have taken it in no
other sense than that light existed before and inde
pendently of the sun, nor do we misrepresent it when
we affirm this to be its natural and primary meaning.
How far we are entitled to give to the writer s words
aa enigmatical and secondary meaning, as contended
by those who attempt to conciliate them with our
present knowledge, must be considered further on.

The work of the second day of creation is to erect
the vault of Heaven (Heb. rakia ; Gr. artptupa ; Lat.
finuamentum} which is represented as supporting an
ocean of water above it. The waters are said to be
divided, so that some are below, some above the vault.

220 Mosaic Cosmogony.

That the Hebrews understood the sky, firmament, or
heaven to be a permanent solid vault, as it appears to
the ordinary observer, is evident enough from various
expressions made use of concerning it. It is said to
have pillars (Job xxvi. n), foundations (2 Sam. xxii. 8),
doors (Ps. Ixxviii. 23), and windows (Gen. vii. n). No
quibbling about the derivation of the word raJcia,
which is literally something beaten out, 1 can affect
the explicit description of the Mosaic writer, con
tained in the words * the waters that are above the
firmament/ or avail to show that he was aware that
the sky is but transparent space.

On the third day, at the command of God, the waters
which have hitherto concealed the earth are gathered
together in one place the sea, and the dry land
emerges. Upon the same day the earth brings forth
grass, herb yielding seed and fruit trees, the destined
food of the animals and of man (v. 29). Nothing is
said of herbs and trees which are not serviceable to
this purpose, and perhaps it may be contended, since
there is no vegetable production which may not pos
sibly be useful to man, or which is not preyed upon
by some animal, that in this description the whole
terrestrial flora is implied. We wish, however, to
call the attention of the reader to the fact, that trees
and plants destined for food are those which are par
ticularly singled out here as the earliest productions
of the earth, as we shall have occasion to refer to this
again presently.

On the fourth day, the two great lights, the sun and
moon, are made (Heb. hasalt) and set in the firmament of
heaven to give light to the earth, but more particularly
to serve as the means of measuring time, and of
marking out years, days, and seasons. This is the
most prominent office assigned to them (v. 14-18).

1 The root is generally applied to express the hammering or beating
out of metal plates ; hence something beaten or spread out. It has been
pretended that the word rakia may be translated expanse, so as merely to
mean empty space. The context sufficiently rebuts this.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 221

The formation of the stars is mentioned in the most
cursory manner. It is not said out of what materials
all these bodies were made, and whether the writer
regarded them as already existing, and only waiting to
have a proper place assigned them, may be open to
question. At any rate, their allotted receptacle the
firmament was not made until the second day, nor
were they set in it until the fourth ; vegetation, be it
observed, having already commenced on the third, and
therefore independently of the warming influence of
the sun.

On the fifth day the waters are called into pro
ductive activity, and bring forth fishes and marine
animals, as also the birds of the air. 1 It is also said
that God created or formed (bard] great whales and
other creatures of the water and air. On the sixth
day the earth brings forth living creatures, cattle, and
reptiles, and also the beast of the field/ that is, the
wild beasts. And here also it is added that God made
(Itasali] these creatures after their several kinds. The
formation of man is distinguished by a variation of
the creative fiat. Let us make man in our image after
our likeness/ Accordingly, man is made and formed
(bard] in the image and likeness of God, a phrase which
has been explained away to mean merely perfect,
sinless/ although the Pentateuch abounds in passages
showing that the Hebrews contemplated the Divine
being in the visible form of a man. 2 Modern spiri
tualism has so entirely banished this idea, that probably
many may not without an effort be able to accept the
plain language of the Hebrew writer in its obvious
sense in the 26th verse of the ist chapter of Genesis,
though they will have no difficulty in doing so in the
3rd verse of the 5th chapter, where the same words
image and likeness are used. Man is said to have
been created male and female, and the narrative contains

In the second narrative of creation, in which no distinction of davs is

/

made, the birds are said to have been formed out of the ground. Gen. ii.
2 See particularly the narrative in Genesis xviii.

222 Mosaic Cosmogony.

nothing to show that a single pair only is intended. 1
He is commanded to increase and multiply, and to
assume dominion over all the other tribes of beings.
The whole of the works of creation being complete,
God gives to man, beast, fowl, and creeping thing,
the vegetable productions of the earth as their ap^
pointed food. And when we compare the verses
Gen. i. 29, 30, with Gen. ix. 3, in which, after the
Flood, animals are given to man for food in addition to
the green herb, it is, difficult not to come to the con
clusion that in the earliest view taken of creation, men
and animals were supposed to have been, in their ori
ginal condition, not carnivorous. It is needless to say
that this has been for the most part the construction
put upon the words of the Mosaic writer, until a clear
perception of the creative design which destined the
tiger and lion for flesh-eaters, and latterly the geo
logical proof of flesh-eating monsters having existed
among the pre-adamite inhabitants of the globe, ren
dered it necessary to ignore this meaning.

The ist, 2nd, and 3rd verses of the second chapter
of Genesis, which have been most absurdly divided
from their context, conclude the narrative. 2 On the
seventh day God rests from His work, and blesses
the day of rest, a fact which is referred to in the
Commandment given from Sinai as the ground of the
observance of Sabbatic rest imposed upon the Hebrews.

[Remarkable as this narrative is for simple grandeur,
it has nothing in it which can be properly called
poetical. It bears on its face no trace of mystical or
symbolical meaning. Things are called by their right
names with a certain scientific exactness widely differ-

1 It is in the second narrative of creation that the formation of a single
man, out of the dust of the earth, is described, and the omission to create
a female at the same time, is stated to have been repaired by the sub
sequent formation of one from the side of the man.

2 The common arrangement of the Bible in chapters is of compara
tively modern origin, and is admitted, on all hands, to have no authority
or philological worth whatever. In many cases, the division is most pre
posterous, and interferes greatly with an intelligent perusal of the text.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 223

ent from the imaginative cosmogonies of the Greeks,
in which the powers and phenomena of nature are
invested with personality, and the passions and quali
ties of men are represented as individual existences.

The circumstances related in the second narrative
of creation are indeed such as to give at least some
ground for the supposition that a mystical interpreta
tion was intended to be given to it. But this is far
from heing the case with the first narrative, in which
none but a professed mystifier of the school of Philo
could see anything but a plain statement of facts.
There can be little reasonable dispute then as to the
sense in which the Mosaic narrative was taken by
those who first heard it, nor is it indeed disputed that
for centuries, putting apart the Philonic mysticism,
which after all did not exclude a primary sense, its
words have been received in their genuine and natural
meaning. That this meaning is primd facie one wholly
adverse to the present astronomical and geological
views of the universe is evident enough. There is not
a mere difference through deficiency. It cannot be
correctly said that the Mosaic writer simply leaves
out details which modern science supplies, and that,
therefore, the inconsistency is not a real but only an
apparent one. It is manifest that the whole account
is given from a different point of view from that which
we now unavoidably take ; that the order of things as
we now know them to be, is to a great extent reversed,
although here and there we may pick out some general
analogies and points of resemblance. Can we say
that the Ptolemaic system of astronomy is not at
variance with modern science, because it represents
with a certain degree of correctness some of the
apparent motions of the heavenly bodies ?

The task which sundry modern writers have im
posed upon themselves is to prove, that the Mosaic
narrative, however apparently at variance with our
knowledge, is essentially, and in fact true, although

224 Mosaic Cosmogony.

never understood properly until modern science sup
plied the necessary commentary and explanation.

Two modes of conciliation have been propounded
which have enjoyed considerable popularity, and to
these two we shall confine our attention

The first is that originally brought into vogue by
Chalmers and adopted by the late Dr. Buckland in
his Bridgewater Treatise, and which is probably still
received by many as a sufficient solution of all diffi
culties. Dr. Buckland s treatment of the case may
be taken as a fair specimen of the line of argument
adopted, and it shall be given in his own words.
The word beginning! he says, as applied by Moses in
the first verse of the book of Genesis, expresses an
undefined period of time which was antecedent to the
last great change that affected the surface of the earth,
and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable
inhabitants, during which period a long series of
operations may have been going on ; which as they
are wholly unconnected with the history of the human
race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian,
whose only concern was barely to state, that the
matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent,
but was originally created by the power of the Al
mighty/ The Mosaic narrative commences with a
declaration that in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth/ These few first words of
Genesis may be fairly appealed to by the geologist as
containing a brief statement of the creation of the
material elements, at a time distinctly preceding the
operations of the first day ; it is nowhere affirmed that
God created the heaven and the earth in tf&s first day,
but in the beginning ; this beginning may have been
an epoch at an unmeasured distance, followed by
periods of undefined duration during which all the
physical operations disclosed by geology were going
on/

The first verse of Genesis, therefore, seems expli
citly to assert the creation of the universe ; the

Mosaic Cosmogony. 225

heaven, including the sidereal systems ; and the earth,
more especially specifying our own planet, as the sub
sequent scene of the operations of the six days about
to be described ; no information is given as to events
which may have occurred upon this earth, unconnected
with the history of man, between the creation of its
component matter recorded in the first verse, and the
era at which its history is resumed in the second
verse ; nor is any limit fixed to the time during
which these intermediate events may have been going
on : millions of millions of years may have occupied the
indefinite interval, between the beginning in which God
created the heaven and the earth, and the evening or
commencement of the first day of the Mosaic narrative/
The second verse may describe the condition of
the earth on the evening of this first day (for in the
Jewish mode of computation used by Moses each day
is reckoned from the beginning of one evening to the
beginning of another evening). This first evening
may be considered as the termination of the indefinite
time which followed the primeval creation announced
in the first verse, and as the commencement of the
first of the six succeeding days in which the earth was
to be filled up, and peopled in a manner fit for the
reception of mankind. We have in this second verse,

a distinct mention of earth and waters, as already

i/

existing and involved in darkness ; their condition
also is described as a state of confusion and emptiness
(tohu bohu\ words which are usually interpreted by
the vague and indefinite Greek term chaos, and which
may be geologically considered as designating the
wreck and ruins of a former world. At this inter
mediate point of time the preceding undefined geolo
gical periods had terminated, a new series of events
commenced, and the work of the first morning of this
new creation was the calling forth of light from a
temporary darkness, which had overspread the ruins
of the ancient earth.

220 Mosaic Cosmogony.

v

With regard to the formation of the sun and moon,
Dr. Buckland observes, p. 27, * We are not told that
the substance of the sun and moon was first called
into existence on the fourth day ; the text may
equally imply that these bodies were then prepared
and appointed to certain offices, of high importance
to mankind, to give light upon the earth, and
to rule over the day, and over the night, to be
for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for
years/ The fact of their creation had been stated
before in the first verse/

The question of the meaning of the word bara, create,
has been previously touched upon ; it has been ac
knowledged by good critics that it does not of itself
necessarily imply to make out of nothing/ upon
the simple ground that it is found used in cases where
such a meaning would be inapplicable. But the
difficulty of giving to it the interpretation contended
for by Dr. Buckland, and of uniting with this the
assumption of a six days creation, such as that des
cribed in Genesis, at a comparatively recent period, lies
in this, that the heaven itself is distinctly said to have
been formed by the division of the waters on the second
day. Consequently during the indefinite ages which
elapsed from the primal creation of matter until the
first Mosaic day of creation, there was no sky, no
local habitation for the sun, moon, and stars, even
supposing those bodies to have been included in the
original material. Dr. Buckland does not touch this
obvious difficulty, without which his argument that
the sun and moon might have been contemplated as pre
existing, although they are not stated to have been set
in the heaven until the fourth day, is of 110 value at all.

Dr. Buckland appears to assume that when it is
said that the heaven and the earth were created in the
beginning, it is to be understood that they were
created in their present form and state of completeness,
the heaven raised above the earth as we see it, or

Mosaic Cosmogony. 227

seem to see it now. This is the fallacy of his argument.
The circumstantial description of the framing of the
heaven out of the waters, proves that the words
* heaven and earth/ in the first verse, must he taken
either proleptically, as a general expression for the
universe, the matter of the universe in its crude and
unformed shape, or else the word bara must mean
formed, not created, the writer intending to say God
formed the heaven and earth in manner following:/ in

O

which case heaven is used in its distinct and proper
sense. But these two senses cannot be united in the
manner covertly assumed in Dr Buckland s argument.

Having, however, thus endeavoured to make out that
the Mosaic account does not negative the idea that
the sun, moon, and stars had heen created at the
indefinitely distant time designated by the word
beginning/ he is reduced to describe the primaeval
darkness of the first day as a temporary darkness,
produced by an accumulation of dense vapours upon
the face of the deep/ An incipient dispersion of
these vapours may have readmitted light to the earth,
upon the first day, whilst the exciting cause of light
was obscured, and the further purification of the atmo
sphere upon the fourth day, may have caused the sun
and moon and stars to re-appear in the firmament of
heaven, to assume their new relations to the newly
modified earth and to the human race/

It is needless to discuss the scientific probability of
this hypothesis, but the violence done to the grand
and simple words of the Hebrew writer must strike
every mind. And God said, Let there be light and
there was light and God saw the light that it was
good. And God divided the light from the darkness,
and God called the light day, and the darkness called
he night ; and the evening and the morning were the
first day/ Can any one sensible of the value of words
suppose, that nothing more is here described, or
intended to be described, than the partial clearing

Q 2

228 Mosaic Cosmogony.

away of a fog ? Can such a manifestation of light have
been dignified by the appellation of day ? Is not this
reducing the noble description which has been the
admiration of ages to a pitiful caput mortuum of
empty verbiage ?

What were the new relationswiciich the heavenly bodies
according to Dr. Buckland s view, assumed to the
newly modified earth and to the ham an race ? They
had, as we well know, marked out seasons, days and
years, and had giveri light for ages before to the earth,
and to the animals which preceded man as its inha
bitants, as is shown, Dr. Buckland admits, by the eyes
of fossil animals, optical instruments of the same con
struction as those of the animals of our days, and also
by the existence of vegetables in the early world, to the
development of which light must have been as essential
then as now.

The hypothesis adopted by Dr. Buckland was first
promulgated at a time when the gradual and regular
formation of the earth s strata was not seen or ad
mitted so clearly as it is now. Geologists were more
disposed to believe in great catastrophes and sudden
breaks. Buckland s theory supposes that previous to
the appearance of the present races of animals and
vegetables there was a great gap in the globe s history,
-that the earth was completely depopulated, as well
of marine as land animals; and that the creation of all
existing plants and animals w r as coseval with that of
man. This theory is by no means supported by
geological phenomena, and is, we suppose, now rejected
by all geologists whose authority is valuable. Thus
writes Hugh Miller in 1857-- ! certainly did once
believe with Chalmers and with Buckland that the six
days were simply natural days of twenty-four hours each
that they had comprised the entire work of the
existing creation and that the latest of the geologic
ages was separated by a great chaotic gap from our
own. My labours at the time as a practical geologist

Mosaic Cosmogony. 229

had been very much restricted to the palaeozoic and
secondary rocks, more especially to the old red and
carboniferous systems of the one division, and the
oolitic system of the other; and the long -extinct
organisms which I found in them certainly did not
conflict with the view of Chalmers. All I found
necessary at the time to the work of reconciliation
was some scheme that would permit me to assign to
the earth a high antiquity, and to regard it as the
scene of many succeeding creations. During the
last nine years, however, I have spent a few weeks
every autumn in exploring the late formations, and
acquainting myself with their particular organisms.
I have traced them upwards from the raised beaches
and old coast lines of the human period, to the brick
clays, Clyde beds, and drift and boulder deposits of
the Pleistocene era ; and again from them, with the
help of museums and collections, up through the
mammaliferous crag of England to its red and coral
crags ; and the conclusion at which I have been com
pelled to arrive is, that for many long ages ere man
was ushered into being, not a few of his humbler con
temporaries of the fields and woods enjoyed life in
their present haunts, and that for thousands of years
anterior to even their appearance, many of the existing
molluscs lived in our seas. That day during which
the present creation came into being, and in which
Grod, when he had made the beast of the earth after
his kind, and the cattle after their kind/ at length
terminated the work by moulding a creature in His
own image, to whom He gave dominion over them
all, was not a brief period of a few hours duration,
but extended over, mayhap, millenniums of centuries.
No blank chaotic gap of death and darkness separated
the creation to which man belongs from that of the
old extinct elephant, hippopotamus, and hyaena ; for
familiar animals, such as the red deer, the roe, the fox,
the wild cat, and the badger, lived throughout the

230 Mosaic Cosmogony.

period which connecter] their time with our own ; and
so I have been compelled to hold that the days of
creation were not natural but prophetic days, and
stretched far back into the bygone eternity/ 1

Hugh Miller will be admitted by many as a com
petent witness to the untenability of the theory of
Chalmers and Buckland on mere geological grounds.
He had, indeed, a theory of his own to propose, which
we shall presently consider ; but we may take his
word that it was not* without the compulsion of what
he considered irresistible evidence that he relinquished
a view which would have saved him infinite time and
labour, could he have adhered to it.

But whether contemplated from a geological point
of view, or whether from a philological one, that is,
with reference to the value of words, the use of lan
guage, and the ordinary rules which govern writers
whose object it is to make themselves understood by
those to whom their works are immediately addressed,
the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given
to the Mosaic description will not bear a moment s
serious discussion. It is plain, from the whole tenor
of the narrative, that the writer contemplated no such
representation as that suggested, nor could any such
idea have entered into the minds of those to whom
the account was first given. Dr. Buckland endea
vours to make out that we have here simply a case of
leaving out facts which did not particularly concern
the writer s purpose, so that he gave an account true
so far as it went, though imperfect. We may fairly
ask, he argues, of those persons who consider phy
sical science a fit subject for revelation, what point
they can imagine short of a communication of Omni
science at which such a revelation might have stopped
without imperfections of omission, less in degree, but

1 Testimony of the Rocks, p. 10.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 231

similar in kind, to that which they impute to the
existing narrative of Moses ? A revelation of so

o

much only of astronomy as was known to Copernicus
would have seemed imperfect after the discoveries of
Newton ; and a revelation of the science of Newton
would have appeared defective to La Place : a revela
tion of all the chemical knowledge of the eighteenth
century would have been as deficient in comparison
with the information of the present day, as what is
now known in this science will probably appear before

the termination of another acre ; in the whole circle

*

of sciences there is not one to which this argument
may not be extended, until we should require from
revelation a full development of all the mysterious
agencies that uphold the mechanism of the material
world/ Buckland s question is quite inapplicable to the
real difficulty, which is, not that circumstantial details
are omitted that might reasonably be expected, but
that what is told, is told so as to convey to ordinary
apprehensions an impression at variance with facts.
We are indeed told that certain writers of antiquity
had already anticipated the hypothesis of the geologist,
and two of the Christian fathers, Augustine and
Episcopius, are referred to as having actually held
that a wide interval elapsed between the first act of
creation, mentioned in the Mosaic account, and the
commencement of the six days work. 1 If, however,
they arrived at such a conclusion, it was simply be
cause, like the modern geologist, they had theories of
their own to support, which led them to make some
what similar hypotheses.

After all/ says Buckland, it should be recollected
that the question is not respecting the correctness of
the Mosaic narrative, but of oar interpretation of it/
a proposition which can hardly be sufficiently re-

1 See Dr. Pusey s note Bucklaud s Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 24, 25,

232 Mosaic Cosmogony.

probated. Such a doctrine, carried out unreservedly,
strikes at the root of critical morality. It may, in
deed, be sometimes possible to give two or three dif
ferent interpretations to one and the same passage,
even in a modern and familiar tongue, in which case
this may arise from the unsldlfulness of the writer or
speaker who has failed clearly to express his thought.
In a dead or foreign language the difficulty may arise
from our own want of familiarity with its forms of
speech, or in an ancient book we may be puzzled by
allusions and modes of thought the key to which has
been lost. But it is no part of the commentator s
or interpreter s business to introduce obscurity or find
difficulties where none exist, and it cannot be pre
tended that, taking it as a question of the use of
words to express thoughts, there are any peculiar
difficulties about understanding the first chapter of
Genesis, whether in its original Hebrew or in our
common translation, which represents the original
with all necessary exactness. The difficulties arise
for the first time, when we seek to import a meaning
into the language which it certainly never could have
conveyed to those to whom it was originally addressed.
Unless we go the whole length of supposing the sim
ple account of the Hebrew cosmogonist to be a series
of awkward equivocations, in which he attempted to
give a representation widely different from the facts,
yet, without trespassing against literal truth, we can
find no difficulty in interpreting his words. Although
language may be, and often has been, used for the pur
pose, not of expressing, but concealing thought, no such
charge can fairly be laid against the Hebrew writer.

It should be borne in mind, says Dr. Buckland,
that the object of the account was, not to state
in what manner, but by whom the world was made/
Every one must see that this is an unfounded asser
tion, inasmuch as the greater part of the narra
tive consists in a minute and orderly description of

Mosaic Cosmogony. 233

the manner in which things were made. We can
know nothing as to the object of the- account, except
from the account itself. What the writer meant
to state is just that which he has stated, for all that
we can know to the contrary. Or can we seriously be
lieve that if appealed to by one of his Hebrew hearers
or readers as to his intention, he would have replied,
My only object in what I have written is to inform
you that Grod made the world ; as to the manner of
His doing it, of which I have given so exact an ac
count, I have no intention that my words should be
taken in their literal meaning.

We come then to this, that if we sift the Mosaic
narrative of all definite meaning, and only allow it to
be the expression of the most vague generalities, if
we avow that it admits of no certain interpretation,
of none that may not be shifted and altered as often
as we see fit, and as the exigencies of geology may
require, then may we reconcile it with what science
teaches. This mode of dealing with the subject has
been broadly advocated by a recent writer of mathe
matical eminence, who adopts the Bucklandian hypo
thesis, a passage from whose work we shall quote. 1

The Mosaic account of the six days work is thus
harmonized by some. On the first day, while the
earth was without form and void/ the result of a
previous convulsion in nature, and darkness was
upon the face of the deep/ God commanded light
to shine upon the earth. This may have been
effected by such a clearing of the thick and loaded
atmosphere, as to allow the light of the sun to pene
trate its mass with a suffused illumination, sufficient
to dispel the total darkness which had prevailed, but
proceeding from a source not yet apparent on the
earth. On the second day a separation took place in

1 Scripture and Science not at Variance. By J. H. Pratt, M.A.,
Archdeacon of Calcutta, 1859. Third edition, p. 34.

234 Mosaic Cosmogony.

the thick vapoury mass which lay upon the earth,
dense clouds were gathered up aloft and separated by
an expanse from the waters and vapours below, On
the third day these lower vapours, or fogs and mists
which hitherto concealed the earth, were condensed
and gathered with the other waters of the earth into
seas, and the dry land appeared. Then grass and
herbs began to grow. On the fourth day the clouds
and vapours so rolled into separate masses, or were so
entirely absorbed into the air itself, that the sun shone
forth in all its brilliancy, the visible source of light
and heat to the renovated earth, while the moon and
stars gave light by night, and God appointed them
henceforth for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and for years, to his creatures whom he was about to
call into existence, as he afterwards set or appointed
his bow in the clouds, which had appeared ages before,
to be a sign to Noah and his descendants. The fifth
and sixth days work needs no comment.

( According to this explanation, the first chapter of
Genesis does not pretend (as has been generally
assumed) to be a cosmogony, or an account of the
original creation of the material universe. The only
cosmogony which it contains, in that sense at least, is
confined to the sublime declaration of the first verse,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. The inspired record thus stepping over an
interval of indefinite ages with which man has no
direct concern, proceeds at once to narrate the events
preparatory to the introduction of man on the scene ;
employing phraseology strictly faithful to the appear
ances which would have met the eye of man, could he
have been a spectator on the earth of what passed
during those six days. All this has been commonly
supposed to be a more detailed account of the general
truth announced in the first verse, in short, a cosmo
gony : such was the idea of Josephus ; such probably
was the idea of our translators ; for their version,

Mosaic Cosmogony. 235

without form and void, points to the primaeval chaos,
out of which all things were then supposed to emerge ;
and these words standing in famine, have tended, per
haps more than anything else, to foster the idea of a
cosmogony in the minds of general readers to this
very day.

The foregoing explanation many have now adopted.
It is sufficient for my purpose, if it be a possible ex
planation, and if it meet the difficulties of the case.
That it is possible in itself, is plain from the fact
above established, that the Scriptures wisely speak on
natural things according to their appearances rather
than their physical realities. It meets the difficulties
of the case, because all the difficulties hitherto started
against this chapter on scientific grounds proceeded on
the principle that it is a cosmogony ; which this
explanation repudiates, and thus disposes of the
difficulties. It is therefore an explanation satisfactory
to my own mind. I may be tempted to regret that I
can gain no certain scientific information from Grenesis
regarding the process of the original creation ; but I
resist the temptation, remembering the great object for
which the Scripture was given to tell man of his
origin and fall, and to draw his mind to his Creator
and Eedeemer. Scripture was not designed to teach
us natural philosophy, and it is vain to attempt to
make a cosmogony out of its statements. The Al
mighty declares himself the originator of all things,
but he condescends not to describe the process or the
laws by which he worked. All this he leaves for
reason to decipher from the phenomena which his
world displays.

This explanation, however, I do not wish to impose
on Scripture ; and am fully prepared to surrender it,
should further scientific discovery suggest another
better fitted to meet all the requirements of the case.

We venture to think that the world at large will
continue to consider the account in the first chapter of

236 Mosaic Cosmogony*

Genesis to be a cosmogony. But as it is here ad
mitted that it does not describe physical realities,
but only outward appearances, that is, gives a de
scription false in fact, and one which can teach us no
scientific truth whatever, it seems to matter little
what we call it. If its description of the events of the
six days which it comprises be merely one of appear
ances and not of realities, it can teach us nothing
regarding them.

Dissatisfied with -the scheme of conciliation which
has been discussed, other geologists have proposed to
give an entirely mythical or enigmatical sense to the
Mosaic narrative, and to consider the creative days
described as vast periods of time. This plan was
long ago suggested, but it has of late enjoyed a high
degree of popularity, through the advocacy of the
Scotch geologist Hugh Miller, an extract from whose
work has been already quoted. Dr. Buckland gives
the following account of the first form in which this
theory was propounded, and of the grounds upon
which he rejected it in favour of that of Chalmers : l -

A third opinion has been suggested both by
learned theologians and by geologists, and on
grounds independent of one another- -viz., that
the days of the Mosaic creation need not be un
derstood to imply the same length of time which
is now occupied by a single revolution of the globe,
but successive periods each of great extent ; and it
has been asserted that the order of succession of the
organic remains of a former world accords with the
order of creation recorded in Genesis. This assertion,
though to a certain degree apparently correct, is not
entirely supported by geological facts, since it appears
that the most ancient marine animals occur in the
same division of the lowest transition strata with the

1 Bridgewater Treatise, p. 17.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 237

earliest remains of vegetables, so that the evidence of
organic remains, as far as it goes, shows the origin of
plants and animals to have been contemporaneous : if
any creation of vegetables preceded that of animals,
no evidence of such an event has yet been discovered
by the researches of geology. Still there is, I believe,
no sound critical or theological objection to the inter
pretation of the word day as meaning a long
period/

Archdeacon Pratt also summarily rejects this view
as untenable : l

1 There is one other class of interpreters, however,
with whom I find it impossible to agree, I mean
those who take the six days to be six periods of un
known indefinite length. This is the principle of
interpretation in a work on the Creation and the Fall,
by the Eev. D. Macdonald ; also in Mr. Hugh Miller s
posthumous work, the Testimony of the Hocks, and also
in an admirable treatise on the Prce-Adamite Earth
in Dr. Lardner s Museum of Science. In this last it
is the more surprising because the successive chapters
are in fact an accumulation of evidence which points
the other way, as a writer in the Christian Observer,
Jan. 1858, has conclusively shown. The late M.
B Orbigny has demonstrated in his Prodrome de
Palceontoloyie, after an elaborate examination of vast
multitudes of fossils, that there have been at least
twenty-nine distinct periods of animal and vegetable
existence- -that is, twenty nine creations separated one
from another by catastrophes which have swept away
the species existing at the time, with a very few
solitary exceptions, never exceeding one and a-half per
cent, of the whole number discovered which have
either survived the catastrophe, or have been erro
neously designated. But not a single species of the

1 Science and Scripture not at Variance, p. 40, note.

238 Mosaic Cosmogony.

preceding period survived the last of these catastrophes,
and this closed the Tertiary period and ushered in the
Human period. The evidence adduced by M.
D Orbigny shows that both plants and animals ap
peared in every one of those twenty-nine periods.
The notion, therefore, that the days of Genesis
represent periods of creation from the beginning of
things is at once refuted. The parallel is destroyed
both in the number of the periods (thirty, including
the Azoic, instead of six), and also in the character
of the things created. No argument could be more
complete ; and yet the writer of the Prce-Adamite
Earth, in the last two pages, sums up his lucid sketch
of M. D Orbigny s researches by referring the account
in the first chapter of Genesis to the whole creation
from the beginning of all things, a selection of epochs
being made, as he imagines, for the six days or
periods/

In this trenchant manner do theological geologists
overthrow one another s theories. However, Hugh
Miller was perfectly aware of the difficulty involved
in his view of the question, and we shall endeavour to
show the reader the manner in which he deals with it.

He begins by pointing out that the families of vegeta
bles and animals were introduced upon earth as nearly
as possible according to the great classes in which
naturalists have arranged the modern flora and fauna.
According to the arrangement of Lindley, he observes
Commencing at the bottom of the scale we find
the thallogens, or flowerless plants, which lack proper
stems and leaves a class which includes all the alga?.
Next succeed the acrogens, or flowerless plants that
possess both stems and leaves- -such as the ferns and
their allies. Next, omitting an inconspicuous class,
represented by but a few parasitical plants incapable
of preservation as fossils, come the endogens-
monocotyledonous flowering plants, that include the
palms, the liliacea?, and several other families, all

Mosaic Cosmogony. 239

characterized by tlie parallel venation of their leaves.
Next, omitting another inconspicuous tribe, there
follows a very important class, the gymnogens
polycotyledonous trees, represented by the coniferse
and cycadacea3. And last of all come the dicotyledonous
exogens a class to which all our fruit and what are
known as our forest trees belong, with a vastly pre
ponderating majority of the herbs and flowers that
impart fertility and beauty to our gardens and
meadows. The order in which fossils of these several
classes appear in the strata, Hugh Miller states
to be as follows : In the Lower Silurian we find only
thallogens, in the Upper Silurian acrogens are added.
The gymnogens appear rather prematurely, it might
he thought, in the old red sandstone, the endogeiis
(monocotyledonous) coming after them in the carboni
ferous group. Dicotyledonous exogens enter at the
close of the oolitic period, and come to their greatest
development in the tertiary. Again, the animal tribes
have been introduced in an order closely agreeing with
the geological divisions established by Cuvier. In the
Silurian beds the invertebrate creatures, the radiata,
articulata, and mollusca, appear simultaneously. At
the close of the period, fishes, the lowest of the verte-
brata, appear : before the old red sandstone period had
passed away, reptiles had come into existence ; birds,
and the marsupial mammals, enter in the oolitic period ;
placental mammals in the tertiary ; and man last of all.
Now, these facts do certainly tally to some extent
with the Mosaic account, which represents fish and fowl
as having been produced from the waters on the fifth
day, reptiles and mammals from the earth on the
sixth, and man as made last of all. The agreement,
however, is far from exact, as according to geological
evidence, reptiles would appear to have existed ages
before birds and mammals, whereas here the creation
of birds is attributed to the fifth day, that of reptiles
to the sixth. There remains, moreover, the insuperable

240 Mosaic Cosmogony.

difficulty of the plants and trees being represented as
made on the third day that is, more than an age
before fishes and birds ; which is clearly not the case.
Although, therefore, there is a superficial resem
blance in the Mosaic account to that of the geologists,
it is evident that the bare theory that a day means
an age or immense geological period might be made
to yield some rather strange results. What becomes
of the evening and morning of which each day is said
to have consisted ? -Was each geologic age divided into
two long intervals, one all darkness, the other all light ?

o O

and if so, what became of the plants and trees created
in the third day or period, when the evening of the
fourth day (the evenings, be it observed, precede
the mornings) set in ? They must have passed
through half a seculum of total darkness, not even
cheered by that dim light which the sun, not yet com
pletely manifested, supplied on the morning of the third
day. Such an ordeal would have completely destroyed
the whole vegetable creation, and yet we find that it
survived, and was appointed on the sixth day as the
food of man and animals. In fact, we need only sub
stitute the word period for ( day in the Mosaic nar
rative to make it very apparent that the writer at least
had no such meaning, nor could he have conveyed
any such meaning to those who first heard his account
read.

1 It has been held/ says Hugh Miller, by accom
plished philologists, that the days of Mosaic creation
may be regarded without doing violence to the Hebrew
language, as successive periods of great extent/ 1 We
do not believe that there is any ground for this doc
trine. The word day 7 is certainly used occasionally in
particular phrases, in an indefinite manner, not only
in Hebrew, but other languages. As for instance,
Gen. xxxix. n About this time/ Heb. literally,

1 Testimony, p. 133.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 241

about this day. But every such phrase explains
itself, and not only philology but common sense dis
claims the notion, that when day is spoken of in terms
like those in the first chapter of Genesis, and described
as consisting of an evening and a morning, it can
be understood to mean a seculum.

Archdeacon Pratt, treating on the same subject,
says (p. 41, note), Were there no other ground of
objection to this mode of interpretation, I think the
wording of the fourth commandment is clearly opposed
to it. Ex. xx. 8. Kemember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy. 9. Six days shalt thou labour and do
all thy work. 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. In it thou, shalt not do any
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man
servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates. IT. For in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and
all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ;
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hal
lowed it.

Is it not a harsh and forced interpretation to sup
pose that the six days in v. 9 do not mean the same
as the six days in v. n, but that in this last place they
mean six periods ? In reading through the eleventh
verse, it is extremely difficult to believe that the seventh
day is a long period, and the sabbath day an ordinary
day, that is, that the same word day should be used in
two such totally different senses in the same short
sentence and without any explanation/

Hugh Miller saw the difficulty; but he endeavours
to escape the consequences of a rigorous application
of the periodic theory by modifying it in a peculiar,
and certainly ingenious manner. Waiving/ he says,
the question as a philological one, and simply holding
with Cuvier, Parkinson, and Silliman, that each of
the six days of the Mosaic account in the first chapter

R

242 Mosaic Cosmogony.

were what is assuredly meant by the day^ referred to
in the second, not natural days but lengthened periods,
I find myself called on, as a geologist, to account
for but three out of the six. Of the period during
which light was created, of the period during which a
firmament was made to separate the waters from the
waters, or of the period during which the two great
lights of the earth, with the other heavenly bodies,
became visible from the earth s surface we need
expect to find no record in the rocks. Let me, how
ever, pause for a moment, to remark the peculiar
character of the language in which we are first intro
duced in the Mosaic narrative, to the heavenly bodies
-sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though absolutely
one of the smallest lights of our system, is described
as secondary and subordinate to only its greatest light,
the sun. It is the apparent, then, not the actual, which
we find in the passage what seemed to be, not
what was ; and as it was merely what appeared to
be greatest that was described as greatest, on what
grounds are we to hold that it may not also have been
what appeared at the time to be made that has been
described as made ? The sun, moon, and stars, may
have been created long before, though it was not until
this fourth day of creation that they became visible
from the earth s surface/"

The theory founded upon this hint is that the
Hebrew writer did not state facts, but merely certain
appearances, and those not of things which really hap-

1 The expression, Gen. ii. 4, In the day that the Lord God created
the earth and heaven, to which Hugh Miller here refers, may possibly
mean at the time when/ meaning a week, year, or other limited time. But
there is not the smallest reason for understanding it to mean a lengthened
period, i.e., an immense lapse of time. Such a construction would be in
admissible in the Hebrew, or any other language. It is difficult to acquit
Hu^-h IViiller of an equivocation here. In real truth, the second narrative
is, as we have before observed, of distinct origin from the first, and we in
cline to the belief that, in this case also, day is to be taken in its proper
signification.

Testimony, p. 734.

Mosaic Cosmogony. 243

pened, as assumed in the explanation adopted by
Archdeacon Pratt, but of certain occurrences which
were presented to him in a vision, and that this
vision greatly deceived him as to what he seemed
to see; and thus, in effect, the real discrepancy of
the narrative with facts is admitted. He had in
all, seven visions, to each of which he attributed the
duration of a day, although indeed each picture
presented to him the earth during seven long and dis
tinctly marked epochs. While on the one hand this
supposition admits all desirable latitude for mistakes
and misrepresentations, Hugh Miller, on the other
hand, endeavours to show that a substantial agreement
with the truth exists, and to give sufficient reason
for the mistakes. We must let him speak for him
self. The geologist, in his attempts to collate
the Divine with the geologic record, has, I repeat,
only three of the six periods of creation to account
for l the period of plants, the period of great sea-
monsters and creeping things, and the period of cattle
and beasts of the earth. He is called on to question
his systems and formations regarding the remains of
these three great periods, and of them only. And the
question once fairly stated, what, I ask, is the reply ?
All geologists agree in holding that the vast geological
scale naturally divides into three great parts. There
are many lesser divisions divisions into systems,
formations, deposits, beds, strata; but the master
divisions, in each of which we find a type of life so
unlike that of the others, that even the unpractised
eye can detect the difference, are simply three : the
palaeozoic, or oldest fossiliferous division; the secondary,

1 A very inadmissible assertion. Any one, be he geologist, astronomer,
theologian, or philologist, who attempts to explain the Hebrew narrative,
is bound to take it with all that really belongs to it. And in truth, if the
fourth day really represented an epoch of creative activity, geology
would be able to _give some account of it. There is no reason to suppose
that any intermission has taken place.

B, 2

244 Mosaic Cosmogony.

or middle fossiliferous division ; and the tertiary, or
latest fossiliferous division. In the first, or palaeozoic
division, we find corals, crustaceans, molluscs, fishes ;
and in its later formations, a few reptiles. But none of
these classes give its leading character to the palaeozoic;
they do not constitute its prominent feature, or render
it more remarkable as a scene of life than any of the
divisions which followed. That which chiefly dis
tinguished the palaeozoic from the secondary and
tertiary periods was* its gorgeous flora. It was em
phatically the period of plants of herbs yielding
seed after their kind. In no other a^e did the world

o

ever witness such a flora ; the youth of the earth was
peculiarly a green and umbrageous youth a youth of
dusk and tangled forests, of huge pines and stately
araucarians, of the reed-like calamite, the tall tree-fern,
the sculptured sigillaria, and the hirsute lepidodendrons.
Wherever dry land, or shallow lakes, or running stream
appeared, from where Melville Island now spreads out
its icy coast under the star of the pole, to where the
arid plains of Australia lie solitary beneath the bright
cross of the south, a rank and luxuriant herbage cum
bered every foot-breadth of the dank and steaming soil ;
and even to distant planets our earth must have shone
through the enveloping cloud with a green and deli
cate ray. . . . The geologic evidence is so com
plete as to be patent to all, that the first great period
of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic
record, peculiarly a period of herbs and trees yielding
seed after their kind/

The middle great period of the geologist that of
the secondary division possessed, like the earlier one,
its herbs and plants, but they were of a greatly less
luxuriant and conspicuous character than their pre
decessors, and no longer formed the prominent trait
or feature of the creation to which they belonged.
The period had also its corals, its crustaceans, its
molluscs, its fishes, and in some one or two excep-

Mosaic Cosmogony. 245

tional instances, its dwarf mammals. But the grand
existences of the age the existences in which it ex
celled every other creation, earlier or later were its
huge creeping things its enormous monsters of the
deep, and, as shown by the impressions of their foot
prints stamped upon the rocks, its gigantic birds. It
was peculiarly the age of egg-bearing animals, winged
and wingless. Its wonderful whales, not however, as
now, of the mammalian, but of the reptilian class,
ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and cetosaurs, must
have tempested the deep ; its creeping lizards and
crocodiles, such as the teliosaurus, megalosaurus, and
iguanodon creatures, some of which more than
rivalled the existing elephant in height, and greatly
more than rivalled him in bulk must have crowded
the plains, or haunted by myriads the rivers of the
period ; and we know that the foot-prints of at least
one of its many birds are of fully twice the size of
those made by the horse or camel. We are thus pre
pared to demonstrate, that the second period of the
geologist was peculiarly and characteristically a period
of whale-like reptiles of the sea, of enormous creeping
reptiles of the land, and of numerous birds, some of
them of gigantic size ; and in meet accordance with
the fact, we find that the second Mosaic period with
which the geologist is called on to deal, was a period in
which God created the fowl that flieth above the
earth, with moving (or creeping) creatures, both in
the waters and on land, and what our translation
renders great whales, but that I find rendered in the
margin great sea-monsters. The tertiary period had
also its prominent class of existences. Its flora seems
to have been no more conspicuous than that of the
present time ; its reptiles occupy a very subordinate
place ; but its beasts of the field were by far the most
wonderfully developed, both in size and numbers, that
ever appeared on earth. Its mammoths and its mas
todons, its rhinoceri and its hippopotami, its enormous

246 Mosaic Cosmogony.

dinotherium, and colossal megatherium, greatly more
than equalled in bulk the hugest mammals of the
present time, and vastly exceeded them in number,
Grand, indeed/ says an English naturalist,
c was the fauna of the British Islands in these early
days. Tigers as large again as the biggest Asiatic
species lurked in the ancient thickets; elephants of
nearly twice the bulk of the largest individuals that
now exist in Africa or Ceylon roamed in herds ; at
least two species of rhinoceros forced their way
through the primeval forest ; and the lakes and
rivers were tenanted by hippopotami as bulky and
with as great tusks as those of Africa/ The massive
cave-bear and large cave-hyaena belonged to the same
formidable group, with at least two species of great
oxen (Bos longifrons and Bos primiyenius), with a horse
of smaller size, and an elk (Meyaceros Hibernicus} that
stood ten feet four inches in height. Truly this
Tertiary age- -this third and last of the great geologic
periods was peculiarly the age of great beasts of
the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind/

Thus by dropping the invertebrata, and the early fishes
and reptiles of the Palaeozoic period as inconspicuous
and of little account, and bringing prominently for
ward the carboniferous era which succeeded them as the
most characteristic feature of the first great division,
by classing the great land reptiles of the secondary
period with the moving creatures of the waters, (for
in the Mosaic account it does not appear that any
inhabitants of the land were created on the fifth day),
and evading the fact that terrestrial reptiles seem to
have preceded birds in their order of appearance upon
earth, the geologic divisions are tolerably well assimi
lated to the third, fifth, and sixth Mosaic days. These
things were represented, we are told, to Moses in
visionary pictures, and resulted in the short and
summary account which he has given.

There is something in this hypothesis very near to

Mosaic Cosmogony. 247

the obvious truth, while at the same time something
very remote from that truth is meant to be inferred.
If it be said the Mosaic account is simply the specu
lation of some early Copernicus or Newton who
devised a scheme of the earth s formation, as nearly
as he might in accordance with his own observations
of nature, and with such views of things as it was
possible for an unassisted thinker in those days to
take, we may admire the approximate correctness of
the picture drawn, while we see that the writer, as
might be expected, took everything from a different
point of view from ourselves, and consequently repre
sented much quite differently from the fact. But
nothing of this sort is really intended. We are
asked to believe that a vision of creation was
presented to him by Divine power, for the purpose
of enabling him to inform the world of what he had
seen, which vision inevitably led him to give a de
scription which has misled the world for centuries,
and in which the truth can now only with difficulty
be recognised. The Hebrew writer informs us that
on the third day the earth brought forth grass, the
herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yield
ing fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind ;
and in the 29th verse, that God on the sixth day said,
Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree
in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you
it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth,
and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that
creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have
given every green herb for meat/ Can it be disputed
:hat the writer here conceives that grass, corn, and
fruit, were created on the third day, and with a view
to the future nourishment of man and beast? Yet,
according to the vision hypothesis, he must have been
greatly deceived ; for that luxuriant vegetation which
he saw on the third day, consisted not of plants des-

248 Mosaic Cosmogony.

tined for the food of man, but for his fuel. It was the
flora of the carboniferous period which he beheld, con
cerning which Hugh Miller makes the following re
mark, p. 24 : The existing plants whence we derive
our analogies in dealing with the vegetation of this
early period, contribute but little, if at all, to the sup
port of animal life. The ferns and their allies remain
untouched by the grazing animals. Our native club-
mosses, though once used in medicine, are positively
deleterious; the horsetails, though harmless, so abound
in silex, which wraps them round with a cuticle of
stone, that they are rarely cropped by cattle ; while
the thickets of fern which cover our hill- sides, and
seem so temptingly rich and green in their season,
scarce support the existence of a single creature, and
remain untouched in stem and leaf from their first
appearance in spring, until they droop and wither
under the frosts of early winter. Even the insects
that infest the herbaria of the botanist almost never
injure his ferns. Nor are our resin-producing conifers,
though they nourish a few beetles ; favourites with the
herbivorous tribes in a much greater degree. Judging
from all we yet know, the earliest terrestrial flora may
have covered the dry land with its mantle of cheer
ful green, and served its general purposes, chemical
and others, in the well-balanced economy of nature ;
but the herb-eating animals would have fared but ill,
even where it throve most luxuriantly ; and it seems
to harmonize with the fact of its unedible character
that up to the present time we know not that a
single herbivorous animal lived amongst its shades.
The Mosaic writer is, however, according to the theory,
misled by the mere appearance of luxurious vegeta
tion, to describe fruit trees and edible seed-bearing
vegetables as products of the third day.

Hugh Miller s treatment of the description of the
first dawn of light is not more satisfactory than that
of Dr. Buckland. He supposes the prophet in his

Mosaic Cosmogony. 249

dream to have heard the command Let there be light
enunciated, whereupon straightway a grey diffused
light springs up in the east, and casting its sickly gleam
over a cloud-limited expanse of steaming vaporous
sea, journeys through the heavens towards the west.
One heavy, sunless day is made the representative of
myriads ; the faint light waxes fainter, it sinks be-
neath the dim, undefined horizon/

We are then asked to imagine that a second and a
third day, each representing the characteristic features
of a great distinctly-marked epoch, and the latter of
them marked by the appearance of a rich and luxuriant
vegetation, are presented to the seer s eye ; but without
sun, moon, or stars as yet entering into his dream.
These appear first in his fourth vision, and then for the
first time we have a brilliant day/ and the seer,
struck with the novelty, describes the heavenly bodies
as being the most conspicuous objects in the picture.
In reality we know that he represents them (v. 16) as
having been made and set in the heavens on that day,
though Hugh Miller avoids reminding us of this.

In one respect the theory of Hugh Miller agrees with
that advocated by Dr. Buckland and Archdeacon Pratt.
Both these theories divest the Mosaic narrative of real
accordance with fact ; both assume that appearances
only, not facts, are described, and that in riddles, which
would never have been suspected to be such, had we
not arrived at the truth from other sources. It would
be difficult for controversialists to cede more completely
the point in dispute, or to admit more explicitly
that the Mosaic narrative does not represent correctly
the history of the universe up to the time of man.
At the same time, the upholders of each theory see
insuperable objections in details to that of their allies,
and do not pretend to any firm faith in their own.
How can it be otherwise when the task proposed is to
evade the plain meaning of language, and to introduce
obscurity into one of the simplest stories ever told,

250 Mosaic Cosmogony.

for the sake of making it accord with the complex
system of the universe which modern science has un
folded ? The spectacle of able and, we doubt not,
conscientious writers engaged in attempting the im
possible is painful and humiliating. They evidently

do not breathe freelv over their work, but shuffle

/

and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner ;
nor are they themselves again until they return to the
pure and open fields of science.

It is refreshing to -return to the often-echoed remark,
that it could not have been the object of a Divine
revelation to instruct mankind in physical science,
man having had faculties bestowed upon him to enable
him to acquire this knowledge by himself. This is in
fact pretty generally admitted; but in the application of
the doctrine,writers play at fast and loose with it accord
ing to circumstances. Thus an inspired writer may be
permitted to allude to the phenomena of nature ac
cording to the vulgar view of such things, without
impeachment of his better knowledge ; but if he speaks
of the same phenomena assertively, we are bound to
suppose that things are as he represents them, however
much our knowledge of nature may be disposed to
recalcitrate. But if we find a difficulty in admitting that
such misrepresentations can find a place in revelation,
the difficulty lies in our having previously assumed
what a Divine revelation ought to be. If God made use
of imperfectly informed men to lay the foundations of
that higher knowledge for which the human race was
destined, is it wonderful that they should have com
mitted themselves to assertions not in accordance with
facts, although they may have believed them to be
true ? On what grounds has the popular notion of
Divine revelation been built up ? Is it not plain that
the plan of Providence for the education of man is a
progressive one, and as imperfect men have been used
as the agents for teaching mankind, is it not to be
expected that their teachings should be partial and, to

Mosaic Cosmogony. 251

some extent, erroneous ? Admitted, as it is, that
physical science is not what the Hebrew writers, for
the most part, profess to convey, at any rate, that it
is not on account of the communication of such
knowledge that we attach any value to their writings,
why should we hesitate to recognise their fallibility
on this head ?

Admitting, as is historically and in fact the case,
that it was the mission of the Hebrew race to lay the
foundation of religion upon the earth, and that Pro
vidence used this people specially for this purpose, is it
not our business and our duty to look and see how
this has really been done ? not forming for ourselves
theories of what a revelation ought to be, or how we,
if entrusted with the task, would have made one, but
enquiring how it has pleased Grod to do it. In all his
theories of the world, man has at first deviated widely
from the truth, and has only gradually come to see
how far otherwise God has ordered things than the
first daring speculator had supposed. It has been
popularly assumed that the Bible, bearing the stamp
of Divine authority, must be complete, perfect, and
unimpeachable in all its parts, and a thousand diffi
culties and incoherent doctrines have sprung out of
this theory. Men have proceeded in the matter of
theology, as they did with physical science before in
ductive philosophy sent them to the feet of nature,
and bid them learn in patience and obedience the
lessons which she had to teach. Dogma and groundless
assumption occupy the place of modest enquiry after
truth, while at the same time the upholders of these
theories claim credit for humility and submissiveness.
This is exactly inverting the fact; the humble scholar
of truth is not he who, taking his stand upon the
traditions of rabbins, Christian fathers, or school
men, insists upon bending facts to his unyielding
standard, but he who is willing to accept such teachin g
as it has pleased Divine Providence to afford, withou t

252 Mosaic Cosmogony.

murmuring that it has not been furnished more
copiously or clearly.

The Hebrew race, their works, and their books, are
great facts in the history of man ; the influence of
the mind of this people upon the rest of mankind has
been immense and peculiar, and there can be no diffi
culty in recognising therein the hand of a directing
Providence. But we may not make ourselves wiser
than God, nor attribute to Him methods of procedure
which are not His. , If, then, it is plain that He has
not thought it needful to communicate to the writer
of the Cosmogony that knowledge which modern re
searches have revealed, why do we not acknowledge
this, except that it conflicts with a human theory
which presumes to point out how God ought to have
instructed man ? The treatment to which the Mosaic
narrative is subjected by the theological geologists is
anything but respectful. The writers of this school,
as we have seen, agree in representing it as a series of
elaborate equivocations a story which palters with
us in a double sense/ But if we regard it as the
speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton,
promulgated in all good faith as the best and most
probable account that could be then given of God s
universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which
the writers in question have done their utmost to de
prive it. It has been sometimes felt as a difficulty to
taking this view of the case, that the writer asserts so
solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must
have known that he had no authority. But this arises
only from our modern habits of thought, and from
the modesty of assertion which the spirit of true science
has taught us. Mankind has learnt caution through
repeated slips in the process of tracing out the truth.

The early speculator was harassed by no such
scruples, and asserted as facts what he knew in reality
only as probabilities. But we are not on that account
to doubt his perfect good faith, nor need we attribute

Mosaic Cosmogony. 253

to him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of
asserting that which he knew not to be true. He had
seized one great truth, in which, indeed, he anticipated
the highest revelation of modern enquiry- -namely,
the unity of the design of the world, and its subordi
nation to one sole Maker and Lawgiver. With regard
to details, observation failed him. He knew little of
the earth s surface, or of its shape and place in the
universe ; the infinite varieties of organized existences
which people it, the distinct floras and faunas of its
different continents, were unknown to him. But he
saw that all which lay within his observation had been
formed for the benefit and service of man, and the
goodness of the Creator to his creatures was the
thought predominant in his mind. Man s closer rela
tion to his Maker is indicated by the representation
that he was formed last of all creatures, and in the
visible likeness of God. For ages, this simple view
of creation satisfied the wants of man, and formed a
sufficient basis of theological teaching, and if modern
research now shows it to be physically untenable, our
respect for the narrative which has played so important
a part in the culture of our race need be in nowise
diminished. No one contends that it can be used as
a basis of astronomical or geological teaching, and
those who profess to see in it an accordance with facts,
only do this sub modo, and by processes which despoil
it of its consistency and grandeur, both which may
be preserved if we recognise in it, not an authentic
utterance of Divine knowledge, but a human utterance,
which it has pleased Providence to use in a special
way for the education of mankind.

TENDENCIES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
IN ENGLAND, 16881750.

thirty years of peace which succeeded the
JL Peace of Utrecht (1714), was the most prosperous
season that England had ever experienced ; and the
progression, though slow, being uniform, the reign of
George II. might not disadvantageously be compared
for the real happiness of the community with that
more brilliant, but uncertain and oscillatory condition
which has ensued. A labourer s wages have never for
many ages commanded so large a portion of sub
sistence as in this part of the i8th century/ (Hallam,
Const. Hist. ii. 464.)

This is the aspect which that period of history
wears to the political philosopher. The historian of
moral and religious progress, on the other hand, is
under the necessity of depicting the same period as
one of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, pub
lic corruption, profaneness of language a day of
rebuke and blasphemy/ Even those who look with
suspicion on the contemporary complaints from the
Jacobite clergy of decay of religion will not hesitate
to say that it was an age destitute of depth or earnest
ness ; an age whose poetry was without romance,
whose philosophy w r as without insight, and whose
public men were without character ; an age of light
without love/ whose very merits were of the earth,
earthy/ In this estimate the followers of Mill and
Carlyle will agree with those of Dr. Newman.

Tendencies of Religious Thought in England. 255

The Stoical moralists of the second century who
witnessed a similar coincidence of moral degradation
and material welfare, had no difficulty in connecting
them together as effect with cause. * Bona rerum
secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabiUa. (Seneca,
ad Liicil. 66.) But the famous theory which satisfied
the political philosophers of antiquity, viz., that the
degeneracy of nations is due to the inroads of luxury,
is laughed to scorn by modern economists. It is at
any rate a theory which can hardly be adopted by
those who pour unmeasured contempt on the i8th, by
way of contrast with the revival of higher principles
by the i9th century. It is especially since the High
Church movement commenced that the theology of
the 1 8th century has become a bye word. The genuine
Anglican omits that period from the history of the
Church altogether. In constructing his Catena Patrmn
he closes his list with Waterland or Brett, and leaps
at once to 1833, when the Tracts for the Times com
menced as Charles II. dated his reign from his
father s death. Such a legal fiction may be harmless
or useful for purposes of mere form, but the facts of
history cannot be disposed of by forgetting them.
Both the Church and the world of to-day are what
they are as the result of the whole of their antecedents.
The history of a party may be written on the theory
of periodical occultation; but he who wishes to trace the
descent of religious thought, and the practical working
of the religious ideas, must follow these through all the
phases they have actually assumed. We have not yet
learnt, in this country, to write our ecclesiastical history
on any better footing than that of praising up the party,
in or out of the Church, to which we happen to belong.
Still further are we from any attempt to apply the
laws of thought, and of the succession of opinion, to
the course of English theology. The recognition of
the fact, that the view of the eternal verities of religion
which prevails in any given age is in part determined

256 Tendencies of Religious Thought in En (/land,

by the view taken in the age which preceded it, is
incompatible with the hypothesis generally prevalent
among us as to the mode in which we form our notions
of religious truth. Upon none of the prevailing
theories as to this mode is a deductive history of
theology possible, i. The Catholic theory, which is
really that of Boman-Catholics, and professedly that
of some Anglo-Catholics, withdraws Christianity alto
gether from human experience and the operation of
the ordinary laws > of thought. 2. The Protestant
theory of free inquiry, which supposes that each mind
takes a survey of the evidence, and strikes the balance
of probability according to the best of its judgment
this theory, defers indeed to the abstract laws of logic,
but overlooks the influences of education. If, without
hypothesis, we are content to observe facts, we shall
find that we cannot decline to study the opinions of
any age only because they are not our own opinions.
There is a law of continuity in the progress of theology
which, whatever we may wish, is never broken off.
In tracing the filiation of consecutive systems, we
cannot afford to overlook any link in the chain, any
age, except one in which religious opinion did not
exist. Certainly we, in this our time, if we would
understand our own position in the Church, and that
of the Church in the age, if we would hold any clue
through the maze of religious pretension which sur
rounds us, cannot neglect those immediate agencies in
the production of the present, which had their origin
towards the beginning of the 1 8th century.

Of these agencies there are three, the present in
fluence of which cannot escape the most inattentive.
i. The formation and gradual growth of that compromise
between Church and State, which is called Toleration,
and which, believed by many to be a principle, is a
mere arrangement between two principles. Bat such
as it is, it is part of our heritage from the last age,
and is the foundation, if foundation it can be called,

16881750. 257

upon which we still continue to build, as in the late
Act for the admission of the Jews to Parliament. 2.
The great rekindling of the religious consciousness of
the people which, without the Established Church,
became Methodism, and within its pale has obtained
the name of the Evangelical movement. However
decayed may be the Evangelical party as a party, it
cannot be denied that its influence, both on our reli
gious ideas, and on our church life, has penetrated far
beyond those party limits. 3. The growth and gradual
diffusion through all religious thinking of the supre
macy of reason. This, which is rather a principle, or
a mode of thinking, than a doctrine, may be properly
enough called Rationalism. This term is used in this
country with so much laxity that it is impossible to
define the sense in which it is generally intended.
But it is often taken to mean a system opposed to re
vealed religion imported into this country from Ger
many at the beginning of the present century. A
person, however, who surveys the course of English
theology during the eighteenth century will have no
difficulty in recognising that throughout all discussions,
underneath all controversies, and common to all par
ties, lies the assumption of the supremacy of reason
in matters of religion. The Kantian Philosophy did
but bring forward into light, and give scientific form
and a recognised position to, a principle which had
long unconsciously guided all treatment of religious
topics both in Germany and in England. Rationalism
was not an anti-Christian sect outside the Church
making war against religion. It was a habit of
thought ruling all minds, under the conditions of
which all alike tried to make good the peculiar
opinions they might happen to cherish. The Church
man differed from the Socinian, and the Socinian from
the Deist, as to the number of articles in his creed ;
but all alike consented to test their belief by the ra
tional evidence for it. Whether given doctrines or

s

258 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

miracles were conformable to reason or not was dis
puted between the defence and the assault ; but that
all doctrines were to stand or fall by that criterion
was not questioned. The principles and the priority
of natural religion formed the common hypothesis on
the ground of which the disputants argued whether
anything, and what, had been subsequently commu
nicated to man in a supernatural way. The line
between those who believed much and those who
believed little cannot be sharply drawn. Some of the
so-called Deists were, in fact, Socinians ; as Toland,
who expressly admits all those parts of the New
Testament revelation which are, or seem to him,
comprehensible by reason. (Christianity not Myste
rious^} Nor is there any ground for thinking that
Toland was insincere in his profession of rational
Christianity, as was insinuated by his opponents e.g.
Leland. (View of the Deistical Writers, vol. i. p. 49.)
A more candid adversary, Leibnitz, who knew Toland
personally, is glad to believe that the design of this
author, a man of no common ability, and as I think,
a well-disposed person, was to withdraw men from
speculative theology to the practice of its precepts.
(Annotatiuncula subitanecs.} Hardly one here and
there, as Hume, professed Rationalism in the extent
of Atheism ; the great majority of writers were
employed in constructing a via media between Atheism
and Athanasianism, while the most orthodox were
diligently hewing and chiselling Christianity into an
intelligible human system, which they then represented,
as thus mutilated, as affording a remarkable evidence
of the truth of the Bible/ (Tracts for the "Times,
vol. ii. No. 73.) The title of Locke s treatise, The
Reasonableness of Christianity, may be said to have
been the solitary thesis of Christian theology in Eng
land for great part of a century.

If we are to put chronological limits to this system
of religious opinion in England, we might, for the

16881750. 259

sake of a convenient landmark, say that it came in
with the Revolution of 1688, and began to decline in
vigour with the reaction against the Reform movement
about 1830. Locke s Reasonableness of Christianity
would thus open, and the commencement of the Tracts
for the limes mark the fall of Rationalism. Not that
chronology can ever be exactly applied to the mutations
of opinion. For there were Rationalists before Locke,
e.g. Hales of Eton, and other Arminians, nor has the
Church of England unanimously adopted the principles
of the Tracts for the Times, But if we were to follow
up Cave s nomenclature, the appellation Seeulum ra-
tionalisticum might be affixed to the eighteenth century
with greater precision than many of his names apply
to the previous centuries. For it was not merely that
Eationalism then obtruded itself as a heresy, or ob
tained a footing of toleration within the Church, but
the rationalizing method possessed itself absolutely of
the whole field of theology. With some trifling ex
ceptions, the whole of religious literature was drawn
in to the endeavour to prove the truth of Christianity.
The essay and the sermon, the learned treatise and
the philosophical disquisition, Addison the polite
writer, and Bentley the classical philologian (Addison :
Evidences of the Christian Religion, a posthumous pub
lication. Bentley : Eight Sermons at Boyle s Lecture,
1692), the astronomer Newton (Four Letters, 8fc. }
Lond. 1 756), no less than the theologians by profession,
were all engaged upon the same task. To one book
of A. Collins, A Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons
of the Christian Religion, Lond. 1724, are counted no
less than thirty-five answers. Dogmatic theology had
ceased to exist ; the exhibition of religious truth for
practical purposes was confined to a few obscure
writers. Every one who had anything to say on
sacred subjects drilled it into an array of argument
against a supposed objector. Christianity appeared
made for nothing else but to be proved; what use to

260 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

make of it when it was proved was not much thought
about. Reason was at first offered as the basis of
faith, but gradually became its substitute. The mind
never advanced as far as the stage of belief, for it was
unceasingly engaged in reasoning up to it. The only
quality in Scripture which was dwelt upon was its
credibility/ Even the Evangelical school, which
had its origin in a reaction against the dominant Ra
tionalism, and began in endeavours to kindle religious
feeling, was obliged to succumb at last. It, too, drew
out its rational * scheme of Christianity/ in which the
atonement was made the central point of a system,
and the death of Christ was accounted for as necessary
to satisfy the Divine Justice.

This whole rationalist age must again be subdi
vided into two periods, the theology of which, though
belonging to the common type, has distinct specific
characters. These periods are of nearly equal length,
and we may conveniently take the middle year of the
century, 1750, as our terminus of division. Though
both periods were engaged upon the proof of Christi
anity, the distinction between them is that the first
period was chiefly devoted to the internal, the second
to the external, attestations. In the first period the
main endeavour was to show that there was nothing
in the contents of the revelation which was not agree
able to reason. In the second, from 1750 onwards,
the controversy was narrowed to what are usually
called the Evidences/ or the historical proof of the
genuineness and authenticity of the Christian records.
From this distinction of topic arises an important
difference of value between the theological produce
of the two periods. A great injustice is done to the
1 8th century, when its whole speculative product is
set down under the description of that Old Bailey
theology in which, to use Johnson s illustration, the
Apostles are being tried once a week for the capital
crime of forsrerv. This evidential school the school

o /

16881750. 261

of Lardner, Paley, and Whately belongs strictly to
the latter half only of the period now under con
sideration. This school, which treated the exterior
evidence, was the natural sequel and supplement of
that which had preceded it, which dealt with the in
trinsic credibility of the Christian revelation. This
historical succession of the schools is the logical order
of the argument. For when we have first shown that
the facts of Christianity are not incredible, the whole
burden of proof is shifted to the evidence that the
facts did really occur. Neither branch of the argu
ment can claim to be religious instruction at all, but
the former does incidentally enter upon the substance
of the Gospel. It may be philosophy rather than
theology, but it raises in its course some of the most
momentous problems which can engage the human
mind. On the other hand, a mind which occupies
itself with the external evidences knows nothing of
the spiritual intuition, of which it renounces at once
the difficulties and the consolations. The supply of
evidences in what for the sake of a name may be called
the Georgian period (1750-1830), was not occasioned
by any demands of controversy. The attacks through
the press were nearly at an end, the Deists had ceased
to be. The clergy continued to manufacture evidence
as an ingenious exercise, a literature which was avow
edly professional, a study which might seem theology
without being it, which could awaken none of the
scepticism then dormant beneath the surface of society.
Evidences are not edged tools; they stir no feeling;
they were the proper theology of an age, whose li
terature consisted in writing Latin hexameters. The
orthodox school no longer dared to scrutinize the con
tents of revelation. The preceding period had eli
minated the religious experience, the Georgian had
lost besides, the power of using the speculative rea
son.

The historical investigation, indeed, of the Originea

262 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

of Christianity is a study scarcely second in importance
to a philosophical arrangement of its doctrines. But
for a genuine inquiry of this nature the English writers
of the period had neither the taste nor the knowledge.
Gibbon alone approached the true difficulties, but met
only with opponents victory over whom was a suffi
cient humiliation/ (Autobiography^) No Englishman
will refuse to join with Coleridge in the admiration
he expresses for the head and heart of Paley, the
incomparable grace, propriety, and persuasive facility
of his writings. (Aids to Reflection, p. 401.) But
Paley had unfortunately dedicated his powers to a
factitious thesis ; his demonstration, however perfect,
is in unreal matter. The case, as the apologists of
that day stated it, is wholly conventional. The
breadth of their assumptions is out of all proportion
to the narrow dimensions of the point they succeed in
proving. Of an honest critical enquiry into the origin
and composition of the canonical writings there is but
one trace, Herbert Marsh s Lectures at Cambridge, and
that was suggested from a foreign source, and died
away without exciting imitators. That investigation,
introduced by a bishop and a professor of divinity, has
scarcely yet obtained a footing in the English Church.
But it is excluded, not from a conviction of its barren
ness, but from a fear that it might prove too fertile in
results. This unwholesome state of theological feeling
among us, is perhaps traceable in part to the falsetto
of the evidential method of the last generation. We
cannot justify, but we may perhaps make our predeces
sors bear part of the blame of, that inconsistency, which
while it professes that its religious belief rests on his
torical evidence, refuses to allow that evidence to be
freely examined in open court.

It seems, indeed, a singular infelicity that the con
struction of the historical proof should have been the
task which the course of events allotted to the latter
half of the i8th century. The critical knowledge of

263

antiquity had disappeared from the Universities. The
past, discredited by a false conservatism, was regarded
with aversion, and the minds of men directed habitually
to the future, some with fear, others with hope. The
disrespect in which history was held by the French
philosopkes is notorious ; one of the soberest of them,
D Alembert, we believe, was the author of the wish
that all record of past events could be blotted
out. (Mill, Dissertations, vol. i. p. 426.) The same
sentiment was prevalent, though not in the same
degree, in this country. Hume writing to an English
man in 1 756, speaks of your countrymen as given
over to barbarous and absurd faction/ Of his own
history the publisher, Millar, told him he had only
sold forty-five copies in a twelvemonth. (My Own
Life, p. 5.) Warburton had long before complained of
the Chronicles published by Hearne that there is not
one that is not a disgrace to letters ; most of them are
so to common sense, and some even to human nature.
(Parr s Tracts, fyc., p. 109.) The oblivion into which
the remains of Christian antiquity had sunk, till
disinterred by the Tract arian movement, is well known.
Having neither the critical tools to work with, nor
the historical materials to work upon, it is no wonder
if they failed in their art. Theology had almost died
out when it received a new impulse and a new direc
tion from Coleridge. The evidence-makers ceased from
their futile labours all at once, as beneath the spell of
some magician. Englishmen heard with as much
surprise as if the doctrine was new, that the Christian
faith, the Athanasian Creed, of which they had come
to wish that the Church was well rid, was the per
fection of human intelligence ; that the compatibility
of a document with the conclusions of self-evident
reason, and with the laws of conscience , is a condition
a priori of any evidence adequate to the proof of its
having been revealed by God/ and that this is a
principle clearly laid down by Moses and St. Paul /

264 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

lastly, that there are mysteries in Christianity, but
that these mysteries are reason, reason in its highest
form of self-affirmation/ (Aids to Reflection, pref.
Lit. Remains, iii. 293.) In this position of Coleridge,
the rationalist theology of England, which was in the
last stage of decay and dotage, seemed to recover a
second youth, and to revert at once to the point
from which it had started a century before.

Should the religious historian then acknowledge
that the impatient .contempt with which the last
century is now spoken of, is justifiable with respect
to the later period, with its artificial monotone of proof
that is no proof, he will by no means allow the same
of the earlier period 3688- -1750. The superiority
which the theological writing of this period has over
that which succeeded it, is to be referred in part to the
superiority of the internal, over the external, proof of
Christianity, as an object of thought.

Both methods alike, as methods of argumentative
proof, place the mind in an unfavourable attitude for
the consideration of religious truth. It is like re
moving ourselves for the purpose of examining an
object to the furthest point from which the object is
visible. Neither the external nor the internal evidences
are properly theology at all. Theology is ist, and
primarily, the contemplative, speculative habit, by
means of which the mind places itself already in
another world than this ; a habit begun here, to be
raised to perfect vision hereafter, andly, and in an
inferior degree, it is ethical and regulative of our con
duct as men, in those relations which are temporal and
transitory. Argumentative proof that such knowledge
is possible can never be substituted for the knowledge
without detriment to the mental habit. What is true
of an individual is true of an age. When an age is
found occupied in proving its creed, this is but a token
that the age has ceased to have a proper belief in it.
Nevertheless, there is a difference in this respect be-

16881750. 265

t\veen the sources from which proof may be fetched.
Where it is busied in establishing the genuineness
and authenticity of the books of Scripture, neglecting
its religious lessons, and drawing out instead the un
designed coincidences/ Rationalism is seen in its
dullest and least spiritual form. When, on the other
hand, the contents of the Eevelation are being freely
examined, and reason as it is called, but really the
philosophy in vogue, is being applied to determine
whether the voice be the voice of God or not, the rea-
soner is indeed approaching his subject from a false
point of view, but he is still engaged with the eternal
verities. The reason has prescribed itself an impossi
ble task when it has undertaken to prove, instead of
evolve them; to argue instead of appropriate them.
But anyhow, it is handling them ; and by the contact
is raised in some measure to the height of that great
argument/

This acknowledgment seems due to the period now
referred to. It is, perhaps, rather thinking of its
pulpit eloquence than its controversies, that Professor
Fraser does not hesitate to call this * the golden age
of English theology/ (Essays in Philosophy, p. 205.)
Such language, as applied to our great preachers, was
once matter of course, but would now hardly be used
by any Anglican, and has to be sought for in the
mouth of members of another communion. The
names which once commanded universal homage
among us- -the Souths, Barrows, Tillotsons, Sherlocks,
excite, perhaps, only a smile of pity. Literary
taste is proverbially inconstant ; but theological is still
more so, for here we have no rule or chart to guide
us but the taste of our age. Bossuet, Bourdaloue,
and Massillon have survived a dozen political revolu
tions. We have no classical theology, though we
have not had a political revolution since 1660. For
in this subject matter the most of Englishmen have
no other standard of merit than the prejudices of sect.

266 Tendencies of Religious Thought in

Eminence only marks out a great man for more cordial
hatred ; every flippant High Church reviewer has
learnt to fling at Locke, the father of English Ra
tionalism, and the greatest name among its worthies.
Others are, perhaps, only less disliked because less
known; ( qui riapas de lecteurs, ria pas d adoersaires?
The principal writers in the Deistical Controversy,
either side of it, have expiated the attention they once
engrossed by as universal an oblivion.

The Deistical Controversy, the all-absorbing topic
of religious writers and preachers during the whole of
this first period, has pretty well-defined limits. Stil-
lingfleet, who died Bishop of Worcester in the last
year (1699) f the seventeenth century, marks the
transition from the old to the new argument. In the
six folios of Stillingfleet s works may be found the
latest echoes of the Romanist Controversy, and the
first declaration of war against Locke. The Deistical
Controversy attained its greatest intensity in the
twenties (1720-1740), after the subsidence of the Ban^
gorian controversy, which for a time had diverted
attention to itself, and it gradually died out towards
the middle of the century. The decay of interest in
the topic is sufficiently marked by the fact that the
opinions of Hume failed to stimulate curiosity or an
tagonism. His Treatise of Human Nature (1739) fell
dead-born from the press/ and the only one of his
philosophical writings which was received with favour
on its first appearance was one on the new topic-
Political Discourses (1752). Of this he says it was the
only work of mine which was successful on the first
publication, being well received both abroad and at
home/ (My Own Life.) Bolingbroke, who died in
1751, was the last of the professed Deists. When
his works were brought out by his executor, Mallet,
in 1754, the interest in them was already gone ; they
found the public cold or indisposed. It w^as a rusty
blunderbuss, which he need not have been afraid to

16881750. 2G7

have discharged himself, instead of leaving half-a-
crown to a Scotchman to let it off after his death.
(Boswcll, p. 88.) To talk Deism had ceased to be
fashionable as soon as it ceased to attract attention.

The rationalism, which is the common character of
all the writers of this time, is a method rather than a
doctrine ; an unconscious assumption rather than a
principle from which they reason. They would, how
ever, all have consented in statements such as the fol
lowing : Bp. Gibson, Second Pastoral Letter, 1730.
Those among us who have laboured of late years to
set up reason against revelation would make it pass
for an established truth, that if you will embrace
revelation you must of course quit your reason, which,
if it were true, would doubtless be a strong prejudice
against revelation. But so far is this from being true,
that it is universally acknoivledyed that revelation itself
is to stand or fall by the test of reason, or, in other words,
according as reason finds the evidences of its coming
from Grod to be or not to be sufficient and conclusive,
and the matter of it to contradict or not contradict the
natural notions which reason gives us of the being and
attributes of Grod/

Prideaux (Humphrey, Dean of Norwich), Letter to
the Deists, 1748. Let what is written in all the
books of the N. T. be tried by that which is the touch
stone of all religions, I mean that religion of nature
and reason which Grod has written in the hearts of
every one of us from the first creation ; and if it varies
from it in any one particular, if it prescribes any one
thing which may in the minutest circumstances thereof
be contrary to its righteousness, I will then acknow
ledge this to be an argument against us, strong enough
to overthrow the whole cause, and make all things
else that can be said for it totally ineffectual for its
support.

Tillotson (Archbishop of Canterbury), Sermons, vol.
iii. p. 485. All our reasonings about revelation are

268 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

necessarily gathered by our natural notions about
religion, and therefore lie who sincerely desires to do
the will of God is not apt to be imposed on by vain
pretences of divine revelation ; but if any doctrine be
proposed to him which is pretended to come from God,
he measures it by those sure and steady notions which
he has of the divine nature and perfections ; he will
consider the nature and tendency of it, or whether it
be a doctrine according to godliness, such as is agree
able to the divine nature and perfections, and tends to
make us like unto God ; if it be not, though an angel
should bring it, he would not receive it/

Rogers (John, D.D.), Sermons at Boyle s Lecture,
1 7 2 7> P- 59- Our religion desires no other favour
than a sober and dispassionate examination. It sub
mits its grounds and reasons to an unprejudiced trial,
and hopes to approve itself to the conviction of any
equitable enquirer/

Butler, (Jos., Bp. of Durham), Analogy, Sfc.^i.z, ch. i.
Indeed, if in revelation there be found any passages,
the seeming meaning of which is contrary to natural
religion, we may most certainly conclude such seeming
meaning not to be the real one/ Hid., ch. 8 : I
have argued upon the principles of the fatalists, which
I do not believe ; and have omitted a thing of the ut
most importance which I do believe : the moral fitness
and unfitness of actions, prior to all will whatever,
which I apprehend as certainly to determine the divine
conduct, as speculative truth and falsehood necessarily
determine the divine judgment/

To the same effect the leading preacher among
the Dissenters, James Foster, Truth and Excel
lency of the Christian Revelation, 1731. The fa
culty of reason which God hath implanted in man
kind, however it may have been abused and neg
lected in times past, will, whenever they begin to
exercise it aright, enable them to judge of all these
things. As by means of this they were capable of

16881750. 269

discovering at first the being and perfections of God,
and that he governs the world with absolute wisdom,
equity, and goodness, and what those duties are which
they owe to him and to one another, they must be as
capable, if they will divest themselves of prejudice, and
reason impartially, of rectifying any mistakes they may
have fallen into about these important points. It
matters not whether they have hitherto thought right
or wrong, nor indeed whether they have thought at
all; let them but begin to consider seriously and
examine carefully and impartially, and they must be
able to find out all those truths which as reasonable
creatures they are capable of knowing, and which affect
their duty and happiness/

Finally, Warburton, displaying at once his disdain
and his ignorance of catholic theology, affirms on his
own authority, Works iii. p. 620, that the image of God
in which man was at first created, lay in the faculty of
reason only/

But it is needless to multiply quotations. The re
ceived theology of the day taught on this point the
doctrine of Locke, as clearly stated by himself. (Essay,
B. iv. ch. 19. 4-) Reason is natural revelation,
whereby the eternal Father of light and fountain of
all knowledge communicates to mankind that portion
of truth which he has laid within the reach of their
natural faculties ; revelation is natural reason enlarged
by a new set of discoveries communicated by God im
mediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the
testimony and proofs it gives, that they come from
God. So that he that takes away reason to make way
for revelation, puts out the light of both, and does
much-what the same as if he would persuade a man to
put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light
of an invisible star by a telescope/

According to this assumption, a man s religious be
lief is a result which issues at the end of an intellec
tual process. In arranging the steps of this process,

270 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

they conceived natural religion to form the first stage
of the journey. That stage theologians of all shades
and parties travelled in company. It was only when
they had reached the end of it that the Deists and the
Christian apologists parted. The former found that
the light of reason which had guided them so far indi
cated no road beyond. The Christian writers declared
that the same natural powers enabled them to reco
gnise the truth of revealed religion. The sufficiency of
natural religion thus became the turning point of the
dispute. The natural law of right and duty, argued
the Deists, is so absolutely perfect that God could not
add anything to it. It is commensurate with all the
real relations in which man stands. To suppose that
God has created artificial relations, and laid upon man
positive precepts, is to take away the very notion of
morality. The moral law is nothing but the condi
tions of our actual being, apparent alike to those of
the meanest and of the highest capacity. It is in
consistent with this to suppose that God has gone
on to enact arbitrary statutes, and to declare them to
man in an obscure and uncertain light. This was
the ground taken by the great champion of Deism-
Tindal, and expressed in the title of the treatise
which he published in 1732, when upwards of seventy,
Christianity as old as the Creation; or, the Gospel a
Republication of the Relic/ion of Nature. This was the
point which the Christian defenders laboured most, to
construct the bridge which should unite the revealed
to the natural. They never demur to making the Na
tural the basis on which the Christian rests, to consi
dering the natural knowledge of God as the starting
point both of the individual mind and of the human
race. This assumption is necessary to their scheme,
in which revelation is an argument addressed to the
reason. Christianity is a resume of the knowledge
of God already attained by reason, and a disclosure of
further truths. These further truths could not have

16881750. 271

been thought out by reason ; but when divinely com
municated, they approve themselves to the same reason
which has already put us in possession of so much.
The new truths are not of another order of ideas, for
Christianity is a particular scheme under the general
plan of Providence/ (Analogy, pt. 2, ch. 4,) and the
whole scheme is of a piece and uniform. * If the dis
pensation be indeed from God, all the parts of it will
be seen to be the correspondent members of one entire
whole, which orderly disposition of things essential to
a religious system will assure us of the true theory of
the Christian faith. (Warburton, Divine Legation, 8fc.,
B. ix. Iiitrod. Works, vol. iii. p. 600.) How these
relations are made known, whether by reason or re
velation, makes no alteration in the case, because the
duties arise out of the relations themselves, not out
of the manner in which we are informed of them.
(Analogy, pt. 2, ch. i.) * Those very articles of be
lief and duties of obedience, which were formerly na
tural with respect to their manner of promulgation,
are now in the declaration of them also supernatural/
(Ferguson, Reason in Religion, 1675, P- 2 9-) The re
lations to the Redeemer and the Sanctifier are not
artificial, but as real as those to the Maker and Pre
server, and the obligations arising out of the one set
of relations as natural as those arising out of the
other.

The deference paid to natural religion is further
seen in the attempts to establish a priori the necessity
of a revelation. To make this out it was requisite
to show that the knowledge with which reason could
supply us was inadequate to be the guide of life, yet
reason must not be too much depressed, inasmuch as
it was needed for the proof of Christianity. On the
one hand, the moral state of the heathen world prior
to the preaching of Christianity, and of Pagan and
savage tribes in Africa and America now, the super
stitions of the most civilized nations of antiquity, the

272 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

intellectual follies of the wisest philosophers, are ex
hibited in great detail. The usual arguments of scep
ticism on the conscious weakness of reason are brought
forward, but not pushed very far. Reason is to be
humiliated so far as that supernatural light shall be
seen to be necessary, but it must retain its competence
to judge of the evidence of this supernatural message.
Natural religion is insufficient as a light, and a motive
to show us our way and to make us walk in it ; it is
sufficient as a light,, and a motive to lead us to reve
lation, and to induce us to embrace it. How much
of religious truth was contained in natural knowledge,
or how much was due to supernatural communication,
was very variously estimated. Locke, especially, had
warned against our liability to attribute to reason
much of moral truth that had in fact been derived
from revelation. But the uncertainty of the demar
cation between the two is only additional proof of the
identity of the scheme which they disclose between
them. The whole of God s government and dealings
with man form one wide-spread and consistent scheme,
of which natural reason apprehends a part, and of
which Christianity was the manifestation of a further
part. Consistently herewith they treated natural re
ligion, not as an historical dispensation, but as an ab
stract demonstration. There never was a time when
mankind had realized or established an actual system
of natural religion, but it lies always potentially in
his reason. It held the same place as the social con
tract in political history. The original contract had
never had historical existence, but it was a hypothesis
necessary to explain the existing fact of society. No
society had, in fact, arisen on that basis, yet it is the
theoretical basis on which all society can be shown to
rest. So there was no time or country where the reli
gion of nature had been fully known, yet the natural
knowledge of God is the only foundation in the human
mind on which can be built a rational Christianity.

16881750. 273

Though not an original condition of any part of
mankind, it is an ever-originating condition of every
human mind, as soon as it begins to reason on the
facts of religion, rendering all the moral phenomena
available for the construction of a scientific theory of
religion.

In accordance with this view they interpreted the pas
sages in St. Paul which speak of the religion of the hea
then; .y.,Bom. ii. 14. Since the time of Augustine (De
Spir. et Lit. 27) the orthodox interpretation had
applied this verse, either to the Gentile converts, or to
the favoured few among the heathen who had extra
ordinary divine assistance. The Protestant expositors,
to whom the words do by nature the things contained
in the law/ could never bear their literal force, sedu
lously preserved the Augustinian explanation. Even
the Pelagian Jeremy Taylor is obliged to gloss the
phrase by nature/ thus : By fears and secret
opinions which the Spirit of Grod who is never wanting
to men in things necessary was pleased to put into the
hearts of men/ (Duct. Dubit. B. ii. ch. i; 3.) The
rationalists, however, find the expression by nature in
its literal sense exactly conformable to their own views,
(Wilkins, Of Nat. EeL ii, c. 9) and have no difficulty
even in supposing the acceptableness of these works,
and the salvability of those who do them. Burnet on
Art. xviii., in his usual confused style of eclecticism,
suggests both opinions without seeming to see that
they are incompatible relics of divergent schools of
doctrine.

Consequent with such a theory of religion was their
notion of its practical bearings. Christianity was a
republication of the moral law a republication ren
dered necessary by the helpless state of moral debase
ment into which the world was come by the practice
of vice. The experience of ages had proved that,
though our duty might be discoverable by the light of
nature, yet virtue was not able to maintain itself in

T

274 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

the world without additional sanctions. The disin
terestedness of virtue was here a point much debated.
The Deists, in general, argued from the notion of
morality, that so far as any private regard to my own
interest, whether present or future, influenced my
conduct, so far my actions had no moral worth. From
this they drew the inference that the rewards and
punishments of Christianity these additional sanc
tions could not be a divine ordinance, inasmuch as
they were subversive of morality. The orthodox
writers had to maintain the theory of rewards and
punishments in such a way as not to be inconsistent
with the theory of the disinterestedness of virtue
which they had made part of their theology. Even
here no precise line can be drawn between the Deistical
and the Christian moralists. For we find Shaftesbury
placing in a very clear light the mode in which religious
sanctions do, in fact, as society is constituted, support
and strengthen virtue in the world, though he does
not deny that the principle of virtue in the individual
may suffer from the selfish passion being appealed to
by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment.
{Characteristic s, vol. ii. p. 66.) But with whatever
variation in individual disputants, the tone of the dis
cussions is unmistakeable. When Collins was asked,
Why he was careful to make his servants go to
Church ? he is said to have answered, I do it that
they may neither rob nor murder me/ This is but
an exaggerated form of the practical religion of the
age. Tillotson s Sermon ( Works, vol. iii. p. 43) e On
the Advantages of Religion to Societies? is like Collins
reply at fuller length. The Deists and their opponents
alike assume that the purpose of the supernatural
interference of the Deity in revelation must have been
to secure the good behaviour of man in this world ;
that the future life and our knowledge of it may be a
means to this great end ; that the next world, if it
exist at all, bears that relation to the present. We
are chiefly familiar with these views from their having

i688 1750. " 275

been long the butt of the Evangelical pulpit, a chief
topic in which was to decry the mere legal preaching
of a preceding age. To abstain from vice, to cultivate
virtue, to fill our station in life with propriety, to
bear the ills of life with resignation, and to use its
pleasures moderately these things are indeed not
little ; perhaps no one can name in his circle of friends
a man whom he thinks equal to these demands. Yet
the experience of the last age has shown us unmistake-
ably that where this is our best ideal of life, whether,
with the Deists, we establish the obligation of morality
on independent grounds ; or, with the orthodox, add
the religious sanction in Mr. Mill s rather startling
mode of putting it (Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 436), Because
God is stronger than we, and able to damn us if we
don t it argues a sleek and sordid epicurism, in which
religion and a good conscience have their place among
the means by which life is to be made comfortable.
To accuse the divines of this age of a leaning to
Arminianism is quite beside the mark. They did not
intend to be other than orthodox. They did not
take the Arminian side rather than the Calvinistic in
the old conflict or concordat between Faith and Works,
between Justification and Sanctification. They had
dropt the terminology, and with it the mode of think
ing, which the terms implied. They had adopted the
language and ideas of the moralists. They spoke not
of sin, but of vice, and of virtue, not of works. In
the old Protestant theology actions had only a certain
exterior relation to the justified man ; gute fromme
Werke machen nimmermehr einen guten frommen
Mann, sondern ein guter frommer Mann macht gute
Werke. (Luther.) Now, our conduct was thought of,
not as a product or efflux of our character, but as
regulated by our understanding; by a perception of
relations, or a calculation of consequences. This
intellectual perception of regulative truth is religious
Faith. Faith is no longer the devout condition of the

T 2

276 Tendencies of Religious TJiought in England,

entire inner man. Its dynamic nature, and interior
working, are not denied, but they are unknown ; and
religion is made to regulate life from without, through
the logical proof of the being and attributes of Glod,
upon which an obligation to obey him can be raised.

The preachers of any period are not to be censured
for adapting their style of address and mode of argu
ing to their hearers. They are as necessarily bound
to the preconceived notions, as to the language, of
those whom they have to exhort. The pulpit does
not mould the forms into which religious thought in
any age runs, it simply accommodates itself to those
that exist. For this very reason, because they must
follow and cannot lead, sermons are the surest index
of the prevailing religious feeling of their age. When
we are reminded of the powerful influence of the
pulpit at the Reformation, in the time of the Long
Parliament, or at the Methodist revival, it must also
be remembered that these preachers addressed a dif
ferent class of society from that for which our classical
pulpit oratory was written. If it could be said that
c Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain/ it was
because the populace were gone to hear mad Henley
on his tub. To charge Tillotson or Foster with not
moving the masses which Whitefield moved, is to
charge them with not having preached to another
congregation than that to which they had to preach.
Nor did they preach to empty pews, though their
carefully- written discourses 7 could never produce
effects such as are recorded of Burnet s extempore
addresses, when he * was often interrupted by the deep
hum of his audience, and when, after preaching out
the hour-glass, he held it up in his hand, the congre
gation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the
sand had run off once more/ (Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 177.)
The dramatic oratory of Whitefield could not have
sustained its power over the same auditors ; he had a
fresh congregation every Sunday. And in the judg-

16881750. 277

merit of one quite disposed to do justice to Whitefield
there is nothing in his sermons such as are printed.
Johnson (ap. BosweU} speaking of the comparisons
drawn between the preaching in the Church and that
of the Methodists to the disadvantage of the former,
says, I never treated Whitefield s ministry with con
tempt ; I believe he did good. But when familiarity
and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and
elegance, we must beat down such pretensions/ It
is, however, the substance, and not the manner, of the
classical sermons of the eighteenth century which is
meant, when they are complained of as cold and barren.
From this accusation they cannot be vindicated. But
let it be rightly understood that it is a charge not
against the preachers but against the religious ideas
of the period. In the pulpit, the speaker has no choice
but to take his audience as he finds them. He can
but draw them on to the conclusions already involved
in their premises. He cannot supply them with a
new set of principles, and alter their fixed forms of
thought. The ideas out of which the Protestant or
the Puritan movement proceeded were generated else
where than in the pulpit.

The Rationalist preachers of the eighteenth century
are usually contrasted with the Evangelical pulpit
which displaced them. Mr. Neale has compared them
disadvantageously with the mediaeval preachers in re
spect of Scripture knowledge. He selects a sermon
of the eighteenth and one of the twelfth century ; the
one by the well-known Evangelical preacher John
Newton, Eector of St. Mary Woolnoth; the other by
Guarric, Abbot of Igniac. In Newton s sermon
we find nine references to the Gospels, two to the
Epistles, nine to the Prophets, one to the Psalms, and
none to any other part of Scripture. In the sermon
of Guarric we find seven references to the Gospels, one
to the Epistles, twenty -two to the Psalms, nine to the
Prophets, and eighteen to other parts of Scripture.

278 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

Thus the total number of quotations made by the
Evangelical preacher is twenty-one, by Guarric fifty-
seven, and this in sermons of about equal length/
(Mediaeval Preaching, Introd. xxvi.) Mr. Neale has,
perhaps, not been fortunate in his selection of a speci
men sermon. For having the curiosity to apply this
childish test to a sermon of John Blair, taken at
random out of his four volumes, I found the number
of texts quoted thirty- seven. But, passing this by,
Mr. Neale misses his inference. He means to show
how much more Scripture knowledge was possessed
by the preachers of the dark ages/ This is very
likely, if familiarity with the mere words of the Vul
gate version be Scripture knowledge. But it is not
proved by the abstinence of the eighteenth century
preacher from the use of Biblical phraseology. The
fact, so far as it is one, only shows that our divines
understood Scripture differently, some will say better,
than the Middle Age ecclesiastic. The latter had, in
the mystical theology of the Christian Church, a rich
store of religious sentiment, which it was an exercise
of their ingenuity to find in the poetical books of the
Hebrew canon. Great part of this fanciful allegorizing
is lost, apart from the Vulgate translation. But of
this the more learned of them were quite aware, and
on their theory of Scripture interpretation, according
to which the Church was its guaranteed expositor, the
verbal meanings of the Latin version were equally the
inspired sense of the sacred record. It was otherwise
with the English divine of the eighteenth century.
According to the then received view of Scripture, its
meaning was not assigned by the Church, but its lan
guage was interpreted by criticism i.e., by reason.
The aids of history, the ordinary rules of grammar
and logic, were applied to find out what the sacred
writers actually said. T/tat was the meaning of
Scripture, the message supernaturally communicated.
"Where each text of Scripture has but one sense, that

1 688 1750. 279

sense in which the writer penned it, it can only be
cited in that sense without doing it violence. This
was the turn by which Selden so discomfited the
Puritan divines, who, like the Catholic mystics, made
Scripture words the vehicle of their own feelings.
1 Perhaps in your little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves
the translation may be thus, but the Greek or Hebrew
signifies otherwise/ (Whitelocke, Johnson s Life of
Selden, p. 303.) If the preacher in the eighteenth
century had allowed himself to make these allusions,
the taste of his audience would have rejected them.
He would have weakened his argument instead of
giving it effect.

No quality of these Discourses strikes us more
now than the good sense which pervades them. They
are the complete reaction against the Puritan sermon
of the i yth century. We have nothing far-fetched,
fanciful, allegoric. The practice of our duty is recom
mended to us on the most undeniable grounds of pru
dence. Barrow had indulged in ambitious periods,
and South had been jocular. Neither of these faults
can be alleged against the model sermon of the Hano
verian period. No topic is produced which does not
compel our assent as soon as it is understood, and none
is there which is not understood as soon as uttered.
It is one man of the world speaking to another. Col
lins said of St. Paul, that he had a great respect for
him as both a man of sense and a gentleman/ He
might have said the same of the best pulpit divines of
his own time. They bear the closest resemblance to
each other, because they all use the language of fashion
able society, and say exactly the proper thing. A per
son/ says Waterland, must have some knowledge of
men, besides that of books, to succeed well here ; and
must have a kind of practical sagacity which nothing
but the grace of Grod joined with recollection and wise
observation can bring, to be able to represent truths to
the life, or to any considerable degree of advantage/

280 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

This is from his recommendatory preface prefixed to
an edition of Blair s Sermons (1739) ; not the Presby
terian Dr. Hugh Blair, but John Blair, the founder
and first President of a Missionary College in Virginia,
whose Sermons on the Beatitudes were among the
most approved models of the day, and recommended
by the bishops to their candidates for orders. Dr.
Hugh Blair s Sermons, which Johnson thought ex
cellently written, both as to doctrine and language/
(ap. Boswell, p. 528), are in a different taste- -that of
the latter half of the century, when solid and sensible
reasoning was superseded by polished periods and
flowery rhetoric. Polished as marble/ says Hugh
J. Eose, * but also as lifeless and as cold/ The ser
mons which "Waterland recommends to young students
of divinity comprise Tillotson, Sharp, Calamy, Sprat,
Blackball, Hoadly, South, Claggett, and Atterbury.
Of these, Sharp s, Calamy s, and Blackhall s are the
best models for an easy, natural, and familiar way of
writing. Sprat is fine, florid and elaborate in his style,
artful in his method, and not so open as the former,
but harder to be imitated. Hoadly is very exact and
judicious, and both his sense and style just, close, and
clear. The others are very sound, clear writers, only
Scot is too swelling and pompous, and South is some
thing too full of wit and satire, and does not always
observe a decorum in his style. He advises the stu
dent to begin his divinity course with reading sermons,
because they are the easiest, plainest, and most enter
taining of any books of divinity ; and might be digested
into a better body of divinity than any that is yet
extant. (Advice to a Young Student, 1730).

Not only the pulpit, but the whole theological lite
rature of the age, takes the same tone of appeal. Books
are no longer addressed by the cloistered academic to
a learnedly educated class, they are written by popular
divines men of leisure/ Butler calls them for the
use of fashionable society. There is an epoch in the

16881750. 281

history of letters when readers and writers change
places ; when it ceases to be the reader s business to
come to the writer to be instructed, and the writer
begins to endeavour to engage the attention of the
reader. The same necessity was now laid upon the
religious writer. He appeared at the bar of criticism,
and must gain the wits, and the town. At the debate
between the Deists and the Christian apologists the
public was umpire. The time was past when Baxter
1 talked about another world like one that had been
there, and was come as a sort of express from thence
to make a report concerning it. (Calamy, Life, i. 220).
As the preacher now no longer spake with the autho
rity of a heavenly mission, but laid the state of the
argument before his hearers, so philosophy was no
longer a self-centered speculation, an oracle of wisdom.
The divine went out into the streets, with his demon
stration of the being and attributes of God printed on
a broadside ; he solicits your assent in the new court-
jargon. When Collins visited Lord Barrington at
Tofts, as they were all men of letters, and had a taste
for Scripture criticism, it is said to have been their
custom, after dinner, to have a Greek Testament laid
on the table/ (Biog. Brit. Art. Barrington/) These
discussions were not necessarily unprofitable. Lord
Bolingbroke was seldom in the company of the
Countess of Huntingdon without discussing some
topic beneficial to his eternal interests, and he always
paid the utmost respect and deference to her lady
ship s opinion/ (Memoirs of Countess of Hunt., i. 180.)
Bishop Butler gives his clergy hints how to conduct
themselves when sceptical and profane men bring up
the subject (religion) at meetings of entertainment,
and such as are of the freer sort ; innocent ones, I
mean, otherwise I should not suppose you would be
present at them/ (Durham Charge, 1751). TindaTs
reconversion from Eomanism is said to have been
brought about by the arguments he heard in the

282 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

coffee-houses. This anecdote, given in C aril s catch
penny ( Life/ rests, not on that bookseller s authority,
which is worthless, but on that of the medical man
who attended him in his last illness. It was the same
with the controversy on the Trinity, of which Water-
land says, in 1723, that it was spread abroad among
all ranks and degrees of men, and the Athanasian
creed become the subject of common and ordinary con
versation/ (Critical Hist, of the Athan. Creed, In trod.)
The Universities were invaded by the spirit of the age,
and instead of taking students through a laborious
course of philosophy, natural and moral, turned out
accomplished gentlemen upon the classics and a
scantling of logic. Berkeley s ironical portrait of the
modish philosopher is of date 1732. Ly sides smiled,
and said he believed Euphranor had figured to himself
philosophers in square caps and long gowns, but thanks
to these happy times, the reign of pedantry was over.
Our philosophers are of a very different kind from those
awkward students who think to come at knowledge
by poring on dead languages and old authors, or by
sequestering themselves from the cares of the world
to meditate in solitude and retirement. They are the
best bred men of the age, men who know the world,
men of pleasure, men of fashion, and fine gentlemen.
EUPH. : I have some small notion of the people you
mention, but should never have taken them for philo
sophers. CRI. : Nor would any one else till of late.
The world was long under a mistake about the way to
knowledge, thinking it lay through a tedious course
of academical education and study. But among the
discoveries of the present age, one of the principal is
the finding out that such a method doth rather retard
and obstruct, than promote knowledge. LYS. : I will
undertake, a lad of fourteen, bred in the modern way,
shall make a better figure, and be more considered in
any drawing-room, or assembly of polite people, than
one at four-and-twenty, who hath lain by a long time

283

at school and college. He shall say better things, in
a better manner, and be more liked by good judges.
EUPH. : Where doth he pick up this improvement?
CRI. : Where our grave ancestors would never have
looked for it, in a drawing-room, a coffee-house, a
chocolate-late-house, at the tavern, or groom-porter s.
In these and the like fashionable places of resort, it is
the custom for polite persons to speak freely on all sub
jects, religious, moral, or political. So that a young
gentleman who frequents them is in the way of hear
ing many instructive lectures, seasoned with wit and
raillery, and uttered with spirit. Three or four sen
tences from a man of quality, spoken with a good air,
make more impression, and convey more knowledge,
than a dozen dissertations in a dry academical way.
You may now commonly see a young lady,
or a petit maitre non-plus a divine or an old-fashioned
gentleman, who hath read many a Greek and Latin
author, and spent much time in hard methodical study.
(AlcipJiron, Dial. i. n.)

Among a host of mischiefs thus arising, one positive
good may be signalized. If there must be debate,
there ought to be fair play ; and of this, publicity is
the best guarantee. To make the public arbiter in an
abstract question of metaphysics is doubtless absurd,
yet it is at least a safeguard against extravagance and
metaphysical lunacy. The verdict of public opinion
on such topics is worthless, but it checks the inevitable
tendency of closet speculation to become visionary.
There is but one sort of scepticism that is genuine,
and deadly in proportion as it is real; that, namely,
which is forced upon the mind by its experience of
the hollowness of mankind ; for men may be read, as
well as books, too much. That other logical scepti
cism which is hatched by over-thinking can be cured
by an easy remedy ; ceasing to think.

The objections urged against revelation in the
course of the Deistical controversy were no chimseras

2 34 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

of a sickly brain, but solid charges ; the points brought
into public discussion were the points at which the
revealed system itself impinges on human reason.
No time can lessen whatever force there may be in
the objection against a miracle ; it is felt as strongly
in one century as in another. The debate was not
frivolous ; the objections were worth answering, be
cause they were not pitched metaphysically high. To
a platonizing divine they look trivial ; picked up in
the street. So Origen naturally thought that a faith
which could be shaken by such objections as those of
Celsus was not worth much/ (Cont. Cels., Pref. 4.)
Just such were the objections of the Deists ; such as
come spontaneously into the thoughts of practical men,
who never think systematically, but who are not to be
imposed upon by fancies. Persons sneer at the shal
low Deism of the last century ; and it is customary
to reply that the antagonist orthodoxy was at least as
shallow. The truth is, the shallowness imputed be
longs to the mental sphere into which the debate was
for the time transported. The philosophy of the age
was not above its mission. * Philosophy/ thought
Thomas Eeid, in 1764, has no other root but the
principles of common sense ; it grows out of them, it
draws its nourishment from them ; severed from this
root, its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it dies
and rots/ (Inquiry y fyc., Intr. $ 4.) We, in the pre
sent generation, have seen the great speculative move
ment in Germany die out from this very cause, because
it became divorced from the facts on which it specu
lated. Shut up in the Universities, it turned inwards
on itself, and preyed on its own vitals. It has only
been neglected by the world, because it first neglected
the great facts in which the world has, and feels, an
interest.

If ever there was a time when abstract speculation
was brought down from inaccessible heights and com
pelled to be intelligible, it was the period from the

i688 1750. 285

Eevolution to the middle of the last century. Closet
speculation had been discredited ; the cobwebs of
scholasticism were exploded ; the age of feverish doubt
and egotistical introspection had not arrived. In that
age the English higher education acquired its practical
aim ; an aim in which the development of the under
standing, and the acquisition of knowledge are consi
dered secondary objects to the formation of a sound
secular judgment, of the scholar and the gentleman
of the old race of schoolmasters. Burke contrasting
his own times with the preceding age considered our
forefathers as deeper thinkers than ourselves, because
they set a higher value on good sense than on know
ledge in various sciences, and their good sense was
derived very often from as much study and more
knowledge, though of another sort/ (Recollections by
Samuel Rogers, p. 81.)

When a dispute is joined, e.g. on the origin and
composition of the Grospels, it is, from the nature of
the case, confined to an inner circle of Biblical scholars.
The mass of the public must wait outside, and receive
the result on their authority. The religious public
were very reluctant to resign the verse i John v. 7,
but they did so at last on the just ground that after a
philological controversy conducted with open doors, it
had been decided to be spurious. No serious man
would consider a popular assembly a proper court to
decide on the doctrine of transubstantiation, or on the
Hegelian definition of Grod, though either is easily
capable of being held up to the ridicule of the half-
educated from the platform or the pulpit. It is other
wise with the greater part of the points raised in the
Deistical controversy. It is not the speculative reason
of the few, but the natural conscience of the many,
that questions the extirpation of the Canaanites, or
the eternity of hell-torments. These are points of
divinity that are at once fundamental and popular.
Butler, though not approving of entering into an

286 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

argumentative defence of religion in common conver
sation/ recommends his clergy to do so from the pulpit
on the ground that, such as are capable of seeing the
force of objections, are capable also of seeing the force
of the answers which are given to them/ (Durham
Charge.) If the philosophic intellect be dissatisfied with
the answers which the divines of that day gave to the
difficulties started, let it show how, on the rationalist
hypothesis, these difficulties are removeable for the
mass of those who feel them. The transcendental
reason provides an answer which possibly satisfies
itself; but to the common reason the answer is more
perplexing than the difficulty it would clear.

M. Villemain has remarked in Pascal, that fore
sight which revealed to him so many objections un
known to his generation, and which inspired him with
the idea of fortifying and intrenching positions which
were not threatened/ The objections which Pascal is
engaged with are not only not those of his age, they
are not such as could ever become general in any age.
They are those of the higher reason, and the replies
are from the same inspiration. Pascal s view of hu
man depravity seems to the ordinary man but the
despair and delirium of the self-tormenting ascetic.
The cynical view of our fallen nature, however, is at
least a possible view. It is well that it should be ex
plored, and it will always have its prophets, Calvin
or Rochefoucault. But to ordinary men an argu
ment in favour of revelation, founded on such an as
sumption, will seem to be in contradiction to his daily
experience. Pascal s Pensees stand alone ; a work of
individual genius, not belonging to any age. The ce
lebrity which the Analogy of Bishop Butler has gained
is due to the opposite reason. It is no paradox to say
that the merit of the Analogy lies in its want of origi
nality. It came (1736) towards the end of the Deisti-
cal period. It is the result of twenty years study
the very twenty years during which the Deistical no-

16881750. 287

tions formed the atmosphere which educated people
breathed. The objections it meets are not new and
unseasoned objections, but such as had worn well, and
had borne the rub of controversy, because they were
genuine. And it will be equally hard to find in the
Analogy any topic in reply, which had not been sug
gested in the pamphlets and sermons of the preceding
half century. Like Aristotle s physical and political
treatises, it is a resume of the discussions of more than
one generation. Its admirable arrangement only is
all its own. Its closely packed and carefully fitted
order speaks of many years contrivance. Its sub
stance are the thoughts of a whole age, not barely
compiled, but each reconsidered and digested. Every
brick in the building has been rung before it has been
relaid, and replaced in its true relation to the complex
and various whole. In more than one passage we see
that the construction of this fabric of evidence, which
consists in a long series of things, one preparatory
to and confirming another from the beginning of
the world to the present time, (Durham Charge)
was what occupied Butler s attention. Compass of
thought, even amongst persons of the lowest rank/
(Pref. to Sermons), is that form of the reflective faculty
to which he is fond of looking both for good and evil.
He never will forget that justice must be done to
every part of a subject when we are considering it/
(Sermon iv.) Harmony, and law, and order, he will
suppose even where he does not find. The tendency
of his reason was that which Bacon indicates ; the
spirit of a man being of an equal and uniform sub
stance doth usually suppose and feign in nature a
greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.
(Advancement of Learning.) This is, probably, the
true explanation of the obscurity which persons
sometimes complain of in Butler s style. The rea
son or matter he is producing is palpable and plain
enough. But he is so solicitous to find its due place

288 Tendencies of Religious TJiought in England,

in the then stage of the argument, so scrupulous to
give it its exact weight and no more, so careful in ar
ranging its situation relatively to the other members
of the proof, that a reader who does not bear in mind
that the effect of the whole is what the architect is
preparing, is apt to become embarrassed, and to think
that obscurity which is really logical precision. The
generality of men are better qualified for understand
ing particulars one by one, than for taking a compre
hensive view of the whole. The philosophical breadth
which we miss in Butler s mode of conceiving is com
pensated for by this judicial breadth in his mode of
arguing, which gives its place to each consideration,
but regards rather the cumulative force of the whole.
Many writers before Butler had insisted on this cha
racter of the Christian evidences. Dr. Jenkin, Mar
garet Professor at Cambridge, whose Reasonableness and
Certainty of the Christian Religion was the Paley of
divinity students then, says, there is an excellency
in every part of our religion separately considered, but
the strength and vigour of each part is in the relation
it has to the rest, and the several parts must be taken
altogether, if we would have a true knowledge, and
make a just estimate of the whole. (Reasonableness, 8fc.
Pt. ii. Pref. 1721.) But Butler does not merely take
the hint from others. It is so entirely the guiding
rule of his hand and pen that it would appear to have
been forced upon him by some peculiar experience of
his own. It was in society, and not in his study, that
he had learned the weight of the Deistical arguments.
At the Queen s philosophical parties, where these to
pics were canvassed with earnestness and freedom, he
must have often felt the impotence of reply in detail,
and seen, as he says, how impossible it must be, in a
cursory conversation, to unite all this into one argu
ment, and represent it as it ought/ (Durham Charge.}
Hence his own labour to work up his materials into
a connected framework, a methodized encyclopaedia of
all the extant topics.

16881750. 289

Not that he did not pay attention to the parts.
Butler s eminence over his contemporary apologists
is seen in nothing more than in that superior sagacity
which rejects the use of any plea that is not entitled
to consideration singly. In the other evidential books
of the time we find a miscellaneous crowd of sugges
tions of very various value ; never fanciful, but often
trivial; undeniable, but weak as proof of the point
they are brought to prove. Butler seems as if he had
sifted these books, and retained all that was solid in
them. If he built with brick, and not with marble,
it was because he was not thinking of reputation, but
of utility, and an immediate purpose. Mackintosh
wished Butler had had the elegance and ornament of
Berkeley. They would have been sadly out of place.
There was not a spark of the littleness of literary
ambition about him. There was a certain naturalness
in Butler s mind, which took him straight to the
questions on which men differed around him. Generally
it is safer to prove what no one denies, and easier to
explain difficulties which no one has ever felt. A
quiet reputation is best obtained in the literary quaes-
tiunculse of important subjects. But a simple and
straightforward man studies great topics because he
feels a want of the knowledge which they contain.
He goes straight to the real doubts and fundamental
discrepancies, to those on which it is easy to excite
odium, and difficult to give satisfaction ; he leaves to
others the amusing skirmishing and superficial literature
accessory to such studies. Thus there is nothing
light in Butler, all is grave, serious, and essential;
nothing else would be characteristic of him. J (Bagehot ,
Estimates, 8fc., p. 189.) Though he has rifled their
books he makes no display of reading. In the Analogy
he never names the author he is answering. In the
Sermons he quotes, directly, only Hobbes, Shaftesbury,
Wollaston, Eochefoucauld, and Fenelon. From his
writings we should infer that his reading was not pro-

u

290 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

miscuous, even had lie not himself given us to under
stand how much opportunity he had of seeing the
idleness and waste of time occasioned by light reading.
(Sermons, Pref.)

This popular appeal to the common reason of men,
which is one characteristic of the rationalist period,
was a first effort of English theology to find a new
basis for doctrine which should replace those founda
tions which had failed it. The Eeformation had
destroyed the authority of the Church upon which
Revelation had so long rested. The attempt of the
Laudian divines to substitute the voice of the national
Church for that of the Church universal had met with
only very partial and temporary success. When the
Revolution of 1688 introduced the freedom of the press
and a general toleration, even that artificial authority
which, by ignoring non- conformity, had produced an
appearance of unity, and erected a conventional
standard of truth and falsehood, fell to the ground.
The old and venerated authority had been broken by
the Reformation. The new authority of the Anglican
establishment had existed in theory only, and never in
fact, and the Revolution had crushed the theory, which
was now confined to a small band of non-jurors. In
reaction against Anglican authority, the Puritan
movement had tended to rest faith and doctrine upon
the inward light within each man s breast. This
tendency of the new Puritanism, which we may call
Independency, was a development of the old, purely
scriptural, Puritanism of Presbyterianism. But it
was its natural and necessary development. It was a
consequence of the controversy with the establishment.
For both the Church and Dissent agreed in acknow
ledging Scripture as their foundation, and the con
troversy turned on the interpreter of Scripture.
Nor was the doctrine of the inner light, which
individualized the basis of faith, confined to the Non
conformists. It was shared by a section of the Church,

16881750. 291

of whom Cud worth is the type, to whom Scripture
faith is not a mere believing of historical things, and
upon artificial arguments or testimonies only, but a
certain higher and diviner power in the soul that
peculiarly correspondeth with the Deity/ (Intellectual
System, Pref.) The inner light, or witness of the Spirit
in the soul of the individual believer had, in its turn,
fallen into discredit through the extravagances to
which it had given birth. It was disowned alike by
Churchmen and Nonconformists, who agree in speaking
with contemptuous pity of the sectaries of the last
age/ The re-action against individual religion led to
this first attempt to base revealed truth on reason.
And for the purpose for which reason was now wanted,
the higher, or philosophic, reason was far less fitted
than that universal understanding in which all men
can claim a share. The inner light/ which had made
each man the dictator of his own creed, had exploded
in ecclesiastical anarchy. The appeal from the frantic
discord of the enthusiasts to reason must needs be, not
to an arbitrary or particular reason in each man, but
to a common sense, a natural discernment, a reason of
universal obligation. As it was to be universally
binding, it must be generally recognisable. It must
be something not confined to the select few, a gift of
the self-styled elect, but a faculty belonging to all men
of sound mind and average capacity. Truth must be
accessible to the bulk of mankind/ It was a time
when the only refuge from a hopeless maze, or wild
chaos, seemed to be the rational consent of the sensible
and unprejudiced. Have the balk of mankind/
writes Locke, no other guide but accident and blind
chance to conduct them to their happiness or misery ?
Are the current opinions and licensed guides of every
country sufficient evidence and security to every man
to venture his great concernments on ? Or, can those
be the certain and infallible oracles and standards of
truth which teach one thing in Christendom, and

u 2

292 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

another in Turkey ? Or shall a poor countryman be
eternally happy for having the chance to be born in
Italy ? Or a day labourer be unavoidably lost because
he had the ill-luck to be born in England? How
ready some men may be to say some of these things, I
will not here examine ; but this I am sure, that men
must allow one or other of these to be true, or else
grant that God has furnished men with faculties
sufficient to direct them in the way they should take,
if they will but seriously employ them that way,
when their ordinary vocations allow them the leisure/
(Essay, Book iv. ch. 19, 3.)

Such an attempt to secure a foundation in a new
consensus will obviously forfeit depth to gain in com
prehensiveness. This phase of rationalism Ration-
alismus vulgaris -resigns the transcendental, that it
may gain adherents. It wants, not the elect, but all
men. It cannot afford to embarrass itself with the
attempt to prove what all may not be required to
receive. Accordingly there can be no mysteries in Chris
tianity. The word ^v(jrr]piov, as Archbishop Whately
points out (Essays, 2nd ser., 5th ed., p. 288), always
means in the New Testament not that which is in
comprehensible, but that which was once a secret,
though now it is revealed it is no longer so. Whately,
who elsewhere (Paley s Evidences, new ed.) speaks so
contemptuously of the cast-off clothes of the Deists,
is here but adopting the argument of Toland in his
Christianity not Mysterious. (Cf. Balguy, Discourses,
p. 237.) There needs no special preparation of heart
to receive the Gospel, the evidences of religion are
sufficient to convince every unprejudiced inquirer.
Unbelievers are blameworthy as deaf to an argument
which is so plain that they cannot but understand it,
and so convincing that they cannot but be aware of
its force. Under such self-imposed conditions religious
proof seems to divest itself of all that is divine, and
out of an excess of accommodation to the recipient

16881750. 293

faculty to cease to be a transforming thought. Ration
alism can object to the old sacramental system that it
degrades a spiritual influence into a physical effect.
But rationalism itself, in order to make the proof of
revelation universal, is obliged to resolve religion into
the moral government of God by rewards and punish
ments, and especially the latter. It is this anthropo
morphic conception of God as the Governor of the
universe/ which is presented to us in the theology of
the Hanoverian divines, a theology which excludes on
principle not only all that is poetical in life, but all
that is sublime in religious speculation. To degrade
religion to the position of a mere purveyor of motive
to morality is not more dishonourable to the ethics
which must ask, than to the religion which will render
such assistance/ (A. J. Vaughan, Essays, vol. i. p.
6 1.) It is this character that makes the reading even
of the Analogy so depressing to the soul, as Tholuck
(Vermisc/ite Schriften, i. 193) says of it * we weary of
a long journey on foot, especially through deep sand/
Human nature is not only humbled but crushed. It
is a common charge against the i8th century divines
that they exalt man too much, by insisting on the
dignity of human nature, and its native capacities for
virtue. This was the charge urged against the ortho
dox by the evangelical pulpit. But only very super
ficial and incompetent critics of doctrine can suppose
that man is exalted by being thrown upon his moral
faculties. The history of doctrine teaches a very
different lesson. Those periods when morals have
been represented as the proper study of man, and his
only business, have been periods of spiritual abasement
and poverty. The denial of scientific theology, the
keeping in the back-ground the transcendental objects
of faith, and the restriction of our faculties to the
regulation of our conduct, seem indeed to be placing
man in the foreground of the picture, to make human
nature the centre round which all things revolve. But

294 Tendencies of Religions Thought in England,

they do so not by exalting the visible, but by
materializing the invisible. If there be a sphere of
knowledge level to our capacities and of the utmost
importance to us, we ought surely to apply ourselves
with all diligence to this our proper business, and
esteem everything else nothing, nothing as to us, in
comparison of it. ... Our province is virtue
and religion, life and manners ; the science of improving
the temper and making the heart better. This is the
field assigned to us ta cultivate ; how much it has lain
neglected is indeed astonishing. . . . He who
should find out one rule to assist us in this work would
deserve infinitely better of mankind than all the im
provers of other knowledge put together/ (Sermon
xv.) This is the theology of Butler and his contem
poraries a utilitarian theology, like the Baconian phi
losophy, contemning all employment of mental power
that does not bring in fruit. Intellectui non plumae,
sed plumbum addendum et pondera/ (Bacon, Nov. Or.,
i. 104,) might be its device.

In the Analogy it is the same. His term of compari
son, the constitution and course of nature is not what
we should understand by that term ; not what science
can disclose to us of the laws of the cosmos, but a nar
row observation of what men do in ordinary life. We
see what he means by the c constitution of things/ by
his saying (Sermon xv.) that the writings of Solomon
are very much taken up with reflections upon human
nature and human life ; to which he hath added, in
Ecclesiastes, reflections upon the constitution of things/
In Part i. ch. 3, of the Analogy, he compares the moral
government of Grod with the natural the distinction
is perhaps from Balguy (Divine Rectitude, p. 39), that
is to say, one part of natural religion with another ;
for the distinction vanishes, except upon a very con
ventional sense of the term moral/ Altogether we
miss in these divines not only distinct philosophical
conceptions, but a scientific use of terms. Dr. Whewell

16881750. 295

considers that Butler shunned the appearance of
technical terms for the elements of our moral consti
tution on which he speculated/ and thinks that he
was driven to indirect modes of expression/ (Moral
Philosophy in England, p. 109.) The truth is that
Butler uses the language of his day upon the topics on
which he writes. The technical terms, and strict
logical forms, which had been adhered to by the
writers, small as well as great, of the iyth century,
had been disused as pedantic; banished first from
literature, and then from education. They did not
appear in style, because they did not form part of the
mental habit of the writers. Butler does not, as Dr.
Whewell supposes, think in one form, and write in
another, out of condescension to his readers. He
thinks in the same language in which he and those
around him speak. Mr. Hort s remark that Butler s
writings are stoic to the core in the true and ancient
sense of the word (Cambridge Essays, 1856, p. 337)
must be extended to their style. The English style
of philosophical writing in the Hanoverian period is
to the English of the i7th century, as the Greek of
Epictetus, Antoninus, or Plutarch, is to that of Ari
stotle. " And for the same reason. The English stoics
and their Greek predecessors were practical men who
moralized in a practical way on the facts of common life,
and in the language of common life. Neither the rhe
torical Schools of the Empire, nor the Universities of
England, any longer taught the correct use of meta
physical language. To imitate classical Latin was
become the chief aim of the University man in his
public exercises, and precision of language became
under that discipline very speedily a lost art.

Upon the whole, the writings of that period are
serviceable to us chiefly as showing what can and
what cannot be effected by common -sense thinking in
theology. It is of little consequence to inquire
whether or not the objections of the Deists and the

296 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

Socinians were removed by the answers brought to
meet them. Perhaps, on the whole, we might be
borne out in saying that the defence is at least as
good as the attack ; and so, that even on the ground
of common reason, the Christian evidences may be
arranged in such a way as to balance the common-
sense improbability of the supernatural that there
are three chances to one for revelation, and only two
against it/ (Tracts for the Times, No. 85.) Had not
circumstances given - a new direction to religious
interests, the Deistical controversy might have gone
on indefinitely, and the amoebsean strain of objection
and reply, et cantare pares et respondere parati have
been prolonged to this day without any other result.
But that result forces on the mind the suggestion that
either religious faith has no existence, or that it must
be to be reached by some other road than that of the
trial of the witnesses/ It is a reductio ad absurdum
of co mm on- sense philosophy, of home-baked theology,
when we find that the result of the whole is that c it
is safer to believe in a God, lest, if there should
happen to be one, he might send us to hell for deny
ing his existence/ (Maurice, Essays, p. 236.) If a
religion be wanted which shall debase instead of ele
vating, this should be its creed. If the religious
history of the eighteenth century proves anything it
is this : That good sense, the best good sense, when
it sets to work with the materials of human nature and
Scripture to construct a religion, will find its way to
an ethical code, irreproachable in its contents, and
based on a just estimate and wise observation of the
facts of life, ratified by Divine sanctions in the shape
of hope and fear, of future rewards and penalties of
obedience and disobedience. This the eighteenth
century did and did well. It has enforced the truths
of natural morality with a solidity of argument and
variety of proof which they have not received since
the Stoical epoch, if then. But there its ability ended.

16881750. 297

When it came to the supernatural part of Christianity
its embarrassment began. It was forced to keep it
as much in the background as possible, or to bolster
it up by lame and inadequate reasonings. The philo
sophy of common-sense had done its own work ; it
attempted more only to show, by its failure, that some
higher organon was needed for the establishment of
supernatural truth. The career of the evidential
school, its success and failure, its success in vindi
cating the ethical part of Christianity and the regula
tive aspect of revealed truth, its failure in establishing
the supernatural and speculative part, have enriched
the history of doctrine with a complete refutation of
that method as an instrument of theological investi
gation.

This judgment, however, must not be left unbalanced
by a consideration on the other side. It will hardly
be supposed that the drift of what has been said is
that common-sense is out of place in religion, or in
any other matter. The defect of the eighteenth cen
tury theology was not in having too much good sense,
but in having nothing besides. In the present day
when a godless orthodoxy threatens, as in the fifteenth
century, to extinguish religious thought altogether,
and nothing is allowed in the Church of England but
the formulae of past thinkings, which have long lost
all sense of any kind ; it may seem out of season to
be bringing forward a misapplication of common-sense
in a bygone age. There are times and circumstances
when religious ideas will be greatly benefited by being
submitted to the rough and ready tests by which busy
men try what comes in their way ; by being made to
stand their trial, and be freely canvassed, coram populo.
As poetry is not for the critics, so religion is not for
the theologians. When it is stiffened into phrases,
and these phrases are declared to be objects of reverence
but not of intelligence, it is on the way to become a
useless encumbrance, the rubbish of the past, blocking

298 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

the road. Theology then retires into the position it
occupies in the Church of Rome at present, an unmean
ing frostwork of dogma, out of all relation to the actual
history of man. In that system, theological virtue
is an artificial life quite distinct from the moral virtues
of real life. * Parmi nous/ says Eemusat, * un homme
religieux est trop souvent un homme qui se croit
entoure d ennemis, qui voit avec defiance ou scandale
les evenements et les institutions du siecle, qui se desole
d etre ne dans les jours maudits, et qui a besoin d un
grand fond de bonte innee pour empecher ses pieuses
aversions de devenir de mortelles haines. 3 This
system is equally fatal to popular morality and to
religious theory. It locks up virtue in the cloister,
and theology in the library. It originates caste
sanctity, and a traditional philosophy. The ideal of
holiness striven after may once have been lofty, the
philosophy now petrified into tradition may once have
been a vital faith, but now that they are withdrawn
from public life, they have ceased to be social influences.
On the other hand, the eighteenth century exhibits
human attainment levelled to the lowest secular model
of prudence and honesty, but still, such as it was,
proposed to all men as their rule of life. Practical
life as it was, was the theme of the pulpit, the press,
and the drawing-room. Its theory of life was not
lofty, but it was true as far as it went. It did not
substitute a factitious phraseology, the pass-words of
the modern pulpit, for the simple facts of life, but
called things by their right names. Nullum numen
habes si sit prudentia was its motto, not denying the
numen/ but bringing him very close to the indivi
dual person, as his moral governor/ The prevailing
philosophy was not a profound metaphysic, but it was
a soundly based arrangement of the facts of society ;
it was not a scheme of the sciences, but a manual for
e very-day use. Nothing of the wild spirit of universal
negation which was spread over the Continent fifty

16881750. 299

years later belonged to the solid rationalism of this
period. The human understanding wished to be
satisfied, and did not care to believe that of which it
could not see the substantial ground. The reason
was coming slowly to see that it had duties which it
could not devolve upon others ; that a man must think
for himself, protect his own rights, and administer his
own affairs. The reason was never less extravagant
than in this its first essay of its strength. Its demands
were modest, it was easily satisfied ; far too easily, we
must think, when we look at some of the reasonings
which passed as valid.

The habits of controversy in which they lived
deceived the belligerents themselves. The contro
versial form of their theology, which has been fatal to
its credit since, was no less detrimental to its sound
ness at the time. They could not discern the line
between what they did, and what they could not,
prove. The polemical temper deforms the books they
have written. Literature was indeed partially refined
from the coarser scurrilities with which the Caroline
divines, a century before, had assailed their Romanist
opponents. But there is still an air of vulgarity about
the polite writing of the age, which the divines adopt
along with its style. The cassocked divine assumes
the airs of the roaring blade/ and ruffles it on the
mall with a horsewhip under his arm. Warburton s
stock argument is a threat to cudgel anyone who dis
putes his opinion. All that can be said is that this
was a habit of treating your opponent which pervaded
society. At a much later period Porson complains,
c In these ticklish times . . . talk of religion it
is odds but you have infidel, blasphemer, atheist, or
schismatic, thundered in your ears; touch upon
politics, you will be in luck if you are only charged
with a tendency to treason. Nor is the innocence ot
your intention any safeguard. It is not the publication

300 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

that shows the character of the author, but the
character of the author that shows the tendency of
the publication. (Luard s Porson/ Camb. Essays,
1857.) A license of party vituperation in the House
of Commons existed, from the time of the opposition
to Walpole onwards., which has long been banished by
more humane manners. The men who took a fore
most part seemed to be intent on disparaging each
other, and proving that neither possessed any quali
fication of wisdom, -knowledge, or public virtue.
Epithets of reproach were lavished personally on Lord
North, which were applicable only to the vilest and
most contemptible of mankind/ (Massey, Hist, of
England, ii. 218.)

Were this blustering language a blemish of style
and nothing more, it would taint their books with
vulgarity as literature, but it would not vitiate their
matter. But the fault reaches deeper than skin-deep.
It is a most serious drawback on the good-sense of the
age that it wanted justice in its estimate of persons.
They were no more capable of judging their friends
than their foes. In Pope s satires there is no medium ;
our enemies combine all the odious vices, however
incongruous ; our friends have * every virtue under
heaven/ We hear- sometimes of Pope s peculiar
malignity/ But he was only doing what every one
around him was doing, only with a greatly superior
literary skill. Their savage invective against each
other is not a morally worse feature than the style of
fulsome compliment in which friends address each
other. The private correspondence of intimate friends
betrays an unwholesome insincerity, which contrasts
strangely with their general manliness of character.
The burly intellect of Warburton displays an appetite
for flattery as insatiable as that of Miss Seward
and her coterie.

This habit of exaggerating both good and evil the
divines share with the other writers of the time. But

16881750. 301

theological literature, as a written debate, had a form
of malignant imputation peculiar to itself. This is
one arising out of the rationalistic fiction which both
parties assumed, viz., that their respective beliefs were
determined by an impartial inquiry into the evidence.
The orthodox writers considered this evidence so clear
and certain for their own conclusions, that they could
account for its not seeming so to others only by the
supposition of some moral obliquity which darkened
the understanding in such cases. Hence the obnoxious
assumption of the divines that the Deists were men of
corrupt morals, and the retort of the infidel writers,
that the clergy were hired advocates. Moral impu
tation, which is justly banished from legal argument,
seems to find a proper place in theological. Those
Christian Deists who, like Toland or Collins, ap
proached most nearly in their belief to Eevelation,
were treated, not better, but worse, by the orthodox
champions ; their larger admissions being imputed to
disingenuousness or calculated reserve. This stamp of
advocacy which was impressed on English theology at
the Reformation its first work of consideration was
an Apology - -it has not to this day shaken off. Our
theologians, with rare exceptions, do not penetrate
below the surface of their subject, but are engaged in
defending or vindicating it. The current phrases of
the bulwarks of our faith, dangerous to Christianity/
are but instances of the habitual position in which we
assume ourselves to stand. Even more philosophic
minds cannot get rid of the idea that theology is
polemical. Theological study is still the study of
topics of defence. Even Professor Eraser can exhort us
that by the study of these topics we might not merely
disarm the enemies of religion of what, in other times
has been, and will continue to be a favourite weapon
of assault, but we might even convert that weapon
into an instrument of use in the Christian service/
(Essays in Philosophy, p. 4.) Modern science/ as it

302 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

is called, is recommended to the young divine, because
in it he may find means of confuting infidelity/

A little consideration will show that the grounds
on which advocacy before a legal tribunal rests, make
it inappropriate in theological reasoning. It is not
pretended that municipal law is coextensive with uni
versal law, and therefore incapable of admitting right
on both sides. It is allowed that the natural right
may be, at times, on one side, and the legal title
on the other ; not to mention the extreme case where
communis error facit jus The advocate is not there
to supply all the materials out of which the judge is
to form his decision, but only one side of the case.
He is the mere representative of his client s interests,
and has not to discuss the abstract merits of the
juridical point which may be involved. He does not
undertake to show that the law is conformable to na
tural right, but to establish the condition of his client
relatively to the law. But the rational defender of
the faith has no place in his system for the variable,
or the indifferent, or the non-natural. He proceeds
on the supposition that the whole system of the
Church is the one and exclusively true expression of
reason upon the subject on which it legislates. He
claims for the whole of received knowledge what the
jurist claims for international law, to be a universal
science. He lays before us, on the one hand, the tra
ditional canon or symbol of doctrine. On the other
hand, he teaches that the free use of reason upon the
facts of nature and Scripture is the real mode by
which this traditional symbol is arrived at. To show,
then, that the candid pursuit of truth leads every im
partial intellect to the Anglican conclusion was the
task which, on their theory of religious proof, their
theology had to undertake. The process, accordingly,
should have been analogous to that of the jurist or
legislator with regard to the internal evidence, and to
that of the judge with regard to the external evidence.

16881750. 303

If theological argument forgets the judge and assumes
the advocate, or betrays the least bias to one side, the
conclusion is valueless, the principle of free inquiry
has been violated. Roman Catholic theologians con
sistently enough teach that apologetics make no
part of theology, as usually conducted as replies to
special objections urged, but that a true apologetic
must be founded (i) on a discovery of the general
principle from which the attack proceeds, and (2) on
the exhibition, per contra^ of that general ground-
thought of which the single Christian truths are de
velopments. (Hageman, Die Aufyale der Catholischen

With rare exceptions the theology of the Hanove
rian period is of the most violently partisan character.
It seats itself, by its theory, in the judicial chair, but
it is only to comport itself there like Judge Jefferies.
One of the favourite books of the time was Sherlock s
Trial of the Witnesses. First published in 1729, it
speedily went through fourteen editions. It con
cludes in this way :

Judge. What say you ? Are the Apostles guilty
of giving false evidence in the case of the resurrection
of Jesus, or not guilty ?

Foreman. Not guilty.

Judge -Very well ; and now, gentlemen, I resign
my commission, and am your humble servant. The
company then rose up, and were beginning to pay
their compliments to the Judge and the counsel,
but were interrupted by a gentleman, who went up
to the Judge and offered him a fee. What is this ?
says the Judge. A fee, sir, 3 said the gentleman.
A fee to a judge is a bribe/ said the Judge. True,
sir/ said the gentleman ; but you have resigned your
commission, and will not be the first judge who has
come from the bench to the bar without any dimi
nution of honour. Now, Lazarus s case is to come
on next, and this fee is to retain you on his side/

304 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

One might say that the apologists of that day had
in like manner left the bench for the bar, and taken
a brief for the Apostles. They are impatient at the
smallest demur, and deny loudly that there is any
weight in anything advanced by their opponents.
In the way they override the most serious difficulties,
they show anything but the temper which is sup
posed to qualify for the weighing of evidence. The
astonishing want of candour in their reasoning, their
blindness to real difficulty, the ill-concealed predeter
mination to find a particular verdict, the rise of their
style in passion in the same proportion as their argu
ment fails in strength, constitute a class of writers
more calculated than any other to damage their own
cause with young ingenuous minds, bred in the school
of Locke to believe that to love truth for truth s sake
is the principal part of human perfection in this world,
and the seed-plot of all other virtues. (Locke, a?t. 73.
Letter to Collins.) Spalding has described the moral
shock his faith received on hearing an eminent
clergyman in confidential conversation with another,
who had cited some powerful argument against reve
lation, say, That s truly awkward ; let us consider a
little how we get out of that; wie wir uns salviren.
(Selbstbioyraphie, p. 128.) A truthful mind is a much
rarer possession than is commonly supposed, for it is
as easy to close the eyes of the mind as those of the
body. (Butler, Sermon x.) And in this rarity there
is a natural limit to the injury which uncandid vin
dications of revelation can cause. To whatever causes
is to be attributed the decline of Deism, from 1750
onwards, the books polemically written against it can
not reckon among them. When Casaubon first vi
sited Paris, and was being shown over the Sorbonne,
his guide said, * This is the hall in which the doctors
have disputed for 300 years/ Aye ! and what have
they settled ? was his remark.

Some exceptions, doubtless, there are to the incon-

16881750. 305

clusiveness of this debate. Here again the eminent
exception is the Analogy. Butler, it is true, comes
forward not as an investigator, but as a pleader. But
when we pass from his inferior brethren to this great
master of the art, we find ourselves in the hands of
one who knows the laws of evidence, and carefully
keeps his statements within them. Butler does not,
like his fellow apologists, disguise the fact that the
evidence is no stronger than it is. If it be a poor
thing/ to argue in this way, the epithet poor may be
applied, I fear, as properly to great part, or the whole,
of human life, as it is to the things mentioned.
{Analogy , Part ii. ch. 8.) Archbishop Whately, de
fining the temper of the rational theologian, says :
* A good man will, indeed, wish to find the evidence
of the Christian religion satisfactory ; but a wise man
will not, for that reason, think it satisfactory, but will
weigh the evidence the more carefully on account of
the importance of the question/ (Essays, 2nd series,
p. 24.) This character Butler s argument exemplifies.
We can feel, as we read, how his judgment must have
been offended in his contemporaries by the dispro
portion between the positiveness of their assertion
and the feebleness of their argument. Nor should
we expect that Butler satisfied them. They thought
him a little too little vigorous/ and wished he
would have spoke more earnestly/ (Byrom s Journal,
March, 1737.) Men who believed that they were in
possession of a demonstration of Christianity were
not likely to be satisfied with one who saw so strongly
the doubtfulness in which things were involved thai
he could not comprehend men s being impatient out
of action or vehement in it/ (Unpublished Remains,
8fc.) Warburton, who has a proof which is very
little short of mathematical certainty, and to which
nothing but a mere physical possibility of the contrary
can be opposed (Divine Leg., b. i. i), was the man
for the age, which did not care to stand higgling with

x

306 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

Butler over the degrees of probability. "What could
the world do with a man who designed the search
after truth as the business of my life (Correspondence
with Dr. Clarke), and who was so little prepared to
dogmatise about the future world that he rather felt
that there is no account to be given in the way of
reason of men s so strong attachments to the present
world/ (Sermon vii.) Butler s doubtfulness, however,
it should be remarked, is not the unsteadiness of the
sceptical, but the wariness of the judicial mind; a
mind determined for itself by its own instincts, but
careful to confine its statements to others within the
evidence produced in court. The Analogy does not
depicture an inward struggle in his own mind, but as
he told a friend, his way of writing it had been to
endeavour to answer as he went along, every possible
objection that might occur to any one against any
position of his in his book. (Bartlett s Life of Butler,
p. 50.) He does not doubt himself, but he sees, what
others do not see, the difficulty of proving religion to
others. There is a saying of Pitt circulating to the
effect that the Analogy is a dangerous book ; it raises
more doubts than it solves/ All that is true in this
is, that to a mind which has never nourished objections
to revelation a book of evidences may be the means of
first suggesting them. But in 1736 the objections
were everywhere current, and the answers to them
were mostly of that truly dangerous sort in which
assertion runs ahead of proof. The merit of Butler
lies not in the irrefragable proof/ which Sou they s
epitaph attributes to his construction, but in his
showing the nature of the proof, and daring to admit
that it was less than certain ; to own that a man may
be fully convinced of the truth of a matter and upoo
the strongest reasons, and yet not be able to answer
all the difficulties which may be raised upon it/
(Durham Charge, 1751.)

Another, perhaps the only other, book of this

16881750. 307

polemical tribe which can be said to have been com
pletely successful as an answer, is one most unlike the
Analogy in all its nobler features. This is Bentley s
Remarks upon a late Discourse of Freethinking, by
Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, 1713. Coarse, arrogant, and
abusive, with all Bentley s worst faults of style and
temper, this masterly critique is decisive. Not, of
course, of the Deistical controversy, on which the critic
avoids entering. The Discourse of Freethinking was a
small tract published in 1713 by Anthony Collins.
Collins was a gentleman of independent fortune, whose
high personal character and general respectability
seemed to give a weight to his words, which assuredly
they do not carry of themselves. By freethinking,
he means liberty of thought the right of bringing
all received opinions whatsoever to the touchstone of
reason. Among the grounds or authorities by which
he supports this natural right, Collins unluckily had
recourse to history, and largely, of course, to the pre
cedent of the Greek philosophers. Collins, who had
been bred at Eton and King s, was probably no worse
a scholar than his contemporary Kingsmen, and the
range of his reading was that of a man who had
made the classics the companions of his maturer years.
But that scholarship which can supply a quotation
from Lucan, or flavour the style with an occasional
allusion to Tully or Seneca, is quite incompetent to
apply Greek or Roman precedent properly to a modern
case. Addison, the pride of Oxford, had clone no
better. In his Essay on the Evidences of Christianity,
Addison assigns as grounds for his religious belief,
stories as absurd as that of the Cocklane ghost, and
forgeries as rank as Ireland s Vortigern, puts faith in
the lie about the thundering legion, is convinced that
Tiberius moved the Senate to admit Jesus among the
gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, King of
Edessa, to be a record of great authority. (Macaulay :
Essays.} But the public was quite satisfied with

x 2

308 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

Addison s citations, in which, a public, which had
given the victory to Boyle in the P /talaris controversy,
could hardly suspect anything wrong. Collins was
not to escape so easily. The Freethinker flounders
hopelessly among the authorities he has invoked.
Like the necromancer s apprentice, he is worried by
the fiends he has summoned but cannot lay, and
Bentley, on whose nod they wait, is there like another
Cornelius Agrippa hounding them on and enjoying
the sport. Collins s mistakes, mistranslations, miscon
ceptions, and distortions are so monstrous, that it is
difficult for us now, forgetful how low classical learning
had sunk, to believe that they are mistakes, and not
wilful errors. It is rare sport to Bentley, this rat-
hunting in an old rick, and he lays about him in high
glee, braining an authority at every blow. When he
left off abruptly, in the middle of a Third Part/ it
was not because he was satiated with slaughter, but
to substitute a new excitement, no less congenial to
his temper a quarrel with the University about his
fees. A grace, voted 1715, tendering him the public
thanks of the University, and praying him in the
name of the University to finish what remains of so
useful a work/ could not induce him to resume his
pen. The Remarks of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, un
finished though they are, and trifling as was the book
which gave occasion to them, are perhaps the best of
all Bentley s performances. They have all the merits
of the Phalaris dissertation, with the advantage of a
far nobler subject. They show how Bentley s exact
appreciation of the value of terms could, when he
chose to apply it to that purpose, serve him as a key
to the philosophical ideas of past times, no less than
to those of poetical metaphor. The tone of the
pamphlet is most offensive, not only not insipid, but
exceedingly bad-tasted/ We can only say the taste
is that of his age, while the knowledge is all his own.
It was fair to show that his antagonist undertook to

16881750. 309

interpret the Prophets and Solomon without Hebrew ;
Plutarch and Zosimus (Collins spells it Zozimus)
without Greek ; and Cicero and Lucan without Latin.
(Remarks, Part i. No. 3.) But the dirt endeavoured
to be thrown on Collins will cleave to the hand that
throws it. It may be worth mention that this tract of
Bentley contains the original of Sidney Smith s cele
brated defence of the prizes in the Church. The pas
sage is a favourable specimen of the moral level of a
polemic who was accusing his opponent of holding
4 opinions the most abject and base that human nature
is capable of/ (Letter prefixed to Remarks.}

He can never conceive or wish a priesthood either
quieter for him, or cheaper, than that of the present
Church of England. Of your quietness himself is a
convincing proof, who has writ this outrageous book,
and has met with no punishment nor prosecution.
And for the cheapness, that appeared lately in one of
your parliaments, when the accounts exhibited showed
that 6,000 of your clergy, the greater part of your
whole number, had, at a middle rate one with another,
not 50 pounds a year. A poor emolument for so long,
so laborious, so expensive an education, as must qualify
them for holy orders. While I resided at Oxford, and
saw such a conflux of youth to their annual admis
sions, I have often studied and admired why their
parents would, under such mean encouragements,
design their sons for the church ; and those the most
towardly, and capable, and select geniuses among their
children, who must needs have emerged in a secular
life. I congratulated, indeed, the felicity of your
establishment, which attracted the choice youth of
your nation for such very low pay ; but my wonder
was at the parents, who generally have interest, main
tenance and wealth, the first thing in their view, till
at last one of your state-lotteries ceased my astonish
ment. For as in that, a few glittering prizes, 1,000,
5,000, 10,000 pounds among an infinity of blanks,

310 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

drew troops of adventurers, who, if the whole fund
had been equally ticketted, would never have come
in ; so a few shining dignities in your church, pre
bends, deaneries, bishopricks, are the pious fraud that
induces and decoys the parents to risk their child s
fortune in it. Everyone hopes his own will get some
prize in the church, and never reflects on the thou
sands of blanks in poor country livings. And if a
foreigner may tell you his mind, from what he sees
at home, tis this part of your establishment that makes
your clergy excel ours \i. e., in Germany, from which
Phileleutlierus Lipsiensis is supposed to write]. Do but
once level all your preferments, and you ll soon be as
level in your learning. For, instead of the flower of
the English youth, you ll have only the refuse sent to
your academies, and those, too, cramped and crippled
in their studies, for want of aim and emulation. So
that, if your Freethinkers had any politics, instead of
suppressing your whole order, they should make you
all alike ; or, if that cannot be done, make your prefer
ments a very lottery in the whole similitude. Let
your church dignities be pure chance prizes, without
regard to abilities, or morals, or letters/ (Remarks,
<!*., Part ii. 40.)

It has been mentioned that Bentley does not attempt
to reply to the argument of the Discourse on Free-
thinking. His tactic is to ignore it, and to assume
that it is only meant as a covert attack on Christianity ;
that Collins is an Atheist fighting under the disguise
of a Deist. Some excuse perhaps may be made for a
man nourished on pedagogic latin, and accustomed to
launch furious sarcasm at any opponent who betrayed
a brutal ignorance of the difference between ac and
et. But Collins was not a sharper, and would have
disdained practices to which Bentley stooped for the
sake of a professorship. When Bentley, in the pride
of academic dignity, could thus browbeat a person of
Collins s consideration, it was not to be expected that

the inferior fry of Deistical writers,- -Toland, a writer
for the press ; Tindal, a fellow of a college ; or Chubb,
a journeyman glover met with fairer treatment from
their opponents. The only exception to this is the
case of Shaftesbury, to whom, as well after his death
as in his lifetime, his privileges as a peer seem to have
secured immunity from hangman s usage. He is
simply a late noble author/ Nor was this respect
inspired by the Earl s profession of Christianity. He
does, indeed, make this profession with the utmost
unreserve. He asserts his c steady orthodoxy/ and
entire submission to the truly Christian and Catholic
doctrines of our holy Church, as by law established/
and that he holds the mysteries of our religion even
in the minutest particulars/ (CAaracteristicfa^fol. iii.
p. 315.) But this outward profession would only have
brought down upon any other writer an aggravated
charge of cowardly malice and concealment of Atheism.
If Shaftesbury was spared on account of his rank, the
orthodox writers were not altogether wrong in fasten
ing upon this disingenuousness as a moral charac
teristic of their antagonists. The excuse for this want
of manliness in men who please themselves with in
sinuating unpopular opinions which they dare not
advocate openly, is that it is an injustice perpetrated by
those who have public feeling on their side. They
make/ says Mr. Tayler, the honest expression of
opinion penal, and then condemn men for disingenu
ousness. They invite to free discussion, but deter
mine beforehand that only one conclusion can be sound
and moral. They nil the arena of public debate with
every instrument of torture and annoyance for the
feeling heart, the sensitive imagination, and the scru
pulous intellect, and then are angry that men do not
rush headlong into the martyrdom that has been pre
pared for them/ (~Religiow Life of England, p. 282.)

In days when the pillory was the punishment for
common libel, it cannot be thought much that heresy

312 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

and infidelity should be punished by public opprobrium.
And public abhorrence was the most that a writer
against revelation had now to fear. Mandeville s
Fable of the Bees, indeed, was presented as a nuisance
by the grand jury of Middlesex, in 1723, as were
Bolingbroke s collected Works j in 1752, and Toland s
Christianity not Mysterious, in 1699. We find, too, that
Toland had to fly from Dublin, and Collins to go out
of the way to Holland, for fear of further consequences.
But nothing ever came of these presentments. The
only prosecution for religious libel was that of Wool-
ston, 2 George II., in which the defendant, who was
not of sound mind, provoked and even compelled the
law officers of the crown to proceed against him,
though they were very reluctant to do so. When
thus compelled to declare the law, on this occasion,
the Lord Chief Justice (Kaymond) would not allow
it to be doubted that to write against Christianity in
general was punishable at common law/ Yet both
then and since, judges and prosecutors have shown
themselves shy of insisting upon the naked offence of
1 impugning the truth of Christianity. That it is an
offence at common law, independent of 9 & 10 Wil
liam III., no lawyer will deny. But an instinctive sense
of the incompatibility of this legal doctrine with the
fundamental tenet of Protestant rationalism has always
served to keep it in the background. The judges
seem to have played fast and loose in this matter, in
such sort as might enable the future judge to quote
the tolerant or the intolerant side of their doctrine as
might prove convenient ; and while seemingly dis
avowing all interference with fair discussion, they
still kept a wary hold of the precedents of Hale and
Eaymond, and of the great arcanum of part and
parcel / semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque
retractant. (Considerations on the Law of Libel. By
John Search, 1833.)

Whatever excuse the Deistical writers might have

i688 1750. 313

for their insidious manner of writing, it is more to the
present purpose to observe that we may draw from it
the conclusion that public opinion was throughout on
the side of the defenders of Christianity. It might
seem almost superfluous to say this, were it not that
complaints meet us on every side, which seem to
imply the very contrary ; that in the words of Mr.
Gregory, the doctrine of our Church is exploded,
and our holy religion become only a name which is
everywhere spoken against/ (Pref. to Beveridges
Private Thoughts, 1709.) Thirty years later Butler
writes, that * it is come to be taken for granted that
Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry ;
but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fictitious.
Accordingly they treat it as if in the present age this
were an agreed point among all people of discernment,
and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal
subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of
reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures
of the world/ (Advertisement to Analogy, 1736.) How
ever a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of
fashionable circles, it is clear that distinct disbelief
of Christianity was by no means the general state of
the public mind. The leaders of the Low-church and
Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstand
ing the universal complaints of the High-church party
of the prevalence of infidelity, it is obvious that this
mode of thinking was confined to a very small section
of society. The Independent Whig (May 4, 1720), in
the middle of its blustering and endeavours to terrify
the clergy with their unpopularity, is obliged to admit
that the High-church Popish clergy will laugh in
their sleeves at this advice, and think there is folly
enough yet left among the laity to support their
authority ; and will laugh themselves, and rejoice over
the ignorance of the Universities, the stupidity of the
drunken squires, the pannic of the tender sex, and
the never-to-be-shaken constancy of the multitude/

314 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

A still better evidence is the confidence and success
with which the writers on the side of Revelation
appealed to the popular passions, and cowed their
Deistical opponents into the use of that indirect and
disingenuous procedure with which they then taunted
them. The clerical sphere was much more a sphere
by itself than it has since become. Notwithstanding
the large toleration really practised, strict professional
etiquette was still observed in the Church and the
TJniversities. The -horizontal hat, the starched band,
and the cassock, were still worn in public, and certain
proprieties of outward manner were expected from the
cloth/ The violation of these proprieties was punished
by the forfeiture of the offenders prospects of prefer
ment, a point on which the most extreme sensitiveness
existed. In the Balguy and Waterland set an officious
spirit of delation seems to have flourished. The
general habit of publicly canvassing religious topics
was very favourable to this espionage; as, at the
Reformation, the Catholics gathered their best calumnies
against Luther from his unreserved table-talk/

It was not difficult to draw the unhappy Middleton
into unguarded expressions (Van Mildert, Life of
Waterland) p. 162) ; andsomething which had fallen
from Bundle in his younger days was used against him
so successfully that even the Talbot interest was able
to procure him only an Irish bishoprick. Lord
Chesterfield, seeing what advantage the High-church
party derived from this tactic, endeavoured to turn it
against them. He gives a circumstantial account of
a conversation with Pope, which would tend to prove
that Atterbury was, nearly all his life, a sceptic. The
thing was not true, as Mr. Carruthers has shown
(Life of Pope, 2nd ed. p. 213), and true or false, the
weapon in Chesterfield s hands was pointless.

Though the general feeling of the country was
sufficiently decided to oblige all who wished to write
against Christianity, to do so under a mask, this was

16881750. 315

not the case with attacks upon the Clergy. Since the
days of the Lollards there had never been a time
when the established ministers of religion were held
in so much contempt as in the Hanoverian period, or
when satire upon churchmen was so congenial to
general feeling. This too was the more extraordinary,
as there was no feeling against the Church Establish
ment, nor was non-conformity as a theory ever less in
favour. The contempt was for the persons, manners,
and character of the ecclesiastics. When Macaulay
brought out his portrait of the clergyman of the
revolution period, his critics endeavoured to show that
that portrait was not true to life. They seem to have
brought out the fact that it was pretty fairly true to
literature. The difficult point is to estimate how far
the satirical and popular literature of any age may be
taken as representative of life. Satire to be popular
must exaggerate, but it must be exaggeration of known
and recognised facts. Mr. Churchill Babington (Cha
racter of the Clergy, fyc., considered, p. 48) sets aside
two of Macaulay s authorities, Oldham and T. Wood,
because Oldham was an Atheist and Wood a Deist.
Admitting that an Atheist and a Deist can be under no
obligation to truth, yet a satirist, who intends to be
read, is under the most inevitable engagement to the
probable. Satire does not create the sentiment to
which it appeals. A portrait of the country parson
temp. George the Second which should be drawn
verbatim from the pamphlets of the day would be no
more historical, than is that portrait of the begging
friar of the sixteenth century which our historians
repeat after Erasmus and the Epistola Obscurorum
Virormn. History may be extracted from them, but
these caricatures are not themselves history.

One inference which we may safely draw is that public
feeling encouraged such representations. It is a symp
tom of the religious temper of the times, that the same
public which compelled the Deist to wear the mask of

316 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

c solemn sneer in his assaults upon Christian doctrine,
required no such disguise or reserve when the ministers
of the Church were spoken of. Nor does the evidence
consist in a few stray extracts from here and there a Deist
or a cynic, it is the tone of all the popular writers of
that time. The unedifying lives of the clergy are a
standard theme of sarcasm, and continue to be so till
a late period in the century, when a gradual change
may be observed in the language of literature. This
antipathy to the elergy visible in the Hanoverian
period, admits of comparison with that vein which
colours the popular songs of the Wickliffite era. In
the fifteenth century, the satire is not indiscriminate.
It is against the monks and friars, the bishops and
cardinals, as distinct from the poor persoun of a toun.
Its point against the organized hypocrisy of the Papal
Churchmen is given it by the picture of the ideal
minister of Christe s Gospel which always accom
panies the burlesque. In the eighteenth century the
license of satire goes much beyond this. In the early
part of the century we find clerical satire observing to
some extent a similar discrimination. The Tory
parson is libelled always with an ostentatious reserve
of commendation for the more enlightened and liberal
Hanoverian, the staunch maintainer of the Protestant
succession. This is the tone of the Independent Whig,
one of the numerous weekly sheets called into being
in imitation of the Tatler. It was started in 1720,
taking for its exclusive theme the clergy, whom it was
its avowed object to abuse. A paper came out every
Wednesday. It was not a newspaper, and does not
deal in libel or personalities, hardly ever mentioning
a name, very rarely quoting a fact, but dilating in ge
neral terms upon clerical ignorance and bigotry. This
dull and worthless trash not only had a considerable
circulation at the time, but was reprinted, and passed
through several editions in a collected form. The
bishops talked of prohibiting it, but, on second thoughts,

16881750. 317

acted more wisely in taking no notice of it. The only
part of the kingdom into which it could not find
entrance was the Isle of Man, where the saintly
Wilson combined with apostolic virtues much of the
old episcopal claims over the consciences of his flock.
The Independent Wliiy, though manifestly written by
a man of no religion, yet finds it necessary to keep up
the appearance of encouraging the better sort of
clergy, and affecting to despise only the political
priests, the meddling chaplain, the preferment-hunter,
the toper, who is notable at bowls, and dexterous at
whisk.

As we advance towards the middle of the century,
and the French influence begins to mingle with pure
English Deism, the spirit of contempt spreads till it
involves all priests of all religions. The language
now is, The established clergy in every country are
generally the greatest enemies to all kinds of refor
mation, as they are generally the most narrow-minded
and most worthless set of men in every country. For
tunately for the present times, the wings of clerical
power and influence are pretty close trimmed, so that
I do not think their opposition to the proposed re
formations could be of any great consequence, more
of the people being inclined to despise them, than
to follow them blindly/ (Burgh, Political Disquisi
tions, 1774.) It was no longer for their vices that the
clergy were reviled, for the philosopher now had come
to understand that their virtues were more dangerous*

o

to society. Strictness of life did but increase the dislike
with which the clergyman was regarded ; his morality
was but double-dyed hypocrisy ; religious language
from his mouth was methodistical cant. Nor did the
orthodox attempt to struggle with this sentiment.
They yielded to it, and adopted for their maxim of
conduct, surtout point de zele/ Their sermons and
pamphlets were now directed against Enthusiasm/
which became the bugbear of that time. Every

318 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

clergyman, who wished to retain any influence over
the minds of his parishioners, was anxious to vindi
cate himself from all suspicion of enthusiasm. When
he had set himself right in this respect, he endea
voured to do the same good office for the Apostles.
But if he were not an enthusiast/ he was an im
postor/ For every clergyman of the Church had
against him an antecedent presumption as a priest.
It was now well understood, by all enlightened men,
that the whole sacerdotal brood were but a set of im
postors, who lived by deceiving the people, and who
had invented religion for their own benefit. Natural
religion needed no priests to uphold it ; it was
obvious to every understanding, and could maintain
itself in the world without any confraternity sworn to
the secret.

Again came a change. As the Methodist move
ment gradually leavened the mass beneath, zeal came
again into credit. The old Wickliffite, or Puritan,
distinction is revived between the Gospel preachers
and the dumb dogs/ The antipathy to priests was
no longer promiscuous. Popular indignation was
reserved for the fox-hunter and the pluralist ; the
Hophni and Phinehas generation ; the men, who are
described as careless of dispensing the bread of life
to their flocks, preaching a carnal and soul-benumbing
morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by re
ceiving money for discharging the pastoral office in
parishes where they did not so much as look on the
faces of the people more than once a year/ In the
well-known satire of Cowper, it is no longer irreligious
mocking at sacred things under pretence of a virtuous
indignation. It becomes again what it was before
the Reformation an earnest feeling, a religious sen
timent, the moral sense of man ; Huss or Savonarola
appealing to the written morality of the Gospel
against the practical immorality consecrated by the
Church.

16881750. 319

Something too of the old anti-hierarchical feeling
accompanies this revival of the influence of the in
ferior clergy ; a faint reflection of the bitter hatred
which the Lollard had borne to pope and cardinal, or
the Puritan to Prelacy/ The utility of the episco
pal and capitular dignities continued to be questioned
long after the evangelical parish pastor had re-estab
lished himself in the affections of his flock, and 1832
saw the cathedrals go down amid the general appro
bation of all classes. In the earlier half of the cen
tury the reverse was the case. The boorish country
parson was the man whose order was despised then, and
his utility questioned. The Freethinkers themselves
could not deny that the bench and the stalls were
graced by some whose wit, reputation, and learning
would have made them considerable in any profession. .
The higher clergy had with them the town and the
court, the country clergy sided with the squires. The
mass of the clergy were not in sympathy, either politi
cally or intellectually, with their ecclesiastical superiors.
The Tory fox-hunter in the Freeholder (No. 22.) thinks
1 the neighbouring shire very happy for having scarce
a Presbyterian in it except the bishop ; while Hickes
c thanks Grod that the main body of the clergy are in
their hearts Jacobites/ The bishops of Greorge the
Second deserved the respect they met with. At no
period in the history of our Church has the ecclesi
astical patronage of the crown been better directed
than while it was secretly dispensed by Queen Caroline.
For a brief period, liberality and cultivation of mind
were passports to promotion in the Church. Nor
were politics a hindrance ; the queen earnestly pressed
an English see upon Bishop Wilson. The corruption
which began with the Duke of Newcastle (1746)
gradually deepened in the subsequent reign, as poli
tical orthodoxy and connexion were made the tests,
and the borough-holders divided the dignities of the
Church among their adherents.

320 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

Of an age so solid and practical it was not to be
expected that its theology and metaphysics would
mount into the more remote spheres of abstraction.
Their line of argument was, as has been seen, regulated
by the necessity they laid themselves under of appeal
ing to sound sense and common reason. But not only
was their treatment of their topic popular, the motive
of their writings was an immediate practical necessity.
Bishops and deans might be made for merit, but it
was not mere literary merit, classical scholarship, or
University distinction. The Deistical controversy did
not originate, like some other controversies which
have made much noise in their time, in speculative
fancy, in the leisure of the cloister, or the college. It
had a living practical interest in its complication with
the questions of the day. The endeavour of the
moralists and divines of the period to rationalize re
ligion was in fact an effort to preserve the practical
principles of moral and religious conduct for society.
It was not an academical disputation, or a contest of
wits for superiority, but a life and death struggle of
religious and moral feeling to maintain itself. What
they felt they had to contend against was moral de
pravity, and not theological error ; they wrote less in
the interest of truth than in that of virtue. A
general relaxation of manners, in all classes of society,
is universally affirmed to be characteristic of that time ;
and theology and philosophy applied themselves to com
bat this. A striking instance of this is Bishop Berkeley,
the only metaphysical writer of the time, besides
Locke, who has maintained a very high name in phi
losophical history. He forms a solitary it might
seem a singular exception to what has been said of
the prosaic and unmetaphysical character of this mo
ralising age. The two peculiar metaphysical notions
which are connected with Berkeley s name, and which,
though he did not originate, he propounded with a
novelty and distinctness equal to originality, have

T 688 Jo. 321

always ranked as being on the extreme verge of ra
tional speculation, if not actually within the region of
unfruitful paradox and metaphysical romance. These
two memorable speculations, as propounded by Berke
ley in the Alciphron, come before us not as a Utopian
dream, or an ingenious play of reason, but interwoven
in a polemic against the prevailing unbelief. They
are made to bend to a most practical purpose, and are
Berkeley s contribution to the Deistical controversy.
The character of the man, too, was more in harmony
with the plain utilitarian spirit of his time than with
his own refining intellect. He was not a closet-
thinker, like his master Malebranche, but a man of
the world and of society, inquisitive and well informed
in many branches of practical science. Practical
schemes, social and philanthropic, occupied his mind
more than abstract thinking. In pushing the received
metaphysical creed to its paradoxical consequences, as
much as in prescribing tar-water/ he was thinking
only of an immediate benefit to mankind/ He seems
to have thought nothing of his argument until he had
brought it to bear on the practical question of the day.
Were the corruption of manners merely the com
plaint of one party or set of writers, a cry of factious
Puritanism, or of men who were at war with society,
like the Nonjuring clergy, or of a few isolated indi
viduals of superior piety, like William Law, it would
be easily explicable. The world at all times, and in
all countries, can be described with truth as lying in
wickedness, and the rebuke of the preacher of righte
ousness is equally needed in every age. There cannot
be a darker picture than that drawn by the Fathers
of the third century of the morals of the Christians
in their time. (See passages in Jewel s Apology^} The
rigorous moralist, heathen or Christian, can always
point in sharp contrast the vices and the belief of
mankind. But, after making every allowance for the
exaggeration of religious rhetoric, and the querulous-

Y

322 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

ness of defeated parties, there seems to remain some
real evidence for ascribing to that age a more than
usual moral licence, and contempt of external restraints.
It is the concurrent testimony of men of all parties, it is
the general strain of the most sensible and worldly
divines, prosperous men who lived with this very world
they censure, men whose code of morals was not large,
nor their standard exacting. To attempt the inquiry
what specific evils were meant by the general expres
sions decay of religion and corruption of manners/
the stereotype phrases of the time, is not within the
limits of this paper. No historian, as far as I am
aware, has attempted this examination ; all have been
content to render, without valuation, the charges as
they find them. I shall content myself with producing
here one statement of contemporary opinion on this
point ; for which purpose I select a layman, David
Hartley. (Observations on Man, vol. ii. p. 441.)

There are six things which seem more especially
to threaten ruin and dissolution to the present States
of Christendom.

ist. The great growth of atheism and infidelity,
particularly amongst the governing parts of these
States.

and. The open and abandoned lewdness to which
great numbers of both sexes, especially in the high
ranks of life, have given themselves up.

3rd. The sordid and avowed self-interest, which is
almost the sole motive of action in those who are
concerned in the administration of public affairs.

4th. The licentiousness and contempt of every
kind of authority, divine or human, which is so noto
rious in inferiors of all ranks.

5th. The great worldly-mindedness of the clergy,
and their gross neglect in the discharge of their proper
functions.

1 6th. The carelessness and infatuation of parents
and magistrates with respect to the education of

16881750. 323

youth, and the consequent early corruption of the
rising generation.

All these things have evident mutual connexions
and influences ; and as they all seem likely to increase
from time to time, so it can scarce be doubted by a
considerate man, whether he be a religious one or no,
but that they will, sooner or later, bring on a total dis
solution of all the forms of government that subsist
at present in the Christian countries of Europe/

Though there is this entire unanimity as to the fact
of the prevailing corruption, there is the greatest
diversity of opinion as to its cause. Each party is
found in turn attributing it to the neglect or disbelief
of the abstract propositions in which its own particular
creed is expressed. The Nonjurors and High-
Churchmen attribute it to the Toleration Act and the
latitudinarianism allowed in high places. One of the
very popular pamphlets of the year 1731 was a fast-
sermon preached before the Lord Mayor by Edmund
Massey, in which he enumerates the evils of the time,
and affirms that they * are justly chargeable upon the
corrupt explication of those words of our Saviour,
My kingdom is not of this world i.e., upon Hoad-
ley s celebrated sermon. The latitudinarian clergy
divide the blame between the Freethinkers and the
Nonjurors. The Freethinkers point to the hypocrisy
of the Clergy, who, they say, lost all credit with the
people by having preached passive obedience up to
1688, and then suddenly finding out that it was not a
scriptural truth. The Nonconformists lay it to the
enforcement of conformity and unscriptural terms of
communion ; while the Catholics rejoice to see in it
the Protestant Reformation at last bearing its natural
fruit. Warburton characteristically attributes it to
the bestowal of preferment by the Walpole adminis
tration. (Dedication to Lord Mansfield, Works, ii. 268.)
The power of preferment was not under-estimated
then. Greorge II. maintained to the last that the

Y 2

324 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

growth of Methodism was entirely owing to ministers
not having listened to his advice, and c made White-
field a bishop/ Lastly, that everyone may have
his say, a professor of moral philosophy in our day
is found attributing the same facts to the prevalence
of that low view of morality which rests its rules
upon consequences merely/

The reverence which/ says Dr. "Whewell, handed
down by the traditions of ages of moral and religious
teaching, had hitherto protected the accustomed forms
of moral good, was gradually removed. Vice, and
crime, and sin, ceased to be words that terrified the
popular speculator. Virtue, and goodness, and purity
were no longer things which he looked up to with
mute respect. He ventured to lay a sacrilegious
hand even upon these hallowed shapes. He saw that
when this had been dared by audacious theorists,
those objects, so long venerated, seemed to have no
power of punishing the bold intruder. There was a
scene like that which occurred when the barbarians
broke into the Eternal City. At first, in spite of
themselves, they were awed by the divine aspect of
the ancient magistrates ; but when once their leader
had smitten one of these venerable figures with im
punity, the coarse and violent mob rushed onwards,
and exultingly mingled all in one common destruction/
(Moral Philosophy in England, p. 79.)

The actual sequence of cause and effect seems, if it
be not presumptuous to say so, to be as nearly as
possible inverted in this eloquent statement. The
licentiousness of talk and manners was not produced
by the moral doctrines promulgated ; but the doctrine
of moral consequences was had recourse to by the
divines and moralists as the most likely remedy of the
prevailing licentiousness. It was an attempt, well-
meant but not successful, to arrest the wanton pro
ceedings of the coarse and violent mob/ Good men
saw with alarm, almost with despair, that what they

16881750. 325

said in the obsolete language of religious teaching was
not listened to, and tried to address the age in plain
and unmistakeable terms. The new theory of conse
quences was not introduced by men of leisure to
supplant and overthrow a nobler and purer view of
religion and morality, it was a plain fact of religion
stated in plain language, in the hope of deterring the
wicked from his wickedness. It was the address of
the Old Testament prophet, Why will ye die,
house of Israel? That there is a God and moral
Governor, and that obedience to His commands is
necessary to secure our interests in this world and the
next if any form of rational belief can control the
actions of a rational being, it is surely this. On the
rationalist hypothesis, the morality of consequences
ought to produce the most salutary effects on the
general behaviour of mankind. This obligation of
obedience, the appeal to our desire of our own welfare,
was the substance of the practical teaching of the age.
It was stated with great cogency of reasoning, and
enforced with every variety of illustration. Put its
proof at the lowest, let it be granted that they did
not succeed in removing all the objections of the
Deistical writers, it must, at least, be allowed that
they showed, to the satisfaction of all prudent and
thinking men, that it was safer to believe Christianity
true than not. The obligation to practice in point of
prudence was as perfect as though the proof had been
demonstrative. And what was the surprising result ?
That the more they demonstrated the less people be
lieved. As the proof of morality was elaborated and
strengthened, the more it was disregarded, the more
ungodliness and profaneness flourished and grew.
This is certainly not what we should antecedently
expect. If, as Dr. Whewell assumes, and the whole
doctrinaire school with him, the speculative belief of
an age determines its moral character, that should be
the purest epoch where the morality of consequences

326 Tendencies of Religious Thought in England,

is placed in the strongest light when it is most con
vincingly set before men that their present and future
welfare depends on how they act ; that * all we enjoy,
and great part of what we suffer, is placed in our
own hands/

Experience, however, the testimony of history, dis
plays to us a result the very reverse. The experiment
of the eighteenth century may surely be considered
as a decisive one on this point. The failure of a pru
dential system of ethics as a restraining force upon
society was perceived, or felt in the way of reaction,
by the Evangelical and Methodist generation of
teachers who succeeded the Hanoverian divines. So
far their perception was just. They went on to infer
that, because the circulation of one system of belief
had been inefficacious, they should try the effect of
inculcating a set of truths as widely remote from the
former as possible. Because legal preaching, as they
phrased it, had failed, they would essay Gospel preach
ing. The preaching of justification by works had not
the power to check wickedness, therefore justification
by faith, the doctrine of the Reformation, was the
only saving truth. This is not meant as a complete
account of the origin of the Evangelical school. It is
only one point of view that point which connects the
school with the general line of thought this paper has
been pursuing. Their doctrine of conversion by
supernatural influence must on no account be for
gotten. Yet it appears that they thought that the
channel of this supernatural influence was, in some
way or other, preaching. Preaching, too, not as
rhetoric, but as the annunciation of a specific doctrine
the Gospel. They certainly insisted on * the heart
being touched, and that the Spirit only had the power
savingly to affect the heart ; but they acted as though
this were done by an appeal to the reason, and scorn
fully rejected the idea of religious education.

It should also be remarked that even the divines of

16881750. 327

the Hanoverian school were not wholly blind to some
flaw in their theory, and to the practical inefficacy of
their doctrine. Not that they underrated the force
of their demonstrations. As has been already said,
the greater part of them over-estimated their convinc
ingness, but they could not but see that they did not,
in fact, convince. When this was forced upon their
observation, when they perceived that an a priori de
monstration of religion might be placed before a man,
and that he did not see its force, then, inconsequent
with their own theory, they had recourse to the notion
of moral culpability. If a person refused to admit
the evidence for revelation, it was because he did not
examine it with a dispassionate mind. His under
standing was biassed by his wishes ; some illicit pas
sion he was resolved on gratifying, but which prudence,
forsooth, would not have allowed him to gratify so
long as he continued to believe in a future judgment.
The wish that there were no God suggested the thought
that there is not. Speculative unbelief is thus as
serted to be a consequence of a bad heart : it is the
grounds upon which we endeavour to prove to our
selves and others that the indulgence of our passions
is consistent with a rational prudence. As levelled
against an individual opponent, this is a poor contro
versial shift. Many of the Deists were men of worth
and probity; of none of them is anything known
which would make them worse men than the average
of their class in life. Mr. Chichester (Deism compared
with Christianity, 1821, vol. iii. p. 220) says Tindal
was infamous for vice in general ; but I have not
been able to trace his authority for the assertion. As
an imputation, not against individual unbelievers, but
against the competency of reason in general, it may
be true, but is quite inconsistent with the general hypo
thesis of the school of reasoners who brought it. If
reason be liable to an influence which warps it, then
there is required some force which shall keep this in-

328 Tendencies of Religious TJiougTit in England,

fhience under, and reason alone is no longer the all-
sufficient judge of truth. In this way we should he
forced hack to the old orthodox doctrine of the chronic
impotence of reason, superinduced upon it by the Fall ;
a doctrine which the reigning orthodoxy had tacitly
renounced.

In the Catholic theory the feebleness of Eeason is
met half-way and made good hy the authority of the
Church. When the Protestants threw off this
authority, they did jiot assign to Eeason what they
took from the Church, hut to Scripture. Calvin did
not shrink from saying that Scripture shone suffi
ciently hy its own light/ As long as this could be
kept to, the Protestant theory of belief was whole and
sound. At least it was as sound as the Catholic. In
both, Eeason, aided by spiritual illumination, performs
the subordinate function of recognising the supreme
authority of the Church, and of the Bible, respectively.
Time, learned controversy, and abatement of zeal
drove the Protestants generally from the hardy but
irrational assertion of Calvin. Every foot of ground
that Scripture lost was gained by one or other of the
three substitutes : Church-authority, the Spirit, or
Eeason. Church- authority was essayed by the Lau-
dian divines, but was soon found untenable, for on
that footing it was found impossible to justify the
Eeformation and the breach with Eome. The Spirit
then came into favour along with Independency. But
it was still more quickly discovered that on such a
basis only discord and disunion could be reared. There
remained to be tried Common Eeason, carefully dis
tinguished from recondite learning, and not based on
metaphysical assumptions. To apply this instrument
to the contents of Eevelation was the occupation of
the early half of the eighteenth century ; with what
success has been seen. In the latter part of the cen
tury the same Common Eeason was applied to the
external evidences. But here the method fails in a

16881750. 329

first requisite universality; for even -the shallowest
array of historical proof requires some book-learning
to apprehend. Further than this, the Lardner and
Paley school could not complete their proof satisfacto
rily, inasmuch as the materials for the investigation
of the first and second centuries of the Christian era
were not at hand.

Such appears to be the past history of the Theory
of Belief in the Church of England. Whoever would
take the religious literature of the present day as a
whole, and endeavour to make out clearly on what
basis Kevelation is supposed by it to rest, whether on
Authority, on the Inward Light, on Reason, on self-
evidencing Scripture, or on the combination of the
four, or some of them, and in what proportions, would
probably find that he had undertaken a perplexing but
not altogether profitless inquiry.

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

IT is a strange, though familiar fact, that great
differences of opinion exist respecting the Interpre
tation of Scripture. All Christians receive the Old
and New Testament as sacred writings, but they are
not agreed about the meaning which they attribute
to them. The book itself remains as at the first ; the
commentators seem rather to reflect the changing
atmosphere of the world or of the Church. Different
individuals or bodies of Christians have a different
point of view, to which their interpretation is narrowed
or made to conform. It is assumed, as natural and
necessary, that the same words will present one idea
to the mind of the Protestant, another to the Roman
Catholic ; one meaning to the Grerman, another to the
English interpreter. The Ultramontane or Anglican
divine is not supposed to be impartial in his treatment
of passages which afford an apparent foundation for
the doctrine of purgatory or the primacy of St. Peter
on the one hand, or the three orders of clergy and
the divine origin of episcopacy on the other. It is a
received view with many, that the meaning of the
Bible is to be defined by that of the Prayer-book;
w r hile there are others who interpret the Bible and
the Bible only with a silent reference to the traditions
of the Eeformation. Philosophical differences are in
the background, into which the differences about
Scripture also resolve themselves. They seem to run

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 331

up at last into a difference of opinion respecting Reve
lation itself whether given beside the human faculties
or through them, whether an interruption of the laws
of nature or their perfection and fulfilment.

This effort to pull the authority of Scripture in
different directions is not peculiar to our own day ;
the same phenomenon appears in the past history of
the Church. At the Reformation, in the Nicene or
Pelagian times, the New Testament was the ground
over which men fought ; it might also be compared
to the armoury which furnished them with weapons.
Opposite aspects of the truth which it contains were
appropriated by different sides. * Justified by faith
without works and justified by faith as well as works
are equally Scriptural expressions ; the one has become
the formula of Protestants, the other of Roman
Catholics. The fifth and ninth chapters of the
Romans, single verses such as i Corinthians iii. 15,
John iii. 3, still bear traces of many a life-long strife
in the pages of commentators. The difference of
interpretation which prevails among ourselves is partly
traditional, that is to say, inherited from the con
troversies of former ages. The use made of Scripture
by Fathers of the Church, as well as by Luther and
Calvin, affects our idea of its meaning at the present
hour.

Another cause of the multitude of interpretations
is the growth or progress of the human mind itself.
Modes of interpreting vary as time goes on; they
partake of the general state of literature or knowledge.
It has not been easily or at once that mankind have
learned to realize the character of sacred writings
they seem almost necessarily to veil themselves from
human eyes as circumstances change; it is the old
age of the world only that has at length understood
its childhood. (Or rather perhaps is beginning to
understand it, and learning to make allowance for its
own deficiency of knowledge ; for the infancy of the

332 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

human race, as of the individual, affords but few-
indications of the workings of the mind within.)
More often than we suppose the great sayings and
doings upon the earth, thoughts that breathe and
words that burn/ are lost in a sort of chaos to the
apprehension of those that come after. Much of past
history is dimly seen and receives only a conventional
interpretation, even when the memorials of it remain.
There is a time at which the freshness of early
literature is lost ; mankind have turned rhetoricians,
and no longer write or feel in the spirit which created
it. In this unimaginative period in which sacred
or ancient writings are partially unintelligible, many
methods have been taken at different times to adapt
the ideas of the past to the wants of the present.
One age has wandered into the flowery paths of
allegory,

* In pious meditation fancy fed.

Another has straitened the liberty of the Gospel by a
rigid application of logic, the former being a method
which was at first more naturally applied to the Old
Testament, the latter to the New. Both methods of
interpretation, the mystical and logical, as they may
be termed, have been practised on the Vedas and the
Koran, as well as on the Jewish and Christian Scrip
tures, the true glory and note of divinity in these
latter being not that they have hidden mysterious
or double meanings, but a simple and universal one,
which is beyond them and will survive them. Since
the revival of literature, interpreters have not unfre-
quently fallen into error of another kind from a
pedantic and misplaced use of classical learning ; the
minute examination of words often withdrawing the
mind from more important matters. A tendency may
be observed within the last century to clothe systems
of philosophy in the phraseology of Scripture. But
new wine cannot thus be put into old bottles/

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 333

Though roughly distinguishable by different ages,
these modes or tendencies also exist together ; the
remains of all of them may be remarked in some of
the popular commentaries of our own day.

More common than any of these methods, and not
peculiar to any age, is that which may be called by
way of distinction the rhetorical one. The tendency
to exaggerate or amplify the meaning of simple words
for the sake of edification may indeed have a practical
use in sermons, the object of which, is to awaken not
so much the intellect as the heart and conscience.
Spiritual food, like natural, may require to be of a
certain bulk to nourish the human mind. But this
tendency to edification has had an unfortunate
influence on the interpretation of Scripture. For the
preacher almost necessarily oversteps the limits of
actual knowledge, his feelings overflow with the subject ;
even if he have the power, he has seldom the time for
accurate thought or inquiry. And in the course of years
spent in writing, perhaps, without study, he is apt to per
suade himself, if not others, of the truth of his own
repetitions. The trivial consideration of making a
discourse of sufficient length is often a reason why he
overlays the words of Christ and his Apostles with
commonplaces. The meaning of the text is not
always the object which he has in view, but some
moral or religious lesson which he has found it
necessary to append to it ; some cause which he is
pleading, some error of the day which he has to com
bat. And while in some passages he hardly dares to
trust himself with the full force of Scripture (Matthew
v. 34 ; ix. 13 ; xix. 21 ; Acts v. 29), in others he extracts
more from words than they really imply (Matthew
xxii. 31 ; xxviii. 20 ; Romans xiii. i ; &c.), being more
eager to guard against the abuse of some precept than
to enforce it, attenuating or adapting the utterance of
prophecy to the requirements or to the measure of
modern times. Any one who has ever written sermons

334 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

is aware how "hard it is to apply Scripture to the
wants of his hearers and at the same time to preserve
its meaning.

The phenomenon which has been described in the
preceding pages is so familiar, and yet so extraordinary,
that it requires an effort of thought to appreciate its
true nature. We do not at once see the absurdity of
the same words having many senses, or free our minds
from the illusion that the Apostle or Evangelist must
have written with -a reference to the creeds or con
troversies or circumstances of other times. Let it be
considered, then, that this extreme variety of interpre
tation is found to exist in the case of no other book,
but of the Scriptures only. Other writings are pre
served to us in dead languages Greek, Latin, Oriental,
some of them in fragments, all of them originally in
manuscript. It is true that difficulties arise in the
explanation of these writings, especially in the most
ancient, from our imperfect acquaintance with the
meaning of words, or the defectiveness of copies, or the
want of some historical or geographical information
which is required to present an event or character in
its true bearing. In comparison with the wealth and
light of modern literature, our knowledge of Greek
classical authors, for example, may be called imperfect
and shadowy. Some of them have another sort of
difficulty arising from subtlety or abruptness in the
use of language ; in lyric poetry especially, and some
of the earlier prose, the greatness of the thought
struggles with the stammering lips. It may be
observed that all these difficulties occur also in
Scripture ; they are found equally in sacred and pro
fane literature. But the meaning of classical authors
is known with comparative certainty ; and the inter
pretation of them seems to rest on a scientific basis.
It is not, therefore, to philological or historical diffi
culties that the greater part of the uncertainty in the
interpretation of Scripture is to be attributed. No

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 335

ignorance of Hebrew or Greek is sufficient to account
for it. Even the Vedas and the Zendavesta, though
beset by obscurities of language probably greater than
are found in any portion of the Bible, are interpreted,
at least by European scholars, according to fixed rules,
and beginning to be clearly understood.

To bring the parallel home, let us imagine the
remains of some well-known Greek author, as Plato
or Sophocles, receiving the same treatment at the
hands of the world which the Scriptures have expe
rienced. The text of such an author, when first printed
by Aldus or Stephens, would be gathered from the im
perfect or miswritten copies which fell in the way of
the editors ; after awhile older and better manuscripts
come to light, and the power of using and estimating
the value of manuscripts is greatly improved. We may
suppose, further, that the readings of these older copies
do not always conform to some received canons of
criticism. Up to the year 1550, or 1624, alterations,
often proceeding on no principle, have been introduced
into the text ; but now a stand is made an edition
which appeared at the latter of the two dates just
mentioned is invested with authority ; this authorized
text is apiece de resistance against innovation. Many
reasons are given why it is better to have bad readings
to which the world is accustomed than good ones
which are novel and strange why the later manu
scripts of Plato or Sophocles are often to be preferred
to earlier ones why it is useless to remove imperfec
tions where perfect accuracy is not to be attained. A
fear of disturbing the critical canons which have come
down from former ages is, however, suspected to be
one reason for the opposition. And custom and pre
judice, and the nicety of the subject, and all the argu
ments which are intelligible to the many against the
truth, which is intelligible only to the few, are thrown
into the scale to preserve the works of Plato or
Sophocles as nearly as possible in the received text.

S3 6 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Leaving the text we proceed to interpret and trans
late. The meaning of Greek words is known with
tolerable certainty ; and the grammar of the Greek
language has been minutely analysed both in ancient
and modern times. Yet the interpretation of Sophocles
is tentative and uncertain ; it seems to vary from age
to age : to some the great tragedian has appeared to
embody in his choruses certain theological or moral
ideas of his own age or country ; there are others who
find there an allegory of the Christian religion or of
the history of modern Europe. Several schools of
critics have commented on his works ; to the English
man he has presented one meaning, to the Frenchman
another, to the German a third ; the interpretations
have also differed with the philosophical systems which
the interpreters espoused. To one the same words
have appeared to bear a moral, to another a symbolical
meaning ; a third is determined wholly by the
authority of old commentators ; while there is a dis
position to condemn the scholar who seeks to interpret
Sophocles from himself only and with reference to the
ideas and beliefs of the age in which he lived. And
the error of such an one is attributed not only to some
intellectual but even to a moral obliquity which pre
vents his seeing the true meaning.

It would be tedious to follow into details the absur
dity which has been supposed. By such methods it
would be truly said that Sophocles or Plato may be
made to mean anything. It would seem as if some
Novum Organum were needed to lay down rules of inter
pretation for ancient literature. Still one other sup
position has to be introduced which will appear,
perhaps, more extravagant than any which have pre
ceded. Conceive then that these modes of interpreting
Sophocles had existed for ages ; that great institutions
and interests had become interwoven with them, and
in some degree even the honour of nations and churches
is it too much to say that in such a case they would

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 337

be changed with difficulty, and that they would con
tinue to be maintained long after critics and philoso
phers had seen that they were indefensible ?

No one who has a Christian feeling would place
classical on a level with sacred literature ; and there
are other particulars in which the preceding comparison
fails, as, for example, the style and subject. But, how
ever different the subject, although the interpretation
of Scripture requires a vision and faculty divine/ or at
least a moral and religious interest which is not needed in
the study of a Greek poet or philosopher, yet in what
may be termed the externals of interpretation, that is
to say, the meaning of words, the connexion of sen
tences, the settlement of the text, the evidence of
facts, the same rules apply to the Old and New
Testaments as to other books. And the figure is no
exaggeration of the erring fancy of men in the use of
Scripture, or of the tenacity with which they cling to
the interpretations of other times, or of the arguments
by which they maintain them. All the resources of
knowledge may be turned into a means not of dis
covering the true rendering, but of upholding a
received one. Grammar appears to start from an
independent point of view, yet inquiries into the use
of the article or the preposition have been observed to
wind round into a defence of some doctrine. Rhetoric
often magnifies its own want of taste into the design
of inspiration. Logic (that other mode of rhetoric) is
apt to lend itself to the illusion, by stating erroneous
explanations with a clearness which is mistaken for
truth. Metaphysical aid carries away the common
understanding into a region where it must blindly
follow. Learning obscures as well as illustrates; it
heaps up chaff when there is no more wheat. These
are some of the ways in which the sense of Scripture
has become confused, by the help of tradition, in the
course of ages, under a load of commentators.

The book itself remains as at the first unchanged

338 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

amid the changing interpretations of it. The office of
the interpreter is not to add another, but to recover
the original one ; the meaning, that is, of the words
as they first struck on the ears or flashed before the
eyes of those who heard and read them. He has to
transfer himself to another age ; to imagine that he is
a disciple of Christ or Paul ; to disengage himself from
all that follows. The history of Christendom is nothing
to him ; but only the scene at Galilee or Jerusalem,
the handful of believers who gathered themselves to
gether at Ephesus, or Corinth, or Eome. His eye is
fixed on the form of one like the Son of man, or of the
prophet who was girded with a garment of camel s
hair, or of the Apostle who had a thorn in the flesh.
The greatness of the Roman Empire is nothing to
him; it is an inner not an outer world that he is
striving to restore. All the after- thoughts of theology
are nothing to him ; they are not the true lights
which light him in difficult places. His concern is
with a book in which as in other ancient writings are
some things of which we are ignorant ; which defect
of our knowledge cannot however be supplied by the
conjectures of fathers or divines. The simple words
of that book he tries to preserve absolutely pure from
the refinements or distinctions of later times. He
acknowledges that they are fragmentary, and would
suspect himself, if out of fragments he were able to
create a well-rounded system or a continuous history.
The greater part of his learning is a knowledge of the
text itself; he has no delight in the voluminous lite
rature which has overgrown it. He has no theory of
interpretation ; a few rules guarding against common
errors are enough for him. His object is to read
Scripture like any other book, with a real interest and
not merely a conventional one. He wants to be able
to open his eyes and see or imagine things as they
truly are.

Nothing would be more likely to restore a natural
feeling on this subject than a history of the Interpre-

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 339

tation of Scripture. It would take us back to the
beginning ; it would present in one view tbe causes
which have darkened the meaning of words in the
course of ages ; it would clear away the remains of
dogmas, systems, controversies, which are encrusted
upon them. It would show us the erring fancy of
interpreters assuming sometimes to have the Spirit of
God Himself, yet unable to pass beyond the limits of
their own age, and with a judgment often biassed by
party. Great names there have been among them,
names of men who may be reckoned also among the
benefactors of the human race, yet comparatively few
who have understood the thoughts of other times, or
who have bent their minds to interrogate the mean
ing of words. Such a work would enable us to separate
the elements of doctrine and tradition with which the
meaning of Scripture is encumbered in our own day.
It would mark the different epochs of interpretation
from the time when the living word was in process of
becoming a book to Origen and Tertullian, from
Origen to Jerome and Augustine, from Jerome and
Augustine to Abelard and Aquinas ; again making a
new beginning with the revival of literature, from
Erasmus, the father of Biblical criticism in more
recent times, with Calvin and Beza for his immediate
successors, through Grotius and Hammond, down to
De Wette and Meier, our own contemporaries. We
should see how the mystical interpretation of Scripture
originated in the Alexandrian age ; how it blended
with the logical and rhetorical ; how both received
weight and currency from their use in support of the
claims and teaching of the Church. We should notice
how the new learning of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries gradually awakened the critical faculty in
the study of the sacred writings ; how Biblical criticism
has slowly but surely followed in the track of philo
logical and historical (not without a remoter influence

z 2

340 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

exercised upon it also by natural science) ; how, too,
the form of the scholastic literature, and even of notes
on the classics, insensibly communicated itself to com
mentaries on Scripture. We should see how the word
inspiration, from being used in a general way to ex
press what may be called the prophetic spirit of
Scripture, has passed, within the last two centuries,
into a sort of technical term ; how, in other instances,
the practice or feeling of earlier ages has been hollowed
out into the theory or system of later ones. We
should observe how the popular explanations of pro
phecy as in heathen (Thucyd. ii. 54), so also in Christian
times, had adapted themselves to the circumstances of
mankind. We might remark that in our own country,
and in the present generation especially, the interpre
tation of Scripture had assumed an apologetic character,
as though making an effort to defend itself against
some supposed inroad of science and criticism ; while
among German commentators there is, for the first
time in the history of the w^orld, an approach to
agreement and certainty. For example, the diversity
among German writers on prophecy is far less than
among English ones. That is a new phenomenon
which has to be acknowledged. More than any other
subject of human knowledge, Biblical criticism has
hung to the past ; it has been hitherto found truer to
the traditions of the Church than to the words of
Christ. It has made, however, two great steps
onward at the time of the Reformation and in our
day. The diffusion of a critical spirit in history and
literature is affecting the criticism of the Bible in our
own day in a manner not unlike the burst of intellectual
life in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries- Educated
persons are beginning to ask, not what Scripture may
be made to mean, but what it does. And it is no
exaggeration to say that he who in the present state
of knowledge will confine himself to the plain meaning
of words and the study of their context may know

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 341

more of the original spirit and intention of the authors
of the New Testament than all the controversial
writers of former ages put together.

Such a history would be of great value to philosophy
as well as to theology. It would be the history of
the human mind in one of its most remarkable mani
festations. For ages which are not original show
their character in the interpretation of ancient writings.
Creating nothing, and incapable of that effort of ima
gination which is required in a true criticism of the
past, they read and explain the thoughts of former
times by the conventional modes of their own. Such
a history would form a kind of preface or prolegomena
to the study of Scripture. Like the history of science,
it would save many a useless toil ; it would indicate
the uncertainties on which it is not worth while to
speculate further ; the byepaths or labyrinths in which
men lose themselves ; the mines that are already
worked out. He who reflects on the multitude of ex
planations which already exist of the number of the
beast/ the two witnesses/ the little horn/ the man
of sin/ who observes the manner in which these ex
planations have varied with the political movements
of our own time, will be unwilling to devote himself
to a method of inquiry in which there is so little ap
pearance of certainty or progress. These interpreta
tions would destroy one another if they were all placed
side by side in a tabular analysis. It is an instructive
fact, which may be mentioned in passing, that Joseph
Mede, the greatest authority on this subject, twice
fixed the end of the world in the last century and once
during his own lifetime. In like manner, he who
notices the circumstance that the explanations of the
first chapter of Genesis have slowly changed, and, as
it were, retreated before the advance of geology, will
be unwilling to add another to the spurious reconcile
ments of science and revelation. Or to take an
example of another kind, the Protestant divine who

342 On the Interpretation of Scripture,

perceives that the types and figures of the Old Testa
ment are employed by Eoman Catholics in support of
the tenets of their church, will be careful not to use
weapons which it is impossible to guide, and which
may with equal force be turned against himself. Those
who have handled them on the Protestant side have
before now fallen victims to them, not observing as
they fell that it was by their own hand.

Much of the uncertainty which prevails in the
interpretation of Scripture arises out of party efforts
to wrest its meaning to different sides. There are,
however, deeper reasons which have hindered the
natural meaning of the text from immediately and
universally prevailing. One of these is the unsettle-
ment of many questions which have an important but
indirect bearing on this subject. Some of these ques
tions veil themselves in ambiguous terms ; and no one
likes to draw them out of their hiding-place into the
light of day. In natural science it is felt to be useless
to build on assumptions ; in history we look with sus
picion on a priori ideas of what ought to have been;
in mathematics, when a step is wrong, we pull the
house down until we reach the point at which the
error is discovered. But in theology it is otherwise ;
there the tendency has been to conceal the unsound-
ness of the foundation under the fairness and loftiness
of the superstructure. It has been thought safer to
allow arguments to stand which, although fallacious,
have been on the right side, than to point out their
defect. And thus many principles have imperceptibly
grown up which have overridden facts. No one
would interpret Scripture, as many do, but for certain
previous suppositions with which we come to the
perusal of it. * There can be 110 error in the "Word
of God/ therefore the discrepancies in the books of
Kings and Chronicles are only apparent, or may be
attributed to differences in the copies. It is a thou
sand times more likely that the interpreter should err

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 343

than the inspired writer. For a like reason the failure
of a prophecy is never admitted, in spite of Scripture
and of history (Jer. xxxvi. 30 ; Isai. xxiii. ; Amos vii.
jo 17) ; the mention of a name later than the sup
posed age of the prophet is not allowed, as in other
writings, to be taken in evidence of the date (Isaiah
xlv. T). The accuracy of the Old Testament is mea
sured not by the standard of primeval history, but of
a modern critical one, which, contrary to all probability,
is supposed to be attained; this arbitrary standard
once assumed, it becomes a point of honour or of faith
to defend every name, date, place, which occurs. Or
to take another class of questions, it is said that the
various theories of the origin of the three first Gospels
are all equally unknown to the Holy Catholic Church/
or as another writer of a different school expresses
himself, they tend to sap the inspiration of the New
Testament/ Again, the language in which our Saviour
speaks of his own union with the Father is interpreted
by the language of the creeds. Those who remonstrate
against double senses, allegorical interpretations, forced
reconcilements, find themselves met by a sort of pre
supposition that God speaks not as man speaks/
The limitation of the human faculties is confusedly
appealed to as a reason for abstaining from investiga
tions which are quite within their limits. The sus
picion of Deism, or perhaps of Atheism, awaits in
quiry. By such fears a good man refuses to be in
fluenced, a philosophical mind is apt to cast them aside
with too much bitterness. It is better to close the
book than to read it under conditions of thought which
are imposed from without. Whether those conditions
of thought are the traditions of the Church, or the
opinions of the religious world Catholic or Protestant
-makes no difference. They are inconsistent with
the freedom of the truth and the moral character of
the Gospel. It becomes necessary, therefore, to exa-

344 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

mine briefly some of these prior questions which lie
in the way of a reasonable criticism.

2.

Among these previous questions, that which first
presents itself is the one already alluded to- -the
question of inspiration. Almost all Christians agree
in the word, which use and tradition have consecrated
to express the reverence which they truly feel for the
Old and New Testaments. But here the agreement of
opinion ends; the meaning of inspiration has been
variously explained, or more often passed over in
silence from a fear of stirring the difficulties that
would arise about it. It is one of those theological
terms which may be regarded as great peacemakers/
but which are also sources of distrust and misunder
standing. For while we are ready to shake hands
with any one who uses the same language as ourselves,
a doubt is apt to insinuate itself whether he takes
language in the same senses whether a particular
term conveys all the associations to another which it
does to ourselves whether it is not possible that one
who disagrees about the word may not be more nearly
agreed about the thing. The advice has, indeed, been
given to the theologian that he should take care of
words and leave things to themselves / the authority,
however, who gives the advice is not good it is placed
by Goethe in the mouth of Mephistopheles. Pascal
seriously charges the Jesuits with acting on a similar
maxim excommunicating those who meant the same
thing and said another, holding communion with
those who said the same thing and meant another.
But this is not the way to heal the wounds of the
Church of Christ ; we cannot thus skin and film* the
weak places of theology. Errors about words, and
the attribution to words themselves of an excessive
importance, lie at the root of theological as of other
confusions. In theology they are more dangerous

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 345

than in other sciences, because they cannot so readily
be brought to the test of facts.

The word inspiration has received more numerous
gradations and distinctions of meaning than perhaps
any other in the whole of theology. There is an inspi
ration of superintendence and an inspiration of sug
gestion ; an inspiration which would have been
consistent with the Apostle or Evangelist falling
into error, and an inspiration which would have
prevented him from erring; verbal organic inspi
ration by which the inspired person is the passive
utterer of a Divine Word, and an inspiration which
acts through the character of the sacred writer ; there
is an inspiration which absolutely communicates the
fact to be revealed or statement to be made, and an
inspiration which does not supersede the ordinary
knowledge of human events ; there is an inspiration
which demands infallibility in matters of doctrine,
but allows for mistakes in fact. Lastly, there is a
view of inspiration which recognises only its super
natural and prophetic character, and a view of inspi
ration which regards the Apostles and Evangelists as
equally inspired in their writings and in their lives,
and in both receiving the guidance of the Spirit of
truth in a manner not different in kind but only in
degree from ordinary Christians. Many of these ex
planations lose sight of the original meaning and de
rivation of the word ; some of them are framed with the
view of meeting difficulties ; all perhaps err in attempt
ing to define what, though real, is incapable of being
defined in an exact manner. Nor for any of the
higher or supernatural views of inspiration is there
any foundation in the Gospels or Epistles. There is
no appearance in their writings that the Evangelists
or Apostles had any inward gift, or were subject
to any power external to them different from that
of preaching or teaching which they daily exercised ;
nor do they anywhere lead us to suppose that they
were free from error or infirmity. St. Paul writes

346 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

like a Christian teacher, exhibiting all the emotions
and vicissitudes of human feeling, speaking, indeed,
with authority, but hesitating in difficult cases and
more than once correcting himself, corrected, too, by
the course of events in his expectation of the coming
of Christ. The Evangelist who saw it, bare record,
and his record is true : and he knoweth that he saith
true (John xix. 35). Another Evangelist does not
profess to be an original narrator, but only to set
forth in order a declaration of what eye-witnesses had
delivered, like many others whose writings have not
been preserved to us (Luke i. i, 2). And the result is
in accordance with the simple profession and style in
which they describe themselves ; there is 110 appear
ance, that is to say, of insincerity or want of faith ;
but neither is there perfect accuracy or agreement.
One supposes the original dwelling-place of our Lord s
parents to have been Bethlehem (Matthew ii. i, 22),
another Nazareth (Luke ii. 4) ; they trace his genealogy
in different ways ; one mentions the thieves blas
pheming, another has preserved to after-ages the
record of the penitent thief; they appear to differ
about the day and hour of the Crucifixion ; the
narrative of the woman who anointed our Lord s feet
with ointment is told in all four, each narrative having
more or less considerable variations. These are a few
instances of the differences which arose in the tra
ditions of the earliest ages respecting the history of
our Lord. But he w T ho wishes to investigate the
character of the sacred writings should not be afraid
to make a catalogue of them all with the view of
estimating their cumulative weight. (For it is obvious
that the answer which would be admitted in the case
of a single discrepancy, will not be the true answer
when there are many.) He should further consider that
the narratives in which these discrepancies occur are
short and partly identical a cycle of tradition beyond
which the knowledge of the early fathers never travels,
though if all the things that Jesus said and did had

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 347

been written down, the world itself could not have con
tained the books that would have been written (John
xx. 30; xxi. 25). For the proportion which these
narratives bear to the whole subject, as well as their
relation to one another, is an important element in the
estimation of differences. In the same way, he who
would understand the nature of prophecy in the Old
Testament, should have the courage to examine how
far its details were minutely fulfilled. The absence
of such a fulfilment may further lead him to discover
that he took the letter for the spirit in expecting it.

The subject will clear of itself if we bear in mind
two considerations : First, that the nature of inspi
ration can only be known from the examination of
Scripture. There is no other source to which we can
turn for information ; and we have no right to assume
some imaginary doctrine of inspiration like the
infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. To the
question, What is inspiration ? the first answer there
fore is, That idea of Scripture which we gather from
the knowledge of it/ It is no mere a priori notion,
but one to which the book is itself a witness. It is a
fact which we infer from the study of Scripture not
of one portion only, but of the whole. Obviously then
it embraces writings of very different kinds the book
of Esther, for example, or the Song of Solomon, as well
as the Gospel of St. John. It is reconcileable with
the mixed good and evil of the characters of the Old
Testament, which nevertheless does not exclude them
from the favour of God, with the attribution to the
Divine Being of actions at variance with that higher
revelation, which he has given of himself in the Gospel ;
it is not inconsistent with imperfect or opposite aspects
of the truth as in the book of Job or Ecclesiastes,
with variations of fact in the Gospels or the books of
Kings and Chronicles, with inaccuracies of language in
the Epistles of St. Paul. For these are all found in
Scripture ; neither is there any reason why they should
not be, except a general impression that Scripture

348 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

ought to have been written in a way different from
what it has. A principle of progressive revelation
admits them all ; and this is already contained in the
words of our Saviour, Moses because of the hardness
of your hearts ; or even in the Old Testament, Hence
forth there shall be no more this proverb in the house
of Israel/ For what is progressive is necessarily im
perfect in its earlier stages, and even erring to those
who come after, whether it be the maxims of a half-
civilized world whieh are compared with those of a
civilized one, or the law with the Gospel. Scripture
itself points the way to answer the moral objections to
Scripture. Lesser difficulties remain, but only such as
would be found commonly in writings of the same age
or country. There is 110 more reason why imperfect
narratives should be excluded from Scripture than
imperfect grammar; no more ground for expecting
that the New Testament would be logical or Aristotelian
in form, than that it would be written in Attic Greek.
The other consideration is one which has been
neglected by writers on this subject. It is this
that any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to
all well-ascertained facts of history or of science.
The same fact cannot be true and untrue, any more
than the same words can have two opposite meanings.
The same fact cannot be true in religion when seen
by the light of faith, and untrue in science when looked
at through the medium of evidence or experiment.
It is ridiculous to suppose that the sun goes round the
earth in the same sense in which the earth goes round
the sun; or that the world appears to have existed,
but has not existed during the vast epochs of which
geology speaks to us. But if so, there is no need of
elaborate reconcilements of revelation and science;
they reconcile themselves the moment any scientific
truth is distinctly ascertained. As the idea of nature
enlarges, the idea of revelation also enlarges ; it was
a temporary misunderstanding which severed them.
And as the knowledge of nature which is possessed by

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 349

the few is communicated in its leading features at
least to the many, they will receive with it a higher
conception of the ways of Grod to man. It may
hereafter appear as natural to the majority of mankind
to see the providence of Grod in the order of the world,
as it once was to appeal to interruptions of it.

It is true that there are a class of scientific facts
with which popular opinions on theology often con
flict which do not seem to conform in all respects to
the severer conditions of inductive science : such
especially are the facts relating to the formation of
the earth and the beginnings of the human race. But
it is not worth while to fight on this debateable ground
a losing battle in the hope that a generation will pass
away before we sound a last retreat. Almost all intel
ligent persons are agreed that the earth has existed
for myriads of ages ; the best informed are of opinion
that the history of nations extends back some thousand
years before the Mosaic chronology; recent discoveries in
geology may perhaps open a further vista of existence
for the human species, while it is possible, and may
one day be known, that mankind spread not from one
but from many centres over the globe ; or as others
say, that the supply of links which are at present
wanting in the chain of animal life may lead to new
conclusions respecting the origin of man. Now
let it be granted that these facts, being with the
past, cannot be shown in the same palpable and evident
manner as the facts of chemistry or physiology ; and
that the proof of some of them, especially of those last
mentioned, is wanting ; still it is a false policy to set
up inspiration or revelation in opposition to them, a
principle which can have no influence on them and
should be rather kept out of their way. The sciences
of geology and comparative philology are steadily gain
ing ground (many of the guesses of twenty years ago
have become certainties, and the guesses of to-day may
hereafter become so). Shall we peril religion on the
possibility of their untruth ? on such a cast to stake

350 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

the life of man implies not only a recklessness of facts
but a misunderstanding of the nature of the Gospel.
If it is fortunate for science, it is perhaps more for
tunate for Christian truth, that the admission of Gali
leo s discovery has for ever settled the principle of the
relations between them.

A similar train of thought may be extended to the
results of historical inquiries. These results can
not be barred by the dates or narrative of Scripture ;
neither should they^be made to wind round into agree
ment with them. Again, the idea of inspiration must
expand and take them in. Their importance in a
religious point of view is not that they impugn or
confirm the Jewish history, but that they show more
clearly the purposes of God towards the whole human
race. The recent chronological discoveries from
Egyptian monuments do not tend to overthrow re
velation, nor the Ninevite inscriptions to support it.
The use of them on either side may indeed arouse a
popular interest in them ; it is apt to turn a scientific
inquiry into a semi-religious controversy. And to
religion either use is almost equally injurious, because
seeming to rest truths important to human life on the
mere accident of an arch geological discovery. Is it to
be thought that Christianity gains anything from the
deciphering of the names of some Assyrian and Ba
bylonian kings, contemporaries chiefly with the later
Jewish history ? As little as it ought to lose from the
appearance of a contradictory narrative of the Exodus
in the chamber of an Egyptian temple of the year
B c. 1500. This latter supposition may not be very
probable. But it is worth while to ask ourselves the
question whether we can be right in maintaining any
view of religion which can be affected by such a pro
bability.

It will be a further assistance in the consideration
of this subject, to observe that the interpretation of
Scripture has nothing to do with any opinion respect
ing its origin. The meaning of Scripture is one

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 351

thing ; the inspiration of Scripture is another. It is
conceivable that those who hold the most different
views about the one, may be able to agree about the
other. Rigid upholders of the verbal inspiration of
Scripture, and those who deny inspiration altogether,
may nevertheless meet on the common ground of the
meaning of words. If the term inspiration were to
fall into disuse, no fact of nature, or history, or lan
guage, no event in the life of man, or dealings of Grod
with him, would be in any degree altered. The word
itself is but of yesterday, not found in the earlier
confessions of the reformed faith ; the difficulties that
have arisen about it are only two or three centuries
old. Therefore the question of inspiration, though
in one sense important, is to the interpreter as though
it were not important ; he is in no way called upon to
determine a matter with which he has nothing to do,
and which was not determined by fathers of the
Church. And he had better go on his way and leave the
more precise definition of the word to the progress of
knowledge and the results of the study of Scripture,
instead of entangling himself with a theory about it.

It is one evil of conditions or previous suppositions
in the study of Scripture that the assumption of them
has led to an apologetic temper in the interpreters of
Scripture. The tone of apology is always a tone of
weakness and does injury to a good cause. It is the
reverse of ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free/ It is hampered with the neces
sity of making a defence, and also with previous de
fences of the same side ; it accepts, with an excess of
reserve and caution, the truth itself, when it comes
from an opposite quarter. Commentators are often
more occupied with the proof of miracles than with
the declaration of life and immortality ; with the ful
filment of the details of prophecy than with its life
and power ; with the reconcilement of the discrepan
cies in the narrative of the infancy, pointed out by
Schleiermacher, than with the importance of the great

352 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

event of the appearance of the Saviour. To this end
was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I
should bear witness unto the truth. 1 The same tendency is
observable also in reference to the Acts of the Apostles
and the Epistles, which are not only brought into
harmony with each other, but interpreted with a re
ference to the traditions of existing communions.
The natural meaning of particular expressions, as for
example : * Why are they then baptized for the dead
(i Corinthians xv.29)? or the words because of the
angels (i Corinthians xi. 10) ; or, this generation
shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled
(Matthew xxiv. 34) ; or, upon this rock will I build
my Church (Matthew xvi. 18), is set aside in favour
of others, which, however improbable, are more in
accordance with preconceived opinions,, or seem to be
more worthy of the Sacred writers. The language,
and also the text, are treated on the same defensive
and conservative principles. The received translations
of Philippians ii. 6 ( Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God ), or
of Romans iii. 25 ( Whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood ), or
Romans xv. 6 ( God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ ), though erroneous, are not given up
without a struggle ; the i Timothy iii. 16, and
i John v. 7, (the three witnesses), though the first
(God manifest in the flesh, 9S for O2) is not found
in the best manuscripts, and the second in no Greek
manuscript worth speaking of, have not yet disappeared
from the editions of the Greek Testament commonly
in use in England, and still less from the English
translation. An EngHsh commentator who, with
Lachman and Tischendorf, supported also by the
authority of Erasmus, ventures to alter the punctua
tion of the doxology in Romans ix. 5 ( Who is over
all God blessed for ever ) hardly escapes the charge of
heresy. That in most of these cases the words re
ferred to have a direct bearing on important contro-

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 353

versies is a reason not for retaining, but for correcting
them.

The temper of accommodation shows itself especially
in two ways : first, in the attempt to adapt the truths
of Scripture to the doctrines of the creeds ; secondly,
in the adaptation of the precepts and maxims of
Scripture to the language or practice of our own age.
Now the creeds are acknowledged to be a part of
Christianity ; they stand in a close relation to the
words of Christ and his Apostles ; nor can it be said
that any heterodox formula makes a nearer approach
to a simple and scriptural rule of faith. Neither is
anything gained by contrasting them with Scripture,
in which the germs of the expressions used in them
are sufficiently apparent. Yet it does not follow that
they should be pressed into the service of the inter
preter. The growth of ideas in the interval which
separated the first century from the fourth or sixth
makes it impossible to apply the language of the one
to the explanation of the other. Between Scripture
and the Nicene or Athanasian Creed, a world of the
understanding comes in that world of abstractions
and second notions ; and mankind are no longer at
the same point as when the whole of Christianity was
contained in the words, * Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou mayest be saved/ when the Gospel
centred in the attachment to a living or recently de
parted friend and Lord. The language of the New
Testament is the first utterance and consciousness of
the mind of Christ ; or the immediate vision of the
Word of life (i John i. i) as it presented itself before
the eyes of his first followers, or as the sense of his
truth and power grew upon them (Eomans i. 3, 4) ;
the other is the result of three or four centuries of
reflection and controversy. And although this last
had a truth suited to its age, and its technical expres
sions have sunk deep into the heart of the human race,
it is not the less unfitted to be the medium by the

A. A

354 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

help of which Scripture is to be explained. If the
occurrence of the phraseology of the Nicene age in a
verse of the Epistles would detect the spuriousness
of the verse in which it was found, how can the
Nicene or Athanasiaii Creed be a suitable instru
ment for the interpretation of Scripture ? That ad
vantage which the New Testament has over the
teaching of the Church, as representing what may be
termed the childhood of the Gospel, would be lost if
its language were required to conform to that of the
Creeds.

To attribute to St. Paul or the Twelve the abstract
notion of Christian truth which afterwards sprang up in
the Catholic Church, is the same sort of anachronism as
to attribute to them a system of philosophy. It is the
same error as to attribute to Homer the ideas of Thales
or Heraclitus, or to Thales the more developed prin
ciples of Aristotle and Plato. Many persons who
have no difficulty in tracing the growth of institutions,
yet seem to fail in recognising the more subtle pro
gress of an idea. It is hard to imagine the absence of
conceptions with which we are familiar ; to go back to
the germ of what we know only in maturity ; to give
up what has grown to us, and become a part of our
minds. In the present case however the develop
ment is not difficult to prove. The statements of
Scripture are unaccountable if we deny it ; the silence
of Scripture is equally unaccountable. Absorbed as
St. Paul was in the person of Christ with an intensity
of faith and love of which in modern days and at this
distance of time we can scarcely form a conception-
high as he raised the dignity of his Lord above all
things in heaven and earth looking to him as the
Creator of all things, and the head of quick and dead,
he does not speak of him as equal to the Father/ or of
one substance with the Father/ Much of the language
of the Epistles (passages for example such as Eomans
i. 2 ; Philippians ii. 6) would lose their meaning if distri-

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 355

buted in alternate clauses between our Lord s humanity
and divinity. Still greater difficulties would be intro
duced into the Gospels by the attempt to identify them
with the Creeds. We should have to suppose that
He was and was not tempted ; that when he prayed
to his Father he prayed also to Himself; that He
knew and did not know of that hour of which He as
well as the angels were ignorant. How could He have
said My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?
or Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me/
How could He have doubted whether when the Son
cometh he shall find faith upon the earth ? These
simple and touching words have to be taken out of
their natural meaning and connexion to be made the
theme of apologetic discourses if we insist on recon
ciling them with the distinctions of later ages.

Neither, as has been already remarked, would the
substitution of any other precise or definite rule of
faith, as for example the Unitarian, be more favourable
to the interpretation of Scripture. How could the
Evangelist St. John have said c the Word was God/
or Grod was the Word (according to either mode of
translating), or how would our Lord Himself have
said, f I and the Father are one/ if either had meant that
Christ was a mere man, a prophet or as one of the
prophets ? No one who takes w^ords in their natural
sense can suppose that in the beginning (John i. i )
means at the commencement of the ministry of Christ/
or that the Word was with God/ only relates f to the
withdrawal of Christ to commune with God/ or
that the Word is said to be God/ in the ironical
sense of John x. 35. But while venturing to turn one
eye on these (perhaps obsolete) perversions of the
meanings of words in old opponents, we must not
forget also to keep the other open to our own. The
object of the preceding remark is not to enter into
controversy with them, or to balance the statements of
one side with those of the other, but only to point out the

A A 2

356 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

error of introducing into the interpretation of Scripture
the notions of a later age which is common alike to us
and them.

The other kind of accommodation which was alluded
to above arises out of the difference between the social
and ecclesiastical state of the world, as it exists in
actual fact, and the ideal which the Gospel presents to
us. An ideal is, by its very nature, far removed from
actual life. It is enshrined not in the material things
of the external world, but in the heart and conscience.
Mankind are dissatisfied at this separation ; they
fancy that they can make the inward kingdom an
outward one also. But this is not possible. The
frame of civilization, that is to say, institutions and
laws, the usages of business, the customs of society,
these are for the most part mechanical, capable only
in a certain degree of a higher and spiritual life.
Christian motives have never existed in such strength,
as to make it safe or possible to entrust them with the
preservation of social order. Other interests are
therefore provided and other principles, often inde
pendent of the teaching of the Gospel, or even
apparently at variance with it. If a man smite thee
on the right cheek turn to him the other also/ is not
a regulation of police but an ideal rule of conduct, not
to be explained away, but rarely if ever to be literally
acted upon in a civilized country; or rather to be acted
upon always in spirit, yet not without a reference to
the interests of the community. If a missionary were
to endanger the public peace and come like the Apostles
saying, I ought to obey God rather than man/ it is
obvious that the most Christian of magistrates could
not allow him (say in India or New Zealand) to shield
himself under the authority of these words. For in
religion as in philosophy there are two opposite poles ;
of truth and action, of doctrine and practice, of idea
and fact. The image of God in Christ is over against
the necessities of human nature and the state of man

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 357

on earth. Our Lord himself recognises this distinction,
when he says, Of whom do the kings of the earth
gather tribute ? and then are the children free.
(Matth. xvii. 26.) And again, Notwithstanding lest
we should offend them/ &c. Here are contrasted
what may be termed the two poles of idea and fact.

All men appeal to Scripture, and desire to draw the
authority of Scripture to their side ; its voice may be
heard in the turmoil of political strife ; a merely
verbal similarity, the echo of a word, has weight in
the determination of a controversy. Such appeals are
not to be met always by counter-appeals ; they rather
lead to the consideration of deeper questions as to the
manner in which Scripture is to be applied. In what
relation does it stand to actual life ? Is it a law, or
only a spirit ? for nations, or for individuals ? to be
enforced generally, or in details also ? Are its maxims
to be modified by experience, or acted upon in defiance
of experience? Are the accidental circumstances of
the first believers to become a rule for us ? Is every
thing, in short, done or said by our Saviour and His
Apostles, to be regarded as a precept or example which
is to be followed on all occasions and to last for all
time? That can hardly be, consistently with the
changes of human things. It would be a rigid skeleton
of Christianity (not the image of Christ), to which
society and politics, as well as the lives of individuals,
would be conformed. It would be the oldness of
the letter, on which the world would be stretched;
not the law of the spirit of life which St. Paul teaches.
The attempt to force politics and law into the frame
work of religion is apt to drive us up into a corner,
in which the great principles of truth and justice
have no longer room to make themselves felt. It
is better, as well as safer, to take the liberty with
which Christ has made us free. For our Lord him
self has left behind Him words, which contain a
principle large enough to admit all the forms of

358 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

society or of life ; ( My kingdom is not of this world/
(John xviii. 36.) It does not come into collision
with politics or knowledge ; it has nothing to do with
the Roman government or the Jewish priesthood, or
with corresponding institutions in the present day;
it is a counsel of perfection, and has its dwelling-place
in the heart of man. That is the real solution of
questions of Church and State ; all else is relative to
the history or circumstances of particular nations.
That is the answer to a doubt which is also raised
respecting the obligation of the letter of the Gospel
on individual Christians. But this inwardness of the
words of Christ is what few are able to receive ; it is
easier to apply them superficially to things without,
than to be a partaker of them from within. And false
and miserable applications of them are often made,
and the kingdom of God becomes the tool of the
kingdoms of the world.

The neglect of this necessary contrast between the
ideal and the actual has had a twofold effect on the
Interpretation of Scripture. It has led to an unfair
appropriation of some portions of Scripture and an
undue neglect of others. The letter is in many cases
really or apparently in harmony with existing
practices,, or opinions, or institutions. In other
cases it is far removed from them ; it often seems
as if the world would come to an end before the
words of Scripture could be realized. The twofold
effect just now mentioned, corresponds to these two
classes. Some texts of Scripture have been eagerly
appealed to and made (in one sense) too much of;
they have been taken by force into the service of
received opinions and beliefs ; texts of the other class
have been either unnoticed or explained away. Con
sider, for example, the extraordinary and unreasonable
importance attached to single words, sometimes of
doubtful meaning, in reference to any of the following
subjects: i, Divorce ; 2, Marriage with a Wife s Sister ;

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 359

3, Inspiration; 4, the Personality of the Holy Spirit ;
5, Infant Baptism ; 6, Episcopacy ; 7, Divine Eight of
Kings ; 8, Original Sin. There is, indeed, a kind of
mystery in the way in which the chance words of a
simple narrative, the occurrence of some accidental
event, the use even of a figure of speech, or a mis
translation of a word in Latin or English, have affected
the thoughts of future ages and distant countries.
Nothing so slight that it has not been caught at;
nothing so plain that it may not be explained away.
What men have brought to the text they have also
found there; what has received no interpretation or
witness, either in the customs of the Church or in the
thoughts of many hearts/ is still an unknown tongue
to them. It is with Scripture as with oratory, its
effect partly depends on the preparation in the mind
or in circumstances for the reception of it. There is
no use of Scripture, no quotation or even misquotation
of a word which is not a power in the world, when it
embodies the spirit of a great movement or is echoed
by the voice of a large party.

On the first of the subjects referred to above, it is
argued from Scripture that adulterers should not be
allowed to marry again ; and the point of the argu
ment turns on the question whether the words (CKTOC
Xoyou Tropveias) saving for the cause of fornication, which
occur in the first clause of an important text on mar
riage, were designedly or accidentally omitted in the
second (Matth. v. 32.) Whosoever shall put away his
wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to
commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that
is divorced committeth adultery ; compare also Mark
x. ii, 12). 2. The Scripture argument in the second
instance is almost invisible, being drawn from a pas
sage the meaning of which is irrelevant (Lev. xviii.
18. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister
to vex her, to uncover her nakedness beside the other
in her lifetime ) ; and transferred from the Polygamy

360 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

which prevailed in Eastern countries 3000 years ago
to the Monogamy of the nineteenth century and the
Christian Church, in spite of the custom and tradition
of the Jews and the analogy of the brother s widow.

3. In the third case the word (007n>ucrroc) given by
inspiration of God is spoken of the Old Testament,
and is assumed to apply to the New, including that
Epistle in which the expression occurs (2 Tim. iii. 16.)

4. In the fourth example the words used are mys
terious (John xiv. 26 ; xvi. r5), and seem to come out
of the depths of a divine consciousness ; they have
sometimes, however, received a more exact meaning
than they would truly bear ; what is spoken in a figure
is construed with the severity of a logical statement,
while passages of an opposite tenour are overlooked or
set aside. 5. In the fifth instance, the mere mention
of a family of a jailer at Philippi who was baptized
( he and all his/ Acts xvi. 33), has led to the inference
that in this family there were probably young children,
and hence that infant baptism is, first, permissive,
secondly, obligatory. 6. In the sixth case the chief
stress of the argument from Scripture turns on the
occurrence of the word (cTriWoTroc) bishop in the
Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which is assisted by a
supposed analogy between the position of the Apostles
and of their successors ; although the term bishop is
clearly used in the passages referred to as well as in
other parts of the New Testament indistinguishably
from Presbyter, and the magisterial authority of
bishops in after ages is unlike rather than like the
personal authority of the Apostles in the beginning
of the Gospel. The further development of Episcopacy
into Apostolical succession has often been rested on
the promise, c Lo, I am with you alway, even to the
end of the world/ 7. In the seventh case the pre
cepts of order which are addressed in the Epistle to
the fifth monarchy men of those days/ are transferred
to a duty of obedience to hereditary princes ; the fact

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 361

of the house of David, the Lord s anointed sitting
on the throne of Israel is converted into a principle
for all times and countries. And the higher lesson
which our Saviour teaches : Bender unto Csesar the
things which are Caesar s/ that is to say, Eender unto
all their due, and to God above all, is spoiled by being
made into a precept of political subjection. 8. Lastly,
the justice of God who rewardeth every man according
to his works, and the Christian scheme of redemption
has been staked on two figurative expressions of St.
Paul to which there is no parallel in any other part of
Scripture (i Corinthians xv. 22. 4 For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, and the
corresponding passage in Eomans v. 1 2) ; notwith
standing the declaration of the Old Testament as also
of the New, Every soul shall bear its own iniquity/
and c neither this man sinned nor his parents. It is
not necessary for our purpose to engage further in
the matters of dispute which have arisen by the way
in attempting to illustrate the general argument. Yet
to avoid misconception it may be remarked that many
of the principles, rules, or truths mentioned, as for
example, Infant Baptism, or the Episcopal Form of
Church Government, have sufficient grounds ; the
weakness is the attempt to derive them from Scripture.
With this minute and rigid enforcement of the
words of Scripture in passages where the ideas ex
pressed in them either really or apparently agree with
received opinions or institutions, there remains to be
contrasted the neglect, or in some instances the mis
interpretation of other words which are not equally
in harmony with the spirit of the age. In many of
our Lord s discourses he speaks of the blessedness of
poverty : of the hardness which they that have riches
will experience in attaining eternal life/ It is easier
for a camel to go through a needle s eye/ and c Son,
thou in thy lifetime leceivedst thy good things/ and
again, Onething thoulackest,go sell all that thou hast/

362 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Precepts like these do not appeal to our own expe
rience of life ; they are unlike anything that we see
around us at the present day, even among good men ;
to some among us they will recall the remarkahle say
ing of Lessing, that the Christian religion had been
tried for eighteen centuries ; the religion of Christ re
mained to he tried/ To take them literally would be
injurious to ourselves and to society (at least, so we
think). Religious sects or orders who have seized
this aspect of Christianity have come to no good, and
have often ended in extravagance. It will not do to
go into the world saying Woe unto you, ye rich
men/ or on entering a noble mansion to repeat the
denunciations of the prophet about cedar and ver-
million/ or on being shown the prospect of a magni
ficent estate to cry out * Woe unto them that lay field
to field that they may be placed alone in the midst of
the earth/ Times have altered, we say, since these de
nunciations were uttered ; what appeared to the Prophet
or Apostle a violation of the appointment of Providence
has now become a part of it. It will not do to make a
great supper, and mingle at the same board the two
ends of society, as modern phraseology calls them,
fetching in the poor, the maimed, the lame, the
blind/ to fill the vacant places of noble guests.
That would be eccentric in modern times, and even
hurtful. Neither is it suitable for us to wash one
another s feet, or to perform any other menial office,
because our Lord set us the example. The customs
of society do not admit it ; no good would be
done by it, and singularity is of itself an evil.
Well, then, are the precepts of Christ not to be
obeyed? Perhaps in their fullest sense they cannot
be obeyed. But at any rate they are not to be ex
plained away ; the standard of Christ is not to be
lowered to ordinary Christian life, because ordinary
Christian life cannot rise, even in good men, to the
standard of Christ. And there may be standing

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 363

among us some one in ten thousand whom we know
not/ in whom there is such a divine union of charity
and prudence that he is most blest in the entire fulfil
ment of the precept c Gro sell all that thou hast/
which to obey literally in other cases would be evil,
and not good. Many there have been, doubtless (not
one or two only), who have given all that they had
on earth to their family or friends the poor servant
* casting her two mites into the treasury/ denying
herself the ordinary comforts of life for the sake of an
erring parent or brother ; that is not probably an un
common case, arid as near an approach as in this life
we make to heaven. And there may be some one or
two rare natures in the world in whom there is such
a divine courtesy, such a gentleness and dignity of
soul, that differences of rank seem to vanish be
fore them, and they look upon the face of others,
even of their own servants and dependents, only
as they are in the sight of God and will be in
His kingdom. And there may be some tender and
delicate woman among us, who feels that she has a
divine vocation to fulfil the most repulsive offices
towards the dying inmates of a hospital, or the soldier
perishing in a foreign land. Whether such examples
of self-sacrifice are good or evil, must depend, not
altogether on social or economical principles, but on
the spirit of those who offer them, and the power
which they have in themselves of making all things
kin/ And even if the ideal itself were not carried out
by us in practice, it has nevertheless what may be
termed a truth of feeling. Let them that have
riches be as though they had them not/ Let the rich
man wear the load lightly ; he will one day fold them
up as a vesture/ Let not the refinement of society
make us forget that it is not the refined only who are
received into the kingdom of Grod ; nor the daintiness
of life hide from us the bodily evils of which the rich
man and Lazarus are alike heirs. Thoughts such as

364 On tJte Interpretation of Scripture.

these have the power to reunite us to our fellow-
creatures from whom the accidents of birth, position,
wealth have separated us ; they soften our hearts
towards them, when divided not only by vice and
ignorance, but what is even a greater barrier, difference
of manners and associations. For if there be anything
in our own fortune superior to that of others, instead
of idolizing or cherishing it in the blood, the Gospel
would have us cast it from us ; and if there be any
thing mean or despised in those with whom we have
to do, the Gospel would have us regard such as friends
and brethren, yea, even as having the person of Christ.

Another instance of apparent, if not real neglect of
the precepts of Scripture, is furnished by the com
mandment against swearing. No precept about
divorce is so plain, so universal, so exclusive as this ;
Swear not at all/ Yet we all know how the custom
of Christian countries has modified this counsel of
perfection 7 which was uttered by the Saviour. This
is the more remarkable because in this case the precept
is not, as in the former, practically impossible of ful
filment or even difficult. And yet in this instance
again, the body who have endeavoured to follow more
nearly the letter of our Lord s commandment, seem to
have gone against the common sense of the Christian
world. Or to add one more example : Who, that hears
of the Sabbatarianism, as it is called, of some Protestant
countries, would imagine that the Author of our religion
had cautioned his disciples, not against the violation
of the Sabbath, but only against its formal and Phari
saical observance ; or that the chief est of the Apostles
had warned the Colossians to Let no man judge them
inrespectof the new moon, or of the sabbath-days. (ii. 16.)

The neglect of another class of passages is even
more surprising, the precepts contained in them being
quite practicable and in harmony with the existing
state of the world. In this instance it seems as if
religious teachers had failed to gather those principles

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 3G3

of which they stood most in need. Think ye that
those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell?
is the characteristic lesson of the Gospel on the occasion
of any sudden visitation. Yet it is another reading
of such calamities that is commonly insisted upon.
The observation is seldom made respecting the parable
of the good Samaritan, that the true neighbour is also
a person of a different religion. The words, Forbid
him not : for there is no man which shall do a miracle in
my name, that can lightly speak evil of me/ are often
said to have no application to sectarian differences in
the present day, when the Church is established and
miracles have ceased. The conduct of our Lord to the
woman taken in adultery, though not intended for our
imitation always, yet affords a painful contrast to the
excessive severity with which even a Christian society
punishes the errors of women. The boldness with which
St. Paul applies the principle of individual judgment,
Let every man be fully persuaded in his mind/ as ex
hibited also in the words quoted above, Let no man
judge you in respect of the new moon, or of the sab
bath-days/ is far greater than would be allowed in the
present age. Lastly, that the tenet of the damnation of
the heathen should ever have prevailed in the Christian
world, or that the damnation of Catholics should have
been a received opinion among Protestants, implies a
strange forgetfulness of such passages as Eomans ii.
1-16. Who rewardeth every man according to his
work/ and "When the Gentiles, which know not the
law, do by nature the things contained in the law/
&c. What a difference between the simple statement
which the Apostle makes of the justice of God and
the uncovenanted mercies or invincible ignorance
of theologians half reluctant to give up, yet afraid to
maintain the advantage of denying salvation to those
who are extra palum Ecclesia !

The same habit of silence or misinterpretation
extends to words or statements of Scripture in which

366 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

doctrines are thought to be interested. When main
taining the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, we do
not readily recall the verse, l of that hour knoweth no
man, no not the Angels of God, neither the Son, but the
Father. (Markxiii. 32.) The temper or feeling which led
St. Ambrose to doubt the genuineness of the words
marked in italics, leads Christians in our own day to
pass them over. We are scarcely just to the Mille-
narians or to those who maintain the continuance of
miracles or spiritual gifts in the Christian Church, in
not admitting the degree of support which is afforded
to their views by many passages of Scripture. The
same remark applies to the Predestinarian controversy;
the Calvinist is often hardly dealt with, in being
deprived of his real standing ground in the third and
ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. And the
Protestant who thinks himself bound to prove from
Scripture the very details of doctrine or discipline which
are maintained in his Church, is often obliged to have
recourse to harsh methods, and sometimes to deny ap
pearances which seem to favour some particular tenet of
Roman Catholicism. (Matthew xvi. 18, 19 ; xviii. 18 ; i
Cor. iii. 15,) The Roman Catholic, on the other hand,
scarcely observes that nearly all the distinctive articles
of his creed are wanting in the New Testament ; the
Calvinist in fact ignores almost the whole of the sacred
volume for the sake of a few verses. The truth is,
that in seeking to prove our own opinions out of
Scripture, we are constantly falling into the common
fallacy of opening our eyes to one class of facts and
closing them to another. The favourite verses shine
like stars, while the rest of the page is thrown into
the shade.

Nor indeed is it easy to say what is the meaning of
proving a doctrine from Scripture/ For when we
demand logical equivalents and similarity of circum
stances, when we balance adverse statements, St.
James and St. Paul, the New Testament with the Old,

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 367

it will be hard to demonstrate from Scripture any com
plex system either of doctrine or practice. The Bible
is not a book of statutes in which words have been
chosen to cover the multitude of cases, but in the
greater portion of it, especially the Gospels and Epistles,
like a man talking to his friend. Nay, more, it is a
book written in the East, which is in some degree
liable to be misunderstood, because it speaks the lan
guage and has the feeling of Eastern lands. Nor can
we readily determine in explaining the words of our
Lord or of St. Paul, how much (even of some of the
passages just quoted) is to be attributed to Oriental
modes of speech. Expressions which would be regarded
as rhetorical exaggerations in the Western world are
the natural vehicles of thought to an Eastern people.
How great then must be the confusion where an
attempt is made to draw out these Oriental modes
with the severity of a philosophical or legal argument !
Is it not such a use of the words of Christ which he
himself rebukes when he says, It is the spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profit eth nothing/ (John vi.
51, 63.)

There is a further way in which the language of
creeds and liturgies as well as the ordinary theological
use of terms exercises a disturbing influence on the
interpretation of Scripture. Words which occur in
Scripture are singled out and incorporated in systems
like stones taken out of an old building and put into
a new one. They acquire a technical meaning more
or less divergent from the original one. It is obvious
that their use in Scripture, and not their later and
technical sense, must furnish the rule of interpretation.
We should not have recourse to the meaning of a
word in Polybius, for the explanation of its use in
Plato, or to the turn of a sentence in Lycophron, to
illustrate a construction of ^Eschylus. It is the same
kind of anachronism which would interpret Scripture
by the scholastic or theological use of the language of

368 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Scripture. It is remarkable that this use is indeed
partial, that is to say it affects one class of words and
not another. Love and truth, for example, have never
been theological terms ; grace and faith, on the
other hand, always retain an association with the
Pelagian or Lutheran controversies. Justification and
inspiration are derived from verbs which occur in
Scripture, and the later substantive has clearly affected
the meaning of the original verb or verbal in the
places where they crccur. The remark might be further
illustrated by the use of Scriptural language respecting
the Sacraments, which has also had a reflex influence
on its interpretation in many passages of Scripture,
especially in the Gospel of St. John. (John iii. 5 ; vi.
56, &c.) Minds which are familiar with the mystical
doctrine of the Sacraments seem to see a reference to
them in almost every place in the Old Testament as
well as in the New, in which the words water/ or
bread and wine may happen to occur.

Other questions meet us on the threshold of a differ
ent kind, which also affect therefore the interpretation
of Scripture, and demand an answer. Is it admitted
that the Scripture has one and only one true meaning ?
Or are we to follow the fathers into mystical and
allegorical explanations ? or with the majority of
modern interpreters to confine ourselves to the double
senses of prophecy, and the symbolism of the Gospel
in the law? In either case, we assume what can
never be proved, and an instrument is introduced of
such subtlety and pliability as to make the Scriptures
mean anything Gallus in campanili as the Wai-
den ses described it ; f the weathercock on the church
tower/ which is turned hither and thither by every
wind of doctrine. That the present age has grown
out of the mystical methods of the early fathers is a
part of its intellectual state. No one will now seek
to find hidden meanings in the scarlet thread of Eahab,
or the number of Abraham s followers, or in the little

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 369

circumstance mentioned after the resurrection of the
Saviour that St. Peter was the first to enter the sepul
chre. To most educated persons in the nineteenth
century, these applications of Scripture appear foolish.
Yet it is rather the excess of the method which pro
vokes a smile than the method itself. For many
remains of the mystical interpretation exist among our
selves; it is not the early fathers only who have read the
Bible crosswise, or deciphered it as a book of symbols.
And the uncertainty is the same in any part of Scrip
ture if there is a departure from the plain and obvious
meaning. If, for example, we alternate the verses in
which our Lord speaks of the last things between
the day of judgment and the destruction of Jerusalem;
or, in the elder prophecies, which are the counterparts
of these, make a corresponding division between the tem
poral and the spiritual Israel ; or again if we attribute
to the details of the Mosaical ritual a reference to the
New Testament ; or, once more, supposing the passage
of the Bed Sea to be regarded not merely as a figure
of baptism, but as a pre-ordained type, the principle
is conceded ; there is no good reason why the scarlet
thread of Rahab should not receive the explanation
given to it by Clement. A little more or a little less
of the method does not make the difference between
certainty and uncertainty in the interpretation of
Scripture. In whatever degree it is practised it is
equally incapable of being reduced to any rule ; it is
the interpreter s fancy, and is likely to be not less but
more dangerous and extravagant when it adds the
charm of authority from its use in past ages.

The question which has been suggested runs up into
a more general one, the relation between the Old and
New Testaments/ For the Old Testament will receive
a different meaning accordingly as it is explained from
itself or from the New. In the first case a careful
and conscientious study of each one for itself is all
that is required ; in the second case the types and

B B

370 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

ceremonies of the law, perhaps the very facts and per
sons of the history, will be assumed to be predestined
or made after a pattern corresponding to the things
that were to be in the latter days. And this question
of itself stirs another question respecting the interpre
tation of the Old Testament in the New. Is such
interpretation to be regarded as the meaning of
the original text, or an accommodation of it to the
thoughts of other times ?

Our object is not to attempt here the determination
of these questions, but to point out that they must be
determined before any real progress can be made or
any agreement arrived at in the interpretation of
Scripture. With one more example of another kind
we may close this part of the subject. The origin of
the three first Gospels is an inquiry which has not
been much considered by English theologians since
the days of Bishop Marsh. The difficulty of the
question has been sometimes misunderstood ; the
point being how there can be so much agreement in
words, and so much disagreement both in words and
facts ; the double phenomenon is the real perplexity-
how in short there can be all degrees of similarity and
dissimilarity, the kind and degree of similarity being
such as to make it necessary to suppose that large
portions are copied from each other or from common
documents ; the dissimilarities being of a kind which
seem to render impossible any knowledge in the
authors of one another s writings. The most probable
solution of this difficulty is that the tradition on which
the three first Gospels are based was at first pre
served orally, and slowly put together and written
in the three forms which it assumed at a very early
period, those forms being in some places, perhaps,
modified by translation. It is not necessary to de-
velope this hypothesis farther. The point to be noticed
is, that whether this or some other theory be the true
account (and some such account is demonstrably

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 371

necessary), the assumption of such a theory, or rather
the observation of the facts on which it rests, cannot
hut exercise an influence on interpretation. We can
no longer speak of three independent witnesses of the
Gospel narrative. Hence there follow some other
consequences, (i.) There is no longer the same neces
sity as heretofore to reconcile inconsistent narratives ;
the harmony of the Gospels only means the parallelism
of similar words. (2.) There is no longer any need to
enforce everywhere the connexion of successive verses,
for the same words will he found to occur in different
connexions in the different Gospels. (3.) Nor can the
designs attributed to their authors be regarded as the
free handling of the same subject on different plans ;
the difference consisting chiefly in the occurrence or
absence of local or verbal explanations or the ad
dition or omission of certain passages. Lastly, it is
evident that no weight can be given to traditional
statements of facts about the authorship, as, for ex
ample, that respecting St. Mark being the interpreter
of St. Peter, because the Fathers who have handed
down these statements were ignorant or unobservant
of the great fact, which is proved by internal evidence,
that they are for the most part of common origin.

Until these and the like questions are determined
by interpreters, it is not possible that there should be
agreement in the interpretation of Scripture. The
Protestant and Catholic, the Unitarian and Trinita
rian will continue to fight their battle on the ground
of the New Testament. The Preterists and Futurists,
those who maintain that the roll of prophecies is
completed in past history, or in the apostolical age ;
those who look forward to a long series of events

which are yet to COme [e a^avlq rov fjivftov avwyxuv

OVK )i Ay^oi>], may alike claim the authority of the
Book of Daniel, or the Revelation. Apparent coinci
dences will always be discovered by those who want
to find them. Where there is no critical interpreta-

B B 2

372 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

tion of Scripture, there will be a mystical or rheto
rical one. If words have more than one meaning, they
may have any meaning. Instead of being a rule of
life or faith, Scripture becomes the expression of the
ever-changing aspect of religious opinions. The un
changeable word of Grod, in the name of which we
repose, is changed by each age and each generation
in accordance with its passing fancy. The book in
which we believe all religious truth to be contained,
is the most uncertain of all books, because interpreted
by arbitrary and uncertain methods.

2.

It is probable that some of the preceding state
ments may be censured as a wanton exposure of the
difficulties of Scripture. It will be said that such
inquiries are for the few, while the printed page lies
open to the many, and that the obtrusion of them
may offend some weaker brother, some half- educated
or prejudiced soul, for whom/ nevertheless, in the
touching language of St. Paul, Christ died/ A con
fusion of the heart and head may lead sensitive
minds into a desertion of the principles of the Chris
tian life, which are their own witness, because they
are in doubt about facts which are really external to
them. Great evil to character may sometimes ensue
from such causes. f No man can serve two opinions
without a sensible harm to his nature. The con
sciousness of this responsibility should be always
present to writers on theology. But the responsibi
lity is really two-fold ; for there is a duty to speak
the truth as well as a duty to withhold it. The voice
of a majority of the clergy throughout the world, the
half sceptical, half conservative instincts of many lay
men, perhaps, also, individual interest, are in favour of
the latter course ; while a higher expediency pleads that
honesty is the best policy/ and that truth alone
makes free/ To this, it may be replied that truth
is not truth to those who are unable to use it ; no

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 373

reasonable man would attempt to lay before the illiterate
such a question as that concerning the origin of the
Gospels. And yet it may be rejoined once more, the
healthy tone of religion among the poor depends upon
freedom of thought and inquiry among the educated.
In this conflict of reasons, individual judgment must
at last decide. That there has been no rude, or im
proper unveiling of the difficulties of Scripture in
the preceding pages, is thought to be shown by the
following considerations :

First, that the difficulties referred to are very well
known ; they force themselves on the attention, not
only of the student, but of every intelligent reader of
the New Testament, whether in Greek or English.
The treatment of such difficulties in theological works
is no measure of public opinion respecting them.
Thoughtful persons, whose minds have turned towards
theology, are continually discovering that the critical
observations which they make themselves have been
made also by others apparently without concert. The
truth is that they have been led to them by the same
causes, and these again lie deep in the tendencies of
education and literature in the present age. But no
one is willing to break through the reticence which is
observed on these subjects ; hence a sort of smoulder
ing scepticism. It is probable that the distrust is
greatest at the time when the greatest efforts are made
to conceal it. Doubt conies in at the window, when
Inquiry is denied at the door. The thoughts of
able and highly educated young men almost always
stray towards the first principles of things; it is
a great injury to them, and tends to raise in their
minds a sort of incurable suspicion, to find that there
is one book of the fruit of the knowledge of which they
are forbidden freely to taste, that is, the Bible. The
same spirit renders the Christian minister almost
powerless in the hands of his opponents. He can
give no true answer to the mechanic or artizan who

374 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

has either discovered by his mother- wit or who retails
at second-hand the objections of critics ; for he is
unable to look at things as they truly are.

Secondly, as the time has come when it is no longer
possible to ignore the results of criticism, it is of im
portance that Christianity should be seen to be in
harmony with them. That objections to some received
views should be valid, and yet that they should be
always held up as the objections of infidels, is a mis
chief to the Christian cause. It is a mischief that
critical observations which any intelligent man can
make for himself, should be ascribed to atheism or
unbelief. It would be a strange and almost incredible
thing that the Gospel, which at first made war only
on the vices of mankind, should now be opposed to
one of the highest and rarest of human virtues the love
of truth. And that in the present day the great object of
Christianity should be, not to change the lives of men,
but to prevent them from changing their opinions;
that would be a singular inversion of the purposes for
which Christ came into the world. The Christian
religion is in a false position when all the tendencies
of knowledge are opposed to it. Such a position can
not be long maintained, or can only end in the with
drawal of the educated classes from the influences of
religion. It is a grave consideration whether we
ourselves may not be in an earlier stage of the same
religious dissolution, which seems to have gone further
in Italy and France. The reason for thinking so is
not to be sought in the external circumstances of our
own or any other religious communion, but in the
progress of ideas with which Christian teachers seem to
be ill at ease. Time was when the Gospel was before
the age ; when it breathed a new life into a decaying
world when the difficulties of Christianity were
difficulties of the heart only, and the highest minds
found in its truths not only the rule of their lives,
but a well-spring of intellectual delight. Is it to be

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 375

held a thing impossible that the Christian religion,
instead of shrinking into itself, may again embrace the
thoughts of men upon the earth ? Or is it true that
since the Eeformation all intellect has gone the other
way ? and that in Protestant countries reconciliation
is as hopeless as Protestants commonly believe to be
the case in Catholic.

Those who hold the possibility of such a reconcile
ment or restoration of belief, are anxious to disengage
Christianity from all suspicion of disguise or unfair
ness. They wish to preserve the historical use of
Scripture as the continuous witness in all ages of the
higher things in the heart of man, as the inspired
source of truth and the way to the better life. They
are willing to take away some of the external supports,
because they are not needed and do harm; also,
because they interfere with the meaning. They have
a faith, not that after a period of transition all things
will remain just as they were before, but that they
will all come round again to the use of man and to the
glory of God. When interpreted like any other book,
by the same rules of evidence and the same canons of
criticism, the Bible will still remain unlike any other
book ; its beauty will be freshly seen, as of a picture
which is restored after many ages to its original state ;
it will create a new interest and make for itself a new
kind of authority by the life which is in it. It will
be a spirit and not a letter ; as it was in the beginning,
having an influence like that of the spoken word, or
the book newly found. The purer the light in the
human heart, the more it will have an expression of
itself in the mind of Christ ; the greater the knowledge
of the development of man, the truer will be the
insight gained into the increasingpurpose of revelation.
In which also the individual soul has a practical part,
finding a sympathy with its own imperfect feelings,
in the broken utterance of the Psalmist or the Prophet
as well as in the fulness of Christ. The harmony

376 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

between Scripture and the life of man, in all its stages,
may be far greater than appears at present. No one
can form any notion from what we see around us, of
the power which Christianity might have if it were at
one with the conscience of man, and not at variance
with his intellectual convictions. There, a world weary
of the heat and dust of controversy of speculations
about God and man weary too of the rapidity of its
own motion, would return home and find rest.

But for the faith that the Gospel might win again
the minds of intellectual men, it would be better to
leave religion to itself, instead of attempting to draw
them together. Other walks in literature have peace
and pleasure and profit; the path of the critical
Interpreter of Scripture is almost always a thorny one
in England. It is not worth while for any one to
enter upon it who is not supported by a sense that he
has a Christian and moral object. For although an Inter
preter of Scripture in modern times will hardly say
with the emphasis of the Apostle, Woe is me, if I
speak not the truth without regard to consequences/
yet he too may feel it a matter of duty not to conceal
the things which he knows. He does not hide the
discrepancies of Scripture, because the acknowledgment
of them is the first step towards agreement among
interpreters. He would restore the original meaning,
because seven other meanings take the place of it ;
the book is made the sport of opinion and the instru
ment of perversion of life. He would take the excuses
of the head out of the way of the heart ; there is hope
too that by drawing Christians together on the ground
of Scripture, he may also draw them nearer to one
another. He is not afraid that inquiries, which have
for their object the truth, can ever be displeasing to
the God of truth ; or that the Word of God is in any
such sense a word as to be hurt by investigations into
its human origin and conception.

It may be thought another ungracious aspect of the

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 377

preceding remarks, that they cast a slight upon the
interpreters of Scripture in former ages. The early
Fathers, the Eoman Catholic mystical writers, the
Swiss and German Reformers, the Nonconformist
divines, have qualities for which we look in vain among
ourselves ; they throw an intensity of light upon the
page of Scripture which we nowhere find in modern
commentaries. But it is not the light of interpreta
tion. They have a faith which seems indeed to have
grown dim now-a-days, but that faith is not drawn
from the study of Scripture ; it is the element in which
their own mind moves which overflows on the meaning
of the text. The words of Scripture suggest to them
their own thoughts or feelings. They are preachers,
or in the New Testament sense of the word, prophets
rather than interpreters. There is nothing in such a
view derogatory to the saints and doctors of former
ages. That Aquinas or Bernard did not shake them
selves free from the mystical method of the Patristic
times, or the Scholastic one which was more peculiarly
their own ; that Luther and Calvin read the Scriptures
in connexion with the ideas which were kindling in
the mind of their age, and the events which were
passing before their eyes, these and similar remarks
are not to be construed as depreciatory of the genius
or learning of famous men of old ; they relate only to
their interpretation of Scripture, in which it is no
slight upon them to maintain that they were not
before their day.

What remains may be comprised in a few precepts,
or rather is the expansion of a single one. Interpret
the Scripture like any other book. There are many
respects in which Scripture is unlike any other book ;
these will appear in the results of such an interpreta
tion. The first step is to know the meaning, and this
can only be done in the same careful and impartial
way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles or of
Plato. The subordinate principles which flow out of

378 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

this general one will also be gathered from the
observation of Scripture. No other science of Her-
meneutics is possible but an inductive one, that is to
say, one based on the language and thoughts and nar
rations of the sacred writers. And it would be well to
carry the theory of interpretation no further than in
the case of other works. Excessive system tends to
create an impression that the meaning of Scripture is
out of our reach, or is to be attained in some other
way than by the exercise of manly sense and industry.
Who would write a bulky treatise about the method
to be pursued in interpreting Plato or Sophocles?
Let us not set out on our journey so heavily equipped
that there is little chance of our arriving at the end of
it. The method creates itself as we go on, beginning
only with a few reflections directed against plain errors.
Such reflections are the rules of common sense, which
we acknowledge with respect to other works written
in dead languages : without pretending to novelty
they may help us to return to nature in the study
of the sacred writings.

First, it may be laid down that Scripture has one
meaning the meaning which it had to the mind of
the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote,
to the hearers or readers who first received it. Another
view may be easier or more familiar to us, seeming to
receive a light and interest from the circumstances
of our own age. But such accommodation of the text
must be laid aside by the interpreter, whose business
is to place himself as nearly as possible in the position
of the sacred writer. That is no easy task- -to call
up the inner and outer life of the contemporaries of
our Saviour ; to follow the abrupt and involved utter
ance of St. Paul or one of the old Prophets ; to trace
the meaning of words when language first became
Christian. He will often have to choose the more
difficult interpretation (Galatians ii. 20 ; Bomans iii. 15,
&c.), and to refuse one more in agreement with received

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 379

opinions, because the latter is less true to the style
and time of the author. He may incur the charge of
singularity, or confusion of ideas, or ignorance of Greek,
from a misunderstanding of the peculiarity of the sub
ject in the person who makes the charge. For if it be
said that the translation of some Greek words is con
trary to the usages of grammar (Galatians iv. 13), that
is not in every instance to be denied ; the point is
whether the usages of grammar are always observed.
Or if it be objected to some interpretation of Scripture
that it is difficult and perplexing, the answer is
that may very well be it is the fact/ arising out of
differences in the modes of thought of other times, or
irregularities in the use of language which no art of
the interpreter can evade. One consideration should
be borne in mind, that the Bible is the only book in
the world written in different styles and at many
different times, which is in the hands of persons of all
degrees of knowledge and education. The benefit of
this outweighs the evil, yet the evilshouldbe admitted
namely, that it leads to ahastyand partial interpretation
of Scripture, which often obscures the true one. A sort
of conflict arises between scientific criticism and popu
lar opinion. The indiscriminate use of Scripture has
a further tendency to maintain erroneous readings or
translations ; some which are allowed to be such by
scholars have been stereotyped in the mind of the
English reader ; and it becomes almost a political
question how far we can venture to disturb them.

There are difficulties of another kind in many parts
of Scripture, the depth and inwardness of which re
quire a measure of the same qualities in the interpreter
himself. There are notes struck in places, which like
some discoveries of science have sounded before their
time ; and only after many days have been caught up
and found a response on the earth. There are germs
of truth which after thousands of years have never yet
taken root in the world. There are lessons in the

380 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Prophets which, however simple, mankind have not
yet learned even in theory ; and which the complexity
of society rather tends to hide ; aspects of human life
in Job and Ecclesiastes which have a truth of desola
tion about them which we faintly realize in ordinary
circumstances. It is, perhaps, the greatest difficulty of
all to enter into the meaning of the words of Christ
so gentle, so human, so divine, neither adding to them
nor marring their simplicity. The attempt to illustrate
or draw them out in detail, even to guard against their
abuse, is apt to disturb the balance of truth. The
interpreter needs nothing short of fashioning in
himself the image of the mind of Christ. He has to
be born again into a new spiritual or intellectual world,
from which the thoughts of this world are shut out.
It is one of the highest tasks on which the labour of a
life can be spent, to bring the words of Christ a little
nearer the heart of man.

But while acknowledging this inexhaustible or in
finite character of the sacred writings, it does not,
therefore, follow that we are willing to admit of hidden
or mysterious meanings in them (in the same way we
recognise the wonders and complexity of the laws of
nature to be far beyond what eye has seen or know
ledge reached, yet it is not therefore to be supposed
that we acknowledge the existence of some other laws
different in kind from those we know which are in
capable of philosophical analysis). In like manner we
have no reason to attribute to the Prophet or Evan
gelist any second or hidden sense different from that
which appears on the surface. All that the Prophet
meant may not have been consciously present to his
mind ; there w r ere depths which to himself also were
but half revealed. He beheld the fortunes of Israel
passing into the heavens ; the temporal kingdom was
fading into an eternal one. It is not to be supposed
that what he saw at a distance only was clearly denned
to him ; or that the universal truth which was appear-

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 381

ing and reappearing in the history of the surrounding
world took a purely spiritual or abstract form in his
mind. There is a sense in which we may still say
with Lord Bacon, that the words of prophecy are to
be interpreted as the words of one with whom a
thousand years are as one day, and one day as a
thousand years/ But that is no reason for turning
days into years, or for interpreting the things that
must shortly come to pass in the book of Revelation,
as the events of modern history, or for separating the
day of judgment from the destruction of Jerusalem in
the Gospels. The double meaning which is given to
our Saviour s discourse respecting the last things is
not that form of eternity of which Lord Bacon
speaks ; it resembles rather the doubling of an object
when seen through glasses placed at different angles.
It is true also that there are types in Scripture which
were regarded as such by the Jews themselves, as for
example, the scapegoat, or the paschal lamb. But that
is no proof of all outward ceremonies being types when
Scripture is silent; (if we assume the New Testament
as a tradition running parallel with the Old, may
not the Roman Catholic assume with equal reason
a tradition running parallel with the New ?) Pro
phetic symbols, again, have often the same meaning
in different places (e.g., the four beasts or living crea
tures, the colours white or red) ; the reason is that
this meaning is derived from some natural association
(as of fruitfulness, purity, or the like) ; or again, they
are borrowed in some of the later prophecies from
earlier ones ; we are not, therefore, justified in suppos
ing any hidden connexion in the prophecies where they
occur. Neither is there any ground for assuming
design of any other kind in Scripture any more than
in Plato or Homer. Wherever there is beauty and
order, there is design ; but there is no proof of any
artificial design, such as is often traced by the Fathers,
in the relation of the several parts of a book, or of

382 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

the several books to each other. That is one of those
mischievous notions which enables us, under the dis
guise of reverence, to make Scripture mean what we
please. Nothing that can be said of the greatness or
sublimity, or truth, or depth, or tenderness, of many
passages, is too much. But that greatness is of a
simple kind ; it is not increased by double senses, or
systems of types, or elaborate structure, or design. If
every sentence was a mystery, every word a riddle,
every letter a symbol, that would not make the Scrip
tures more worthy of a Divine author ; it is a hea
thenish or Eabbinical fancy which reads them in this
way. Such complexity would not place them above
but below human compositions in general; for it
would deprive them of the ordinary intelligibleness
of human language. It is not for a Christian theo
logian to say that words were given to mankind to
conceal their thoughts, neither was revelation given
them to conceal the Divine.

The second rule is an application of the general
principle ; interpret Scripture from itself as in other
respects, like any other book written in an age and
country of which little or no other literature survives,
and about which we know almost nothing except
what is derived from its pages. Not that all the parts
of Scripture are to be regarded as an indistinguishable
mass. The Old Testament is not to be identified with
the New, nor the Law with the Prophets, nor the
Gospels with the Epistles, nor the Epistles of St. Paul
to be violently harmonized with the Epistle of St.
James. Each writer, each successive age, has charac
teristics of its own, as strongly marked, or more
strongly, than those which are found in the authors
or periods of classical literature. These differences
are not to be lost in the idea of a Spirit from whom
they proceed or by which they were overruled. And
therefore, illustration of one part of Scripture by
another should be confined to writings of the same

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 383

age and the same authors, except where the writings
of different ages or persons offer obvious similarities.
It may be said further that illustration should be
chiefly derived, not only from the same author, but
from the same writing, or from one of the same period
of his life. For example, the comparison of St. John
and the * synoptic Gospels, or of the Gospel of St.
John with the Eevelation of St. John, will tend rather
to confuse than to elucidate the meaning of either ;
while, on the other hand, the comparison of the
Prophets with one another, and with the Psalms,
offers many valuable helps and lights to the inter
preter. Again, the connexion between the Epistles
written by the Apostle St. Paul about the same time
(e.g. Eomans, i and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colos-
sians,Philippians,Ephesians, compared with Eomans,
Colossians, Ephesians, Galatians, &c.,) is far closer
than of Epistles which are separated by an interval of
only a few years.

But supposing ah 1 this to be understood, and that
by the interpretation of Scripture from itself is meant
a real interpretation of like by like, it may be asked,
what is it that we gain from a minute comparison of
a particular author or writing ? The indiscriminate
use of parallel passages taken from one end of
Scripture and applied to the other (except so far as
earlier compositions may have afforded the material
or the form of later ones) is useless and uncritical.
The uneducated, or imperfectly educated person who
looks out the marginal references of the English Bible,
imagining himself in this way to gain a clearer insight
into the Divine meaning, is really following the reli
gious associations of his own mind. Even the critical
use of parallel passages is not without danger. For
are we to conclude that an author meant in one place
what he says in another ? Shall we venture to mend
a corrupt phrase on the model of some other phrase,
which memory, prevailing over judgment, calls up and

384 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

thrusts into the text ? It is this fallacy which has
filled the pages of classical writers with useless and
unfounded emendations.

The meaning of the Canon Non nisi ex Scripturd
Scripturam potes interpreted* is only this, That we
cannot understand Scripture without becoming familiar
with it. Scripture is a world by itself, from which
we must exclude foreign influences, whether theological
or classical. To get inside that world is an effort of
thought and imagination, requiring the sense of a
poet as well as a critic demanding much more than
learning a degree of original power and intensity of
mind. Any one who, instead of burying himself in
the pages of the commentators, would learn the sacred
writings by heart, and paraphrase them in English,
will probably make a nearer approach to their true
meaning that he would gather from any commentary.
The intelligent mind will ask its own questions, and
find for the most part its own answers. The true use
of interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and
leave us alone in company with the author. When
the meaning of Greek words is once known, the young
student has almost all the real materials which are
possessed by the greatest Biblical scholar, in the book
itself. For almost our whole knowledge of the history
of the Jews is derived from the Old Testament and
the Apocryphal books, and almost our whole know
ledge of the life of Christ and of the Apostolical age
is derived from the New ; whatever is added to them
is either conjecture, or very slight topographical or
chronological illustration. For this reason the rule
given above, which is applicable to all books, is appli
cable to the New Testament more than any other.

Yet in this consideration of the separate books of
Scripture it is not to be forgotten that they have also
a sort of continuity. We make a separate study of
the subject, the mode of thought, in some degree also
of the language of each book. And at length the

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 385

idea arises in our minds of a common literature, a
pervading life, an overruling law. It may be com
pared to the effect of some natural scene in which we
suddenly perceive a harmony or picture, or to the im
perfect appearance of design which suggests itself in
looking at the surface of the globe. That is to say,
there is nothing miraculous or artificial in the arrange
ment of the books of Scripture ; it is the result, not
the design, which appears in them when bound in the
same volume. Or if we like so to say, there is design,
but a natural design which is revealed to after ages.
Such continuity or design is best expressed under some
notion of progress or growth, not regular, however, but
with broken and imperfect stages, which the want of
knowledge prevents our minutely denning. The great
truth of the unity of God was there from the first ;
slowly as the morning broke in the heavens, like some
central light, it filled and afterwards dispersed the mists
of human passion in which it was itself enveloped.
A change passes over the Jewish religion from fear
to love, from power to wisdom, from the justice of
Grod to the mercy of God, from the nation to the
individual, from this world to another ; from the
visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children,
to every soul shall bear its own iniquity ; from the
fire, the earthquake, and the storm, to the still small
voice. There never was a time after the deliverance
from Egypt, in which the Jewish people did not bear
a kind of witness against the cruelty and licentious
ness of the surrounding tribes. In the decline of the
monarchy, as the kingdom itself was sinking under
foreign conquerors, whether springing from contact
with the outer world, or from some reaction within,
the undergrowth of morality gathers strength ; first,
in the anticipation of prophecy, secondly, like a green
plant in the hollow rind of Pharisaism, and individuals
pray and commune with God each one for himself.
At length the tree of life blossoms ; the faith in im-

c c

386 On t/ie Interpretation of Scripture.

mortality which had hitherto slumbered in the heart
of man, intimated only in doubtful words (2 Sam. xii.
23 ; Psalm xvii. 15), or beaming for an instant in
dark places (Job xix. 25), has become the prevailing
belief.

There is an interval in the Jewish annals which we
often exclude from our thoughts, because it has no
record in the canonical writings- -extending over about
four hundred years, from the last of the prophets of
the Old Testament to the forerunner of Christ in the
New. This interval, about which we know so little,
which is regarded by many as a portion of secular
rather than of sacred history, was nevertheless as
fruitful in religious changes as any similar period
which preceded. The establishment of the Jewish
sects, and the wars of the Maccabees, probably
exercised as great an influence on Judaism as the
captivity itself. A third influence was that of the
Alexandrian literature, which was attracting the
Jewish intellect, at the same time that the Galilean
zealot was tearing the nation in pieces with the doctrine
that it was lawful to call no man master but God/
In contrast with that wild fanaticism as well as with
the proud Pharisee, came One most unlike all that had
been before, as the kings or rulers of mankind. In
an age which was the victim of its own passions, the
creature of its own circumstances, the slave of its own
degenerate religion, our Saviour taught a lesson abso
lutely free from all the influences of a surrounding
world. He made the last perfect revelation of God to
man ; a revelation not indeed immediately applicable
to the state of society or the world, but in its truth
and purity inexhaustible by the after generations of
men. And of the first application of the truth which he
taught as a counsel of perfection to the actual circum
stances of mankind, we have the example in the Epistles.

Such a general conception of growth or development
in Scripture, beginning with the truth of the Unity

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 387

of God in the earliest books and ending with the per
fection of Christ, naturally springs up in our minds in
the perusal of the sacred writings. It is a notion of
value to the interpreter, for it enables him at the same
time to grasp the whole and distinguish the parts.
It saves him from the necessity of maintaining that
the Old Testament is one and the same everywhere ;
that the books of Moses contain truths or precepts,
such as the duty of prayer or the faith in immortality,
or the spiritual interpretation of sacrifice, which no
one has ever seen there. It leaves him room enough
to admit all the facts of the case. No longer is he
required to defend or to explain away David s impre
cations against his enemies, or his injunctions to
Solomon, any more than his sin in the matter of
Uriah. Nor is he hampered with a theory of accom
modation. Still the sense of the increasing purpose
which through the ages ran is present to him, no
where else continuously discernible or ending in a
divine perfection. Nowhere else is there found the
same interpenetration of the political and religious
element a whole nation, though never good for
much at any time/ possessed with the conviction that
it was living in the face of God in whom the Sun of
righteousness shone upon the corruption of an Eastern
nature the fewest of all people, yet bearing the
greatest part in the education of the world. Nowhere
else among the teachers and benefactors of mankind
is there any form like His, in whom the desire of the
nation is fulfilled, and not of that nation only/ but
of all mankind, whom He restores to His Father and
their Father, to His God and their God.

Such a growth or development may be regarded as
a kind of progress from childhood to manhood. In
the child there is an anticipation of truth ; his reason
is latent in the form of feeling ; many words
are used by him which he imperfectly understands ;
he is led by temporal promises, believing that to be

c c 2

388 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

good is to be happy always ; lie is pleased by mar
vels and has vague terrors. He is confined to a
spot of earth, and lives in a sort of prison of sense,
yet is bursting also with a fulness of childish life :
he imagines God to be like a human father, only
greater and more awful ; he is easily impressed with
solemn thoughts, but soon rises up to play with
other children. It is observable that his ideas of
right and wrong are very simple, hardly extending to
another life ; they consist chiefly in obedience to his
parents, whose word is his law. As he grows older
he mixes more and more with others ; first with one
or two who have a great influence in the direction of
his mind. At length the world opens upon him;
another work of education begins ; and he learns to
discern more truly the meaning of things and his re
lation to men in general. (You may complete the
image, by supposing that there was a time in his early
days when he was a helpless outcast in the land of
Egypt and the house of bondage ). And as he arrives
at manhood he reflects on his former years, the
progress of his education, the hardships of his infancy,
the home of his youth (the thought of which is inefface
able in after life), and he now understands that all this
was but a preparation for another state of being, in which
he is to play a part for himself. And once more in age
you may imagine him like the patriarch looking back on
the entire past, which he reads anew, perceiving that
the events of life had a purpose or result which was
not seen at the time ; they seem to him bound each
to each by natural piety/

1 Which things are an allegory/ the particulars of
which any one may interpret for himself. For the
child born after the flesh is the symbol of the child
born after the Spirit. The law was a schoolmaster to
bring men to Christ/ and now e we are under a school
master no longer. The anticipation of truth which
came from without to the childhood or youth of the

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 389

human race is witnessed to within ; the revelation of
God is not lost but renewed in the heart and under
standing of the man. Experience has taught us the
application of the lesson in a wider sphere. And
many influences have combined to form the after life*
of the world. When at the close (shall we say) of a
great period in the history of man, we cast our eyes
back on the course of events, from the angel of his
presence in the wilderness 5 to the multitude of peoples,
nations, languages, who are being drawn together by
His Providence from the simplicity of the pastoral
state in the dawn of the world s day, to all the elements
of civilization and knowledge which are beginning to
meet and mingle in a common life, we also understand
that we are no longer in our early home, to which,
nevertheless, we fondly look ; and that the end is yet
unseen, and the purposes of God towards the human
race only half revealed. And to turn once more to
the Interpreter of Scripture, he too feels that the
continuous growth of revelation which he traces in
the Old and New Testament, is a part of a larger
whole extending over the earth and reaching to another
world.

?

Scripture has an inner life or soul ; it has also an
outward body or form. That form is language, which
imperfectly expresses our common notions, much more
those higher truths which religion teaches. At the time
when our Saviour came into the world the Greek
language was itself in a state of degeneracy and decay.
It had lost its poetic force, and was ceasing to have
the sway over the mind which classical Greek once
held. That is a more important revolution in the mental
history of mankind, than we easily conceive in modern
times, when all languages sit loosely on thought, and
the peculiarities, or idiosyncrasies of one are corrected
by our knowledge of another. It may be numbered
among the causes which favoured the growth of

390 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Christianity. That degeneracy was a preparation for
the Gospel the decaying soil in which the new ele
ments of life were to come forth the beginning of
another state of man, in which language and mythology
and philosophy were no longer to exert the same con
straining power as in the ancient world. The civilized
portion of mankind were becoming of one speech, the
diffusion of which along the shores of the Mediterranean
sea made a way for the entrance of Christianity into
the human understanding, just as the Eoman empire
prepared the framework of its outward history. The
first of all languages, for glory and for beauty/ had
become the common dialect of the Macedonian
kingdoms ; it had been moulded in the schools of
Alexandria to the ideas of the East and the religious
wants of Jews. Neither was it any violence to its
nature to be made the vehicle of the new truths which
were springing up in the heart of man. The definite-
ness and absence of reflectiveness in the earlier forms
of human speech, would have imposed a sort of limit
on the freedom and spirituality of the Gospel ; even
the Greek of Plato would have coldly furnished forth
the words of eternal life/ A religion which was to
be universal required the divisions of languages, as of
nations, to be in some degree broken down. [ Pcena
linguarum dispersit homines, donum linguarum in unum
collegit^ But this community or freedom of language
was accompanied by corresponding defects ; it had lost
its logical precision ; it was less coherent ; and more
under the influence of association. It might be com
pared to a garment which allowed and yet impeded the
exercise of the mind by being too large and loose for it.
From the inner life of Scripture it is time to pass
on to the consideration of this outward form, including
that other framework of modes of thought and figures
of speech which is between the two. A knowledge
of the original language is a necessary qualification of
the Interpreter of Scripture. It takes away at least

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 391

one chance of error in the explanation of a passage ;
it removes one of the films which have gathered over
the page ; it brings the meaning home in a more
intimate and subtle way than a translation could do.
To this, however, another qualification should be added,
which is, the logical power to perceive the meaning of
words in reference to their context. And there is a worse
fault than ignorance of Greek in the interpretation of
the New Testament, that is, ignorance of any language.
The Greek Fathers, for example, are far from being the
best verbal commentators, because their knowledge of
Greek often leads them away from the drift of the
passage. The minuteness of the study in our own day
has also a tendency to introduce into the text associa
tions which are not really found there. There is a
danger of making words mean too much ; refinements
of signification are drawn out of them, perhaps con
tained in their etymology, which are lost in common
use and parlance. There is the error of interpreting
every particle, as though it were a link in the argument,
instead of being, as is often the case, an excrescence of
style. The verbal critic magnifies his art, which is
really great in ^Eschylus or Pindar, but not of equal
importance in the interpretation of the simpler lan
guage of the New Testament, His love of scholarship
will sometimes lead him to impress a false system on
words and constructions. A great critic* who has
commented on the three first chapters of the Epistle to
the Galatians, has certainly afforded a proof that it is
possible to read the New Testament under a distorting
influence from classical Greek. The tendency gains
support from the undefined feeling that Scripture does
not come behind in excellence of language any more
than of thought. And if not as in former days, the
classic purity of the Greek of the New Testament, yet
its certainty and accuracy, the assumption of which,

* Herman.

392 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

as any other assumption, is only the parent of inaccu
racy, is still maintained.

The study of the language of the New Testament
has suffered in another way by following too much in
the track of classical scholarship. All dead languages
which have passed into the hands of grammarians,
have given rise to questions which have either no
result or in which the certainty, or if certain, the im
portance of the result, is out of proportion to the labour
spent in attaining it. The field is exhausted by great
critics, and then subdivided among lesser ones. The
subject, unlike that of physical science, has a limit,
and unless new ground is broken up, as for example
in mythology, or comparative philology, is apt to
grow barren. Though it is not true to say that we
know as much about the Greeks and Romans as we
ever shall/ it is certain that we run a danger from the
deficiency of material, of wasting time in questions
which do not add anything to real knowledge, or in
conjectures which must always remain uncertain, and
may in turn give way to other conjectures in the next
generation. Little points may be of great importance
when rightly determined, because the observation of
them tends to quicken the instinct of language ; but
conjectures about little things or rules respecting them
which were not in the mind of Greek authors them
selves, are not of equal value. There is the scholas
ticism of philology, not only in the Alexandrian, but
in our own times ; as in the middle ages, there was the
scholasticism of philosophy. Questions of mere
orthography, about which there cannot be said to
have been a right or wrong, have been pursued almost
with a Babbinical minuteness. The story of the
scholar who regretted that he had not concentrated
his life on the dative case/ is hardly a caricature of
the spirit of such inquiries. The form of notes to the
classics often seems to arise out of a necessity for ob
serving a certain proportion between the commentary
and the text. And the same tendency is noticeable in

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 393

many of the critical and philological observations
which are made on the New Testament. The field
of Biblical criticism is narrower, and its materials
more fragmentary ; so too the minuteness and un
certainty of the questions raised has been greater.
For example, the discussions respecting the chronology
of St. Paul s life and his second imprisonment : or about
the identity of James, the brother of the Lord, or in
another department, respecting the use of the Greek
article, have gone far beyond the line of utility.

There seem to be reasons for doubting whether any
considerable light can be thrown on the New Testa
ment from inquiry into the language. Such inquiries
are popular, because they are safe ; but their popularity
is not the measure of their use. It has not been
sufficiently considered that the difficulties of the New
Testament are for the most part common to the Greek
and the English. The noblest translation in the
world has a few great errors, more than half of them
in the text ; but we do it violence to haggle over
the words. Minute corrections of tenses or particles
are no good ; they spoil the English without being
nearer the Greek. Apparent mistranslations are often
due to a better knowledge of English rather than a
worse knowledge of Greek. It is true that the signifi
cation of a few uncommon expressions, e.g., i&vaia,
7n/3aAwy, avvairayoptvoi, /c.r.X., is yet uncertain. But
>no result of consequence would follow from the
attainment of absolute certainty respecting the mean
ing of any of these. A more promising field opens to the
interpreter in the examination of theological terms, such

as faith (TTIGTIQ), grace (yjapiq\ righteousness (SiKaioavvr)),

sanctification (ayiaa/mog), the law (Vo^uoc), the spirit
(TH^CI), the comforter (Trapa/cX^roc), &c., provided
always that the use of such terms in the New Testa
ment is clearly separated (i) from their derivation or
previous use in Classical or Alexandrian Greek, (2)
from their after use in the Fathers and in systems of
theology. To which may be added another select

394 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

class of words descriptive of the offices or customs of
the Apostolic Church, such as Apostle (aTroaroXoc),
Bishop (eTriWoTroe), Elder (TrpzvfivTtpog), Deacon and
Deaconess (o KOL f} SiaKoi>oe), love-feast (dyairai), the
Lord s day (17 Kvpiaicri fyue/oa), &c. It is a lexi-
logus of these and similar terms, rather than a lexicon
of the entire Greek Testament that is required.
Interesting subjects of real inquiry are also the com
parison of the Greek of the New Testament with
modern Greek on the one hand, and the Greek of the
LXX. on the other. It is not likely, however, that
they will afford much more help than they have already
done in the elucidation of the Greek of the New
Testament.

It is for others to investigate the language of the
Old Testament, to which the preceding remarks are only
in part applicable. [It may be observed in passing of
this, as of any other old language, that not the later
form of the language, but the cognate dialects, must
ever be the chief source of its illustration. For in
every ancient language, antecedent or contemporary
forms, not the subsequent ones, aiford the real insight
into its nature and structure. It must also be
admitted that very great and real obscurities exist in
the English translation of the Old Testament, which
even a superficial acquaintance with the original has a
tendency to remove.] Leaving, however, to others the
consideration of the Semitic languages which raise,
questions of a different kind from the Hellenistic
Greek, we will offer a few remarks on the latter.
Much has been said of the increasing accuracy of our
knowledge of the language of the New Testament;
the old Hebraistic method of explaining difficulties of
language or construction, has retired within very
narrow limits ; it might probably with advantage be
confined to still narrower ones [if it have any place
at all except in the Apocalypse or the Gospel of St.
Matthew], There is, perhaps, some confusion between

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 395

accuracy of our knowledge of language, and the
accuracy of language itself; which is also strongly
maintained. It is observed that the usages of bar
barous as well as civilized nations conform perfectly to
grammatical rules ; that the uneducated in all countries
have certain laws of speech as much as Shakespear or
Bacon ; the usages of Lucian, it may be said, are as
regular as those of Plato, even when they are different.
The decay of language seems rather to witness to
the permanence than to the changeableness of its
structure ; it is the flesh, not the bones, that begins to
drop off. But such general remarks, although just,
afford but little help in determining the character of
the Greek of the New Testament, which has of course
a certain system, failing in which it would cease to be
a language. Some further illustration is needed of
the change which has passed upon it. All languages
do not decay in the same manner ; and the influence
of decay in the same language may be different in
different countries ; when used in writing and in
speaking when applied to the matters of ordinary
life and to the higher truths of philosophy or religion.
And the degeneracy of language itself is not a mere
principle of dissolution, but creative also ; while dead
and rigid in some of its uses, it is elastic and expansive
in others. The decay of an ancient language is the
beginning of the construction of a modern one. The
loss of some usages gives a greater precision and
freedom to others. The logical element, as for example
in the Medieval Latin, will probably be strongest when
the poetical has vanished. A great movement, like the
Reformation in Germany, passing over a nation, may
give a new birth also to its language.

These remarks may be applied to the Greek of the
New Testament, which although classed vaguely under
the common dialect/ has, nevertheless, many features
which are altogether peculiar to itself, and such
as are found in no other remains of ancient literature,

396 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

i. It is more unequal in style even in the same books,
that is to say, more original and plastic in one part,
more rigid and unpliable in another. There is a want
of the continuous power to frame a paragraph or to
arrange clauses in subordination to each other, even to
the extent to which it was possessed by a Greek
scholiast or rhetorician. On the other hand there is
a fulness of life, a new birth, in the use of abstract
terms which is not found elsewhere, after the golden
age of Greek philosophy. Almost the only passage
in the New Testament which reads like a Greek period
of the time, is the first paragraph of the Gospel
according to St. Luke, and the corresponding words
of the Acts. But the power and meaning of the
characteristic words of the New Testament is in
remarkable contrast with the vapid and general use of
the same words in Philo about the same time. There
is also a sort of lyrical passion in some passages (i
Cor. xiii. ; 2 Cor. vi. 6 10 ; xi. 21 33) which is a new
thing in the literature of the world ; to which, at any
rate, no Greek author of a later age furnishes any
parallel. 2. Though written, the Greek of the New
Testament partakes of the character of a spoken
language; it is more lively and simple, and less
structural than ordinary writing a peculiarity of style

which further agrees with the circumstance that the

-r-* ^

Epistles of St. Paul were not written with his own
hand, but probably dictated to an amanuensis, and that
the Gospels also probably originate in an oral narrative.
3. The ground colours of the language may be said to
be two ; first, the LXX. which is modified, secondly,
by the spoken Greek of eastern countries, and the
differences which might be expected to arise between
a translation and an original ; many Hebraisms would
occur in the Greek of a translator, which would never
have come to his pen but for the influence of the work
which he was translating. 4. To which may be added
a few Latin and Chaldee words, and a few Eabbinical

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 397

formulae. The influence of Hebrew or Chaldee in the
New Testament is for the most part at a distance, in
the background, acting not directly, but mediately,
through the LXX. It has much to do with the
clausular structure and general form, but hardly any
thing with the grammatical usage. Philo too, did not
know Hebrew, or at least the Hebrew Scriptures, yet
there is also a mediate* influence of Hebrew trace
able in his writings. 5. There is an element of
constraint in the style of the New Testament,
arising from the circumstance of its authors writing
in a language which was not their own. This con
straint shows itself in the repetition of words and
phrases ; in the verbal oppositions and anacolutha
of St. Paul ; in the short sentences of St. John.
This is further increased by the fact that the
writers of the New Testament were unlearned men/
who had not the same power of writing as of speech.
Moreover, as has been often remarked, the difficulty
of composition increases in proportion to the greatness
of the subject ; e.g., the narrative of Thucydides is
easy and intelligible, while his reflections and speeches
are full of confusion ; the effort to concentrate seems
to interfere with the consecutiveness and fluency of
ideas. Something of this kind is discernible in those
passages of the Epistles in which the Apostle St. Paul
is seeking to set forth the opposite sides of God s
dealing with man, e.g., Romans iii. i 9 ; ix., x. ; or in
which the sequence of the thought is interrupted by
the conflict of emotions, i Cor. ix. 20; Gal. iv. n 20.
6. The power of the Gospel over language must be
recognised, showing itself, first of all, in the original
and consequently variable signification of words
(TTIGTIQ, \apiq, <7wrr?|O/a), which is also more compre
hensive and human than the heretical usage of many
of the same terms, e.g., yvuaiq (knowledge), o-o^/a
(wisdom), /crtcrtc (creature, creation) ; secondly, in a
peculiar use of some constructions, such as Si

398 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

(righteousness of God), TTIOTIC Ir?o-ov X/HOTOU

(faith of Jesus Christ), w Xpiorw (in Christ), v Oew (in
God), We/) riu,vi> (for us), in which the meaning of the
genitive case or of the preposition almost escapes our
notice, from familiarity with the sound of it. Lastly, the
degeneracy of the Greek language is traceable in the
failure of syntactical power ; in the insertion of pre
positions to denote relations of thought, which classical
Greek would have expressed by the case only ; in the
omission of them when classical Greek would have
required them ; in the incipient use of Iva with the
subjunctive for the infinitive ; in the confusion of ideas
of cause and effect ; in the absence of the article in the
case of an increasing number of words which are
passing into proper names ; in the loss of the finer
shades of difference in the negative particles ; in the
occasional confusion of the aorist and perfect ; in exces
sive fondness for particles of reasoning or inference ; in
various forms of apposition, especially that of the
word to the sentence ; in the use, sometimes emphatic,
sometimes only pleonastic, of the personal and de
monstrative pronouns. These are some of the signs
that the language is breaking-up and losing its
structure.

Our knowledge of the New Testament is derived

o

almost exclusively from itself. Of the language, as
well as of the subject, it may be truly said that what
other writers contribute is nothing in comparison of
that which is gained from observation of the text.
Some inferences which may be gathered from this
general fact, are the following : First, that less weight
should be given to lexicons, that is, to the authority of
other Greek writers, and more to the context. The
use of a word in a new sense, the attribution of a
neuter meaning to a verb elsewhere passive, (Romans
iii. 9, TTpoc^o/uL&Oa), the resolution of the compound
into two simple notions, (Galatians iii. i, -n-potypa^ii),
these, when the context requires it, are not to be set

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 399

aside by the scholar because sanctioned by no known
examples. The same remark applies to grammars as
well as lexicons. We cannot be certain that Sta with
the accusative never has the same meaning as 8m with
the genitive, (Gal. iv. 13; Phil. i. 15), or that the article
always retains its defining power (2 Cor. i. 17; Acts
xvii. i), or that the perfect is never used in place of the
aorist (i Cor. xv. 4; Eev. v. 7, &c.) ; still less can we
affirm that the latter end of a sentence never forgets the
beginning (Rom. ii. 17 21; v. 12 18; ix. 22; xvi.
25- -27 ; &c. &c.). Foreign influences tend to derange
the strong natural perception or remembrance of the
analogy of our own language. That is very likely to
have occurred in the case of some of the writers of the
New Testament ; that there is such a derangement, is a
fact. There is no probability in favour of St. Paul
writing in broken sentences, but there is no impro
bability which should lead us to assume in such
sentences, continuous grammar and thought, as appears
to have been the feeling of the copyists who have cor
rected the anacolutha. The occurrence of them
further justifies the interpreter in using some freedom
with other passages in which the syntax does not
absolutely break down. When confusion of two
constructions/ meaning to say one thing and finishing
with another / * saying two things in one instead of
disposing them in their logical sequence/ are attributed
to the Apostle ; the use of these and similar expres
sions is defended by the fact that more numerous
anacolutha occur in St. Paul s writings than in any
equal portion of the New Testament, and far more
than in the writings of any other Greek author of
equal length.

Passing from the grammatical structure, we may
briefly consider the logical character of the language
of the New Testament. Two things should be here
distinguished, the logical form and the logical sequence
of thought. Some ages have been remarkable

400 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

for the former of these two characteristics ; they have
dealt in opposition, contradiction, climax, pleonasm,
reason within reason, and the like ; mere statements
taking the form of arguments- -each sentence seeming
to be a link in a chain. In such periods of literature,
the appearance of logic is rhetorical, and is to be set
down to the style. That is the case with many passages
in the !STew Testament which are studded with logical
or rhetorical formulae, especially in the Epistles of St.
Paul. Nothing can be more simple or natural than
the object of the writer. Yet forms of the schools
appear (whether learnt at the feet of Gamaliel, that
reputed master of Greek learning, or not,) which imply
a degree of logical or rhetorical training.

The observation of this rhetorical or logical element
has a bearing on the Interpretation of Scripture. For
it leads us to distinguish between the superficial con
nexion of words and the real connexion of thoughts.
Otherwise injustice is done to the argument of the
sacred writer, who may be supposed to violate logical
rules, of which he is unconscious. For example, the
argument of Rom. iii. 19, may be classed by the
logicians under some head of fallacy ( Ex aliquo non
sequitur omnis ) ; the series of inferences which follow
one another in Eom. i. 16 18, are for the most part
different aspects or statements of the same truth.
So in Eom. i. 32 the climax rather appears to be an
anticlimax. But to dwell on these things interferes
with the true perception of the Apostle s meaning
which is not contained in the repetitions of yap by
which it is hooked together ; nor are we accurately to
weigh the proportions expressed by his ov pnvov-
a\\a Kal; or TroAXJ pa \\ov ; neither need we suppose
that where plv is found alone, there was a reason for the
omission of &, (Eom. i. 8 ; iii. 2) ; or that the opposition
of words and sentences is always the opposition of
ideas (Eom. v. 7 ; x. 10). It is true that these and similar
forms or distinctions of language, admit of translation

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 401

into English ; and in every case the interpreter may
find some point of view in which the simplest truth of
feeling may be drawn out in an antithetical or argu
mentative form. But whether these points of view
were in the Apostle s mind at the time of writing may
be doubted ; the real meaning, or kernel, seems to lie
deeper and to be more within. When we pass from
the study of each verse to survey the whole at a greater
distance, the form of thought is again seen to be unim
portant in comparison of the truth which is contained
in it. The same remark may be extended to the
opposition, not only of words, but of ideas, which is
found in the Scriptures generally, and almost seems
to be inherent in human language itself. The law
is opposed to faith, good to evil, the spirit to the
flesh, light to darkness, the world to the believer,
the sheep are set on his right hand, but the goats on
the left/ The influence of this logical opposition
has been great and not always without abuse in prac
tice. For the opposition is one of ideas only which is
not realized in fact. Experience shows us not that
there are two classes of men animated by two oppos
ing principles, but an infinite number of classes or
individuals from the lowest depth of misery and sin to
the highest perfection of which human nature is ca
pable, the best not wholly good, the worst not entirely
evil. But the figure or mode of representation changes
these differences of degree into differences of kind.
And we often think and speak and act in reference both
to ourselves and others, as though the figure were
altogether a reality.

Other questions arise out of the analysis of the
modes of thought of Scripture. Unless we are willing
to use words without inquiring into their meaning, it is
necessary for us to arrange them in some relation
to our own minds. The modes of thought of the
Old Testament are not the same with those of the
New, and those of the New are only partially the

D B

402 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

same with those in use among ourselves at the present
day. The education of the human mind may be
traced as clearly from the Book of Genesis to the
Epistles of St. Paul, as from Homer to Plato and
Aristotle. When we hear St. Paul speaking of
* body and soul and spirit/ we know that such lan
guage as this would not occur in the Books of Moses
or in the Prophet Isaiah. It has the colour of a later
age, in which abstract terms have taken the place of
expressions derived from material objects. When we
proceed further to compare these or other words or
expressions of St. Paul with the body and mind/ or
mind and matter/ which is a distinction, not only of
philosophy, but of common language among ourselves,
it is not easy at once to determine the relation between
them. Familiar as is the sound of both expressions,
many questions arise when we begin to compare them.

This is the metaphysical difficulty in the Interpre
tation of Scripture, which it is better not to ignore,
because the consideration of it is necessary to the
understanding of many passages, and also because it
may return upon us in the form of materialism or
scepticism. To some who are not aware how little
words affect the nature of things it may seem to raise
speculations of a very serious kind. Their doubts
would, perhaps, find expression in some such excla
mations as the following : How is religion possible
when modes of thought are shifting ? and words
changing their meaning, and statements of doctrine
though starched with philosophy, are in perpetual
danger of dissolution from metaphysical analysis ?

The answer seems to be, that Christian truth is not
dependent on the fixedness of modes of thought. The
metaphysician may analyse the ideas of the mind just
as the physiologist may analyse the powers or parts
of the bodily frame, yet morality and social life still
go on, as in the body digestion is uninterrupted.
That is not an illustration only ; it represents the fact.
Though we had no words for mind, matter, soul,

On the Interpretation of Scripture.

body, and the like, Christianity would remain the
same. This is obvious, whether we think of the case
of the poor, who understand such distinctions very
imperfectly, or of those nations of the earth, who have
no precisely corresponding division of ideas. It is
not of that subtle or evanescent character which is
liable to be lost in shifting the use of terms. Indeed,
it is an advantage at times to discard these terms with
the view of getting rid of the oppositions to which
they give rise. No metaphysical analysis can prevent
our taking up the cross and following Christ, or receiv
ing the kingdom of heaven as little children. To analyse
the trichotomy 5 of St. Paul is interesting as a chapter
in the history of the human mind and necessary as a
part of Biblical exegesis, but it has nothing to do with
the religion of Christ. Christian duties may be en
forced, and the life of Christ may be the centre of our
thoughts, whether we speak of reason and faith, of
soul and body, or of mind and matter, or adopt a mode
of speech which dispenses with any of these divisions.
Connected with the modes of thought or represen
tation in Scripture, are the figures of speech of
Scripture, about which the same question may be
asked : What division can we make between the
figure and the reality ? And the answer seems to be
of the same kind, that We cannot precisely draw the
line between them/ Language, and especially the
language of Scripture, does not admit of any sharp
distinction. The simple expressions of one age become
the allegories or figures of another ; many of those in
the New Testament are taken from the Old. But neither
is there anything really essential in the form of these
figures ; nay, the literal application of many of them
has been a great stumblingblock to the reception of
Christianity. A recent commentator on Scripture
appears willing to peril religion on the literal truth of
such an expression as We shall be caught up to meet
the Lord in the air. Would he be equally ready to

D D 2

404 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

stake Christianity on the literal meaning of tlie words,
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched ?

Of what has been said, this is the sum ; c That
Scripture, like other books, has one meaning, which is
to be gathered from itself without reference to the
adaptations of Fathers or Divines ; and without regard
to a priori notions about its nature and origin. It is
to be interpreted like other books, with attention to
tlie character of its authors, and the prevailing state
of civilization and knowledge, with allowance for
peculiarities of style and language, and modes of
thought and figures of speech. Yet not without a
sense that as we read there grows upon us the
witness of God in the world, anticipating in a rude*
and primitive age the truth that was to be, shining
more and more unto the perfect day in the life of
Christ, which again is reflected from different points
of view in the teaching of His Apostles/

.

It has been a principal aim of the preceding pages

to distinguish the interpretation from the application
of Scripture* Many of the errors alluded to, arise out
of a confusion of the two. The present is nearer to
us than the past, the circumstances which surround
us pre-occupy our thoughts ; it is only by an effort
that we reproduce the ideas, or events, or persons of
other ages. And thus, quite naturally, almost by a
law of the human mind, the application of Scripture
takes the place of its original meaning. And the
question is, not how to get rid of this natural ten
dency, but how we may have the true use of it. For
it cannot be got rid of, or rather is one of the chief
instruments of religious usefulness in the world:
Ideas must be given through something ; those of
religion find their natural expression in the words of
Scripture, in the adaptation of which to another state

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 405

of life it is hardly possible that the first intention of
the writers should be always preserved. Interpreta*
tion is the province of few ; it requires a finer per
ception of language, and a higher degree of cultiva
tion than is attained by the majority of mankind.
But applications are made by all, from the philosopher
reading God in History/ to the poor woman who
finds in them a response to her prayers, and the solace
of her daily life. In the hour of death we do not
want critical explanations ; in most cases, those to
whom they would be offered are incapable of under
standing them. A few words, breathing the sense of
the whole Christian world, such as I know that my
Eedeemer liveth (though the exact meaning of them
may be doubtful to the Hebrew scholar) ; * I shall go
to him, but he shall not return to me \ touch a chord
which would never be reached by the most skilful ex
position of the argument of one of St. Paul s Epistles.
There is also a use of Scripture in education and
literature. This literary use, though secondary to
the religious one, is not unimportant. It supplies a
common language to the educated and uneducated, in
which the best and highest thoughts of both are
expressed; it is a medium between the abstract
notions of the one and the simple feelings of the
other. To the poor especially, it conveys in the form
which they are most capable of receiving, the lesson of
history and life. The beauty and power of speech
and writing would be greatly impaired, if the Scrip
tures ceased to be known or used among us. The
orator seems to catch from them a sort of inspiration ;
in the simple words of Scripture which he stamps
anew, the philosopher often finds his most pregnant
expressions. If modern times have been richer in
the wealth of abstract thought, the contribution of
earlier ages to the mind of the world has not been
less, but, perhaps greater, in supplying the poetry of
language. There is no such treasury of instruments

4

406 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

and materials as Scripture. The loss of Homer, or the
loss of Shakespear, would have affected the whole
series of Greek or English authors who follow. But
the disappearance of the Bible from the books which
the world contains, would produce results far greater ;
we can scarcely conceive the degree in which it would
alter literature and language the ideas of the edu
cated and philosophical, as well as the feelings and
habits of mind of the poor. If it has been said, with
an allowable hyperbole, that Homer is Greece/
with much more truth may it be said, that the Bible
is Christendom/

Many by whom considerations of this sort will be
little understood, may, nevertheless, recognise the use
made of the Old Testament in the New. The religion
of Christ was first taught by an application of the
words of the Psalms and the Prophets. Our Lord
Himself sanctions this application. Can there be a
better use of Scripture than that which is made by
Scripture ? Or any more likely method of teaching
the truths of Christianity than that by which they
were first taught ? For it may be argued that the
critical interpretation of Scripture is a device almost
of yesterday ; it is the vocation of the scholar or
philosopher, not of the Apostle or Prophet. The new
truth which was introduced into the Old Testament,
rather than the old truth which was found there, was
the salvation and the conversion of the world. There
are many quotations from the Psalms and the
Prophets in the Epistles, in which the meaning is
quickened or spiritualized, but hardly any, probably
none, which is based on the original sense or con
text. That is not so singular a phenomenon as
may at first sight be imagined. It may appear
strange to us that Scripture should be inter
preted in Scripture, in a manner not altogether in
agreement with modern criticism ; but would it
not be more strange that it should be interpreted
otherwise, than in agreement with the ideas of

On tJte Interpretation of Scripture. 407

the age or country in which it was written ? The
observation that there is such an agreement, leads to
two conclusions which have a bearing on our present
subject. First, it is a reason for not insisting on the
applications which the New Testament makes of
passages in the Old, as their original meaning.
Secondly, it gives authority and precedent for the use
of similar applications in our own day.

But, on the other hand, though interwoven with
literature, though common to all ages of the Church,
though sanctioned by our Lord and His Apostles, it is
easy to see that such an employment of Scripture is
liable to error and perversion. For it may not only
receive a new meaning ; it may be applied in a spirit
alien to itself. It may become the symbol of fanati
cism, the cloke of malice, the disguise of policy.
Cromwell at Drogheda, quoting Scripture to his
soldiers; the w^ell-known attack on the Puritans in
the State Service for the Eestoration, Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord; the reply of the
Venetian Ambassador to the suggestion of Wolsey,
that Venice should take a lead in Italy, ivhich was
only the Earth is the Lord s and the fulness thereof/
are examples of such uses. In former times, it was a
real and not an imaginary fear, that the wars of the
Lord in the Old Testament might arouse a fire in the
bosom of Franks and Huns. In our own day such
dangers have passed away; it is only a figure of
speech when the preacher says, Gird on thy sword,
thou most mighty. The warlike passions of men
are not roused by quotations from Scripture, nor can
states of life such as slavery or polygamy which
belong to a past age, be defended, at least in England,
by the example of the Old Testament. The danger or
error is of another kind ; more subtle, but hardly less
real. For if we are permitted to apply Scripture
under the pretence of interpreting it, the language of
Scripture becomes only a mode of expressing the
public feeling or opinion of our own day. Any

408 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

passing phase of politics or art, or spurious phi
lanthropy, may have a kind of Scriptural authority.
The words that are used are the words of the Prophet
or Evangelist, but we stand behind and adapt them to
our purpose. Hence it is necessary to consider the
limits and manner of a just adaptation ; how much
may be allowed for the sake of ornament how far the
Scripture, in all its details, may be regarded as an
allegory of human life where the true analogy
begins how far the interpretation of Scripture will
serve as a corrective to its practical abuse.

Truth seems to require that we should separate
mere adaptations, from the original meaning of Scrip
ture. It is not honest or reasonable to confound
illustration with argument, in theology, any more than
in other subjects. For example, if a preacher chooses
to represent the condition of a church or of an indi
vidual in the present day, under the figure of Elijah
left alone among the idolatrous tribes of Israel, such
an allusion is natural enough ; but if lie goes on to
argue that individuals are therefore justified in re
maining in what they believe to be an erroneous com
munion that is a mere appearance of argument
which ought not to have the slightest weight with a
man of sense. Such a course may indeed be perfectly
justifiable, but not on the ground that a prophet of
the Lord once did so, two thousand five hundred years
ago. Not in this sense were the lives of the Prophets
written for our instruction. There are many impor
tant morals conveyed by them, but only so far as they
themselves represent universal principles of justice
and love. These universal principles they clothe with
flesh and blood ; they show them to us written on the
hearts of men of like passions with ourselves. The
prophecies, again, admit of many applications to the
Christian Church or to the Christian life. There is
no harm in speaking of the Church as the Spiritual
Israel, or in using the imagery of Isaiah respecting

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 409

Messiah s kingdom, as the type of good things to
come. But when it is gravely urged, that from such
passages as Kings shall be thy nursing fathers/ we
are to collect the relations of Church and State, or
from the pictorial description of Isaiah, that it is to
be inferred there will be a reign, of Christ on earth
that is a mere assumption of the forms of reasoning
by the imagination. Nor is it a healthful or manly
tone of feeling which depicts the political opposition
to the Church in our own day, under imagery which
is borrowed from the desolate Sion of the captivity.
Scripture is apt to come too readily to the lips, when
we are pouring out our own weaknesses, or enlarging
on some favourite theme perhaps idealizing in the
language of prophecy the feebleness of preaching or
missions in the present day, or from the want of
something else to say. In many discussions on these
and similar subjects, the position of the Jewish King,
Church, Priest, has led to a confusion, partly caused
by the use of similar words in modern senses among
ourselves. The King or Queen of England may be
called the Anointed of the Lord, but we should not
therefore imply that the attributes of sovereignty are
the same as those which belonged to King David.
All these are figures of speech, the employment of
which is too common, and has been injurious to
religion, because it prevents our looking at the facts
of history or life as they truly are.

This is the first step towards a more truthful use of
Scripture in practice the separation of adaptation
from interpretation. No one who is engaged in
preaching or in religious instruction can be required
to give up Scripture language ; it is the common ele
ment in which his thoughts and those of his hearers
move. But he may be asked to distinguish the words
of Scripture from the truths of Scripture the means
from the end. The least expression of Scripture is
weighty ; it affects the minds of the hearers in a way

410 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

that no other language can. Whatever responsibility
attaches to idle words, attaches in still greater degree
to the idle or fallacious use of Scripture terms. And
there is surely a want of proper reverence for Scrip
ture, when we confound the weakest and feeblest ap
plications of its words with their true meaning when
we avail ourselves of their natural power to point
them against some enemy when we divert the eter
nal words of charity and truth into a defence of some
passing opinion. For not only in the days of the
Pharisees, but in our own, the letter has been taking
the place of the spirit ; the least matters, of the greatest,
and the primary meaning has been lost in the secon
dary use.

Other simple cautions may also be added. The
applications of Scripture should be harmonized and,
as it were, interpenetrated with the spirit of the
Gospel, the whole of which should be in every part ;
though the words may receive a new sense, the new
sense ought to be in agreement with the general truth.
They should be used to bring home practical precepts,
not to send the imagination on a voyage of discovery ;
they are not the real foundation of our faith in another
world, nor can they, by pleasant pictures, add to our
knowledge of it. They should not confound the acci
dents with the essence of religion the restrictions
and burdens of the Jewish law with the freedom of
the Gospel- -the things which Moses allowed for the
hardness of the heart, with the perfection of the teach
ing of Christ. They should avoid the form of argu
ments, or they will insensibly be used, or understood
to mean more than they really do. They should be
subjected to an overruling principle, which is the heart
and conscience of the Christian teacher, who indeed
stands behind them/ not to make them the vehicles
of his own opinions, but as the expressions of justice,
and truth, and love.

And here the critical interpretation of Scripture

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 411

comes in and exercises a corrective influence on its
popular use. We have already admitted that criticism
is not for the multitude ; it is not what the Scripture
terms the Grospel preached for the poor. Yet, indi
rectly passing from the few to the many, it has home
a great part in the Eeformation of religion. It has
cleared the eye of the mind to understand the ori
ginal meaning. It was a sort of criticism which
supported the struggle of the sixteenth century
against the Koman Catholic Church ; it is criti
cism that is leading Protestants to douht whe
ther the doctrine that the Pope is Antichrist, which
has descended from the same period, is really discove
rable in Scripture. Even the isolated thinker, against
whom the religious world is taking up arms, has an
influence on his opponents. The force of observa
tions, which are based on reason and fact, remains
when the tide of religious or party feeling is gone
down. Criticism has also a healing influence in clear
ing away what may be termed the Sectarianism of
knowledge. Without criticism it would be impossible
to reconcile History and Science with Revealed Reli
gion ; they must remain for ever in a hostile and
defiant attitude. Instead of being like other records,
subject to the conditions of knowledge which existed
in an early stage of the world, Scripture would be re
garded on the one side as the work of organic Inspi
ration, and as a lying imposition on the other.

The real unity of Scripture, as of man, has also a
relation to our present subject. Amid all the differ
ences of modes of thought and speech which have
existed in different aeres, of which much is said in our

O

own day, there is a common element in human nature
which bursts through these differences and remains
unchanged, because akin to the first instincts of our
being. The simple feeling of truth and right is the
same to the Greek or Hindoo as to ourselves. How
ever great may be the diversities of human character,

412 On tlie Interpretation of Scripture.

there is a point at which these diversities end, and
unity begins to appear. Now, this admits of an ap
plication to the books of Scripture, as well as to the
world generally. Written at many different times, in
more than one language, some of them in fragments,
they, too, have a common element of which the
preacher may avail himself. This element is two
fold, partly divine and partly human ; the revelation
of the truth and righteousness of God, and the cry of
the human heart towards Him Every part of Scrip
ture tends to raise us above ourselves to give us a
deeper sense of the feebleness of man, and of the
wisdom and power of God. It has a sort of kindred,
as Plato would say, with religious truth everywhere
in the world. It agrees also with the imperfect stages
of knowledge and faith in human nature, and answers
to its inarticulate cries. The universal truth easily
breaks through the accidents of time and place in
which it is involved. Although we cannot apply
Jewish institutions to the Christian world, or venture
in reliance on some text to resist the tide of civilization
on which we are borne, yet it remains, nevertheless, to
us, as well as to the Jews and first Christians, that
Righteousness exalteth a nation/ and that love is
the fulfilling not of the Jewish law only, but of all
law.

In some cases, we have only to enlarge the meaning
of Scripture to apply it even to the novelties and
peculiarities of our own times. The world changes,
but the human heart remains the same ; events and
details are different, but the principle by which they
are governed, or the rule by which we are to act, is
not different. When, for example, our Saviour says,
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free/ it is not likely that these words would have
conveyed to the minds of the Jews who heard Him
any notion of the perplexities of doubt or inquiry.
Yet we cannot suppose that our Saviour, were He to

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 413

come again upon earth, would refuse thus to extend
them. The Apostle St. Paul, when describing the
Gospel, which is to the Greek foolishness, speaks also
of a higher wisdom which is known to those who are
perfect. Neither is it unfair for us to apply this pas
sage to that reconcilement of faith and knowledge,
which may be termed Christian philosophy, as the
nearest equivalent to its language in our own day.
Such words, again, as Why seek ye the living among
the dead? admit of a great variety of adapta
tions to the circumstances of our own time. Many of
these adaptations have a real germ in the meaning of
the words. The precept, Render unto Csesar the
things that are Csesar s, and to God the things that
are God s, may be taken generally as expressing the
necessity of distinguishing the divine and human the
things that belong to faith and the things that belong
to experience. It is worth remarking in the applica
tion made of these words by Lord Bacon, Da fidei
quae fidei sunt ; that, although the terms are altered,
yet the circumstance that the form of the sentence is
borrowed from Scripture gives them point and weight.
The portion of Scripture which more than any
other is immediately and universally applicable to our
own times is, doubtless, that which is contained in the
words of Christ Himself. The reason is that they are
words of the most universal import. They do not
relate to the circumstances of the time, but to the
common life of all mankind. You cannot extract
from them a political creed ; only, Render unto
Csesar the things that are Caesar s, and The Scribes
and Pharisees sit in Moses seat ; whatsoever, there
fore, they say unto you do, but after their works do
not/ They present to us a standard of truth and
duty, such as no one can at once and immediately
practise such as, in its perfection, no one has fulfilled
in this world. But this idealism does not interfere
with their influence as a religious lesson. Ideals,

414 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

even though unrealized, have effect on our daily life.
The preacher of the Gospel is, or ought to be, aware
that his calls to repentance, his standard of obliga
tions, his lamentations over his own shortcomings or
those of others, do not at once convert hundreds or
thousands, as on the day of Pentecost. Yet it does
not follow that they are thrown away, or that it would
be well to substitute for them mere prudential or
economical lessons, lectures on health or sanitary im
provement. For they tend to raise men above them
selves, providing them with Sabbaths as well as work
ing days, giving them a taste of the good word of G od
and of the powers of the world to come. 7 Human
nature needs to be idealized ; it seems as if it took a
dislike to itself when presented always in its ordinary
attire ; it lives on in the hope of becoming better. And
the image or hope of a better life the vision of Christ
crucified which is held up to it, doubtless has an in
fluence ; not like the rushing mighty wind of the day
of Pentecost ; it may rather be compared to the
leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures
of meal, till the whole was leavened/

The Parables of our Lord are a portion of the New
Testament, which we may apply in the most easy and
literal manner. The persons in them are the persons
among whom we live and move ; there are times and
occasions at which the truths symbolized by them
come home to the hearts of all who have ever been
impressed by religion. We have been prodigal
sons returning to our Father; servants to whom
talents have been entrusted ; labourers in the vineyard
inclined to murmur at our lot, when compared with
that of others, yet receiving every man his due ; well-
satisfied Pharisees ; repentant Publicans : we have
received the seed, and the cares of the world have
choked it we hope also at times that we have found
the pearl of great price after sweeping the house we
are ready like the Good Samaritan to show kindness

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 415

to all mankind. Of these circumstances of life or
phases of mind, which are typified by the parables,
most Christians have experience. We may go on to
apply many of them further to the condition of nations
and churches. Such a treasury has Christ provided
us of things new and old, which refer to all time
and all mankind may we not say in His own words-
Because He is the Son of Man ?

There is no language of Scripture which penetrates
the individual soul, and embraces all the world in the
arms of its love, in the same manner as that of Christ
Himself. Yet the Epistles contain lessons which are
not found in the Gospels, or, at least, not expressed
with the same degree of clearness. For the Epistles
are nearer to actual life they relate to the circum
stances of the first believers, to their struggles with
the world without, to their temptations and divisions
from within- -their subject is not only the doctrine of
the Christian religion, but the business of the early
Church. And although their circumstances are not
our circumstances we are not afflicted or persecuted,
or driven out of the world, but in possession of the
blessings, and security, and property of an esta
blished religion yet there is a Christian spirit which
infuses itself into all circumstances, of which they are
a pure and living source. It is impossible to gather
from a few fragmentary and apparently not always
consistent expressions, how the Communion was cele
brated, or the Church ordered, what was the relative
position of Presbyters and Deacons, or the nature of
the gift of tongues, as a rule for the Church in after
ages ; such inquiries have no certain answer, and at
the best, are only the subject of honest curiosity. But
the words, Charity never faileth/ and Though I
speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and
have not charity, I am nothing, these have a voice
which reaches to the end of time. There are no
questions of meats and drinks now-a-days, yet the

416 On the Interpretation of Scripture,

noble words of the Apostle remain : If meat make
my "brother to offend^ I will eat no flesh while
the world standeth, lest I make my brother to of-
fend/ Moderation in controversy, toleration towards,
opponents, or erring members, is a virtue which has
been thought by many to belong to the develop
ment and not to the origin of Christianity, and which
is rarely found in the commencement of a religion.
But lessons of toleration may be gathered from the
Apostle, which have not yet been learned either by theo
logians or by mankind in general. The persecutions
and troubles which awaited the Apostle, no longer
await us; we cannot, therefore, without unreality,
except, perhaps, in a very few cases, appropriate his
words, I have fought the good fight, I have finished
my course, I have kept the faith/ But that other text
still sounds gently in our ears : f My strength is per
fected in weakness, and * when I am weak, then am I
strong/ We cannot apply to ourselves the language
of authority in which the Apostle speaks of himself as
an ambassador for Christ, without something like bad
taste. But it is not altogether an imaginary hope
that those of us who are ministers of Christ, may
attain to a real imitation of his great diligence, of his
sympathy with others, and consideration for them of
his willingness to spend and be spent in his Master s
service.

Such are a few instances of the manner in which
the analogy of faith enables us to apply the words of
Christ and His Apostles,, with a strict regard to their
original meaning. But the Old Testament has also
its peculiar lessons which are not conveyed with
equal point or force in the New. The beginnings of
human history are themselves a lesson having a fresh
ness as of the early dawn. There are forms of evil
against which the Prophets and the prophetical spirit
of the Law carry on a warfare, in terms aim ost too bold
for the way of life of modern times. There, more

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 417

plainly than in any other portion of Scripture, is ex
pressed the antagonism of outward and inward, of
ceremonial and moral, of mercy and sacrifice. There
all the masks of hypocrisy are rudely torn asunder, in
which an unthinking world allows itself to be dis
guised. There the relations of rich and poor in the
sight of God, and their duties towards one another, are
most clearly enunciated. There the religion of
suffering first appears adversity, the blessing of
the Old Testament, as well as of the New. There the
sorrows and aspirations of the soul find their deepest
expression, and also their consolation. The feeble
person has an image of himself in the bruised reed ;
the suffering servant of God passes into the beloved
one, in whom my soul delighteth. Even the latest
and most desolate phases of the human mind are re
flected in Job and Ecclesiastes ; yet not without the
solemn assertion that to fear God and keep his com
mandments is the beginning and end of all things.

It is true that there are examples in the Old Testa
ment which were not written for our instruction, and
that, in some instances, precepts or commands are at
tributed to God Himself, which must be regarded as
relative to the state of knowledge which then existed
of the Divine nature, or given for the hardness of
men s hearts. 3 It cannot be denied that such passages
of Scripture are liable to misunderstanding ; the
spirit of the Old Covenanters, although no longer
appealing to the action of Samuel, hewing A gag in
pieces before the Lord in Gilgal/ is not altogether
extinguished. And a community of recent origin in
America found their doctrine of polygamy on the
Old Testament. But the poor generally read the
Bible unconsciously ; they take the good, and catch
the prevailing spirit, without stopping to reason
whether this or that practice is sanctioned by the
custom or example of Scripture. The child is only
struck by the impiety of the children who mocked the

E E

418 On Uie Interpretation of Scripture.

prophet ; he does not think of the severity of the
punishment which is inflicted on them. And the
poor, in this respect, are much like children ; their
reflection on the morality or immorality of characters
or events is suppressed by reverence for Scripture.
The Christian teacher has a sort of tact by which he
guides them to perceive only the spirit of the Gospel
everywhere ; they read in the Psalms, of David s sin
and repentance ; of the never-failing goodness of (rod
to him, and his never-failing trust in Him, not of his
imprecations against his enemies. Such difficulties
are greater in theory and on paper, than in the
management of a school or parish. They are found to
affect the half-educated, rather than either the poor, or
those who are educated in a higher sense. To be
above such difficulties is the happiest condition of
human life and knowledge, or to be below them ; to see,
or think we see, how they may be reconciled with
Divine power and wisdom, or not to see how they are
apparently at variance with them.

Some application of the preceding subject may be
further made to theology and life.

Let us introduce this concluding inquiry with two
remarks.

First, it may be observed, that a change in some of
the prevailing modes of interpretation is not so much
a matter of expediency as of necessity. The original
meaning of Scripture is beginning to be clearly un
derstood. But the apprehension of the original
meaning is inconsistent with the reception of a typical
or conventional one. The time will come when edu
cated men will be no more able to believe that the
words, " Out of Egypt have I called my son" (Matth.
ii. 15 ; Hosea xi. i), were intended by the prophet to
refer to the return of Joseph and Mary from Egypt,
than they are now able to believe the Roman Catholic
explanation of Gen. iii. 15, Ipsa conteret caput

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 419

tuurn. They will no more think that the first chap
ters of Genesis relate the same tale which Geology
and Ethnology unfold than they now think the mean
ing of Joshua x. 12, 13, to be in accordance with
Galileo s discovery.

From the circumstance that in former ages there
has been a four-fold or a seven-fold Interpretation of
Scripture, we cannot argue to the possibility of up
holding any other than the original one in our own.
The mystical explanations of Origen or Philo were
not seen to be mystical ; the reasonings of Aquinas
and Calvin were not supposed to go beyond the letter
of the text. They have now become the subject of
apology ; it is justly said that we should not judge the
greatness of the Fathers or Reformers by their suit
ableness to our own day. But this defence of them
shows that their explanations of Scripture are no
longer tenable ; they belong to a way of thinking and
speaking which was once diffused over the world, but
has now passed away. And what we give up as a
general principle we shall find it impossible to main
tain partially, e. g., in the types of the Mosaic Law
and the double meanings of prophecy, at least, in any
sense in which it is not equally applicable to all deep
and suggestive writings.

The same observation may be applied to the histori
cal criticism of Scripture. From the fact that Paley
or Butler were regarded in their generation as supply
ing c, triumphant answer to the enemies of Scripture,
we cannot argue that their answer will be satisfactory
to those who inquire into such subjects in our own.
Criticism has far more power than it formerly had ; it
has spread itself over ancient, and even modern, his
tory ; it extends to the thoughts and ideas of men as
well as to words and facts ; it has also a great place in
education. Whether the habit of mind which has
been formed in classical studies will not go on to
Scripture ; whether Scripture can be made an excep-

E E 2

420 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

tion to other ancient writings, now that the nature of
both is more understood ; whether in the fuller light
of history and science the views of the last century
will hold out these are questions respecting which
the course of religious opinion in the past does not
afford the means of truly judging.

II. It has to be considered whether the intellectual
forms under which Christianity has been described
may not also be in a state of transition and resolution,
in this respect contrasting with the never-changing
truth of the Christian life, (i Cor. xiii. 8.) Looking
backwards at past ages, we experience a kind of
amazement at the minuteness of theological distinc
tions, and also at their permanence. They seem to
have borne a part in the education of the Christian
world, in an age when language itself had also a
greater influence than now- a- days. It is admitted
that these distinctions are not observed in the New
Testament, and are for the most part of a later growth.
But little is gained by setting up theology against
Scripture, or Scripture against theology; the Bible
against the Church, or the Church against the Bible.
At different periods either has been a bulwark against
some form of error : either has tended to correct the
abuse of the other. A true inspiration guarded the
writers of the JSTew Testament from Gnostic or Mani-
chean tenets ; at a later stage, a sound instinct pre
vented the Church from dividing the humanity and
Divinity of Christ. It may be said that the spirit
of Christ forbids us to determine beyond what is
written ; and the decision of the council of
Nicsea has been described by an eminent English pre
late as the greatest misfortune that ever befel the
Christian world/ That is, perhaps, true ; yet a dif
ferent decision would have been a greater misfortune.
Nor does there seem any reason to suppose that the
human mind could have been arrested in its theolo
gical course. It is a mistake to imagine that the

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 421

dividing and splitting of words is owing to the de
pravity of the human heart ; was it not rather an in
tellectual movement (the only phenomenon of progress
then going on among men) which led, by a sort of
necessity, some to go forward to the completion of the
system, while it left others to stand aside ? A veil
was on the human understanding in the great contro
versies which absorbed the Church in earlier ages ;
the cloud which the combatants themselves raised
intercepted the view. They did not see they could
not have imagined that there was a world which lay
beyond the range of the controversy.

And now, as the Interpretation of Scripture is re
ceiving another character, it seems that distinctions of
theology, which were in great measure based on old
Interpretations, are beginning to fade away. A change
is observable in the manner in which doctrines are
stated and defended ; it is no longer held sufficient to
rest them on texts of Scripture, one, two, or more,
which contain, or appear to contain, similar words or
ideas. They are connected more closely with our
moral nature ; extreme consequences are shunned ;
large allowances are made for the ignorance of man
kind. It is held that there is truth on both sides;
about many questions there is a kind of union of op-
posites ; others are admitted to have been verbal only ;
all are regarded in the light which is thrown upon them
by church history and religious experience. A theory
has lately been put forward, apparently as a defence
of the Christian faith, which denies the objective cha
racter of any of them. And there are other signs
that times are changing, and we are changing too,
It would be scarcely possible at present to revive the
interest which was felt less than twenty years ago in
the doctrine of Baptismal Eegeneration ; nor would
the arguments by which it was supported or impugned
have the meaning which they once had. The com
munion of the Lord s Supper is also ceasing, at least

422 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

in the Church of England, to be a focus or centre of
disunion

Our greatest love turned to our greatest hate.

A silence is observable on some other points of doc
trine around which controversies swarmed a generation
ago. Persons begin to ask what was the real differ
ence which divided the two parties. They are no
longer within the magic circle, but are taking up a
position external to it. They have arrived at an age
of reflection, and begin to speculate on the action and
reaction, the irritation and counter-irritation, of reli
gious forces ; it is a common observation that revi
vals are not permanent ; the movement is criticised
even by those who are subject to its influence. In
the present state of the human mind, any considera
tion of these subjects, whether from the highest or
lowest or most moderate point of view, is unfavourable
to the stability of dogmatical systems, because it rouses
inquiry into the meaning of words. To the sense of
this is probably to be attributed the reserve on mat
ters of doctrine and controversy which characterizes
the present day, compared with the theological activity
of twenty years ago.

These reflections bring us back to the question with
which we began What effect will the critical inter
pretation of Scripture have on theology and on life ?
Their tendency is to show that the result is beyond
our control, and that the world is not unprepared for
it. More things than at first sight appear are moving
towards the same end. Religion often bids us think
of ourselves, especially in later life, as each one in his
appointed place, carrying on a work which is fashioned
within by unseen hands. The theologian, too, may
have peace in the thought that he is subject to the
conditions of his age rather than one of its moving
powers. When he hears theological inquiry censured
as tending to create doubt and confusion, he knows
very well that the cause of this is not to be sought in

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 423

the writings of so-called rationalists or critics who are
disliked partly because they unveil the age to itself;
but in the opposition of reason and feeling, of the past
and the present, in the conflict between the Calvimstic
tendencies of an elder generation, and the influences
which even in the same family naturally affect the
young.

This distraction of the human mind between adverse
influences and associations, is a fact which we should
have to accept and make the best of, whatever con
sequences might seem to follow to individuals or
Churches. It is not to be regarded as a merely
heathen notion that truth is to be desired for its own
sake even though no good result from it/ As a
Christian paradox it may be said, What hast thou
to do with good ; follow thou Me. But the Christian
revelation does not require of us this Stoicism in most
cases; it rather shows how good and truth are gene
rally coincident. Even in this life, there are number
less links which unite moral good with intellectual
truth. It is hardly too much to say that the one is
but a narrower form of the other. Truth is to the
world what holiness of life is to the individual to
man collectively the source of justice and peace and
good.

There are many ways in which the connexion be
tween truth and good may be traced in the interpre
tation of Scripture. Is it a mere chimera that the
different sections of Christendom may meet on the
common ground of the New Testament? Or that
the individual may be urged by the vacancy and un
profitableness of old traditions to make the Gospel his
own a life of Christ in the soul, instead of a theory
of Christ which is in a book or written down ? Or
that in missions to the heathen Scripture may become
the expression of universal truths rather than of the
tenets of particular men or churches ? That would
remove many obstacles to the reception of Christianity.

424 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

Or that the study of Scripture may have a more im
portant place in a liberal education than hitherto?
Or that the rational service of interpreting Scripture
may dry up the crude and dreamy vapours of religious
excitement ? Or, that in preaching, new sources of
spiritual health may flow from a more natural use of
Scripture ? Or that the lessons of Scripture may have
a nearer way to the hearts of the poor when dis
engaged from theological formulas ? Let us consider
more at length some of these topics.

i. No one casting his eye over the map of the
Christian world can desire that the present lines of
demarcation should always remain, any more than he
will be inclined to regard the division of Christians to
which he belongs himself, as in a pre-eminent or ex
clusive sense the Church of Christ. Those lines of
demarcation seem to be political rather than religious ;
they are differences of nations, or governments, or
ranks of society, more than of creeds or forms of faith.
The feeling which gave rise to them has, in a great
measure, passed away; no intelligent man seriously
inclines to believe that salvation is to be found only
in his own denomination. Examples of this sturdy
orthodoxy/ in our own generation, rather provoke a
smile than arouse serious disapproval. Yet many
experiments show that these differences cannot be
made up by any formal concordat or scheme of union;
the parties cannot be brought to terms, and if they
could, would cease to take an interest in the question
at issue. The friction is too great when persons are
invited to meet for a discussion of differences ; such a
process is like opening the doors and windows to put
out a slumbering flame. But that is no reason for
doubting that the divisions of the Christian world are
beginning to pass away. The progress of politics,
acquaintance with other countries, the growth of
knowledge and of material greatness, changes of
opinion in the Church of England, the present position

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 425

of the Bom an Communion all these phenomena show
that the ecclesiastical state of the world is not destined
to he perpetual. Within the envious harriers which
e divide human nature into very little pieces (Plato,
Rep. iii. 395), a common sentiment is springing up
of religious truth ; the essentials of Christianity are
contrasted with the details and definitions of it ; good
men of all religions find that they are more nearly
agreed than heretofore. Neither is it impossible that
this common feeling may so prevail over the acci
dental circumstances of Christian communities, that
their political or ecclesiastical separation may he little
felt. The walls which no adversary has scaled may
fall down of themselves. We may perhaps figure
to ourselves the hattle against error and moral evil
taking the place of one of sects and parties.

In this movement, which we should see more clearly
hut for the divisions of the Christian world which
partly conceal it, the critical interpretation of Scrip
ture will have a great influence. The Bible will he
no longer appealed to as the witness of the opinions of
particular sects, or of our own age; it will cease to be the
hattle field of controversies. But as its true meaning
is more clearly seen, its moral power will also he
greater. If the outward and inward witness, instead
of parting into two, as they once did, seem rather to
blend and coincide in the Christian consciousness, that
is not a source of weakness but of strength. The
Book itself, which links together the beginning and
end of the human race, will not have a less ines
timable value because the Spirit has taken the place of
the letter. Its discrepancies of fact, when we become
familiar with them, will seem of little consequence in
comparison with the truths which it unfolds. That
these truths, instead of floating down the stream of
tradition, or being lost in ritual observances, have
been preserved for ever in a book, is one of the many
blessings which the Jewish and Christian revelations

426 On lite Interpretation of Scripture.

have conferred on the world a blessing not the less
real, because it is not necessary to attribute it to
miraculous causes.

Again, the Scriptures are a bond of union to the
whole Christian world. No one denies their authority,
and could all be brought to an intelligence of their
true meaning,, all might come to agree in matters of
religion. That may seem to be a hope deferred, yet
not altogether chimerical. If it is not held to be a
thing impossible, that there should be agreement in
the meaning of Plato or Sophocles, neither is it to be
regarded as absurd, that there should be a like agree
ment in the interpretation of Scripture. The disap
pearance of artificial notions and systems will pave
the way to such an agreement. The recognition of
the fact, that many aspects and stages of religion are
found in Scripture ; that different, or even opposite
parties existed in the Apostolic Church ; that the first
teachers of Christianity had a separate and individual
mode of regarding the Gospel of Christ ; that any
existing communion is necessarily much more unlike
the brotherhood of love in the New Testament than
we are willing to suppose Protestants in some
respects, as much so as Catholics that rival sects in
our own day Calvinists and Arminians those who
maintain and those who deny the final restoration of
man may equally find texts which seem to favour
their respective tenets (Mark ix. 44 48 ; Bomans
xi. 32)- -the recognition of these and similar facts will
make us unwilling to impose any narrow rule of reli
gious opinion on the ever-varying conditions of the
human mind and Christian society.

II. Christian missions suggest another sphere in which
a more enlightened use of Scripture might offer a great
advantage to the teacher. The more he is himself pene
trated with the universal spirit of Scripture, the more
he will be able to resist the literal and servile habits
of mind of Oriental nations. You cannot transfer

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 427

English ways of belief, and almost the history of the
Church of England itself, as the attempt is sometimes
made not to an uncivilized people, ready like chil
dren to receive new impressions, but to an ancient
and decaying one, furrowed with the lines of thought,
incapable of the principle of growth. But you may
take the purer light or element of religion, of which
Christianity is the expression, and make it shine on
some principle in human nature which is the fallen
image of it. You cannot give a people who have
no history of their own, a sense of the importance
of Christianity, as an historical fact : but, perhaps, that
very peculiarity of their character may make them
more impressible by the truths or ideas of Chris
tianity. Neither is it easy to make them under
stand the growth of Revelation in successive ages
that there are precepts of the Old Testament which
are reversed in the New or that Moses allowed many
things for the hardness of men s hearts. They are
in one state of the world, and the missionary who
teaches them is in another, and the Book through
which they are taught, does not altogether coincide
with either. Many difficulties thus arise which we
are most likely to be successful in meeting, when we
look them in the face. To one inference they clearly
point, which is this : that it is not the Book of Scrip
ture which we should seek to give them, to be reve
renced like the Yedas or the Koran, and consecrated in
its words and letters, but the truth of the Book,
the mind of Christ and His Apostles, in which all
lesser details and differences should be lost and
absorbed. We want to awaken in them the sense
that Grod is their Father, and they His children ;-
that is of more importance than any theory about the
inspiration of Scripture. But to teach in this spirit,
the missionary should himself be able to separate the
accidents from the essence of religion ; he should be
conscious that the power of the Grospel resides not

428 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

in the particulars of theology, but in the Christian
life.

in. It may be doubted whether Scripture has ever
been sufficiently regarded as an element of liberal edu
cation. Few deem it worth while to spend in the study
of it the same honest thought or pains which are
bestowed on a classical author. Nor as at present
studied, can it be said always to have an elevating
effect. It is not a useful lesson for the young student
to apply to Scripture, principles which he would hesi
tate to apply to other books ; to make formal recon
cilements of discrepancies which he would not think
of reconciling in ordinary history ; to divide simple
words into double meanings ; to adopt the fancies or
conjectures of Fathers and Commentators as real
knowledge. This laxity of knowledge is apt to infect
the judgment when transferred to other subjects. It
is not easy to say how much of the unsettlement of
mind which prevails among intellectual young men is
attributable to these causes ; the mixture of truth and
falsehood in religious education, certainly tends to
impair, at the age when it is most needed, the early
influence of a religious home.

Yet Scripture studied in a more liberal spirit might
supply a part of education which classical literature
fails to provide. The best book for the heart might
also be made the best book for the intellect/ Che
noblest study of history and antiquity is contained in
it ; a poetry which is also the highest form of moral
teaching ; there, too, are lives of heroes and prophets,
and especially of One whom we do not name with
them, because He is above them. This history, or
poetry, or biography is distinguished from all classical
or secular writings by the contemplation of man as he
appears in the sight of God. That is a sense of
things into which we must grow as well as reason
ourselves, without which human nature is but a trun
cated, half-educated sort of being. But this sense or

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 429

consciousness of a Divine presence in the world, which
seems to be natural to the beginnings of the human
race, but fades away and requires to be renewed in its
after history, is not to be gathered from Greek or
Eoman literature, but from the Old and New Testament.
And before we can make the Old and New Testament
a real part of education, we must read them not by
the help of custom or tradition, in the spirit of apology
or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary
laws of human knowledge.

iv. Another use of Scripture is that in sermons,
which seems to be among the tritest, and yet is far
from being exhausted. If we could only be natural and
speak of things as they truly are with a real interest
and not merely a conventional one ! The words of
Scripture come readily to hand, and the repetition of
them requires no effort of thought in the writer or
speaker. But, neither does it produce any effect on
the hearer, which will always be in proportion to the
degree of feeling or consciousness in ourselves. It
may be said that originality is the gift of few ; no
Church can expect to have, not a hundred, but ten such
preachers as Robertson or Newman. But, without
originality, it seems possible to make use of Scripture
in sermons in a much more living way than at present.
Let the preacher make it a sort of religion, and proof
of his reverence for Scripture, that he never uses its
words without a distinct meaning ; let him avoid the
form of argument from Scripture, and catch the feeling
and spirit. Scripture is itself a kind of poetry, when not
overlaid with rhetoric. The scene and country has a
freshness which may always be renewed ; there is the
interest of antiquity and the interest of home or com
mon life as well. The facts and characters of Scripture
might receive a new reading by being described simply
as they are. The truths of Scripture again would
have greater reality if divested of the scholastic form
in which theology has cast them. The universal and

430 On tlie In terp ret a ft on of Scrip fure.

spiritual aspects of Scripture might be more brought
forward to the exclusion of questions of the Jewish
law, or controversies about the sacraments, or exagge
rated statements of doctrines which seem to be at
variance with morality. The life of Christ, regarded
quite naturally as of one who was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin/ is also the life
and centre of Christian teaching. There is no higher
aim which the preacher can propose to himself than to
awaken what may be termed the feeling of the pre
sence of God and the mind of Christ in Scripture ;
not to collect evidences about dates and books, or to
familiarize metaphysical distinctions ; but to make the
heart and conscience of his hearers bear him witness
that the lessons which are contained in Scripture
lessons of justice and truth lessons of mercy and
peace of the need of man and the goodness of God
to him, are indeed not human but divine.

v. It is time to make an end of this long disquisition
let the end be a few more words of application to the
circumstances of a particular class in the present age.
If any one who is about to become a clergyman feels
or thinks that he feels that some of the preceding state
ments cast a shade of trouble or suspicion on his future
walk of life, who, either from the influence of a stronger
mind than his own, or from some natural tendency in
himself, has been led to examine those great questions
which lie on the threshold of the higher study of
theology, and experiences a sort of shrinking or dizzi
ness at the prospect which is opening upon him ; let
him lay to heart the following considerations : First,
that he may possibly not be the person who is called
upon to pursue such inquiries. No man should busy
himself with them who has not clearness of mind
enough to see things as they are, and a faith strong
enough to rest in that degree of knowledge which Glod
has really given ; or who is unable to separate the truth
from his own religious wants and experiences. For
the theologian as well as the philosopher has need of

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 431

dry light/ c unmingled with any tincture of the
affections/ the more so as his conclusions are oftener
liable to he disordered hy them. He who is of
another temperament may find another work to do,
which is in some respects a higher one. Unlike
philosophy, the Gospel has an ideal life to offer, not to
a few only, but to all. There is one word of caution,
however, to be given to those who renounce inquiry ;
it is that they cannot retain the right to condemn
inquirers. Their duty is to say with Nicodemus,
Doth the Gospel condemn any man before it hear
him ? although the answer may be only Art thou
also of Galilee? They have chosen the path of
practical usefulness, and they should acknowledge
that it is a narrow path. For any but a strong
swimmer will be insensibly drawn out of it by the
tide of public opinion or the current of party.

Secondly, let him consider that the difficulty is not
so great as imagination sometimes paints it. It is a
difficulty which arises chiefly out of differences of
education in different classes of society. It is a
difficulty which tact, and prudence, and, much more,
the power of a Christian life may hope to surmount.
Much depends on the manner in which things are
said ; on the evidence in the writer or preacher of a
real good will to his opponents, and a desire for the
moral improvement of men. There is an aspect of
truth which may always be put forward so as to find
a way to the hearts of men. If there is danger and
shrinking from one point of view, from another, there
is freedom and sense of relief. The wider contem
plation of the religious world may enable us to
adjust our own place in it. The acknowledgment of
churches as political and national institutions is the
basis of a sound government of them. Criticism itself is
not only negative ; if it creates some difficulties, it does
away others. It may put us at variance with a party or
section of Christians in our own neighbourhood. But
on the other hand, it enables us to look at all men as

432 On the Interpretation of Scripture.

they are in the sight of God, not as they appear to
human eye, separated and often interdicted from each
other by lines of religious demarcation, it divides us
from the parts to unite us to the whole. That is a great
help to religious communion. It does away with the
supposed opposition of reason and faith. It throws us
back on the conviction that religion is a personal thing,
in which certainty is to be slowly won and not assumed
as the result of evidence or testimony. It places us, in
some respects (though it be deemed a paradox to say
so), more nearly in the position of the first Christians
to whom the New Testament was not yet given, in
whom the Gospel was a living word, not yet embodied
in forms or supported by ancient institutious.

Thirdly, the suspicion or difficulty which attends
critical inquiries is no reason for doubting their value.
The Scripture nowhere leads us to suppose that the
circumstance of all men speaking well of us is any
ground for supposing that we are acceptable in the
sight of God. And there is no reason why the con
demnation of others should be witnessed to by our
own conscience. Perhaps it may be true that, owing
to the jealousy or fear of some, the reticence of others,
the terrorism of a few, we may not always find
it easy to regard these subjects with calmness and
judgment. But, on the other hand, these accidental
circumstances have nothing to do with the question
at issue ; they cannot have the slightest influence on
the meaning of words, or on the truth of facts. No
one can carry out the principle that public opinion or
church authority is the guide to truth, when he goes
beyond the limits of his own church or country. That
is a consideration which may well make him pause
before he accepts of such a guide in the journey to
another world. All the arguments for repressing in
quiries into Scripture in Protestant countries hold
equally in Italy and Spain for repressing inquiries
into matters of fact or doctrine, and so for denying
the Scriptures to the common people.

On the Interpretation of Scripture. 433

Lastly, let him be assured that there is some nobler
idea of truth than is supplied by the opinion of man
kind in general, or the voice of parties in a church.
Every one, whether a student of theology or not, has
need to make war against his prejudices no less than
against his passions ; and, in the religious teacher, the
first is even more necessary than the last. For, while
the vices of mankind are in a great degree isolated,
and are, at any rate, reprobated by public opinion,
their prejudices have a sort of communion or kindred
with the world without. They are a collective evil,
and have their being in the interest, classes, states of
society, and other influences amid which we live. He
who takes the prevailing opinions of Christians and
decks them out in their gayest colours who reflects
the better mind of the world to itself is likely to be
its favourite teacher. In that ministry of the Gospel,
even when assuming forms repulsive to persons of
education, no doubt the good is far greater than the
error or harm. But there is also a deeper work
which is not dependent on the opinion s of men
in which many elements combine, some alien to
religion, or accidentally at variance with it. That
work can hardly expect to win much popular
favour, so far as it runs counter to the feelings of re
ligious parties. But he who bears a part in it may
feel a confidence, which no popular caresses or religious
sympathy could inspire, that he has by a Divine help
been enabled to plant his foot somewhere beyond the
waves of time. He may depart hence before the
natural term, worn out with intellectual toil ; regarded
with suspicion by many of his contemporaries ; yet
not without a sure hope that the love of truth, which
men of saintly lives often seem to slight, is, neverthe
less, accepted before Grod.

NOTE ON BUNSEN S BIBLICAL RESEARCHES.

SINCE the Essay on Bunsen s Biblical Researches was in type, two
more parts of the Bible for the People* have reached England.
One includes a translation of Isaiah, but does not separate the
distinguishable portions in the manner of Ewald, or with the free
dom which the translator s criticisms would justify. The other
part comprehends numerous dissertations on the Pentateuch, en
tering largely on questions of its origin, materials, and interpreta
tion. There seems not an entire consistency of detail in these
dissertations, and in the views deducible from the author s Egypt,
but the same spirit and breadth of treatment pervade both. The
analysis of the Levitical laws, by which the Mosaic germs are dis
tinguished from subsequent accretions, is of the highest interest.
The Ten Plagues of Egypt are somewhat rationalistically handled,
as having a true historical basis, but as explicable by natural
phenomena, indigenous to Egypt in all ages. The author s tone
upon the technical definition of miracles, as distinct from great
marvels and wonders, has acquired a firmer freedom, and would
be represented by some among ourselves as painfully sceptical.
But even those who hesitate to follow the author in his details
must be struck by the brilliant suggestiveness of his researches,
which tend more and more, in proportion as they are developed, to
justify the presentiment of their creating a new epoch in the
science of Biblical criticism.

R. W.

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