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LIBRARY  OF  CONGRESS. 

^im-         Coitijrigf;t  "f  D. 

i  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


■  J-Cfft 


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THE    PRESENT 


RELIGIOUS    CRISIS 


AUGUSTUS    BLAUVELT 


NEW  YORK     ^^^^^^g^^^ 
P.     PUTNAM'S    SONS 

27    ANP    29    WEST   23D    STREET 

1882 


COPYRIGHI,    BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 
1882. 


fO 

^                            PREFACE. 
O 
e^  


^ 


After  having  perused  this  voUime,  the  reader  will  per- 
^  ceive  that  it  is  not  designed  to  be  complete  in  itself.  On 
S^  the  other  hand,  it  is  put  forth  merely  as  the  first  of  a  series 
of  volumes,  the  second  of  which  will  be  entitled  "The  Reli- 
gion of  Jesus,"  and  the  third  "  Supernatural  Religion." 

Whether  the  author  will  or  will  not  be  able  to  develop 
the  entire  scheme  of  religious  thought,  which  he  has  pro- 
jected in  his  own  mind,  within  the  compass  of  these  three 
volumes,  without  prolonging  them  to  an  undesirable  length, 
remains  to  be  determined.  If  he  can,  he  will.  Otherwise 
it  will  be  abundant  time  to  announce  the  specific  titles  of 
the  remaining  works  after  it  becomes  manifest  that  they 
must  be  written. 

Like  every  other  literary  project  or  production,  this  one 
in  particular  has  had  its  own  inner  and  individual  history. 
When  the  author  says  that  he  was  graduated  from  Rutgers 
College,  at  New  Brunswick,  N.J.,  and  also  from  the  Peter 
Hertzog  Theological  Seminary,  connected  with  the  same 
institution,  he  has  given  a  sufficient  guaranty  that  his  origi- 
nal instruction  in  divinity  was  of  the  most  hyper-orthodoK 
description.  Nor  does  he  concede  that  any  alumnus  of 
either  Alma  Mater  ever  went  forth  who  was,  to  begin  with^ 
a  more  devout  and  implicit  1  reliever  than  he  was  in  both  the 
essentials  and  the  non-essentials  of  the  general  orthodox 
theology,  and  notably  that  of  the  Calvinistic  order. 

It  is  needless  to  assure  the  reader,  that,  while  he  was  a 
student  at   New   Hrunswick,  the  anilior  was    most    securely 


Z'.  PREFACE.. 

guarded  against  all  contamination  from  modern  infidelity,' 
He  does  not  remember,  for  example,  that  in  those  days  he 
ever  heard  so  much  as  the  very  mention  of  the  name  of 
Strauss.  At  the  same  time  he  does  have  an  indistinct  recol- 
lection, that,  in  a  vague  and  general  way,  he  was  taught  at 
once  to  dread  and  to  abhor  that  modern  theological  mon- 
strosity, namely,  German  Rationalism.  Just  why  he  should 
either  dread  or- abhor- it,  he  did  not  learn  ;  but  that  it  was  a 
theological,  monstrosity  of  some  sort  or  another,  to  be  both 
dreaded"  and.  abhorred,  he  took  for  granted  on  the  ipse  dixit 
of  those- distinguished  Doctors  in  Divinity  whose  special  pre- 
rogative he  then  conceived  it  to  be  to  form  his  opinions  on; 
all  such  subjects. 

Thus  matters  continued  even  after  the  author's  gradua-- 
tion,  until  some  eighteen  years  ago.  Then,  for  the  first 
time,  he  chanced'  one  day  to  get  a  formal  introduction  to 
Dr.  David  Friedrich  Strauss,  as  that  arch-heretic  is  repre- 
sented in  his  first  "  Life  of  Jesus." 

From  that  time  onward  the  author  has  devoted  himself, 
with  aa  constantly  io^easing,  degree  of  exclusiveness,  as  a 
specialist^  toi  irxKestigatoians,  eonwected  with  the  various  de- 
partments, of  moderni  bifolifiar  and.  religious  research. 

The  specific  purpose  with  which  he  originally  took  up 
tliese  investigations  was.  to,  vindicate  the  traditional  Protes- 
tant conceptions  about  the  Bible  and  religion  against  all 
the  assaults  of  the  modern  unbelievers.  But  from  the  very 
outset  he  conceived  the  idea,  that,  to  make  this  vindication 
of  any  actual  and  permanent  service  to  those  conceptions, 
it  must  itself  be  actual,  it  must  itself  be  scientific,  it  must 
itself  be  something  decidedly  more  than  merely  theological. 
In  othen  wojcds,  wbiutevec  }ub.fc:r,ited.. conceptions  about  eithei 


PREFACE.  3 

the  Bible  or  religion  he  found  he  could  not  establish  by 
valid  evidence  and  by  legitimate  reasoning,  he  resolutely 
determined  that  he  would  never  make  the  effort  to  establish 
either  by  any  such  distortion  of  evidence  or  by  any  such  ille- 
gitimate reasoning  as  he  had  fortunately  come  to  discover 
to  be  only  too  characteristic  of  the  mediaeval  apologists. 

The  longer  he  has  prosecuted  his  researches  from  this 
standpoint  and  in  this  spirit,  the  more  he  has  become 
astounded  at  the  aggregate  results  to  which  he  found  him- 
self arriving.  Contrary  to  all  his  original  anticipations,  he 
has  come  more  and  more  distinctly  to  perceive  that  the 
traditional  Protestant  conceptions  about  both  the  Bible  and 
rehgion,  instead  of  being  scientifically  defensible  even  down 
to  details,  require  a  revision  and  re-statement  of  the  most 
revolutionary  nature. 

Some  suggestions  towards  such  a  revision  and  re-statement 
the  reader  will  find  attempted  in  this  series  of  volumes ;  the 
first  of  which  is  herewith  submitted  to  the  consideration  of 
that  portion  of  the  public  which  feels  an  interest  in  current 
biblical  and  religious  discussions. 

In  the  preface  to  his  thoughtful  and  scholarly  work  on 
"The  Authorship  and  Historical  Character  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,"  Dr.  William  Sanday  says :  "  In  looking  back  over 
this  first  attempt  in  the  difficult  and  responsible  field  of 
theology,  I  am  forcibly  reminded  of  its  many  faults  and 
shortcomings.  And  yet  it  seems  to  be  necessary  that  these 
subjects  should  be  discussed,  if  only  with  some  slight  de- 
gree of  adequacy.  I  cannot  think  it  has  not  been  without 
serious  loss  on  both  sides,  that,  in  the  great  movement 
that  has  been  going  on  upon  the  Continent  for  the  last 
forty  years,  the  scanty  band  of  English  theologians  should 


4  PREFACE. 

have  stood  almost  entirely  aloof,  or  should  only  have 
touched  the  outskirts  of  the  questions  at  issue,  without 
attempting  to  grapple  with  them  at  their  centre.  It  is  not 
for  me  to  presume  to  do  this,  but  I  wish  to  approach  as 
near  to  it  as  I  can  and  dare  ;  and  it  has  seemed  to  me  that 
by  beginning  upon  the  critical  side,  and  taking  a  single 
question  in  hand  at  a  time,  I  might  be  not  altogether  unable 
to  contribute  to  that  perhaps  far-off  result  which  will  only  be 
obtained  by  the  co-operation  of  many  men  and  many  minds." 

In  like  manner  the  present  writer  feels  that  any  sugges- 
tions which  he  can  personally  make  towards  that  funda- 
mental revision  of  the  traditional  misconceptions  about  the 
Bible  and  religion  which  the  present  age  and  hour  demand, 
must  of  necessity  be  more  distinguished  for  their  many 
faults  and  shortcomings  than  for  any  thing  beside.  But 
here  in  America  the  average  theological  considerations  of 
these  subjects  have  thus  far  been,  in  comparison  with  those 
of  Germany,  even  more  superficial,  even  more  unintelligent, 
even  more  mediaeval,  than  have  been  those  of  England. 
And  it  is  high  time  that  we  began  here  in  America  to  grap- 
ple in  earnest  with  these  questions  at  their  very  centre ; 
seeking  to  come  to  a  thorough-going  understanding  with 
them,  in  view  of  the  most  advanced  developments  of  present 
biblical  and  religious  enlightenment,  and  even  speculation. 

If  the  author  can  only  succeed  in  stimulating  other 
and  far  more  able  minds,  other  and  far  more  accomplished 
scholars,  to  contribute  something  towards  a  radical  and  sat- 
isfactory adjustment  of  these  issues,  he  will  after  that  be 
perfectly  content  to  see  his  own  crude  conclusions  discarded 
and  forgotten. 

KlNGSTON-ON-THE-HUDSON,     1882. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  Page 

I.   The  Crisis 7 

II.   Dogmatic  Theology 12 

III.  The  Validity  of  the  Biblical  Canon    .        .  22 

IV.  The  Inspiration  of  the  Bible      ...  31 
V.  The  Historical  Character  of  the  Gospels  .  56 

VI.   The  Religion  of  the  Bible  ....  79 

VII.   Religion 102 

VIII.   The  Religion  of  Jesus in 

IX.   Religious  Repression 123 

X.   Religious  Liberty 136 

Index    to    Authors    cited,   Quotations,   and   Evi- 
dences          185 


THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    CRISIS. 

Dr.  Gerhard  Uhlhorn,  a  leading  evangelical 
divine  of  Germany,  affirms  that  *'  since  the  first 
days  of  the  church,  when  she  had  to  defend  her 
faith  against  heathen  calumny  and  heathen  science, 
the  attacks  upon  Christianity  and  the  church  have 
never  been  so  manifold  and  so  powerful  as  at  the 
present  time.  The  contest  is  no  longer  upon  single 
questions,  such  as  whether  this  or  that  conception 
of  Christianity  is  the  more  correct,  but  the  very 
existence  of  Christianity  is  at  stake."  ^  Indeed,  says 
Professor  Christlieb,  likewise  of  Germany  :  "  Whether 
you  visit  the  lecture-rooms  of  professors,  or  the 
council-chambers  of  the  municipality,  or  the  work- 
shop of  the  artisan,  everywhere  —  in  all  places  of 
private  or  social  gathering  —  you  hear  the  same  tale: 
the  old  faith  is  now  obsolete."  ^ 

Canon  Liddon  thus  speaks  for  England :  "  The 
vast  majority  of  our  countrymen   still    shrink  with 

7 


8  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

sincere  dread  from  any  thing  like  an  explicit  rejec- 
tion of  Christianity.  Yet  no  one  who  hears  what 
goes  on  in  daily  conversation,  and  who  is  moderately 
conversant  with  the  tone  of  some  of  the  leading 
organs  of  public  opinion,  can  doubt  the  existence  of 
a  wide-spread  unsettlement  of  religious  belief.  Peo- 
ple have  a  notion  that  the  present  is,  in  the  hack- 
neyed phrase,  *a  transition  period,'  and  that  they 
ought  to  be  keeping  pace  with  the  general  move- 
ment." 3 

Professor  Macpherson  thus  depicts  the  state  of 
things  in  Scotland:  *'A11  religious  questions  seem 
to  be  at  present  once  more  thrown  into  the  crucible, 
to  undergo  a  fiery  trial.  Not  merely  the  truths  of 
revealed  religion,  but  those  truths  which  constitute 
what  is  termed  natural  religion,  are  subjected  to  this 
trial."  4  ''It  is  also  a  characteristic  of  our  times, 
that  this  contest  respecting  the  foundation  of  reli- 
gious belief  is  not  confined,  as  it  used  generally  to 
be,  within  certain  circles  of  speculative  men.  All 
classes  in  society  are  taking  part  in  it.  The  press, 
now  so  powerful  in  its  influence,  has  involved  rich 
and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned,  in  this  great  con- 
flict." 5 

Pressense,  speaking  for  France,  declares  that  a 
formidable  crisis  has  there  commenced  alike  in  the 
history  of  Catholicism  and  of  Protestantism,  and 
that   nothing  will  check  it.     There  is  not  a  single 


THE    CRISIS.  9 

religious  party,  he  says,  which  does  not  feel  the 
need  either  of  confirmation  or  transformation.  All 
the  churches  are  passing  through  a  time  of  crisis. 
Aspiration  toward  the  church  of  the  future  is  be- 
coming more  general  and  more  ardent."  ^ 

In  a  private  letter  to  the  author.  Professor  J.  F. 
Astie  thus  speaks  for  Switzerland  :  "In  America, 
the  theology  of  the  past  is  still  powerful.  With  us, 
orthodoxy  has  lost  the  control.  At  the  utmost  the 
old  theology  is  here  without  hold,  except  upon  such 
minds  as  are  at  once  narrow  and  fanatical.  May  you 
never  know  in  the  United  States  the  sad  condition 
in  which  we  are  here  ;  for  we  are  here  suspended 
between  a  past  which  cannot  be  restored,  and  a 
future  which  cannot  be  born.  May  you  not  have, 
as  we  have  had,  a  theological  and  ecclesiastical  revo- 
lution, but  rather  a  religious  evolution  which  is  at 
once  calm  and  peaceful." 

But  that  we  are,  at  least  in  some  initial  way,  be- 
ginning to  pass  here  in  America,  either  through  an 
agitated  theological  revolution,  or  through  a  com- 
paratively calm  and  peaceful  religious  evolution,  is 
patent  on  the  surface.  Modern  unbelief,  in  one 
form  or  another,  constitutes  to-day  one  of  the  up- 
permost topics  of  our  nation  and  our  times.  Our 
pulpits,  according  to  the  modern  or  mediaeval  attain- 
ments of  their  respective  occupants,  make  it  one  of 
the  most  prominent  subjects  either  of  their  discus- 


lO  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

sions,  or  their  declamations,  or  their  semi-impreca- 
tory supplications.  It  pervades  all  departments  of 
our  domestic  literature,  whether  secular  or  religious. 
It  is  being  discussed  by  us,  now  in  our  private  con- 
versations, now  in  our  social  gatherings,  now  in  our 
lyceums  or  club-rooms.  Special  professorships  and 
lectureships  are  devoted  to  its  demolition.  Our 
popular  platform  orators  find  it  to  their  pecuniary 
profit  to  promulge  it. 

Nor  is  the  radical  religious  revolution  which  is 
to-day  sweeping,  or  beginning  to  sweep,  over  this,  in 
common  with  all  other  Christian  countries,  either  a 
mere  matter  of  the  moment,  or  due  to  any  tempo- 
rary or  evanescent  causes.  Adam  Storey  Farrar,  in 
his  Bampton  Lectures  for  1862,  puts  it  down  as  the 
fourth  great  historical  crisis  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  finds  himself  obliged  to  treat  of  it  in  connection 
with  the  development  of  modern  thought  in  three 
nations  for  two  centuries.  These  are,  first,  English 
Deism  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries ; 
secondly,  French  Infidelity  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and,  thirdly,  German  Rationalism  in  the  eigh- 
teenth and  nineteenth  centuries. 7 

The  present  religious  crisis,  then,  has  already 
been  in  progress  for  more  than  two  hundred  years, 
and  has  gathered  up  into  itself  all  the  motion  and 
momentum  imparted  to  great  religious  epochs  by 
international  scholarship  and  thought.     Nor  can  it 


THE   CRISIS.  II 

be  doubtful  that  the  underlying  causes  which  have 
thus  far  imparted  to  it  this  persistent  vitality  will 
continue  to  increase  in  volume,  and  to  push  the 
crisis  forward  until  every  one  of  its  profoundest 
problems,  which  is  capable  of  a  solution,  has  even- 
tually been  settled,  and  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of 
every  cultured  mind. 

In  Germany,  where  its  development  has  been  the 
most  complete,  its  results  have  been  the  most  disas- 
trous to  all  the  traditional  conceptions  of  Chris- 
tianity, whether  Catholic  or  Protestant.  And  else- 
where throughout  Christendom,  in  proportion  as  its 
influences  extend,  almost  in  that  proportion  do  the 
like  results  obtain,  or  threaten  to  obtain. 

As  for  us  who  have  become  more  or  less  inextrica- 
bly involved  in  this  onward  religious  movement,  it 
certainly  cannot  be  premature  for  us,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  make  the  effort  to  discover,  in  so  far  as  may 
be  possible,  whither  we  are  tending ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  provide  ourselves,  in  so  far  as  we  may 
be  able,  with  at  least  some  provisional  religious  be- 
liefs and  hopes,  to  take  the  place  of  those  beliefs  and 
hopes  from  which  we  have  undoubtedly  departed,  and 
departed  never  to  return. 


CHAPTER   II. 

DOGMATIC   THEOLOGY. 

In  his  Cunningham  Lectures  for  1873,  Dr.  Rainy 
confesses  that  he  finds  himself  confronted  in  Scot- 
land, not  merely  with  heresy,  but  with  heresy  per- 
sistently professed,  and  such  heresy  as  is  subversive 
of  what  is  fundamental  in  the  current  views  of  Chris- 
tianity.^ 

Some  specimens  of  this  heresy  may  be  found  by 
the  reader  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Scotch  Sermons," 
issued  in  1880.  Thus,  one  of  the  contributors,  the 
Rev.  W.  L.  M 'Parian,  professes  to  speak  for  a  class 
which  includes  in  it  many  of  the  religious  teach- 
ers in  all  the  churches.  This  writer,  among  other 
things,  proceeds  to  exhibit  some  of  the  sections  of 
scholastic  theology  which  these  religious  teachers 
regard  as  specially  untenable.  These  sections,  he 
affirms,  comprehend  the  following  dogmas  :  i.  The 
descent  of  man  from  the  Adam  of  the  Book  of  Gene- 
sis ;  2.  The  fall  of  that  Adam  from  a  state  of  original 
righteousness  by  eating  the  forbidden  fruit ;  3.  The 
imputation   of   Adam's   guilt   to   all    his    posterity ; 


DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY.  1 3 

4.  The  consequent  death  of  all  men  in  sin  ;  5.  The 
redemption  in  Christ  of  an  election  according  to 
grace  ;  6.  The  quickening  in  the  elect  of  a  new  life  ; 
7.  The  eternal  punishment  and  perdition  of  those 
who  remain  unregenerate.^ 

This  single  example  suffices  to  illustrate,  that, 
within  the  bosom  of  all  the  Protestant  denomina- 
tions, there  exist  to-day  representative  persons  who 
have  undero:one  a  more  or  less  radical  revolution  of 
opinion  concerning  almost  every  dogmatic  statement 
of  doctrine  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  the 
dogma-making  epochs.  The  creed  cannot  be  named, 
which  is  so  brief  that  some  more  or  less  considera- 
ble party  in  the  Protestant  churches  does  not  to-day 
contend  for  its  abridgment.  The  dogma  cannot  be 
instanced,  which  is  so  fundamental  that  some  repre- 
sentative minority  in  the  Protestant  ranks  does  not 
to-day  contend,  either  for  its  revision  and  restate- 
ment, or  for  its  absolute  abandonment. 

Let  us  who  are  on  the  extreme  wing  of  this  pro- 
gressive movement  within  the  Protestant  ranks  de- 
clare our  position,  if  possible,  with  even  more  dis- 
tinctness. Our  rupture  with  Protestantism  does  not 
relate  to  those  mere  minor  matters  of  belief  which 
divide  Protestants  into  all  their  wearisome  array  of 
theological  sects  and  cliques.  All  these  sects  and 
cliques  combined  could  not  to-day  put  forth  any 
mere  abstract  and  consensus  of  their  belief  so  short 


14  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

that  we  would  not  cut  it  shorter,  or  so  fundamental 
that  we  would  not  either  greatly  modify  it,  or  reject 
it  altogether. 

To  illustrate.  We  find  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  a  brief  summary  of  the  con- 
sensus of  the  various  evangelical  or  Protestant  con- 
fessions of  faith.  The  opening  article  —  which  we 
need  alone  to  cite  —  is  this  :  — 

"•  I.  The  divine  inspiration,  authority,  and  suffi- 
ciency of  the  Holy  Scriptures." 

Do  we,  the  representative  minority  of  religious 
revolutionists  still  classified  with  Protestants,  and 
presumably  in  question,  —  do  we  accept  of  even  this 
consensus } 

If  we  do  not,  we  may  no  longer  deserve  the  name 
of  Protestants  ;  we  may  no  longer  deserve  in  any  tra- 
ditional sense  the  broader  name  of  Christians ;  but 
do  we  accept  of  this  consensus  } 

Before  we  give  any  decided  and  decisive  answer 
on  this  point,  it  will  be  well  to  come  to  such  an  un- 
derstanding with  ourselves  as  to  render  it  certain 
what  sort  of  an  answer  we  alone  can  give  with 
entire  mental  rectitude,  not  to  say  with  entire  moral 
honesty. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  let  us  direct  our  atten- 
tion to  a  portion  of  Article  VI.  of  the  Church  of 
England.  Here  it  is  :  *'  Holy  Scripture  contains  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation,  so  that  whatsoever  is 


DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY.  1 5 

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,  or  be  thought  requisite  or 
necessary  to  salvation.  In  the  name  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture we  do  understand  those  canonical  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  of  whose  authority  was 
never  any  doubt  in  the  Church." 

With  this,  so  far  as  our  present  purpose  is  con- 
cerned, all  the  Protestant  churches  will  substantially 
agree. 

Over  against  this  the  Dogmatic  Decrees  of  the 
late  Vatican  Council  fulminate  as  follows:  "All 
those  things  are  to  be  believed  with  divine  and 
Catholic  faith,  which  are  contained  in  the  Word  of 
God,  written  or  handed  down,  and  which  the  Church, 
either  by  a  solemn  judgment,  or  by  her  ordinary  and 
universal  magisterium,  proposes  for  belief  as  having 
been  divinely  revealed."  3  ''And  these  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  are  to  be  received  as  sacred 
and  canonical  in  their  integrity,  with  all  their  parts, 
as  they  are  enumerated  in  the  decree  of  the  said 
Council."  4 

The  semi-scholarly  reader  will  perceive,  therefore, 
that  Protestants,  first  of  all,  affirm  that  the  Scriptures 
alone  can  furnish  the  Christian  church  with  a  divinely 
authoritative  subject-matter  for  her  dogmas.  Catho- 
lics, on  the  other  hand,  allege  that  the  written  books 
of  the   Bible,   and   the   unwritten    traditions  of   the 


1 6  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Church,  are  equally  of  a  divine  authority  in  all 
matters  of  Christian  belief,  so  long  as  those  tra- 
ditions are  only  duly  proposed  and  sanctioned  by  the 
ruling  powers  of  Rome.  But,  if  the  unwritten  tra- 
ditions of  the  Church  be  excluded  from  the  problem, 
we  begin  at  once  to  approximate  to  something  like 
a  consensus  of  opinion,  even  between  the  Catholics 
and  Protestants.  They  both  concur,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  view  that  the  Bible  —  the  written  Bible  —  is 
divinely  authoritative  in  matters  of  religious  belief, 
alike  for  Protestants  and  Catholics. 

And  yet  they,  of  course,  have  their  well-known 
traditional  dispute  concerning  what  the  written 
Bible  is.  What  sacred  books  together  constitute 
the  written  Bible  1  The  Catholics  say  that  this  was 
all  settled  by  the  sacred  Synod  of  Trent,  and  that 
the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testament  must 
be  admitted  in  the  canon.  The  Protestants  contend 
quite  as  stoutly  that  these  apocryphal  books  must 
not  be  admitted  in  the  canon.  But,  if  this  further 
bone  of  contention  about  the  canonical  character  or 
uncanonical  character  of  the  apocryphal  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  be  cast  aside,  we  find  the  high 
contesting  parties  standing  again  almost  peaceably 
together.  In  other  words,  while  the  Catholics  will 
not  concede  that  the  Protestant  Bible  contains,  in 
the  Old  Testament  division,  all  the  canonical  books 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  they  will  not  merely  concede, 


DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY.  1 7 

but  insist,  that  all  the  books  which  the  Protestant 
Bible  does  contain  are  undoubtedly  canonical. 

Nor  can  any  Protestant  body,  no  matter  how 
supremely  anti-Catholic,  desire  a  more  emphatic 
statement  of  the  divine  and  infallible  inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures  than  is  presented  in  the  Vatican 
Decrees.  For  those  decrees  explicitly  affirm  that 
both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  contain  revela- 
tion with  no  admixture  of  error,  for  the  reason  that, 
having  been  written  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  they  have  God  for  their  author.  5 

But  not  only  do  Protestants  and  Catholics  to-day 
concur  in  the  view,  first,  that  all  the  special  books 
which  together  constitute  the  Protestant  Bible  are 
sacred  and  canonical,  and,  secondly,  that  these  spe- 
cial books,  taken  in  their  integrity  and  with  all  their 
parts,  present  the  traditional  theological  dogmatists 
with  a  subject-matter  for  their  dogmas  which  is  at 
once  divinely  inspired  and  therefore  absolutely  devoid 
of  every  kind  of  error.  Catholics  and  Protestants 
have  from  the  very  outset  held  this  view  in  common. 
It  is  indeed  true,  that,  on  the  former  point,  neither 
the  Protestant  divines  nor  the  Catholic  divines  would 
to-day  regard  some  of  the  leading  reformers  and  bib- 
lical scholars  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  supremely 
orthodox.  Thus  Luther  denied  the  canonicity  of 
the  Book  of  Esther.  He  repudiated  the  apostolical 
authorship  of  the   Epistle  to   the   Hebrews,   of  the 


1 8  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

General  Epistles  of  James  and  Jude,  and  also  of  the 
Apocalypse.  The  Apocalypse  in  particular  Luther 
placed  very  much  on  a  parity  with  the  Fourth  Book 
of  Esdras,  — which  latter  book  he  talked  of  throwing 
into  the  Elbe.  And  to  him  the  Epistle  of  James 
was  but  an  epistle  of  straw. 

Dr.  Davidson,  who  is  our  authority  for  the  above 
statements  concerning  Luther,  likewise  afifirms  that 
Bodenstein  of  Carlstadt  divided  the  biblical  books 
into  three  classes,  namely,  those  of  the  first,  those  of 
the  second,  and  those  of  the  third  rank,  in  point 
of  dignity  and  authority ;  that  Zwingli  pronounced 
the  Apocalypse  to  be  uncanonical  ;  and  that  CEco- 
lampadius  would  not  permit  either  the  Apocalypse, 
or  James,  or  Jude,  or  Second  Peter,  or  Second  and 
Third  John,  to  be  compared  with  the  other  portions 
of  the  Scriptures.6 

But  all  this  is  scarcely  more  than  an  individual 
development — an  almost  accidental  feature  —  con- 
nected with  the  Reformation.  The  questioning  of 
the  canonicity  of  the  books  to-day  composing  the 
Protestant  Bible  did  not  then  become  general-,  and 
did  not,  even  so  far  as  it  progressed,  meet  with  any 
thing  like  an  ultimate  and  general  Protestant  accept- 
ance. For  whether  we  consult  the  Helvetic  Confes- 
sion, the  Gallic  Confession,  the  Belgic  Confession, 
the  Westminster  Confession,  the  Confession  revised 
and  accepted  by  the  Synod  of  Dordrecht,  or  consult 


DOCfMATIC    THEOLOGY.  1 9 

the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
what  do  we  discover  ?  We  discover  simply  that  the 
Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  decided,  in 
its  aggregate  and  final  outcome,  as  that  outcome 
found  expression  in  the  sub-Reformation  theology, 
that  the  Protestant  churches  would  reject  the  apoc- 
ryphal books  contained  in  the  Catholic  canon  of  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures,  but  would  retain  all  the 
other  books  of  the  old  Catholic  Bible,  as  being  truly 
sacred  and  canonical,  and  making  up  together  their 
own  Holy  Scriptures. 

As  for  the  second  point,  we  only  need  to  cite  by 
way  of  proof  the  following  remark  by  Adam  Storey 
Farrar :  "  The  belief  in  a  full  inspiration  was  held 
from  the  earliest  times,  with  the  few  exceptions 
observable  in  occasional  remarks  of  Origen,  Jerome, 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  and  Euthymius  Zigabenus 
in  the  twelfth  centruy."  7 

Looked  at,  therefore,  only  with  reference  to  the 
leading  issues  and  controlling  outcome,  it  was  with 
regard,  neither  to  the  canonicity  of  the  various  books 
at  present  composing  the  Protestant  Bible,  nor  to 
the  divine  and  infallible  inspiration  of  those  books, 
that  the  Protestant  reformers  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury came  to  an  open  rupture  with  the  Church  of 
Rome.  On  both  of  these  points  they  found  them- 
selves practically  accordant  with  the  views  already 
existing  in  the  Church  of  Rome.     All  they  did  was 


20  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

simply  to  accept  and  adopt  both  these  points  almost 
precisely  as  they  found  them  in  the  Church  of  Rome, 
as  being  common  postulates  alike  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  theology.  And  that  they  did  this  without 
any  due  examination  of  either  the  one  postulate  or 
the  other,  all  modern  biblicists  are  perfectly  aware. 

But  since  the  sixteenth  century,  and  especially 
during  the  present  century,  both  these  jDOStulates 
have  been  examined  into  with  some  degree  of  thor- 
oughness, and  still  an  increasingly  profound  and 
searching  and  scholarly  examination  of  them  con- 
tinues to  progress.  As  Strauss  has  it :  **  The  old 
Reformation  had  an  advantage  in  this,  that  what 
then  appeared  intolerable  appertained  wholly  to  the 
doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Church,  while  the 
Bible,  and  an  ecclesiastical  discipline  simplified  ac- 
cording to  its  dictates,  provided  what  seemed  a 
satisfactory  substitute.  The  operation  of  sifting  and 
separation  was  easy ;  and,  the  Bible  continuing  an 
unquestioned  treasure  of  revelation  and  salvation  to 
the  people,  the  crisis,  though  violent,  was  not  dan- 
gerous. Now,  on  the  contrary,  that  which  then 
remained  the  stay  of  Protestants,  the  Bible  itself, 
with  its  history  and  teaching,  is  called  in  question  : 
the  sifting  process  has  now  to  be  applied  to  its  own 
pages.    ^ 

What  has  been  the  result  of  this  modern  sifting  of 
the  traditional  Catholic  and  Protestant  views  about 


DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY.  21 

the  Scriptures  ?  Can  we,  who  are  more  or  less  thor- 
oughly conversant  with  the  sifting  process,  any  longer 
believe,  for  one  thing,  that  all  the  books  and  portions 
of  books  which  together  constitute  the  Protestant 
Bible  are  canonical  ?  Can  we  any  more  believe  all 
those  books  and  portions  of  books  are  divinely  in- 
spired, and  therefore  utterly  devoid  of  every  sort  of 
error  ? 

If  we  should  accordingly  ask  ourselves  afresh 
whether  we  can  accept  any  mere  abstract,  no  matter 
how  brief,  any  mere  consensus,  no  matter  how  unani- 
mous and  fundamental,  of  the  various  evangelical 
or  Protestant  confessions  of  faith,  what  must  we 
answer  ?  The  indications  are  already  becoming  some- 
what pronounced  that  we  will  be  obliged  to  answer, 
that,  with  us,  all  further  questions  about  the  various 
Protestant  confessions  of  faith  are  obsolete ;  and 
that  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  we  can  even 
accept  any  mere  abstract  and  consensus  of  those 
fundamental,  traditional  views  about  the  Bible  which 
Protestants  and  Catholics  alike  agree  upon,  and  which 
are  placed  at  the  very  basis  of  all  Catholic  and  all 
Protestant  dogmatic  formulations  of  what  they  are 
pleased  to  call  sometimes  Christianity,  and  sometimes 
the  true  religion  of  the  Bible. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE   VALIDITY    OF   THE    BIBLICAL    CANON. 

We  have  already  adverted  to  the  traditional  dis- 
pute between  Protestants  and  Catholics  as  it  con- 
cerns the  canonical  or  uncanonical  character  of  the 
apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Leaving 
these  parties  to  share  their  individual  opinions  on 
that  subject,  we  will  now  proceed  to  examine  very 
briefly  into  the  validity  of  some  of  the  leading  rea- 
sons which  the  Protestants  in  particular  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  advancing  in  support  of  the  canon- 
icity  of  the  several  books  composing  the  Protestant 
collection  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

The  chief  argument  which  the  older  Protestant 
divines  present  for  the  canonicity  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment books,  which  they  accept  in  common  with  the 
Catholics,  consists  in  the  allegation  that  all  these 
books,  and  none  others,  received  the  explicit  sanc- 
tion of  Jesus  and  his  apostles.  But  among  modern 
Protestant  biblicists  this  line  of  argument  must  have 
a  very  modified  value.  Thus  Professor  W.  Robert- 
son Smith  afifirms  that  neither  the  Book  of  Esther, 


THE    VALIDITY  OF   THE  BIBLICAL   CANON.      23 

nor  that  of  Canticles,  nor  that  of  Ecclesiastes,  is 
ever  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament.^  Moreover, 
Dr.  Davidson  frankly  concedes  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings  betray  a  familiarity  with  the  ideas  and 
expressions  of  the  apocryphal  books,  as  James  with 
those  of  Sirach,  Hebrews  with  those  of  Second  Mac- 
cabees, Romans  with  those  of  Wisdom,  and  Jude 
with  those  of  Enoch. ^ 

Regarded  from  this  point  of  view,  therefore,  mod- 
ern Protestant  biblical  scholars  would  be  compelled 
to  admit  that  at  least  three  of  the  non-apocryphal 
books  —  Esther,  Canticles,  and  Ecclesiastes — must 
be  excluded  from  the  Old  Testament  canon,  and  that 
at  least  four  of  the  apocryphal  books  —  Sirach,  Sec- 
ond Maccabees,  Wisdom,  and  Enoch  —  must  be  in- 
cluded in  such  canon. 

Again  :  The  exact  principle  which  guided  the  origi- 
nal collectors  in  the  formation  of  the  biblical  canon 
is  confessedly  obscure.  Still  no  one  can  question 
that  authorship,  or  supposed  authorship,  had  very 
much  to  do  in  deciding  whether  a  particular  book 
was  to  be  accepted  or  rejected  at  the  hands  of  such 
collectors.  It  is  well  known,  for  example,  that,  in 
the  early  ages  of  the  Christian  church,  the  New 
Testament  writings  were  divided  into  two  distinct 
classes.  The  first  class  was  characterized  as  the 
Homologoumena,  and  the  second  class  as  the  Atiti- 
legoniena.     The  Homologoumena   consisted   of   such 


24  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

books  as  were  universally  recognized ;  the  Antilego- 
mena  consisted  of  such  books  as  were  acknowledged 
in  some  parts  of  the  church,  but  disputed  in  others. 
And,  according  to  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
the  books  in  the  first  class  were  those  of  admitted 
and  undoubted  apostolical  authority.3 

But  as  early  as  the  fifteenth  century  we  find  Eras- 
mus denying  the  apostolical  origin  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  of  Second  Peter,  and  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, but  leaving  the  canonicity  of  these  books  un- 
questioned. 4  And  in  the  sixteenth  century  Calvin 
draws  a  corresponding  distinction  between  the  can- 
onicity and  the  apostolical  origin  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  and  of  Second  Peter. 5  And  now,  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  something  like  a  consensus 
of  opinion  is  beginning  to  obtain  among  the  modern, 
as  distinguished  from  the  traditional,  Protestant  bib- 
lical authorities,  that,  as  Dr.  Davidson  observes,  the 
canonicity  of  the  books  is  a  distinct  question  from 
their  authenticity.^  Thus  the  general  rule  is  laid 
down  by  the  late  Dean  Stanley,  that  the  authority 
or  canonicity  of  a  sacred  book  hardly  ever  depends 
on  its  particular  date  or  name.  For,  says  he,  if  for 
these  purposes  it  was  necessary  that  the  writers 
should  be  known,  nearly  half  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  would  at  once  be  excluded  from  the  can- 
on.7  Nor  need  it  scarcely  be  remarked,  that,  if 
authenticity  should  be   made  the  standard  of   their 


THE    VALID  I TY  OF   THE  BIBLICAL    CANON.      25 

canonicity,  not  a  few  of  the  New  Testament  books 
would  share  a  corresponding  fortune.  For  it  is  not 
merely  true  that  in  these  days  a  very  large  percent- 
age of  the  Old  Testament  writings  are  decided  to 
belong  neither  to  the  authors  nor  the  ages  to  which 
they  are  traditionally  accredited :  it  is  equally  true 
that  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith  merely  expresses 
a  prevailing  modern  scholarly  conclusion  when  he 
affirms  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  made  up  of  writings  not  directly  apostoli- 
cal.^ 

In  a  subsequent  chapter  we  will  discover,  in  the 
New  Testament  department  of  modern  biblical  criti- 
cism, what  slender  claims  the  Gospels  in  particular 
possess  to  having  been  written  by  the  original 
apostles  or  disciples  of  Jesus,  whose  respective 
names  they  bear.  Just  here  it  will  suffice,  for  the 
benefit  of  such  readers  as  are  not  familiar  with  these 
subjects,  to  instance  a  few  of  the  considerations  in 
view  of  which  so  much  of  the  Old  Testament  litera- 
ture is  to-day  decided  to  be  of  a  more  or  less  un- 
authentic character. 

One  of  the  clearest  and  most  exhaustive  exposi- 
tions of  this  topic  at  large,  existing  in  the  English 
language,  is  that  developed  by  Professor  W.  Robert- 
son Smith,  in  his  ''  Lectures  on  the  Old  Testament 
in  the  Jewish  Church." 

Speaking  with  special  reference  to  the  Pentateuch, 


26  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Professor  Smith,  among  other  things,  observes  :  **  The 
idea  that  Moses  is  author  of  the  whole  Pentateuch, 
except  the  last  chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  is  derived 
from  the  old  Jewish  theory,  in  Josephus,  that  every 
leader  of  Israel  wrote  down,  by  divine  authority,  the 
events  of  his  own  time,  so  that  the  sacred  history  is 
like  a  day-book,  constantly  written  up  to  date.  No 
part  of  the  Bible  corresponds  to  this  description,  and 
the  Pentateuch  as  little  as  any.  For  example,  the 
last  chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  which,  on  the  common 
theory,  is  a  note  added  by  Joshua  to  the  work  in 
which  Moses  had  carried  down  the  history  till  just 
before  his  death,  cannot  really  have  been  written  till 
after  Joshua  was  dead  and  gone.  For  it  speaks  of 
the  city  of  Dan.  Now,  Dan  is  the  new  name  of 
Laish,  which  that  town  received  after  the  conquest 
of  the  Danites  in  the  age  of  the  Judges,  when 
Moses'  grandson  became  priest  of  their  idolatrous 
sanctuary.  But,  if  the  last  chapter  of  Deuteronomy 
is  not  contemporary  history,  what  is  the  proof  that 
the  rest  of  the  book  is  so .?  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  Pentateuchal  history  was  written  [not  in  the  wil- 
derness, but]  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  ...  In  Hebrew 
the  common  phrase  for  westward  is  '  seaward,'  and  for 
southward,  'towards  the  Negeb.'  The  word  Negeb, 
which  primarily  means  parched  land,  is,  in  Hebrew, 
the  proper  name  of  the  dry  steppe  district  in  the 
south  of  Judah.     These   expressions   for  west  and 


THE    VALIDITY  OF   THE  BIBLICAL    CANON.      2/ 

south  could  only  be  formed  within  Palestine.  Yet 
they  are  used  in  the  Pentateuch,  not  only  in  the  nar- 
rative, but  in  the  Levitical  description  of  the  taber- 
nacle in  the  wilderness  (Exod.  xxvii.).  But  at  Mount 
Sinai  the  sea  did  not  lie  to  the  west,  and  the  Negeb 
was  to  the  north.  Moses  could  no  more  call  the 
south  side  the  Negeb  side  of  the  tabernacle  than  a 
Glasgow  man  could  say  that  the  sun  set  over  Edin- 
burgh. The  answer  attempted  to  this  is,  that  the 
Hebrews  might  have  adopted  these  phrases  in  patri- 
archal times,  and  never  given  them  up  in  the  ensuing 
four  hundred  and  thirty  years  ;  but  that  is  nonsense. 
When  a  man  says  towards  the  sea,  he  means  it.  .  .  . 
Again;  the  Pentateuch  displays  an  exact  topographical 
knowledge  of  Palestine,  but  by  no  means  so  exact  a 
knowledge  of  the  wilderness  of  the  wandering.  The 
narrator  knew  the  names  of  the  places  famous  in  the 
forty  years'  wandering  ;  but  for  Canaan  he  knew  local 
details,  and  describes  them  with  exactitude  as  they 
were  in  his  own  time  (e.g.,  Gen.  xii.  8,  xxxiii.  i8, 
XXXV.  19,  20).  Accordingly,  the  patriarchal  sites 
can  still  be  set  down  on  the  map  with  definiteness ; 
but  geographers  are  unable  to  assign  with  certainty 
the  site  of  Mount  Sinai,  because  the  narrative  has 
none  of  that  topographical  color  which  the  story  of 
an  eye-witness  is  sure  to  possess.  Once  more:  the 
Pentateuch  cites  as  authorities  poetical  records  which 
are  not  earlier   than  the  time  of  Moses.      One  of 


28  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

these  records  is  a  book, — the  Book  of  the  Wars  of 
Jehovah  (Num.  xxi.  14).  Did  Moses,  writing  con- 
temporary history,  find  and  cite  a  book  already  cur- 
rent, containing  poetry  on  the  wars  of  Jehovah  and 
his  people,  which  began  in  his  own  times  ?  Another 
poetical  authority  cited  is  a  poem  circulating  among 
the  MosJielim,  or  reciters  of  sarcastic  verses  (Num. 
xxi.  2J^  seq.).  It  refers  to  the  victory  over  Sihon, 
which  took  place  at  the  very  end  of  the  forty  years' 
wandering.  If  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  what 
occasion  could  he  have  to  authenticate  his  narrative 
by  reference  to  these  traditional  depositaries  of 
ancient  poetry  }  "  9 

Such,  then,  are  a  few  of  the  considerations  assigned 
by  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith,  in  proof  of  the 
position,  that,  as  a  whole,  the  Pentateuch  never  could 
have  been  written  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness,  but 
must  have  been  written  by  some  subsequent  author, 
or  rather  by  some  subsequent  series  of  authors,  in 
the  land  of  Palestine.  And  as  of  the  Pentateuch, 
so  of  most  of  the  other  books,  alike  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament.  The  more  rigidly  the  subject  of 
their  authenticity  is  inquired  into,  the  more  doubtful 
does  their  authenticity  become. 

It  should  be  carefully  noted,  however,  that  it  has 
all  along  been  quite  aside  from  the  present  writer's 
purpose  to  enter  at  length  upon  the  full  and  formal 
discussion  of  the  general  subject  of  the  authenticity 


THE    VALIDITY  OF   THE  BIBLICAL    CANON.      29 

or  unauthenticity  of  the  various  biblical  books.  His 
design  has  been  merely  to  permit  Professor  Smith,  in 
the  most  summary  manner  possible,  to  place  the  ordi- 
nary reader,  by  an  illustrative  argument  or  two,  on  an 
understanding  relation  with  modern  biblical  scholars 
on  this  question.  The  question  itself  has  already 
been  canvassed  backward  and  forward,  and  over  and 
over  again.  As  the  result  of  this  discussion,  biblical 
scholars  have  already  become  permanently  divided 
into  two  well-defined  classes, — the  new  and  the  old. 
Broadly  speaking,  the  old  continue  to  adhere  to 
the  opinion  that  the  various  biblical  books  belong 
to  the  authors  and  the  ages  to  which  they  are  tradi- 
tionally referred.  The  new  have  reached  the  final 
conclusion  that,  exceptional  instances  aside,  such  is 
not  the  case. 

Modern  biblical  scholars  accordingly  find  them- 
selves confronted  with  the  following  dilemma.  Either 
they  must  admit  that  most  of  the  books  of  both  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  are  not  canonical ;  or  else 
they  must  insist,  after  the  manner  of  Dr.  Davidson, 
Dean  Stanley,  and  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
that  the  authenticity  of  these  books  is  no  proper,  or 
at  least  no  necessary,  criterion  of  their  canonicity. 

But,  if  authenticity  be  no  necessary  criterion  of 
their  canonicity,  what  criterion  is  to  be  adopted } 
Why,  says  Dr.  Davidson  :  "  Canonical  authority  lies 
in  the  Scripture  itself ;  it  is  inherent  in  the  books, 


30  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

SO  far  as  they  contain  a  revelation,  or  declaration  of 
the  divine  will.  Hence  there  is  truth  in  the  state- 
ment of  the  old  theologians,  that  the  authority  of 
Scripture  is  from  God  alone."  ^°  Or,  as  the  same 
thing  is  substantially  expressed  in  the  Vatican  De- 
crees :  "  These  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
the  Church  holds  to  be  sacred  and  canonical,  not 
because,  having  been  carefully  composed  by  mere 
human  industry,  they  were  afterwards  approved  by 
her  authority,  nor  merely  because  they  contain  rev- 
elation with  no  admixture  of  error,  but  because, 
having  been  written  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  they  have  God  for  their  author,  and  have  been 
delivered  as  such  to  the  Church  herself."  " 

The  general  subject  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
is  so  large  a  one,  however,  that  we  shall  be  obliged 
to  devote  a  special  chapter  even  to  the  preliminary 
aspects  of  its  consideration. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    INSPIRATION    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

The  extremest  view  of  biblical  inspiration  is  that 
promulgated  in  the  extract  from  the  Vatican  Decrees 
which  is  cited  at  the  conclusion  of  the  foregoing 
chapter. 

This  view  represents  the  entire  biblical  I'iterature, 
from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  as  having  been  so  writ- 
ten by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that  it 
contains  not  merely  a  revelation,  but  a  revelation 
without  the  least  degree  of  error.  And  not  only  is 
this  the  view  of  the  subject  which  is  officially  pro- 
claimed to-day  by  the  Church  of  Rome  :  it  is  like- 
wise the  view  of  the  subject  contended  for,  even  in 
this  nineteenth  century,  by  the  super-orthodox  among 
the  Protestant  divines. 

The  question  is  thus  raised,  whether,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  Bible  does  contain  no  elements  of  error. 

In  the  New  Testament  department  Strauss  in  par- 
ticular has  exhibited  in  great  detail,  and  with  a 
microscopic  minuteness,  the  discrepancies  and  con- 
tradictions alleged  to  exist  in  our  present  Gospels. 

3» 


32  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

Thus  he  points  out,  that,  after  a  stormy  passage 
across  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  Jesus  meets  a  single 
demoniac  coming  out  of  the  tombs,  according  to 
Mark  and  Luke,  but  meets  with  two,  according  to 
Matthew.^  So  in  the  narrative  of  a  certain  cure  of 
blindness  said  to  be  performed  by  Jesus  at  Jericho, 
Matthew  duplicates  the  single  blind  man  of  Mark 
and  Luke ;  and  Luke  makes  the  cure  take  place  on 
the  entrance  of  Jesus  into  Jericho,  whereas  Matthew 
and  Mark  make  it  take  place  on  the  departure  of 
Jesus  out  of  Jericho.2 

But  not  only  are  such  discrepancies  and  contradic- 
tions as  these  pointed  out  by  Strauss,  almost  ad 
nauseam,  all  through  the  Gospels.  Corresponding 
discrepancies  and  contradictions  are  pointed  out  by 
Zeller,  Baur,  Kuenen,  and  other  so-called  destructive 
critics,  all  through  the  Bible. 

Every  biblical  scholar  is  familiar,  of  course,  with 
the  manifold  expedients  resorted  to  by  the  traditional 
harmonists  and  apologists,  to  explain  away  these  dis- 
crepancies and  contradictions.  But  modern,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  mediaeval,  biblical  scholars,  have  too 
much  intellectual  self-respect  to  take  refuge  in  any 
of  these  harmonistic  and  apologistic  subterfuges. 
They  prefer,  on  the  other  hand,  frankly  to  recognize 
the  facts,  and  to  say  that  the  Bible  doubtless  does 
more  or  less  abound  with  errors,  and  such  errors  as 
destroy  the  proposition  that  it  is  infallibly  inspired. 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  33 

Thus,  in  a  special  test  case,  Professor  Christlieb  con- 
cedes that  there  are  incompletenesses,  inaccuracies, 
and  non-agreement  in  details,  in  the  Gospel  histories 
of  the  Resurrection.  He  also  assumes  the  general 
position,  that  faith  depends  not  on  the  letter  of  Scrip- 
ture, but  on  the  essential  substance  of  the  facts  re- 
corded in  it.3  But,  as  Renan  well  observes  :  "  Errors 
of  detail  are  no  more  compatible  with  the  inspiration 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  than  impostures  are."  4 

Professor  Tischendorf  likewise  says :  "  But  the 
reply  will  be  made  to  me,  that  with  all  this  the  con- 
tradictions of  the  Gospels  are  not  solved.  That  such 
are,  in  fact,  presented,  though  many  have  been  arbi- 
trarily and  erroneously  alleged,  I  do  not  deny.  .  .  . 
We  have,  of  course,  no  right  to  affirm  a  mechanical 
inspiration  of  the  Evangelists  which  secures  against 
every  error."  5 

Pressense  affirms  that  there  exists  between  the 
Synoptics  and  St.  John  a  grave  discrepancy,  and  one 
which  has  not  yet  received  a  satisfactory  explanation, 
in  relation  to  the  date  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  —  which 
event  the  fourth  Gospel  places  on  the  14th,  and 
the  Synoptics  place  on  the  15th,  of  Nisan.^  This 
same  writer  insists  that  the  first  Gospel  has  assigned 
a  wrong  date  to  the  celebration  of  the  last  passover.7 
He  also  reasons  that  whereas,  in  recordino:  the  ac- 
count  of  the  triumphal  entry  of  Jesus  into  Jerusalem, 
St.    Matthew  speaks   of   two  asses,  while  the  other 


34  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Evangelists  mention  only  one,  therefore  the  author 
of  the  first  Gospel  must  have  been  guided  by  the 
parallelism  of  Zech.  ix.  9,  instead  of  giving  us  the 
correct  statement  of  an  ocular  witness.^  "  In  fact," 
says  Pressense,  with  reference  to  the  general  charac- 
teristics of  the  Synoptics  :  "  In  parts  they  are  almost 
absolutely  identical.  And  yet  they  show  numerous 
differences.  .  .  .  Often  two  of  the  Synoptics  agree 
together,  while  the  third  relates  the  same  fact  with 
very  considerable  variations.  How  explain  these 
resemblances  and  these  differences  }  The  theory  of 
literal  inspiration  cuts  the  knot  of  the  difficulty,  for 
those  at  least  who  can  accept  an  arbitrary  system 
which  does  violence  to  the  best-estabUshed  facts, 
and  in  reality  identifies  the  action  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  with  a  mechanical  or  magical  force.  We  are 
happily  not  reduced  to  this  desperate  resource."  9 

Thus,  without  making  any  further  exhibition  of 
the  evidence,  do  we  already  come  upon  another 
broad  line  of  demarcation  between  the  modern  and 
the  mediaeval  biblicists.  The  mediaeval  maintain  that 
the  Bible  is  infallibly  inspired.  The  modern  recog- 
nize the  prevalence  of  a  greater  or  less  degree  of 
error  all  through  the  Bible. 

Nor  is  this  recognition  made  by  the  destructive 
critics  alone,  who  deny  in  toto  that  the  Bible  is  in- 
spired. It  is  made  equally  by  modern  critics  who 
contend  that  the  Scriptures  contain,  and  contain  in 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  35 

the  proper  sense,  a  divine  revelation.  Here,  for 
instance,  Christlieb  and  Strauss,  Tischendorf  and 
Zeller,  Pressense  and  Baur,  Professor  W.  Robertson 
Smith  and  Dr.  Kuenen,  are  perfectly  at  one. 

Thus  far,  however,  the  infallible  inspiration  of  the 
Bible  has  been  impugned  chiefly  with  regard  to  what 
is  characterized  as  the  letter  of  the  Scripture,  in  dis- 
tinction from  its  substance.  But  how  about  the 
substance  .■*  To  illustrate.  Professor  W.  Robertson 
Smith  directs  our  attention  to  the  various  conflicting 
statements  which  are  made  concerning  the  same 
events  in  the  Chronicles  and  Kings.  ^°  Take  two 
or  three  examples.  Chronicles  affirm  that  Josiah's 
reformation  began  in  his  eighth  year,  before  the 
law  was  found;  Kings,  that  it  began  in  his  eigh- 
teenth year,  and  in  pursuance  of  his  having  heard 
the  law  read  after  it  had  been  discovered."  Accord- 
ing to  Chronicles,  the  expenses  of  the  temple  ser- 
vices were  defrayed,  in  the  early  years  of  Jehoash,  by 
a  special  collection  levied  upon  all  Judah  ;  according 
to  Kings,  they  were  defrayed,  during  the  same  period, 
as  a  burden  upon  the  priestly  revenues  brought  in 
by  the  worshippers. ^^  According  to  Chronicles,  the 
local  high  places  were  abolished  both  by  Asa  and 
Jehoshaphat ;  according  to  Kings,  they  were  abol- 
ished neither  by  Asa  nor  Jehoshaphat.  ^3 

Professor  Smith  admits  that  people  may  shake 
their  heads  at  all  this,  and  say  that  he  is  touching 


36  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

the  historical  character  of  the  Book  of  Chronicles. 
But  his  answer  is,  that  our  first  duty  is  to  facts. 
And  the  facts  are  doubtless  as  he  states  them. 

Still  further.  Every  one  knows  that  for  many  cen- 
turies both  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  divines 
were  accustomed  to  maintain  that  the  Scriptures 
speak  with  a  divine  decisiveness  in  the  department 
of  physical  science  as  well  as  in  the  domain  of  ethics 
and  religion.  But  the  Bible,  at  least  as  aforetimes 
interpreted,  having  proved  to  be  a  very  fallible  crite- 
rion in  the  former  department,  the  general  tendency 
of  the  mediaeval  biblicists  in  our  own  times  is  to  take 
refuge  in  the  position  that  the  Scriptures  were  never 
designed  to  be  considered  as  a  scientific  treatise  or 
authority  at  all.  Thus  the  Vatican  Decrees  them- 
selves appear  prepared  to  affirm  that  the  Bible  is 
infallibly  inspired  only  in  matters  of  faith  and  mor- 
als, h  "  It  is  of  supreme  importance,  moreover,"  says 
Dr.  Geikie,  "that  we  demand  no  more  from  Scrip- 
ture than  God  intended  it  to  yield.  It  was  given  to 
reveal  him  to  us,  and  to  make  known  his  laws  and 
will  for  our  spiritual  guidance,  but  not  to  teach  us 
lessons  in  natural  science."  ^5  *'  It  must  therefore  be 
an  error  to  look  for  the  exactness  of  scientific  state- 
ment in  the  Scriptures.  They  were  given  for  a 
specific  purpose,  and  for  that  only,  and  in  other 
matters  use  only  the  simple  language  of  the  senses, 
which  all  ages,  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest,  can 
understand."  ^^ 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  3/ 

So  far  as  this  argument  goes,  it  may  be  accepted 
as  a  more  or  less  complete  vindication  of  the  scien- 
tific inexactitude  of  very  much  of  the  biblical  lan- 
guage in  relation  to  physical  phenomena.  Thus, 
when  the  Bible  affirms  that  the  earth  is  fixed,  or 
depicts  the  sun  as  rising  and  setting,  it  would  be  a 
manifest  injustice  to  insist,  after  the  manner  of  the 
old  clerical  persecutors  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo, 
that  the  Bible  designs  to  teach,  as  a  matter  of  scien- 
tific verity,  either  that  the  earth  is  fixed,  or  that  the 
sun  does  revolve  about  our  little  mundane  sphere. 
In  all  such  instances  as  these  the  Bible  doubtless 
speaks  of  natural  phenomena  only  incidentally,  and 
in  the  current  language  of  appearance,  —  not  as  they 
would  be  spoken  about  in  a  formal  scientific  treatise, 
but  merely  as  they  would  be  spoken  about  in  any 
popular  book,  or  even  in  our  ordinary  conversation. 

It  materially  militates  against  the  present  and  the 
future  fortunes  of  mediaeval  biblicism,  however,  that 
this  argument  does  not  go  far  enough  to  cover  all 
the  case  in  hand.  For  the  Bible  not  merely  speaks 
in  an  incidental  way  concerning  physical  phenomena, 
with  no  pretensions  to  teach  the  scientific  truth 
about  them.  It  likewise  speaks  concerning  such 
phenomena  as  its  direct  subject-matter,  and  after 
such  a  fashion  also  that  it  must  either  declare  the 
precise  scientific  truth  about  them,  or  else  declare  a 
scientific  falsity.     For  instance,  says  Principal  Daw- 


38  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

son  :  **  With  respect  to  the  history  of  creation  and 
the  subsequent  references  to  it,  we  cannot  rest  in  the 
general  statement  that  the  Bible  is  not  intended  to 
teach  science,  any  more  than  we  can  excuse  inaccu- 
racy as  to  historical  facts  by  the  notion  that  the 
Bible  [e.g.,  the  Book  of  Chronicles]  was  not  intended 
to  teach  history."  '7  '<  In  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis we  find  an  obvious  attempt  to  give  the  method  of 
creation,  or  at  least  its  order  in  time.  This  narrative 
of  creation  trenches  on  the  domain  of  science,  and 
refers  to  matters  not  open  to  direct  observation.  It 
must  therefore  be  a  revelation  from  God,  or  a  result 
of  scientific  induction  or  philosophical  speculation, 
or  a  mere  myth."  ^^     Which  is  it  ? 

On  the  whole,  Professor  Haeckel  considers  that 
this  Jewish  account  of  the  creation  contrasts  favorably 
with  the  confused  mythology  of  the  creation  current 
among  most  other  ancient  nations.  But  he  points 
out  and  emphasizes  the  fact,  that  the  record  repre- 
sents the  results  of  the  great  laws  of  organic  devel- 
opment as  being  the  effects,  not  of  such  laws,  but  of 
the  direct  actions  of  a  constructing  Creator.i9  And 
it  is  notably  with  reference  to  this  special  aspect  of 
the  record  that  Professor  Huxley  must  be  understood 
as  speaking,  when  he  affirms,  first,  that  the  account 
of  the  origin  of  things  given  in  the  Book  of  Genesis 
is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  evidence  upon  which  the 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF    THE   BIBLE.  39 

doctrine  of  evolution  rests  is  incomparably  stronger 
and  better  than  that  upon  which  the  supposed  author- 
ity of  Genesis  rests."  ^° 

Now,  whether  one  personally  adopts  the  evolution 
theory  of  the  origin  of  things,  or  still  adheres  to  the 
special-creation  theory,  this  much  is  certain  :  the 
evolution  theory  has  already  secured  a  very  wide- 
spread acceptance,  and  is  constantly  gaining  fresh 
adherents ;  and  that  not  merely  among  the  profes- 
sional physicists,  but  likewise  throughout  the  read- 
ing, thinking  world  at  large.  And,  in  the  estimation 
of  all  such  persons  as  these,  the  Book  of  Genesis 
stands  convicted  of  a  scientific  misstatement  of  the 
most  fundamental  character. 

This  conclusion  is  an  ex  parte  one,  indeed  ;  but  it 
is  a  conclusion  which  no  modern  biblicist  can  fail  to 
recognize,  and  mention  with  respect. 

Again :  Principal  Dawson  frankly  concedes  these 
two  things :  first,  that  on  no  point  has  the  Bible 
appeared  to  insist  more  strongly  than  on  the  crea- 
tion of  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants  in  six  ordinary 
days  ;  and,  secondly,  that  .nothing  can  be  more  surely 
established,  on  the  basis  of  scientific  induction,  than 
the  vast  periods  which  such  creation  must  have  con- 
sumed, according  to  the  evidences  revealed  by  the 
strata  of  the  earth's  crust.^i 

But  Principal  Dawson  proposes  to  extricate  the 
Bible  from  the  charge  of   affirming  a  demonstrable 


40  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

scientific  falsity  on  this  subject,  by  having  recourse 
to  the  well-known  rejoinder  of  the  traditional  divines 
that  the  Hebrew  word  yom  does  not  of  necessity 
mean  a  natural  day  of  twenty-four  hours.22  This  no 
Hebraist  will  of  course  dispute.  Yom  sometimes 
signifies  a  natural  day,  and  sometimes  signifies  a 
much  greater  lapse  of  time.  Thus  in  Gen.  ii.  4,  it 
covers  the  entire  period  of  the  creation,  however 
prolonged  that  period  may  have  been.  But  if  it  ever 
means  a  natural  day  of  twenty-four  hours  anywhere 
in  the  Scripture,  it  means  that  in  the  connection 
now  immediately  in  question.  Each  of  the  sixyoms 
is  explicitly  defined  and  limited  as  being  a  natural 
yom  with  a  morning  and  an  evening.  Besides,  the 
use  of  the  word  in  Gen.  ii.  2,  3,  and  in  the  Decalogue, 
is  even  more  precise  and  fixed.  God  worked  six 
yomSj  and  rested  on  the  seventh.  The  Jews  were  to 
work  six  yoms,  and  rest  on  the  seventh.  And,  ac- 
cording to  all  the  best  established  laws  of  language, 
there  is  no  more  reason  to  say  that  yom  means  an 
indefinite  geological  epoch  in  the  one  instance  than 
in  the  other. 

Now,  if  the  author  of  Genesis  did  not  originally 
design  to  declare  that  the  six  yoms  in  which  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  six  natural 
days,  he  was  clearly  bound  to  say  so.  If  he  had  any 
idea  that  the  creative  yom  was  a  different  thing  from 
the  ordinary  yoin^  instead  of  confounding  them,  as  he 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  4 1 

notably  does  in  the  Decalogue,  his  business  was  to 
distinguish  them.  And  it  was  precisely  as  easy  a 
thing  for  any  Hebrew  writer  to  do  this,  as  it  was  for 
him  to  distinguish  the  Sabbath  yom  from  the  other 
yoins  of  the  Jewish  week,  or  the  yom  of  the  Atone- 
ment from  the  other  yo7ns  of  the  Jewish  year. 

But  the  case  is  even  worse  than  this.  If  the 
alleged  inspired  author  of  Genesis  had  any  concep- 
tion that  the  work  of  creation  consumed  an  almost 
indefinite  lapse  of  ages,  he  might  better  not  have 
employed  the  word  yom  at  all  in  dividing  up  those 
ages  into  six  special  eras  of  development.  Instead 
oi  yom,  the  word  o/am  was  the  one  for  him  to  use. 
0/am  conveys  exactly  that  idea  of  almost  indefinite 
eternalness  which  precisely  corresponds  to  the  mod- 
ern scientific  conception  of  a  great  creative  epoch. 
And  if,  in  the  Decalogue  and  in  the  other  passages 
of  Genesis  now  being  considered,  it  had  only  been 
asserted  that  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
not  in  six  yo7ns,  but  in  six  clams,  how  delighted  the 
mediaeval  biblicists  would  have  been  to-day !  We 
should  then  have  heard  them  proclaiming  far  and 
near  that  the  Book  of  Genesis  had  anticipated  by 
many  thousands  of  years  the  latest  demonstrations 
of  modern  physical  science  concerning  the  almost 
immeasurable  periods  during  which  the  creation  of 
the  cosmos  must  have  been  in  progress.  Nor  would 
they  then  have  been  without  an  overwhelming  argu- 


42  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

ment.in  favor  of  the  supposition  that,  in  so  far  at 
least,  the  Book  of  Genesis  must  have  been  inspired. 
As  it  is,  Genesis  says  that  the  creation  took  place 
not  in  six  olams,  but  in  six^^;;^^-,  and  not  in  six  crea- 
tive j/<?;;2i",  but  in  "SAX  yoms  so  limited  and  defined  that 
it  is  perfectly  apparent  that  six  ordinary  j^/^m^-,  corre- 
sponding to  those  of  the  current  Jewish  week,  were 
explicitly  intended.  And  under  these  circumstances, 
the  less  there  is  said  either  about  the  scientific  cor- 
rectness or  the  infallible  divine  inspiration  of  this 
portion  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  the  more  respect 
thus  much  of  the  Bible  will  enjoy,  and  the  less  will 
be  the  ridicule  to  which  the  mediaeval  biblicists  stand 
exposed  in  the  estimation  at  once  of  every  modern 
physicist  and  every  modern  biblicist. 

Passing  forward  to  the  consideration  of  another 
detail  of  this  so-called  Mosaic  account  of  the  ori^n 
of  things,  Professor  Huxley  contemptuously  observes 
that  it  would  be  an  insult  to  ask  any  evolutionist 
whether  he  credits  the  preposterous  fable  respecting 
the  fabrication  of  woman  therein  recorded. ^3 

Some  time  since  the  present  writer  directed  the 
attention  of  a  prominent  physical  scientist,  who  is 
also  a  conspicuous  orthodox  biblical  apologist,  to 
this  remark  of  Huxley,  with  special  reference  to  its 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  biblical  inspiration.  We 
asked  him  in  our  letter  whether  he  had  any  reply  to 
make  to  Huxley  here,  and,  if  so,  whether  he  would 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  43 

communicate  such  reply  to  us  in  private,  with  per- 
mission to  make  it  public.  His  answer,  italics  and 
all,  runs  as  follows  :  "  I  would  not  be  referred  to  as 
having  expressed  any  definite  views  on  the  subject. 
But  you  will  find  what  seem  to  me  the  best  and  most 
judicious  statements  I  have  met  with,  in  Macdonald's 
'  Creation  and  the  Fall.'  He  does  not,  however, 
define  the  precise  physiological  nature  of  excising 
the  rib,  or  separable  portion  of  the  side,  and  building 
it  into  a  woman.  Very  probably  the  original  seer 
to  whom  the  fact  was  revealed  did  not  understand 
this  any  better  than  Huxley ;  but  he  had,  no  doubt, 
more  faith  and  less  brutal  views  of  humanity.  We 
know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  precise  mode  of  ex- 
traction of  either  man  or  woman  ;  but  to  me  the  ori- 
gin of  man  from  the  dust  of  the  earth,  and  of  the 
woman  from  the  man,  appears  infinitely  more  proba- 
ble than  that  of  either  from  apes." 

But  in  saying  all  this  our  distinguished  physicist, 
after  the  manner  of  a  model  mediaeval  biblicist,  man- 
ages to  evade  the  real  point  at  issue.  The  question 
is  not  whether  he  can  explain  the  precise  physiologi- 
cal nature  of  excising  the  rib,  and  building  it  into  a 
woman,  any  more  than  it  is  whether  he  can  explain 
the  precise  mode  of  the  extraction  of  either  man  or 
woman.  The  question  is,  whether  he  is  willing  in 
this  nineteenth  century  to  come  before  the  public, 
and  openly  declare,  in  his  capacity  of  physical  scien- 


44  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

tist,  that  he  veritably  believes  that  the  Deity  did,  as 
a  matter  of  scientific  record,  and  even  as  a  matter 
of  divinely  inspired  scientific  record,  cause  a  deep 
sleep  to  fall  upon  Adam,  and  after  any  physiological 
process  whatever  excise  one  of  Adam's  ribs,  and  in 
any  mode  whatever  build  that  rib  into  a  woman. 
Put  in  this  way,  however,  our  eminent  physicist  does 
not  care  to  be  so  mu.ch  as  referred  to  as  having  any 
definite  views  to  express  on  the  subject.  But  this 
much  is  not  to  be  denied.  Genesis  affirms  that 
Jehovah  built  Eve  out  of  one  of  Adam's  ribs,  just 
as  explicitly,  just  as  circumstantially,  and  just  as 
literally,  as  it  affirms  that  Noah  built  an  ark  out  of 
gopher-wood. 24  And  if  in  these  days  we  cannot 
conceive  such  a  statement  as  this  is  to  be  scientifi- 
cally tenable,  it  matters  little  after  that  by  what  spe- 
cial name  the  narrative  in  which  it  occurs  is  called. 
For  whether  it  be  called  a  preposterous  fable,  or  a 
palpable  myth,  or  an  integral  portion  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  it  is  equally  fabulous  and  false. 

Among  the  ethical  difficulties  objected  to  the 
inspiration  of  the  entire  Old  Testament,  none  hav^e 
been  more  frequently  discussed  perhaps  than  those 
presented  by  the  imprecatory  Psalms. 

If  the  reader  needs  to  have  his  memory  refreshed 
concerning  the  perfectly  awful  maledictions  poured 
forth  in  these  productions,  he  may  read  the  one 
hundred  and  ninth  Psalm  by  way  of  specimen. 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  45 

Is  such  a  class  of  literature  as  this  divinely  in- 
spired ?  If  so,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  Deity 
who  could  have  inspired  it  ? 

To  these  questions  various  answers  have  been 
attempted  by  the  orthodox  divines.  And,  of  these 
answers,  the  most  plausible  one  is  to  the  effect  that 
the  Scriptures  are  made  up  of  two  different  elements, 
—  the  divine  and  the  human,  —  and  that  the  Psalms 
now  being  considered  are  accordingly  to  be  regarded, 
as  Dr.  Hessy  expresses  it  in  his  Boyle  Lectures  for 
1872,  as  the  unrestrained  expressions  of  the  feel- 
ings of  their  respective  writers. ^5 

But,  from  the  standpoint  of  mediaeval  biblicism, 
there  is,  first  of  all,  the  fundamental  objection  to  this 
theory,  that  it  practically  abandons  the  position  that 
these  special  Psalms  are  in  any  sense  inspired.  For, 
if  they  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  unrestrained 
expressions  of  their  respective  human  writers,  mani- 
festly the  Deity  could  have  had  no  more  to  do  with 
inspiring  than  restraining  them.  Besides,  this  theory 
makes  a  radically  incorrect  division  of  the  Scriptures 
in  its  efforts  to  cover  the  case  in  hand.  That  is  to 
say,  instead  of  affirming  that  the  Scriptures  are 
composed  of  the  divine  element  and  the  human,  it 
would  be  requisite  to  affirm  that  they  are  composed 
of  the  divine  element  and  the  inhuman.  For  more 
inhuman  expressions,  in  a  more  inhuman  spirit,  than 
these  very  Psalms  abound  with,  it  would  be  difficult 


46  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

to  instance  in  any  language  under  heaven,  whether 
civilized,  semi-civilized,  or  barbarous. 

Nor  are  these  imprecatory  Psalms  by  any  means 
the  only  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  which  are 
regarded  in  these  days  as  not  deserving,  from  their 
very  nature,  to  be  accorded  a  position  among  the 
divinely  inspired  portions  of  the  Scriptures.  For 
example,  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith  puts  down 
the  Song  of  Solomon  as  a  mere  lyrical  drama,  in 
which,  according  to  most  critics,  the  pure  love  of 
the  Shulamite  for  her  betrothed  is  exhibited  as 
victorious  over  the  seductions  of  Solomon  and  his 
harem.26  And  M.  Renan  very  pertinently  inquires 
whether  the  author  of  this  charming  little  poem  ever 
could  have  suspected  that  he  would  one  day  be  taken 
from  the  company  of  Anacreon  to  be  set  up  as  an 
inspired  bard  who  sang  of  no  love  but  the  divine.^? 

Thus,  even  upon  this  very  partial  and  very  super- 
ficial examination  of  the  evidence,  do  we  arrive  at 
two  well-established  conclusions.  The  first  of  these 
conclusions  is,  that  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  was  never 
so  written  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as 
to  be  devoid  of  every  sort  of  error.  The  second  of 
these  conclusions  is,  that  a  greater  or  less,  proportion 
of  the  subject-matter  of  the  Bible  is  of  such  a  nature 
as  utterly  to  preclude  the  supposition  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  ever  could  have  had  any  thing  whatever  to  do 
with  its  inspiration. 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  A^J 

The  question  accordingly  arises,  in  what  manner 
the  entire  subject-matter  of  the  Bible  ever  came  to 
be  regarded  as  having  been  immediately  inspired  by 
the  Deity  himself. 

Every  biblical  scholar  is  aware,  that,  as  a  matter  of 
historical  fact,  it  was  only  by  a  very  slow  and  gradual 
process  that  the  various  biblical  books  ever  came, 
one  after  another,  to  be  regarded  even  in  the  light 
of  Scripture.  Thus,  in  the  days  of  Ezra,  the  Penta- 
teuch alone  appears  to  have  enjoyed  any  such  distinc- 
tion. But  by  the  close  of  the  first  Christian  century 
the  entire  Old  Testament  literature  seems  to  have 
arrived  at  that  distinction  likewise.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, until  the  second  half  of  the  second  century  of 
the  Christian  era,  that,  as  a  whole,  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings  attained  the  eminence  in  question. 
But,  from  that  time  onward,  the  New  Testament  and 
the  Old  stand  precisely  on  a  parity.  They  are  alike 
and  indifferently  cited  as  Scripture.  They,  together, 
make  up  the  one  sacred  book  —  the  one  Holy  Bible 
—  of  the  Christian  church  at  large. 

Now,  as  there  was  this  slow  and  gradual  historical 
development  of  the  idea  that  all  the  various  biblical 
books  deserved  to  be  dignified  with  the  name  of 
Scripture,  so  there  was  a  corresponding  historical 
development  of  the  idea  that  all  those  books  were 
originally  delivered  to  certain  chosen  men  by  the 
immediate   inspiration  of   the   Holy  Ghost.      If  we 


48  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

are  to  credit  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith,  for 
example,  there  was  a  period  when  the  Jews  assumed 
the  position  that  the  law  of  Moses,  in  and  by  itself 
considered,  contained  the  whole  revelation  of  God's 
goodness  and  grace,  which  either  had  been  given, 
or  ever  could  be  given.  They  considered  that  the 
Psalms,  the  Prophets,  and  the  other  books  were  in- 
spired indeed,  but  only  in  the  sense  of  being  authori- 
tative interpretations  and  applications  of  the  law  of 
Moses.28  But  it  will  be  perceived,  that,  even  at  this 
period,  the  conception  that  the  entire  Old  Testament 
literature  was  in  the  fullest  sense  inspired,  was  slowly 
rising  in  the  Jewish  mind.  And,  when  we  come 
down  to  the  days  of  Josephus,  it  had  become  natural, 
he  says,  to  all  Jews,  immediately  and  from  their  birth, 
to  esteem  every  one  of  the  twenty-two  books  which 
he  mentions  as  containing  the  decrees  of  God.29 
And  presently  we  find  Irenaeus  declaring  the  entire 
Scripture — inclusive  of  the  New  Testament  as  well 
as  the  Old  — to  be  perfect,  insomuch  as  it  was  uttered 
by  the  Spirit  and  word  of  God. 3° 

Thus,  beginning  in  a  germinal  way  simply  with 
the  Pentateuch,  or  the  law  of  Moses,  the  idea,  first  of 
scripturalness,  and  after  that  of  divine  inspiration, 
became  gradually  attached  by  almost  imperceptible 
degrees,  during  the  long  lapse  of  ages,  to  the  entire 
biblical  literature  which  we  possess  to-day. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  the  force  of  two 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  49 

or  three  considerations  of  cardinal  importance.  The 
first  relates  to  the  almost  nonsensical  reasons  in  view 
of  which  both  the  later  Jews  and  early  Christians 
frequently  came  to  associate  the  idea  of  a  divine 
inspiration  with  the  composition  of  their  sacred  writ- 
ings. There  was  an  opinion  current  among  the  an- 
cient fathers,  for  instance,  that  Ezra  himself,  with 
five  scribes  to  write  at  his  dictation,  within  the 
period  of  forty  days  reproduced  the  entire  Old  Testa- 
ment, in  so  far  as  it  had  been  either  destroyed  or 
injured  at  the  time  of  the  Captivity.  But  the  source 
of  this  superstition,  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith 
assures  us,  was  merely  a  fable  to  that  effect  existing 
in  the  Book  of  Esdras.  The  same  authority  informs 
us  that  the  account  of  the  origin  of  the  Septuagint 
current  in  the  days  of  Jesus  was  full  of  fabulous 
embellishments  designed  to  establish  the  authority 
of  the  version  as  having  been  miraculously  composed 
under  divine  inspiration. 3^  The  very  additions  to 
the  Hebrew  text  ventured  upon  by  the  Septuagint 
interpreters  were  considered  to  have  been  put  in  by 
the  express  authority  of  the  Holy  Ghost.32  Now,  all 
this  is  simply  childish  ;  and  so  very  childish  that  we 
must  manifestly  be  upon  our  guard  against  accepting 
the  entire  biblical  literature  as  having  been  divinely 
inspired,  merely  because  it  was  so  regarded  whether 
by  the  later  Jews  or  early  Christians. 

Another  circumstance  to  note  and  emphasize  is 


50  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

this.  The  idea  that  the  entire  biblical  literature  is 
divinely  inspired  does  not  by  any  means  inhere  in 
that  literature  itself.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  an  idea 
about  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  which  gradually  grew  up 
in  the  imagination  of  the  later  Jews  and  early  Chris- 
tians, in  the  manner  pointed  out  above.  In  other 
words,  while  certain  portions  of  the  Scriptures  pro- 
fess to  be  inspired,  other  portions,  and  other  very 
considerable  portions,  do  not  profess  to  be  inspired. 

In  the  New  Testament  department  this  is  true,  for 
instance,  of  the  book  of  the  Acts.  The  author  of 
this  book  does  not  begin  his  record  with  the  affirma- 
tion that  he  is  about  to  write  it  in  the  capacity  of  a 
kind  of  amanuensis  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  key-note 
which  he  rather  strikes  is  simply  this  :  "The  former 
treatise  have  I  made,  O  Theophilus,  of  all  that  Jesus 
began  to  do  and  teach."  On  the  supposition  of 
the  mediaeval  biblicists,  which  may  for  the  moment 
be  adopted,  that  the  writer  here  is  Luke,  and  that 
the  former  treatise  to  which  he  refers  is  the  Gos- 
pel of  Luke,  we  turn  to  the  prologue  of  that  Gospel 
for  further  information  with  relation  to  the  point 
in  hand.  But,  according  to  this  prologue,  the  author 
of  St.  Luke's  Gospel  does  not  have  the  slightest 
suspicion  that  he  is  about  to  indite  it  under  all  the 
safeguards  against  every  sort  of  error  implied  in 
the  supervising  inspiration  of  the  Deity  himself.  He 
merely  conceives  himself  to  be  one  out  of  many  con- 


THE   I XS  PI  RATI  OX  OF   THE   BIBLE.  5  I 

temporaneous  writers  who  have  undertaken  to  put  on 
record  the  general  subject-matter  of  his  Gospel,  and 
thinks  it  quite  enough  to  say,  by  way  of  establishing 
his  personal  qualifications  for  the  faithful  execution 
of  his  task,  that  he  was  himself,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, among  the  eye-witnesses  of  those  things,  his 
version  of  which  he  was  about  to  write  out  systemati- 
cally for  the  confirmation  of  the  faith  of  his  most 
excellent  friend  Theophilus.  In  like  manner,  if  we 
compare  St.  John  xix.  35  and  xxi.  27,  what  do  we 
discover?  We  discover  merely  that  the  author  of 
the  fourth  Gospel  declares  himself  to  be,  not  a 
divinely  inspired  historian,  but  simply  the  disciple 
who  wrote  these  things  and  knew  that  his  testimony 
was  true.  In  a  word,  you  will  search  the  four  Gos- 
pels in  vain  to  find  them  putting  forth  the  internal 
claim  of  being  divinely  inspired  records  of  the  acts 
and  words  of  Jesus.  The  Jesus  of  the  four  Gospels 
habitually  speaks  and  acts,  indeed,  in  the  capacity  of 
a  divine  messenger,  and  even  of  a  divine  revelator. 
But  the  Gospel  records  of  Jesus'  acts  and  words  no 
more  profess  to  be  divinely  inspired  than  do  the  cur- 
rent reports  made  in  our  modern  newspapers  of  the 
movements  and  speeches  of  our  leading  public  men. 

And  as  of  the  New  Testament,  so  of  the  Old. 
Not  merely  entire  passages,  entire  books,  do  not  pro- 
fess to  be  inspired. 

Let  us,  therefore,  lay  aside  the  altogether  gratui- 


52  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

tons  assumption  of  the  later  Jews  and  early  Chris- 
tians, that  these  portions  of  the  Bible  are  inspired, 
and  look  at  them  from  their  own  standpoint;  namely, 
that  they  are  nothing  more  than  ordinary  human 
compositions. 

Regarded  from  this  point  of  view,  the  undeniable 
discrepancies  and  contradictions  with  which  our  pres- 
ent Gospels  abound  do  not  present  the  slightest 
embarrassment  to  the  modern  biblicist.  No  four 
human  writers  will  narrate  their  several  accounts  of 
the  same  events  without  a  greater  or  less  degree 
of  divergence  in  relation  to  the  details. 

The  same  remark  applies  with  reference  to  the 
various  conflicting  statements  which  we  have  seen 
to  exist  between  the  Chronicles  and  Kings.  For 
neither  do  the  Chronicles  nor  Kings  any  more  pro- 
fess to  be  divinely  inspired  histories  than  do  the  his- 
tories of  Gibbon  or  Macaulay. 

So  with  regard  to  the  imprecatory  Psalms.  The 
Psalms  themselves  do  not  pretend  to  be  inspired. 
Aside  from  the  single  expression,  "The  Lord  said 
unto  my  Lord,"  a  ''Thus  saith  the  Lord"  does  not 
occur,  so  far  as  we  recall,  throughout  the  whole  col- 
lection. "The  Greek  doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  poet,"  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith  observes, 
"never  led  to  the  recognition  of  certain  poems  as 
sacred  scriptures.  But  the  Indian  Vedas  were  re- 
garded in  later  times  as  infallible,  eternal,  divine."  ^^ 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  53 

In  like  manner  the  Psalms,  originally  claiming  to  be 
only  a  portion  of  the  merely  human  religious  poetry 
of  Israel,  gradually  became  converted,  in  the  super- 
stitious imagination  of  the  later  Jews,  into  the  ver- 
itable Jewish  Vedas,  —  sacred,  eternal,  and  divine. 
But,  looked  at  in  their  true  light  as  purporting  to  be 
only  purely  human  ancient  Jewish  poetry,  the  impre- 
catory Psalms  cast  no  reflection  whatever  on  the 
Deity.  David  may  or  may  not  have  personally  com- 
posed them.  But,  even  if  he  did,  the  Holy  Ghost 
stands  no  more  responsible  for  their  monstrous  male- 
dictions than  he  does  for  the  murderous  and  adulter- 
ous animus  of  the  letter  which  David  wrote  to  Joab, 
saying :  "  Set  ye  Uriah  in  the  forefront  of  the  hottest 
battle,  and  retire  ye  from  him,  that  he  may  be  smit- 
ten, and  die."  34 

Another  pertinent  example  would  be  the  Song  of 
Songs.  Not  only  does  this  poem  expressly  purport 
to  be  Solomon's,  not  the  Lord's.  Even  so  recently 
as  the  apostolical  era,  R.  Akiba  hurled  his  theological 
anathemas  at  those  among  the  Jews  who  sang  it  with 
a  quavering  voice  in  the  banqueting  house,  as  if  it 
were  a  common  lay.35  As  a  mere  Song  of  Solomon, 
or,  as  other  critics  maintain,  of  some  other  ancient 
Jewish  writer,  modern  criticism  would  not  incline  to 
speak  of  it  severely.  But,  as  the  Holj^  Ghost  lays  no 
claim  whatever  to  its  authorship,  modern  criticism 
does  not  feel  at  any  greater  liberty  to  foist  its  author- 


54  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

ship  upon  the  Holy  Ghost  than  it  does  to  foist  upon 
the  Holy  Ghost  the  authorship  of  any  corresponding 
amatory  writing,  which  some  critics  regard  as  merely 
sensuous,  but  pure,  and  other  critics  regard  as  both 
sensual  and  positively  immoral. 

Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  foreign  from 
the  present  writer's  purpose  than  to  throw  out  the 
slightest  intimation  that  the  biblical  hterature  does 
not  contain  its  inspired  elements  as  well  as  its  un- 
inspired. If  certain  very  considerable  sections  of  the 
Bible  do  not  profess  to  be  inspired,  other  very  con- 
siderable sections  do  profess  to  be  inspired.  And  all 
that  we  maintain  is  simply  this  :  Only  those  portions 
of  the  Bible  which  profess  to  be  inspired  can  come 
legitimately  before  the  modern  biblicist  for  investi- 
gation when  he  comes  specifically  to  consider  in 
how  far  the  general  subject-matter  of  the  Bible  is 
inspired.  Not  that  the  mere  profession  of  a  biblical 
book,  or  portion  of  a  book,  that  it  is  inspired,  would 
be,  in  and  by  itself  considered,  sufficient  proof  of  its 
inspiration.  What  we  merely  mean  to  affirm  is,  that 
if  a  given  biblical  book,  or  portion  of  a  book,  does 
not  so  much  as  claim  to  be  inspired,  no  presumption 
is  raised  in  favor  of  its  inspiration  :  no  starting-point 
is  offered  even  to  begin  the  formal  consideration  of 
its  inspiration. 

In  a  subsequent  volume  which  the  writer  hopes  to 
put  forth  on  the  great  general  subject  of  Supernatural 


THE   INSPIRATION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  55 

Religion,  he  will  endeavor  to  give  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  the  reasons  why  he  firmly  holds  that  the 
Bible  contains,  as  well  as  professes  to  contain,  an 
element  which  is  the  form  of  a  direct  divine  revela- 
tion. But  his  immediate  object  —  which  is  pre- 
liminary, not  final  —  is  abundantly  secured  if  he  has 
simply  succeeded  in  vindicating  the  general  assertion 
that  the  current  conceptions  of  the  mediaeval  bibli- 
cists  concerning  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  entire 
biblical  literature  are  fundamentally  at  fault ;  and 
that  they  consequently  require  a  revision  of  the  most 
revolutionary  character. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    HISTORICAL    CHARACTER    OF    THE    GOSPELS. 

We  have  already  seen  that  our  present  Gospels  do 
not  profess  to  be  divinely  inspired  histories  of  the 
acts  and  teaching  of  Jesus ;  but  that,  at  the  highest, 
they  purport  to  be  merely  ordinary  human  histories, 
composed  by  his  contemporaries  and  companions. 

We  have  now  to  consider  whether  they  were  actu- 
ally written  by  those  original  disciples  of  Jesus  whose 
respective  names  they  bear. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  however  much  modern  bibli- 
cists  may  disagree  about  other  things,  they  concur  in 
the  view,  that,  as  Renan  remarks,  a  proper  name  at 
the  head  of  such  works  does  not  mean  much.* 
Thus,  in  the  Old  Testament  department.  Professor 
W.  Robertson  Smith  admits  that  all  of  the  titles 
of  the  Psalms  would  be  authoritative,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  fact  that  some  of  the  titles,  not  being  so  old 
as  the  Psalms  themselves,  must  be  regarded  as  the 
mere  conjectures  of  the  individual  copyists.  It 
therefore  becomes  important,  he  says,  to  ask  whether 
all  the  titles  now  found  in  the  Old  Testament  go  back 
56 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE    GOSPELS.      5/ 

to  the  original  authors,  or  whether  some  of  them  are 
not  the  merest  surmises  of  the  later  copyists.  And 
this  question  is  naturally  suggested,  he  maintains,  by 
what  we  find  in  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament, 
many  of  which  prefix  the  name  of  Paul  to  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  though  it  is  quite  certain  that  the 
oldest  copies  left  the  Epistle  anonymous.^ 

The  mediaeval  biblicists  here  interpose  the  objec- 
tion, however,  that  to  write  a  book  in  the  name  of 
another,  and  to  give  it  out  to  be  his,  is  to  perpetrate 
a  deliberate  literary  forgery ;  and  such  a  forgery  as 
would  be  destructive  of  all  trustworthiness  in  the 
book  itself. 

To  this  Dean  Stanley  answers,  that  it  is  as  absurd 
to  charge  the  biblical  writers  with  forgery  because 
they  very  frequently  wrote  under  fictitious  names  — 
as  under  the  pseudonym  of  David,  Solomon,  or  Daniel 
—  as  it  would  be  to  characterize  the  poet  Burns  as  a 
forger  because  he  places  his  address  to  the  army  of 
Bannockburn  in  the  mouth  of  Robert  Bruce.3 

But  neither  by  the  mediaeval  biblicists,  nor  even 
by  Dean  Stanley,  is  the  case  here  correctly  stated, 
as  it  is  understood  by  modern  biblicists  at  large. 
For  the  allegation  of  the  latter  critics  is  not  that 
very  many  of  the  biblical  books  were  originally  put 
forth  in  the  name  of  a  fictitious  author.  They 
merely  maintain  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
biblical    books,  particularly  in    the    Old  Testament 


58  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

division,  were  originally  put  forth  anonymously,  and 
that  some  subsequent  editor  or  copyist,  wishing  to 
cover  the  contents  of  a  given  book  with  the  authority 
of  some  great  name  in  the  ancient  Jewish  or  early 
Christian  annals,  gave  to  the  book  a  fictitious  title. 
And,  regarded  in  this  light,  it  will  be  perceived  that 
the  charge  of  forgery  does  not  have  the  slightest 
pertinency  when  it  is  applied  to  the  subject-matter 
of  the  book,  —  however  apposite  it  maybe  when  it 
is  directed  against  the  alleged  authorship  of  the  pro- 
duction. 

There  is  no  sufficient  historical  evidence,  therefore, 
that  the  formulae,  "  according  to  Matthew,"  **  accord- 
ing to  Mark,"  *' according  to  Luke,"  **  according  to 
John,"  are  headings  prefixed  to  our  respective  Gospels 
by  the  original  authors  of  our  Gospels.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  quite  as  probable  that  these  compositions 
were  originally  put  forth  just  as  anonymously  as 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  that  these  headings 
were  afterwards  prefixed  to  them  by  some  editor 
or  copyist. 

Again  :  among  early  ecclesiastical  writers,  Papias 
is  the  first  who  mentions  the  tradition  that  Matthew 
and  Mark  composed  written  records  of  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Jesus; 4  Irenaeus  the  first  who  ascribes 
the  authorship  of  the  third  Gospel  to  Luke  by  name  ;  5 
and  Theophilus  the  first  who  cites  an  undeniable 
passage  from  the  fourth  Gospel  in  connection  with 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE    GOSPELS.      59 

the  name  of  John.^  But  Papias  was  bishop  of 
Hieropolis  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  Christian 
century,7  Irenaeus  bishop  of  Lyons  A.  D.  178,^  and 
Theophilus  bishop  of  Antioch  A.  D.  179.9 

Roughly  speaking,  therefore,  it  is  not  earlier  than 
from  A.  D.  150  to  A.  D.  175  that  we  find  written 
records  of  the  history  of  Jesus  even  traditionally 
accredited  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John. 

What  gave  rise  to  that  tradition }  Did  it  rest  on 
any  more  substantial  basis  than  the  mere  headings 
of  the  Gospels,  which  were  themselves  presumably 
fictitious } 

But  if  our  Gospels  were  at  least  not  demonstrably 
composed  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  possi- 
bly they  may  have  been  composed  by  contemporaries 
of  Jesus.  That  much,  at  the  lowest,  is  once  asserted 
in  the  third  Gospel,  and  twice  asserted  in  the  fourth. 
Still,  whether  we  are  to  credit  this  assertion  or  not, 
we  shall  be  in  a  better  position  to  judge  after  we 
have  given  a  cursory  consideration  to  the  question  of 
the  probable  date  of  the  composition  of  our  Gospels. 

All  critics,  indeed,  agree  with  Strauss  that  thus 
much  is  certain  :  that  towards  the  end  of  the  second 
century  after  Christ  the  same  four  Gospels  which  we 
now  possess  are  found  in  their  present  written  form, 
both  fully  recognized  in  the  Church,  and  freely 
quoted  in  the  then  current  ecclesiastical  writings,  — 
particularly  in  those  of  Irenaeus  in  Gaul,  Clement  in 


6o  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Alexandria,  and  Tertullian  in  Carthage. ^°  But  how 
much  sooner  than  the  end  of  the  second  century  our 
present  written  Gospels  existed  as  we  have  them  in 
our  hands  to-day,  is  more  or  less  a  matter  of  conjec- 
ture. 

Tischendorf,  however,  endeavors  to  carry  the  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  their  earlier  existence  back  even  to 
the  apostolical  era,  by  establishing  a  connecting  link 
between  Irenaeus  and  Polycarp." 

Polycarp,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a  contempo- 
rary both  of  the  original  disciples  of  Jesus  and  also 
of  Irenaeus.  And,  in  a  letter  to  one  Florinus,  Ire- 
naeus, among  other  things,  observes  :  "  When  I  was  a 
child,  I  saw  thee  at  Smyrna,  in  Asia  Minor,  at  the 
house  of  Polycarp.  ...  I  can  recall  .  .  .  his  frequent 
references  to  St.  John,  and  to  others  who  had  seen 
our  Lord :  how  he  used  to  repeat  from  memory  their 
discourses  which  he  had  heard  from  them  concerning 
our  Lord,  his  miracles  and  mode  of  teaching ;  and 
how,  being  instructed  himself  by  those  who  were 
eye-witnesses  of  the  word,  there  was  in  all  that  he 
said  a  strict  agreement  with  the  Scriptures." 

And,  in  view  of  this,  Professor  Tischendorf  de- 
mands to  know  who  will  venture  any  longer  to  ques- 
tion whether  Irenaeus  had  ever  heard  a  word  from 
Polycarp  about  the  Gospel  of  John. 

It  so  happens,  however,  that  Polycarp,  as  reported 
above  by  Irenaeus,  does  not  say  a  single  word  about 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE   GOSPELS.      6 1 

the  real  point  at  issue ;  namely,  about  a  Gospel  which 
had  been  reduced  to  writing  so  early  as  the  apostoli- 
cal era,  whether  by  St.  John,  St.  Matthew,  St.  Mark, 
St.  Luke,  or  by  any  other  eye-witness  of  the  career 
of  Jesus.  He  speaks,  indeed,  of  hearing  from  such 
eye-witnesses  discourses  concerning  the  miracles  and 
mode  of  teaching  of  our  Lord,  which  he  could  still 
repeat  from  memory.  But  those  discourses  were 
manifestly  verbal  ones,  not  written  ones.  Had  Poly- 
carp  only  said  that  he  had  heard  St.  John,  St.  Mat- 
thew, St.  Mark,  and  St.  Luke  read  the  original 
manuscripts  of  our  present  Gospels,  that  would  in- 
deed signify  something  to  the  purpose  of  mediaeval 
biblicism.  And  if,  up  to  the  time  of  their  death, 
those  apostles  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  produced  any 
such  manuscripts,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  conceived  that 
so  intimate  a  companion  of  them  as  Polycarp  pur- 
ports to  be  should  have  been  altogether  excluded 
from  their  confidence  concerning  the  very  existence 
of  those  manuscripts ;  or  that,  having  been  made 
aware  of  their  existence,  he  should  not  have  men- 
tioned their  existence  in  the  hearing  of  Irenaeus. 

The  fair  inference,  therefore,  is,  that,  to  the  best 
knowledge  and  recollection  of  Polycarp,  no  disciple 
and  contemporary  of  Jesus  had  ever  written  out  a 
formal  history  of  Jesus. 

The  effort  is  made,  again,  to  establish  a  compara- 
tively early  date  for  the  composition  of  our  Gospels 


62  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

by  appealing  to  the  abundant  quotations  made  from 
them,  as  it  is  alleged,  in  ecclesiastical  writers  of  the 
first  part  of  the  second  Christian  century.  But  some 
of  these  writers  do  not  mention  any  source  from 
which  they  make  their  quotations,  and  hence  leave  it 
a  perfectly  open  question  whether  they  quote  from 
any  written  Gospels,  or  only  quote  from  traditions 
appertaining  to  the  history  of  Jesus  which  still  existed 
merely  in  an  oral  form. 

Be  that,  however,  as  it  may,  Justin  Martyr  cer- 
tainly wrote  two  Apologies,  or  Defences  of  Christians 
and  Christianity,  addressed  to  the  Roman  Emperor 
and  Senate.  The  first  of  these  was  probably  written 
about  A.  D.  147,  and  the  second  somewhat  later. ^^ 

In  these  Apologies  Justin  speaks  of  Memoirs  or 
Memorabilia  of  Christ,  composed  by  the  apostles  and 
by  companions  of  the  apostles,  and  which  were  also 
called  sometimes  the  Gospels,  and  sometimes  collec- 
tively the  Gospel. 

Whether  these  apostolical  Memoirs  of  Jesus  which 
Justin  mentions  were  or  were  not  identical  with  our 
present  Gospels,  is  one  of  the  most  hotly  contested 
questions  connected  with  modern  Gospel  criticism. 
And,  in  the  first  place,  there  is  only  the  greatest 
vagueness  expressed  by  the  merely  general  and  wholly 
indefinite  title.  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles.  Had  Jus- 
tin only  subdivided  this  running  title,  and  said  here 
that  he  quoted  from  Matthew,  there  that  he  quoted 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER    OF   THE    GOSPELS.      6^ 

from  Mark,  here  that  he  quoted  from  Luke,  and 
there  that  he  quoted  from  John,  much  more  precision 
would  have  been  imparted  to  his  evidence  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  special  point  before  us.  It  is,  however, 
only  in  a  single  instance  that  Justin  approaches  to 
any  such  precision  :  that  is  when  he  speaks,  not  in 
a  general  way  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles,  but 
in  a  specific  way  of  the  Memoirs  of  Peter. 

Now,  it  is  maintained  by  one  class  of  critics  that 
by  these  Memoirs  of  Peter,  Justin  must  have  designed 
to  designate  the  same  Gospel  as  our  present  Gospel 
of  Mark.  For,  say  these  critics,  to  begin  with,  Peter 
was  regarded  by  the  ancients  as  having  furnished  the 
materials  for  the  second  Gospel,  which  Mark  merely 
wrote  down  at  the  dictation  of  Peter ;  and  hence  it  is 
not  unlikely  that  in  the  days  of  Justin  the  second 
Gospel  may  have  borne  the  name  of  Peter,  who  fur- 
nished its  materials,  though  it  subsequently  became 
called  after  the  name  of  Mark,  who  had  originally 
acted  only  in  the  capacity  of  an  amanuensis  to  Peter 
in  its  composition.  Besides,  these  critics  continue, 
when  Justin  particularly  specifies  the  Gospel  of  Peter 
as  the  source  of  his  information,  he  speaks  of  our 
Saviour  as  changing  the  name  of  Peter,  and  of  his 
giving  to  James  and  John  the  name  Boanerges,  which 
are  circumstances  mentioned,  so  far  as  we  are  aware, 
exclusively  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 

But  a  large  number  of  opposing  critics  contend, 


64  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

that,  when  Justin  refers  to  the  Gospel  of  Peter,  he 
cannot  refer  to  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  but  must  refer 
to  another  and  very  different  work,  which,  under 
various  names,  as  under  those  of  the  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  Peter,  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews, 
and  the  like,  was  circulated  more  or  less  extensively 
throughout  the  early  churches. 

Now,  no  one  denies  that  there  was  a  Gospel  of 
Peter,  which  was  not  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  but  which 
was  condemned  by  Serapion,  bishop  of  Antioch,  as 
containing  objectionable  matter,  and  pronounced  by 
Eusebius  to  be  an  evidently  spurious  production. 
But  while  there  was  a  tradition,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  Peter  furnished  Mark  with  the  subject-matter  of 
the  second  Gospel,  the  hypothesis  is  purely  conjec- 
tural, or,  at  the  highest,  is  strictly  inferential,  that  the 
Gospel  of  Mark  was  ever  cited,  whether  by  Justin  or 
by. any  other  ancient  ecclesiastical  writer,  under  the 
name  of  the  Gospel  of  Peter.  And,  until  the  lost 
Gospel  of  Peter  has  been  recovered,  it  never  can  be 
demonstrated  that  it  did  not  contain,  in  common 
with  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  precisely  those  passages 
which  Justin  quotes  in  relation  to  the  changes  made 
by  Jesus  in  the  names  of  Peter,  James,  and  John, 
and  which,  in  the  absence  of  the  Gospel  of  Peter, 
have  been  preserved  to  us  only  in  the  Gospel  of 
Mark.  And,  under  all  these  circumstances,  it  be- 
comes  an    exceedingly  problematical   question   with 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF  THE   GOSPELS.      65 

the  perfectly  impartial  modern  biblicist,  whether, 
when  Justin  speaks  of  the  Gospel  of  Peter,  he  means 
the  lost  Gospel  of  Peter,  or  means  our  Gospel  of 
Mark,  which,  for  the  reasons  assigned  above,  might 
at  one  time  have  possibly  been  called  the  Gospel  of 
Peter  as  well  as  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 

But  the  main  argument  in  favor  of  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  apostolical  Memoirs  mentioned  by  Jus- 
tin are  the  same  as  our  present  Gospels  remains  to 
be  considered.  This  argument  is  very  clearly  stated 
by  Dr.  Ezra  Abbot  when  he  affirms,  first,  that  Jus- 
tin nowhere  expressly  quotes  the  Memoirs  for  any 
thing  which  is  not  substantially  stated  in  our  Gospels ; 
and,  secondly,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  deviations 
of  Justin's  quotations  from  exact  correspondence 
with  our  Gospels  as  regards  either  matters  of  fact,  or 
the  report  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  which  may  not  be 
abundantly  paralleled  in  the  writings  of  the  Christian 
fathers  who  used  our  four  Gospels  as  alone  authori- 
tative. ^3 

First,  then,  there  can  be  no  dispute  that  the  quo- 
tations made  by  Justin  from  his  Memoirs  are  sub- 
stantially the  same  as  they  would  have  been  had  he 
quoted  from  our  Gospels.  For,  while  these  quotations, 
regarded  from  a  merely  verbal  point  of  view,  deviate 
in  almost  every  instance  to  a  greater  or  less  degree 
from  corresponding  passages  in  our  Gospels,  never- 
theless not  even  the  author  of  "  Supernatural   Reli- 


66  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

gion  "  is  able  to  gainsay  that  they  usually  agree  in 
substance  with  such  corresponding  passages.  And 
if  merely  substantial,  as  distinguished  from  strictly 
verbal,  accuracy  in  quoting  from  our  Gospels,  would 
prove  that  Justin  Martyr,  in  employing  his  apostoli- 
cal Memoirs,  did  not  employ  our  Gospels,  it  would 
equally  prove  that  Eusebius  and  many  other  ancient 
Christian  writers  could  not  have  used  our  Gospels 
as  the  source  of  their  citations.  Thus  Dr.  Abbot 
instances  a  single  passage  which  is  quoted  by  Euse- 
bius not  less  than  eleven  times,  but  each  time  with 
some  verbal  variation. ^4  But  every  scholar  knows 
that  Eusebius,  and  the  other  Christian  fathers  re- 
ferred to,  just  as  undeniably  had  our  present  Gospels 
before  them,  or  at  least  in  their  possession,  as  has 
any  modern  biblicist. 

The  supposition,  therefore,  is,  that  the  earlier  eccle- 
siastical writers  were  strangers  to  our  modern  cus- 
tom of  literal  transcription  from  our  Gospels,  and 
that,  when  they  had  occasion  to  cite  our  Gospels  as 
authority,  they  either  quoted  merely  from  memory, 
or  only  aimed  to  give  the  point  and  substance  of  a 
passage. 

Let  it  be  assumed,  however,  for  the  purpose  of 
the  argument,  that  Justin  Martyr  did  not  so  employ 
his  Memoirs.  In  other  words,  let  it  be  assumed  that 
his  habit  of  citation  was  that  of  modern  biblicists, 
—  that  when  he  quoted  from  his  Memoirs  he  did  so 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE    GOSPELS.      6/ 

verbatim^  et  literatim,  et  punctiiatim.  It  would  still 
remain  true,  that,  while  verbally  different  from  our 
Gospels,  his  Memoirs  were  yet  identical  with  our 
Gospels  in  their  main  outlines  and  in  their  substance 
and  substratum.  Moreover,  Justin  says  that  his  Me- 
moirs were  statedly  read  in  the  Christian  churches, 
or  rather  in  the  Sabbath  Christian  gatherings  of  his 
time,^5  and  that  they  contained  every  thing  concern- 
ing our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. ^^  All  the  probabili- 
ties, therefore,  are,  that  his  Memoirs  continued  to 
remain,  and  be  handed  down  within  the  inner  Chris- 
tian circles,  as  the  recognized  standard  and  exponent 
of  the  acts  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  that  it  was 
mainly,  and  more  or  less  immediately,  from  them,  that 
our  present  Gospels  were  eventually  produced. 

As  early  as  the  days  of  Justin,  therefore,  our  pres- 
ent Gospels  must  have  ceased  to  exist  in  a  merely 
written  form,  and  been  substantially  reduced  to 
writing, — passing,  however,  still  under  the  general 
name  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles.  After  this 
they  must  have  undergone  some  changes  indeed,  but 
changes  of  a  merely  minor  nature.  Thus,  on  the 
conjectural  supposition  that  Justin  quoted  from  them 
as  they  existed  in  his  age,  verbally  and  literally, 
they  must  subsequently  have  passed  through  all 
those  strictly  verbal  transformations  which  would  be 
requisite  to  bring  them  into  an  exact  verbal  corre- 
spondence with  our  Gospels.     A  certain  amount  of 


68  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

subject-matter  must  likewise  have  been  eliminated 
from  them,  such  as  the  traditions  that  Christ  was 
born  in  a  cave,  that  the  Magi  came  from  Arabia, 
and  that  Jesus,  as  a  carpenter,  made  ploughs  and 
yokes, ^7  —  subject-matter  that  would  seem  to  have 
been  in  Justin's  Memoirs,  but  which  certainly  has 
not  survived  them  in  our  Gospels.  Another  change 
relates  to  the  name  of  Justin's  Gospels.  By  this  we 
mean,  that  instead  of  continuing  to  be  called  merely, 
in  a  general  way,  the  Memoirs  of  Christ,  by  the 
apostles  and  companions  of  the  apostles,  this  title 
became  in  due  process  of  time  subdivided  and  dis- 
tributed, so  that  each  separate  Gospel  had  its  own 
special  apostolical  author,  namely,  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke,  and  John. 

In  this  department  of  modern  biblical  criticism, 
where  almost  every  thing  is  to  some  extent  conjec- 
tural, we  have  accordingly  arrived  at  a  few  provis- 
ional conclusions.  And,  in  the  first  place,  it  would 
appear  to  be  nearly  certain  that  no  original  apostle, 
or  disciple,  or  contemporary  of  Jesus,  produced,  in  a 
manuscript  form,  any  written  record  of  the  history 
of  Jesus.  On  the  other  hand,  this  history  would 
seem  to  have  existed  only  in  the  shape  of  strictly 
oral  traditions  until  the  post-apostolical  era  had  not 
merely  opened,  but  to  some  degree  advanced.  Just 
when  these  oral  traditions  first  began  to  be  fixed  in 
writing,   however,    is   quite   another   question.     But 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE   GOSPELS.      69 

since  their  composition  was  substantially  completed 
in  the  days  of  Justin,  the  fair  inference  would  be, 
that  the  initial  stages  of  their  composition  must 
have  commenced  considerably  before  the  days  of 
Justin.  In  a  general  way  also  an  apostolical  author- 
ship had  already  begun  to  be  ascribed  to  these  pro- 
ductions prior  to  the  period  of  Justin.  And  when 
we  come  down  to  the  days  of  Papias,  Irenaeus,  and 
Theophilus,  —  A.D.  150  to  A.D.  175,  —  each  of  the 
Gospels  had  then  acquired  for  itself  its  own  special 
apostle  for  an  author.  After  which  it  only  remains  to 
add,  that  all  classes  of  critics  are  agreed  that  by  the 
conclusion  of  the  second  century  our  present  written 
Gospels  had  passed  through  the  final  stages  of  their 
literary  development ;  had  ceased  to  undergo  any 
further  changes,  whether  as  to  their  language  or  their 
subject-matter;  had  become  permanently  fixed  in 
writing  as  we  possess  them  in  our  hands  to-day. 

Assuming  the  general  correctness  of  these  pro- 
visional conclusions,  therefore,  both  the  authorship 
of  our  Gospels,  and  the  precise  period  of  their  com- 
position, are  among  the  unsolved  and  insolvable 
problems  of  modern  biblical  speculation.  Still  the 
period  of  their  composition  appears  to  have  extended, 
say  from  some  time  before  the  conclusion  of  the  first 
century  after  Christ,  until  some  time  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century.  And,  as  to  authorship, 
we  can  form  nothing  beyond  the  vaguest  surmises 


70  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

as  to  how  many  different  editors  and  copyists  there 
must  have  been  who  at  one  time  and  another,  and 
in  one  way  or  another,  contributed  either  verbally 
or  substantially,  or  both,  towards  casting  and  fixing 
them  in  their  present  form. 

And  yet,  by  whomsoever  and  whensoever  our  Gos- 
pels'  were  composed,  they  still  possess  a  certain 
degree  of  historical  value  when  regarded  in  the  light 
of  professed  ancient  histories  of  Jesus. 

Taking  up  these  documents,  therefore,  quite  inde- 
pendently of  all  illusive  questions  about  alike  their 
authorship  and  date  of  composition,  we  will  in  the 
next  place  endeavor  to  arrive  at  some  approximate 
estimate  of  their  intrinsic  historical  worth. 

It  is  well  known  that  a  certain  very  able  and  influ- 
ential school  of  modern  critics  deny  their  historical 
character  not  partially,  but  wholly,  in  so  far  as  they 
narrate  the  supernatural.  And,  while  this  feature 
of  supernaturalism  is  perfectly  intolerable  to  these 
critics  even  in  the  first  three  Gospels,  it  is  superla- 
tively intolerable  to  them  as  it  is  presented  in  the 
fourth.  As  Strauss  has  it,  in  the  presence  of  this 
latter  Gospel  it  is  incumbent  upon  the  modern  anti- 
supernaturalists  either  to  break  in  pieces  all  their 
weapons,  or  force  it  to  disavow  all  claims  to  histori- 
cal validity,  ^s 

Any  thing  like  an  adequate  consideration  of  the 
various    hypotheses  which    have    been    advanced    to 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE    GOSPELS.      7 1 

explain  away  the  supernatural  relations  of  the  sev- 
eral Gospels  as  utterly  unhistorical  cannot  be  at- 
tempted, however,  either  in  thi^  chapter,  or  even  in 
the  present  volume.  On  the  other  hand,,  the  subject 
is  so  large  a  one  that  its  discussion  must,  of  neces- 
sity, be  deferred  until  we  can  find  scope  to  take  it 
up  in  a  formal  manner  in  our  projected  work  on 
Supernatural  Religion. 

The  supernaturalism  of  the  Gospels  being  thus 
for  the  time  altogether  eliminated  from  the  problem, 
the  question  arises  :  In  how  far  are  our  Gospels  his- 
torical ?  or  are  they  historical  at  all  ? 

The  greatest  difficulty  here  presented  to  the 
modern  biblicist  is,  what  historical  position  is  to  be 
accorded  to  the  Gospel  of  John.  And,  in  the  first 
place,  it  is  maintained  by  the  most  pronounced  oppo- 
nents of  this  Gospel,  as  by  F.  C.  Baur  and  Strauss, 
that  it  more  or  less  abounds  with  conscious  and 
intentional  fiction.  But  by  some  of  these  opponents 
the  effort  has  been  made  to  separate  the  Gospel  into 
two  distinct  elements,  one  of  which  is  comparatively 
historical,  the  other  of  which  is  little  better  than 
fictitious.  These  elements  are,  first,  the  narrative 
portions  of  the  Gospel,  and,  secondly,  those  portions 
of  the  Gospel  which  purport  to  give  the  discourses 
of  Jesus.  But  if  either  of  these  portions  is  historical, 
and  the  other  one  is  not  so,  which  one  is  the  histori- 
cal, and  which  one  is  not  the  historical }     Weisse, 


72  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

for  instance,  says  that  the  discourses  are  historical,^9 
and  that  the  narratives  are  fictitious;  Renan — vice 
versa.^°  Now,  Strauss  concedes,  that,  if  there  can 
be  degrees  of  impossibility,  the  genuineness  of  the 
speeches  imputed  to  Jesus  in  the  fourth  Gospel  is 
to  some  extent  more  inconceivable  than  the  genuine- 
ness of  its  narrative  portions.  At  the  same  time  he 
insists  on  the  untenableness  of  the  entire  hypothesis 
that  this  Gospel  can  be  divided  into  the  above-men- 
tioned elements,  one  of  which  is  historical  and  the 
other  not  historical,  and  contends  that  conscious 
and  intentional  fiction  is  characteristic  alike  of  its 
narrations  and  discourses.^i 

It  is  fortunately  possible  for  us,  however,  wholly 
to  extricate  ourselves  from  this  entanglement  by 
putting  aside  the  narrative  portions  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  altogether,  and  considering  only  the  dis- 
courses. For,  comparatively  speaking,  we  have  but 
an  incidental  interest  to-day  in  the  merely  external 
facts  and  features  of  the  history  of  Jesus.  What 
most  deeply  concerns  us,  and  what  we  particularly 
wish  to  know,  relates  the  rather  to  those  ideas  and 
principles  of  personal  living,  both  outer  and  inner, 
which  Jesus  did  or  did  not  bequeath  us. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  are  the  speeches  accred- 
ited to  Jesus  in  the  fourth  Gospel  genuine,  or  spuri- 
ous } 

And,  to  begin  with,  it  is  at  least  a  notorious  fact 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER    OF   THE    GOSPELS.      73 

that,  in  addition  to  our  four  canonical  Gospels,  the 
early  Christian  literature  contained  several  other 
Gospels  which  are  now  designated  as  apocryphal, 
and  rejected  as  being  false  and  manufactured  repre- 
sentations, or  rather  misrepresentations,  of  the  acts 
and  words  of  Jesus. 

One  of  the  principal  reasons  assigned,  as  by  Pro- 
fessor George  P.  Fisher,  for  the  rejection  of  these 
apocryphal  Gospels,  is  that  they  present  no  claim  to 
our  attention  on  the  score  of  age, — all  of  them  hav- 
ing been  produced  at  a  demonstrably  later  date  than 
Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John. 22  But  this  is  an 
objection  which  applies  with  no  inconsiderable  force 
as  well  against  the  historical  character  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  in  comparison  with  the  Synoptics.  For  all 
modern  critics,  including  Professor  Fisher  ^3  and 
Professor  Tischendorf,24  are  perfectly  agreed  that 
the  fourth  Gospel  certainly  saw  the  light  after  the 
other  three. 

It  is  alleged  again  that  the  apocryphal  Gospels 
are  at  a  world-wide  remove  from  the  canonical  Gos- 
pels in  the  character  of  their  contents.^s  But  it  is 
likewise  alleged,  to  use  almost  the  exact  language 
of  Canon  Westcott,  that  it  is  impossible  to  pass  from 
the  synoptical  Gospels  to  that  of  St.  John  without 
feeling  that  the  transition  involves  the  passage  from 
one  world  of  thought  to  another. ^6  With  special 
reference    to    the   point    now  before    us,  M.    Renan 


74  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

insists,  indeed,  that  the  fourth  Gospel  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Jesus  discourses  the  tone,  the  style,  the 
manner,  the  doctrines,  of  which  have  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  discourses  reported  in  the  Synoptics.27 

Since,  however,  no  one  disputes  that  a  broad 
and  fundamental  diversity  obtains  between  the  dis- 
courses in  question,  there  is  no  occasion  to  enlarge 
any  further  on  this  special  aspect  of  the  subject, 
beyond,  perhaps,  remarking  that  the  most  casual 
reader  of  the  Gospels  must  have  observed  it  for 
himself,  or  that,  if  he  has  not  done  so,  he  may  readily 
observe  it  by  contrasting  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
for  example,  with  any  extended  report  of  the  osten- 
sible words  of  Jesus  which  may  be  selected  at  random 
in  the  Gospel  of  John. 

It  may  here  be  interposed,  however,  that  we  are 
overlooking  the  real  point  of  the  argument  against  the 
genuineness  of  the  apocryphal  Gospels,  as  contrasted 
with  that  of  the  canonical  Gospels,  so  far  as  the 
marked  dissimilarity  of  their  respective  contents  is 
concerned.  For  it  is  not  a  full  and  correct  state- 
ment of  the  case  when  it  is  merely  said  that  the 
apocryphal  Gospels  differ  from  the  canonical  Gos- 
pels in  the  sense  that  the  fourth  Gospel  differs 
from  the  Synoptics.  The  discourses  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  differ  from  those  of  the  Synoptics  very  nota- 
bly, indeed  ;  but  the  former  do  not  differ  from  the 
latter  as  sense  does  from  nonsense.     The  element 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE    GOSPELS.      75 

of  dignity  and  elevation  of  thought  is  at  least 
a  common  factor  between  the  speeches  of  Jesus  re- 
corded in  the  Synoptics  and  the  speeches  accredited 
to  Jesus  in  the  fourth  Gospel.  But  as  contrasted 
with  that  of  the  canonical  Gospels,  a  preponderating 
proportion  of  the  subject-matter  of  the  apocryphal 
Gospels  is  absurd  and  frivolous,  —  is  mainly  made  up 
of  almost  silly  tales  about  the  nativity  and  infancy 
of  Jesus,  the  glories  of  his  mother,  and  other  kindred 
stories,  which  are  too  palpably  fabulous  to  merit  any 
attention. 28 

Over  against  this,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that, 
among  other  things,  the  mighty  personality  and 
influence  of  Jesus  imparted  to  his  disciples  and 
adherents  a  marked  literary  impulse  after  he  was 
gone.  And  the  manifestations  of  this  literary  im- 
pulse were  as  manifold  as  were  the  various  classes 
of  minds  which  yielded  to  its  sway.  Thus,  in  one 
direction,  it  resulted  in  the  Pauline  Epistles ;  in 
another,  it  gave  rise  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ; 
and,  in  yet  another,  it  produced  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion. And  if,  in  its  action  upon  a  certain  class  of 
minds  innately  inclined  to  find  expression  in  the 
fabulous  and  frivolous,  it  resulted  in  an  apocryphal 
literature  after  the  general  type  either  of  the  Gospel 
of  Peter  or  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  for  example, 
it  is  quite  within  the  limits  of  the  possible  that  in  its 
action  upon  a  certain  other  class  of  minds,  innately 


'j6  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

inclined  to  be  contemplative  and  metaphysical,  it 
might  have  resulted  in  an  apocryphal  production 
answering  to  the  general  description  of  the  Gospel 
of  John. 

Now,  in  all  this,  we  do  not  design  positively  to 
affirm  that  the  fourth  Gospel,  and  notably  that  the 
discourses  of  Jesus  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  are  demon- 
strably unhistorical.  We  merely  mean  to  declare, 
and  to  declare  with  the  greatest  emphasis,  that  there 
is  no  scholarly  method  of  establishing  their  historical 
character  beyond  a  reasonable  basis  of  doubt.  Not 
that  this  doubt  will  be  shared  by  all  modern  biblicists, 
but  that  it  will  be  shared  by  a  very  large  proportion 
of  them.  In  a  word,  the  question  of  the  authenticity 
of  St.  John's  Gospel  has  already  been  discussed  back- 
ward and  forward,  and  over  and  over  again,  now  for 
nearly  half  a  century.  And  Dr.  Ezra  Abbot  is  per- 
fectly correct  when  he  states  the  aggregate  result  of 
this  discussion  to  be,  that,  among  scholars  of  equal 
learning  and  ability,  as  between  Hilgenfeld,  Keim, 
Scholten,  Hausrath,  and  Renan,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Godet,  Beyschlag,  Luthardt,  Weiss,  and  Light- 
foot,  on  the  other,  opinions  are  yet  divided,  with  a 
tendency,  at  least  in  Germany,  toward  the  denial  of 
its  genuineness. 29 

But  it  is  a  subject  for  congratulation  that  modern 
investigation  into  the  historical  character  of  the  syn- 
optical Gospels  has  for  its  aggregate  outcome  some- 


HISTORICAL    CHARACTER   OF   THE   GOSPELS.      ^J 

thing  more  assured  than  a  mere  division  of  opinion. 
For,  even  among  the  so-called  destructive  critics,  it 
now  passes  as  a  sort  of  common  postulate,  or  axiom, 
that,  aside  from  their  elements  of  supernaturalism, 
and  despite  their  hiata  and  their  errors,  we  still  pos- 
sess in  the  synoptical  Gospels  a  generally  correct 
historical  preservation,  so  far  as  it  goes,  if  not  of  the 
acts,  yet  of  the  teachings,  of  Jesus. 

With  regard  to  the  synoptical  teaching  of  Jesus, 
however,  it  is  important  to  note  that  the  destructive 
critics  all,  or  nearly  all,  accord  the  first  rank  to 
Matthew.  Thus  Strauss  affirms,  that,  notwithstand- 
ing all  doubt  upon  individual  points,  every  one  must 
admit  that  we  have  the  speeches  of  Jesus  in  the  first 
Gospel,  though  not  unmixed  with  later  additions  and 
modifications,  yet  in  a  purer  form  than  in  any  of  the 
others.30  And  Renan  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that 
Matthew  clearly  deserves  unlimited  confidence  as 
regards  the  discoursesJ^ 

In  undertaking  to  determine,  therefore,  what  is  the 
actual  historical  teaching  of  Jesus,  unless  we  would 
enter  upon  an  almost  interminable  controversy  at 
the  very  outset,  it  would  be  requisite  to  assume,  as 
a  common  basis  of  investigation  with  those  who 
reject  the  discourses  of  John,  that  the  synoptical 
discourses,  and  particularly  that  the  Logia  recorded 
in  Matthew,  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  standard. 
Whether  the  discourses  of  John    are  likewise  to  be 


y8  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

taken  into  the  account,  or  not,  is  a  question  which 
would  remain  for  subsequent  examination.  And  the 
decision  of  this  question  would  hinge  mainly  on  the 
conclusion  which  we  might  arrive  at  concerning  this 
one  thing ;  namely,  whether  the  discourses  of  John 
are  merely  divergent  from  those  of  the  other  Gospels, 
or  are  so  radically  at  variance  as  to  be  absolutely  in- 
compatible with  those  of  the  other  Gospels. 

But  this  is  an  aspect  of  the  subject  which  can  be 
adequately  discussed  only  by  a  detailed  comparison 
of  the  synoptical  discourses  with  the  discourses  of 
John  on  all  their  leading  topics,  as  on  that  of  ethics, 
on  that  of  theism,  on  that  of  the  person  of  Jesus,  and 
the  like. 

For  the  execution  of  such  a  task  as  this,  however, 
the  author  has  not  space  remaining  in  the  present 
chapter ;  although  he  hopes  in  some  measure  to 
perform  it  in  a  future  volume,  to  be  devoted  to  a 
general  consideration  of  the  Religion  of  Jesus. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    RELIGION    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

In  depicting  the  present  condition  of  things  in 
England,  Matthew  Arnold  says  that  clergymen  and 
ministers  of  religion  are  full  of  lamentations  over 
what  they  call  the  spread  of  scepticism,  and  because 
of  the  little  hold  which  religion  now  has  on  the 
masses  of  the  people.  And  it  is  the  religion  of 
the  Bible  that  is  professedly  in  question  with  all  the 
churches  when  they  talk  of  religion,  and  lament  its 
prospects.  With  Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants, 
and  with  all  the  sects  of  Protestantism,  this  is  so. 
What  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is,  and  how  it  is  to 
be  got  at,  they  may  not  agree ;  but  that  it  is  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  for  which  they  contend,  they 
all  aver.^ 

With  regard  to  what  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is, 
Protestants  and  Catholics  not  only  now  disagree : 
they  must  always  continue  to  disagree.  Why.? 
Because,  although  they  proceed  upon  the  common 
postulate,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  Bible  contains 
a  divinely  inspired  revelation  without  the    slightest 

79 


80  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

admixture  of  error,  they  yet  adopt  a  radically  dif- 
ferent standpoint,  and  pursue  a  radically  different 
method,  when  they  would  respectively  determine 
how  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  exclusive  of  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, is  to  be  got  at.  For  when  the  question  is 
specifically  raised,  how  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is 
to  be  got  at,  the  Catholics  respond  —  to  use  the  pre- 
cise language  of  the  Vatican  Decrees — that,  in  mat- 
ters of  faith  and  morals  appertaining  to  the  building- 
up  of  Christian  doctrine,  that  is  to  be  held  as  the 
true  sense  of  Holy  Scripture  which  our  Holy  Mother 
Church  held  and  holds,  to  whom  it  belongs  to  judge 
of  the  true  sense  and  interpretation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  therefore  that  it  is  permitted  to  no 
one  to  interpret  the  Sacred  Scriptures  contrary  to 
this  sense,  nor  contrary  to  the  unanimous  consent 
of  the  Fathers. 2 

The  Protestants,  on  the  other  hand,  contend,  as 
every  one  knows,  for  the  right  and  duty  of  private 
judgment  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures. 

But  in  employing  their  private  judgment  to  deter- 
mine what  are  the  true  sense  and  interpretation  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  how  do  Protestants  proceed  1 
Their  method  is  simply  to  compare  Scripture  with 
Scripture.  As  Dr.  Rainy  says  :  "  The  whole  truth 
on  any  point  which  the  Scriptures  give,  they  give 
not   always  in   complete   single    statements,   but    in 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  8 1 

various  statements  which  explain  and  guard  and 
complete  each  other.  ...  I  must  gather  up  and 
present  to  myself  the  joint  effect  of  these  state- 
ments, so  far  as  I  have  understood  them."  3  Or,  as 
Dean  Mansel  puts  it :  "  Scripture  is  to  the  theologi- 
cal dogmatist  what  experience  is  to  the  philosophi- 
cal. It  supplies  him  with  the  facts  to  which  his 
system  has  to  adapt  itself.  It  contains  in  an  unsys- 
tematic form  the  positive  doctrines  which  further 
inquiry  has  to  exhibit  as  connected  into  a  scientific 
whole."  4 

Contrasted  with  the  Catholic  process  of  determin- 
ing what  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is,  therefore,  the 
Protestant  process  at  least  guarantees  that  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Bible  will  be  got  at  with  a  comparative 
purity  and  correctness.  For,  according  to  the  Prot- 
estant process,  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  on  any 
given  topic  is  gradually  arrived  at  by  a  scientific 
collection  and  classification  of  all  the  detached  and 
more  or  less  widely-scattered  subject-matter  of  the 
Bible  bearing  on  the  point.  Thus,  in  the  hands  of 
Protestants,  the  Bible  becomes  its  own  expositor  and 
its  own  interpreter.  Thus,  in  the  hands  of  Protes- 
tants, the  religion  of  the  Bible,  in  all  of  its  various 
aspects,  becomes  developed  from  within  the  Bible 
itself,  and  will  be  guarded  against  the  incorporation 
into  itself  of  senses,  ideas,  and  principles  from  with- 
out, which  are  foreign  to  the  subject-matter  of  the 


82  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

Bible.  But  the  moment  that  any  external  authority, 
such  as  the  Catholic  Church,  undertakes  to  deter- 
mine from  without  what  are  tiie  true  sense  and 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  that  moment  a  perfect 
flood-gate  is  thrown  open  for  the  inflow  of  senses, 
ideas,  and  principles,  into  the  alleged  religion  of  the 
Bible,  which  do  not  by  any  means  inhere  in  the  inner 
teachings  of  the  Bible,  but  which  inhere  the  rather 
in  the  self-interests,  the  misconceptions,  and  even  in 
the  vices  and  the  superstitions,  of  the  externally 
interpreting  body. 

But  let  it  be  assumed,  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment, that,  whether  by  the  Catholic  process  or  the 
Protestant  process  of  getting  at  the  thing,  or  both, 
the  religion  of  the  Bible  has  been  more  or  less  accu- 
rately determined.  It  yet  remains  true,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  suggests  above,  that  there  is  a  wide-spread 
modern  rupture  with  this  very  biblical  religion. 

This  rupture  is  the  most  pronounced  so  far  as  the 
Old  Testament  element  enters  into  such  religion. 
There  can  be  no  question,  for  example,  that  multi- 
tudes of  modern  minds  are  fairly  up  in  revolt  against 
many  of  the  theistic  conceptions  presented  in  that 
department  of  the  Scriptures.  Thus  Professor  Christ- 
lieb  says  that  the  objection  is  frequently  raised,  that, 
side  by  side  with  many  exalted  ideas  of  God,  there 
are  in  the  Bible,  at  least  in  the  Old  Testament, 
many  views  unworthy  of   him. 5     Even   believers  in 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  Z^ 

the  Bible,  he  continues,  are  sometimes  offended  by 
the  manner  in  which  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  appealed  to  in  the  Psalms  as  a  God  of  vengeance, 
and  also,  generally  speaking,  by  the  whole  spirit 
expressed  in  those  passages  in  which  the  poet  in- 
vokes destruction  on  his  enemies.^ 

But  so  far  as  the  theism  of  the  Psalms  is  specifi- 
cally concerned,  we  have  already,  in  the  chapter  on 
Inspiration,  cleared  the  Deity  of  the  Old  Testament 
from  all  reprehensibleness.  The  authors  of  the 
imprecatory  Psalms  habitually  invoke  Jehovah,  in- 
deed, as  the  most  awful  God  of  vengeance.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose,  however,  that  Jehovah  either 
inspired  those  authors,  or  gave  any  answer  to  their 
fearful  invocations. 

But,  when  we  come  to  consider  Jehovah  as  a  God 
of  War,  the  manner  in  which  he  is  to  be  vindicated 
before  the  tribunals  of  the  modern  judgment  and 
conscience  is  not  by  any  means  so  palpable. 

One  of  the  most  notable  attempts  at  doing  this  is 
that  made  by  Canon  Mozley  in  his  "  Ruling  Ideas  in 
Early  Ages."  In  substance,  the  Canon  proceeds  to 
say,  that  such  wars  as  the  exterminating  wars  of 
Israel,  done  in  obedience  to  a  divine  command,  are 
strongly  urged  by  unbelievers  against  Old  Testament 
morality, — by  which  he  means,  of  course,  Old  Tes- 
tament theism.  It  is  replied  that  God  is  the  author 
alike  of  life  and  death,  and  that  he  has  the  right  to 


84  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

deprive  any  number  of  his  creatures  of  life,  whether 
by  the  natural  instrumentality  of  pestilence  or  fam- 
ine, or  by  the  express  employment  of  man  as  his 
instrument  of  destruction.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  a 
divine  command  to  exterminate  a  whole  people  be- 
comes known  to  another  people,  they  not  only  have 
the  right,  but  are  under  the  strictest  obligation,  to 
execute  such  a  command.  In  what  way,  however,  is 
a  divine  command  for  the  destruction  of  a  whole 
nation  made  known  to  the  destroying  nation  t  It  is 
usually  answered,  and  answered  with  truth,  that  it  is 
made  known  to  them  by  the  evidence  of  miracles. 
Still,  some  distinction  is  yet  wanted  in  dealing  with 
this  subject.  For,  while  miraculous  evidence  consti- 
tuted to  the  ancient  Israelites  a  sufficient  proof  of  a 
divine  command  to  exterminate  certain  nations,  it 
would  not  constitute  a  sufficient  proof  of  any  such 
command  to  us  in  modern  times.  Why  not  t  Be- 
cause there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  concep- 
tions of  those  ages  and  our  own,  in  consequence  of 
which  such  commands  were  adapted  for  proof  by 
miracles  then,  but  are  not  so  adapted  now.  In  par- 
ticular, our  much  more  developed  ideas  of  humanity 
and  justice  would  now  be  an  absolute  bar  to  the 
execution  of  certain  proceedings,  against  which  the 
moral  sense  of  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world  did  not 
act  as  such  a  barrier.  That  is  to  say,  in  these  days 
we  should  be  divided  in  our  minds  between  two  con- 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  85 

tradictory  evidences,  —  the  evidence  of  the  miracle 
that  such  a  command  came  from  God,  and  the  evi- 
dence of  our  sense  of  justice  that  it  could  not  have 
come  from  God.  But  in  olden  times  these  com- 
mands had  no  resistance  from  the  moral  sense;  they 
did  not  look  unnatural  to  the  ancient  Jew  ;  they  were 
not  foreign  to  his  standard  ;  they  excited  no  suspicion, 
and  created  no  perplexity ;  they  appealed  to  a  genu- 
ine but  rough  sense  of  justice,  which  existed  when 
the  longing  for  retribution  upon  crime  in  the  human 
mind  was  not  checked,  as  it  is  now  checked,  by  the 
strict  sense  of  humanity  and  justice.  Such  com- 
mands were,  therefore,  then  adapted  to  miraculous 
proof,  but  are  not  so  adapted  now.7 

But  it  will  be  perceived,  that  in  all  this  Canon 
Mozley  merely  manages  to  extricate  the  ancient 
Jews  from  our  modern  execration  for  the  part  they 
took  in  the  execution  of  the  alleged  commands  of 
their  Jehovah  to  slaughter  their  enemies  by  the 
wholesale,  even  to  the  women  and  the  children. 
Semi-savages  that  they  were,  their  conceptions  alike 
of  humanity  and  justice  were  so  barbarous,  in  com- 
parison with  our  own,  that  they  could  even  conscien- 
tiously almost  exterminate  nation  after  nation,  at  the 
order  of  their  Deity. 

But  what  are  we  to  think,  in  these  days,  of  a  Deity 
who  could  deliberately,  repeatedly,  and  persistently 
command  such  wholesale  human  slaughters  that  only 


S6  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

a  semi-savage  people,  like  the  ancient  Israelites, 
could  possibly  carry  his  commands  into  execution 
without  a  moral  shock  ? 

But  of  this  aspect  of  the  subject, — which,  after 
all,  is  the  only  vital  aspect,  —  Mozley  seems  to  be 
entirely  oblivious. 

Speaking  directly  to  this  point,  the  question  is 
raised,  whether,  as  a  literal  matter  of  fact,  Jehovah 
ever  issued  any  such  commands  to  the  ancient  Jews. 
They  were  certainly  capable  of  prosecuting  precisely 
such  wars  without  divine  or  even  diabolical  direction. 
We  are  informed,  for  instance,  that,  after  Joab  had 
besieged  and  captured  Rabbah,  David  brought  forth 
the  inhabitants  thereof,  and  cut  them  with  saws,  and 
with  harrows  of  iron,  and  with  axes,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  do  the  same  in  regard  to  all  the  cities  of  the 
children  of  Ammon.^  This,  however,  does  not  pur- 
port, in  the  record,  to  have  been  done  by  David  in 
pursuance  of  any  divine  command,  but  was  mani- 
festly done  by  him  in  obedience  to  his  own  innate 
propensities  to  cruelty  and  barbarism. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  that, 
according  to  the  Old  Testament  representation  of 
the  case,  if  that  representation  is  to  be  understood 
literally,  either  Jehovah  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
exterminating  wars  of  ancient  Israel,  or  he  had  sub- 
stantially every  thing  to  do  with  them.  For,  funda- 
mentally considered,   these  wars,  according   to   the 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  8/ 

general  letter  of  the  Old  Testament  history  of  them, 
were  neither  originally  conceived,  nor  subsequently 
carried  forward,  by  the  Israelites  themselves.  On 
the  contrary,  Canaan  was  selected  out  beforehand  by 
Jehovah  for  the  Israelitish  conquest ;  and  it  was  he 
who  personally  took  the  initiative,  and  led  the  He- 
brews forth  on  their  career  of  death  and  desolation. 
In  fact,  the  battles  themselves  were  largely  fought 
by  Jehovah  himself,  in  distinction  from  the  Jews. 
Now  he  sends  the  hornet  among  the  foe,9  now  he 
hurls  down  great  hailstones  from  heaven  on  their 
devoted  heads,^°  and  now  he  fights  against  them, 
either  with  his  thunders  ^^  or  his  destroying  angels.^^ 

Nor,  so  far  as  Jehovah  is  depicted  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  personally  mingling  in  these  wars,  is  there 
the  slightest  use  to  make  the  attempt  either  to  dis- 
guise or  mitigate  their  horrors.  They  were  wars  to 
the  knife,  and  wars  to  the  death.  According  to  his 
explicit  direction,  whole  cities  were  to  be  obliterated  ; 
entire  tribes,  and  even  entire  nations,  men,  women, 
and  children,  were  to  be  destroyed. ^3 

What  have  we  to  say  to  this .''  We  have  to  say, 
simply,  that  because,  literally  construed,  the  profess- 
edly historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  portray 
Jehovah  as  personally  taking  this  terrific  part  in  the 
Israelitish  wars,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  there- 
fore did  so.  As  has  already  been  observed,  the 
Israelites   were    themselves    abundantly   capable    of 


SS  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

butchering  their  enemies  indiscriminately,  without 
the  slightest  instigation  or  assistance  from  either 
deity  or  demon.  Besides,  the  Israelites  were  by  no 
means  peculiar  among  their  semi-savage  contempora- 
ries in  regarding  their  divinities  as  being  gods  of 
war,  to  whom  alike  their  defeats  and  their  victories 
were  to  be  immediately  ascribed.  Thus,  when  the 
Philistine  lords  had  at  last  succeeded  in  getting 
Samson  in  their  power  and  putting  out  his  eyes,  they 
gathered  themselves  together  in  the  temple  of  their 
Dagon,  and  offered  a  great  sacrifice,  and  held  a 
mighty  jubilation,  saying:  "Our  god  hath  delivered 
Samson,  our  enemy,  into  our  hand."  ^  In  like  man- 
ner, those  same  Philistine  lords,  after  the  slaughter 
of  Saul  and  his  three  sons,  and  the  general  decima- 
tion of  the  Israelitish  army,  published  the  victory  far 
and  near  throughout  the  houses  of  their  idols,  and 
deposited  the  armor  of  Saul  in  the  house  of  Ashta- 
roth.15  So  also  when  Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria, 
came  up,  and  invaded  Judah,  he  treated  with  perfect 
contempt  the  assurance  which  Hezekiah  had  given 
to  the  Jews  that  the  Lord  their  God  would  help  fight 
their  battles,  and  made  it  his  public  vaunt  and  taunt 
that  thus  far  the  gods  of  no  nation  whatever  had 
been  able  successfully  to  resist  either  his  own  mili- 
tary prowess,  or  that  of  his  fathers  before  him.'^ 
And  under  these  circumstances  it  was  precisely  as 
much  a  matter  of  course  that  the  ancient  Israelites 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  89 

should  refer  their  various  fortunes  in  the  field  directly 
to  their  Jehovah,  as  it  was  that  the  Philistines,  for 
example,  should  refer  their  various  fortunes  in  the 
field  directly  to  their  Ashtaroth  or  Dagon. 

But  the  Old  Testament  annals  speak  in  such  a 
matter-of-fact  manner  about  the  personal  part  osten- 
sibly taken  by  Jehovah  in  the  old  Jewish  battles,  that 
they  are  well  calculated  to  deceive  us,  unless  we  pene- 
trate beneath  the  surface,  and  catch  their  real  mean- 
ing. For,  upon  reading  these  annals,  the  first  im- 
pression produced  upon  the  mind  is  to  the  general 
effect  that  Jehovah  himself  was  seldom  absent  from 
among  the  Israelitish  hosts,  as  a  sort  of  visible  com- 
mander-in-chief, directing  all  their  military  move- 
ments ;  and  that  when  he  was  not  thus  personally, 
and  almost  visibly,  present  in  the  field,  he  was  yet 
always  near  at  hand  in  a  kind  of  theocratic  pavilion, 
ready  upon  the  instant  to  be  inquired  of  through 
his  aides-de-camp  or  prophets,  and  through  them  to 
issue  his  orders  of  the  day.  But,  manifestly,  all 
this  is  merely  ancient  Orientalism  ;  is  merely  ancient 
anthropomorphism  ;  is  merely  of  a  piece,  for  example, 
with  such  other  biblical  statements  as  that  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  which  represents  the  Lord  God  as 
walking  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the  cool  of  the 
day,  and  talking  face  to  face  with  Adam  and  his 
wife. ^7  And,  if  in  these  days  we  were  called  upon 
to  narrate  events  corresponding  to  those  related  in 


90  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

the  Old  Testament  military  journals,  we  would  do 
so  with  little  of  this  ancient  Orientalism,  and  with 
still  less  of  this  ancient  anthropomorphism.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  our  subject  were  the  career 
of  Cromwell.  We  would  then  write  —  to  give  two 
or  three  illustrations  —  substantially  as  follows  :  The 
first  military  exploit  of  Cromwell  was  to  occupy  the 
city  of  Cambridge,  and  to  seize  upon  the  university 
plate,  in  the  name  of  God,  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
the  war.^^  Or  thus  :  After  the  capture  of  Bristol, 
Cromwell  wrote  to  the  Parliament,  saying,  **  This  is 
none  other  than  the  hand  of  God,  and  to  him  be 
the  glory."  ^9  Or  thus  :  When  Cromwell  had  been 
almost  compelled  to  surrender  his  forces  at  Dunbar, 
upon  seeing  the  Scotch  advancing,  instead  of  pru- 
dently delaying  the  battle,  his  exclamation  was,  '*  The 
Lord  hath  delivered  them  into  our  hands."  ^o  Qr 
yet  again  :  After  Cromwell  had  taken  Drogheda  by 
storm,  he  issued  orders  that  nothing  should  be  spared, 
and  then  piously  added,  "This  bitterness  will  save 
much  effusion  of  blood  by  the  goodness  of  God."  ^i 
That  is  to  say,  being  sufficiently  divested  of  their 
ancient  Orientalism  and  their  ancient  anthropo- 
morphism to  be  correctly  understood  in  modern 
times,  the  Old  Testament  military  annals  would 
then  merely  affirm  that  Jehovah  was  personally 
engaged  in,  and  personally  responsible  for,  the  old 
exterminating  wars  of  Israel,  only  in  the  same  sense 


THE  RELIGION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  9 1 

that  we  would  now  assert  that  Providence  was  per- 
sonally engaged  in,  and  personally  responsible  for, 
the  general  military  course  of  Cromwell. 

But  how  about  the  miracles  which  Mozley  assumes 
were  wrought  in  attestation  to  the  ancient  Jews  that 
their  warfare  upon  the  surrounding  nations  was  waged 
in  obedience  to  the  most  literal  and  the  most  explicit 
injunctions  of  their  presiding  Deity  ?  Two  of  the 
most  notable  of  these  alleged  miracles  are  recorded 
in  the  Book  of  Joshua.  The  first  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  walls  of  Jericho  were  demolished  without 
the  employment  of  any  other  human  agency  than 
the  blowing  of  seven  trumpets  made  from  rams' 
horns.22  The  second  consisted  in  the  suspension 
of  the  apparent  revolutions  of  both  the  sun  and  the 
moon,  in  order  that  the  Israelites  might  have  the 
opportunity  to  wreak  their  vengeance  on  their  ene- 
mies.^3  But  this  latter  so-called  miracle  is  a  manifest 
myth,  which  the  author  of  Joshua,  or  at  least  that 
portion  of  Joshua,  says  he  copied  from  the  Book  of 
Jasher.24  And,  if  the 'former  of  these  so-called  mir- 
acles is  not  likewise  a  manifest  myth,  then  we  would 
thank  the  mediaeval  biblicists  to  instance  one  which 
they  consider  such  in  the  whole  rang'e  of  ancient 
religious  literature.  In  saying  which  we  do  not 
mean  to  affirm  that  all  of  the  miracles  recorded  in 
the  Bible  are  not  historical.  Far  otherwise.  We 
merely  mean  to  assert   that   some  of   the   miracles 


92  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

recorded  in  the  Bible  are  not  historical,  and  to 
insist  that  the  two  specified  above  are  —  and  that 
upon  the  very  face  of  them — abundant  proofs  of 
this  assertion. 

We  have  thus  far  been  considering  some  of  those 
objections  to  Old  Testament  theism  which  are  most 
frequently  discussed.  But  we  have  discovered  that 
these  particular  objections  are  directed  rather  against 
modern  misconceptions  of  Old  Testament  theism  than 
against  Old  Testament  theism  itself.  One  of  the  most 
prolific  sources  of  these  misconceptions  is  the  mediae- 
val theological  custom  of  foisting  upon  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Deity  the  personal  inspiration  of  the  more  re- 
pulsive subject-matter  of  the  ancient  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures—  such  as  that  of  the  imprecatory  Psalms  — 
which  subject-matter  does  not,  however,  originally 
purport  to  be,  in  any  sense,  inspired  by  this  Divin- 
ity. Another,  and  an  almost  equally  prolific,  source 
of  these  misconceptions  is  the  mediaeval  theological 
habit  of  construing  with  the  most  absolute  literal- 
ness  the  ancient  Orientalism  and  the  ancient  anthro- 
pomorphism of  the  Old  Testament  methods  of  ex- 
pression,—  an  illustration  of  which  has  been  given 
in  connection  with  the  Israelitish  wars. 

But  even  if  the  Old  Testament  theism,  or,  in  a 
more  comprehensive  sense,  ev^en  if  the  entire  Old 
Testament  religions  system,  should  be  laboriously 
cleared  from    all    these   modern    misconceptions,  it 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  93 

Still  would  remain  to  affirm  that  this  religious 
system  would  be  almost  inexpressibly  repulsive  to 
the  modern  religious  sense,  and  that  it  would  in  no 
degree  respond  to  the  modern  religious  development 
and  need.  Assuming,  for  instance,  that  the  highest 
external  and  national  expression  of  this  religion  was 
to  be  met  with  in  connection  with  the  ancient  Hebrew 
temple-worship,  when  that  temple-worship  was  at  its 
best  and  purest ;  yet  any  truly  religious  soul  could, 
in  these  days,  almost  as  soon  conceive  of  himself  as 
resorting  to  an  ordinary  slaughter-house,  as  resorting 
to  such  an  institution  as  the  Jewish  temple,  whether 
to  worship  God  or  to  hold  religious  fellowship  with 
his  common  brotherhood  of  man. 

Not  that  we  are  to  be  here  understood  as  speak- 
ing in  terms  of  unqualified  reprobation  of  the  ancient 
religious  observances  of  Israel.  Far  otherwise. 
Those  observances,  even  in  their  aspects  of  butchery 
and  barbarism,  were  pre-eminently  adapted  to  the 
ethical  and  the  religious  condition  of  the  Israelites 
themselves.  And,  when  contrasted  with  the  reli- 
gious observances  then  in  vogue  among  the  surround- 
ing pagan  nations,  those  of  Israel  must  at  once  take 
rank  among  the  greatest  religious  advances  ever 
made  in  general  human  history.  To  illustrate.  One 
of  the  commonest  forms  of  religious  observance  pre- 
vailing among  those  surrounding  pagan  nations  con- 
sisted   in    the  worship    of    Baal  joined  with  that  of 


94  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS, 

Ashtoreth.  But  Baal,  the  sun-god,  was  regarded  by 
his  devotees  as  being  the  male  principle  of  life  and 
reproduction  in  nature,  whereas  Ashtoreth  repre- 
sented to  them  their  conceptions  of  the  female  prin- 
ciple. And  the  religious  worship  of  these  divinities 
combined  was,  moreover,  of  the  most  revolting  char- 
acter. It  was  attended,  for  example,  not  merely 
with  the  wildest  and  most  frantic  dances,  not  merely 
with  the  laceration  and  the  disfigurement  of  the 
persons  of  the  worshippers  with  such  instruments 
as  knives,  but  likewise  with  the  occasional  offering 
of  human  sacrifices,  and  with  the  habitual  enactment 
of  the  grossest  and  the  most  shameless  scenes  of 
sensuality,  licentiousness,  and  even  systematic  pros- 
titution. For  as  there  were  professional  religious 
prostitutes  connected  with  the  Egyptian  temple  con- 
secrated to  Isis,  and  with  the  Grecian  temple  at 
Corinth  dedicated  to  Aphrodite,  in  a  like  manner 
the  daughters  of  Moab  and  Baal-peor  were  profes- 
sional religious  prostitutes  connected  with  the  grove 
and  temple  worship,  or  rather  revels,  of  the  ancient 
Canaanitish  tribes. 

Crude  and  coarse,  bloody  and  revolting,  therefore, 
as  the  religious  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews  doubtless  were,  when  regarded  from  the 
modern  religious  standpoint,  this  single  illustration 
suffices  to  show  that  they  were,  nevertheless,  an 
almost  immeasurable  advance  upon  the  surrounding 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE   BIBLE.  95 

heathenish  rites  and  ceremonies,  from  which  they 
had  begun  in  a  most  pronounced  degree  to  separate 
themselves,  and  to  separate  themselves  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  far  greater  social  and  sexual  purity,  and  a 
far  higher  order  of  ethical  and  theistical  conception. 
Here,  in  fact,  we  have  the  far-off  and  germinal  begin- 
nings of  that  special  line  of  religious  development 
and  progress  which  has  eventually  resulted  in  the 
highest  and  purest  forms  of  religious  thought  and 
service  known  among  ourselves  to-day. 

But  that  which  was,  in  the  olden  ages  of  the  world, 
a  much  better  form  of  religion  than  had  been  devel- 
oped among  the  completely  heathenish  Canaanites, 
and  which  was  also  a  very  good  form,  if  not  the  very 
best  possible  form,  of  religion  for  the  semi-heathen- 
ish Israelites,  is  scarcely  a  form  of  religion  to  be 
either  perpetuated  or  defended  at  so  late  a  period  as 
this.  And  while  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic 
churches  do  not  go  to  the  extreme  length  of  keep- 
ing up  the  old  Israelitish  scenes  of  bloody  sacrifice 
and  slaughter  in  the  courts  of  their  respective  places 
of  worship,  they  yet  do  make  the  combined  effort 
both  to  perpetuate  and  to  defend  the  old  Israelitish 
religion  in  many  of  its  fundamental  aspects,  and  that 
even  in  this  nineteenth  century.  For  is  it  not  their 
common  boast  that  their  religion  is  the  religion  of 
the  entire  Holy  Scriptures  ?  In  particular  is  it  not 
at   once   the  watchword  and  the  war-cry  of   all  the 


96  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Protestant  denominations,  that  their  religion  is  the 
religion  of  the  Bible,  of  the  whole  Bible,  and  of  noth- 
ing but  the  Bible  ?  But  the  religion  of  the  whole 
Bible  contains  in  itself  the  religion  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  well  as  that  of  the  New.  Hence  it  results 
that  in  all  Protestant  and  in  all  Catholic  statements 
of  religious  belief,  Old  Testament  theism,  Old  Tes- 
tament ethics,  Old  Testament  religion,  forms  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  features.  But  unless  the 
world  is  to  reverse  its  present  forward  mental  and 
moral  movements,  and  is  to  go  back  to*  the  old 
Israelitish  general  conditions  of  semi-barbarism,  the 
Old  Testament  element  must  either  be  very  largely 
expurgated  alike  from  Catholicism  and  from  Protes- 
tantism, or  else  both  Protestantism  and  Catholicism 
must  hereafter  increasingly  cease  to  furnish  a  satis- 
factory form  of  religious  belief  and  practice  through- 
out the  modern  world  of  development  and  culture. 

But,  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  quite  aside, 
in  what  way  and  to  what  degree  must  the  Old  Tes- 
tament element  be  eliminated  from  the  general  reli- 
gion of  the  Bible,  in  order  to  bring  up  the  general 
religion  of  the  Bible  to  the  requirements  of  the  mod- 
ern religious  need }  To  this  we  would  reply,  that 
this  work  of  elimination  was  specifically  attempted 
upwards  of  eighteen  centuries  ago,  and  attempted 
by  one  whose  entire  competency  to  undertake  the 
task   no    Catholic   and  no  Protestant  will    question. 


THE   RELIGION  OE   THE   BIBLE.  97 

We  scarcely  need  to  add  that  we.  here  refer  to 
Jesus. 

When  we  come  specifically  to  treat  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus,  in  our  projected  volume  on  that  subject  to 
which  we  have  already  adverted,  it  will  come  legiti- 
mately before  us  to  point  out  in  detail  how  radically 
revolutionary  the  religious  undertaking  of  Jesus  was 
in  nearly  all  of  its  relations  to  the  old  Israelitish 
system.  But  even  here  enough  must  be  said  to 
justify  the  general  observation  that  Jesus  doubtless 
was  a  most  pronounced  revolutionist,  when  he  is 
regarded  from  the  ancient  Jewish  standpoint. 

And,  to  begin  with,  it  is  a  very  significant  circum- 
stance, that  the  personal  religious  life  of  Jesus  was 
led  and  held  almost  entirely  aloof  from  the  temple 
at  Jerusalem.  In  fact,  according  to  the  synoptical 
Gospels,  after  he  had  been  once  taken  up  by  his 
parents  to  the  holy  city  at  the  age  of  twelve,  he 
never  repaired  thither  again  but  a  single  time  dur- 
ing his  life,  and  that  time  was  just  before  his  death. 
And  while  there  on  this  single  occasion  he  took  no 
part  whatever  in  the  temple  rites  and  ceremonies, 
aside  from  partaking  of  the  Paschal  feast.  He  went 
frequently  into  the  temple,  indeed  ;  but  he  went  there 
to  teach,  to  cast  out  the  money-changers,  and  the 
like,  but  not  to  offer  sacrifice,  and  not  to  perform, 
with  the  one  exception  instanced,  any  other  ritual 
observance  usually  performed  by  the  orthodox  and 
pious  Jew. 


98  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Separating  himself  thus  almost  absolutely  from  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  Jesus  went  about  from  place  to 
place,  and  chiefly  among  his  fellow  countrymen,  gath- 
ering about  himself  his  own  disciples  and  adherents, 
and  seeking  to  form  those  disciples  and  adherents 
into  a  distinctive  religious  body.  This  distinctive 
religious  body  he  sometimes  called  the  church,  but 
much  more  habitually  proclaimed  to  be  the  king- 
dom of  God,  or  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  And,  so  far 
from  being  a  mere  reformed  reduplication  of  the 
ancient  Jewish  theocracy,  this  kingdom  of  God,  this 
kingdom  of  heaven,  which  Jesus  proclaimed,  was 
something  so  entirely  new  in  his  conceptions  of  it 
that  he  said  to  his  contemporaries,  in  one  breath, 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  be  taken  from  them, 
and,  in  the  next  breath, that  the  kingdom  of  God  had 
come  unto  them. 

But  wherein  did  this  new  kingdom  of  God,  pro- 
claimed and  founded  by  Jesus,  essentially  differ  from 
the  ancient  Jewish  theocracy  ?  It  differed  from  the 
ancient  Jewish  theocracy  in  very  many  respects,  two 
or  three  of  which  we  now  proceed  to  notice.  And, 
in  the  first  place,  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
constituted  the  great  law-book  —  in  fact,  the  only 
supreme  law-book  —  of  this  theocracy.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  personal  commands  of  Jesus  were  to  con- 
stitute the  sole  standard  of  appeal,  the  only  law  of 
the  ethical  and  religious  life,  in  his  new  divine  society. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  99 

But  what  were  the  personal  commands  of  Jesus,  if 
they  were  not  substantial  repetitions  and  re-affirma- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  ?  To  this  we 
can  best  reply  by  first  citing  these  remarks  by 
Renan  :  "  The  Puritan  reformer  is  particularly  bibli- 
cal,—  starting  from  the  immutable  text  to  criticise 
the  current  theology  which  has  been  progressing  from 
generation  to  generation.  Jesus  laid  the  axe  at  the 
root  of  the  tree  far  more  energetically.  We  see  him 
sometimes,  it  is  true,  invoke  the  text  against  the 
traditions  of  the  Pharisees.  But  in  general  he  makes 
little  of  exesresis.  At  the  same  blow  he  hews  down 
text  and  cornmentaries.  He  shows  clearly  to  the 
Pharisees  that  with  their  traditions  they  are  seriously 
innovating  upon  the  religion  of  Moses,  but  he  by  no 
means  claims  himself  to  return  to  Moses.  His  aim 
is  forward,  not  backward.  Jesus  was  more  than  the 
reformer  of  a  superannuated  religion  :  he  was  the 
creator  of  the  eternal  religion  of  humanity."  ^5 

Now,  that  Renan  does  not  here  employ  too  em- 
phatic language  in  depicting  the  hostile  attitude 
assumed  by  Jesus  toward  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures, is  patent  on  the  surface.  It  is  useless  for  the 
mediaeval  biblicists  to  affirm  that  this  hostile  attitude 
was  assumed  only  against  the  rabbinical  additions  to 
and  corruptions  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  not  against 
the  Old  Testament  itself.  To  illustrate.  In  the  sin- 
gle observation  ;  *'  Render  therefore  unto  Caesar  the 


100  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things 
that  are  God's,"  Jesus  abolished  for  his  followers  all 
those  precepts  and  provisions  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  had  converted  the  old  Jewish  theocracy  into  a 
political  organization  as  well  as  a  religious.  Again  : 
Jesus  provided  for  only  two  exceedingly  simple  ritual 
observances  in  his  new  divine  society,  —  that  of  bap- 
tism upon  entrance  into  the  society,  and  that  of  the 
eucharistic  feast  to  be  observed  within  the  society 
itself.  And  in  this  summary  manner  did  Jesus  at 
once  and  forever  abrograte  for  his  disciples  almost 
the  last  traces  of  the  ceremonial  and  ritualistic  ele- 
ment in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  But  Jesus 
went  much  farther,  and  struck  much  more  deeply  at 
the  very  fundamentals  of  Judaism,  than  even  this. 
It  is  indeed  true  that  he  publicly  declared  that  he 
did  not  come  to  destroy  the  law  and  the  prophets, 
but  to  fulfil  them,  — that  is,  to  bring  them  to  perfec- 
tion. But  the  manner  in  which  he  proceeded  to  ful- 
fil them  was  that  of  the  religious  revolutionist,  not 
that  of  the  conservative  religious  reformer.  For  to 
him  the  entire  sum  and  substance  of  both  the  law 
and  the  prophets  were  nothing  more  than  this ; 
namely,  that  his  disciples  should  love  the  Lord  their 
God  supremely,  and  likewise  love  their  neighbors  as 
themselves.  And  this  remark  suggests  that  Jesus 
was  almost  perpetually  drawing  a  broad  line  of  dis- 
tinction between  what  had  been  said  by  them  of  old 


THE   RELIGION  OF   THE  BIBLE.  10 1 

time,  and  what  he  had  to  say  himself,  even  upon  the 
ethical  side  of  the  Old  Testament  injunctions  and 
prohibitions,  as  with' reference  to  what  constitutes 
murder,  adultery,  and  the  like.  Nor  were  the  very 
theistical  conceptions  of  Jesus  the  theistical  concep- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  Take,  for 
example,  just  here,  a  salient  feature  or  two  of  con- 
trast between  the  theism  of  the  Decalogue  and  the 
theism  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  In  the  one 
case  we  have  a  mere  tribal  divinity  bringing  up  a 
special  people  out  of  Egypt ;  in  the  other  case  we 
have  an  universal  heavenly  Father,  who  regards  all 
the  nations  of  the  world,  without  distinction  or  ex- 
ception, as  his  beloved  children.  In  the  one  case 
we  have  a  jealous  God,  visiting  the  iniquities  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation  ;  in  the  other  case  we  have  a  benignant 
parent  who  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and 
the  good,  and  who  sendeth  his  rain  on  the  just  and 
the  unjust. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

RELIGION. 

It  is  well  known,  that,  in  his  final  volume  on 
"The  Old  Faith  and  the  New,"  Strauss,  as  the  arch- 
representative  of  the  modern  religious  revolutionists, 
discussed  these  two  leading  questions  :  I.  Are  we 
still  Christians  .''     11.   Have  we  still  a  religion  } 

The  first  of  these  questions  Strauss  answered  with- 
out hesitation  in  the  negative.  But  the  general  tenor 
of  his  conclusions  in  response  to  the  second  question 
is  thus  epitomized  by  himself  in  a  single  sentence  : 
"We  demand  the  same  piety  for  our  Cosmos  that 
the  devout  of  old  demanded  for  his  God."  '  Well, 
therefore,  may  M.  Renan  observe  that  when  a  Ger- 
man boasts  of  his  impiety  he  must  never  be  taken 
at  his  word.  Germany  is  not  capable  of  being 
irreligious.  When  it  would  be  atheistic,  it  is  so 
devotedly  and  with  a  sort  of  unction, ^ 

But  is  not  M.  Renan  himself  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous, not  to  say  one  of  the  most  notorious,  of 
the  modern  irreligious  leaders  ?  Such  he  is  indeed 
thought  to  be  by  a  great  many  very  pious  people. 


RELIGION.  103 

Yet,  if  he  be  permitted  to  speak  for  himself,  he 
becomes  one  of  the  most  outspoken  advocates  of 
religion  now  before  the  public.  Thus  Renan  says  : 
"  The  sad  but  inevitable  quarrel  over  the  history  of  a 
religion,  between  the  sectaries  of  the  religion  and 
the  friends  of  impartial  science,  should  not  then 
bring  on  science  the  accusation  of  anti-religious  prop- 
agandism."  3  "I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  misunder- 
standings to  which  he  exposes  himself  who  touches 
on  matters  that  are  objects  of  credence  to  a  large 
number  of  men.  But  all  fine  exercise  of  thought 
would  be  forbidden,  were  we  obliged  to  anticipate 
every  possible  perversion  that  prejudiced  minds  may 
fall  into  when  reading  what  they  do  not  understand. 
.".  .  By  their  leave  one  is  pantheist  or  atheist  with- 
out knowing  it.  They  create  schools  on  their  own 
authority,  and  often  one  learns  from  them,  with  some 
surprise,  that  he  is  the  disciple  of  masters  he  never 
knew."  4  **  Far  from  seeking  to  weaken  the  religious 
sentiment,  I  would  gladly  contribute  something  to 
raise  and  purify  it."  5  ''All  the  symbols  which  serve 
to  give  shape  to  the  religious  sentiment  are  imper- 
fect, and  their  fate  is  to  be  one  after  another  rejected. 
But  nothing  is  more  remote  from  the  truth  than  the 
dream  of  those  who  seek  to  imagine  a  perfected 
humanity  without  religion."^  "Devotion  is  as  natu- 
ral as  egoism  to  a  true  born  man.  The  organization 
of  devotion  is  religion.     Let  no  one  hope,  therefore, 


I04  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

to  dispense  with  religion  or  religious  associations. 
Each  progression  of  modern  society  will  render  this 
want  more  imperious."  7  ''Religion  is  a  thing  sui 
generis :  the  philosophy  of  the  schools  will  never  take 
its  place."  ^  "  It  may  be  that  all  we  love,  all  that  in 
our  eyes  makes  life  beautiful,  the  liberal  culture  of 
the  mind,  science  and  exalted  art,  are  destined  to  last 
but  a  generation;  but  religion, — that  will  never 
die."  9 

Among  other  recognized  leaders  of  modern  thought, 
John  Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  Professor 
Tyndall  have  been  frequently  represented,  both  in 
the  orthodox  pulpit  and  in  the  general  religious 
press,  as  being  little  better  than  the  sworn  enemies 
of  religion.  But  John  Stuart  Mill  expressly  main- 
tains that  the  influences  of  religion  which  will  remain 
after  rational  criticism  has  done  its  utmost  against 
.the  evidences  of  religion,  are  well  worth  preserving. 
Besides,  he  specifically  mentions,  as  among  the  other 
inducements  for  cultivating  a  religious  devotion  to 
the  welfare  of  our  fellow-creatures,  these  two  cardi- 
nal considerations  :  first,  that  we  shall  thereby  im- 
pose a  limit  to  every  selfish  aim  ;  and,  secondly,  that 
we  shall  thereby  be  acting  in  accordance  with  the 
feeling  that  we  may  be  co-operating  with  the  unseen 
Being  to  whom  we  owe  all  that  is  enjoyable  in  life.^° 
Moreover,  Herbert  Spencer  says  that  we  must  re- 
member, that,  amid  its  many  errors  and  corruptions. 


RELIGION.  105 

religion  has  always  asserted  and  diffused  a  verity. 
The  truly  religious  element  of  religion  has  always 
been  good  :  that  which  has  been  proved  untenable  in 
doctrine  and  vicious  in  practice  has  been  its  irre- 
ligious element,  and  from  this  it  has  been  ever 
undergoing  purification.'^  Generally  speaking,  the 
religion  current  in  each  age  and  among  each  people 
has  been  as  near  an  approximation  to  the  truth  as  it 
was  then  and  there  possible  for  men  to  receive. 
Few,  if  any,  are  as  yet  fitted  to  dispense  with  such 
conceptions  as  are  current.  The  substituted  creed 
can  become  operative  only  when  it  becomes,  like  the 
present  one,  an  element  in  early  education,  and  has 
the  support  of  a  strong  social  sanction.  We  must, 
therefore,  recognize  the  resistance  to  a  change  of 
theological  opinions  as  in  a  great  measure  salutary. '^ 
Nor  is  Professor  Tyndall,  any  more  than  either 
John  Stuart  Mill  or  Herbert  Spencer,  justly  charged 
with  being  arrayed  in  open  hostility  to  religion. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  repels  this  charge  in  the  very 
strongest  language.  He  says,  for  example :  "  The 
facts  of  religious  feeling  are  to  me  as  certain  as  the 
facts  of  physics.  But  the  world,  I  hold,  will  have  to 
distinguish  between  the  feeling  and  its  forms,  and 
to  vary  the  latter  in  accordance  with  the  intellectual 
condition  of  the  age." '3  ''The  world  will  have  re- 
ligion of  some  kind."  M  "You  who  have  escaped 
from  these  religions  into  the  high  and  dry  light  of 


I06  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

intellect  may  deride  them ;  but  in  doing  so  you 
deride  accidents  of  form  merely,  and  fail  to  touch 
the  immovable  basis  of  the  religious  sentiment  in 
the  nature  of  man.  To  yield  this  sentiment  reason- 
able satisfaction  is  the  problem  of  problems  at  the 
present  hour."  ^5 

But  the  traditional  divines  may  here  interpose  that 
the  Apostle  Paul  speaks  of  a  certain  class  of  persons 
who  are  v^ithout  God  in  the  world,  and  may  demand 
to  know  whether  Renan,  Tyndall,  and  the  like,  are 
not  at  least  without  God  in  their  religion. 

That  these  men  are  freely  accredited  with  the  most 
downright  atheism  by  their  orthodox  opponents,  no 
one  will  of  course  think  to  question.  But  we  have 
already  heard  Renan,  for  one,  in  a  general  way  dis- 
claim that  he  is  either  a  pantheist  or  an  atheist. 
Elsewhere  he  more  explicitly  observes  :  **  If  your  fac- 
ulties, vibrating  in  unison,  have  never  rendered  that 
grand,  peculiar  tone  which  we  call  God,  I  have  noth- 
ing more  to  say.  You  are  wanting  in  the  essential 
and  characteristic  element  of  our  nature.  Granting 
even  that  for  us  philosophers  another  word  might  be 
preferable,  there  would  be  an  immense  disadvantage 
in  separating  ourselves  by  our  speech  from  the  sim- 
ple, who  adore  so  well  in  their  way.  Tell  the  simple 
to  live  a  life  of  aspiration  after  truth,  beauty,  moral 
goodness,  the  words  will  convey  no  meaning  to  them. 
Tell  them  to  love  God,  not  to  offend  God,  they  will 


RELIGION.  107 

understand  you  wonderfully.  God,  Providence,  Im- 
mortality, —  good  old  words,  a  little  clumsy  perhaps, 
which  philosophy  will  interpret  in  finer  and  finer 
senses,  but  which  it  will  never  fill  the  place  of  to 
advantage.  Under  one  form  or  another,  God  will 
always  be  the  sum  of  our  supersensual  needs,  the 
form  under  which  we  conceive  the  ideal.  In  other 
words,  man,  placed  in  the  presence  of  the  beautiful, 
the  good,  the  true,  goes  out  of  himself,  and,  being 
caught  up  by  a  celestial  charm,  annihilates  his  petty 
personality,  and  becomes  exalted  and  absorbed. 
What  is  that,  if  it  be  not  adoration  } "  '^ 

As  John  Stuart  Mill  mentions  above,  the  convic- 
tion that  one  is  co-operating  with  the  unseen  Being 
as  being  one  of  the  strongest  incentives  to  leading  a 
truly  religious  life,  there  is  no  occasion  to  adduce 
any  further  evidence  that  he  likewise  is  a  theist,  as 
distinguished  from  an  atheist. 

As  for  Herbert  Spencer,  we  are  free  to  confess 
that  we  do  not  just  now  remember  to  have  met  with 
the  specific  name  of  God,  used  in  his  own  behalf, 
anywhere  in  his  published  writings.  But  Herbert 
Spencer  is  a  philosopher,  and  does  not  seem  to  agree 
with  Renan  about  the  desirableness  of  not  separat- 
ing himself  in  speech  from  simple-minded  people. 
Still  Herbert  Spencer  is  no  more  an  atheist  than  is 
Dean  Stanley  or  Canon  Mozley,  for  example.  Only, 
in  all  connections  where  either    Stanley  or  Mozley 


I08  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

would  employ  the  good  old-fashioned  name  of  God, 
Spencer  prefers  to  speak  of  the  Unknown  Cause, 
the  Inscrutable  Power,  or  something  of  the  sort.^7 

Professor  Tyndall  has  been,  over  and  over  again, 
compelled  by  his  clerical  opponents  to  define  his 
position  on  this  point.  Among  other  things,  he 
says  :  "  In  connection  with  the  charge  of  atheism,  I 
would  make  one  remark.  Christian  men  are  proved 
by  their  writings  to  have  their  hours  of  weakness 
and  of  doubt,  as  well  as  their  hours  of  strength  and 
of  conviction  ;  and  men  like  myself  share,  in  their 
own  way,  these  variations  of  mood  and  tense.  Were 
the  religious  moods  of  many  of  my  assailants  the 
only  alternative  ones,  I  do  not  know  how  strong  the 
claims  of  the  doctrine  of  *  Material  Atheism '  upon 
my  allegiance  might  be.  Probably  they  would  be 
very  strong.  But,  as  it  is,  I  have  noticed,  during 
years  of  self-observation,  that  it  is  not  in  hours  of 
clearness  and  vigor  that  this  doctrine  commends 
itself  to  my  mind  ;  that  in  the  presence  of  stronger 
and  healthier  thought  it  ever  dissolves  and  disappears 
as  offering  no  solution  of  the  mystery  in  which  we 
dwell,  and  of  which  we  form  a  part."  ^^  '*  Often,  in 
the  spring-time,  when  looking  with  delight  on  the 
sprouting  foliage,  'considering  the  lilies  of  the  field,' 
and  sharing  the  general  joy  of  opening  life,  I  have 
asked  myself  whether  there  is  no  power,  being,  or 
thing,  in  the  universe,  whose  knowledge  of  that  of 


RELIGION.  109 

which  I  am  so  ignorant  is  greater  than  mine.  I 
have' said  to  myself:  Can  man's  knowledge  be  the 
greatest  knowledge,  and  man's  life  the  highest  life  ? 
My  friends,  the  profession  of  that  atheism  with  which 
I  am  sometimes  so  lightly  charged  would,  in  my 
case,  be  an  impossible  answer  to  this  question,  —  only 
slightly  preferable  to  that  fierce  and  distorted  theism 
which  still  reigns  rampant  in  some  minds,  as  the 
survival  of  a  more  ferocious  age."  ^9  ''But,  quitting 
the  more  grotesque  forms  of  the  theological,  I  already 
see,  or  think  I  see,  emerging  from  recent  discussions 
that  wonderful  plasticity  of  the  Theistic  Idea  which 
enables  it  to  maintain,  through  many  changes,  its 
hold  upon  superior  minds."  2° 

Thus,  at  no  slight  risk,  perhaps,  of  proving  some- 
what prolix,  if  not  positively  tedious,  we  have  en- 
deavored to  demonstrate  that,  —  despite  all  the 
counter  outcries  of  the  orthodox  divines,  —  in  a 
broad  and  general  way  of  speaking,  we  have  all 
along  been  perfectly  correct  in  characterizing  the 
present  as  being  a  religious,  as  distinguished  from 
an  irreligious,  crisis.  Not  that  we  would  be  under- 
stood as  going  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  there  are  abso- 
lutely no  modern  thinkers  who  have  succeeded  both 
in  securing  a  certain  limited  degree  of  public  recog- 
nition,- and  likewise  broken  with  religion  in  every 
sense  and  form.  We  would  merely  claim  to  have 
shown,  by  the  instances  adduced  above,  that  all,  or 


no  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

nearly  all,  of  our  really  great  modern  thinkers,  who 
may  be  fairly  said  to  give  at  once  an  impulse  and  a 
direction  to  the  general  pubHc  thought,  and  who  may 
be  fairly  said  also  to  represent  the  extremest  phases 
of  what  is  popularly  known  as  modern  unbelief,  — 
that  these  latter  thinkers  have,  almost  without  dis- 
tinction or  exception,  failed  to  take  the  final  step  of 
parting  with  all  religious  faith.  They  do  not,  indeed, 
all  of  them,  still  believe  in  a  religion  in  any  tra- 
ditional sense  or  form  ;  and  yet,  in  some  sense  and 
in  some  form,  they  do  believe  in  a  religion  still. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE    RELIGION    OF   JESUS. 

According  to  the  conclusion  arrived  at  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  the  modern  religious  world,  as 
distinguished  from  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  re- 
ligious world,  may  now  be  said  to  be  divided  into 
two  leading  classes,  —  those  who  still  believe  in  a 
religion  in  some  traditional  sense  and  form,  and 
those  who  still  believe  in  a  religion,  but  in  no  tra- 
ditional sense  and  form. 

The  object  which  we  next  propose  to  ourselves  is 
to  discover  the  ultimate  line  of  division  which 
separates  these  classes  the  one  from  the  other. 

That  this  ultimate  line  of  division  cannot  be  any 
dogmatic  system  of  theology,  whether  Protestant  or 
Catholic,  it  would  be  ahnost  absurd  to  do  any  thing- 
more  than  merely  to  suggest,  at  the  present  stage  of 
this  discussion.  That  it  can  no  more  be  the  general 
religion  of  the  Bible,  is  equally  apparent  to  every 
thoughtful  reader  of  the  foregoing  pages.  What, 
then,  is  it }  To  this  we  answer  that  it  is  the  religion 
of  Jesus.      For,  as  Professor   Tischendorf  remarks. 


112  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

the  life  of  Jesus  has  become,  in  Christian  science, 
the  great  question  of  the  day.^  Or,  as  Strauss  him- 
self expresses  it,  it  may  surprise  us  that  the  debate 
as  to  the  truth  of  Christianity  has  at  last  narrowed 
itself  into  one  as  to  the  personality  of  its  founder; 
that  the  decisive  battle  of  Christian  theology  should 
take  place  on  the  field  of  Christ's  life.^  Accordingly, 
Professor  Christlieb  demands  to  know :  What  think 
ye  of  Christ  ?  Whose  Son  is  he  ?  And  then  pro- 
ceeds to  say  that  this  is  not  a  question,  but  the 
question,  which,  of  all  other  questions,  most  deeply 
agitates  the  world  to-day. 3 

But  we  must  first  of  all  protest  against  making  the 
mere  question  of  the  personality  of  Jesus  the  one 
crucial,  all-decisive  question  of  modern  religious 
thought.  For  by  the  personality  of  Jesus  all  parties 
to  the  debate  mean  specifically  and  professedly  the 
proper  divinity  of  Jesus.  And  the  reason  why  we 
object  to  making  the  decision  of  this  one  subject 
substantially  the  decision  of  all  other  subjects  now 
at  issue  in  the  general  domain  of  religious  investiga- 
tion, will  be  apparent  at  a  glance  after  we  have 
attended  to  the  following  remarks  by  Strauss.  He 
says  :  "  It  is  indeed  of  importance  to  assure  ourselves 
that  Moses  and  Mohammed  were  no  impostors ;  but 
in  other  respects  the  religions  established  by  them 
must  be  judged  according  to  their  own  deserts,  irre- 
spectively of  the  greater  or  less  accuracy  of  our  ac- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  JESUS.  II3 

quaintance  with  their  founders'  Hves.  The  reason  is 
obvious.  They  are  only  the  founders,  not  at  the 
same  time  the  objects,  of  the  rehgion  they  instituted. 
While  withdrawing  the  veil  from  the  new  revelation, 
they  themselves  modestly  stand  aside.  They  are 
indeed  objects  of  reverence,  but  not  of  adoration. 
This  is  notoriously  otherwise  with  Christianity.  Here 
the  founder  is. at  the  same  the  most  prominent  object 
of  worship,  and  the  system  based  upon  him  loses  its 
support  as  soon  as  he  is  shown  to  be  lacking  in  the 
qualities  appropriate  to  an  object  of  religious  wor- 
ship. This,  in  fact,  has  long  ago  been  apparent ;  for 
an  -object  of  religious  adoration  must  be  a  divinity, 
and  thinking  men  have  long  since  ceased  to  regard 
the  founder  of  Christianity  as  such.  But  it  is  said 
now  that  he  himself  never  aspired  to  this,  that  his 
deification  has  only  been  a  later  importation  into  the 
church,  and  that,  if  we  seriously  look  upon  him  as  a 
man,  we  shall  occupy  the  standpoint  which  was  also 
his  own.  But,  even  admitting  this  to  be  the  case, 
nevertheless  the  whole  re2:ulation  of  our  churches, 
Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic,  is  accommodated  to 
the  former  hypothesis ;  this  Christian  cultus,  this 
garment  cut  out  to  fit  an  incarnate  God,  looks  slov- 
enly and  shapeless  when  but  a  mere  man  is  invested 
with  its  ample  folds."  4 

In    other    words,    if   the    standpoint    be    assumed, 
that,  as  Renan  observes,  Jesus  never  for  a  moment 


1 14  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

enounces  the  sacrilegious  idea  that  he  is  God,5  then 
both  Protestantism  and  Catholicism  do  indeed  be- 
come shaken  at  their  very  foundations.  But  in  the 
mean  while  what  has  happened  to  the  religion  of 
Jesus  ?  Nothing  more  serious  than  that  Jesus  has 
been  simply  restored  to  that  position  of  a  mere  man 
in  his  own  religious  system,  which  no  one  more  ear- 
nestly than  Strauss  contends  is  precisely  the  position 
that  he  personally  conceived  himself  alone  to  occupy. 

This  is  not,  however,  to  pronounce  any  judgment 
for  the  present,  either  the  one  way  or  the  other,  on 
the  general  merits  of  the  modern  debate  concerning 
Jesus'  personality.  It  is  merely  to  point  out  the  only 
legitimate  results  of  denying  or  even  disproving  his 
divinity  on  the  ground  that  he  personally  professed 
to  be  nothing  but  a  man. 

But  some  one  may  here  demand  to  know  more 
specifically  what  is  meant  in  these  days  when  per- 
sons speak  of  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  Religion  of  the  Bible  we 
discovered,  for  one  thing,  that  the  religion  of  Jesus, 
differs  in  almost  every  essential  respect  from  the 
religion  of  the  Old  Testament,  on  the  one  hand ;  and 
the  question  now  arises,  how  it  stands  related  to  the 
general  religion  of  the  New  Testament,  on  the  other. 

It  has  already  been  seen  that  the  religion  of  Jesus, 
as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  is  maintained 
by  a  very  large  number  of  modern  biblicists  to  be  so 


THE  RELIGION  OF  JESUS.  II5 

incompatible  with  that  religion,  as  it  is  set  forth  in 
the  other  three  Gospels,  that,  if  the  synoptical  repre- 
sentation thereof  be  accepted  as  historical,  then  the 
Johannean  representation  must  be  rejected  as  on  the 
whole  not  historical.  We  now  advance  to  say  that 
the  Rev,  Mr.  Bernard,  in  his  capacity  of  Bampton 
Lecturer,  feels  himself  under  obligation  to  combat 
the  strong  disposition  which  is  evinced  by  many  of 
the  most  eminent  of  modern  writers  and  preachers 
to  make  a  broad  distinction  between  the  religious 
teaching  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels,  and  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  apostles,  as  such  teaching  finds  ex- 
pression in  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  in  the  Epistles, 
and  in  the  Book  of  Revelation. ^  Not  that  there  is 
any  thing  particularly  modern  in  this.  On  the  con- 
trary, Dr.  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  cites  Neander 
as  his  authority  for  affirming  that  even  in  the  primi- 
tive days  of  the  Church  there  existed  a  party  of 
Christ,  just  as  there  existed  another  party  of  Paul, 
and  still  another  party  of  Apollos.  And  Baur  then 
goes  on  to  reason  that  this  party  of  Christ  must  have 
adhered  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  alone,  to  the  entire 
rejection  of  the  teaching  of  the  apostles. 7  And, 
coming  down  to  later  times,  Adam  Storey  Farrar 
says  that  Bolingbroke,  following  the  example  of 
Chubb,  insisted  that  there  exists  a  broad  distinction 
between  the  gospel  of  Jesus  and  the  gospel  of  Paul.^ 
And,    according   to   Dean    Mansel,    Locke   likewise 


Il6  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

maintained  that  the  teaching  of  the  Epistles  is  sepa- 
rated from  that  of  the  Gospels,  and  that  it  is  not  to 
the  Epistles  but  to  the  Gospels  that  we  must  go  if 
we  would  learn  the  fundamentals  of  the  faith, 9  —  by 
which  he  means,  of  course,  the  fundamentals  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  And,  still  later  yet,  we  find  John 
Stuart  Mill  in  a  general  way  placing  the  precepts  of 
Jesus  far  above  the  Paulism  which  is  the  foundation 
of  ordinary  Christianity,  and  specifically  making  the 
Apostle  Paul  responsible  for  atonement  and  redemp- 
tion, original  sin  and  vicarious  punishment,  but  en- 
tirely exonerating  Jesus  from  ever  having  taught  any 
such  repellent  doctrines. ^° 

Now,  whether  the  religion  of  Jesus,  particularly  as 
it  is  developed  in  the  synoptical  Gospels,  is  or  is 
not  thus  at  a  fundamental  variance  with  the  religious 
system  developed  in  the  remaining  portions  of  the 
New  Testament,  is  a  subject  which  we  shall  hereafter 
discuss  in  our  formal  volume  on  the  Religion  of 
Jesus.  Just  here,  however,  it  suffices  to  say  that  to 
raise  and  discuss  the  question  whether  it  is,  or  is  not, 
thus  at  variance,  is  by  no  means  to  inaugurate  an 
attack  on  the  religion  of  Jesus.  •  It  is  merely  to  make 
the  effort  to  discover  what  the  religion  of  Jesus  is,  on 
the  one  hand,  as  distinguished  from  what  the  religion 
of  the  remaining  portions  of  the  New  Testament  is, 
on  the  other.  But  manifestly  to  m.ake  the  effort  to  dis- 
cover what  the  religion  of  Jesus  actually  is,  amounts 


THE   RELIGION  OF  JESUS.  WJ 

to  a  vastly  different  thing,  both  in  its  animus  and 
intention,  from  making  a  formal  assault  on  that  reli- 
gion after  it  is  discovered.  And,  to  bring  out  the 
one  practical  point  which  it  is  now  our  sole  object  to 
impress  upon  the  reader,  we  will  argumentatively 
assume  for  the  time  being,  that,  as  the  result  of 
investigation,  it  has  been  satisfactorily  established, 
first,  that  the  data  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  are  to  be 
found  almost  exclusively  in  the  synoptical  Gospels ; 
and,  secondly,  that  the  data  furnished  by  the  fourth 
Gospel,  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  the  several  New  Tes- 
tament Epistles,  and  the  Book  of  Revelation,  would 
give  us  a  religious  system  of  quite  another  realm  and 
order,  when  compared  with  that  of  Jesus. 

Assuming  this  standpoint,  it  is,  first  of  all,  to  be 
distinctly  recognized  that  the  most  progressive  reli- 
gious thinkers  of  the  present  epoch  do  not  profess  to 
have  broken  with  the  religion  of  Jesus  altogether. 
Take  one  or  two  examples.  And,  to  begin  with, 
John  Stuart  Mill  remarks:  "Whatever  else  maybe 
taken  away  from  us  by  rational  criticism,  Christ  is 
still  left,  —  an  unique  figure,  not  more  unlike  all  his 
precursors  than  all  his  followers,  even  those  who  had 
the  direct  benefit  of  his  personal  teaching.  It  is  of 
no  use  to  say  that  Christ,  as  exhibited  in  the  Gos- 
pels, is  not  historical,  and  that  we  know  not  how 
much  of  what  is  admirable  has  been  superadded  by 
the  tradition  of  his  followers.     The  tradition  of  fol- 


Il8  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

lowers  suffices  to  insert  any  number  of  marvels,  and 
may  have  inserted  all  the  miracles  which  he  is  reput- 
ed to  have  wrought.  But  who  among  his  disciples, 
or  among  their  proselytes,  was  capable  of  invent- 
ing the  sayings  ascribed  to  Jesus,  or  of  imagin- 
ing the  life  and  character  revealed  in  the  Gospels  ? 
Certainly  not  the  fishermen  of  Galilee  ;  as  certainly 
not  St.  Paul,  whose  character  and  idiosyncrasies 
were  of  a  totally  different  sort.  .  .  .  What  could  be 
added  and  interpolated  by  a  disciple,  we  may  see  in' 
the  mystical  parts  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  .  .  , 
The  East  was  full  of  men  who  could  have  stolen  any 
quantity  of  this  poor  stuff,  as  the  multitudinous 
Oriental  sects  of  Gnostics  afterwards  did.  But  about 
the  life  and  sayings  of  Jesus  there  is  a  stamp  of 
personal  originality,  combined  with  a  profundity  of 
insight,  which  must  place  the  Prophet  of  Naza- 
reth, even  in  the  estimation  of  those  who  have  no 
belief  in  his  inspiration,  in  the  very  first  rank  of  the 
men  of  sublime  genius  of  whom  our  species  can 
boast.  When  this  pre-eminent  genius  is  combined 
with  the  qualities  of  probably  the  greatest  moral 
reformer  and  martyr  to  that  mission  who  ever  ex- 
isted upon  earth,  religion  cannot  be  said  to  have 
made  a  bad  choice  in  pitching  on  this  man  as  the 
ideal  representative  and  guide  of  humanity ;  nor 
even  now  would  it  be  easy,  even  for  an  unbeliever, 
to  find  a  better  translation  of  the  rule  of  virtue  from 


THE   RELIGION  OF  JESUS.  II9 

the  abstract  into  the  concrete,  than  to  endeavor  so 
to  live  that  Christ  would  approve  our  life."  ^^ 

In  like  manner  Renan  says :  "  Having  reached  a 
higher  plane  than  man  ever  reached  before,  Jesus 
founded  the  eternal  religion  of  humanity."  ^^  « j^- 
will  never  be  possible  to  surpass  him  in  the  matter 
of  religion,  whatever  progress  may  be  made  in  other 
branches  of  intellectual  culture.  Religious  faith  has 
doubtless  perfected  itself  since  his  time  by  becoming 
disengaged  from  many  a  superstition,  and  from  belief 
in  the  supernatural.  But  this  progress  bears  no  com- 
parison with  the  gigantic  stride  that  Jesus  caused 
humanity  to  take  in  the  career  of  its  religious 
development."  ^3  ''The  religion  of  Jesus  is  in  some 
respects  the  final  religion.  Whatever  may  be  the 
transformation  of  dogma,  Jesus  will  remain  in  reli- 
gion the  creator  of  its  pure  sentiment.  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  will  never  be  surpassed.  No  revolu- 
tion will  lead  us  not  to  join  in  religion  the  grand 
intellectual  and  moral  line  at  the  head  of  which 
beams  the  name  of  Jesus.  In  this  sense  we  are  still 
Christians,  even  though  we  separate  upon  almost  all 
points  from  the  Christian  tradition  which  has  pre- 
ceded us."  ^4 

Having  thus  shown  that  the  most  radical  religious 
revolutionists  of  the  day  do  not  propose  to  come  to 
a  total  rupture  with  the  religion  of  Jesus,  it  still 
remains   to    say  that  they  nevertheless  do    propose 


I20  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

to  come  to  a  rupture  with  that  religion  in  more 
respects  than  one.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  Strauss 
is  prepared  to  admit  that  every  point  is  fully  devel- 
oped in  the  religion  of  Jesus  which  has  reference  to 
love  towards  God  and  man,  and  also  to  purity  of 
heart  and  of  life.  At  the  same  time  Strauss  insists 
that  it  is  a  perfectly  fruitless  undertaking  to  attempt 
to  decide,  upon  the  precepts  and  after  the  example 
of  Jesus,  what  the  action  of  a  man  ought  to  be  as  a 
citizen,  and  what  his  conduct  should  be  in  connec- 
tion with  the  enrichment  and  embellishment  of  exist- 
ence by  trade  and  art.  On  these  latter  points, 
Strauss  contends  that  something  is  intrinsically 
wanting  in  the  original  religious  scheme  of  Jesus, 
which  needs  to  be  supplied  from  the  circumstances 
of  other  times,  and  other  states,  and  other  systems  of 
cultivation.  ^5 

It  is,  however,  on  the  side  of  its  supernaturalism 
that  the  most  advanced  wing  of  modern  religious 
revolutionists  has  come  to  the  most  absolute  breach 
with  the  religion  of  Jesus.  It  may,  indeed,  be 
denied  by  them  that  Jesus  personally  professed  to 
be  either  a  God,  or  in  any  other  sense  a  superhuman 
being.  It  may  also  be  denied  by  them  that  Jesus 
personally  professed  to  perform  any  such  wonderful 
works,  or  miracles,  as  are  accredited  to  him  even  in 
the  synoptical  Gospels.  But  it  cannot  be  denied 
by  them  that  the  Jesus  of  the  synoptical   Gospels 


THE   RELIGION  OF  JESUS.  121 

was  a  most  pronounced  believer  in  the  supernatural. 
This  Jesus  believed  in  miracles.  This  Jesus  believed 
in  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  This  Jesus  believed  in 
special  providences.  This  Jesus  believed  in  special 
and  direct  divine  revelations.  And  this  belief  of 
Jesus  in  the  supernatural,  the  miraculous,  is  inte- 
gral, inwrought,  vital  to  his  religious  system.  But 
here  the  religious  revolutionists  more  immediately 
in  question  propose  to  put  the  religion  of  Jesus  into 
precisely  the  same  category  with  all  other  tradi- 
tional forms  of  religious  faith  which  postulate  the 
supernatural,  and  part  company  with  it,  not  partially, 
but  completely.  In  the  ultimate  analysis,  the  reli- 
gion of  Jesus  is  in  their  estimation  the  highest,  and 
incomparably  the  highest,  form  of  religion  which  we 
have  inherited  from  the  past,  and  the  one  which  of 
all  others  is  in  many  respects  destined,  they  grant, 
to  have  the  grandest  career  in  the  future.  It  is 
moreover,  of  all  other  inherited  forms  of  religion, 
the  one  for  which  they  have  the  profoundest  respect, 
and  which  they  can,  at  least  on  its  ethical  side,  in  the 
largest  measure  adopt.  Still  it  is  a  form  of  religion 
which  requires  of  them  either  to  break  with  it  fun- 
damentally, or  else  to  place  their  credence  in  the 
supernatural.  But,  as  for  the  supernatural,  that  is 
to  them  unspeakably  offensive.  And  it  is  in  this 
way,  therefore,  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  becomes 
what  we  announced  it  to  be  at  the  opening  of  the 


122  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

present  chapter ;  namely,  the  ultimate  line  of  divis- 
ion between  those  among  us  who  having  ceased, 
indeed,  to  be  either  Protestants  or  Catholics,  still 
believe  in  a  religion  in  some  traditional  sense  and 
form,  or  still  believe  in  a  religion,  but  in  no  tradi- 
tional sense  or  form.  We  of  the  one  class  still 
believe  in  the  religion  of  Jesus,  supernaturalism  and 
all.  We  of  the  other  class  relegate  the  supernatural- 
ism of  the  religion  of  Jesus  to  the  same  regions  with 
all  other  superstitions  ;  that  is,  what  are  to  us  all 
other  superstitions. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

RELIGIOUS    REPRESSION. 

It  is  indeed  true,  that,  at  least  in  its  merely  physi- 
cal forms,  ecclesiastical  persecution  and  punishment 
do  not  confront  the  heretic  in  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. He  can  both  privately  hold  and  publicly 
proclaim  religious  opinions  which  attack  the  very 
foundations  at  once  of  Catholicism  and  of  Protes- 
tantism without  any  apprehension  of  either  the  theo- 
logical Star  Chamber,  the  rack,  or  the  stake.  And 
yet  even  in  these  days  ecclesiastical  persecution  and 
punishment  are  by  no  means  either  non-existent,  or 
of  such  a  nature  as  not  to  make  the  general  observa- 
tion of  Canon  Mozley  still  perfectly  true,  that  a  man 
who  in  religious  matters  throws  off  the  chains  of 
authority  and  association  must  be  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary independence  of  mind,  and  strength  of  mind. 
When,  in  1835,  Strauss  published  the  initial  volume 
of  his  first  ''Life  of  Jesus,"  he  was  occupying  the 
position  of  a  theological  instructor  at  Tubingen, 
with  the  most  brilliant  prospects  before  him,  and 
beloved  and  honored  of   all.     But    even    before  the 

123 


124  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

appearance  of  the  second  volume  he  was  summarily 
ejected  from  this  position.^  As  the  unparalleled  com- 
motion created  by  his  work  continued  to  increase, 
his  own  father  turned  away  from  him  in  anger ;  his 
early  teachers  in  divinity  hastened  to  disavow  all 
complicity  with  his  opinions  ;  and  "as  for  the  friends 
and  companions  of  my  studies,"  says  Strauss  him- 
self, "  these  I  had  the  mortification  of  seeing  exposed 
to  so  much  suspicion  and  annoyance  for  their  merely 
rumored  intimacy  with  me,  so  far  as  they  refused 
to  sacrifice  it,  as  some  did,  to  circumstances,  that 
it  became  a  point  of  conscientious  duty  not  to 
expose  them  to  still  greater  odium  by  any  public 
memorial  of  our  friendship."  ^  In  fact,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  steadfast  sympathy  and  practical  pecu- 
niary assistance  rendered  to  Strauss  by  his  affec- 
tionate brother  William,  his  life  for  many  a  year 
after  the  pubHcation  of  "  Das  Lebeii  Jesii "  would 
have  been  one  of  more  or  less  complete  social  isola- 
tion, and  he  might  have  also  been  either  compelled 
to  forego  all  future  religious  research,  or  else  have 
been  reduced  to  such  straits  to  secure  his  livelihood 
as  well-nigh  to  take  up  the  lamentation  :  The  foxes 
have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but 
the  modern  religious  outcast  has  scarcely  where  to 
lay  his  head. 

Take    another   illustration.       Says  a  recent   biog- 
rapher,  M.   Henri    Harrisse :    "  The   faculty   of   the 


RELIGIOUS  REPRESSION.  1 25 

Theological  Seminary  of  Saint  Sulpice  were  once 
engaged  in  preparing  their  annual  examinations, 
when  a  young  candidate  for  the  deaconship,  who 
had  always  been  noted  for  his  great  modesty  and 
studious  habits,  asked  leave  to  submit  a  number  of 
questions  which  perplexed  his  mind,  and  seemed  to 
depress  his  religious  spirit.  Unless  they  were  solved 
to  his  satisfaction  he  could  not  hope  to  enter  into 
holy  orders.  His  earnestness  astonished  and  alarmed 
the  entire  faculty.  They  refused  at  once  to  examine 
questions  which  to  them  appeared  novel  or  subver- 
sive ;  and  justly  fearing  that  a  neophyte  who,  on  the 
threshold  of  the  priesthood,  was  besieged  with  such 
misgivings,  might  become  a  cause  of  strife  in  the 
Church,  they  withheld  their  protection,  and  bade 
him  depart  from  the  consecrated  place.  This  inquisi- 
tive and  conscientious  student  was  Joseph  Ernest 
Renan."  3 

After  bravely  and  patiently  enduring  an  ordeal  of 
poverty  and  privations  almost  without  precedent  in 
the  history  of  a  Parisian  student,  even  in  the  Latin 
Quarter,  M.  Renan  eventually  succeeded  in  passing, 
with  the  highest  honors,  his  examination  for  Uni- 
versity Professor  of  Philosophy.  In  due  process  of 
time  his  scholarly  attainments  and  reputation  became 
so  pre-eminent  that  the  professors  of  the  College  of 
France,  together  with  the  members  of  the  French 
Institute,  proposed  to  him  that  he  should  accept  the 


126  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

professorship  of  the  Hebrew,  Chaldaic,  and  Syriac 
languages  and  literature ;  and  he  was  thereupon 
appointed  to  this  position  by  the  eiTiperor.4  The 
clerical  party  looked  upon  the  elevation  of  this  heret- 
ical thinker  to  the  oldest  chair  of  the  first  institu- 
tion of  the  land  with  mingled  anger  and  alarm. 
Forming  themselves  into  a  cabal,  they  endeavored, 
by  their  clamorous  interruptions,  to  prevent  his 
being  so  much  as  even  heard  on  the  day  of  his 
inauguration  ;  and  on  the  day  following,  the  official 
columns  of  "The  Moniteur "  contained  a  govern- 
mental decree  suspending  his  course  of  lectures 
indefinitely. 

The  clerical  party  had  thus  defiantly  thrown  down 
the  gauntlet  at  the  feet  of  Renan  ;  and  just  one  year 
from  the  date  of  the  memorable  scene  enacted  in  the 
College  of  France  his  answer  appeared,  in  the  form 
of  the  '^Vie  de  yesus''  5  And,  immediately  upon  the 
publication  of  this  work,  he  became  denounced  from 
one  end  of  Christendom  to  the  other ;  and  that  by 
Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics.  In  all  orthodox 
circles  he  had  become,  in  fact,  at  once  as  famous, 
and  as  infamous,  as  Dr.  David  Friedrich  Strauss. 

Nor  is  this  repressive  theological  method  of  dealing 
with  the  modern  heretic  at  all  peculiar  either  to  Ger- 
many or  France.  No  sooner,  for  instance,  had  the 
volume  which  was  entitled  "  Essays  and  Reviews  " 
appeared   in   England,    than    petitions,    numerously 


RELIGIOUS  REPRESSION,  12/ 

signed,  began  to  be  presented  to  the  bishops  to 
take  judicial  action  against  its  authors.  One  of 
these  petitions  is  computed  to  have  contained  the 
signatures  of  not  less  than  nine  thousand  clergy- 
men of  the  Established  Church.  Judicial  proceed- 
ings were  commenced ;  and  Dr.  Williams  and  Mr. 
Wilson  were  cited  before  the  Court  of  Arches,  the 
chief  ecclesiastical  tribunal  of  the  country.  This 
court  decided  that  the  parties  arraigned  had  departed 
from  the  teachings  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  on  the 
inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture,  on  the  atonement,  and 
on  justification.  The  culprits  were  accordingly  sen- 
tenced to  undergo  suspension  from  the  performance 
of  their  clerical  functions  for  a  year,  with  the  further 
penalty  of  costs,  and  the  deprivation  of  their  salaries. 
Fortunately,  however,  their  case  was  subsequently 
brought  before  the  Privy  Council,  where  the  decision 
of  the  Court  of  Arches  against  them  was  reversed.^ 

While  the  commotion  caused  by  this  ecclesiastical 
trial  was  still  running  at  the  highest,  Dr.  John  William 
Colenso,  Bishop  of  Natal,  in  South-eastern  Africa, 
began  to  issue  his  work  on  the  Pentateuch  and  the 
Book  of  Joshua.  This  at  once  diverted  the  attention 
of  the  general  Anglican  theological  police  force  from 
all  further  formal  pursuit  of  the  Essayists  and 
Reviewers,  and  they  began  forthwith  to  hunt  down 
the  bishop.7 

Crossing  over  to  Scotland,  every  one  knows  how 


128  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

the  declarations  of  certain  modern  scholarly  views 
about  the  Bible,  by  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
recently  aroused  the  mediaeval  biblicists  to  place  him 
on  trial  for  heresy,  and  resulted  in  his  dismissal  from 
the  professorship  of  Hebrew  in  the  Free  College  of 
Aberdeen. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  not  a  single  man  of 
any  noted  scholarship  or  genius  connected  with  the 
modern  religious  movement  has  ventured  to  speak 
his  mind  in  opposition  to  the  traditional  religious 
conceptions  in  any  so-called  Christian  country,  with- 
out being  forthwith  made  to  feel  the  full  force  either 
of  ecclesiastical  discipline  or  of  ecclesiastical  punish- 
ment, in  so  far  as  that  discipline  or  that  punishment 
could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  him.  If  he  happened 
to  be  a  clergyman,  what  he  had  to  undergo  is  suf- 
ficiently indicated  above,  in  what  is  said  of  Professor 
W.  Robertson  Smith,  Colenso,  and  Strauss.  If  he 
happened  to  be  a  layman  —  well,  Renan  is  a  layman. 
Besides,  Professor  Huxley  suspects  that  there  are  one 
or  two  other  laymen  still  living,  who,  if  the  twenty- 
first  century  studies  their  history,  will  be  found  to 
have  been  recognized  by  the  Christianity  of  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  only  as  objects 
of  vilification.^  If  laymen  can  be  made  to  experi- 
ence the  effects  of  incurring  the  orthodox  theo- 
logical odium  in  no  other  way,  they  can  at  least  be 
stigmatized  as  anti-religious  propagandists,  material 
atheists,  or  something  of  the  sort. 


RELIGIOUS  REPRESSION.  1 29 

But,  when  we  speak  thus  of  the  orthodox  theo- 
logical odium,  it  becomes  incumbent  upon  us  to  do 
justice  to  a  certain  very  considerable  class  among 
the  Protestant  divines.  **  It  is  my  privilege,"  says 
Professor  Tyndall,  "to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  a 
select  number  of  religious  men,  with  whom  I  con- 
verse frankly  upon  theological  subjects,  expressing 
without  disguise  the  notions  and  opinions  I  enter- 
tain regarding  their  tenets,  and  hearing,  in  return, 
these  notions  and  opinions  subjected  to  criticism.  I 
have,  thus  far,  found  them  liberal  and  loving  men,  — 
patient  in  hearing,  tolerant  in  reply, — who  know 
how  to  reconcile  the  duties  of  courtesy  with  the 
earnestness  of  debate."  9 

Nor  is  the  experience  of  Professor  Tyndall  here, 
as  a  representative  modern  heretic,  by  any  means 
exceptional.  The  orthodox  divines  do  include  among 
themselves  this  select  number  of  men,  who  both  in 
private  intercourse  and  in  all  their  public  declara- 
tions, whether  from  the  pulpit  or  through  the  press, 
treat  the  most  revolutionary  opponents  of  their  re- 
ligious views  as  if  the  latter  at  least  belonged  to 
their  common  human  brotherhood.  Nor  is  this  the 
case  when  they  have  to  deal  with  the  laity  alone. 
Even  when  it  becomes  their  official  duty  to  partici- 
pate in  the  formal  ecclesiastical  proceedings  which 
may  be  instituted  against  any  among  the  clergy  who 
may  stand  charged  with  a  more  or  less  fundamental 


130  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

departure  from  the  teachings  of  the  doctrinal  stand- 
ards of  their  respective  churches,  the  present  writer, 
for  one,  has  abundant  reason  to  testify  that  they  do 
so  in  a  Hberal,  loving,  patient,  tolerant  spirit,  and 
with  the  manifest  reluctance  of  persons  who  have  a 
painful  task  upon  their  ecclesiastical  consciences  to 
discharge,  rather  than  with  the  manifest  relish  of  that 
other,  and  far  different,  class  among  the  orthodox 
divines  who  pass  through  the  entire  procedure  as  if 
it  were  at  once  their  very  meat  and  drink  to  aid  in 
stamping  out  yet  one  more  enemy  of  the  faith  once 
delivered  to  the  saints. 

And  yet  even  this  latter  class  among  the  orthodox 
divines  doubtless  act  with  perfect  conscientiousness. 
In  attempting  to  put  down  at  once  the  heretic  and 
his  heresy,  they  verily  believe  that  they  are  doing 
God  service.  Indeed,  the  very  sternness  and  relent- 
lessness  of  both  their  measures  and  their  methods 
arise  from  this  conviction.  Nor  can  there  be  the 
slightest  question,  that,  when  they  have  to  deal  with 
any  thing  like  a  flagrant  instance  of  heresy  within 
the  ministry  itself,  all  the  technical  aspects  of  the 
case  are  plainly  on  their  side.  The  orthodox  clergy- 
man has  entered  into  a  formal  compact  that  he  will 
promulgate  and  defend  certain  specified  doctrines, 
and  that  he  will  neither  promulgate  nor  defend  any 
contravening  doctrines.  So  long  as  he  adheres  to 
the  perfectly  well-understood  conditions  of  this  com- 


RELIGIOUS  REPRESSION.  131 

pact,  he  is  of  course  entitled  to  all  the  privileges, 
emoluments,  and  remunerations  stipulated  in  the 
specific  arrangements  which  he  may  have  entered 
into  with  any  given  congregation,  denominational 
institution,  or  the  like.  The  moment  he  violates 
those  conditions,  at  least  in  any  fundamental  man- 
ner, he  is  plainly  and  even  justly,  from  a  merely 
ecclesiastical  point  of  view,  at  the  mercy  of  his 
ministerial  associates  or  superiors.  But  all  this  does 
not  alter  the  fact,  that  every  orthodox  or  evangelical 
clergyman  is  liable  to  be  repressed  for  the  expres- 
sion of  non-evangelical  religious  opinions,  and  that, 
if  he  comes  to  indulge  any  such  opinions  in  private, 
the  only  way  in  which  he  can  hope  to  escape  from 
being  repressed,  so  far  as  it  lies  in  the  power  of  his 
particular  branch  of  the  church  to  repress  him,  is 
simply  to  keep  both  his  tongue  still  and  his  pen  still. 
But,  if  the  orthodox  divines  have  thus  at  least  the 
manifest  technical  right  to  put  down  heresy  within 
the  ministry  itself,  it  may  still  be  enquired  by  what 
right  they  can  proceed  to  make  their  theological 
onsets  upon  the  heretical  element  among  the  laity. 
The  answer  to  this  inquiry  would  of  course  be  evi- 
dent enough  when  the  offending  layman  stood  in  a 
formal  covenanted  relation  with  any  given  orthodox 
organization  or  society.  Church-members,  as  well 
as  church-ministers,  become  the  legitimate  subjects 
of  what  is  characterized  as   ecclesiastical    discipline 


132  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

in  case  they  come  to  an  open  rupture  with  the  theo- 
logical standards  of  the  churches  to  which  they 
belong. 

Still  the  orthodox  divines  do  not  by  any  means 
confine  their  theological  jurisdiction  to  either  the  min- 
isters or  the  members  of  their  respective  churches. 
Renan,  for  example,  does  not  need  to  be  a  member 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  Tyndall  or  Darwin  or 
Huxley  to  be  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England, 
in  order  that  the  orthodox  divines  should  regard  it 
as  their  peculiar  prerogative  and  privilege  to  do 
their  utmost  to  keep  him  out  of  any  position  of 
prominence  and  power,  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
College  of  France  for  instance,  and  to  do  what  they 
can  likewise  to  destroy  his  general  public  influence 
by  stigmatizing  him  as  an  atheist  and  anathematiz- 
ing him  as  an  infidel  and  worse  than  an  infidel.  But 
even  in  this  aspect  of  the  case  the  conduct  of  the 
orthodox  divines  is  not  without  its  explanations,  and 
certainly  not  without  its  provocations.  For  when 
laymen,  who  are  also  non-churchmen,  as  Renan  and 
Tyndall,  declare  an  open  warfare  upon  the  very  reli- 
gious ideas  and  principles  to  propagate  and  defend 
which  the  great  Catholic  and  Protestant  churches 
have  their  organized  existence,  they  at  once  place 
both  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  divines  on  the 
defensive.  And  it  is  not  for  those  who  declare  the 
war  to  wonder,  much  less  to  complain,  if  they 
receive  as  well  as  give  some  ugly  sword-thrusts. 


RELIGIOUS  REPRESSION.  1 33 

But  it  may  be  replied  to  this,  that  while  the  ortho- 
dox divines  are  doubtless  perfectly  justifiable  in 
defending  their  various  dogmas  as  best  they  may 
be  able  to  do,  when  their  dogmas  are  assaulted,  they 
are  clearly  bound  to  do  so  by  the  employment  of 
legitimate  methods.  The  implication  here  is,  that 
ecclesiastical  repression  is  not  to  be  numbered 
among  such  legitimate  methods.  Still,  say  what 
we  will  upon  this  point,  the  orthodox  divines  will 
continue  to  insist  that  ecclesiastical  discipline  is  not 
merely  a  legitimate  method  of  dealing  with  heretics, 
both  among  the  orthodox  ministry  and  among  the 
orthodox  church-membership,  but  that  it  is  precisely 
the  method  of  being  dealt  with  to  which  both  the 
orthodox  ministry  and  the  orthodox  church-mem- 
bership have  explicitly  agreed  that  they  will  submit 
themselves  upon  becoming  heretical.  And  yet  even 
the  orthodox  divines  ought  by  this  time  to  be  get- 
ting their  eyes  tolerably  well  opened  to  the  fact  that 
even  if,  from  the  strictly  ecclesiastical  point  of  view, 
ecclesiastical  repression  is  to  be  legitimately  em- 
ployed in  putting  down  heretics  and  heresy  within 
the  church  itself,  from  a  logical  point  of  view,  eccle- 
siastical repression,  considered  merely  as  a  means 
to  an  end,  can  have  no  relevancy  whatever  when  it 
comes  to  be  applied  to  the  heretics  and  the  heresies 
peculiar  to  the  present  religious  epoch.  For  there 
is  scarcely  a  single  great  religious  or  biblical  ques- 


134  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

tion  now  up  for  discussion  and  decision  which  is 
not  a  more  or  less  strictly  intellectual  one.  Take, 
for  example,  the  question  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
fourth  Gospel,  or  the  question  of  the  probable  date, 
authorship,  and  general  literary  origin  of  the  various 
books  composing  the  Protestant  canonical  Scriptures, 
or  the  question  of  biblical  inspiration,  or  the  ques- 
tion of  future  punishment,  or  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  to  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  gen- 
eral religion  of  the  New  Testament,  on  the  other, 
or  the  question  of  Darwinism,  or  the  question  of 
evolutionism.  What  possible  bearing  can  trials  for 
heresy,  ejections  from  professorships,  depositions 
from  the  ministry,  excommunications  from  the 
churches,  anathemas  and  vilifications,  have  upon  the 
intelligent  and  satisfactory  solution  of  these  and 
kindred  problems }  And  from  this  time  onward 
the  orthodox  divines  will  come  increasingly  to  dis- 
cover that  the  less  they  presume  to  exercise  mere 
ecclesiastical  force  simply  to  stifle  out,  whether  on 
the  part  of  the  ministry  or  on  the  part  of  the  laity, 
a  full,  dispassionate,  scholarly,  and  scientific  con- 
sideration of  all  these  subjects,  and  manifold  more 
which  might  readily  be  instanced,  the  better  they 
will  in  the  end  subserve  the  very  cause  of  orthodoxy. 
For,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  general  public 
temper,  there  is  no  disposition  to  permit  the  down- 


RELK^OUS  REPRESSION.  1 35 

right  suppression  of  intelligent  objections  to  the 
traditional  theology,  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
or  to  the  traditional  theological  views,  whether  of  the 
Bible  or  religion,  which  objections  demand  investi- 
gation, research,  reasoning,  calm,  judicial  judgment. 
And  any  cause  which  condescends  to  undertake  to 
defend  itself  against  a  purely  intellectual  assault  vi 
et  armis,  will,  for  that  very  reason,  more  or  less 
alienate  from  itself  the  general  public  sympathy, 
and  tend  to  destroy  confidence  in  itself  in  every 
thoughtful  and  cultured  community.  For  it  is  sim- 
ply inevitable  that  thoughtful  and  cultured  people 
should  everywhere  come  more  and  more  distinctly 
to  perceive  that  any  cause  which  is  ev^en  apparently 
driven  to  silence,  rather  than  to  answer  its  oppo- 
nents, is  a  cause  which  is  at  least  very  unpleasantly 
open  to  the  suspicion  that  it  is  not  intellectually 
capable  of  responding  to  its  assailants. 


CHAPTER   X. 

RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY. 

As  has  already  been  observed,  the  orthodox  minis- 
try, as  a  class,  have  entered  into  a  formal  ecclesiasti- 
cal compact  that  they  will  promulgate  and  defend 
certain  specified  views  of  religion,  and  that  they 
will  neither  promulgate  nor  defend  any  contravening 
ones.  But  this  is  merely  another  form  of  stating 
the  fact  that  the  orthodox  ministry,  as  a  class,  have, 
for  certain  considerations  of  one  description  or 
another,  formally  relinquished  their  rights  to  the 
exercise  of  any  thing  but  a  perfectly  one-sided  reli- 
gious liberty.  They  are,  indeed,  free  enough  so 
long  as  they  promulgate  and  defend  their  various 
denominational  dogmas.  But  the  moment  they  come 
to  a  radical  rupture  with  any  of  those  dogmas  in 
their  private  convictions,  and  begin  to  think  of 
proclaiming  those  convictions,  they  are  at  once 
confronted  with  the  stipulated  conditions  of  their 
ecclesiastical  contract.  If  they  venture  openly  to 
declare  their  denominational  heresies,  they  must 
stand  prepared  to  do  so  at  every  professional  cost 
and  every  ecclesiastical  peril. 
136 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 37 

Now,  at  least  in  the  milder  senses  of  the  term, 
there  are  a  great  many  heretics  in  the  ranks  of  the 
evangelical  ministry  to-day,  who  are  anxious  to  know- 
in  how  far,  despite  the  strict  provisions  of  their  eccle- 
siastical compact,  they  are  yet  justified  in  employing 
their  respective  pulpits  in  making  known,  both  to 
their  parishioners  and  to  the  general  public,  in  what 
particulars  they  can  no  longer  either  promulgate  Or 
defend  the  articles  of  religious  belief  which  are  set 
forth  dogmatically  in  their  several  denominational 
standards.  Well,  the  only  way  in  which  they  can 
practically  solve  this  problem  is  simply  to  try  the 
experiment.  Some  orthodox  churches  will  accord  to 
their  individual  ministers  great  liberty  in  this  direc- 
tion, whereas  other  orthodox  churches  will  accord  to 
them  either  none  or  next  to  none. 

But  the  heretics  among  the  modern  evangelical 
ministry  should  never  forget  that  how  much  or  how 
little  of  their  heresies  shall  or  shall  not  be  heard 
from  their  respective  pulpits,  is  a  matter  which  pri- 
marily belongs,  as  between  themselves  and  their 
congregations,  not  with  themselves,  but*  with  their 
congregations,  to  decide.  Orthodox  congregations 
have  their  religious  rights  as  well  as  the  class  of 
heretics  in  question.  And  among  the  religious 
rights  of  orthodox  congregations  none  can  be  more 
manifest  than  this,  —  that  they  first  of  all  are  to  be 
the  judges  whether  they  will   or  will   not  permit  a 


138  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

clergyman,  whom  they  expressly  salary  and  support 
to  promulgate  and  defend  their  denominational  dog- 
mas, to  turn  directly  about,  and  covertly  undermine, 
if  he  does  not  openly  assail,  those  dogmas.  If  any 
among  these  heretics  desire  a  larger  religious  liberty 
than  they  can  find  any  orthodox  church  prepared 
voluntarily  to  accord  them,  then  let  them  either  go 
and  enjoy  that  liberty  in  some  of  the  heterodox 
churches,  or  else  abandon  the  ministry. 

But  it  is  high  time  that  both  the  orthodox  churches 
as  a  body,  and  the  general  religious  public,  should 
thoughtfully  consider  the  question  in  how  far  it  is  a 
desirable  or  an  undesirable  thing  that  there  should 
exist  great  ecclesiastical  organizations  in  which  reli- 
gious thought,  or  at  least  in  which  religious  expres- 
sion, is  free  only  within  the  limits  of  their  denomina- 
tional creeds  and  catechisms.  And,  in  the  first  place, 
at  such  a  transitional  religious  period  as  the  present, 
this  arrangement  operates  with  a  most  demoralizing 
effect  upon  a  very  considerable  element  within  the 
orthodox  ministry  itself.  This  element  is  the  hereti- 
cal one.  And  that  this  element  among  the  orthodox 
clergy  is  already  quite  a  large  one,  and  that  its  pro- 
portions are  constantly  on  the  increase,  no  one  at  all 
familiar  with  the  facts  of  the  case  will  for  a  moment 
think  to  dispute.  It  is  not  an  element,  indeed,  which 
is  inclined  to  betray  its  confidences  to  the  heresy- 
hunters  of  the  day,  whether  clerical  or  laical.     But 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY,  1 39 

it  will  take  any  one  who  is  himself  a  well-known 
heretic  many  a  year  to  get  over  his  surprises  at  the 
heretical  confidences  which  gradually  become  reposed 
in  him  on  the  part  of  those  who,  as  the  expression 
goes,  are  still  in  good  and  regular  standing  in  the 
orthodox  ministry.  Now  it  will  be  the  pastor  of 
some  prominent  pulpit,  now  it  will  be  the  editor  of 
some  leading  evangelical  organ  of  expression,  now  it 
will  be  some  distinguished  doctor  of  divinity  who  is 
either  a  college  professor  or  even  a  theological  pro- 
fessor, by  whom  the  confidence  is  reposed.  Indeed, 
we  venture  the  suspicion,  based  upon  our  own  per- 
sonal experience,  that  there  is  not  a  pronounced  and 
outspoken  heretic  now  before  the  public  who  could 
not  make  it  exceedingly  troublesome  for  a  great 
many  hitherto  unsuspected  heretics  in  the  orthodox 
ministry,  if  he  could  only  be  base  enough  to  bruit 
abroad  the  secrets  which  have  been  imparted  to  him. 
Now,  what  ethical  ^effect  have  the  various  Protes- 
tant methods  of  confining  at  least  all  religious  ex- 
pression within  certain  'dogmatical  limitations  upon 
this  special  class  of  heretics  t  It  forces  them  to  a 
systematic  and  habitual  concealment  of  their  actual 
religious  opinions.  It  frequently  drives  them  to  the 
public  advocacy  of  religious  opinions  which  they  no 
longer  either  personally  believe,  or  consider  that  any 
one  else  can  give  a  valid  reason  for  believing.  It  is 
very  true  that  the  way  of  escape  from  this  slow  but 


I40  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

sure  process  of  moral  deterioration  and  disintegration 
is  open  to  them',  if  they  can  only  make  up  their 
minds  fearlessly  to  declare  the  altered  condition  of 
their  religious  views,  undergo  a  formal  trial  for  her- 
esy, and  have  their  very  names  stricken  from  the 
rolls  of  orthodoxy. 

Some  of  the  clergymen  in  question  have  already 
made  up  their  minds  to  adopt  this  latter  course,  and 
others  are  doubtless  on  the  point  of  doing  so.  At 
the  same  time  v^e  must  not  judge  over-harshly  those 
others  among  their  number  who  still  continue  to 
promulgate  and  defend  the  old  conceptions  about  the 
Bible,  about  religion,  and  the  like,  while  they  have 
come  secretly  and  more  or  less  fundamentally  to  ac- 
cept the  new.  To  illustrate.  Said  Froude  to  the 
English  clergy  in  1864 :  **  We  can  but  hope  and  pray 
that  some  one  may  be  found  to  give  us  an  edition 
of  the  Gospels  in  which  the  difficulties  will  neither 
be  slurred  over  with  convenient  neglect,  nor  noticed 
with  affected  indifference.  It  may  or  may  not  be  a 
road  to  a  bishopric  ;  it  may  or  may  not  win  the  favor 
of  the  religious  world  ;  but  it  will  earn  at  least  the 
respectful  gratitude  of  those  who  cannot  trifle  with 
holy  things,  and  who  believe  that  true  religion  is  the 
service  of  truth."  ' 

Now,  this  is  all  perfectly  easy  for  Mr.  Froude  to 
say.  Mr.  Froude  is  not  himself  a  professional  clergy- 
man.    Mr.   Froude  has  no  prospects  of  a  bishopric 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  I4I 

to  renounce.  Mr.  Froude  has  no  particular  reason 
to  consider,  in  any  of  his  proceedings  or  his  pub- 
lications, whether  he  is  about  to  secure  the  favor 
or  the  disfavor  of  the  religious  world.  But  let  Mr. 
Froude,  for  the  moment,  put  himself  in  the  profes- 
sional clergyman's  place.  Let  him  then  conceive 
that  he  is  confronted  with  the  question  whether  he 
will,  or  will  not,  put  forth  such  an  edition  of  the 
Gospels  as  he  suggests  above.  He  will  then  begin 
to  say  to  himself :  "  If  I  do  this,  I  will  first  of  all  be 
thrown  out  of  my  profession.  I  am  rapidly  approach- 
ing, if  I  am  not  actually  beyond,  the  meridian  of 
life.  I  have  not  merely  myself  to  support,  but  a 
wife  and  children,  for  whom  I  must,  in  some  way, 
provide  at  least  their  daily  bread.  I  am  more  or 
less  unfitted,  by  my  whole  clerical  education,  train- 
ing, and  experience,  to  take  up  any  other  pursuit  in 
life.  Possibly  I  might  become  a  teacher,  for  example. 
But  that  would  indeed  require  to  be  a  very  rare  and 
a  very  exceptional  combination  of  circumstances 
which  would  enable  me,  after  I  became  a  branded  and 
excommunicated  clerical  heretic,  either  to  secure  a 
remunerative  position  in  connection  with  the  general 
educational  institutions,  or  to  anticipate,  with  a  rea- 
sonable degree  of  assurance,  something  like  an  ade- 
quate amount  of  purely  private  patronage." 

Looked  at  in  this  light,  therefore,  Mr.  Froude  will 
perceive  that  this  whole  matter  of  outspoken  heresy 


142  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

is  to  the  professional  orthodox  clergyman  intensely 
practical ;  and  that  it  is  likewise  fraught  on  every 
hand  with  the  most  painful  perplexities.  And  noth- 
ing can  be  more  certain  than  thi*s ;  namely,  that 
if  Mr.  Froude  were  himself  a  professional  orthodox 
divine,  and  were  about  to  issue  still  another  edition 
of  the  Gospels,  he  would  be  sorely  tempted,  con- 
sciously and  intentionally,  to  slur  over  a  great  many 
difficulties  with  a  very  convenient  neglect,  and  to 
notice  many  more  with  the  customary  nonchalance 
of  the  mediaeval  biblicists  when  they  have  a  case  in 
hand  which  it  is  particularly  embarrassing  to  manage. 
Whether  he  would,  or  would  not,  yield  to  this  tempta- 
tion, is  not,  however,  quite  so  certain. 

All  honor,  therefore,  to  that  clergyman  in  the 
orthodox  ranks,  who,  having  ceased  any  longer  to 
believe  in  a  greater  or  less  proportion  of  the  more 
cardinal  tenets  of  the  general  evangelical  systems 
of  theology,  manfully  speaks  his  mind,  courageously 
undergoes  the  severest  ecclesiastical  procedures  which 
can  be  instituted  against  him,  accepts  his  ejection 
from  the  ministry  with  mingled  dignity  and  fearless- 
ness, and  heroically  begins  the  battle  for  the  main- 
tenance both  of  himself  and  those  who  may  be  de- 
pendent on  him  in  some  other  calling  or  profession. 
But  let  us,  at  least, "neither  think  too  severely,  nor 
speak  too  severely,  of  that  heretical  clergyman  in  the 
orthodox  communion  who,  whether  from  an  innate 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  143 

timidity,  or  from  a  primary  regard  to  those  merely 
temporal  considerations  by  which  the  average  human 
brotherhood  must  ever  be  most  powerfully  and  most 
decisively  influenced,  cannot  bring  himself  up  to  the 
point  of  becoming  at  once  a  hero  and  a  martyr. 

And  it  is  precisely  here  that  the  immense  practical 
importance  of  the  remark  we  made  above  arises. 
Were  it  an  easy  thing  for  the  heretical  minister  to 
renounce  his  profession  as  an  orthodox  divine,  it 
would  be  a  very  easy  thing  for  him  to  escape  the 
moral  damage  which  he  must  inevitably  receive  by 
remaining  in  his  profession.  But  inasmuch  as  it  is 
almost  a  life-and-death  matter  —  not  merely  with 
himself,  but  likewise  with  his  household  —  that  he 
should  remain  in  his  profession,  he  will  indeed  need 
to  be  a  man  of  exceptional  resolution  and  of  excep- 
tional regard  to  his  absolute  ethical  integrity,  if  he 
does  not  remain  in  his  profession,  promulgating  re- 
ligious doctrines  which  he  no  longer  personally  ap- 
proves, and  defending  denominational  dogmas  which 
he  has  abundant  reason  to  know  have  long  since 
been  exploded. 

The  orthodox  divines  who  continue  in  perfect  good 
faith  to  adhere  to  the  traditional  theological  dogmas 
do  not,  of  course,  experience  any  of  the  evil  ethical 
effects  which  we  have  pointed  out  as  affecting  the 
heretical  class,  by  reason  of  having  their  religious 
thinking   and   their   religious    declarations    confined 


144  ^-^^-^  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

within  the  limits  of  their  dogmas.  But  they  do 
receive  a  mental  damage  which  is  as  deplorable  as  it 
is  undeniable.  To  illustrate.  After  the  author  had 
begun  the  composition  of  the  present  chapter,  he 
chanced  to  get  into  conversation  with  an  orthodox 
theological  professor,  whose  mediaeval  biblical  attain- 
ments are  such  as  to  have  secured  his  appointment 
among  those  distinguished  biblical  verbalists  who 
are  now  at  work  upon  the  Oxford  revision  of  the 
Scriptures  passing  through  the  press.  The  author 
refreshed  the  memory  of  this  theological  professor 
with  regard  to  the  very  familiar  fact  that  two  of  the 
Evangelists  represent  a  certain  miracle  of  Jesus  as 
having  been  performed  on  the  departure  of  Jesus 
out  of  Jericho,  whereas  another  of  the  Evangelists 
says,  as  explicitly,  that  this  same  miracle  was  per- 
formed by  Jesus  on  his  entrance  into  Jericho.  And 
what  solution  of  these  contradictory  statements  be- 
tween the  Evangelists  do  you  think  the  professor 
undertook  to  give  .'*  He  said  that  when  he  himself 
was  a  student  in  divinity,  the  following  explanation 
had  been  offered  to  his  class  :  *'  It  is  probable,  or 
at  least  conceivable,  that  when  the  miracle  was  per- 
formed the  different  Evangelists  had  arrived  upon  the 
scene  in  an  entirely  different  condition,  —  two  of 
them  worn  out  and  weary,  the  other  fresh  and  vigor- 
ous. When  they  afterward  sat  down,  each  by  him- 
self, to  place  the  miracle  on  record,  to  the  two  Evan* 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY,  I45 

gelists  who  were  worn  out  and  weary  at  the  time  of 
its  performance  it  appeared  as  if  the  prodigy  could 
not  have  been  wrought  until  the  departure  of  Jesus 
out  of  Jericho  ;  whereas  to  the  other  Evangelist,  who 
was  fresh  and  vigorous  at  the  time  of  its  performance, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  wonderful  work  must  have  been 
done  as  early  as  the  entrance  of  Jesus  into  Jericho." 
And,  unfortunately,  we  have  here  only  a  representa- 
tive example  of  those  intellectual  puerilities  which 
are  begotten  even  among  orthodox  theological  pro- 
fessors, and  which  are  perpetuated  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another  of  those  professors,  in  consequence 
of  their  being  obliged  professionally  to  confine  all 
their  mental  movements  within  the  narrow  limita- 
tions of  their  little  churchly  dogmas. 

Moreover,  even  when  the  ratiocination  of  the 
orthodox  divines  is  not  so  perfectly  vapid  as  in  the 
instance  adduced  above,  its  unsatisfactoriness  and  its 
evasiveness  are  as  characteristic  as  they  are  notori- 
ous. It  will  be  remembered,  for  example,  that  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall  some  time  since  enclosed,  with  his 
approval,  an  anonymous  communication  to  the  editor 
of  "The  Contemporary  Review,"  proposing  that  the 
controverted  question  of  the  efificacy  of  prayer  as  a 
means  of  restoring  the  sick  to  health  should  be 
decided  by  means  of  a  series  of  scientific  tests. ^ 
This  communication  was  afterward  announced  to 
have  been  written  by  Sir  Henry  Thompson  ;  and  the 


146  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

point  of  his  proposal  is  thus  stated  by  himself:  "I 
ask  that  one  single  ward  or  hospital,  under  the  care 
of  first-rate  physicians  and  surgeons,  containing  cer- 
tain numbers  of  patients,  afflicted  with  those  diseases 
which  have  been  best  studied,  and  of  which  the  mor- 
tality rates  are  best  known,  whether  the  diseases  are 
those  which  are  treated  by  medical  or  by  surgical  rem- 
edies, should  be,  during  a  period  of  not  less,  say,  than 
three  or  five  years,  made  the  object  of  special  prayer 
by  the  whole  body  of  the  faithful ;  and  that  at  the 
end  of  that  time  the  mortality  rates  should  be  com- 
pared with  the  past  rates,  and  also  with  those  of 
other  leading  hospitals,  similarly  well  managed,  dur- 
ing the  same  period.  Granting  that  time  is  given, 
and  numbers  are  sufficiently  large,  so  as  to  insure  a 
minimum  of  error  from  accidental  disturbing  causes, 
the  experiment  will  be  exhaustive  and  complete.  I 
might  have  proposed  to  treat  two  sides  of  the  same 
hospital,  managed  by  the  same  men  ;  one  side  to  be 
the  special  object  of  prayer,  the  other  to  be  exempted 
from  all  prayer.  It  would  have  been  the  most  rigidly 
logical  and  philosophical  method.  But  I  shrink  from 
depriving  any  of  —  I  had  almost  said  —  his  natural 
inheritance  in  the  prayers  of  Christendom.  Practi- 
cally, too,  it  would  have  been  impossible.  The  un- 
prayed-for  ward  would  have  attracted  the  prayers  of 
believers  as  surely  as  the  lofty  tower  attracts  electric 
fluid.     The  experiment  would  be  frustrated.     But  the 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  I47 

opposite  character  of  my  proposal  will  commend  it 
to  those  who-  are  naturally  the  most  interested  in 
its  success  ;  those,  namely,  who  conscientiously  and 
devoutly  believe  in  the  efficiency  against  disease  and 
death  of  special  prayer.  I  open  a  field  for  the  exer- 
cise of  their  devotion.  I  offer  an  occasion  of  demon- 
strating to  the  faithless  an  imperishable  record  of 
the  real  power  of  prayer."  3 

No  sooner,  however,  had  Professor  Tyndall  become 
the  public  sponsor  and  the  general  theological  scape- 
goat of  this  proposal  by  Sir  Henry  Thompson,  than 
the  orthodox  divines  began  to  treat  him,  he  says, 
to  a  "free  use  of  the  terms  'insolence,'  'outrage,' 
'profanity,' and  'blasphemy.' "  4  But  what  possible 
relevancy  had  this  "considerable  amount  of  animad- 
version "  5  against  Professor  Tyndall  towards  decid- 
ing, from  the  experimental,  scientific  standpoint, 
whether  prayer  does,  or  does  not,  possess  a  veritable 
and  verifiable  sanitary  value  ? 

Still,  some  of  the  orthodox  divines  did  something 
more  than  simply  to  denounce  Professor  Tyndall  for 
lending  his  countenance  to  Dr.  Thompson  in  connec- 
tion with  his  suggested  prayer-test.  Of  these  Presi- 
dent M'Cosh  may  be  selected  as  among  the  best 
examples.  The  President  offered  two  leading  objec- 
tions. He  said :  "  i.  The  proposal  is  not  consistent 
with  the  method  and  laws  of  God's  spiritual  kingdom. 
The  project,  in  fact,  is  imperious.  .  .  .  The  project  is 


148  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

not  prescribed  by  God,  nor  is  it  one  to  which  we  can 
reasonably  expect  him  to  conform.  Every  intelli- 
gent defender  of  prayer  has  allowed  a  becoming 
sovereignty  to  God  in  answering  the  petitions  pre- 
sented to  him.  ...  2.  The  project  is  not  consistent 
with  the  spirit  in  which  Christians  pray.  They  pray 
because  commanded  to  pray.  They  pray  because  it 
is  the  prompting  of  their  hearts,  commended  by  con- 
science. They  pray  because  they  expect  God  to 
listen  to  the  o£fering-up  of  their  desires.  They  pray 
because  they  expect  God  to  grant  what  they  pray 
for,  so  far  as  it  may  be  agreeable  to  his  will  and  their 
own  good.  But  they  shrink  from  praying  as  an 
experiment.  .  .  .  Such  prayer,  they  feel,  would  im- 
ply doubt  on  their  part,  and  might  give  offence  to 
one  who  expects  us  to  come  to  him  as  children  unto 
a  father.  They  fear  that  it  might  look  as  if  they 
required  him  to  answer  prayer  in  a  particular  way, 
whether  it  may  be  for  good  or  evil,  and  unjustifiably 
expose  him  to  reproach,  provided  he  refused  to  com- 
ply with  the  uncalled-for  demand."  ^ 

But  all  this  is  evasion,  and  evasion  almost  pure 
and  simple.  It  is  indeed  true  that  the  precise 
method  of  testing  the  sanitary  value  of  prayer  out- 
lined by  Dr.  Thompson  is  not  propounded  in  the 
Bible.  And  yet  a  much  more  crucial  test  is  pro- 
pounded in  the  Bible.  That  is  where  St.  James 
explicitly  instructs  the  Christian  brotherhood,  that, 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 49 

if  any  one  of  them  is  sick,  he  is  to  send  for  the 
elders  of  the  church,  in  order  that  the  elders  may 
come  and  pray  over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord.  And  to  this  apostolical 
injunction  is  attached  the  specific  assurance  that 
the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  him*  that  is  sick. 7  If, 
therefore.  President  M'Cosh,  as  a  representative 
of  the  orthodox  divines,  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to 
decide  the  matter  in  dispute  according  to  the  pro- 
ject of  Dr.  Thompson,  he  certainly  should  have  felt 
at  liberty  to  challenge  Dr.  Thompson  to  have  it 
decided  according  to  the  project  of  St.  James  the 
apostle.  But  no.  The  orthodox  divines  shrink  from 
praying  as  an  experiment.  They  fear  that  they 
might  unjustifiably  expose  their  Deity  to  reproach, 
provided  he  refuses  to  comply  with  the  uncalled-for 
demand.  As  if  the  very  object  of  the  experiment, 
on  the  part  of  the  unbelieving  scientific  world,  would 
not  be  to  discover  the  truth,  whether  there  be  any 
Divinity  whatever  who  will  hear  the  prayers  of  man 
in  favor  of  the  sick!  As  if  the  very  object  of  the 
experiment,  on  the  part  of  the  believing,  religious 
world,  would  not  be  the  practical  verification  of  the 
fact  that  the  God  of  the  Bible  does  heal  the  sick,  as 
well  as  instruct  men  to  pray  to  him  that  he  will  heal 
them  !  And  as  to  the  demand  being  uncalled  for, 
certainly,  in  an  age  when  every  thing  that  is  super- 
natural   is    being   more  and   more  widely  called  in 


150  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

question,  if  ever  the  Deity  —  we  speak  it  with  rever- 
ence—  should  delight  to  have  his  children  invoke 
some  special  and  signal  demonstration  of  his  practi- 
cal regard  and  personal  helpfulness  to  the  suffering 
human  brotherhood,  that  time  is  now. 

But  just  here  we  must  guard  ourselves  against 
all  misapprehension.  Personally  we  do  not  by  any 
means  occupy  the  same  standpoint  in  regard  to  the 
general  subject  of  prayer  with  either  Dr.  Thompson 
or  Professor  Tyndall.  Personally  we  not  merely 
believe,  if  only  as  a  matter  of  hereditary  habit,  in 
the  efficacy  of  prayer,  but  endeavor  to  lead  some- 
thing like  a  life  of  prayer.  And  if  ever  an  experi- 
mental hospital  should  be  established  where  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  in  the  treatment  of  disease  could 
be  tested  in  the  same  scientific  manner  that  the  effi- 
cacy of  good  ventilation,  or  of  any  other  remedial 
agent  or  agency,  real  or  supposed,  is  tested,  we 
should  most  assuredly  be  personally  found  upon  the 
praying  side,  —  at  least,  until  the  experiment  had 
clearly^  proved  a  failure.  But  the  whole  trouble 
with  the  orthodox  divines  is  inadvertently  disclosed 
by  President  M'Cosh  when  he  furthermore  observes : 
"  The  proposal  made  in  the  letter  forwarded  by  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall  is  evidently  regarded  as  likely  to  be 
troublesome  to  religious  men.  If  they  accept,  it  is 
expected  that  the  issue  of  the  experiment  will  cover 
them  with  confusion.     If  they  decline,  they  will  be 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  I5I 

charged  with  refusing  to  submit  to  a  scientific  test."^ 
Accordingly  President  M'Cosh,  in  common  with  his 
entire  class  of  professional  religious  evasionists, 
coming  to  the  private  conclusion  that  the  most  pru- 
dential course  would  be  to  decline  the  experiment, 
undertakes  to  give  the  public  certain  reasons,  such 
as  they  are,  for  not  accepting  it.  But  to  this  sort 
of  thing  Professor  Tyndall  very  pertinently  responds : 
"  The  theory  that  the  system  of  nature  is  under  the 
control  of  a  Being  who  changes  phenomena  in  com- 
pliance with  the  prayers  of  men  is,  in  my  opinion, 
a  perfectly  legitimate  one.  But  without  verification 
a  theoretic  conception  is  a  mere  figment  of  the  intel- 
lect. And  while  science  cheerfully  submits  to  this 
ordeal  [of  verifying  or  exploding  its  various  hy- 
potheses], it  seems  impossible  to  devise  a  mode  of 
verification  of  their  theories  which  does  not  arouse 
resentment  in  the  theological  mind."  9 

The  simple  fact  is,  that  the  entire  mental  life 
which  the  orthodox  divine  is  compelled  to  lead  is 
such  as  to  render  his  whole  mental  cast  precisely 
the  reverse  of  scientific.  For  the  primary  object 
in  all  truly  scientific  research  is  simply  to  discover 
the  truth,  whereas  the  primary  object  of  the  ortho- 
dox divine  is  simply  to  defend  his  dogma.  That 
his  dogma  is  true,  he  is  always  obliged  to  postulate. 
Whether  his  dogma  is  true  or  false,  he  is  never  at 
liberty  candidly  and    impartially  to  inquire,  except. 


152  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

indeed,  argumentatively,  and  then  only  to  proceed 
to  contend  that  his  dogma  is  doubtlessly  true,  and 
true  beyond  any  reasonable  sort  of  question.  Which 
is  all  very  well  so  long  as  the  truthfulness  of  his 
dogma  can  be  established  by  valid  evidence  and 
legitimate  reasons.  But  by  this  time  it  must  be 
perfectly  apparent  to  the  general  reader  that  his  dog- 
mas are  far  more  frequently  false  than  true.  And, 
having  such  an  enormous  aggregate  of  false  dogmas 
to  support,  he  must  of  course  endeavor  to  support 
them  by  evidence  which  is  not  valid  and  by  reason- 
ing which  is  not  legitimate.  Hence  his  intellectual 
puerilities,  hence  his  mental  make-shifts  and  eva- 
sions, hence  his  apologetic  subterfuges,  hence  his 
substitution  of  repression  for  argument,  hence  his 
employment  of  anathemas  when  he  is  unable  to  give 
an  answer,  hence,  in  a  word,  his  theological,  as  op- 
posed to  his  scientific,  tone  and  temper. 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  ethical  injuries  in- 
flicted upon  the  heretical  element  among  the  ortho- 
dox divines  ;  and  such  are  some  of  the  intellectual 
injuries  inflicted  upon  the  non-heretical  element 
among  the  orthodox  divines,  in  consequence  of  their 
having  all  their  religious  thinking,  and  particularly 
all  their  religious  expression,  confined  within  the 
limitations  of  their  various  denominational  creeds 
and  catechisms. 

Still  this  is  a  matter  of   direct  practical  moment 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 53 

only  to  the  orthodox  divines,  and  is  of  interest  to 
the  general  public  only  to  the  extent  that  the  gen- 
eral public  is  interested  in  the  best  ethical  and  intel- 
lectual condition  of  a  special  class  of  the  common 
brotherhood  of  man. 

But  there  are  other  aspects  of  this  subject  in 
which  the  general  public  has  a  much  more  immedi- 
ate and  vital  interest.  And,  in  the  first  place,  if 
there  has  been  any  aggregate  advancement  made  in 
the  sum  total  of  human  knowledge  which  is  fatal  to 
a  continued  credence  in  many  of  the  traditional  theo- 
logical dogmas,  the  world  has  certainly  no  reason 
to  congratulate  the  professional  conservators  of 
these  dogmas  for  this  advancement.  And  notably 
have  the  traditional  theological  conceptions  about 
the  Holy  Scriptures  been  erected  by  those  conserva- 
tors as  a  barrier  against  any  such  advancement.  To 
illustrate.  When  the  once  celebrated  question  of 
the  Antipodes  first  began  to  be  discussed,  the  Bible 
was  made,  according  to  Professor  Tyndall,  the  ulti- 
mate standard  of  appeal.  And  while  such  theolo- 
gians as  Augustine,  for  instance,  did  not  go  so  far 
as  to  deny  the  possible  rotundity  of  the  earth,  still 
even  Augustine  did  deny  the  possible  existence  of 
inhabitants  at  the  other  side,  "because  no  such  race 
is  recorded  in  the  Scripture."  '°  Again :  when, 
after  refraining  to  publish  his  book,  *'  De  Revolution- 
ibus,"    for   thirty-six    years,    Copernicus    eventually 


154  '^^^  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

ventured  upon  its  publication,  the  Inquisition  con- 
demned it  as  heretical,  and.  the  congregation  of 
the  Index  denounced  his  system  as  that  *' false 
Pythagorean  doctrine  utterly  contrary  to  the  Holy 
Scripture."  ^^  Nearly  a  century  afterward  Galileo 
also  was  accused  of  imposture,  heresy,  blasphemy, 
and  atheism,  for  promulging  the  alleged  anti-Scrip- 
tural theory  that  the  earth  revolves  around  the  sun, 
and  was  compelled  upon  his  knees,  and  with  his 
hand  upon  the  Bible,  to  abjure  and  curse  this  the- 
ory. ^2  In  like  manner,  when  Columbus  proposed  his 
voyages  of  discovery,  the  irreligious  tendency  of  his 
proposal  was  pointed  out  by  the  Spanish  ecclesias- 
tics, and  condemned  by  the  Council  of  Salamanca ; 
and  its  orthodoxy  was  confuted  from  the  Pentateuch, 
the  Psalms,  the  Prophecies,  the  Gospels,  and  the 
Epistles.^3 

Now,  in  view  of  such  unquestioned  and  unquestion- 
able historical  facts  as  these.  Professor  John  William 
Draper  certainly  does  not  over-state  the  truth  when 
he  insists  that  the  Church,  having  set  herself  forth, 
Bible  in  hand,  as  the  arbiter  of  knowledge,  became  a 
stumbling-block  in  the  intellectual  advancement  of 
Europe  for  a  thousand  years. ^4 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  all  this  happened  cen- 
turies ago,  and  at  the  hands  of  the  Catholic  Cl\urch, 
not  of  the  Protestant.  And  yet  Professor  Draper  is 
not  altogether  aside  from  the  mark  when  he  further- 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  I55 

more  maintains,  that,  so  far  as  science  is  concerned, 
nothing  is  owed  to  the  Reformation. '5  The  Refor- 
mation adopted  for  its  fundamental  postulate  the 
dogma  that  the  Bible  is  the  divinely  inspired  and 
therefore  the  infallible  standard  of  truth.  And  it 
is  well  known  that  Protestantism  has  never  been 
able,  either  in  the  past  or  in  the  present,  to  tolerate 
any  scientific  hypothesis  or  increment  of  knowledge 
hostile  to  the  Bible.  If  any  such  hypothesis  has 
eventually  secured  any  thing  like  a  general  scientific 
acceptance,  or  any  such  increment  of  knowledge  has 
come  to  prevail,  it  has  done  so  in  despite  of  Protes- 
tantism, and  in  despite  of  all  the  efforts  of  Protestant- 
ism at  its  suppression.  If,  for  example,  men  no  longer 
believe  that  the  cosmos  was  created  in  six  natural 
days  of  twenty-four  hours,  if  Darwinism  has  gained 
any  converts,  or  if  the  evolution  theory  of  the  crea- 
tion has  met  with  any  considerable  progress,  no 
thanks  are  due  to  Protestantism.  All  of  these  scien- 
tific truths,  or  theories  whether  true  or  false,  and  all 
other  scientific  truths,  or  theories  whether  true  or 
false,  which  come  in  conflict  with  the  teachings  of 
the  Bible,  and  which  have  been  promulgated  even  in 
this  nineteenth  century,  have  been  both  combated 
and  denounced  alike  by  the  Protestant  pulpit  and  by 
the  Protestant  press  from  one  end  of  Christendom  to 
the  other. 

Let   it   accordingly  be   distinctly  understood.     If 


156  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Protestantism,  pure  and  simple,  could  have  its  way, 
the  Bible,  or  rather  an  organized  and  most  powerful 
body  of  theological  police  force  in  the  name  of  the 
Bible,  would  dominate  thought,  would  dominate  re- 
search, would  dominate  discovery,  and  never  permit 
the  world  to  get  beyond  that  measure  of  intellectual 
development  and  progress  peculiar  to  those  far-off 
ages  of  the  world  when  the  Bible  had  its  origin. 
And  it  is  high  time  that  the  general  Protestant 
public  should  become  more  and  more  familiarized 
with  the  fact,  that  the  fundamental  postulate  of  Prot- 
estantism concerning  the  infallible  truthfulness  of 
the  Bible  is  a  fundamental  falsity.  And  it  is  high 
time  also  that  the  general  Protestant  public  should 
begin  to  arise  more  and  more  eji  masse  against  that 
organized  and  most  powerful  body  of  theological 
police  force,  which,  in  the  name  of  the  Bible,  still 
undertakes  to  say  alike  to  the  physicist,  to  the  phi- 
losopher, to  the  educator,  to  the  journalist,  and  to  the 
man  of  letters,  for  example  :  "Thus  far  shall  you  go, 
but  no  farther.  Either  promulgate  what  the  Scrip- 
tures teach,  or  else  we  will  combine  in  the  effort  to 
repress  you." 

But  the  general  Protestant  public,  or  at  least  a 
very  large  element  in  that  public,  is  concerned  in 
demanding  its  emancipation  from  the  domination, 
not  to  say  from  the  domineering,  of  this  theological 
police  force  from  the  religious  point  of  view  as  well 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  157 

as  from  the  more  or  less  strictly  intellectual.  It  is 
true  that  for  certain  millions  of  very  excellent  and 
pious  people  the  Catholic  Church  still  continues  to 
furnish  a  perfectly  satisfactory  form  of  religious  belief 
and  practice.  It  is  equally  true  that  for  certain  other 
millions  of  very  excellent  and  pious  people  the  vari- 
ous Protestant  churches  still  j^erform  a  kindred  ser- 
vice. But  it  is  likewise  true  that  for  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  most  deeply  religious 
natures  scattered  all  over  Christendom  neither  the 
Catholic  Church,  nor  all  of  the  Protestant  churches 
considered  as  a  body,  can  any  longer  pretend  to  have 
the  remotest  religious  mission.  And  while  these  lat- 
ter persons  are  resignedly  willing  to  be  still  further 
expostulated  with,  and  prayed  over,  and  would  be 
only  too  thankful  to  return  to  the  faith  of  their 
fathers  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  they  must  still 
most  earnestly  protest  against  having  their  heretical 
heads  any  longer  belabored  with  the  orthodox  eccle- 
siastical police  clubs.  While  they  recognize  the  per- 
fect right  of  the  Protestant  to  remain  a  Protestant, 
and  of  the  Catholic  to  remain  a  Catholic,  without 
either  repression  or  denunciation,  they  also  claim  the 
perfect  right  both  to  become  and  to  continue  neither 
Protestant  nor  Catholic,  without  being  either  stigma- 
tized as  anti-religionists,  or  vilified  as  infidels  and 
atheists. 

Lest,  however,  in  speaking  as  we  have  done  of  the 


158  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

orthodox  ecclesiastical  police  force,  we  may  appear  to 
have  done  a  flagrant  injustice  to  not  a  few  among 
the  orthodox  divines,  we  hasten  to  make  this  qualify- 
ing remark.  Very  many  of  these  divines  —  and  we 
here  refer  specifically  to  very  many  of  these  Protes- 
tant divines  —  have  inherited  the  very  worst  spirit 
and  the  very  worst  characteristics  of  the  very  worst 
of  the  old-time  inquisitors.  There  is  among  them 
more  than  one  Calvin,  there  are  among  them  more 
than  one  thousand  Calvins,  who,  if  such  a  thing 
would  be  tolerated  in  this  nineteenth  century,  would 
not  hesitate  for  a  single  moment,  either  to  burn 
every  modern  Servetus,  or  to  make  him  publicly- 
renounce  his  heresies.  But,  while  this  is  true,  it 
is  likewise  true  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
Protestant  clergy  of  the  present  day,  who  still  re- 
main essentially  orthodox  in  their  religious  belief,  do 
not  in  any  sense  partake  of  the  old  inquisitorial 
spirit.  As  we  have  already  said  in  the  foregoing 
chapter,  these  latter  clergymen  are  at  once  liberal 
and  loving  in  all  their  relations  with  us  modern  here- 
tics. Nor  is  this  all ;  for  their  voices  are  always 
heard,  both  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  press,  and  even 
in  the  collective  ecclesiastical  councils,  bravely  up- 
lifted in  favor  of  the  most  catholic  religious  tolera- 
tion, and  the  widest  religious  liberty. 

We  must  here  also  distinctly  recognize,  as  we  did 
in   the  preceding  chapter,  that    the  lineal   descend- 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 59 

ants  of  the  ancient  heretic-killers,  which  still  more 
or  less  abound  among  the  Protestant  divines,  act 
with  perfect  conscientiousness.  They  believe,  for  one 
thing,  that  every  assailant  of  their  dogmas,  and  nota- 
bly that  every  assailant  of  the  traditional  theological 
views  about  the  Holy  Scriptures,  is  an  open  and  im- 
pious enemy  of  the  very  truth  of  God,  and  that,  as 
such,  it  is  among  their  most  binding  religious  obliga- 
tions to  kill,  no  longer  himself  indeed,  but  his  entire 
public  influence,  — if  they  can,  and  as  they  can.  But 
we  certainly  discovered  enough  above,  when  discuss- 
ing the  question  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  to  be 
justified  here  in  insisting  that  it  is  perfectly  prepos- 
terous any  longer  to  maintain  that  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, as  a  whole,  contain  the  very  truth  of  God,  and 
nothins:  but  the  truth  of  God.  And  under  these  cir- 
cumstances  it  becomes  a  perfectly  legitimate  under- 
taking to  seek  to  discover  in  how  far  the  Holy 
Scriptures  do  contain  the  very  truth  of  God,  and  in 
how  far  they  likewise  contain  errors  of  almost  every 
description  incident,  and  necessarily  incident,  to  the 
times  and  conditions  under  which  the  various  bibli- 
cal writings  were  originally  composed.  And  as  for 
us  modern  biblicists  who  have  undertaken  in  one 
way  or  another,  and  from  one  standpoint  or  another, 
to  contribute  something  towards  the  solution  of  this 
most  important  problem,  we  have  simply  to  say  to 
the  Protestant  divines  in  question  :  **  Let  us  alone. 


l60  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

We  have  precisely  the  same  right  to  search  for  the 
actual  truth,  as  distinguished  from  the  actual  error, 
which  exists  in  the  Bible,  as  we  have  to  search  for 
the  actual  truth,  as  distinguished  from  the  actual 
error,  which  exists  in  any  other  book,  or  in  any 
other  department  of  investigation.  And,  what  is 
more,  we  propose,  whether  you  let  us  alone  or  not, 
to  exercise  this  right  until  we  have  eventually  arrived 
at  something  like  a  full  and  final  answer  to  this 
problem," 

Another  element  which  enters  into  the  entire  con- 
scientiousness of  the  would-be  modern  Protestant 
heretic-extinguishers  is  their  profound  and  most  de- 
vout conviction  that  the  eternal  well-being  or  ill- 
being  not  merely  of  the  heretic  himself,  but  of  all 
others  whom  the  heretic  may  influence,  hangs  sus- 
pended on  the  prompt  and  utter  extinction  of  all 
religious  views- which  fundamentally  contravene  the 
religious  views  propounded  in  their  dogmas,  or,  as 
they  might  prefer  to  say,  propounded  in  the  Bible, 
the  whole  Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible.  But 
these  Protestant  divines  should  remember,  that  in  the 
Papal  Syllabus  of  Errors  it  is  explicitly  maintained 
that  no  man  may  obtain  eternal  salvation  in  any  form 
of  religion  except  the  Catholic,  and  that  all  Protes- 
tants in  particular  are  put  without  the  pale  of  ever- 
lasting hope,  and  impliedly  consigned  to  the  everlast- 
ing burning. ^^     Does  this  frighten  Protestants.?     No 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  l6l 

more  does  it  frighten  us  modern  heretics,  who  are 
neither  Protestants  nor  Catholics,  that  we  are  eccle- 
siastically consigned  to  the  everlasting  burning  be- 
cause of  our  radical  rupture  with  all  the  traditional 
forms  of  religion  save  that  of  Jesus  and  Jesus  only. 
Jesus,  as  we  have  substantially  shown  above,  was  nei- 
ther a  Protestant  nor  a  Catholic.  No  more  was  Jesus, 
in  any  current  conception  of  the  term,  a  Christian. 
That  is  to  say,  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  not  only  a  vast- 
ly different  thing  from  all  the  dogmatic  systems  of 
theology,  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic,  but  likewise 
a  vastly  different  thing  from  the  religion  of  the  Bible, 
the  whole  Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible.  And  if 
in  adopting  the  religion  of  Jesus,  in  distinction  from 
all  the  other  traditional  forms  of  religion,  whether 
Protestant  or  Catholic,  we  modern  heretics  come  to 
find  ourselves  in  the  eternal  v^^orld  lamenting  our 
condition  in  the  deepest  depths  of  darkness,  it  will 
be  at  least  one  drop  of  water  to  cool  our  parching 
tongues  that  we  are  keeping  company  with  Jesus. 
In  other  words,  our  devotion  to  Jesus  —  the  personal 
Jesus  of  history  —  is  so  great,  our  confidence  in  his 
religious  system  is  so  complete,  and  our  consecration 
to  his  service  is  so  absolute,  that  we  are  perfectly 
resigned,  not  only  to  follow  after  him  in  life,  but 
likewise  to  share  his  fortunes  after  death,  whatever 
may  be  the  nature  of  those  fortunes. 

But  what  of   that  other  class  of  modern  heretics 


1 62  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

who  have  broken  with  every  traditional  form  of 
religion,  even  to  the  extent  of  parting  company  with 
the  religion  of  Jesus,  at  least  altogether  on  the  side 
of  its  supernaturalism  ?  To  this  we  answer,  that,  so 
long  as  these  heretics  continue  to  adhere  —  as  we 
have  seen  above  that  the  vast  majority  of  them  do 
continue  to  adhere  —  to  the  ethical  side  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus,  and  to  put  that  ethical  system  into 
practice,  perhaps  their  prospects  for  the  future  are 
not  so  utterly  appalling,  after  all,  excepting  only  in 
the  groundless  apprehensions  of  the  orthodox  divines. 
For  with  these  heretics,  as  with  all  others  of  the 
common  human  brotherhood,  it  shall,  for  example, 
remain  forever  true  :  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
for  they  shall  see  God.  Blessed  are  they  which  are 
persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake,  for  theirs  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  But  in  what  Gospel  does  the 
historical  Jesus  declare  that  the  divine  benedictions 
and  beatitudes  shall  hereafter  be  bestowed  on  those, 
indeed,  who  continue  faithful  unto  death  in  believing 
in  the  supernatural,  and  that  from  all  others  those 
benedictions  and  beatitudes  shall  be  withholden  by 
the  Deity  of  Jesus,  —  even  though  the  Deity  of  Jesus 
doubtless  is  conceived  to  be  a  God  who  answers 
prayer,  performs  a  special  providence,  and  even 
works  perhaps,  now  and  then,  a  miracle? 

Besides,  no  matter  how  far  the  one  class  or  the 
other  class  of  the  heretics  now  immediately  in  ques- 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  163 

tion  may,  or  may  not,  have  gone  astray  in  their  con- 
scientious religious  convictions,  hard  words  can  never 
reclaim  them  ;  and  no  priestly  pledges  of  good  things 
in  the  long  hereafter  can  allure  them  any  more  than 
any  priestly  predictions  of  bad  things  in  the  long 
hereafter  can  intimidate  them.  So  far  as  that  here- 
after is  concerned,  they  are  impervious  alike  to 
priestly  bribes  and  priestly  threats.  If  they  are 
actually  wrong  in  their  religious  views,  they  do  not 
wish  to  hear  any  mere  jingling  of  the  traditional 
ecclesiastical  keys,  accompanied  with  such  observa- 
tions, in  effect,  as  these :  Accept  this  set  of  religious 
views,  and  here  is  for  you  the  master-key  of  an 
everlasting  heaven  :  reject  this  set  of  religious  views, 
and  here  is  for  you  the  master-key  of  an  everlasting 
hades.  They  wish  to  be  convinced  by  calm  and 
dispassionate  reasoning,  and  by  downright  demon- 
strable fact,  that  they  are  indeed  in  error.  And,  if 
this  be  not  done  with  them,  they  will  remain,  as 
Professor  Huxley  substantially  remarks,  content  to 
follow  their  own  conceptions  of  reason  and  fact,  in 
singleness  and  honesty  of  purpose,  wherever  they 
may  lead,  in  the  sure  faith  that  a  hell  of  honest  men 
will  be  to  them  far  more  endurable  than  any  mere 
paradise  replete  with  —  angelic  shams.^7 

But,  positively,  incomplete  and  fragmentary  as  it 
is,  we  must  now  begin  to  bring  this  discussion  to  a 
termination.     The  fact  is,  that  the  topic  here  touched 


164  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

upon,  like  all  of  the  preceding  topics,  is  one  to  which 
a  volume,  rather  than  a  chapter,  might  have  easily 
been  devoted.  But  we  have  all  along  proceeded  on 
the  supposition  that  we  are  addressing  ourselves  to 
an  audience  of  exceedingly  busy  men  and  busy 
women,  who  would  prefer  to  have  a  series  of  what 
Froude  would  characterize  as  short  studies  on  great 
subjects,  than  to  have  an  exhaustive  and  elaborate 
study  on  any  given  subject.  Specialists  in  the  vari- 
ous departments  of  modern  biblical  and  religious 
research  would,  of  course,  prefer  the  volume  to  the 
chapter ;  the  elaborate  and  exhaustive  study  to  the 
short  one.  But  busy  men  and  busy  women,  who  are 
not  specialists,  and  yet  who  are  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  at  the  present  religious  epoch  most  pro- 
foundly interested  in  every  department  of  this  re- 
search, only  care  to  have  some  of  the  bottom 
thoughts  and  data  placed  before  them,  in  view  of 
which  they  may  be  able  to  arrive  at  their  own  con- 
clusions, and  that  not  so  much  concerning  details  as 
concerning  outlines,  not  so  much  concerning  special 
aspects  as  concerning  large  controlling  issues. 

When  we  shall  have  made  one  or  two  additional 
observations,  therefore,  in  connection  with  the  sub- 
ject of  this  chapter,  we  will  then  consider  that  we 
have  trespassed  upon  the  reader's  time  and  attention 
as  far  as  we  may  presume  to  do  so.  And,  in  the  first 
place,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  general  cause 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY,  1 65 

of  religious  liberty  is  making  an  advancement  to-day 
in  all  the  Protestant  churches  which  is  at  once  aston- 
ishing and  well-nigh  incredible.  The  old  dogmas 
are  no  longer  preached  by  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Protestant  divines  with  any  thing  like  the  old  em- 
phasis, persistency,  and  stringency.  The  heretical 
element  among  these  divines  is,  as  we  have  said, 
already  large,  and  continually  on  the  increase.  The 
liberal,  loving,  tolerant,  catholic-minded  element 
among  them  is  already  a  recognized  power  within 
the  ranks  of  Protestantism,  and  destined  ere  long 
to  exercise  a  more  and  more  controlling  influence. 
And,  as  for  the  laity,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what 
heresies  they  may  not  now  both  privately  indulge  in 
and  publicly  promulgate,  with  none  so  brave  as  to 
inaugurate  a  formal  movement  to  cast  them  out  of 
the  synagogue.  In  a  word,  particularly  the  clergy,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  laity,  in  nearly  all  the  Protestant 
communions,  without  distinction  or  exception,  can 
to-day  take  religious  liberties  with  almost  a  perfect 
impunity,  which  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  or  even 
ten  years  ago,  they  could  not  have  ventured  upon 
without  at  least  incurring  the  risk  of  being  promptly 
cited  before  their  respective  ecclesiastical  police 
courts.  And  all  of  the  present  tendencies  and  in- 
dications are,  that  a  still  larger  and  larger  religious 
liberty  will  come  to  prevail  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  Protestantism.     And  yet  nothing  can 


1 66  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

be  more  manifest  than  this  ;  namely,  that  Protestant- 
ism can  never  permit  within  its  own  ranks,  and, 
above  all,  can  never  permit  within  the  ranks  of  its 
own  ministry,  any  such  rehgious  liberty  as  is  de- 
manded by  the  extremer  religious  developments  of 
the  present  age  and  hour.  To  do  so  would  be 
deliberately  to  become  a  party  to  its  own  dissolu- 
tion. And  it  only  remains  for  those  who  desire  this 
latter  kind  of  liberty  simply  to  take  it,  and  to  take  it 
by  taking  their  public  departure  out  of  Protestant- 
ism, and  to  identify  themselves,  in  every  practicable 
manner  possible,  with  what  may  be  characterized  as 
the  Reformation  of  the  nineteenth,  as  contrasted  with 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth,  century. 

Prolonged  as  this  chapter  has  already  become,  it 
would  still  be  unpardonable  to  bring  it  to  a  con- 
clusion without  a  single  specific  allusion  to  that 
perhaps  most  potent  of  all  modern  public  influ- 
ences, by  which  we  mean  the  press. 

The  domination  of  ecclesiasticism  over  this  mighty 
public  power  in  the  past,  we  all  know  to  have  been 
almost  supreme  and  absolute.  And,  had  the  matter 
only  ended  with  the  past,  we  might  then  be  content 
to  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead.  But,  even  at 
the  present  moment,  ecclesiasticism,  and  Protestant 
ecclesiasticism,  would  not  hesitate  to  establish,  if  it 
could  do  so,  a  strict  religious  censorship  over  every 
volume,  over  every  periodical,  and  over  every  daily 


REUGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 67 

and  weekly,  issued  anywhere  in  Christendom.  And 
we  are  not  here  referring  to  the  various  denomina- 
tional lines  of  religious  literature.  We  do  not  deny 
the  right  of  the  Protestant  potentates  and  powers  to 
insist  that  their  denominational  publishing  establish- 
ments, and  their  denominational  organs  of  expression, 
shall  publish,  and  publish  only,  in  the  interests  of 
their  dogmas.  But  what  we  do  here  refer  to,  and 
what  we  do  here  most  emphatically  protest  against, 
is  the  effort  made  by  these  potentates  and  powers  to 
dictate  to  the  secular  press  at  large  what  religious 
views  it  shall  or  shall  not  disseminate  among  the 
masses.  To  illustrate,  and  to  speak  of  facts  alone, 
of  which  we  have  a  personal  and  inner  knowledge. 
Even  so  recently  as  1873,  ''Scribner's  Monthly"  — 
the  name  of  which  has  since  been  changed  to  that 
of  "The  Century  Magazine"  —  ventured  to  publish, 
for  the  present  writer,  a  series  of  papers,  entitled 
"  Modern  Scepticism."  ^^  For  reasons  which  need 
not  here  be  detailed,  these  papers  were,  to  the  very 
last  degree,  obnoxious  to  the  potentates  and  powers 
in  question.  Some  of  them  made  a  public  demand 
for  a  new  editorship  of  the  Monthly.  Others  rushed 
into  the  pulpit,  and  denounced  the  Monthly  itself, 
with  the  view  of  influencing  their  parishioners  to 
withdraw  from  it  their  patronage.  And  one  dis- 
tinguished doctor  of  divinity  in  particular,  starting 
out  with  the  declaration  that  "*Scribner'  must  be 


1 68  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

Stamped  out,"  not  only  undertook  to  organize,  but 
actually  succeeded  in  organizing,  what  was  perhaps 
the  most  powerful  ecclesiastical  combination  against 
the  religious  freedom  of, the  modern  secular  press 
ever  brought  together  in  these  United  States. 

To  this  the  late  lamented  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland  — 
that  brave  and  noble  spirit,  who  was  then  the  con- 
ducting editor  of  **  Scribner  "  —  editorially  responded, 
that  the  papers  on  "  Modern  Scepticism  "  were  only 
preliminary  to  others  of  a  kindred  nature,  by  the 
same  author,  which  were  to  follow,  and  that  from 
publishing  those  future  papers  no  opposition  could 
frighten  him,  and  no  amount  of  vituperation  could 
drive  him. ^9  "Our  method,"  he  said,  "is  simply  to 
substitute  a  non-partisan  investigation  for  partisan 
controversy,  and  to  establish,  by  an  appeal  to  the 
universal  reason  and  heart,  that  which  not  only  does 
not  stand  by  force  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  but 
which  totters  under  its  weight.  In  this  work  we 
ask  and  claim  the  sympathy  of  all  Christian  men 
and  women.  To  it  we  invite  their  attention.  The 
letters  which  we  receive  from  every  part  of  the 
country,  and  our  constantly  increasing  list  of  readers, 
show  how  deep  an  interest  is  everywhere  taken  in 
the  subject,  and  prove  to  us  that  we  have  neither 
misinterpreted  the  signs  of  the  times,  nor  misdirected 
our  efforts."  ^o 

Meanwhile  the  author,  on  his  part,  had,  in  the  main, 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 69 

retired  again  into  the  silence  of  his  study,  in  order  to 
make  something  far  more  remotely  approaching  to 
an  adequate  preparation  before  presuming  to  begin 
to  spread  before  the  public  some  of  the  more  im- 
portant results  which  must  inevitably  obtain  when 
the  non-partisan  and  the  non-controversial  method 
of  investigation  comes  to  be  faithfully  and  impar- 
tially applied  to  nearly  every  fundamental  tenet  of 
the  traditional  theology. 

After  an  additional  year  or  two  had  been  passed 
by  us  in  this  way,  we  ventured  at  last  to  forward  to 
Dr.  Holland  a  specimen  paper,  in  which  some  of  these 
results  were  stated,  or  rather  were  foreshadowed. 

In  reply,  the  doctor  wrote  to  us.  May  21,  1875, 
among  other  things,  as  follows:  "Your  last  article 
was  received,  and  I  have  read  it  to-day.  At  the 
conclusion  of  its  perusal  I  find  myself  called  upon 
to  make  the  most  important  decision  that  has  ever 
come  to  me  for  its  making  since  I  became  an  editor. 
I  must  be  frank  with  you.  I  believe  you  are  right. 
I  should  like  to  speak  your  words  to  the  world  ;  but, 
if  I  do  speak  these,  it  will  pretty  certainly  cost  me 
my  connection  with  the  Magazine.  This  sacrifice  I 
am  willing  to  make,  if  duty  requires  it.  I  am  afraid 
of  nothing  but  doing  injury  to  the  cause  I  love.  .  .  . 
In  short,  you  see  that  I  sincerely  doubt  whether  the 
Christian  world  is  ready  for  this  article.  The  belief 
in  the  Bible  is  so  deep,  and  so  sincere,  that  an  article 


170  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

like  this,  unprepared  for,  —  without  having  been  led 
up  to,  —  would  produce  an  awful  shock.  American 
Christians  at  large  are  not  ready  for  the  revolution 
which  this  article  inaugurates.  Instead  of  the  theo- 
logians, the  people  would  howl.  ...  I  cannot  yet 
carry  my  audience  in  such  a  revolution.  Perhaps  I 
shall  be  able  to  do  so  by  and  by  ;  but,  as  I  look  at  it 
to-day,  it  seems  impossible.  I  hope  you  understand 
that  I  do  not  shrink  from  personal  sacrifice  in  this 
matter,  and  that  I  am  afraid  of  nothing  but  making 
the  people  believe  that  I  have  betrayed  them.  The 
article  is  a  thunderbolt.  .  .  .  My  dear  friend,  I  believe 
in  you.  You  are  in  advance  of  your  time.  You  have 
great  benefits  in  your  hands  for  your  time.  You  are 
free  and  true.  And  I  mourn  sadly,  and  in  genuine 
distress,  that  I  cannot  speak  your  words  with  a  tongue 
which  all  my  fellow  Christians  can  hear.  They  will 
not  hear  them  yet.     They  will  some  time." 

So  far  as  we  can  recall,  the  article  referred  to 
above  by  Dr.  Holland  related  to  the  divine  and  in- 
fallible inspiration  of  the  Bible.  How  far  the  views 
put  forth  in  the  present  volume  on  the  same  subject 
were,  or  were  not,  germinal  in  that  paper,  which  has 
long  since  been  destroyed,  we  cannot  just  now  be 
certain.  Still  we  deem  it  only  simple  justice  to  say 
that  nothing  in  the  foregoing  letter  should  be  con- 
strued by  the  reader  as  lending  the  personal  indorse- 
ment of  Dr.  Holland  to  any  of  the  heresies  promul 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  I /I 

gated  in  this  book,  whether  on  the  subject  of  biblical 
inspiration  or  any  other  subject.  In  such  matters 
as  these  1875  is  a  long  while  ago;  and  we  are  *our- 
selves  so  much  more  of  a  heretic  at  large  to-day  than 
we  then  anticipated  that  we  should  ever  become,  that 
we  have  not  the  remotest  idea  that  Dr.  Holland  could 
have  possibly  kept  up  an  equal  pace  with  us  in  his 
departure  from  the  traditional  Protestant  conceptions 
about  the  Bible  and  religion.  Indeed,  so  far  as  we 
can  affirm  any  thing  from  our  personal  and  positive 
knowledge,  we  should  say  that,  broadly  speaking,  he 
must,  on  the  other  hand,  have  departed  this  life  in 
the  firm  belief,  not  in  all,  but  in  most,  of  the  leading 
essentials  of  the  faith  of  his  fathers. 

It  would  also  be  the  gravest  injustice  to  Dr.  Hol- 
land to  impute  his  reluctant  decision  not  to  publish 
our  paper  instanced  to  any  lack  of  moral  courage. 
Other  things  he  may  have  lacked,  but  moral  courage 
never.  This  country  —  at  least  in  our  judgment  — 
has  yet  to  produce  the  man  who  would  have  braved 
more,  or,  if  need  be,  would  have  sacrificed  more,  in 
standing  firmly  by  his  deepest  conscientious  convic- 
tions. But  he  was  altogether  in  the  right  in  giving 
earnest  heed,  lest  by  the  insertion  of  that  particular 
paper  in  **  Scribner  "  he  should  give  the  people  occa- 
sion to  believe  that  he  had  betrayed  them.  The 
name  which  "  Scribner's  Monthly  "  bore,  the  publish- 
ing-house by  which  it  was  issued,  and  Dr.  Holland's 


172  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

own  pronounced  religious  position  before  the  country 
prior  to  his  becoming  its  editor-in-chief,  were  in  the 
form  of  a  pledge  to  the  general  orthodox  religious 
public  that  the  periodical  would  not,  at  least  under 
his  conductorship,  inaugurate  any  revolutionary  at- 
tacks upon  the  current  orthodox  conceptions  about 
the  Bible  and  religion.  In  a  word,  Dr.  Holland 
possessed  just  that  combination  of  moral  heroism 
and  practical  judgment  which  the  exigencies  of  his 
editorial  position  demanded  at  such  a  transitional 
religious  epoch  as  the  present.  He  knew  just  in 
how  far  it  was  right  for  him  to  permit  us  modern 
heretics  to  find  expression  through  "  Scribner,"  and 
from  permitting  us  to  find  this  expression  no  super- 
orthodox  ecclesiasticism  could  either  intimidate  or 
drive  him.  He  also  knew  in  how  far  loyalty  to  the 
general  orthodox  constituency  of  *' Scribner"  de- 
manded that  he  should  not  permit  us  modern  heretics 
to  find  expression  through  its  columns,  and  there  the 
matter  ended.  And  yet  all  this  does  not  in  any  wise 
militate  against  the  fact,  that  the  orthodox  religious 
domination  over  the  secular  press  of  this  country  is 
still  so  great  that  even  Dr.  Holland,  with  all  his 
popular  prestige  and  power,  did  not  care  to  venture 
the  experiment  of  publishing  in  the  pages  of  "  Scrib- 
ner" for  1875,  an  article,  no  matter  by  what  author, 
against  the  current  conceptions  of  the  infallible  in- 
spiration of  the  Bible,  which  article  he  believed  to 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 73 

be  essentially  in  the  right,  and  also  to  follow  this  up 
with  the  publication  of  other  kindred  papers,  which 
he  felt  perfectly  assured,  however  mistakenly,  would, 
in  the  final  outcome,  prove  of  signal  service  to  his 
times. 

And  just  here  it  deserves  a  special  mention,  and 
demands  a  special  emphasis,  that  the  prematureness 
of  the  article  in  question  constituted  the  underlying 
reason  why  Dr.  Holland  felt  that  it  would  cost  him 
his  editorial  position  on  the  staff  of  "Scribner,"  in 
case  he  gave  it  to  the  world.  Here,  in  fact,  this  special 
aspect  of  religious  domination  over  the  secular  press 
simply  continues  to  repeat  itself.  Were  a  scientific 
discussion,  for  example,  now  to  appear,  corresponding 
to  the  *'  De  Revolutionibus  "  by  Copernicus,  not  even 
the  Catholic  Church  would  presume  to  place  it  in  the 
Index,  merely  because  of  its  advocacy  of  the  helio- 
centric conception  of  the  cosmos.  It  is  only  when 
an  anti-theological  or  an  anti-Scriptural  theory,  or 
thought,  or  system  of  thought,  is  before  its  time,  and 
begins  to  struggle  for  expression,  that  the  orthodox 
religious  world  undertakes  to  interdict  the  secular 
press  from  its  publication.  After  it  has  once  found 
expression  through  the  secular  press,  and  been  either 
established  or  exploded,  then  the  full  freedom  of  the 
secular  press,  either  to  promulgate  it  further,  or  to 
let  it  die  in  silence,  is  quietly  conceded.  But,  if 
experience  can  teach   the   orthodox   religious  world 


174  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

any  thing  except  the  persistent  repetition  of  its 
blunders,  experience  should  certainly  have  taught 
the  orthodox  religious  world  by  this  time  that  noth- 
ing can  be  more  futile  than  for  it  to  prolong  this  idle 
effort  of  seeking  any  longer  to  intimidate  the  secular 
press,  whether  of  this  or  any  other  so-called  Christian 
country,  from  being  the  first  to  bring  the  more  ad- 
vanced thinkers  of  the  times  into  communication 
with  the  public,  —  no  matter  how  subversive  of  all 
the  traditional  religious  conceptions  their  thoughts 
or  theories  may  be.  The  orthodox  religious  world 
may  indeed  succeed,  and  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
succeed,  in  causing  this  or  that  particular  representa- 
tive of  the  modern  secular  press  to  shrink  from  doing 
this.  But  what  one  publishing-house  or  periodical  or 
newspaper  lacks  the  moral  courage  to  publish,  another 
publishing-house  or  periodical  or  newspaper  is  sure  to 
give  to  the  people.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  there 
does  not  exist  to-day  anywhere,  in  at  least  the  Prot- 
estant portions  of  Christendom,  a  single  thorough- 
going heretic  who  needs  to  die  in  silence,  even  though 
he  be  in  advance  of  his  generation  by  a  whole  mil- 
lennium. If  he  really  has  any  thoughts  or  theories 
to  place  before  his  contemporaries  which  are  worthy 
of  their  consideration,  whether  those  thoughts  or  theo- 
ries are  true  or  false,  some  modern  secular  editor  or 
publisher  is  just  as  certain  to  stand  prepared  to  lay 
them  before  the  public  as  the  present  century  is  the 
nineteenth  and  not  the  sixteenth. 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1/5 

Nor  are  these  secular  editors  or  publishers  just 
referred  to  precisely  what  they  used  to  be.  To  ex- 
plain. Professor  Philip  Schaff  evidently  rolls  it  as  a 
sweet  morsel  under  his  tongue,  that  he  can  say  of 
George  Eliot's  —  or  rather  of  Miss  Marian  Evans's 
—  translation  of  the  first  "Life  of  Jesus,"  by  Strauss, 
that  it  '*  was  republished  in  New  York  by  some  ob- 
scure house  in  1850."  ^i  Well,  we  suppose  that,  so 
far  back  as  1850,  it  would  have  been  only  some  ob- 
scure house  in  New  York,  or  any  other  city  of  this 
country,  which  would  venture  to  give  such  an  arch- 
heretic  as  Strauss  a  formal  introduction,  even  to  the 
most  limited  circle  of  American  readers.  We  sup- 
pose, also,  that  at  that  time  it  would  have  been  only 
some  obscure  and  so-called  infidel  sheet  which  would 
venture  to  disseminate  the  views  of  Strauss,  in  the 
abridged  form  of  statement  peculiar  to  the  daily  or 
the  weekly  newspapers,  with  any  degree  of  truthful- 
ness and  fairness.  It  must  have  been  somewhat 
■later  than  1850  that  Renan  remarked:  **  Of  all  the 
thinkers  of  Germany,  Strauss  is  least  appreciated  in 
France.  Most  people  know  him  only  through  the 
abuse  of  his  adversaries."  ^2  And,  unless  our  memory 
is  very  much  at  fault,  it  must  have  been  somewhat 
later  than  1850  that  Strauss  was  likewise  known  by 
most  people  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  only  through 
the  abuse  of  his  adversaries.  In  those  days  nearly 
every  prominent  publishing-house  and  religious  organ 


1/6  THE  PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

of  expression  was  open  enough  indeed  to  the  orthodox 
assailants  of  Strauss,  but  neither  to  Strauss  himself, 
nor  to  any  other  radical  and  fearless  modern  religious 
revolutionist.  But  it  is  a  characteristic  of  our  times, 
that,  in  all  matters  of  this  practical  character  and 
moment,  a  changed  condition  of  things,  having  once 
fairly  begun  to  prevail,  progresses  so  rapidly  that  the 
former  condition  of  things  appears  to  have  receded, 
as  in  an  instant,  to  almost  forgotten  epochs.  The 
transition  from  the  old  condition  to  the  new  is  almost 
telegraphic.  It  can  scarcely  be  said,  for  example, 
that  the  American  translation  of  Renan's  "■  Life  of 
Jesus "  was  published  by  some  obscure  house  in 
New  York  in  1868.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  pub- 
lished by  one  of  the  best-known  and  most  respectable 
publishers  in  the  metropolis.  And  what  is  true  of 
the  American  publisher  of  the  principal  works  of 
Renan,  is  likewise  true  of  the  American  publishers 
of  the  principal  works  of  Darwin,  Tyndall,  Huxley, 
Spencer,  Haeckel,  Biichner,  and  the  like.  These 
publishers  are  among  the  most  prominent,  the  most 
powerful,  the  most  reputable,  now  connected  with  our 
general  American  literature. 

Another  circumstance  of  paramount  practical  im- 
portance to  us  modern  heretics  is  this.  We  question 
whether  twenty-five  years  ago  a  single  respectable 
bookseller  in  this  country  would  have  openly  exposed 
what  was  then  called  an  infidel  book  for  sale  in  his 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 77 

place  of  business.  He  might  or  might  not  have  been 
willing  to  secure  a  copy  of  it  upon  order,  to  oblige 
a  patron.  But,  even  if  he  did  so,  he  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  done  so  stealthily,  and,  in  a  manner, 
secretly.  But  in  these  days  no  leading  bookseller 
hesitates  any  more  to  expose  a  heretical  work  for 
sale,  or  to  furnish  it  on  order,  than  he  would  in  case 
it  were  the  most  orthodox  production  of  the  most 
orthodox  divine,  and,  at  the  same  time,  in  the  highest 
favor  with  the  general  religious  world. 

So  far  as  we  heretics  are  concerned,  therefore,  we 
have  little  more  to  desire  in  this  direction.  We  not 
only  have  our  fair  proportion  of  the  most  influential 
bookmakers  to  publish  for  us  ;  we  likewise  have  the 
booksellers  of  the  nation,  almost  in  a  body,  to  cir- 
culate our  volumes  far  and  wide  among  the  people. 

Nor  have  we  any  thing  to  complain  of,  on  the 
whole,  at  the  hands  of  the  periodicals.  It  is  true 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  leading  popular  maga- 
zines are  still  too  largely  dependent  upon  the  orthodox 
patronage  to  make  it  judicious  for  them  to  permit 
us  to  inaugurate  any  formal  religious  movements  in 
their  pages  of  a  very  revolutionary  nature.  Still,  even 
they  will  now  and  then  become  our  public  mouth- 
pieces in  saying  some  decidedly  heretical  things,  and 
such  heretical  things  as  will  throw  pretty  much  the 
entire  orthodox  world  into  something  like  that  common 
condition  of  uproar  into  which  the  heretical  Paul  once 


178  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

threw  the  orthodox  populace  at  Ephesus.  And,  if 
this  be  not  enough,  the  mere  names  of  "■  The  Con- 
temporary Review  "  and  of  "  The  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury," in  England,  coupled  with  those  of  ''The  North 
American  Review"  and  of  ''The  Popular  Science 
Monthly,"  here  among  ourselves,  furnish  a  sufficient 
guarantee,  that,  in  so  far  as  we  have  any  occasion  to 
employ  the  periodical  press,  the  periodical  press  is 
already  sufficiently  accessible  to  us,  and,  even  before- 
hand, placed  at  our  disposal. 

Our  acknowledgments  are  likewise  due  to  nearly 
every  one  of  the  great  leading  daily  papers.  If  a 
communication  be  sent  to  them  touching  upon  any 
one  of  the  more  popular  aspects  of  modern  biblical 
or  religious  discussion,  they  will  never  for  a  moment 
pause  to  inquire  whether  such  communication  is  or- 
thodox or  heterodox.  Their  only  question  about  the 
communication  will  be  whether,  both  in  its  subject- 
matter  and  in  its  limits  and  method  of  presentation, 
it  is  adapted  for  publication  in  their  columns,  and  is, 
at  the  same  time,  likely  to  prove  of  general  interest 
and  concernment  to  their  readers.  But,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  signature  of  Professor  Philip  Schaff, 
for  example,  or  President  M'Cosh,  or  Principal  Daw- 
son, will  no  sooner  secure  for  it  an  insertion  than 
would  the  signature  —  say  of  Professor  Tyndall, 
Professor  Huxley,  or  even  Ernest  Renan. 

The   orthodox   religious    world,  therefore,   cannot 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 79 

come  either  too  soon  or  too  thoroughly  to  under- 
stand the  fact,  that,  so  far  as  all  practical  purposes 
are  concerned,  the  days  of  its  religious  domination 
over  the  secular  press  of  Christendom  at  large  arc 
among  the  by-gones.  It  can  continue,  indeed,  to 
rule  over  its,  denominational  organs  of  expression, 
over  its  boards  of  publication,  over  its  tract  societies, 
and  the  like ;  but  the  secular  press  does  not  propose 
any  longer  to  submit  even  to  a  religious  censorship, 
much  less  to  a  religious  dictatorship. 

In  fact,  not  a  few  of  the  distinctively  religious 
journals  are  in  these  days  making  themselves  ex- 
ceeding vexatious,  not  to  say  to  the  last  degree 
obnoxious,  to  the  super-orthodox  among  the  Pro- 
testant potentates  and  powers,  by  the  liberties  they 
are  taking.  Contrast,  for  example,  in  this  respect, 
such  publications  as  either  "The  New  York  In- 
dependent" or  **  The  Christian  Union,"  with  such 
other  publications  as  either  **The  Christian  Intelli- 
gencer" or  "The  New  York  Observer."  The  latter 
represent  the  conservative,  the  non-progressive,  the 
mediaeval,  the  repressive,  the  inquisitorial  spirit;  the 
former,  within  evangelical  limits,  represent  the  pro- 
gressive, the  modern,  the  liberal,  loving,  and  catholic- 
minded  spirit,  in  present  Protestant  journalism. 

And  now  another  paragraph  or  two,  and  we  have 
done. 

Professor  Hurst    informs  us  that  when   the  first 


l80  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

''  Life  of  Jesus "  —  that  earthquake-shock  of  the 
nineteenth  century  —  appeared  in  Germany,  the 
most  obscure  provincial  journals  contained  copious 
extracts  from  it,  and  vied  with  each  other  in  defend- 
ing or  opposing  its  positions.23  Pressense  says  that 
the  people  of  France  have  been  initiated  into  the 
conclusions  of  Strauss,  though  they  may  have  never 
even  heard  of  the  famous  '^  Leben  yesii^'  and  that 
Renan's  "  Vie  de  ye'stis  "  has  been  there,  as  elsewhere 
in  all  Christian  countries,  very  widely  circulated. 
He  likewise  laments  that  scepticism  should  there 
find  its  way  into  the  lightest  publication  ;  that  the 
novel  and  the  newspaper  should  emulate  each  other 
in  its  diffusion  ;  and  that  the  short  review  articles, 
skilled  in  giving  grace  and  piquancy  to  erudition, 
should  furnish  it  with  arguments  which  appear 
weighty,  because  they  are  so  in  comparison  with  the 
pleasantries  of  Voltaire.24  And  Professor  George  P. 
Fisher  feels  it  his  duty  to  warn  the  very  Christian 
teachers  of  this  country  that  they  are  not  aware  how 
widely  the  seeds  of  unbelief  are  scattered  through 
books  and  journals  which  find  a  hospitable  welcome 
even  in  Christian  households. 25 

Under  these  circumstances  we  modern  heretics 
may  well  take  heart  again,  and  address  ourselves, 
in  the  various  departments  of  modern  biblical  and 
religious  thought  and  research,  with  a  renewed 
energy  and  vigor,  to  whatever  task  may  have  been 


*  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  l8l 

specifically  and  individually  allotted  to  us  in  connec- 
tion with  the  great  religious  movement  now  in  prog- 
ress throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Chris- 
tendom. With  at  least  the  secular  press  so  manifestly 
and  so  generally  for  us,  what  does  it  signify,  even 
though  the  whole  orthodox  religious  world  should  be 
against  us  ?  In  a  word,  into  the  hands  of  the  secular 
press  we  may  now  confidently  commit  both  the 
present  and  the  future  fortunes  of  the  highest 
religious  thoughts  we  have  to  utter,  and  the  most 
progressive  religious  conclusions  at  which  we  may 
hereafter,  from  time  to  time,  arrive.  Granted  that 
these  higher  religious  thoughts,  as  we  conceive  them 
to  be,  will  in  all  cases  be  to  some  degree  erroneous, 
and  in  some  instances  will  be  positively  untenable. 
Granted,  also,  that  our  more  advanced  religious  con- 
clusions will  always  demand  a  much  more  rigid  and 
exhaustive  verification  than  we  have  been  able  to 
give  them  in  private,  no  matter  how  many  years  we 
may  have  felt  constrained  to  withhold  them  from  the 
public,  and  no  matter,  likewise,  in  view  of  what 
prolonged  and  patient  processes  of  investigation  we 
may  have  come  eventually  to  adopt  them.  Still, 
when  we  have  fairly  done  our  personal  part  in  private 
to  eliminate  from  our  higher  religious  thoughts  their 
elements  of  error,  and  to  verify,  as  best  we  can,  our 
more  advanced  religious  conclusions,  we  then  have 
the   manifest   right,  through    the   secular   editor   or 


1 82  THE   PRESENT  RELIGIOUS   CRISIS. 

publisher,  or  both,  to  submit  them  to  the  considera- 
tion, to  the  criticisms,  to  the  acceptance,  or  to  the 
rejection  of  the  heretical,  or  modern  religious  brother- 
hood at  large. 

As  for  the  rest,  much  as  still  remains  to  say  in 
order  to  treat  of  this  immensely  important  question 
of  religious  liberty  with  any  degree  of  completeness, 
we  will  only  add  that  we  can  just  now  recall  no  more 
noble  and  stimulating  words  in  which  we  may  con- 
clude than  these  by  Herbert  Spencer :  "  Whoever 
hesitates  to  utter  that  which  he  thinks  the  highest 
truth,  lest  it  should  be  too  much  in  advance  of  the 
time,  may  re-assure  himself  by  looking  at  his  acts 
from  an  impersonal  point  of  view.  Let  him  duly 
realize  the  fact  that  opinion  is  the  agency  through 
which  character  adapts  external  arrangements  to 
itself  —  that  his  opinion  rightly  forms  part  of  this 
agency  —  is  a  unit  of  force  constituting,  with  other 
such  units,  the  general  power  which  works  out  social 
[and  religious]  changes,  and  he  will  perceive  that  he 
may  properly  give  full  utterance  to  his  innermost 
conviction,  leaving  it  to  produce  what  effect  it  may. 
It  is  not  for  nothing  that  he  has  in  him  these  sym- 
pathies with  some  principles,  and  repugnance  to 
others.  He,  with  all  his  capacities  and  aspirations 
and  beliefs,  is  not  an  accident,  but  a  product  of  the 
time.  He  must  remember  that  while 'he  is  a  de- 
scendant of  the  past  he  is  a  parent  of   the  future, 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  1 83 

and  that  his  thoughts  are  as  children  born  to  him 
which  he  may  not  carelessly  let  die.  He,  like  every 
other  man,  may  properly  consider  himself  as  one  of 
the  myriad  agencies  through  whom  works  the  Un- 
known Cause  [by  which  some  of  us  at  least  will 
understand  the  Divine  Heavenly  Father],  and  when 
the  Unknown  Cause  produces  in  him  a  certain  belief, 
he  is  thereby  authorized  to  profess  and  act  out  that 
belief.  .  .  .  Not  as  adventitious,  therefore,  will  the 
wise  man  regard  the  faith  which  is  in  him.  The 
highest  truth  he  sees,  he  will  fearlessly  utter,  know- 
ing that,  let  what  may  come  of  it,  he  is  thus  playing 
his  right  part  in  the  world ;  knowing  that  if  he  can 
effect  the  change  he  aims  at,  well ;  if  not,  well  also, 
though  not  so  well."  ^6 


INDEX   TO   AUTHORS   CITED,    QUOTA- 
TIONS,  AND    EVIDENCES. 


CHAPTER    I. 

1.  xnt;  Modern  Representations  of  the  Life  of  Jesus,     Four 

Discourses  delivered  before  the  Evangelical  Union  at 
Hanover,  Germany,  by  Dr.  Gerhard  Uhlhorn,  First 
Preacher  to  the  Court.  Translated  from  the  third  Ger- 
man edition,  by  Charles  E.  Grinnell.  Boston:  1868. 
p.  I. 

2.  Modern  Donbt  and  Christian  Belief     A  Series  of  Apolo- 

getic Lectures  addressed  to  Earnest  Seekers  after  Truth. 
By  Theodore  Christlieb,  D.D.,  University  Preacher 
and  Professor  of  Theology-  at  Bonn.  Translated,  with  the 
author's  sanction,  chiefly  by  the  Rev.  H.  U.  Weitbrecht, 
Ph.D.,  and  edited  by  the  Rev.  T.  L.  Kingsbury,  M.A.. 
Vicar  of  Eaton  Royal  and  Rural  Dean.  New  York: 
1874.     P-  28. 

3.  The  Divinity   of  onr  Lord   and   Saviour    Jesus   Christ. 

Eight  Lectures  dehvered  before  the  University  of  Oxford, 
in  the  year  1866,  on  the  Foundation  of  the  late  Rev.  John 
A.  Bampton,  M.A.,  Canon  of  Salisbury.  By  Henry 
Parry  Liddon,  M.A.,  Student  at  Christ  Church,  Preb- 
endary of  Salisbury,  and  Chaplain  to  the  Lord  Bishop  of 
Salisbury.     New  York :  1868.     Preface,  pp.  xv.,  xvi. 

185 


1 86  IXDEX    TO   AUTHORS   CITED. 

4.  The  Resuj-rection  of  Jestis  Christy  with  att  Exauiination  of 

the  Spccjilatiojis  of  Stfauss  in  his  New  Life  of  yesus, 
and  a?i  Introductory  View  of  the  Present  Position  of 
Theological  Itiqiciry  in  referetice  to  the  Existence  of  God 
and  the  Miraculous  Evidences  of  Chj'istianity.  By  the 
late  Robert  Macpherson,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology 
in  the  University  of  Aberdeen.  Edinburgh  and  London  : 
1867.     p.  6. 

5.  /^.,  p.  31. 

6.  The  Early  Years  of  Christianity.     By  E.  De  Pressens^, 

D.D.,  author  of  "Jesus  Christ,  his  Times,  Life,  and 
Work."  Translated  by  Annie  Harwood.  The  Apostol- 
ical Era.  New  York:  1870.  Preface  to  English  edition, 
pp.  6,  7. 

7.  A    Critical  History  of  Free  Thought  in  Reference   to  the 

Christian  Religion.  Eight  Lectures  preached  before  the 
University  of  Oxford  in  the  year  1862,  on  the  Foundation 
of  the  late  Rev.  John  A.  Bampton,  M.A.,  Canon  of  Salis- 
bury. By  Adam  Storey  Farrar,  M.A.,  Michel  Fellow 
of  Queen's  College,  Oxford.  New  York :  1873,  General 
Analysis  of  Lectures,  from  IV.  to  VI 11.,  inclusive. 


CHAPTER   11. 

1.  Delivery  and  Development  of  Christian   Doctrine.     The 

fifth  series  of  the  Cunningham  Lectures.  By  Robert 
Rainy,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Divinity  and  Church  History, 
New  College,  Edinburgh.     Edinburgh:  1874.     p.  257. 

2.  Scotch  Serjno?is,  1880.     New  York :  188 1.     pp.  194,  195. 

3.  Decreta  Doginatica  Concilii    Vaticani  de  Fide  Catholica  et 

de  Ecclesia  Christi,  Caput  III. 

4.  Id.,  Caput  II. 

5.  Id.,  Caput  II. 


INDEX   TO   AUTHORS  CITED.  18/ 

6.  The  E7icyclopcEdia  Britannica.     Ninth  Edition.     Boston: 

1876.     Art.  Canon. 

7.  Critical  History  of  Free  Thought^  p.  473. 

8.  A   New  Life  of  Jesus.    By  David  Friedrich  Strauss. 

Authorized   translation.     In   two  volumes.     London   and 
Edinburgh:  1865.    Vol.  I.,  Preface,  p.  xiv. 


CHAPTER  III. 

1.  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church.     Twelve  Lec- 

tures on  Biblical  Criticism.  By  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
M.A.    New  York:  1881.     pp.  132,  133,  174,  175. 

2.  Encyclopcedia  Britannica.     Art.  Canon. 

3.  The  Old  Testament  i7i  the  Jewish  Churchy  p.  153. 

4.  Canon  Westcott,  in  Dr.  William  Smith's  Dictionary  of 

the  Bible.    Art.  Canon. 

5.  Dr.  Davidson.    E7tcy.  Brit.    Art.  Canon. 

6.  Id. 

7.  Lecttires  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church.    Part  II., 

From  Samuel  to  the  Captivity.  By  Arthur  Penrhyn 
Stanley,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster.  New  York: 
1877.     P-  650. 

8.  Ency.  Brit.    Art.  Bible. 

9.  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Churchy  pp.  321-324. 

10.  Ency.  Brit.     Art.  Canon. 

11.  Deer  eta  Dogjnatica,  Caput  II. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

1.  New  Life  of  Jesus.    Vol.  II.,  p.  183. 

2.  Id.,  p.  183. 

3.  Modern  Doubt  and  Christian  Belief  p.  473. 


1 88  INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED, 

4.  Studies  of  Religions  History  and  Criticism.    By  M.  Ernest 

Renan,  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France,  and  Author 
of  the  Life  of  Jesus.  Translated  by  O.  B.  Frothingham. 
With  a  Biographical  Introduction  by  M.  Henri  Harrisse. 
New  York:   1864.     p.  339. 

5.  This  citation  from  Professor  Tischendorf  may  be  found 

in  the  Bre?neii  Lectures  on  Ftmdametttal,  Living,  Religious 
Questions,  translated  by  Rev.  D.  Heagle,  and  published 
in  Boston  (1871),  pp.  217,  218. 

6.  yesus  Christ,  his  Times,  Life,  and  Work.     By  E.  De  Pres- 

sense,  D.D.     New  York:  1868.    p.  127. 

7.  Id,  p.  144. 

8.  Id.,  p.  144,  note. 

9.  Id.,  pp.  127,  128. 

10.  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  420-422. 

11.  Compare  2  Kings  xxiii.  with  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 

12.  Compare  2  Kings  xii.  with  2  Chron.  xxiv. 

13.  Compare    i    Kings   xv.  14,  xxii.  43,  with  2  Chron.  xiv.  5, 

xvii.  6,  XV.  17,  XX.  33. 

14.  Deer  eta  Dogmatica,  Caput  II. 

15.  Hours  with  the  Bible,  or  the  Scriptures  in  the  Light  of 

Modern  Discovery  and  Knowledge  from  Creation  to  the 
Patriarchs.  By  Cunningham  Geikie,  D.D.,  author  of 
"The   Life   and  Words  of   Christ."      New  York:    1881. 

P-  39- 

16.  Id.,  p.  41. 

17.  Nature  and  the  Bible.     A  course  of  Lectures  delivered  in 

New  York  in  December,  1874,  on  the  Morse  Foundation 
of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  By  J.  W.  Dawson, 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Principal  and  Vice-Chancellor  of  McGill 
University;  author  of  "Archaia,"  "Arcadian  Geology," 
"The  Story  of  the  Earth,"  etc.     New  York:  1875.    P-  26. 

18.  Id,  p.  25. 


INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED.  1 89 

19.  The  History  of  Creation.,  or  the  Development  of  tlie  Earth 

and  its  Inhabitafits  by  the  Action  of  Natural  Causes. 
A  Popular  Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution  in 
general,  and  that  of  Darwin,  Goethe,  and  Lamarck  in 
particular.  From  the  German  of  Ernest  Haeckel,  Pro- 
fessor in  the  University  of  Jena.  Revised  translation,  by 
E.  Ray  Lankester,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Exeter  College, 
Oxford.      In   two  volumes.     New  York:   1876.     Vol.  I., 

PP-  38,  39- 

20.  Critiques  and  Addresses.    By  Thomas   Henry  Huxley, 

LL.D.,  F.R.S.     New  York  :  1873,     P-  239. 

21.  Nature  and  the  Bible.,  pp.  'JT.,  78. 

22.  Id,  pp.  84-88. 

23.  Critiques  and  Addresses.,  p.  238. 

24.  Gen.  ii.  20,  21. 

25.  Moral    Difficulties    connected  with    the    Bible,      Second 

Series.  Being  the  Boyle  Lectures  for  1872.  Preached  in 
her  Majesty's  Chapel  at  Whitehall.  By  James  Augustus 
Hessey,  D.C.L.,  Preacher  to  the  Honorable  Society  of 
Gray's  Inn,  Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  and  Examining 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  late  Head-Master  of 
Merchant  Taylor's  School,  and  sometime  Bampton  Lec- 
turer and  Grinfield  Lecturer  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 
London  :  1873.     P-  35* 

26.  Ency.  Brit.     Art.  Bible. 

27.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,  p.  212. 

28.  History  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Churchy  pp. 

145,  146. 

29.  Josephus  contra  Apion,  \.  8. 

30.  IrencBus  adv.  Haer.,  ii.  28,  2. 

31.  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church.,  p.  99. 

32.  Id.,  p.  391- 

33.  Id.,  p.  439. 


IQO  INDEX    TO   AUTHORS  CITED. 

34.  2  Sam.  xi.  15. 

35.  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith.     Old  Testament  in  the 

Jewish  Churchy  p.  174. 


CHAPTER  V. 

1.  The  Life  of  Jesus.      By  Ernest    Renan,   Membre  de 

I'Institut.     New  York:  1868.     p.  19. 

2.  The  Old  Testa?nent  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  no. 

3.  History  of  the  Jewish  Church.     Second  series,     pp.  651, 

652. 

4.  Supernatural  Religion.     An  Inquiry  into  the  Reality  of  a 

Divine    Revelation.      In   two  volumes.      London:    1874. 
Vol.  I.,  p.  449. 
%.  The  Contents  a7td  Origin  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  criti- 
cally  investigated.      By  Dr.  Eduard  Zeller.      In  two 
volumes.     London:  1875.     Vol.  L,  p.  159. 

6.  Supernatural  Religion.     Vol.  II.,  p.  474. 

7.  Essays  on  the  Supernatural  Origin  of  Christianity,  with 

Special  Reference  to  the  Theories  of  Renan,  Strauss,  and 
the  Tubingen  School.  By  George  P.  Fisher,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Church  History  at  Yale  College.  New  York: 
1871.     p.  159. 

8.  Id.,  p.  41. 

9.  Id.,  p.  44. 

10.  New  Life  of  Jesus.    Vol.  I.,  p.  56. 

11.  When    were    our    Gospels    written?      By   Const antine 

Tischendorf.     New  York.     p.  58. 

1 2.  The  A  uthorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel :  External  Evidences. 

By  Ezra  Abbot,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bussey  Professor  of  New 
Testament  Criticism  and  Interpretation  in  the  Divinity 
School  of  Harvard  University.     Boston:  1880.    p.  20. 


INDEX   TO   AUTHORS   CITED.  I9I 

13.  Id.,  pp.  24,  25. 

14.  Id.,  p.  96. 

15.  Id.,  p.  21. 

16.  Supernatural  Religion.     Vol.  I.,  p.  304. 

17.  /</.,  pp.  318,  320. 

18.  New  Life  of  Jesus.    Vol.  I.,  p.  141. 

19.  Evangelical  History.      1838.      The  Present  Stage  of  the 

Gospel  Question.     1856. 

20.  Vie  de  Jesus.     Treizieme  Edition.     Paris:  1867.     See,  for 

illustrations,  pp.  Ixiii,  514,  536. 

21.  New  Life  of  Jesus.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  129-140. 

22.  Supernatural  Origifi  of  Christianity,     pp.  191,  192. 

23.  Id.,  38. 

24.  Bremen  Lecture,  p.  218. 

25.  Professor  George  P.  Fisher.    Supernatural  Origin  of 

Christiafiity,  p.  191. 

26.  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Gospels,  p.  249. 

27.  Life  of  Jesus,  pp.  28,  29. 

28.  Professor  George  P.  Fisher.    Supernatural  Origin  of 

Christianity,  p.  191. 

29.  The  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  p.  7. 

30.  New  Life  of  Jesus.     Vol.  I.,  p.  152. 

31.  Life  of  Jesus,  pp.  28,  34. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

1.  Literature  a?td  Dogma.     An  Essay  towards  a  Better  Appre- 

hension of  the  Bible.  By  Matthew  Arnold,  D.C.L., 
formerly  Professor  of  Poetry  in  the  University  of  Oxford, 
and  Fellow  of  Oriel  College.  Boston:  1876.  Preface, 
pp.  vi,  vii. 

2.  Deer  eta  Dogmatica,  Caput  II. 


192  INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED, 

3.  Delivery  and  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine^  p.  1 1 5. 

4.  The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought  examined.     Eight  Lec- 

tures delivered  before  the  University  of  Oxford,  in  the 
year  1858,  on  the  Bampton  Foundation.  By  Henry 
LoNGUEViLLE  MAN5EL,  B.D.,  Reader  in  Moral  and  Meta- 
physical Philosophy  at  Magdalen  College,  Tutor  and  late 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College.     Boston:  1866.    p.  47. 

5.  Modern  Doubt  and  Christian  Belief  p.  232. 

6.  Id.,  p.  237. 

7.  Ruling  Ideas  in  Early  Ages,  and  their  Relation  to  Old  Testa- 

ment Faith.  Lectures  delivered  to  Graduates  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford.  By  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.,  Regius  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity,  and  Canon  of  Christ  Church.  New 
York:  1877.     Lecture  IV. 

8.  r  Chron.  xx.  3. 

9.  Josh.  xxiv.  12. 

10.  Id.,  x.  II. 

11.  2  Sam.  vii.  10. 

12.  2  Chron.  xxii.  21. 

13.  Josh.  ix.  24;  compare  with  Exod.  xxiii.  32;  Deut.  vii.  i,  2. 

14.  Judg.  xvi.  23. 

15.  2  Sam.  Ixxxi.  10. 

f6.  2  Kings  xviii.  29-35. 

17.  Gen.  iii.  8. 

18.  E7icy.  Americana.    Art.  Cromwell. 

19.  Id. 

20.  Id, 

21.  Id, 

22.  Josh.  vi.  1-20. 

23.  Id.,  X.  13. 

24.  Id.,  X.  13. 

25.  Life  ofjesus^  pp.  283,  284. 


INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED,  I93 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1.  The  Old  Faith  and  the  New:  A  Confession.     By  David 

Friedrich    Strauss.      Authorized   translation,  by  Ma- 
THiLDE  Blind.     London:  1873.     p.  168. 

2.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism^  pp.  339,  340. 

3.  Id.,  p.  47. 

4.  Id.,  p.  56. 

5.  Id.,  p.  SI. 

6.  Id.,  p.  273. 

7.  English  Conferences  of  Ernest  Renan  :  Rome  and  Chris- 

tianity, Marcus  Aurelius.    Translated  by  Clara  Erskine 
Clement.     Boston:  1880.     p.  30. 

8.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,  p.  385. 

9.  Id.,  106. 

zo.  Nature  and  Utility  of  Religion   and  Theism.     By  John 
Stuart  Mill.     London:  1874.     pp.  255,  256. 

11.  First  Principles  of  a  New   System   of  Philosophy.      By 

Herbert  Spencer.    New  York:  1872.    pp.  loi,  102. 

12.  Id.^  pp.  1 1 6-1 18. 

13.  Fragments  of  Science.    A  Series  of  Detached  Essays  and 

Reviews.      By  John  Tyndall,  F.R.S.      London:  1876. 

P-  535. 

14.  Id,  p.  355. 

15.  Id,  p.  529. 

16.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,  pp.  340,  341. 

17.  See,  for  illustration,  First  Pi'inciples,  pp.  108,  123. 

18.  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  537. 

19.  Id.,  p.  576. 

20.  Id.,  p.  328. 


194  INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED, 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

1.  Bremen  Lecture,  p.  200. 

2.  The  Old  Faith  and  the  N'ew,  p.  53. 

3.  Modern  Donbt  and  Christian  Belief,  p.  340. 

4.  The  Old  Faith  and  the  New,  pp.  54,  55. 

5.  Life  ofJes7is,  p.  104. 

6.  The  Progress  of  Doctrine  in  the  New  Testament,  considered 

in  Eight  Lectures,  delivered  before  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford, on  the  Bainpton  Foundation.  By  Thomas  D  eh  any 
Bernard,  M.A.,  of  Exeter  College,  and  Rector  of  Walcot. 
Boston:  1873.     Preface,  p.  xiv. 

7.  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  Life  and  Works,  his 

Epistles  and  Teachings.  A  Contribution  to  a  Critical 
History  of  Primitive  Christianity.  By  Dr.  Ferdinand 
Christian  Baur,  Professor  of  Evangelical  Theology  in 
the  University  of  Tiibingen.  In  two  volumes.  Second 
edition.  Issued  after  his  death  by  Dr.  E.  Zeller.  Trans- 
lated from  the  German.     London  :  1873.     Vol.  I.,  p.  299. 

8.  Critical  History  of  Free  Thought,"^.  146. 

9.  Letters,  Lectures,  and  Reviews,  includifig  the  Phrontisterion, 

or  Oxford  in  the  Nineteenth  Cetitury.  By  the  Very  Rev. 
Henry  Longueville  Mansel,  D.D.,  sometime  Fellow 
and  Tutor  at  St.  John's  College,  Wayneflete  Professor  of 
Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy,  Magdalen  College, 
Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  Canon  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  and  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  Edited  by 
Henry  W.  Chandler,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Pembroke  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  and  Wayneflete  Professor  of  Moral  and 
Metaphysical  Philosophy.     London:  1873.     p.  315. 

10.  Nature  and  Utility  of  Religion,  p.  114. 

11.  /</.,  pp.  253-255. 

12.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,  p.  161. 


INDEX   TO   AUTHORS  CITED.  1 95 

^3.  Id.,  p.  1 86. 

14.  Life  of  Jesus,  pp.  365-367. 

15.  New  Life  of  Jesus.     Vol.  II.,  pp.  437,  438. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

1.  David  Friedrich  Strauss   ifi  his  Life  and  Writifigs.     By 

Eduard     Zeller.      Authorized    translation.       London : 
1874.     pp.  SS-S7' 

2.  New  Life  of  Jesus.     Vol.  I.     Inscription  to  the  Memory  of 

William  Strauss,  p.  iii. 

3.  Renan's  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticisjn,  p.  ix. 

4.  Id.,  p.  xxii. 

5.  Id.,  pp.  xxiv.,  XXV. 

6.  History  of  Rationalism,  embracing  a  Survey  of  the  Present 

State  of  Protestant  Theology.     By  John  F.  Hurst,  D.D. 
Fifth  edition.     New  York.     pp.  497, 498. 

7.  Id.,  pp.  503-505- 

8.  Lay    Sermons,    Addresses,    and   Reviews.      By   Thomas 

Henry   Huxley,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  author  of  "  Man's  Place 
in  Nature,"  "  Origin  of  Species,"  etc.     New  York  :    1871. 

p.  344. 

9.  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  379. 


CHAPTER  X. 

1.  Short   Studies  on   Great  Subjects.     By  James  Anthony 

Froude,   M.A.,  late  Fellow  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford. 
New  York  :  1871.     p.  226. 

2.  The  ContefHporary  Review.    London:    1872.    Vol.  XX.,  pp. 

205,  206. 

3.  Id.,  p.  210. 

4.  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  471. 

5.  Id.,  p.  466. 


196  INDEX   TO  AUTHORS  CITED. 

6.  Contemporary  Review.     Vol.  XX.,  pp.  778,  779. 

7.  The  General  Epistle  of  James,  v.  14,  15. 

8.  Contemporary  Review.     Vol.  XX.,  p.  782. 

9.  Fragments  of  Science,  pp.  468,  469. 

10.  Id.,  pp.  482,  483. 

1 1 .  History  of  the  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science.     By 

John  William  Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  in  the 
University  of  New  York ;  author  of  "  A  Treatise  on 
Human  Physiology,"  "  History  of  the  Intellectual  De- 
velopment of  Europe,"  "  History  of  the  American  Civil 
War,"  and  of  many  Experimental  Memoirs  on  Chemical 
and  other  Scientific  Subjects.     New  York:  1875.     p.  168. 

12.  Id.,  p.  171. 

13.  Id.,  pp.  160,  161. 

14.  Id.,  p.  52. 

15.  /r/.,  p.  215. 

16.  Syllabus  Errorum,  §  III. 

17.  Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  240. 

18.  Scribner's  Monthly  for  August,   September,  and  October, 

1873. 

19.  Id.,  for  November,   1873.      Dr.  Holland's  "Topic  of  the 

Times,"  on  "  The  New  York  Observer." 

20.  The  same  number  of  "  Scribner,"  and   the   same  "  Topic 

of  the  Times." 

21.  The  Person  of  Christ,  the  Miracle  of  History.      With  a 

Reply  to  Strauss  and  Renan,  and  a  Collectio7i  of  Testi- 
mo7iies  of  U7ibelievers.  By  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.  Boston, 
p.  230. 

22.  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,  p.  183. 

23.  History  of  Rationalisjn,  p.  257. 

24.  The  Early  Years  of  Christianity.     Preface  to  the  English 

edition,  p.  4. 

25.  The  Supertiatural  Origin  of  Christianity,  p.  5. 

26.  First  Principles,  p.  123. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS  have  in  preparation  a  series  of  volumes,  to  b« 
iasaed  under  the  title  of 

CURRENT   DISCUSSION, 

A  COLLECTION  FROM  THE  CHIEF  ENGLISH  ESSAYS  ON  QUESTIONS 
OF  THE  TIME. 

The  seiies  will  be  edited  by  Edward  L.  Burlingame,  and  is  designed  U 
bring  together,  for  the  convenience  of  readers  and  for  a  lasting  place  in  the 
library,  those  important  and  representative  papers  from  recent  English  periodi- 
cals, which  may  fairly  be  said  to  form  the  best  history  of  the  thought  and  in- 
vestigation of  the  last  few  years.  It  is  characteristic  of  recent  thought  and 
science,  that  a  much  larger  proportion  than  ever  before  of  their  most  important 
work  has  appeared  in  the  foiin  of  contributions  to  reviews  and  magazines  ;  the 
thinkers  of  the  day  submitting  their  results  at  once  to  the  great  public,  which  is 
easiest  reached  in  this  way,  and  holding  their  discussions  before  a  large  audience, 
rather  than  in  the  old  form  of  monographs  reaching  the  special  student  only. 
As  a  consequence  there  are  subjects  of  the  deepest  present  and  permanent  in- 
terest, almost  all  of  whose  literature  exists  only  iv  'he  shape  of  detached  papeis, 
individually  so  famous  that  their  topics  and  opinions  are  in  everybody's  mouth 
— yet  collectively  only  accessible,  for  re-reading  and  comparison,  to  those  who 
have  carefully  preserved  them,  or  who  are  painstaking  enough  to  study  h  mg 
files  of  periodicals. 

In  so  collecting  chese  separate  papers  as  to  give  the  reader  a  fair  •{  not 
complete  view  of  the  discussions  in  which  they  form  a  part ;  to  make  them 
convenient  for  reference  in  the  future  progress  of  those  discussions  ;  and  esjjeci- 
ally  to  enable  them  to  be  preserved  as  an  important  part  of  the  histoiy  c( 
modem  thought, — it  is  believed  that  this  series  will  do  a  service  that  will  be 
widely  appreciated. 

Such  papers  naturally  include  three  classes  : — those  which  by  their  originality 
have  recently  led  discussion  into  altogether  new  channels ;  those  which  have 
attracted  deserved  attention  as  powerful  special  pleas  upon  one  side  or  the 
otlier  in  great  current  questions  ;  and  finally,  purely  critical  and  analytical  dis- 
sertations. The  series  will  aim  to  include  the  best  representatives  of  each  oi 
these  classes  of  expression. 


It  is  designed  to  arrange  the  essays  included  in  the  Series  under  such  gen> 
eral  divisions  as  the  following,  to  each  of  which  one  or  more  volumes  will  be 
devoted : — 

INTERNATIONAL  POLITICS.  NATURAL  SCIENCE. 

RECENT  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  DISCOVERY. 

QUESTIONS  OF  BELIEF. 

ECONOMICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SCIENCE, 

HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY,  LITERARY  TOPICS. 

Among  the  material  selected  for  the  first  volume  (International  Politics), 
^•hich  will  be  issued  immediately,  are  the  following  papers  : 

Archibald  Forbes's  Essay  on  "The  Russians,  Turks,  and  Bul- 
rat;ians;"  Vsct.  Stratford  de  Redcliffe's  "Turkey;"  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's "Montenegro;"  Professor  Gold  win  Smith's  Paper  on  "The 
Political  Destiny  of  Canada,"  and  his  Essay  called  "  The  Slaveholder 
AND  THE  Turk  ; "  Professor  Blackie's  "  Prussia  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury ;  "  Edward  Dicey's  "Future  of  Egypt;"  Louis  Kossuth's 
"What  is  in  Store  for  Europe;"  and  Professor  Freeman's  "Relation 
of  the  English  People  to  the  War." 

Among  the  contents  of  the  second  volume  (Questions  of  Belief),  are : 

The  two  well-known  "  Modern  Symposia  ; "  the  Discussion  by  Professor 
Huxley,  Mr.  Hutton,  Sir  J.  F.  Stephen,  Lord  Selborne,  James  Martin- 
eau,  Frederic  Harrison,  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  the  Duke  of  Argyll, 
and  others,  on  "  The  Influence  upon  Morality  of  a  Decline  in  a  Re- 
ligious Belief;  "  and  the  Discussion  byHuxLEY,  Hutton,  Lord  Blatchford, 
the  Hon.  RoDEN  NoEL,  Lord  Selborne,  Canon  Barry,  Greg,  the  Rev. 
Baldwin  Brown,  Frederic  Harrison,  and  others,  on  "The  Soul  and 
Future  Life.  Also,  Professor  Calderwood's  "Ethical  Aspects  of  the 
Development  Theory  ; "  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes's  Paper  on  "The  Course  of 
Modern  Thought;"  Thomas  Hughes  on  "The  Condition  and  Pros- 
spects  of  the  Church  of  England;"  W.  H.  Mallock's  "Is  Litji 
Worth  Living  ? "  Frederic  Harrison's  "  The  Soul  and  Future  Life  ;  '■ 
and  the  Rev.  R.  F.  Littledale's  "  The  Pantheistic  Factor  in  Christian 
Thought." 

The  volumes  will  be  printed  in  a  handsome  crown  octavo  form,  and  will 
sell  for  about  $i   50   each. 

G.   P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  182    Fifth   Avenue,   New  York. 


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