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   Title: Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World, Bunsen's
   Biblical Researches, On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity;
   Seances Historiques de Genève; On the Mosaic Cosmogony; Tendencies of
   Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750; On the Interpretation of
   Scripture.
   Creator(s): Temple, Frederick (1821-1902); Williams, Rowland; Powell,
   Baden (1796-1860); Wilson, Henry Bristow (1803-1888); Goodwin, C. W.;
   Pattison, Mark (1813-1884)
   Print Basis: London: John W. Parker and Son, 1860
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Bible; Sermons
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   ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

LONDON.

JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND

  1860.

   [The Authors reserves the right of Translation.]
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TO THE READER.

   IT will readily be understood that the Authors of the ensuing Essays
   are responsible for their respective articles only. They have written
   in entire independence of each other, and without concert or
   comparison.

   The Volume, it is hoped, will be received as an attempt to illustrate
   the advantage derivable to the cause of religious and moral truth, from
   a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable to
   suffer by the repetition of conventional language, and from traditional
   methods of treatment.
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   CONTENTS.

   The Education of the World. By Frederick Temple, D.D., Chaplain in
   Ordinary to the Queen; Head Master of Rugby School; Chaplain to the
   Earl of Denbigh ,
                                                                          1

   Bunsen's Biblical Researches. By Rowland Williams, D.D., Vice-Principal
   and Professor of Hebrew, St. David's College, Lampeter; Vicar of Broad
   Chalke, Wilts
                                                                          50

   On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity. By Baden Powell, M.A.,
   F.R.S., &c. &c., Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of
   Oxford
                                                                          94

   Séances Historiques de Genève. The National Church. By Henry Bristow
   Wilson, B.D., Vicar of Great Stoughton, Hunts
                                                                          145

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

   Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750. By Mark
   Pattison, B.D.
                                                                          254

   On the Interpretation of Scripture. By Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Regius
   Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
                                                                          330

   Note on Bunsen's Biblical Researches
                                                                          434
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                          THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD.

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

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

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

   In accordance with this difference between the material and the
   spiritual worlds, we ought to be prepared to find progress in the
   latter, however much fixity there may be in the former. The earth may
   still be describing precisely the same orbit as that which was assigned
   to her at the creation. The sea. sons may be precisely the same. The
   planets, the moon, and the stars, may be unchanged both in appearance
   and in reality. But man is a spiritual as well as a material creature,
   must be subject to the laws of the spiritual as well as to those of the
   material world, and cannot stand still because things around him do.
   Now, that the individual man is capable of perpetual, or almost
   perpetual, development from the day of his birth to that of his death,
   is obvious of course. But we may well expect to find something more
   than this in a spiritual creature who does not stand alone, but forms a
   part of a whole world of creatures like himself Man cannot be
   considered as an individual. He is, in reality, only man by virtue of
   his being a member of the human race. Any other animal that we know
   would probably not be very different in its nature brought up from its
   very birth apart from all its kind. A child so brought up becomes, as
   instances could be adduced to prove, not a man in the full sense at
   all, but rather a beast in human shape, with human faculties, no doubt,
   hidden underneath, but with no hope in this life of ever developing
   those faculties into true humanity. If, then, the whole in this case,
   as in so many others, is prior to the parts, we may conclude, that we
   arc to look for that progress which is essential to a spiritual being
   subject to the lapse of time, not only in the individual, but also
   quite as much in the race taken as a whole. We may expect to find, in
   the history of man, each successive age incorporating into itself the
   substance of the preceding.

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

   All this is no figure but only a compendious statement of a very
   comprehensive fact. The child that is born to-day may possibly have the
   same faculties as if he had been born in the days of Noah; if it be
   otherwise, we possess no means of determining the difference. But the
   equality of the natural faculties at starting will not prevent a vast
   difference in their ultimate development. That development is entirely
   under the control of the influences exerted by the society in which the
   child may chance to live. If such society be altogether denied, the
   faculties perish, and the child (as remarked above) grows up a beast
   and not a man; if the society be uneducated and coarse, the growth of
   the faculties is early so stunted as never afterwards to be capable of
   recovery; if the society be highly cultivated, the child will be
   cultivated also, and will show, more or less, through life the fruits
   of that cultivation. Hence each generation receives the benefit of the
   cultivation of that which preceded it. Not in knowledge only but in
   develop. meat of powers the child of twelve now stands at the level
   where once stood the child of fourteen, where ages ago stood the
   full-grown man. The discipline of manners, of temper, of thought, of
   feeling, is transmitted from generation to generation, and at each
   transmission there is an imperceptible but unfailing increase. The
   perpetual accumulation of the stores of knowledge is so much more
   visible than the change in the other ingredients of human progress,
   that we are apt to fancy that knowledge grows, and knowledge only. I
   shall not stop to examine whether it be true (as is sometimes
   maintained) that all progress in human society is but the effect of the
   progress of knowledge. For the present, it is enough to point out that
   knowledge is not the only possession of the human spirit in which
   progress can be traced.

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

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

   The education of the world, like that of the child, begins with Law. It
   is impossible to explain the reasons of all the commands that you give
   to a child, and you do not endeavour to do so. When he is to go to bed,
   when he is to get up, how he is to sit, stand, eat, drink, what answers
   he is to make when spoken to, what he may touch and what he may not,
   what prayers he shall say and when, what lessons he is to learn, every
   detail of manners and of conduct the careful mother teaches her child,
   and requires implicit obedience. Mingled together in her teaching are
   commands of the most trivial character and commands of the gravest
   importance; their relative value marked by a difference of manner
   rather than by anything else, since to explain it is impossible.
   Meanwhile to the child obedience is the highest duty, affection the
   highest stimulus, the mother's word the highest sanction. The
   conscience is alive, but it is, like the other faculties at that age,
   irregular, undeveloped, easily deceived. The mother does not leave it
   uncultivated, nor refuse sometimes to explain her motives for
   commanding or forbidding; but she never thinks of putting the judgment
   of the child against her own, nor of considering the child's conscience
   a, having a right to free action.

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

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

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

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

   The education of this early race may strictly be said to begin when it
   was formed into the various masses out of which the nations of the
   earth have sprang. The world, as it were, went to school, and was
   broken up into classes. Before that time it can hardly be said that any
   great precepts had been given. The only commands which claim an earlier
   date are the prohibitions of murder and of eating blood. And these may
   be considered as given to all alike. But the whole lesson of humanity
   was too much to be learned by all at once. Different parts of it fell
   to the task of different parts of the human race, and for a long time,
   though the education of the world flowed in parallel channels, it did
   not form a single stream.

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

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

   The comments of the Prophets were followed in their turn by the great
   Lesson of the Captivity. Then for the first time the Jews learned, what
   that Law and the Prophets had been for centuries vainly endeavouring to
   teach them, namely, to abandon for ever polytheism and idolatry. But
   though this change in their national habits and character is
   unmistakeable, it might seem at first sight as if it were no more than
   an external and superficial amendment, and that their growth in moral
   and spiritual clearness, though traceable with certainty up to this
   date, at any rate received a check afterwards. For it is undeniable
   that, in the time of our Lord, the Sadducees had lost all depth of
   spiritual feeling, while the Pharisees had succeeded in converting the
   Mosaic system into so mischievous an idolatry of forms, that St Paul
   does not hesitate to call the law the strength of sin. But in spite of
   this it is nevertheless clear that even the Pharisaic teaching
   contained elements of a more spiritual religion than the original
   Mosaic system. Thus, for instance, the importance attached by the
   Pharisees to prayer is not be found in the law. The worship under the
   law consisted almost entirely of sacrifices. With the sacrifices we may
   presume that prayer was always offered, but it was not positively
   commanded; and, as a regular and necessary part of worship, it first
   appears in the later books of the Old Testament, and is never even
   there so earnestly insisted upon as afterwards by the Pharisees. It was
   in fact in the captivity, far from the temple and the sacrifices of the
   temple, that the Jewish people first learned that the spiritual part of
   worship could be separated from the ceremonial, and that of the two the
   spiritual was far the higher. The first introduction of preaching and
   the reading of the Bible in the synagogues belong to the same date. The
   careful study of the law, though it degenerated into formality, was yet
   in itself a more intellectual service than the earlier records exhibit.
   And this study also, though commencing earlier, attains its maximum
   after the captivity; the Psalmists who delight in the study of the law
   are all, or nearly all, much later than David; and the enthusiasm with
   which the study is praised increases as we come down. In short, the
   Jewish nation had lost very much when John the Baptist came to prepare
   the way for his Master; but time had not stood still, nor had that
   course of education whereby the Jew was to be fitted to give the last
   revelation to the world.

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

   The conviction of the unity and spirituality of God was peculiar to the
   Jews among the pioneers of civilization. Greek philosophers had, no
   doubt, come to the same conclusion by dint of reason. Noble minds may
   often have been enabled to raise themselves to the same height in
   moments of generous emotion. But every one knows the difference between
   an opinion and a practical conviction--between a scientific deduction
   or a momentary insight and that habit which has become second nature.
   Every one, also, knows the difference between a tenet maintained by a
   few intellectual men far in advance of their age, and a belief
   pervading a whole people, penetrating all their daily life, leavening
   all their occupations, incorporated into their very language. To the
   great mass of the Gentiles, at the time of our Lord, polytheism was the
   natural posture of the thoughts into which their minds unconsciously
   settled when undisturbed by doubt or difficulties. To every Jew,
   without exception, monotheism was equally natural. To the Gentile, even
   when converted, it was, for some time, still an effort to abstain from
   idols; to the Jew it was more an effort than it is to us. The bent of
   the Jewish mind was, in fact, so fixed by their previous training that
   it would have required a perpetual and difficult strain to enable a Jew
   to join in such folly. We do not readily realize how hard this was to
   acquire, because we have never had to acquire it and in reading the Old
   Testament we look on the repeated idolatries of the chosen people as
   wilful backsliding, from an elementary truth within the reach of
   children, rather than as stumblings in learning a very difficult
   lesson--difficult even for cultivated men. In reality, elementary
   truths are the hardest of all to learn, unless we pass our childhood in
   an atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with them; and then we imbibe them
   unconsciously, and find it difficult to perceive their difficulty.

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

   Side by side with this freedom from idolatry there had grown up in the
   Jewish mind a chaster morality than was to be found elsewhere in the
   world. There were many points, undoubtedly, in which the early morality
   of the Greeks and Romans would well bear a comparison with that of the
   Hebrews. In simplicity of life in gentleness of character, in warmth of
   sympathy, in kindness to the poor, in justice to all men, the Hebrews
   could not have rivalled the best days of Greece. In reverence for law,
   in reality of obedience, in calmness under trouble, in dignity of
   self-respect, they could not have rivalled the best days of Rome. But
   the sins of the flesh corrupted both these races, and the flower of
   their finest virtues had withered before the time of our Lord. In
   chastity the Hebrews stood alone; and this virtue, which had grown up
   with them from their earliest days, was still in the vigour of fresh
   life when they were commissioned to give the Gospel to the nations. The
   Hebrew morality has passed into the Christian church, and sins of
   impurity (which war against the soul) have ever since been looked on as
   the type of all evil; and our Litany selects them as the example of
   deadly sin. What sort of morality the Gentiles would have handed down
   to us, had they been left to themselves, is clear from the Epistles.
   The excesses of the Gentile party at Corinth (1 Cor. v. 2), the first
   warning given to the Thessalonians (1 Thes. iv. 3), the first warning
   given to the Galatians (Gal. v. 19), the description of the Gentile
   world in the Epistle to the Romans, are sufficient indications of the
   prevailing Gentile sin. But St. James, writing to the Hebrew
   Christians, says not a word upon the subject, and St. Peter barely
   alludes to it.

   The idea of monotheism and the principle of purity might seem hardly
   enough to be the chief results of so systematic a discipline as that of
   the Hebrews. But, in reality, they are the cardinal points in
   education. The idea of monotheism outtops all other ideas in dignity,
   and worth. The spirituality of God involves in it the supremacy of
   conscience, the immortality of the soul, the final judgment of the
   human race. For we know the other world, and can only know it, by
   analogy, drawn from our own experience. With what, then, shall we
   compare God? With the spiritual or the fleshly part of our nature? On
   the answer depends the whole bent of our religion and of our morality.
   For that in ourselves which we choose as the nearest analogy of God,
   will, of course be looked on as the ruling and lasting part of our
   being. If He be one and spiritual, then the spiritual power within us,
   which proclaims its own unity and independence of matter by the
   universality of its decrees, must be the rightful monarch of our lives;
   but if there be Gods many and Lords many, with bodily appetites and
   animal passions, then the voice of conscience is but one of those
   wide-spread delusions which, some for a longer, some for a shorter
   period, have, before now, misled our race. Again, the same importance
   which we assign to monotheism as a creed, we must assign to chastity as
   a virtue. Among all the vices which it is necessary to subdue in order
   to build up the human character, there is none to be compared in
   strength, or in virulence, with that of impurity. It can outlive and
   kill a thousand virtues; it can corrupt the most generous heart; it can
   madden the soberest intellect; it can debase the loftiest imagination.
   But, besides being so poisonous in character, it is above all others
   most difficult to conquer. And the people whose extraordinary toughness
   of nature has enabled it to outlive Egyptian Pharaohs, and Assyrian
   kings, and Roman Caesars, and Mussulman caliphs, was well matched
   against a power of evil which has battled with the human spirit ever
   since the creation, and has inflicted, and may yet inflict, more deadly
   blows than any other power we know of.

   Such was the training of the Hebrews. Other nations meanwhile had a
   training parallel to and contemporaneous with theirs. The natural
   religions, shadows projected by the spiritual light within shining on
   the dark problems without, were all in reality systems of Law, given
   also by God, though not given by revelation but by the working of
   nature, and consequently so distorted and adulterated that in lapse of
   time the divine element in them had almost perished. The poetical gods
   of Greece, the legendary gods of Rome, the animal worship of Egypt, the
   sun worship of the East, all accompanied by systems of law and civil
   government springing from the same sources as themselves, namely, the
   character and temper of the several nations, were the means of
   educating these people to similar purposes in the economy of Providence
   to that for which the Hebrews were destined.

   When the seed of the Gospel was first sown, the field which had been
   prepared to receive it may be divided into four chief divisions, Rome,
   Greece, Asia, and Judea. Each of these contributed something to the
   growth of the future Church. And the growth of the Church is, in this
   case, the development of the human race. It cannot indeed yet be said
   that all humanity has united into one stream; but the Christian nations
   have so unquestionably taken the lead amongst their fellows, that
   although it is likely enough the unconverted peoples may have a real
   part to play, that part must be plainly quite subordinate; subordinate
   in a sense in which neither Rome, nor Greece, nor perhaps even Asia,
   was subordinate to Judea.

   It is not difficult to trace the chief elements of civilization which
   we owe to each of the four. Rome contributed her admirable spirit of
   order and organization. To her had been given the genius of govern.
   runt. She had been trained to it by centuries of difficult and
   tumultuous history. Storms which would have rent asunder the framework
   of any other polity only practised her in the art of controlling
   popular passions; and when she began to aim consciously at the Empire
   of the World, she had already learned her lesson. She had learned it as
   the Hebrews had learned theirs, by an enforced obedience to her own
   system. In no nation of antiquity had civil officers the same
   unquestioned authority during their term of office, or laws and
   judicial rules the same reverence. That which religion was to the Jew,
   including even the formalism which encrusted and fettered it, law was
   to the Roman. And law was the lesson which Rome was intended to teach
   the world. Hence the Bishop of Rome soon became the Head of the Church.
   Rome was, in fact, the centre of the traditions which had once governed
   the world; and their spirit still remained; and the Roman Church
   developed into the papacy simply because a head was wanted, and no
   better one could be found. Hence again in all the doctrinal disputes of
   the fourth and fifth centuries the decisive voice came from Rome. Every
   controversy was finally settled by her opinion, because she alone
   possessed the art of framing formulas which could hold together in any
   reasonable measure the endless variety of sentiments and feelings which
   the Church by that time comprised. It was this power of administering
   law which enabled the Western Church, in the time of Charlemagne, to
   undertake, by means of her bishops, the task of training and civilizing
   the new population of Europe. To Rome we owe the forms of local
   government which in England have saved liberty and elsewhere have
   mitigated despotism. Justinian's laws have penetrated into all modern
   legislation, and almost all improvements bring us only nearer to his
   code. Much of the spirit of modern politics came from Greece; much from
   the woods of Germany. But the skeleton and framework is almost entirely
   Roman. And it is not this framework only that comes from Rome. The
   moral sentiments and the moral force which lie at the back of all
   political life and are absolutely indispensable to its vigour are in
   great measure Roman too. It is true that the life and power of all
   morality whatever will always be drawn from the New Testament; yet it
   is in the history of Rome rather than in the Bible that we find our
   models and precepts of political duty, and especially of the duty of
   patriotism. St. Paul bids us follow whatsoever things are lovely,
   whatsoever things are of good report. But except through such general
   appeals to natural feeling it would be difficult to prove from the New
   Testament that cowardice was not only disgraceful but sinful, and that
   love of our country was an exalted duty of humanity That lesson our
   consciences have learnt from the teaching of Ancient Rome.

   To Greece was entrusted the cultivation of the reason and the taste.
   Her gift to mankind has been science and art. There was little in her
   temper of the spirit of reverence. Her morality and her religion did
   not spring from the conscience. Her gods were the creatures of
   imagination, not of spiritual need. Her highest idea was, not holiness,
   as with the Hebrews, nor law, as with the Romans, but beauty. Even
   Aristotle, who assuredly gave way to mere sentiment as little as any
   Greek that ever lived, placed the Beautiful (to kalon) at the head of
   his moral system, not the Right, nor the Holy. Greece, in fact, was not
   looking at another world, nor even striving to organize the present,
   but rather aiming at the development of free nature. The highest
   possible cultivation of the individual, the most finished perfection of
   the natural faculties, was her dream. It is true that her philosophers
   are ever talking of subordinating the individual to the state. But in
   reality there never has been a period in history nor a country in the
   world, in which the peculiarities of individual temper and character
   had freer play. This is not the best atmosphere for political action;
   but it is better than any other for giving vigour and life to the
   impulses of genius, and for cultivating those faculties, the reason and
   taste, in which the highest genius can be shown. Such a cultivation
   needs discipline less than any. And of all the nations Greece had the
   least of systematic discipline, least of instinctive deference to any
   one leading idea. But for the same reason the cultivation required less
   time than any other; and the national life of Greece is the shortest of
   all. Greek history hardly begins before Solon, and it hardly continues
   after Alexander, barely covering 200 years. But its fruits are eternal.
   To the Greeks we owe the logic which has ruled the minds of all
   thinkers since. All our natural and physical science really begins with
   the Greeks, and indeed would have been impossible had not Greece taught
   men how to reason. To the Greeks we owe the corrective which conscience
   needs to borrow from nature. Conscience, startled at the awful truths
   which she has to reveal, too often threatens to withdraw the soul into
   gloomy and perverse asceticism: then is needed the beauty which Greece
   taught us to admire, to show us another aspect of the Divine
   Attributes. To the Greeks we owe. all modern literature. For though
   there is other literature even older than the Greek, the Asiatic for
   instance, and the Hebrew, yet we did not learn this lesson from them;
   they had not the genial life which was needed to kindle other nations
   with the communication of their own fire.

   The discipline of Asia was the never-ending succession of conquering
   dynasties, following in each other's track like waves, an ever moving
   yet never advancing ocean. Cycles of change were successively passing
   over her, and yet at the end of every cycle she stood where she had
   stood before, and nearly where she stands now. The growth of Europe has
   dwarfed her in comparison, and she is paralysed in presence of a
   gigantic strength younger but mightier than her own. But in herself she
   is no weaker than she ever was. The monarchs who once led Assyrian, or
   Babylonian, or Persian armies across half the world, impose on us by
   the vast extent and rapidity of their conquests; but these conquests
   had in reality no substance, no inherent strength. This perpetual
   baffling of all earthly progress taught Asia to seek her inspiration in
   rest. She learned to fix her thoughts upon another world, and was
   disciplined to check by her silent protest the over-earthly,
   over-practical tendency of the Western nations. She was ever the one to
   refuse to measure Heaven by the standard of earth. Her teeming
   imagination filled the church with thoughts undreamt of in our
   philosophy.' She had been the instrument selected to teach the Hebrews
   the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul; for whatever may be said
   of the early notions on this subject, it is unquestionable that in
   Babylon the Jews first attained the clearness and certainty in regard
   to it which we find in the teaching of the Pharisees. So again,
   Athanasius, a thorough Asiatic in sentiment and in mode of arguing, was
   the bulwark of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Western nations are
   always tempted to make reason not only supreme, but despotic, and
   dislike to acknowledge mysteries even in religion. They are inclined to
   confine all doctrines within the limits of spiritual utility, and to
   refuse to listen to dim voices and whispers from within, those
   instincts of doubt, and reverence, and awe, which yet are, in their
   place and degree, messages from the depths of our being. Asia supplies
   the corrective by perpetually leaning to the mysterious. When left to
   herself, she settles down to baseless dreams, and sometimes to
   monstrous and revolting fictions. But her influence has never ceased to
   be felt, and could not be lost without serious damage.

   Thus the Hebrews may be said to have disciplined the human conscience,
   Rome the human will, Greece the reason and taste, Asia the spiritual
   imagination. Other races that have been since admitted into Christendom
   also did. their parts. And others may yet have something to contribute;
   for though the time for discipline is childhood, yet there is no
   precise line beyond which all discipline ceases. Even the grey-haired
   man has yet some small capacity for learning like a child; and even in
   the maturity of the world the early modes of teaching may yet find a
   place. But the childhood of the world was over when our Lord appeared
   on earth. The tutors and governors had done their work. It was time
   that the second teacher of the human race should begin his labour. The
   second teacher is Example.

   The child is not insensible to the influence of example. Even in the
   earliest years the manners, the language, the principles of the elder
   begin to mould the character of the younger. There are not a few of our
   acquirements which we learn by example without any, or with very
   little, direct instruction--as, for instance, to speak and to walk. But
   still example at that age is secondary. The child is quite conscious
   that he is not on such an equality with grown-up friends as to enable
   him to do as they do. He imitates, but he knows that it is merely play,
   and he is quite willing to be told that he must not do this or that
   till he is older. As time goes on, and the faculties expand, the power
   of discipline to guide the actions and to mould the character
   decreases, and in the same proportion the power of example grows. The
   moral atmosphere must be brutish indeed which can do deep harm to a
   child of four years. But what is harmless at four is pernicious at six,
   and almost fatal at twelve. The religious tone of a household will
   hardly make much impression on an infant; but it will deeply engrave
   its lessons on the heart of a boy growing towards manhood. Different
   faculties within us begin to feel the power of this new guide at
   different times. The moral sentiments are perhaps the first to expand
   to the influence; but gradually the example of those among whom the
   life is cast lays hold of all the soul,--of the tastes, of the
   opinions, of the aims, of the temper. As each restraint of discipline
   is successively cast off, the soul does not gain at first a real, but
   only an apparent freedom. The youth, when too old for discipline, is
   not yet strong enough to guide his life by fixed principles. He is led
   by his emotions and impulses. He admires and loves, he condemns and
   dislikes, with enthusiasm. And his love and admiration, his disapproval
   and dislike, are not his own, but borrowed from his society. He can
   appreciate a character, though he cannot yet appreciate a principle. He
   cannot walk by reason and conscience alone; he still needs those
   supplies to the imperfection of our nature' which are given by the
   higher passions. He cannot follow what his heart does not love as well
   as his reason approve; and he cannot love what is presented to him as
   an abstract rule of life, but requires a living person. He needs to see
   virtue in the concrete, before he can recognise her aspect as a divine
   idea. He instinctively copies those whom he admires, and in doing so
   imbibes whatever gives the colour to their character. He repeats
   opinions without really understanding them, and in that way admits
   their infection into his judgment. He acquires habits which seem of no
   consequence, but which are the channels of a thousand new impulses to
   his soul. If he reads, be treats the characters that he meets with in
   his book as friends or enemies, and so unconsciously allows them to
   mould his soul. When he seems most independent, most defiant of
   external guidance, he is in reality only so much the less master of
   himself, only so much the more guided and formed, not indeed by the
   will, but by the example and sympathy of others.

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

   This, then, which is born with our birth and dies with our death,
   attains its maximum at some point in the passage from one to the other.
   And this point is just the meeting point of the child and the man, the
   brief interval which separates restraint from liberty. Young men at
   this period are learning a peculiar lesson. They seem to those who talk
   to them to be imbibing from their associates and their studies
   principles both of faith and conduct. But the rapid fluctuations of
   their minds show that their opinions have not really the nature of
   principles. They are really learning, not principles, but the materials
   out of which principles are made. They drink in the lessons of generous
   impulse, warm unselfishness, courage, self-devotion, romantic disregard
   of worldly calculations, without knowing what are the grounds of their
   own approbation, or caring to analyse the laws and ascertain the limits
   of such guides of conduct. They believe, without exact attention to the
   evidence of their belief; and their opinions have accordingly the
   richness and warmth that belongs to sentiment, but not the clearness or
   firmness that can be given by reason. These affections, which are now
   kindled in their hearts by the contact of their fellows, will
   afterwards be the reservoir of life and light, with which their faith
   and their highest conceptions will be animated and coloured. The
   opinions now picked up, apparently not really, at random, must
   hereafter give reality to the clearer and more settled convictions of
   mature manhood. If it were not for these, the ideas and laws afterwards
   supplied by reason would be empty forms of thought, without body or
   substance; the faith would run a risk of being the form of godliness
   without the power thereof. And hence the lessons of this time have such
   an attractiveness in their warmth and life, that they are very
   reluctantly exchanged for the truer and profounder, but at first sight
   colder wisdom which is destined to follow them. To almost all men tins
   period is a bright spot to which the memory ever afterwards loves to
   recur; and even those who can remember nothing but folly--folly too
   which they have repented and relinquished--yet find a nameless charm in
   recalling such folly as that. For indeed even folly itself at this age
   is sometimes the cup out of which men quaff the richest blessings of
   our nature--simplicity, generosity, affection. This is the seed time of
   the soul's harvest, and contains the promise of the year. It is the
   time for love and marriage, the time for forming lifelong friendships.
   The after life may be more contented, but can rarely be so glad and
   joyous. Two things we need to crown its blessings--one is, that the
   friends whom we then learn to love, and the opinions which we then
   learn to cherish, may stand the test of time, and deserve the esteem
   and approval of calmer thoughts and wider experience; the other, that
   our hearts may have depth enough to drink largely of that which God is
   holding to our lips, and never again to lose the fire and spirit of the
   draught. There is nothing more beautiful than a manhood surrounded by
   the friends, upholding the principles, and filled with the energy of
   the spring. time of life. But even if these highest blessings be
   denied, if we have been compelled to change opinions, and to give up
   friends, and the cold experience of the world has extinguished the heat
   of youth, still the heart will instinctively recur to that happy time,
   to explain to itself what is meant by love and what by happiness.

   Of course, this is only one side of the picture. This keen
   susceptibility to pleasure and joy implies a keen susceptibility to
   pain. There is, probably, no time of life at which pains are more
   intensely felt; no time at which the whole man more groaneth and
   travaileth in pain together.' Young men are prone to extreme
   melancholy, even to disgust with life. A young preacher will preach
   upon afflictions much more often than an old one. A young poet will
   write more sadly. A young philosopher will moralize more gloomily. And
   this seems unreal sentiment, and is smiled at in after years. But it is
   real at the time; and, perhaps, is nearer the truth at all times than
   the contentedness of those who ridicule it. Youth, in fact, feels
   everything more keenly; and as far as the keenness of feeling
   contributes to its truth, the feeling, whether it is pain or pleasure,
   is so much the truer. But in after life it is the happiness, not the
   suffering of youth, that most often returns to the memory, and seems to
   gild all the past.

   The period of youth in the history of the world, when the human race
   was, as it were, put under the teaching of example, corresponds, of
   course, to the meeting point of the Law and the Gospel. The second
   stage, therefore, in the education of man was the presence of our Lord
   upon earth. Those few years of His divine presence seem, as it were, to
   balance all the systems and creeds and worships which preceded, all the
   Church's life which has followed since. Saints had gone before, and
   saints have been given since; great men and good men had lived among
   the heathen; there were never, at any time, examples wanting to teach
   either the chosen people or any other. But the one Example of all
   examples came in the fulness of time,' just when the world was fitted
   to feel the power of His presence. Had His revelation been delayed till
   now, assuredly it would have been hard for us to recognise His
   Divinity; for the faculty of Faith has turned inwards, and cannot now
   accept any outer manifestations of the truth of God. Our vision of the
   Son of God is now aided by the eyes of the Apostles, and by that aid we
   can recognise the Express Image of the Father. But in this we are like
   men who are led through unknown woods by Indian guides. We recognise
   the indications by which the path was known, as soon as those
   indications are pointed out; but we feel that it would have been quite
   vain for us to look for them unaided. We, of course, have, in our turn,
   counterbalancing advantages. If we have lost that freshness of faith
   which would be the first to say to a poor carpenter--Thou art the
   Christ, the Son of the Living God--yet we possess, in the greater
   cultivation of our religious understanding, that which, perhaps, we
   ought not to be willing to give in exchange. The early Christians could
   recognise, more readily than we, the greatness and beauty of the
   Example set before them; but it is not too much to say, that we know
   better than they the precise outlines of the truth. To every age is
   given by God its own proper gift. They had not the same clearness of
   understanding as we; the same recognition that it is God and not the
   devil who rules the world; the same power of discrimination between
   different kinds of truth; they had not the same calmness, or fixedness
   of conduct; their faith was not so quiet, so little tempted to restless
   vehemence. But they had a keenness of perception which we have not, and
   could see the immeasurable difference between our Lord and all other
   men as we could never have men it. Had our Lord come later, He would
   have come to mankind already beginning to stiffen into the fixedness of
   maturity. The power of His life would not have sunk so deeply into the
   world's heart; the truth of His Divine Nature would not have been
   recognised. Seeing the Lord, would not have been the title to
   Apostleship. On the other hand, had our Lord come earlier, the world
   would not have been ready to receive Him, and the Gospel, instead of
   being the religion of the human race, would have been the religion of
   the Hebrews only. The other systems would have been too strong to be
   overthrown by the power of preaching. The need of a higher and purer
   teaching would not have been felt. Christ would have seemed to the
   Gentiles the Jewish Messiah, not the Son of Man. But He came in the
   fulness of time,' for which all history had been preparing, to which
   all history since has been looking back. Hence the first and largest
   place in the New Testament is assigned to His Life four times told.
   This life we emphatically call the Gospel. If there is little herein to
   be technically called doctrine, yet here is the fountain of all
   inspiration. There is no Christian who would not rather part with all
   the rest of the Bible than with these four Books. There is no part of
   God's Word which the religious man more instinctively remembers. The
   Sermon on the Mount, the Parables and the Miracles, the Last Supper,
   the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Cross on
   Calvary--these are the companions alike of infancy and of old age,
   simple enough to be read with awe and wonder by the one, profound
   enough to open new depths of wisdom to the fullest experience of the
   other.

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

   Greece and Rome have not only given to us the fruits of their
   discipline, but the companionship of their bloom. The fruits of their
   discipline would have passed into our possession, even if their memory
   bad utterly perished; and just as we know not the man who first
   discovered arithmetic, nor the man who first invented
   writing--benefactors with whom no other captains of science can ever be
   compared--so, too, it is probable that we inherit from many a race,
   whose name we shall never hear again, fruits of long training now
   forgotten. But Greece and Rome have given us more than any results of
   discipline in the never-dying memory of their fresh and youthful life.
   It is this, and not only the greatness or the genius of the classical
   writers, which makes their literature preeminent above all others.
   There have been great poets, great historians, great philosophers in
   modern days. Greece can show few poets equal, none superior, to
   Shakspeare. Gibbon, in many respects, stands above all ancient
   historians. Bacon was as great a master of philosophy as Aristotle.
   Nor, again, are there wanting great writers of times older, as well as
   of times later, than the Greek, as, for instance, the Hebrew prophets.
   But the classics possess a charm quite independent of genius. It is not
   their genius only which makes them attractive. It is the classic life,
   the life of the people of that day. It is the image, there only to be
   seen, of our highest natural powers in their freshest vigour. It is the
   unattainable grace of the prime of manhood. It is the pervading sense
   of youthful beauty. Hence, while we have elsewhere great poems and
   great histories, we never find again that universal radiance of fresh
   life which makes even the most commonplace relics of classic days
   models for our highest art. The common workman of those times breathed
   the atmosphere of the gods. What are now the ornaments of our museums
   were then the every-day furniture of sitting and sleeping rooms. In the
   great monuments of their literature we can taste this pure inspiration
   most largely; but even the most commonplace fragments of a classic
   writer are steeped in the waters of the same fountain. Those who
   compare the moderns with the ancients, genius for genius, have no
   difficulty in claiming for the former equality, if not victory. But the
   issue is mistaken. To combine the highest powers of intellect with the
   freshness of youth was possible only once, and that is the glory of the
   classic nations. The inspiration which is drawn by the man from the
   memory of those whom he loved an admired in the spring-time of his
   life, is drawn by the world now from the study of Greece and Rome. The
   world goes back to its youth in hopes to become young again, and
   delights to dwell on the feats achieved by the companions of those
   days. Beneath whatever was wrong and foolish it recognises that beauty
   of a fresh nature which never ceases to delight. And the sins and vices
   of that joyous time are passed over with the levity with which men
   think of their young companions' follies.

   The Early Church stands as the example which has most influenced our
   religious as Greece and Rome have most influenced our political and
   intellectual life. We read the New Testament, not to find there forms
   of devotion, for there are few to be found; nor laws of church
   government, for there are hardly any; nor creeds, for there are none;
   nor doctrines logically stated, for there is no attempt at logical
   precision. The New Testament is almost entirely occupied with two
   lives--the life of our Lord and the' life of the Early Church. Among
   the Epistles there are but two which seem, even at first sight, to be
   treatises for the future instead of letters for the time--the Epistle
   to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews. But even these, when
   closely examined, appear, like the rest, to be no more than the fruit
   of the current history. That early church does not give us precepts,
   but an example. She says, Be ye followers of me, as I also am of
   Christ. This had never been said by Moses, nor by any of the prophets.
   But the world was now grown old enough to be taught by seeing the lives
   of saints, better than by hearing the words of prophets. When
   afterwards Christians needed creeds, and liturgies, and forms of church
   government and systems of theology, they could not find them in the New
   Testament. They found there only the materials out of which such needs
   could be supplied. But the combination and selection of those materials
   they had to provide for themselves. In fact, the work which the early
   church had to do was peculiar. Her circumstances were still more
   peculiar. Had she legislated peremptorily for posterity, her
   legislation must have been set aside, as, indeed, the prohibition to
   eat things strangled and to eat blood has been already set aside. But
   her example will live and teach for ever. In her we learn what is meant
   by zeal, what by love of God, what by joy in the Holy Ghost, what by
   endurance for the sake of Christ. For the very purpose of giving us a
   pattern, the chief features in her character are, as it were, magnified
   into colossal proportions. Our saints must chiefly be the saints of
   domestic life, the brightness of whose light is visible to very few.
   But their saintliness was forced into publicity, and its radiance
   illumines the earth. So on every page of the New Testament is written,
   Go and do thou likewise. Transplant into your modern life the same
   heavenly-mindedness, the same fervour of love, the same unshaken faith,
   the same devotion to your fellow-men. And to these pages accordingly
   the church of our day turns for renewal of inspiration. We even busy
   ourselves in tracing the details of the early Christian life, and we
   love to find that any practice of ours comes down horn apostolic times.
   This is an exaggeration. It is not really following the early church,
   to be servile copyists of her practices. We are not commanded to have
   all things in common, because the church of Jerusalem once had; nor are
   we to make every supper a sacrament, because the early Christians did
   so. To copy the early church is to do as she did, not what she did. Yet
   the very exaggeration is a testimony of the power which that church has
   over us. We would fain imitate even her outward actions as a step
   towards imitating her inner life. Her outward actions were not meant
   for our model. She, too, had her faults: disorders, violent quarrels,
   licentious recklessness of opinion, in regard both to faith and
   practice. But these spots altogether disappear in the blaze of light
   which streams upon us when we look back towards her. Nay, we are
   impatient of being reminded that she had faults at all. So much does
   her youthful holiness surpass all that we can show, that he who can see
   her faults seems necessarily insensible to the brightness of her glory.
   There have been great saints since the days of the apostles. Holiness
   is as possible now as it was then. But the saintliness of that time had
   a peculiar beauty which we cannot copy; a beauty not confined to the
   apostles or great leaders, but pervading the whole church. It is not
   what they endured, nor the virtues which they practised, that so dazzle
   us. It is the perfect simplicity of the religious life, the singleness
   of heart, the openness, the child-like earnestness. All else has been
   repeated since; but this never. And this makes the religious man's
   heart turn back with longing to that blessed time when the Lord's
   service was the highest of all delights, and every act of worship came
   fresh from the soul. If we compare degrees of devotion, it may be
   reckoned something intrinsically nobler, to serve God and love Him now
   when religion is colder than it was, and when we have not the aid of
   those thrilling, heart-stirring sympathies which blessed the early
   church. But even if our devotion be sometimes nobler in itself, yet
   theirs still remains the more beautiful, the more attractive. Ours may
   have its own place in the sight of God, but theirs remains the
   irresistible example which kindles all other hearts by its fire.

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

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

   Now the education by no means ceases when the spirit thus begins to
   lead the soul; the office of the spirit is in fact to guide us into
   truth, not to give truth. The youth who has settled down to his life's
   Work makes a great mistake if he fancies that because he is no more
   under teachers and governs his education is therefore at an end. It is
   only changed in form. He has much, very much, to learn, more perhaps
   than all which he has yet learned; an his new teacher will not give it
   to him all at once. The lesson of life is in this respect like the
   lessons whereby we learn any ordinary business. The barrister, who has
   filled his memory with legal forms and imbued his mind with their
   spirit, knows that the most valuable part of his education is yet to
   obtained in attending the courts of law. The physician is not content
   with the theories of the lecture-room, nor with the experiments of the
   laboratory, nor even with the attendance at the hospitals; he knows
   that independent practice, when he will be thrown upon his own
   resources, will open his eyes to much which at present he sees through
   a glass darkly. In every profession, after the principles are
   apparently mastered, there yet remains much to be learnt from the
   application of those principles to practice, the only means by which we
   ever understand principles to the bottom. So too with the lesson which
   includes all others, the lesson of life.

   In this last stage of his progress a man learns various ways. First he
   learns unconsciously by the growth of his inner powers and the secret
   but steady accumulation of experience. The fire of youth is toned down
   and sobered. The realities of life dissipate many dreams, clear up many
   prejudices, soften down many roughnesses. The difference between
   intention and action, between anticipating temptation and bearing it,
   between drawing pictures of holiness or nobleness and realizing them,
   between hopes of success and reality of achievement, is taught by many
   a painful and many an unexpected experience. In short, as the youth
   puts away childish things, so does the man put away youthful things.
   Secondly, the full-grown man learns by reflection. He looks inwards and
   not outwards only. He re-arranges the results of past experience,
   re-examines by the test of reality the principles supplied to him by
   books or conversation, reduces to intelligible and practical formulas
   what he has hitherto known m vague general rules. He not only
   generalizes--youth will generalize with great rapidity and often with
   great acuteness--but he learns to correct one generalization by
   another. He gradually learns to disentangle his own thoughts, so as not
   to be led into foolish inconsistency by want of clearness of purpose.
   He learns to distinguish between momentary impulses and permanent
   determinations of character. He learns to know the limits of his own
   powers, moral and intellectual; and by slow degrees and with much
   reluctance he learns to suspend his judgment and to be content with
   ignorance where knowledge is beyond his reach. He learns to know
   himself and other men, and to distinguish in some measure his own
   peculiarities from the leading features of humanity which he shares
   with all men. He learns to know both the worth and the worthlessness of
   the world's judgment and of his own. Thirdly, he learns much by
   mistakes, both by his own and by those of others. He often persists in
   a wrong cause till it is too late to mend what he has done, and he
   learns how to use it and how to bear it. His principles, or what he
   thought his principles, break down under him, and he is forced to
   analyse them in order to discover what amount of truth they really
   contain. He comes upon new and quite unexpected issues of what he has
   done or said, and he has to profit by such warnings as he receives. His
   errors often force him, as it were, to go back to school; not now with
   the happy docility of a child, but with the chastened submission of a
   penitent. Or, more often still, his mistakes inflict a sharp
   chastisement which teaches him a new lesson without much effort on his
   own part to learn. Lastly, he learns much by contradiction. The
   collision of society compels him to state his opinions clearly; to
   defend them; to modify them when indefensible; perhaps to surrender
   them altogether, consciously or unconsciously; still more often to
   absorb them into larger and fuller thoughts, less forcible but more
   comprehensive. The precision which is thus often forced upon him always
   seems to diminish something of the heartiness and power which belonged
   to more youthful instincts. But he gains in directness of aim, and
   therefore in firmness of resolution. But the greatest of his gains is
   what seems a loss: for he learns not to attempt the solution of
   insoluble problems, and to have no opinion at all on many points of the
   deepest interest. Usually this takes the form of an abandonment of
   speculation; but it may rise to the level of a philosophical humility
   which stops where it can advance no further, and confesses its own
   weakness in the presence of the mysteries of life.

   But throughout all this it must not be supposed that he has no more to
   do either with that law which guided his childhood or with any other
   law of any kind. Since he is still a learner, he must learn on the one
   condition of all learning--obedience to rules; not indeed, blind
   obedience to rules not understood, but obedience to the rules of his
   own mind--an obedience which he cannot throw off without descending
   below the childish level. He is free. But freedom is not the opposite
   of obedience, but of restraint. The free-man must obey, and obey as
   precisely as the bond-man; and if he has not acquired the habit of
   obedience he is not fit to be free. The law in fact which God makes the
   standard of our conduct may have one of two forms. It may be an
   external law, a law which is in the hands of others, in the making, in
   the applying, in the enforcing of which we have no share; a law which
   governs from the outside, compelling our will to bow even though our
   understanding be unconvinced and unenlightened; saying you must, and
   making no effort to make you feel that you ought; appealing not to your
   conscience, but to force or fear, and caring little whether you
   willingly agree or reluctantly submit. Or, again, the law may be an
   internal law; a voice which speaks within the conscience, and carries
   the understanding along with it; a law which treats us not as slaves
   but as friends, allowing us to know what our Lord doeth; a law which
   bids us yield not to blind fear or awe, but to the majesty of truth and
   justice; a law which is not imposed on us by another power, but by our
   own enlightened will. Now the first of these is the law which governs
   and educates the child; the second the law which governs and educates
   the man. The second is in reality the spirit of the first. It commands
   in a different way, but with a tone not one whit less peremptory; and
   be only who can control all appetites and passions in obedience to it
   can reap the full harvest of the last and highest education.

   This need of law in the full maturity of life is so imperative that if
   the requisite self-control be lost or impaired, or have never been
   sufficiently acquired, the man instinctively has recourse to a
   self-imposed discipline if he desire to keep himself from falling. The
   Christian who has fallen into sinful habits often finds that he has no
   resource but to abstain from much that is harmless in itself because he
   has associated it with evil. He takes monastic vows because the world
   has proved too much for him. He takes temperance pledges because he
   cannot resist the temptations of appetite. There are devils which can
   be cast out with a word; there are others which go not out but by (not
   prayer only, but) fasting. This is often the case with the late
   converted. They are compelled to abstain from, and sometimes they are
   induced to denounce, many pleasures and many enjoyments which they find
   unsuited to their spiritual health. The world and its enjoyments have
   been to them a source of perpetual temptation, and they cannot conceive
   any religious life within such a circle of evil. Sometimes these men
   are truly spiritual enough and humble enough to recognise that this
   discipline is not essential in itself, but only for them and for such
   as they. The discipline is then truly subordinate. It is an instrument
   in the hands of their conscience. They know what they are doing and why
   they do it. But sometimes, if they are weak, this discipline assumes
   the shape of a regular external law. They look upon many harmless
   things, from which they have suffered mischief as absolutely, not
   relatively, hurtful. They denounce what they cannot share without
   danger, as dangerous, not only for them, but for all mankind, and as
   evil in itself. They set up a conventional code of duty founded on
   their own experience which they extend to all men. Even if they are
   educated enough to see that no conventional code is intellectually
   tenable, yet they still maintain their system, and defend it, as not
   necessary in itself, but necessary for sinful men. The fact is, that a
   merciful Providence, in order to help such men, puts them back under
   the dominion of the law. They are not aware of it themselves--men who
   are under the dominion of the law rarely are aware of it. But even if
   they could appeal to a revelation from heaven, they would still be
   under the law; for a revelation speaking from without and not from
   within is an external law and not a spirit.

   For the same reason a strict and even severe discipline is needed for
   the cure of reprobates. Philanthropists complain sometimes that this
   teaching ends only in making the man say, the punishment of crime is
   what I cannot bear;' not, the wickedness of crime is what I will not
   do.' But our nature is not all will: and the fear of punishment is very
   often the foundation on which we build the hatred of evil. No convert
   would look back with any other feeling than deep gratitude on a
   severity which had set free his spirit by chaining down his grosser
   appetites. It is true that the teaching of mere discipline, if there be
   no other teaching, is useless. If you have only killed one selfish
   principle by another you have done nothing. But if while thus killing
   one selfish principle by another you have also succeeded in awaking the
   higher faculty and giving it free power of self-exertion, you have done
   everything.

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

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

   Some men, on the other hand, show their want of intellectual
   self-control by going back not to the dominion of law, but to the still
   lower level of intellectual anarchy. They speculate without any
   foundation at all. They confound the internal consistency of some dream
   of their brains with the reality of independent truth. They set up
   theories which have no other evidence than compatibility with the few
   facts that happen to be known; and forget that many other theories of
   equal claims might readily be invented. They are as little able to be
   content with having no judgment at all as those who accept judgments at
   second hand. They never practically realize that when there is not
   enough evidence to justify a conclusion, it is wisdom to draw no
   conclusion. They are so eager for light that they will rub their eyes
   in the dark and take the resulting optical delusions for real flashes.
   They need intellectual discipline--but they have little chance of
   getting it, for they have burst its bands.

   There is yet a further relation between the inner law of mature life
   and the outer law of childhood which must be noticed. And that is, that
   the outer law is often the best vehicle in which the inner law can be
   contained for the various purposes of life. The man remembers with
   affection, and keeps up with delight the customs of the home of his
   childhood; tempted perhaps to over-estimate their value, but even when
   perfectly aware that they are no more than one form out of many which a
   well-ordered household might adopt, preferring them because of his long
   familiarity, and because of the memories with which they are
   associated. So, too, truth often seems to hiss richer and fuller when
   expressed in some favourite phrase of his mother's, or some maxim of
   his father's. He can give no better reason very often for much that he
   does every day of his life than that his father did it before him; and
   provided the custom is not a bad one the reason is valid. And he likes
   to go to the same church. He likes to use the same prayers. He likes to
   keep up the same festivities. There are limits to all this. But no man
   is quite free from the influence; and it is in many cases, perhaps in
   most, an influence of the highest moral value. There is great value in
   the removal of many indifferent matters out of the region of discussion
   into that of precedent. There is greater value still in the link of
   sympathy which binds the present with the past, and fills old age with
   the fresh feelings of childhood. If truth sometimes suffers in form, it
   unquestionably gains much in power; and if its onward progress is
   retarded, it gains immeasurably in solidity and in its hold on men's
   hearts.

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

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

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

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

   When the work was done, men began to discover that the law was no
   longer necessary. And of course there was no reason why they should
   then discuss the question whether it ever had been necessary. The time
   was come when it was fit to trust to the conscience as the supreme
   guide, and the yoke of the medieval discipline was shaken off by a
   controversy which, in many respects, was a repetition of that between
   St. Paul and the Judaizers. But, as is always the case after a
   temporary return to the state of discipline, Christendom did not go
   back to the position or the duty from which she had been drawn by the
   influx of the barbarian races. The human mind had not stood still
   through the ages of bondage, though its motions had been hidden. The
   Church's whole energy was taken up in the first six centuries of her
   existence in the creation of a theology. Since that time it had been
   occupied in renewing by self-discipline the self-control which the
   sudden absorption of the barbarians had destroyed. At the Reformation
   it might have seemed at first as if the study of theology were about to
   return. But in reality an entirely new lesson commenced--the lesson of
   toleration. Toleration is the very opposite of dogmatism. It implies in
   reality a confession that there are insoluble problems upon which even
   revelation throws but little light. Its tendency is to modify the early
   dogmatism by substituting the spirit for the letter, and practical
   religion for precise definitions of truth. This lesson is certainly not
   yet fully learnt. Our toleration is at present too often timid, too
   often rash, sometimes sacrificing valuable religious elements,
   sometimes fearing its own plainest conclusions. Yet there can be no
   question that it is gaining on the minds of all educated men, whether
   Protestant or Roman Catholic, and is passing from them to be the common
   property of educated and uneducated alike. There are occasions when the
   spiritual anarchy which has necessarily followed the Reformation
   threatens for a moment to bring back some temporary bondage, like the
   Roman Catholic system. But on the whole the steady progress of
   toleration is unmistakeable. The mature mind of our race is beginning
   to modify and soften the hardness and severity of the principles which
   its early manhood had elevated into immutable statements of truth. Men
   are beginning to take a wider view than they did. Physical science,
   researches into history, a more thorough knowledge of the world they
   inhabit, have enlarged our philosophy beyond the limits which bounded
   that of the Church of the Fathers. And all these have an influence,
   whether we will or no, on our determinations of religious truth. There
   are found to be more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in
   the patristic theology. God's creation is a new book to be read by the
   side of His revelation, and to be interpreted as coming from Him. We
   can acknowledge the great value of the forms in which the first ages of
   the Church defined the truth, and yet refuse to be bound by them; we
   can use them, and yet endeavour to go beyond them, just as they also
   went beyond the legacy which was left us by the Apostles.

   In learning this new lesson, Christendom needed a firm spot on which
   she might stand, and has found it in the Bible. Had the Bible been
   drawn up in precise statements of faith, or detailed precepts of
   conduct, we should have had no alternative but either permanent
   subjection to an outer law, or loss of the highest instrument of
   self-education. But the Bible, from its very form, is exactly adapted
   to our present want. It is a history; even the doctrinal parts of it
   are cast in a historical form, and are best studied by considering them
   as records of the time at which they were written, and as conveying to
   us the highest and greatest religious life of that time. Hence we use
   the Bible--some consciously, some unconsciously--not to override, but
   to evoke the voice of conscience. When conscience and the Bible appear
   to differ, the pious Christian immediately concludes that he has not
   really understood the Bible. Hence, too, while the interpretation of
   the Bible varies slightly from age to age, a varies always in one
   direction. The schoolmen found purgatory in it. Later students found
   enough to condemn Galileo. Not long ago it would have been held to
   condemn geology, and there are still many who so interpret it. The
   current is all one way--it evidently points to the identification of
   the Bible with the voice of conscience. The Bible, in fact, is hindered
   by its form from exercising a despotism over the human spirit; if it
   could do that, it would become an outer law at once; but its form is so
   admirably adapted to our need, that it wins from us all the reverence
   of a supreme authority, and yet imposes on us no yoke of subjection.
   This it does by virtue of the principle of private judgment, which puts
   conscience between us and the Bible, making conscience the supreme
   interpreter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten, but whom it can never
   be a duty to disobey.

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

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

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

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

   If we have made mistakes, careful study may teach us better. If we have
   quarrelled about words, the enlightenment of the understanding is the
   best means to show us our folly. If we have vainly puzzled our
   intellects with subjects beyond human cognizance, better knowledge of
   ourselves will help us to be humbler. Life, indeed, is higher than all
   else; and no service that man can render to his fellows is to be
   compared with the heavenly power of a life of holiness. But next to
   that must be ranked, whatever tends to make men think clearly and judge
   correctly. So valuable, even above all things (excepting only
   godliness) is clear thought, that the labours of the statesman are far
   below those of the philosopher in duration, in power, and in beneficial
   results. Thought is now higher than action, unless action be inspired
   with the very breath of heaven. For we are now men, governed by
   principles, if governed at all, and cannot rely any longer on the
   impulses of youth or the discipline of childhood.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         BUNSEN'S BIBLICAL RESEARCHES.

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

   Questions of miraculous interference do not turn merely upon our
   conceptions of physical law, as unbroken, or of the Divine Will, as
   all-pervading: bug they include inquiries into evidence, and must abide
   by verdicts on the age of records. Nor should the distinction between
   poetry and prose, and the possibility of imagination's allying itself
   with affection, be overlooked. We cannot encourage a remorseless
   criticism of Gentile histories and escape its contagion when we
   approach Hebrew annals; nor acknowledge a Providence in Jewry without
   owning that it may have comprehended sanctities elsewhere. But the
   moment we examine fairly the religions of India, and of Arabia, or even
   those of primeval Hellas and Latium. we find they appealed to the
   better side of our nature, and their essential strength lay in the
   elements of good which they contained, rather than in any Satanic
   corruption.

   Thus considerations, religious and moral, no less than scientific and
   critical, have, where discussion was free, widened the idea of
   Revelation for the old world, and deepened it for ourselves , not
   removing the footsteps of the Eternal from Palestine, but tracing them
   on other shores; and not making the saints of old orphans, but
   ourselves partakers of their sonship. Conscience would not lose by
   exchanging that repressive idea of revelation, which is put over
   against it as an adversary, for one to which the echo of its best
   instincts should be the witness. The moral constituents of our nature,
   so often contrasted with Revelation, should rather be considered parts
   of its instrumentality. Those eases in which we accept the miracle for
   the sake of the moral lesson prove the ethical element to be the more
   fundamental. We see this more clearly if we imagine a miracle of
   cruelty wrought (as by Antichrist) for immoral ends; for then only the
   technically miraculous has its value isolated; whereas by appealing to
   good WORKS' (however wonderful) for his witness, Christ has taught us
   to have faith mainly in goodness. This is too much overlooked by some
   apologists. But there is hardly any greater question than whether
   history shows Almighty God to have trained mankind by a faith which has
   reason and conscience for its kindred, or by one to whose miraculous
   tests their pride must bow; that is, whether His Holy Spirit has acted
   through the channels which His Providence ordained, or whether it has
   departed from these so signally that comparative mistrust of them ever
   afterwards becomes a duty. The first alternative, though invidiously
   termed philosophical, is that to which free nations and Evangelical
   thinkers tend; the second has a greater show of religion, but allies
   itself naturally with priestcraft or formalism; and not rarely with
   corruptness of administration or of life.

   In this issue converge many questions anciently stirred, but recurring
   in our daylight with almost uniform [1] accession of strength to the
   liberal side. Such questions turn chiefly on the law of growth,
   traceable throughout the Bible, as in the world; and partly on science,
   or historical inquiry but no less on the deeper revelations of the New
   Testament, as compared to those of the Old. If we are to retain the old
   Anglican foundations of research and fair statement, we must revise
   some of the decisions provisionally given upon imperfect evidence; or,
   if we shrink from doing so, we must abdicate our ancient claim to build
   upon the truth; and our retreat will be either to Rome, as some of our
   lost ones have consistently seen, or to some form, equally evil, of
   darkness voluntary. The attitude of too many English scholars before
   the last Monster out of the Deep is that of the degenerate senators
   before Tiberius. They stand, balancing terror against mutual shame.
   Even with those in our universities who no longer repeat fully the
   required Shibboleths, the explicitness of truth is rare. He who assents
   most, committing himself least to baseness, is reckoned wisest.

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

   In the great work upon Egypt, [2] the later volumes of which are now
   appearing in English, we do not find that picture of home lift which
   meets us in the pages of our countryman, Sir G. Wilkinson. The interest
   for robust scholars is not less, in the fruitful comparison of the
   oldest traditions of our race, and in the giant shapes of ancient
   empires, which flit like dim shadows, evoked by a master's hand. But
   for those who seek chiefly results, there is something wearisome in the
   elaborate discussion of authorities; and, it must be confessed, the
   German refinement of method has all the effect of confusion. To give
   details here is impossible (though the more any one scrutinizes them,
   the more substantial he will and them), and this sketch must combine
   suggestions, which the author has scattered strangely apart, and
   sometimes repeated without perfect consistency. He dwells largely upon
   Herodotus, Eratosthenes, and their successors, from Champollion and
   Young to Lepsius. Especially the dynastic records of the Ptolemaic
   priest, Manetho, [3] are compared with the accounts of the stone
   monuments. The result, if we can receive it, is to vindicate for the
   civilized kingdom of Egypt, from Menes downward, an antiquity of nearly
   four thousand years before Christ. There is no point in which
   archaeologists of all shades were so nearly unanimous as in the belief
   that our Biblical chronology was too narrow in its limits; and the
   enlargement of our views, deduced from Egyptian records, is extended by
   our author's reasonings on the development of commerce and government
   and still more of languages, and physical features of race. He could
   not have vindicated the unity mankind if he had not asked for a vast
   extension time, whether his petition of twenty thousand years be
   granted or not. The mention of such a term may appear monstrous to
   those who regard six thousand years as a part of Revelation. Yet it is
   easier to throw doubt on some of the arguments than to show that the
   conclusion in favour of a vast length is improbable. If pottery in a
   river's mud proves little, its tendency may agree with that of the
   discovery of very ancient pre-historic remains in many parts of the
   world. Again, how many years are needed to develop modern French out of
   Latin, and Latin itself out of its original crude forms? How unlike is
   English to Welsh, and Greek to Sanskrit--yet all indubitably of one
   family of languages! What years were required to create the existing
   divergence of members of this family! How many more for other families,
   separated by a wide gulf from this, yet retaining, traces of a primæval
   aboriginal affinity, to have developed themselves, either in priority
   or collaterally? The same consonantal roots, appearing either as verbs
   inflected with great variety of grammatical form, or as nouns with
   case-endings in some languages, and with none in others, plead as
   convincingly as the succession of strata in geology, for enormous
   lapses of time. When, again, we have traced our Gaelic and our Sanskrit
   to their inferential pre-Hellenic stem, and when reason has convinced
   us that the Semitic languages which had as distinct an individuality
   four thousand years ago as they have now, require a cradle of larger
   dimensions than Archbishop Ussher's chronology, what farther effort is
   not forced upon our imagination, if we would guess the measure of the
   dim background in which the Mongolian and Egyptian languages, older
   probably than the Hebrew, became fixed, growing early into the type
   which they retain? Do we see an historical area of nations and
   languages extending itself over nearly ten thousand years: and can we
   imagine less than another ten thousand, during which the possibilities
   of these things took body and form? Questions of this kind require from
   most of us a special training for each but Baron Bunsen revels in them,
   and his theories are at least suggestive. He shows what Egypt had in
   common with that primæval Asiatic stock, represented by Ham, out of
   which, as raw material, he conceives the divergent families, termed
   Indo-European [4] and Semitic (or the kindreds of Europe and of
   Palestine) to have been later developed. Nimrod is considered as the
   Biblical representative of the earlier stock, whose ruder language is
   continued, by affiliation or by analogy, in the Mongolian races of Asia
   and in the negroes of Africa.

   The traditions of Babylon, Sidon, Assyria, and Iran, are brought by our
   author to illustrate and confirm, though to modify our interpretation
   of, Genesis. It is strange how nearly those ancient cosmogonies [5]
   approach what may be termed the philosophy of Moses, while they fall
   short in what Longinus called his worthy conception of the divinity.'
   Our deluge takes its place among geological phenomena, no longer a
   disturbance of law from which science shrinks, but a prolonged play of
   the forces of fire and water, rendering the primæval regions of North
   Asia uninhabitable, and urging the nations to new abodes. We learn
   approximately its antiquity, and infer limitation in its range, from
   finding it recorded in the traditions of Iran and Palestine (or of
   Japhet and Shem) but unknown to the Egyptians and Mongolians, who left
   earlier the cradle of mankind. In the half ideal half traditional
   notices [6] of the beginnings of our race, compiled in Genesis, we are
   bid notice the combination of documents, and the recurrence of barely
   consistent genealogies. As the man Adam begets Cain, the man Enos
   begets Cainan. Jared and Man, Methuselah and Methusael, are similarly
   compared. Seth, like El, is an old deity's appellation, and Man was the
   son of Seth in one record, as Adam was the son of God in the other. One
   could wish the puzzling circumstance, that the etymology of some of the
   earlier names seems strained to suit the present form of the narrative
   had been explained. That our author would not shrink from noticing
   this, is shown by the firmness with which he relegates the long lives
   of the first patriarchs to the domain of legend, or of symbolical
   cycle. He reasonably conceives that the historical portion begins with
   Abraham, where the lives become natural, and information was nearer. A
   sceptical criticism might, indeed, ask, by what right he assumes that
   the moral dimensions of our spiritual heroes can not have been
   idealized by tradition, as he admits to have been the case with
   physical events and with chronology rounded into epical shape. But the
   first principles of his philosophy, which fixes on personality (or what
   we might call force of character) as the great organ of Divine
   manifestation in the world, and his entire method of handling the
   Bible, lead him to insist on the genuineness, and to magnify the force,
   of spiritual ideas, and of the men who exemplified them. Hence, on the
   side of religion, he does not intentionally violate that reverence with
   which Evangelical thinkers view the fathers of our faith. To Abraham
   and Moses, Elijah and Jeremiah, he renders grateful honour. Even in
   archaeology his scepticism does not outrun the suspicions often
   betrayed its our popular mind; and he limits, while he confirms these,
   by showing how far they have ground. But as he says, with quaint
   strength, there is no chronological element in Revelation.' Without
   borrowing the fifteen centuries which the Greek Church and the
   Septuagint would lend us, we see, from comparing the Bible with the
   Egyptian records and with itself, that our common dates are wrong,
   though it is not so easy to say how they should be rectified. The idea
   of bringing Abraham into Egypt as early as 2876 B.C. is one of our
   author's most doubtful points, and may seem hardly tenable. But he
   wanted time for the growth of Jacob's family into a people of two
   millions, and he felt bound to place Joseph under a native Pharaoh,
   therefore, before the Shepherd Kings. He also contends that Abraham's
   horizon in Asia is antecedent to the first Median conquest of Babylon
   in 2234. A famine, conveniently mentioned under the twelfth dynasty of
   Egypt, completes his proof. Sesortosis, therefore, is the Pharaoh to
   whom Joseph was minister; the stay of the Israelites in Egypt is
   extended to fourteen centuries; and the date 215 represents the time of
   oppression. Some of these details are sufficiently doubtful to afford
   ground of attack to writers whose real quarrel is with our author's
   Biblical research, and its more certain, but not therefore more
   welcome, conclusions. It is easier to follow him implicitly when he
   leads us, in virtue of an overwhelming concurrence of Egyptian records
   and of all the probabilities of the case, to place the Exodus as late
   as 1320 or 1314. The event is more natural in Egypt's decline under
   Menephthah, the exiled son of the great Ramses, than amidst the
   splendour of the eighteenth dynasty. It cannot well have been earlier,
   or the Book of Judges must have mentioned the conquest of Canaan by
   Ramses; nor later, for then Joshua would come in collision with the new
   empire of Ninus and Semiramis. But Manetho places, under Menephthah,
   what seems the Egyptian version of the event, and the year 1314, one of
   our alternatives, is the date assigned it by Jewish tradition. Not only
   is the historical reality of the Exodus thus vindicated against the
   dreams of the Drummonds and the Volneys, but a new interest is given it
   by its connexion with the rise and fall of great empires. We can
   understand how the ruin on which Ninus rose made room in Canaan for the
   Israelites, and how they fell again under the satraps of the New
   Empire, who appear in the Book of Judges as kings of the provinces.
   Only, if we accept the confirmation, we must take all its parts.
   Manetho makes the conquerors before whom Menephthah retreats into
   Ethiopia Syrian shepherds, and gives the human side of an invasion, or
   war of liberation; [7] : Baron Bunsen notices the high hand' with which
   Jehovah led forth his people, the spoiling of the Egyptians, and the
   lingering in the peninsula, as signs, even in the Bible, of a struggle
   conducted by human means. Thus, as the pestilence of the Book of Kings
   becomes in Chronicles the more visible angel, so the avenger who slew
   the firstborn may have been the Bedouin host, akin nearly to Jethro,
   and more remotely to Israel.

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

   It is not the importance severally, but the continual recurrence of
   such difficulties, which bears wills ever-growing induction upon tire
   question, whether the Pentateuch is of one age and hand, and whether
   subsequent books are contemporary with the events, or whether the whole
   literature grew like a tree rooted in the varying thoughts of
   successive generations, and whether traces of editorship, if not of
   composition, between the ages of Solomon and Hezekiah, are manifest to
   whoever will recognise them. Baron Bunsen finds himself compelled to
   adopt the alternative of gradual growth. He makes the Pentateuch
   Mosaic, as indicating the mind and embodying the developed system of
   Moses, rather than as written by the great lawgiver's hand. Numerous
   fragments of genealogy, of chronicle, and of spiritual song go up to a
   high antiquity, but are imbedded in a crust of later narrative, the
   allusions of which betray at least a time when kings were established
   in Israel. Hence the idea of composition out of older materials must be
   admitted; and it may in some cases be conceived that the compiler's
   point of view differed from that of the older pieces, which yet he
   faithfully preserved. If the more any one scrutinizes the sacred text,
   the more he finds himself impelled to these or like conclusions
   respecting it, the accident of such having been alleged by men more
   critical than devout should not make Christians shrink from them. We
   need not fear that what God has permitted to be true in history can be
   at war with the faith in Himself taught us by His Son.

   As in his Egypt our author sifts the historical date of the Bible, so
   in his Gott in der Geschichte, [8] he expounds its directly religious
   element. Lamenting, like Pascal, the wretchedness of our feverish
   being, when estranged from its eternal stay, he traces, as a countryman
   of Hegel, the Divine thought bringing order out of confusion. Unlike
   the despairing school, who forbid us trust in God or in conscience,
   unless we kill our souls with literalism, he finds salvation for men
   and States only in becoming acquainted with the Author of our life, by
   whose reason the world stands fast, whose stamp we bear in our
   forethought, and whose voice our conscience echoes. In the Bible, as an
   expression of devout reason, and therefore to be read with reason in
   freedom, he finds record of the spiritual giants whose experience
   generated the religious atmosphere we breathe. For, as in law and
   literature, so in religion we are debtors to our ancestors; but their
   life must find in us a kindred apprehension, else it would not quicken;
   and we must give back what we have received, or perish by
   unfaithfulness to our trust. Abraham, the friend of God, Moses the
   inspired patriot, Elijah the preacher of the still small voice, and
   Jeremiah the foreseer of a law written on the conscience, are not
   ancestors of Pharisees who inherit their flesh and name, so much as of
   kindred spirits who put trust in a righteous God above offerings of
   blood, who build up free nations by wisdom, who speak truth in
   simplicity though four hundred priests cry out for falsehood, and who
   make self-examination before the Searcher of hearts more sacred than
   the confessional. When the fierce ritual of Syria, with the awe of a
   Divine voice, bade Abraham slay his son, he did not reflect that he had
   no perfect theory of the absolute to justify him in departing from
   traditional revelation, but trusted that the Father, whose voice from
   heaven he heard at heart, was better pleased with mercy than with
   sacrifice; and this trust was his righteousness. Its seed was sown from
   heaven, but it grew in the soil of an honest and good heart. So in each
   case we trace principles of reason and right, to which our heart
   perpetually responds, and our response to which is a truer sign of
   faith than such deference to a supposed external authority as would
   quench these principles themselves.

   It may be thought that Baron Bunsen ignores too peremptorily the
   sacerdotal element in the Bible, forgetting how it moulded the form of
   the history. He certainly separates the Mosaic institutions from
   Egyptian affinity more than our Spencer and Warburton would permit;
   more, it seems, than Hengstenberg considers necessary. But the
   distinctively Mosaic is with him, not the ritual, but the spiritual,
   which generated the other, but was overlaid by it. Moses, he thinks,
   would gladly have founded a free religious society, in which the
   primitive tables written by the Divine finger on man's heart should
   have been law; but the rudeness or hardness of his people's heart
   compelled him to a sacerdotal system and formed tablets of stone. In
   favour of this view, it may be remarked, that the tone of some passages
   in Exodus appears less sacerdotal than that of later books in the
   Pentateuch. But, be this as it may, the truly Mosaic (according to our
   author) is not the Judaic, but the essentially human; and it is not the
   Semitic form, often divergent from our modes of conception, but the
   eternal truths of a righteous God, and of the spiritual sacrifices with
   which He is pleased, that we ought to recognise as most characteristic
   of the Bible, and these truths the same Spirit which spoke of old
   speaks, through all variety of phrase, in ourselves.

   That there was a Bible before our Bible, and that some of our present
   books, as certainly Genesis and Joshua, and perhaps Job, Jonah, Daniel,
   are expanded from simpler elements, is indicated in the book before us
   rather than proved as it might be. Fuller details may be expected in
   the course of the revised Bible for the People, [9] that grand
   enterprise of which three parts have now appeared. So far as it has
   gone, some amended renderings have interest, but are less important
   than the survey of the whole subject in the Introduction. The word
   Jehovah has its deep significance brought out by being render The
   Eternal. The famous Shiloh (Gen. xlix. 10) is taken in its local sense,
   as the sanctuary where the young Samuel was trained; which, if
   doctrinal perversions did not interfere, hardly any one would doubt to
   be the true sense. The three opening verses of Genesis are treated as
   side-clauses (when God created, &c.), so that the first direct
   utterance of the Bible is in the fourth verse, God said, Let there be
   light.' Striking as this is, the Hebrew permits, rather than requires
   it. Less admissible is the division after verse 4 of the 2nd chapter,
   as if This is the history' was a summary of what precedes, instead of
   an announcement of what follows. But the 1st verse of the 2nd chapter
   belongs properly to the preceding. Sometimes the translator seems right
   in substance but wrong in detail. He rightly rejects the perversions
   which make the cursing Psalms evangelically inspired; but he forgets
   that the bitterest curses of Psalm 109 (from verse 6 to 19) are not the
   Psalmist's own, but a speech in the mouth of his adversary. These are
   trifles, when compared with the mass of information, and the manner of
   wielding it, in the prefaces to the work. There is a grasp of materials
   and a breadth of view from which the most practised theologian may
   learn something, and persons least versed in Biblical studies acquire a
   comprehensive idea of them. Nothing can be more dishonest than the
   affectation of contempt with which some English critics endeavoured to
   receive this instalment of a glorious work. To sneer at demonstrated
   criticisms as old,' and to brand fresh discoveries as new,' is worthy
   of men who neither understand the Old Testament nor love the New. But
   they to whom the Bible is dear for the truth's sake will wish its
   illustrious translator life to accomplish a task as worthy of a
   Christian statesman's retirement as the Tusculans of Cicero were of the
   representative of Rome's lost freedom.

   Already in the volume before-mentioned Baron Bunsen has exhibited the
   Hebrew Prophets as witnesses to the Divine Government. To estimate
   aright his services in this province would require from most Englishmen
   years of study. Accustomed to be told that modern history is expressed
   by the Prophets in a riddle, which requires only a key to it, they are
   disappointed to hear of moral lessons, however important. Such notions
   are the inheritance of days when Justin could argue, in good faith,
   that by the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria were intended
   the Magi and their gifts, and that the King of Assyria signified King
   Herod (!); [10] or when Jerome could say, No one doubts that by
   Chaldeans are meant Demons,' [11] and the Shunammite Abishag could be
   no other than heavenly wisdom, for the honour of David's old age [12]
   --not to mention such things as Lot's daughters symbolizing the Jewish
   and Gentile Churches. [13] It was truly felt by the early fathers that
   Hebrew prophecy tended to a system more spiritual than that of Levi;
   and they argued unanswerably that circumcision and the Sabbath [14]
   were symbols for a time, or means to ends. But when, instead of using
   the letter as an instrument of the spirit, they began to accept the
   letter in all its parts as their law, and twisted it into harmony with
   the details of Gospel history, they fell into inextricable
   contradictions; the most rational interpreter among them is Jerome, and
   the perusal of his criticisms is their ample confutation. Nor could the
   strong intellect of Augustine compensate for his defect of little
   Greek, which he shared with half, and of less Hebrew, which he shared
   with most of the Fathers. But with the revival of learning began a
   reluctant and wavering, yet inevitable, retreat from the details of
   patristic exposition, accompanied with some attempts to preserve its
   spirit. Even Erasmus looked that way; Luther's and Calvin's strong
   sense impelled them some strides in the same direction; but Grotius,
   who outweighs as a critic any ten opposites, went boldly on the road.
   In our own country each successive defence of the prophecies, in
   proportion as its author was able, detracted something from the extent
   of literal prognostication; and either laid stress on the moral
   element, or urged a second, as the spiritual sense. Even Butler foresaw
   the possibility, that every prophecy in the Old Testament might have
   its elucidation in contemporaneous history; but literature was not his
   strong point, and he turned aside, endeavouring to limit it, from an
   unwelcome idea, Bishop Chandler is said to have though twelve passages
   in the Old Testament directly Messianic; others restricted this
   character to five. Paley ventures to quote only one. Bishop Kidder [15]
   conceded freely an historical sense in Old Testament texts remote from
   adaptations in the New. The apostolic Middleton pronounced firmly for
   the same principle; Archbishop Newcome [16] and others proved in detail
   its necessity. Coleridge, in a suggestive letter, preserved in the
   memoirs of Cary, the translator of Dante, threw secular prognostication
   altogether out of the idea of prophecy. [17] Dr. Arnold, and his truest
   followers, bear, not always consistently, on the same side. On the
   other hand, the declamatory assertions, so easy in pulpits or on
   platforms, and aided sometimes by powers, which produce silence rather
   than conviction, have not only kept alive but magnified with uncritical
   exaggeration, whatever the Fathers had dreamt or modern rhetoric could
   add, tending to make prophecy miraculous. Keith's edition of Newton
   need not be here discussed. Davison, of Oriel, with admirable skill,
   threw his argument into a series as it were of hypothetical syllogisms,
   with only the defect (which some readers overlook) that his minor
   premise can hardly in a single instance be proved. Yet the stress which
   he lays on the moral element of prophecy atones for his sophistry as
   regards the predictive. On the whole, even in England, there is a wide
   gulf between the arguments of our genuine critics, with the convictions
   of our most learned clergy, on the one side, and the assumptions of
   popular declamation on the other. This may be seen on a comparison of
   Kidder with Keith. [18] But in Germany there has been a pathway
   streaming with light, from Eichhorn to Ewald, aided by the poetical
   penetration of Herder and the philological researches of Gesenius,
   throughout which the value of the moral element in prophecy has been
   progressively raised, and that of the directly predictive, whether
   secular or Messianic, has been lowered. Even the conservatism of Jahn
   amongst Romanists, and of Hengstenberg amongst Protestants, is free and
   rational, compared to what is often in this country required with
   denunciation, but seldom defended by argument.

   To this inheritance of opinion Baron Bunsen succeeds. Knowing these
   things, and writing for men who know them, he has neither the advantage
   in argument of unique knowledge, nor of unique ignorance. He dare not
   say, though it was formerly said, that David foretold the exile,
   because it is mentioned in the Psalms. lie cannot quote Nahum
   denouncing ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against Tyre, without
   remembering that already the Babylonian power threw its shadow across
   Asia, and Nebuchadnezzar was mustering his armies. If he would quote
   the book of Isaiah, he cannot conceal, after Gesenius, Ewald, and
   Maurer have written, that the book is composed of elements of different
   eras. Finding Perso-Babylonian, or new-coined words, such as sagans for
   officers, and Chaldaic forms of the Hebrew verb, such as Aphel for
   Hiphil, in certain portions, and observing that the political horizon
   of these portions is that of the sixth century, while that of the elder
   or more purely Hebraic portions belonged to the eighth, he must accept
   a theory of authorship and of prediction, modified accordingly. So, if
   under the head of Zechariah he finds three distinct styles and aspects
   of affairs, he must acknowledge so much, whether he is right or wrong
   in conjecturing the elder Zechariah of the age of Isaiah to have
   written the second portion, and Uriah in Jeremiah's age the third. If
   he would quote Micah, as designating Bethlehem for the birthplace of
   the Messiah, he cannot shut his eyes to the fact, that the Deliverer to
   come from thence was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian.
   If he would follow Pearson in quoting the second Psalm, Thou art my
   son; he knows that Hebrew idiom convinced even Jerome [19] the true
   rendering was, worship purely. He may read in Psalm xxxiv. that, not a
   bone of the righteous shall be broken,' but he must feel a difficulty
   in detaching this from the context, so as to make it a prophecy of the
   crucifixion. If he accepts mere versions of Psalm xxii. 17, he may
   wonder how piercing the hands and the feet' can fit into the whole
   passage; but if he prefers the most ancient Hebrew reading, he finds,
   instead of piercing,' the comparison like a lion,' and this corresponds
   sufficiently with the dogs' of the first clause; though a morally
   certain emendation would make the parallel more perfect by reading the
   word lions' in both clauses. [20] In either case, the staring monsters
   are intended, by whom Israel is surrounded and torn. Again he finds in
   Hosea that the Lord loved Israel when he was young, and called him out
   of Egypt to be his son; but he must feel, with Bishop Kidder, that such
   a citation is rather accommodated to the flight of Joseph into Egypt,
   than a prediction to be a ground of argument. Fresh from the services
   of Christmas, he may sincerely exclaim, Unto us a child is born; but he
   knows that the Hebrew translated Mighty God, is at least disputable,
   that perhaps it means only Strong and Mighty One, Father of an Age; and
   he can never listen to any one who pretends that the Maiden's Child of
   Isaiah vii. 16, was not to be born in the reign of Ahaz, as a, sign
   against the Kings Pekah and Rezin. In the case of Daniel, he may doubt
   whether all parts of the book are of one age, or what is the starting
   point of the seventy weeks; but two results are clear beyond fair
   doubt, that the period of weeks ended in the reign of Antiochus
   Epiphanes, and that those portions of the book, supposed to be
   specially predictive, are a history of past occurrences up to that
   reign. When so vast an induction on the destructive side has been gone
   through, it avails little that some passages may be doubtful, one
   perhaps in Zechariah, and one in Isaiah, capable of being made directly
   Messianic, and a chapter possibly in Deuteronomy foreshadowing the
   final fall of Jerusalem. Even these few cases, the remnant of so much
   confident rhetoric, tend to melt, if they are not already melted, in
   the crucible of searching inquiry. If our German had ignored all that
   the masters of philology have proved on these subjects, his countrymen
   would have raised a storm of ridicule, at which he must have drowned
   himself in the Neckar.

   Great then is Baron Bunsen's merit, in accepting frankly the belief of
   scholars, and yet not despairing of Hebrew Prophecy as a witness to the
   kingdom of God. The way of doing so left open to him, was to show,
   pervading the Prophets, those deep truths which lie at the heart of
   Christianity, and to trace the growth of such ideas, the belief in a
   righteous God, and the nearness of man to God, the power of prayer, and
   the victory of self-sacrificing patience, ever expanding in men's
   hearts, until the fulness of time came, and the ideal of the Divine
   thought was fulfilled in the Son of Mari. Such accordingly is the
   course our author pursues, not with the critical finish of Ewald, but
   with large moral grasp. Why he should add to his moral and metaphysical
   basis of prophecy, a notion of foresight by vision of particulars, or a
   kind of clairvoyance, though he admits it to be [21] a natural gift,
   consistent with fallibility, is not so easy to explain. One would wish
   he might have intended only the power of seeing the ideal in the
   actual, or of tracing the Divine Government in the movements of men. He
   seems to mean more than presentiment or sagacity; and this element in
   his system requires proof.

   The most brilliant portion of the prophetical essays is the treatment
   of the later Isaiah. With the insertion of four chapters concerning
   Hezekiah from the histories of the kings, the words and deeds of the
   elder Isaiah apparently close. It does not follow that all the
   prophecies arranged earlier in the book are from his lips; probably
   they are not; but it is clear to demonstration, [22] that the later
   chapters (xl., &c.,) are upon the stooping of Nebo, and the bowing down
   of Babylon, when the Lord took out of the hand of Jerusalem the cup of
   trembling; for the glad tidings of the decree of return were heard upon
   the mountains; and the people went forth, not with haste or flight, for
   their God went before them, and was their rereward (ch. lii.). So they
   went forth with joy, and were led forth with peace (ch. liv). So the
   arm of the Lord was laid bare, and his servant who had foretold it was
   now counted wise, though none had believed his report. We cannot take a
   portion out of this continuous song, and by dividing it as a chapter,
   separate its primary meaning from what precedes and follows. The
   servant in chapters lii. and liii. must have relation to the servant in
   chapters xlii. and xlix. Who was this servant, that had foretold the
   exile and the return, and had been a man of grief, rejected of his
   people, imprisoned and treated as a malefactor? The oldest Jewish
   tradition, preserved in Origen, [23] and to be inferred from Justin,
   [24] said the chosen people--in opposition to heathen oppressors--an
   opinion which suits ch. xlix. ver. 3. Nor is the [25] later exposition
   of the Targum altogether at variance; for though Jonathan speaks of the
   Messiah, it is in the character of a Judaic deliverer: and his
   expressions about the holy people's being multiplied,' and seeing their
   sanctuary rebuilt, especially when he calls the holy people a remnant,
   [26] may be fragments of a tradition older than his time. It is idle,
   with Pearson, [27] to quote Jonathan as a witness to the Christian
   interpretation, unless his conception of the Messiah were ours. But the
   idea of the Anointed One, which some of the Psalms belongs to Israel,
   shifted from time to time, being applied now to people, and now to king
   or prophet, until at length it assumed a sterner form, as the Jewish
   spirit was hardened by persecutions into a more vindicative hope. The
   first Jewish expositor who loosened, without breaking Rabbinical
   fetters, R. Saadiah, [28] in the 9th cent named Jeremiah as the man of
   grief, and emphatically the prophet of the return, rejected of his
   people. Grotius, with his usual sagacity, divined the same clue; though
   Michaelis says upon it, pessimè Grotius. Baron Bunsen puts together,
   with masterly analysis, the illustrative passages of Jeremiah; and it
   is difficult to resist the conclusion to which they tend. Jeremiah
   compares his whole people to sheep going astray, [29] and himself to a
   lamb or an ox, brought the slaughter.' [30] He was taken from prison;
   [31] and his generation, or posterity, none took account of; [32] he
   interceded for his people in prayer: [33] but was not the less
   despised, and a man of grief, so that no sorrow was like his; [34] men
   assigned his grave with the wicked, [35] and his tomb with the
   oppressors; all who followed him seemed cut off out of the land of the
   living, [36] yet his seed prolonged their days; [37] his prophecy was
   fulfilled, [38] and the arm of the Eternal laid bare; he was counted
   wise on the return; his place in the book of Sirach [39] shows how
   eminently he was enshrined in men's thoughts as the servant of God; and
   in the book of Maccabees [40] he is the gray prophet, who is seen in
   vision, fulfilling his task of interceding for the people.

   This is an imperfect sketch, but may lead readers to consider the
   arguments for applying Isaiah lii. and liii. to Jeremiah. Their weight
   (in the master's hand) in so great, that if any single person should be
   selected, they prove Jeremiah should be the one. Nor are they a slight
   illustration of the historical sense of that famous chapter, which in
   the original is a history. [41] Still the general analogy of the Old
   Testament which makes collective Israel, or the prophetic remnant,
   especially the servant of Jehovah, and the comparison of c. xlii.,
   xlix. may permit us to think the oldest interpretation the truest; with
   only this admission, that the figure of Jeremiah stood forth amongst
   the Prophets, and tinged the delineation of the true Israel, that is,
   the faithful remnant who had been disbelieved--just as the figure of
   Laud or Hammond might represent the Caroline Church in the eyes of her
   poet,

   If this seems but a compromise, it may be justified by Ewald's phrase,
   Die wenigen Treuen im Exile, Jeremjah und andre,' [42] though he makes
   the servant idealized Israel.

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

   Loudly as justice and humanity exclaim against such traditional
   distortion of prophecy as makes their own sacred writings a ground of
   cruel prejudice against the Hebrew people, and the fidelity of this
   remarkable race to the oracles of their fathers a handle for social
   obloquy, the cause of Christianity itself would be the greatest gainer,
   if we laid aside weapons, the use of which brings shame. Israel would
   be acknowledged, as in some sense still a Messiah, having borne
   centuries of reproach through the sin of the nations; but the Saviour
   who fulfilled in his own person the highest aspiration of Hebrew seers
   and of mankind, thereby lifting the ancient words, so to speak, into a
   new and higher power, would be recognised as having eminently the
   unction of a prophet whose words die not, of a priest in a temple not
   made with hands, and of a king in the realm of thought, delivering his
   people from a bondage of moral evil, worse than Egypt or Babylon. If
   already the vast majority of the prophecies are acknowledged by our
   best authorities to require some such rendering, in order to
   Christianize them, and if this acknowledgment has become uniformly
   stronger in proportion as learning was unfettered, the force of analogy
   leads us to anticipate that our Isaiah too must require a similar
   interpretation. No new principle is thrust upon the Christian world, by
   our historical understanding of this famous chapter; but a case which
   had been thought exceptional, is shown to harmonize with a general
   principle.

   Whether the great prophet, whose triumphant thanksgiving on the return
   from Babylon forms the later chapters of our Isaiah, is to remain
   without a name, or whether Baron Bunsen has succeeded in identifying
   him with Baruch, the disciple, scribe, and perhaps biographer or editor
   of Jeremiah, is a question of probability. Most readers of the argument
   for the identity will feel inclined to assent; but a doubt may occur,
   whether many an unnamed disciple of the prophetic school may not have
   burnt with kindred zeal, and used diction not peculiar to any one;
   while such a doubt may be strengthened by the confidence with which our
   critic ascribes a recasting of Job, and of parts of other books, to the
   same favourite Baruch. Yet, if kept within the region of critical
   conjecture, his reasons are something more than ingenious. It may weigh
   with some Anglicans, that a letter ascribed to Athanasius mentions
   Baruch among the canonical prophets. [43]

   In distinguishing the man Daniel from our book of Daniel, and in
   bringing the latter as low as the reign of Epiphanes, our author only
   follows the admitted necessities of the case. [44] Not only Macedonian
   words, such as symphonia [45] and psanterion, but the texture of the
   Chaldaic, with such late forms as dv ,lkvn and 'ln the pronominal m and
   h having passed into n, and not only minute description of Antiochus's
   reign, but the stoppage of such description at the precise date 169
   B.C., remove all philological and critical doubt as to the age of the
   book. But what seems peculiar to Baron Bunsen, is the interpretation of
   the four empires' symbols with reference to the original Daniel's abode
   in Nineveh: so that the winged lion traditionally meant the Assyrian
   empire; the bear was the Babylonian symbol; the leopard that of the
   Medes and Persians; while the fourth beast represented, as is not
   uncommonly held, the sway of Alexander. A like reference is traced in
   the mention of Hiddekel, or the Tigris, in ch. x; for, if the scene had
   been Babylon under Darius, the river must have been the Euphrates. The
   truth seems, that starting like many a patriot bard of our own, from a
   name traditionally sacred, the writer used it with no deceptive
   intention, as a dramatic form which dignified his encouragement of his
   countrymen in their great struggle against Antiochus. The original
   place of the book, [46] amongst the later Hagiographa of the Jewish
   canon, and the absence of any mention of it by the son of Sirach,
   strikingly confirm this view of its origin; and, if some obscurity
   rests upon details, the general conclusion, that the book contains no
   predictions, except by analogy and type, can hardly be gainsaid. But it
   may not the less, with some of the latest Psalms, have nerved the men
   of Israel, when they turned to flight the armies of the aliens; and it
   suggests, in the Godless invader, no slight forecast of Caligula again
   invading the Temple with like abomination, as well as of whatever
   exalts itself against faith and conscience, to the end of the world. It
   is time for divines to recognise these things, since, with their
   opportunities of study, the current error is as discreditable to them,
   as for the well-meaning crowd, who are taught to identify it with their
   creed, it is a matter of grave compassion.

   It provokes a smile on serious topics to observe the zeal with which
   our critic vindicates the personality of Jonah, and the originality of
   his hymn (the latter being generally thought doubtful), while he
   proceeds to explain that the narrative of our book, in which the hymn
   is imbedded, contains a late legend, [47] founded on misconception. One
   can imagine the cheers which the opening of such an essay might evoke
   in some of our own circles, changing into indignation as the
   distinguished foreigner developed Isis views. After this, he might
   speak more gently of mythical theories.

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

   The great result is to vindicate the work of the Eternal Spirit; that
   abiding influence, which as our church teaches us in the Ordination
   Service, underlies all others, and in which converge all images of old
   time and means of grace now; temple, Scripture, finger, and hand of
   God; and again, preaching, sacraments, waters which comfort, and flame
   which burns. If such a Spirit did not dwell in the Church the Bible
   would not be inspired, for the Bible is, before all things, the written
   voice of the congregation. Bold as such a theory of inspiration may
   sound, it was the earliest creed of the Church, and it is the only one
   to which the facts of Scripture answer. The sacred writers acknowledge
   themselves men of like passions with ourselves, and we are promised
   illumination from the Spirit which dwelt in them. Hence, when we find
   our Prayer-book constructed on the idea of the Church being an inspired
   society, instead of objecting that every one of us is fallible, we
   should define inspiration consistently with the facts of Scripture, and
   of human nature. These would neither exclude the idea of fallibility
   among Israelites of old, nor teach us to quench the Spirit in true
   hearts for ever. But if any one prefers thinking the Sacred Writers
   passionless machines, and calling Luther and Milton uninspired,' let
   him co-operate in researches by which his theory, if true, will be
   triumphantly confirmed. Let him join in considering it a religious duty
   to print the most genuine text of those words which he calls Divine;
   let him yield no grudging assent to the removal of demonstrated
   interpolations in our text or errors in our translation; let him give
   English equivalents for its Latinisms, once natural, but now become
   deceptive; let him next trace fairly the growth of our complex
   doctrines out of scriptural germs, whether of simple thought or of
   Hebrew idiom, then, if he be not prepared to trust our Church with a
   larger freedom in incorporating into her language the results of such
   inquiry and adapting one-sided forms to wider experience, he will at
   least have acquired such a knowledge of this field of thought as may
   induce him to treat labourers in it with respect. A recurrence to first
   principles, even of Revelation, may, to minds prudent or timid, seem a
   process of more danger than advantage; and it is possible to defend our
   traditional theology, if stated reasonably, and with allowance for the
   accidents of its growth. But what is not possible, with honesty, is to
   uphold a fabric of mingled faith and speculation, and in the same
   breath to violate the instinct which believed, and blindfold the mind
   which reasoned. It would be strange if God's work were preserved, by
   disparaging the instruments which His wisdom chose for it.

   On turning to the Hippolytus [48] we find a congeries of subjects, but
   yet a whole, pregnant and suggestive beyond any book of our time. To
   lay deep the foundations of faith in the necessities of the human mind,
   and to establish its confirmation by history, distinguishing the local
   from the universal, and translating the idioms of priesthoods or races
   into the broad speech of humanity, are amongst parts of the great
   argument. Of those wonderful aphorisms, which are further developed in
   the second volume of Gott in der Geschichte, suffice it here, that
   their author stands at the farthest pole from those who find no divine
   footsteps in the Gentile world. He believes in Christ, because he first
   believes in God and in mankind. In this he harmonizes with the church
   Fathers before Augustine, and with all our deepest Evangelical school.
   In handling the New Testament he remains faithful to his habit of
   exalting spiritual ideas, and the leading characters by whose personal
   impulse they have been stamped on the world. Other foundation for
   healthful mind or durable society he suffers no man to lay, save that
   of Jesus, the Christ of God. In Him he finds brought to perfection that
   religious idea, which is the thought of the Eternal, without conformity
   to which our souls cannot be saved from evil. He selects for emphasis
   such sayings as, I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how I would it
   were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am
   I straitened until it be accomplished!' In these he finds the innermost
   mind of the Son of Man, undimmed by the haze of mingled imagination and
   remembrance, with which his awful figure should scarcely fail to be at
   length invested by affection. The glimpses thus afforded us into the
   depth of our Lord's purpose, and his law of giving rather than
   receiving, explain the wonder-working power with which he wielded the
   truest hearts of his generation, and correspond to his life and death
   of self-sacrifice.

   This recognition of Christ as the moral Saviour of mankind may seem to
   some Baron Bunsen's most obvious claim to the name of Christian. For,
   though he embraces with more than orthodox warmth New Testament terms,
   he explains them in such a way, that he may be charged with using
   Evangelical language in a philosophical sense. But in reply he would
   ask, what proof is there that the reasonable sense of St. Paul's words
   was not the one which the Apostle intended? Why may not justification
   by faith have meant the peace of mind, or sense of Divine approval,
   which comes of trust in a righteous God, rather than a fiction of merit
   by transfer? St. Paul would then be teaching moral responsibility, as
   opposed to sacerdotalism; or that to obey is better than sacrifice.
   Faith would be opposed, not to the good deeds which conscience
   requires, but to works of appeasement by ritual. Justification would be
   neither an arbitrary ground of confidence, nor a reward upon condition
   of our disclaiming merit, but rather a verdict of forgiveness upon our
   repentance, and of acceptance upon the offering of our hearts. It is
   not a fatal objection, to say that St. Paul would thus teach Natural
   Religion, unless we were sure that he was bound to contradict it; but
   it is a confirmation of the view, if it brings his hard sayings into
   harmony with the Gospels and with the Psalms, as well as with the
   instincts of our best conscience. If we had dreamed of our nearest
   kindred in irreconcilable combat, and felt anguish at the thought of
   opposing either, it could be no greater relief to awake, and find them
   at concord, than it would be to some minds to find the antagonism
   between Nature and Revelation vanishing [49] in a wider grasp and
   deeper perception of the one, or in a better balanced statement of the
   other.

   If our philosopher had persuaded us of the moral nature of
   Justification, he would not shrink from adding that Regeneration is a
   correspondent giving of insight, or an awakening of forces of the soul.
   By Resurrection he would mean a spiritual quickening. Salvation would
   be our deliverance, not from the life-giving God, but from evil and
   darkness, which are His finite opposites, (ho antikeimenos.
   Propitiation would be the recovery of that peace, which cannot be while
   sin divides us from the Searcher of hearts. The eternal is what belongs
   to God, as spirit, therefore the negation of things finite and
   unspiritual, whether world, or letter, or rite of blood. The hateful
   fires of the vale of Hinnom, (Gehenna,) are hardly in the strict letter
   imitated by the God who has pronounced them cursed, but may serve as
   images of distracted remorse. Heaven is not a place, so much as
   fulfilment of the love of God. The kingdom of God is no more Romish
   sacerdotalism than Jewish royalty, but the realization of the Divine
   Will in our thoughts and lives. This expression of spirit, in deed and
   form, is generically akin to creation, and illustrates the incarnation.
   For though the true substance of Deity took body in the Son of Man,
   they who know the Divine Substance to be Spirit, will conceive of such
   embodiment of the Eternal Mind very differently from those who abstract
   all Divine attributes, such as consciousness, fore-thought, and love,
   and then imagine a material residuum, on which they confer the Holiest
   name, The Divine attributes are [50] consubstantial with the Divine
   essence. He who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him. Thus the
   incarnation becomes with our author as purely spiritual, as it was with
   St. Paul. The son of David by birth is the Son of God by the spirit of
   holiness. What is flesh, is born of flesh, and what is spirit, is born
   of spirit. [51]

   If we would estimate the truth of such views, the full import of which
   hardly lies on the surface, we find two lines of inquiry present
   themselves as criteria: and each of these divides itself into two
   branches. First, as regards the subject matter, both spiritual
   affection and metaphysical reasoning forbid us to confine revelations
   like those of Christ to the first half century of our era, but show at
   least affinities of our faith existing in men's minds, anterior to
   Christianity, and renewed with deep echo from living hearts in many a
   generation. Again, on the side of external criticism, we find the
   evidences of our canonical books and of the patristic authors nearest
   to them, are sufficient to prove illustration in outward act of
   principles perpetually true; but not adequate to guarantee narratives
   inherently incredible, or precepts evidently wrong. Hence we are
   obliged to assume in ourselves a verifying faculty, not unlike the
   discretion which a mathematician would use in weighing a treatise on
   geometry, or the liberty which a musician would reserve in reporting a
   law of harmony. Thus, as we are expressly told, we are to have the
   witness in ourselves. It is not our part to dictate to Almighty God,
   that He ought to have spared us this strain upon our consciences; nor
   in giving us through His Son a deeper revelation of His own presence,
   was He bound to accompany His gift by a special form of record. [52]
   Hence there is no antecedent necessity that the least rational view of
   the gospel should be the truest, or that our faith should have no human
   element, and its records be exempt from historical law. Rather we may
   argue, the more Divine the germ, the more human must be the
   development.

   Our author then believes St. Paul, because be understands him
   reasonably. Nor does his acceptance of Christ's redemption from evil
   bind him to repeat traditional fictions about our canon, or to read its
   pages with that dulness which turns symbol and poetry into materialism.
   On the side of history lies the strength of his genius. His treatment
   of the New Testament is not very unlike the acute criticism of De
   Wette, tempered by the affectionateness of Neander. He finds in the
   first three gospels divergent forms of the tradition, once oral, and
   perhaps catechetical, in the congregations of the apostles. He thus
   explains the numerous traces characteristic of a traditional narrative.
   He does not ascribe the quadruple division of record to the four
   churches of Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, on the same
   principle as liturgical families are traced; but he requires time
   enough for some development, and for the passing of some symbol into
   story. By making the fourth gospel the latest of all our genuine books,
   he accounts for its style (so much more Greek than the Apocalypse), and
   explains many passages. The verse, And no man hath ascended up to
   Heaven, but he that came down,' [53] is intelligible as a free comment
   near the end of the first century; but has no meaning in our Lord's
   mouth at a time when the ascension had not been heard of. So the
   Apocalypse, if taken as a series of poetical visions, which represent
   the outpouring of the vials of wrath upon the city where the Lord was
   slain, ceases to be a riddle. Its horizon answers to that of Jerusalem
   already threatened by the legions of Vespasian, and its language is
   partly adapted from the older prophets, partly a repetition of our
   Lord's warnings as described by the Evangelists, or as deepened into
   wilder threatenings in the mouth of the later Jesus, [54] the son of
   Ananus. The Epistle to the Hebrews, so different in its conception of
   faith, and in its Alexandrine rhythm, from the doctrine and the
   language of St. Paul's known Epistles, has its degree of discrepance
   explained by ascribing it to some [55] companion of the apostle's; and
   minute reasons are found for fixing with probability on Apollos. The
   second of the Petrine Epistles, having alike external and internal
   evidence against its genuineness, is necessarily surrendered as a
   whole; and our critic's good faith in this respect is more certain than
   the ingenuity with which he reconstructs a part of it. The second
   chapter may not improbably be a quotation; but its quoter, and the
   author of the rest of the epistle, need not therefore have been St.
   Peter. Where so many points are handled, fancifulness in some may be
   pardoned; and indulgence is needed for the eagerness with which St.
   Paul is made a widower, because some fathers [56] misunderstood the
   tests, true yoke-fellow,' and leading about a sister.'

   After a survey of the Canon; the working as of leaven in meal, of that
   awakening of mankind which took its impulse from the life of Christ, is
   traced through the first seven generations of Christendom. After
   Origen, the first freedom of the Gospel grows faint, or is hardened
   into a system more Ecclesiastical in form, and more dialectical in
   speculation, the fresh language of feeling or symbol being transferred
   to the domain of logic, like Homer turned into prose by a scholiast. It
   need not, to a philosophical observer, necessarily follow that the
   change was altogether a corruption; for it may have been the
   Providential condition of religious feeling brought into contact with
   intellect, and of the heavenly kingdom's expansion in the world. The
   elasticity with which Christianity gathers into itself the elements of
   natural piety, and assimilates the relics of Gentile form and usage,
   can only be a ground of objection with those who have reflected little
   on the nature of revelation. But Baron Bunsen, as a countryman of
   Luther, and a follower of those Friends of God whose profound mysticism
   appears in the Theologia Germanica, takes decided part with the first
   freshness of Christian freedom, against the confused thought and
   furious passions which disfigure most of the great councils. Those who
   imagine that the laws of criticism are arbitrary (or as they say,
   subjective), may learn a different lesson from the array of passages,
   the balance of evidence, and the estimate of each author's point of
   view, with which the picture of Christian antiquity is unrolled in the
   pages of the Hippolytus. Every triumph of our faith, in purifying life,
   or in softening and enlightening barbarism, is there expressed in the
   lively records of Liturgies and Canons; and again the shadows of night
   approach, with monkish fanaticism and imperial tyranny, amidst
   intrigues of bishops who play the parts, alternately, of courtier and
   of demagogue.

   The picture was too truly painted for that ecclesiastical school which
   appeals loudest to antiquity, and has most reason to dread it. While
   they imagine a system of Divine immutability, or one in which, at
   worst, holy fathers unfolded reverently Apostolic oracles, the true
   history of the Church exhibits the turbulent growth of youth; a
   democracy, with all its passions, transforming itself into
   sacerdotalism, and a poetry, with its figures, partly represented by
   doctrine, and partly perverted. Even the text of Scripture fluctuated
   in sympathy with the changes of the Church, especially in passages
   bearing on asceticism, and the fuller development of the Trinity. The
   first Christians held that the heart was purified by faith; the
   accompanying symbol, water, became by degrees the instrument of
   purification. Holy baptism was at first preceded by a vow, in which the
   young soldier expressed his consciousness of spiritual truth; but when
   it became twisted into a false analogy with circumcision, the rite
   degenerated into a magical form, and the Augustinian notion, of a curse
   inherited by infants, was developed in connexion with it. Sacrifice,
   with the Psalmist, meant not the goat's or heifer's blood-shedding, but
   the contrite heart expressed by it. So, with St. Paul, it meant the
   presenting of our souls and bodies, as an oblation of the reason, or
   worship of the mind. The ancient liturgies contain prayers that God
   would make our sacrifices rational,' that is spiritual. Religion was
   thus moralized by a sense of the righteousness of God; and morality
   transfigured into religion, by a sense of His holiness. Vestiges of
   this earliest creed yet remain in our communion service. As in life, so
   in sacrament, the first Christians offered themselves in the spirit of
   Christ; therefore, in his name. But when the priest took the place of
   the congregation, when the sacramental signs were treated as the
   natural body, and the bodily sufferings of Christ enhanced above the
   self-sacrifice of his will even to the death of the cross, the centre
   of Christian faith became inverted, though its form remained. Men
   forgot that the writer to the Hebrews exalts the blood of an
   everlasting, that is, of a spiritual covenant; for what is fleshly,
   vanishes away. The angels who hover with phials, catching the drops
   from the cross, are pardonable in art, but make a step in theology
   towards transubstantiation. Salvation from evil through sharing the
   Saviour's spirit, was shifted into a notion of purchase from God
   through the price of his bodily pangs. The deep drama of heart and mind
   became externalized into a commercial transfer, and this effected by a
   form of ritual. So with the more speculative fathers, the doctrine of
   the Trinity was a profound metaphysical problem, wedded to what seemed
   consequences of the incarnation. But in ruder hands, it became a
   materialism almost idolatrous, or an arithmetical enigma. [57] Even
   now, different accepters of the same doctrinal terms hold many shades
   of conception between a philosophical view which recommends itself as
   easiest to believe, and one felt to be so irrational, that it calls in
   the aid of terror. Quasi non unitas, irrationaliter collecta, hæresin
   faciat; et Trinitas rationaliter expensa, veritatem constituat,' said
   Tertullian. [58]

   The historian of such variations was not likely, with those whose
   theology consists of invidious terms, to escape the nickname of
   Pelagian or Sabellian. He evidently could not state Original Sin in so
   exaggerated a form as to make the design of God altered by the first
   agents in his creation, or to destroy the notion of moral choice and
   the foundation of ethics. Nor could his Trinity destroy by inference
   that divine Unity which all acknowledge in terms. The fall of Adam
   represents with him ideally the circumscription of our spirits in
   limits of flesh and time, and practically the selfish nature with which
   we fall from the likeness of God, which should be fulfilled in man, So
   his doctrine of the Trinity ingenuously avoids building on texts which
   our Unitarian critics from Sir Isaac Newton to Gilbert Wakefield have
   impugned, but is a philosophical rendering of the first chapter of St.
   John's Gospel. The profoundest analysis of our world leaves the law of
   thought as its ultimate basis and bond of coherence. This thought is
   consubstantial with the Being of the Eternal I AM. Being, becoming, and
   animating, or substance, thinking, and conscious life, are expressions
   of a Triad, which may be also represented as will, [59] wisdom, and
   love, as light, radiance, and warmth, as fountain, stream, and united
   flow, as mind, thought, and consciousness, as person, word, and life,
   as Father, Son, and Spirit. In virtue of such identity of Thought with
   Being the primitive Trinity represented neither three originant
   principles nor three transient phases, but three eternal inherencies in
   one Divine Mind. The unity of God, as the eternal Father, is the [60]
   fundamental doctrine of Christianity.' But the Divine Consciousness or
   Wisdom, consubstantial with the Eternal Will, becoming personal in the
   Son of man, is the express image of the Father; and Jesus actually, but
   also mankind ideally, is the Son of God. If all this has a Sabellian or
   almost a Brahmanical sound, its impugners are bound, even on patristic
   grounds, to show how it differs from the doctrine of Justin Martyr,
   Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, and the historian Eusebius. If the
   language of those very fathers who wrote against different forms of
   Sabellianism, would, if now first used, be condemned as Sabellian, are
   we to follow the ancient or the modern guides? May not a straining
   after orthodoxy, with all the confusion incident to metaphysical terms,
   have led the scholars beyond their masters? We have some authorities,
   who, if Athanasius himself were quoted anonymously, would neither
   recognise the author nor approve his doctrine. They would judge him by
   the creed bearing his name, the sentiments of which are as difficult to
   reconcile with his genuine works as its Latin terms are with his Greek
   language. Baron Bunsen may admire that creed as little as Jeremy Taylor
   [61] and Tillotson did, without necessarily contradicting the great
   Father to whom it is ascribed. Still more, as a philosopher, sitting
   loose to our Articles, he may deliberately assign to the conclusions of
   councils a very subordinate value; and taking his stand on the genuine
   words of Holy Scripture, and the immutable laws of God to the human
   mind, he may say either the doctrine of the Trinity agrees with these
   tests, or, if you make it disagree, you make it false. If he errs in
   his speculation, he gives us in his critical researches the surest
   means of correcting his errors; and his polemic Is at least triumphant
   against those who load the church with the conclusions of patristic
   thought, and forbid our thinking sufficiently to understand them. As
   the coolest heads at Trent said, Take care lest in condemning Luther
   you condemn St. Augustine; so if our defenders of the faith would have
   men believe the doctrine of the Trinity, they had better not forbid
   metaphysics, nor even sneer at Realism.

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

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

   It would be difficult to say on what subject Baron Bunsen is not at
   home. But none is handled by him with more familiar mastery than that
   of Liturgies, ancient and modern. He has endeavoured to enlarge the
   meagre stores of the Lutheran Church by a collection of evangelical
   songs and prayers. [62] Rich in primitive models, yet adapted to
   Lutheran habits, this collection might be suggestive to any
   Nonconformist congregations which desire to enrich or temper their
   devotions by the aid of common prayers. Even our own Church, though not
   likely to recast her ritual in a foreign mould, might observe with
   profit the greater calmness and harmony of the older forms, as compared
   with the amplifications, which she has in some cases adopted. Our
   Litany is hardly equal to its germ. Nor do our collects exhaust
   available stores. Yet if it be one great test of a theology, that it
   shall bear to be prayed, our author has hardly satisfied it. Either
   reverence, or deference, may have prevented him from bringing his
   prayers into entire harmony with his criticisms; or it may be that a
   discrepance, which we should constantly diminish, is likely to remain
   between our feelings and our logical necessities. It is not the less
   certain, that some reconsideration of the polemical element in our
   Liturgy, as of the harder scholasticism in our theology, would be the
   natural offspring of any age of research in which Christianity was
   free; and if this, as seems but too probable, is to be much longer
   denied us, the consequence must be a lessening of moral strength within
   our pale, and an accession to influences which will not always be
   friendly. But to estrange our doctrinal teaching from the convictions,
   and our practical administration from the influence, of a Protestant
   Laity, are parts of one policy, and that not always a blind one. Nor is
   doctrinal narrowness of view without practical counterpart in the
   rigidity which excludes the breath of prayer from our churches for six
   days in seven, rather than permit a clergyman to select such portions
   as devotion suggests, and average strength permits.

   It did not fall within the scope of this Essay to define the extent of
   its illustrious subject's obligations (which be would no doubt largely
   acknowledge) to contemporary scholars, such as Mr. Birch, or others.
   Nor was it necessary to touch questions of ethnology and politics which
   might be raised by those who value Germanism so far as it is human,
   rather than so far as it is German. Sclavonians might notice the scanty
   acknowledgment of the vast contributions of their race to the
   intellectual wealth of Germany. [63] Celtic scholars might remark that
   triumph in a discovery which has yet to be proved, regarding the law of
   initial mutations in their language, is premature. [64] Nor would they
   assent to our author's ethical description of their race. So, when he
   asks: How long shall we bear this fiction of an external
   revelation',--that is, of one violating the heart and conscience,
   instead of expressing itself through them--or when he says, All this is
   delusion for those who believe it; but what is it in the mouths of
   those who teach it?'--or when he exclaims, Oh the fools! who, if they
   do see the imminent perils of this age, think to ward them off by
   narrow-minded persecution!' and when he repeats, Is it not time, in
   truth, to withdraw the veil from our misery? to tear off the mask from
   hypocrisy, and destroy that sham which is undermining all real ground
   under our feet? to point out the dangers which surround, nay, threaten
   already to engulf us?'--there will be some who think his language too
   vehement for good taste. Others will think burning words needed by the
   disease of our time. They will not quarrel on points of taste with a
   man who in our darkest perplexity has reared again the banner of truth,
   and uttered thoughts which give courage to the weak, and sight to the
   blind. If Protestant Europe is to escape those shadows of the twelfth
   century, which with ominous recurrence are closing round us, to Baron
   Bunsen will belong a foremost place among the champions of light and
   right. Any points disputable, or partially erroneous, which may be
   discovered in his many works, are as dust in the balance, compared with
   the mass of solid learning, and the elevating influence of a noble and
   Christian spirit. Those who have assailed his doubtful points are
   equally opposed to his strong ones. Our own testimony is, where we have
   been best able to follow him, we have generally found most reason to
   agree with him. But our little survey has not traversed his vast field,
   nor our plummet sounded his depth.


   Bunsen, with voice, like sound of trumpet born,

   Conscious of strength, and confidently bold,

   Well feign the sons of Loyola the scorn

   Which from thy books would scare their startled fold--

   To thee our Earth disclosed her purple morn,

   And Time his long-lost centuries unrolled;

   Far Realms unveiled the mystery of their Tongue

   Thou all their garlands on the Cross but hung.


   My lips but ill could frame thy Lutheran speech,

   Nor suits thy Teuton vaunt our British pride--

   But ah! not dead my soul to giant reach,

   That envious Eld's vast interval defied;

   And when those fables strange, our hirelings teach,

   I saw by genuine learning cast aside,

   Even like Linnæus kneeling on the sod,

   For faith from falsehood severed, thank I GOD.
     __________________________________________________________________

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

   [2] Egypt's Place in Universal History, by Christian C. J. Bunsen, &c.
   London. 1848, vol. i. 1854, vol. ii.

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

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

   [5] Aegypten's Stella in der Weltgeschichte, pp. 186-400; B. v. 1-3.
   Gotha. 1856.

   [6] Aegypten's Stelle, &c., B. v. 4-5, pp. 50-142. Gotha. 1857.

   [7] nomon etheto mete proskunein Theous . . . . sunaptesthai de medeni
   plen ton sunomosmenon; autos de . . . . epempse presbeis pros tous hupo
   Tethmoseos apelathentas poimenas . . . . kai hexiou sunepistrateuein
   k.t.l. Manetho, apud Jos. c. Apion. The whole passage has the stamp of
   genuine history.

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

   [9] Bibel-werk für die Gemeinde, I. and II. Leipzig. 1858.

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

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

   [12] To Nepotian. Letter 52.

   [13] Presbyteri apud Irenaeum.

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

   [15] Collected in Boyle Lectures.

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

   [17] Of prophecies in the sense of prognostication I utterly deny that
   there is any instance delivered by one of the illustrious Diadoche,
   whom the Jewish church comprised in the name Prophets--and I shall
   regard Cyrus as an exception, when I believe the 137th Psalm to have
   been composed by David . . . . Nay, I will go farther, and assert that
   the contrary belief, the hypothesis of prognostication, is in
   irrecconcileable oppugnancy to our Lord's declaration, that the times
   hath the Father reserved to Himself."--Memoir of Cary, vol. ii. p. 180.

   [18] Amongst recent authors, Dr. Palfrey, an American scholar, has
   expounded in five learned volumes the difficulties in current
   traditions about prophecy; but instead of remedying these by
   restricting the idea of revelation to Moses and the Gospels, he would
   have done better to seek a definition of revelation which should apply
   to the Psalms, and Prophets, and Epistles. Mr. Francis Newman, in his
   Hebrew Monarchy, is historically consistent in his expositions, which
   have not been controverted by any serious argument; but his mind seems
   to fail in the Ideal element; else he would see, that the typical ideas
   (of patience or of glory) in the Old Testament, find their culminating
   fulfilment in the New. Mr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures must make even
   those who value his argument, regret that to his acknowledged
   dialectical ability he has not added the rudiments of Biblical
   criticism. In all his volume not one text of Scripture is elucidated,
   nor a single difficulty in the evidences of Christianity removed.
   Recognised mistranslations, and misreadings, are alleged arguments, and
   passages from the Old Testament are employed without reference to the
   illustration, or inversion, which they have received in the New. Hence,
   as the eristic arts of logic without knowledge of the subject-matter
   become powerless, the author is a mere gladiator hitting in the dark,
   and his blows fall heaviest on what it was his duty to defend. As to
   his main argument (surely a strange parody of Butler), the sentence
   from Sir W. Hamilton prefixed to his volume, seems to me its gem, and
   its confutation. Of the reasoning, which would bias our interpretation
   of Isaiah, by telling us Feuerbach was an atheist, I need not say a
   word. We are promised from Oxford farther elucidations of the Minor
   Prophets by the Regius Professor of Hebrew, whose book seems launched
   sufficiently to catch the gales of friendship, without yet tempting out
   of harbour the blasts of criticism. Let us hope that, when the work
   appear, its interpretations may differ from those of Catena Aurea,
   published under high auspices in the same university, in which the
   narrative of Uriah the Hittite is improved by making David represent
   Christ, and Uriah symbolize the devil; so that the grievous crime which
   displeased the Lord,' becomes a typical prophecy of Him who was
   harmless and undefiled!

   [19] Cavillatur . . . . quod posuerim, . . . . Adorate purè . . . . ne
   violentus viderer interpres, et Jud locum darem.--Hierom. c. Ruffin. §
   19.

   [20] By reading klvy'ym for klvym. Septuagint version may have arisen
   from hqyphvny, taken as from nqph.

   [21] Die Kraft des Schauens, die im Mensshen verborgen liegt, und, von
   der Naturnothwendigkeit befreit, im hebräischen Prophetenthum sich zur
   wahren Weltanschauung erhoben hat . . . . ist der Schlüssel,' &c. Gott
   in der Geschichte, p. 149. Jene Herrlichkeit besteht nicht in dem
   Vorhersagen . . . . Dieses haben sie gemein mit manchen Aussprüchen der
   Pythia, . . . . und mit vielen Weissagungen der Hellscherinnen dieses
   Jahrhunderts . . . . ' id. p. 151.

   [22] To prove this, let any one read Jerome's arguments against it; if
   the sacred test itself be not sufficient proof. Go ye forth of
   Babylon,' &c., ch. xlviii. 20.

   [23] C. Celsum, i. 55. (Quoted by Pearson.)

   [24] For, in making the Gentiles mean Proselytes, they must have made
   the servant Israel. alla ti; ou pros ton nomon legei, kai tous
   photizomenous hup' autou, k.t.l.--Trypho, § 122.

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

   [26] yngvn tvldt qvds', and dmyh yt s'r'--Targum on Isaiah liii.

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

   [28] Titularly styled Gaon, as president of the Sora school.

   [29] Jer. xxiii. 1-2; l. 6-17; xii. 3.

   [30] Jer. xi. 19.

   [31] Jer. xxxviii. 4-6; xxxvii. 16.

   [32] Jer. xi. 19-23; xx. 10; xxxvi. 19; xlv. 2-3.

   [33] Jer: xviii. 20; xiv. 11; xv. i.

   [34] Jer. xviii. 18; xx. 9-17; Lam. iii. 1-13.

   [35] Lam. iii. 52, 53, 54; Jer. xxvi. 11-15, 23; xliv. 15, 16; i. 18,
   19.

   [36] Jer. xlv. 1-3; xi. 19; xli. 2-3; with xli. 9-10.

   [37] Psalm cxxvi. 1; Isaiah xliii. 1-5, 10-14.

   [38] Lam. i. 17; Jer. xvi. 15; xxx. 1, 2, 3, 10, 18; xxxi. 6-12; Isaiah
   xliv. 7-8; xlvi. 1-9, 10; l. 5-6; lii. 10-13.

   [39] Eccles. xlix. 6-7, and Jer. i.

   [40] 2 Macc. xv. 13, 14.

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

   [42] Die Propheten, d. A. B. 2ter Band. pp. 438-453.

   [43] Ieremias, kai sun auto Barouch, Threnoi, Epistole kai met' auton
   Iezekiel, k.t.l.--Ep. Fest.

   [44] Auberlen indeed defends, but says, Die Unächtheit Daniels ist in
   der modernen Theologie zum Axiom geworden.'--Der Prophet Daniel. Basel.
   1854.

   [45] Compare Philosophy of Universal History' (part of the Hippolytus),
   vol i. pp. 217-219, with Gott in der Geschichte, 1str Theil. pp.
   5l4-540.

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

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

   [48] Hippolytus and his Age, by Chr. C. J. Bunsen, &c. London, 1852.
   2nd edition recast, London, 1854. The awakening freshness of the first
   edition is hardly replaced by the fulness of the second. It is to be
   wished that the Biblical portions of the Philosophy of Universal
   History, vol. ii. pp. 149-338, were reprinted is a cheap form.

   [49] The doctrine of the Fall, the doctrine of Grace, and the doctrine
   of Atonement, are grounded in the instincts of mankind.'--Mozley on
   Predestination, chap. xi. p. 331.

   [50] On this point, the summary of St. Augustine at the end of his 13th
   book, On the Trinity,' is worth reading.

   [51] 'Neque sermo aliud quam Deus neque caro aliud quam homo,' and ex
   carne homo, ex spiritu Deus.'--Tertullian adv. Prax. cxxvii. Comp.
   Romans i. 1-3.

   [52] Butler's Analogy. Part ii. ch. iii. Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Books i.
   ii.

   [53] John iii. 13.

   [54] Josephus B. J. b. vi. c. v. § 3.

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

   [56] Clement and Origen, amongst others.

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

   [58] Adv. Prax. c. iii.

   [59] Anima hominis naturâ, suâ in se habet Trinitatis simulacrum; in se
   enim tria complectitur, Mentem, Intellectum, et Voluntatem; . . .
   cogitat . . . percipit . . . vult.'--Bede i. 8. Copying almost verbally
   St. Augustine.

   [60] Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 46. lst ed.

   [61] Liberty of Prophesying,' pp. 491-2' vol. vii. ed. Heber. Burnet's
   Own Times.' Letter from Tillotson at the end.

   [62] Gesang-und Gebet-buch. Hamburgh. 1846.

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

   [64] So the vaunted discovery of Professor Zeuss, deriving Cymry from
   to imaginary word Combroges,' is against the testimony of the hest
   Greek geographers.
     __________________________________________________________________

                 ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

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

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

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

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

   Perhaps most of the various parties who have at all engaged in the
   discussion of these subjects are agreed in admitting a wide distinction
   between the influences of feeling and those of reason; the impressions
   of conscience and the deductions of intellect; the dictations of moral
   and religious sense, and the conclusions from evidence; in reference
   especially to the questions agitated as to the grounds of belief in
   Divine revelation. Indeed, when we take into account the nature of the
   objects considered, the distinction is manifest and undeniable; when a
   reference is made to matters of external fact (insisted on as such) it
   is obvious that reason and intellect can alone be the proper judges of
   the evidence of such facts. When, on the other hand, the question may
   be as to points of moral or religious doctrine, it is equally clear,
   other and higher grounds of judgment and conviction must be appealed
   to.

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

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

   Thus we continually find the professed advocates of an external
   revelation and historical evidence, nevertheless making their appeal to
   conscience and feeling, and decrying the exercise of reason; and
   charging those who find critical objections in the evidence with
   spiritual blindness and moral perversity; and on the other hand we
   observe the professed upholders of faith and internal conviction as the
   only sound basis of religion, nevertheless regarding the external facts
   as not less essential truth which it would be profane to question. It
   often seems to be rather the want of clear apprehension in the first
   instance of the distinct kind and character of such inquiries, when on
   the one side directed to the abstract question of evidence, and when on
   the other pointing to the practical object of addressing the moral and
   religious feelings and affections, which causes so many writers on
   these subjects to betray an inconsistency between their professed
   purpose and their mode of carrying it out. They avow matter-of-fact
   inquiry--a question of the critical evidence for alleged events--yet
   they pursue it as if it were an appeal to moral sentiments; in which
   case it would be a virtue to assent, and a crime to deny: if it be the
   one, it should not be proposed as the other.

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

   If we wore inquiring into historical evidence in any other case
   (suppose e.g. of Cæsar's landing in Britain) it would be little to the
   purpose to be told that we must look at the case through our desires
   rather than our reason, and exercise a believing disposition rather
   than rashly scrutinize testimony by critical cavils. Those who speak
   thus on the question of religious belief, in fact shift the basis all
   belief from the alleged evidence of facts to the influence of an
   internal persuasion; they virtually give up the evidential proof so
   strongly insisted on, and confess that the whole is, after all, a mere
   matter of feeling and sentiment, just as much as those to whose views
   they so greatly object as openly avowing the very same thing.

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

   Indeed, with many who take up these questions, they are almost avowedly
   placed on the ground of practical expediency rather than of abstract
   truth. Good and earnest men become alarmed for the dangerous
   consequences they think likely to result from certain speculations on
   these subjects, and thence in arguing against them, are led to assume a
   tone of superiority, as the guardians of virtue and censors of right,
   rather than as unprejudiced inquirers into the matters-of-fact on
   which, nevertheless, they professedly make the case rest. And thus a
   disposition has been encouraged to regard any such question as one of
   right or wrong, rather than one of truth or error: to treat all
   objections as profane, and to discard exceptions unanswered as shocking
   and immoral.

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

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

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

   The idea of a positive external Divine revelation of some kind has
   formed the very basis of all hitherto received systems of Christian
   belief. The Romanist indeed regards that revelation as of the nature of
   a standing oracle accessible in the living voice of the Church; which
   being infallible, of course sufficiently accredits all the doctrines it
   announces, and constitutes them Divine. A more modified view has
   prevailed among a considerable section of Anglican theologians, who
   ground their faith on the same principles of Church authority, divested
   of its divine and infallible character. Most Protestants, with more or
   less difference of meaning, profess to regard revelation as once for
   all announced, long since finally closed, permanently recorded, and
   accessible only in the written Divine word contained in the Scriptures.
   And the discussion with those outside the pale of belief has been
   entirely one as to the validity of those external marks and
   attestations by which the truth of the alleged fact of such
   communication of the Divine will, was held to be substantiated.

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

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

   In subsequent ages, as the increasing claims of infallible Church
   authority gained ground, to discuss evidence became superfluous, and
   even dangerous and impious; accordingly, of this branch of theological
   literature (unless in the most entire subjection to ecclesiastical
   dictation) the mediæval church presented hardly any specimens.

   It was not perhaps till the 15th century, that any works bearing the
   character of what are now called treatises on the evidences' appeared;
   and these were probably elicited by the sceptical spirit which had
   already begun to show itself, arising out of the subtilties of the
   schoolmen. [65]

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

   Protestantism sought something more definite and substantial, and its
   demands were seconded and supported, more especially by the spirit of
   metaphysical reasoning which so widely extended itself in the 17th
   century, even into the domains of theology; and divines, stirred up by
   the allegations of the Deists, aimed at formal refutations of their
   objections, by drawing out the idea and the proofs of revelation into
   systematic propositions supported by logical arguments. In that and the
   subsequent period the same general style of argument on these topics
   prevailed among the advocates of the Christian cause. The appeal was
   mainly to the miracles of the Gospels, and here it was contended we
   want merely the same testimony of eye-witnesses which would suffice to
   substantiate any ordinary matter of fact; accordingly, the narratives
   were to be traced to writers at the time, who were either themselves
   eye-witnesses, or recorded the testimony of those who were so, and the
   direct transmission of the evidence being thus established, everything
   was held to be demonstrated. If any antecedent question was raised, a
   brief reference to the Divine Omnipotence to work the miracles, and to
   the Divine goodness to vouchsafe the revelation and confirm it by such
   proofs, was all that could be required to silence sceptical cavils.

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

   If we compare the general tone, character, and pretensions of those
   works which, in our schools and colleges, have been regarded as the
   standard authorities on the subject of the evidences,' we must
   acknowledge a great change in the taste or opinions of the times from
   the commencement of the last century to the present day; which has led
   the student to turn from the erudite folios of Jackson and
   Stillingfleet, or the more condensed arguments of Clarke On the
   Attributes, Grotius de Veritate, and Leslie's Method with the Deists,
   the universal textbooks of a past generation, to the writings of
   Lardner and Paley; the latter of whom, in the beginning of the present
   century, reigned supreme, the acknowledged champion of revelation, and
   the head of a school to which numerous others, as Campbell, Watson, and
   Douglas, contributed their labours. But more recently, these authors
   have been in an eminent degree superseded, by a recurrence to the once
   comparatively neglected resources furnished by Bishop Butler; of so
   much less formal, technical, and positive a kind, yet offering wider
   and more philosophical views of the subject; still, however,
   confessedly not supplying altogether that comprehensive discussion
   which is adapted to the peculiar tone and character of thought and
   existing state of knowledge in our own times.

   The state of opinion and information in different ages is peculiarly
   shown in the tone and character of those discussions which have
   continually arisen, affecting the grounds of religious belief. The
   particular species of difficulty or objection in the reception of
   Christianity, and especially of its external manifestations, which have
   been found most formidable, have varied greatly in different ages
   according to the prevalent modes of thought and the character of the
   dominant philosophy. Thus, the difficulties with respect to miraculous
   evidence in particular, will necessarily be very differently viewed in
   different stages of philosophical and physical information.
   Difficulties in the idea of suspensions of natural laws, in former ages
   were not at all felt, canvassed, or thought of. But in later times they
   have assumed a much deeper importance. In an earlier period of our
   theological literature, the critical investigation of the question of
   miracles was a point scarcely at all appreciated. The attacks of the
   Deists of the 17th and early part of the 18th century were almost
   wholly directed to other points. But the speculations of Woolston, and
   still more the subsequent influence of the celebrated Essay of Hume,
   had the effect of directing the attention of divines more pointedly to
   the precise topic of miraculous evidence; and to these causes was added
   the agitation of the question of the ecclesiastical miracles, giving
   rise to the semi-sceptical discussions of Middleton, which called forth
   a more exact spirit of examination into such distinctions as were
   needed to preserve the miracles of the Gospels from the criticisms
   applied to those of the Church. This distinction, in fact, involves a
   large part of the entire question; and towards marking it out
   effectually, various precautionary rules and principles were laid down
   by several writers. Thus, Bishop Warburton suggested as a criterion the
   necessity of the miracles to the ends of the dispensation, [66] which
   he conceived answered the demands of Middleton. Bishop Douglas made it
   the test--to connect miracles with inspiration in those who wrought
   them; this, he thought, would exclude the miracles of the Church. [67]

   But it was long since perceived that the argument from necessity of
   miracles is at best a very hazardous one, since it implies the
   presumption of constituting ourselves judges of such necessity, and
   admits the fair objection--when were miracles more needed than at the
   present day, to indicate the truth amid manifold error, or to propagate
   the faith? And again, in the other case, how is the inspiration to be
   ascertained apart from the miracles? or, if it be, what is the use of
   the miracles? In fact, in proportion as external evidence to facts is
   made the professed demand, it follows that we can only recur to those
   grounds and roles by which the intellect always proceeds in the
   satisfactory investigation of any questions of fact and evidence,
   especially those of physical phenomena. By an adherence to those great
   principles on which all knowledge is acquired--by a reference to the
   fixed laws of belief, and our convictions of established order and
   analogy--we estimate the credibility of alleged events and the value of
   testimony, and weigh them more carefully in proportion as the matter
   may appear of greater moment or difficulty.

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

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

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

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

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

   But as exceptions proving the rule, it cannot be denied that amid the
   general scepticism, instances sometimes occur of particular persons and
   parties who, on peculiar grounds, firmly believe in the occurrence of
   certain miracles even in our own times. But we invariably find that
   this is only in connexion with their own particular tenets, and
   restricted to the communion to which they are attached. Such
   manifestations of course are believed to have a religious object, and
   afford to the votaries a strong confirmation of their belief, or are
   regarded as among the high privileges vouchsafed to an earnest faith.
   Yet even such persons, almost as a matter of course, utterly discredit
   all such wonders alleged as occurring within the pale of any religion
   except their own; while those of other communions as unhesitatingly
   reject the belief in theirs.

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

   On such questions we can only hope to form just and legitimate
   conclusions from an extended and unprejudiced study of the laws and
   phenomena of the natural world. The entire range of the inductive
   philosophy is at once based upon, and in every instance tends to
   confirm, by immense accumulation of evidence, the grand truth of the
   universal order and constancy of natural causes, as a primary law of
   belief; so strongly entertained and fixed in the mind of every truly
   inductive inquirer, that he can hardly even conceive the possibility of
   its failure. Yet we sometimes hear language of a different kind. There
   are still some who dwell on the idea of Spinoza, and contend that it is
   idle to object to miracles as violations of natural laws, because we
   know not the extent of nature; that all inexplicable phenomena are, in
   fact, miracles, or at any rate mysteries; that we are surrounded by
   miracles in nature, and on all sides encounter phenomena which baffle
   our attempts at explanation, and limit the powers of scientific
   investigation; phenomena whose causes or nature we are , not, and
   probably never shall be, able to explain.

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

   None of these, or the like instances, are at all of the same kind, or
   have any characteristics in common with the idea of what is implied by
   the term miracle,' Which is asserted to mean something at variance with
   nature and law; there is not the slightest analogy between an unknown
   or inexplicable phenomenon, and a supposed suspension of a known law:
   even an exceptional case of a known law is included in some larger law.
   Arbitrary interposition is wholly different in kind; no argument from
   the one can apply to the other.

   The enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural world, cannot
   but tend powerfully to evince the inconceivableness of imagined
   interruptions of natural order, or supposed suspensions of the laws of
   matter, and of that vast series of dependent causation which
   constitutes the legitimate field for the investigation of science,
   whose constancy is the sole warrant for its generalizations, while it
   forms the substantial basis for the grand conclusions of natural
   theology. Such would be the grounds on which our convictions would be
   regulated as to marvellous events at the present day; such the rules
   which we should apply to the like eases narrated in ordinary history.

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

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

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

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

   In history generally our attention is often called to narratives of the
   marvellous: and there is a sense in which they may be viewed with
   reference to its general purport and in connexion with those influences
   on human nature which play so conspicuous a part in many events. Thus
   it has been well remarked by Dean Milman--History to be true must
   condescend to speak the language of legend; the belief of the times is
   part of the record of the times; and though there may occur what may
   baffle its more calm and searching philosophy, it must not disdain that
   which was the primal, almost universal motive of human life.' [68]

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

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

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

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

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

   The arguments of Middleton and others, all assume the antecedent
   incredibility of miracles in general, in order to draw more precisely
   the distinction that in certain cases of a very special nature that
   improbability may be removed, as in the case of authenticating a
   revelation. Locke [69] expressly contends that it is the very
   extraordinary nature of such an emergency which renders an
   extraordinary interposition requisite and therefore credible.

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

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

   But were these views of the Divine attributes, on the other hand, ever
   so well established, it must be considered that the Theistic argument
   requires to be applied with much caution; since most of those, who
   adopted such theories of the Divine perfections, on abstract grounds,
   have made them the basis of a precisely opposite belief, rejecting
   miracles altogether; on the plea, that our ideas of the Divine
   perfections must directly discredit the notion of occasional
   interposition; that it is derogatory to the idea of Infinite power and
   wisdom, to suppose an order of things so imperfectly established that
   it must be occasionally interrupted and violated when the necessity of
   the case compelled, as the emergency of a revelation was imagined to
   do. But all such Theistic reasonings are but one-sided, and if pushed
   further must lead to a denial of all active operation of the Deity
   whatever; as inconsistent with unchangeable, infinite perfection. [70]
   Such are the arguments of Theodore Parker, [71] who denies miracles
   because everywhere I find law the constant mode of operation of an
   infinite God,' or that of Wegscheider, [72] that the belief in miracles
   is irreconcilable with the idea of an eternal God consistent with
   himself, &c.

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

   We here speak impartially and disinterestedly, since we are far from
   agreeing in their reasonings, or even their first principles. But we
   think it deeply incumbent on all who would fairly reason out the case
   of miraculous evidence at the present day, to give a full and patient
   discussion to this entire class of arguments which now command so many
   adherents.

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

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

   It is a consideration adopted by some eminent divines that in the very
   language of the Gospels the distinction is always kept up between mere
   wonders' (tirata) and miracles' or signs' (semeia); that is to say, the
   latter were occurrences not viewed as mere matters of wonder or
   astonishment, but regarded as indications of other truths, specially
   adapted to convince those to whom they were addressed in their existing
   stage of enlightenment.

   Archbishop Whately, besides dwelling on this distinction, argues that
   the apostles would not only not have been believed but not even
   listened to, if they had not first roused men's attention by working,
   as we are told they did, special (remarkable) miracles.' [73] (Acts
   xix. 11.)

   Some have gone further, and have considered the application of miracles
   as little more than is expressed in the ancient proverb, thaumata
   morois'--which is supposed to be nearly equivalent to the rebuke, an
   evil generation seeketh a sign, &c. [74] (Matt. xii. 38.)

   Schleiermacher regards the miracles as only relatively or apparently
   such, to the apprehensions of the age. By the Jews we know such
   manifestations, especially the power of healing, were held to
   constitute the distinctive marks of the Messiah, according to the
   prophecies of their Scriptures. Signs of an improper or irrelevant kind
   were refused, and even those which were granted were not necessarily
   nor universally conclusive. With some they were so, but with the many
   the case was different. The Pharisees set down the miracles of Christ
   to the power of evil spirits; and in other cases no conviction [75] was
   produced, not even on the apostles. [76] Even Nicodemus,
   notwithstanding his logical reasoning, was but half convinced. While
   Jesus himself, especially to his disciples in private, referred to his
   works as only secondary and subsidiary to the higher evidence of his
   character and doctrine, [77] which was so conspicuous and convincing
   even to his enemies as to draw forth the admission, Never man spake
   like this man.'

   The later Jews adopted the strange legend of the Sepher Toldeth Yehsu'
   (Book of the Generation of Jesus), which describes his miracles
   substantially as in the Gospels, but says that he obtained his power by
   hiding himself in the Temple, and possessing himself of the secret
   ineffable name, by virtue of which such wonders could be wrought. [78]

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

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

   In his earlier views of miracles Dr. J. H. Newman [79] maintained
   (agreeing therein with Paulus and Rosenmüller,) that most of the
   Christian miracles could only be evidential at the time they were
   wrought, and am not so at present, a view in which a religious writer
   of a very different school, Athanase Coquerel, [80] seems to concur,
   alleging that they can avail only in founding a faith--not in
   preserving it.

   This was also the argument of several of the Reformers, as Luther,
   Huss, and others [81] have reasonably contemplated the miracles as a
   part of the peculiarities of the first outward manifestation and
   development of Christianity; like all other portions of the Divine
   dispensations specially adapted to the age and the condition of those
   to whom they were immediately addressed: but restricted apparently to
   those ages, and at any rate, not in the same form continued to
   subsequent times, when the application of them would be inappropriate.

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

   It is also stated that the later Jewish Rabbis, on the same plea that
   miracles were believed to be wrought by so many teachers, of the most
   different doctrines, denied their evidential force altogether. [82]

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

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

   Thus by a school of writers of the most highly orthodox pretensions, it
   is elaborately argued, to the effect, that revelation ought to be
   believed though destitute of strict evidence, either internal or
   external; and though we neither see it nor know it. [83] And again, We
   must be as sure that the bishop is Christ's appointed representative,
   as if we actually saw him work miracles as St. Peter and St. Paul did.'
   [84] Another writer of the same school exclaims, As if evidence to the
   Word of God were a thing to be tolerated by a Christian; except as an
   additional condemnation for those who reject it, or as a sort of
   exercise and indulgence for a Christian understanding.' [85] Thus while
   the highest section of Anglican orthodoxy does not hesitate openly to
   disavow the old evidential argument; referring everything to the
   authority of the Church, the more moderate virtually discredit it by a
   general tone of vacillation between the antagonistic claims of reason
   and faith;--intuition and evidence;--while the extreme evangelical'
   school, strongly asserting the literal truth of the Bible, seeks its
   evidence wholly in spiritual impressions, regarding all exercise of the
   reason as partaking in the nature of sin. But even among less
   prejudiced thinkers, we find indications of similar views, [86] thus a
   very able critic writing in express defence of the Christian cause,
   speaks of that accumulation of historical testimonies,' which the last
   age erroneously denominated the evidences of Christianity.' And the
   poet Coleridge, than whom no writer has been more earnest in upholding
   and defending Christianity, even in its most orthodox form, in speaking
   of its external attestations, impatiently exclaims, Evidences of
   Christianity! I am weary of the word: make a man feel the want of it .
   . . and you may safely trust it to its own evidence.' [87]

   But still further: Paley's well-known conclusion to the 5th book of his
   Moral Philosophy, pronounced by Dr. Parr to be the finest prose passage
   in English literature, more especially his final summing up of the
   evidential argument in the words, He alone discovers who proves: and no
   man can prove this point (a future retribution), but the teacher who
   testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God,'--calls forth
   from Coleridge an emphatic protest against the entire principle, as
   being at variance with that moral election which he would make the
   essential basis of religious belief; [88] to which he adds, in another
   place, The cordial admiration with which I peruse the preceding passage
   as a masterpiece of composition would, could I convey it, serve as a
   measure of the vital importance I attach to the convictions which
   impelled me to animadvert on the same passage as doctrine.' [89]

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

   The necessity for such a combination of the evidence of miracles with
   the test of the doctrine inculcated is acknowledged in the Bible, both
   under the old and the new dispensations. We read of false prophets who
   might predict signs and wonders, which might come to pass; but this was
   to be of no avail if they led their hearers after other gods.' [90]

   In like manner, if an angel from heaven' preached any other gospel to
   the Galatians, they were to reject it. [91] And even according to
   Christ's own admonitions, false Christs and false prophets should show
   signs and wonders such as might deceive, if possible, the very elect.'
   [92]

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

   No man has dwelt more forcibly on miraculous evidence than Archbishop
   Whately; yet in relation to the character of Christ as conspiring with
   the external attestations of his mission, he strongly remarks
   (speaking, of some who would ascribe to Christ an unworthy doctrine, an
   equivocal mode of teaching), If I could believe Jesus to have been
   guilty of such subterfuges . . . . . . I not only could not acknowledge
   him as sent from God, but should reject him with the deepest moral
   indignation.' [93]

   Dean Lyall enters largely into this important qualification in his
   defence of the miraculous argument, applying it in the most unreserved
   manner to the ecclesiastical miracles, [94] which he rejects at once as
   having no connexion with doctrine. We have also on record the remark of
   Dr. Johnson:--Why, sir, Hume, taking the proposition simply, is right;
   but the Christian revelation is not proved by miracles alone, but as
   connected with prophecies and with the doctrines in confirmation of
   which miracles were wrought.' [95]

   This has, indeed, been the common argument of the most approved
   divines: it is that long ago urged by Dr. S. Clarke, [96] and recently
   supported by Dean Trench. [97] Yet what is it but to acknowledge the
   right of an appeal, superior to that of all miracles, to our own moral
   tribunal, to the principle that the human mind is competent to sit in
   moral and spiritual tribunal on a professed revelation,' in virtue of
   which Professor F. Newman, as well as many other inquirers, have come
   to so very opposite a conclusion.

   Again, it has been strongly urged by the last-named writer, if miracles
   are made the sole criterion, then amid the various difficulties
   attending the scrutiny of evidence, and the detection of imposture, an
   advantage is clearly given to the shrewd sceptic over the simple-minded
   and well-disposed disciple, utterly fatal to the purity of faith. [98]

   The view of miraculous evidence which allows it to be taken only in
   connexion with, and in fact in subserviency to, the moral and internal
   proof derived from the character of the doctrine, has been pushed to a
   greater extent by the writer last named; who asks, What is the value of
   faith at second hand?'--Ought any external testimony to overrule
   internal conviction? Ought any moral truth to be received in mere
   obedience to a miracle of sense? [99] and observes that a miracle can
   only address itself to our external senses, and that internal and moral
   impressions must be deemed of a kind paramount to external and
   sensible.

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

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

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

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

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

   De Wette and others of the rationalists expressly contend, that the
   real evidence of the divinity of any doctrine can only be its
   accordance with the dictations of this moral sense, and this,
   Wegscheider further insists, was in fact the actual appeal of Christ in
   his teaching. [100]

   In a word, on this view, it would follow that all external attestation
   would seem superfluous if it concur with, or to be rejected if it
   oppose, these moral convictions. [101] Thus a considerable school have
   been disposed to look to the intrinsic evidence only, and to accept the
   declarations of the Gospel solely on the ground of their intrinsic
   excellence and accordance with our best and highest moral and religious
   convictions; a view which would approach very nearly to rejecting its
   peculiarities altogether.

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

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

   On the other hand, exceptions held forth as fatal by the shallow
   caviller are seen by the more deeply reflecting in all their actual
   littleness and fallacy. But for the sake of all parties, at the present
   day, especially those who at least profess a disposition for pursuing
   the serious discussion of such momentous subjects, it becomes
   imperatively necessary, that such views of it should be suggested as
   may be really suitable to better informed minds, and may meet the
   increasing demands of an age pretending at least to greater
   enlightenment.

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

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

   Adducuntur primum ratione exteri ad fidem, et quasi præparantur; . . .
   . . . . signis ergo et miraculis via fidei per sensus et rationem
   sternitur.' [102]

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

   These prevalent tendencies in the opinions of the age cannot but be
   regarded as connected with the increasing admission of those broader
   views of physical truth and universal order in nature, which have been
   followed out to higher contemplations, and point to the acknowledgment
   of an overruling and all-pervading supreme intelligence.

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

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

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

   They echo the declaration of St. Chrysostom--If you are a believer as
   you ought to be, and love Christ as you ought to love him, you have no
   need of miracles, for these are given to unbelievers.' [103]

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Thus far our observations are general: but at the present moment some
   recent publications on the subject seem to call for a few more detailed
   remarks. We have before observed that the style and character of works
   on the evidences' has of necessity varied in different ages, Those of
   Leslie and Grotius have, by common consent, been long since superseded
   by that of Paley. Paley was long the text-book at Cambridge; his work
   was never so extensively popular at Oxford--it has, of late, been
   entirely disused there. By the public at large however once accepted,
   we do not hesitate to express our belief, that before another quarter
   of a century has elapsed it will be laid on the shelf with its
   predecessors; not that it is a work destitute of high merit--as is
   pre-eminently true also of those it superseded, and of others again
   anterior to them; but they have all followed the irreversible destiny
   that a work, suited to convince the public mind at any one particular
   period, must be accommodated to the actual condition of knowledge, of
   opinion, and mode of thought of that period. It is not a question of
   abstract excellence, but of relative adaptation.

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

   In truth, the majority of these champions of the evidential logic
   betray an almost entire unconsciousness of the advance of opinion
   around them. Having their own ideas long since cast in the stereotyped
   mould of the past, they seem to expect that a progressing age ought
   still to adhere to the same type, and bow implicitly to a solemn and
   pompous, but childish parade and reiteration, of the one-sided dogmas
   of an obsolete school, coupled with awful denunciations of heterodoxy
   on all who refuse to listen to them.

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

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

   In the representations which they constantly make, we cannot but notice
   a strong apparent tendency and desire to uphold the mere assertion of
   witnesses as the supreme evidence of fact, to the utter disparagement
   of all general grounds of reasoning, analogy, and antecedent
   credibility, by which that testimony may be modified or discredited.
   Yet we remark, that all the instances they adduce, when carefully
   examined, really tend to the very conclusion they are so anxious to set
   aside. Arguments of this kind are sometimes deduced from such cases as,
   e. g., the belief accorded on very slight ground of probability in all
   commercial transactions dependent on the assumed credit and character
   of the negotiating parties; from the conclusions acted upon in life
   assurances, notwithstanding the proverbial instability of life;--and
   the like: in all which we can see no other real drift or tendency than
   to substantiate instead of disparage the necessity for some
   deeply-seated conviction of permanent order as the basis of all
   probability.

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

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

   The case of the alleged external attestations of Revelation, is one
   essentially involving considerations of physical evidence. It is not
   one in which such reflexions and habits of thought as arise out of a
   familiarity with human history, and moral argument, will suffice. These
   no doubt and other kindred topics, with which the scholar and the
   moralist are familiar, are of great and fundamental importance to our
   general views of the whole subject of Christian evidence; but the
   particular case of miracles, as such, is one specially bearing on
   purely physical contemplations, and on which no general moral
   principles, no common rules of evidence or logical technicalities, can
   enable us to form a correct judgment. It is not a question which can be
   decided by a few trite and commonplace generalities as to the moral
   government of the world and the belief in the Divine Omnipotence--or as
   to the validity of human testimony, or the limits of human experience.
   It involves, and is essentially built upon, those grander conceptions
   of the order of nature, those comprehensive primary elements of all
   physical knowledge, those ultimate ideas of universal causation, which
   can only be familiar to those thoroughly versed cosmical philosophy in
   its widest sense.

   In an age of physical research like the present, all highly cultivated
   minds and duly advanced intellects have imbibed, more or less, the
   lessons of the inductive philosophy, and have at least in some measure
   learned to appreciate the grand foundation conception of universal
   law--to recognise the impossibility even of any two material atoms
   subsisting together without a determinate relation--of any action of
   the one on the other, whether of equilibrium or of motion, without
   reference to a physical cause--of any modification whatsoever in the
   existing conditions of material agents, unless through the invariable
   operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences, following in
   some necessary chain of orderly connexion--however imperfectly known to
   us. So clear and indisputable indeed has this great truth become--so
   deeply seated has it been now admitted to be, in the essential nature
   of sensible things and of the external world, that not only do all
   philosophical inquirers adopt it, a primary principle and guiding maxim
   of all their researches--but, what is most worthy of remark, minds of a
   less comprehensive capacity, accustomed to reason on topics of another
   character, and on more contracted views, have at the present day been
   constrained to evince some concession to this grand principle, even
   when seeming to oppose it.

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

   It is for the most part hazardous ground for any general moral reasoner
   to take, to discuss subjects of evidence which essentially involve that
   higher appreciation of physical truth which can be attained only from
   an accurate and comprehensive acquaintance with the connected series of
   the physical and mathematical sciences. Thus, for example, the simple
   but grand truth of the law of conservation, and the stability of the
   heavenly motions, now well understood by all sound cosmical
   philosophers, is but the type of the universal self-sustaining and
   self-evolving powers which pervade all nature. Yet the difficulty of
   conceiving this truth in its simplest exemplification was formerly the
   chief hindrance to the acceptance of the solar system--from the
   prepossession of the peripatetic dogma that there must be a constantly
   acting moving force to keep it going. This very exploded chimera,
   however, by a singular infatuation, is now actually revived as the
   ground of argument for miraculous interposition by redoubtable
   champions who, to evince their profound knowledge of mechanical
   philosophy, inform us that the whole of nature is like a mill, which
   cannot go on without the continual application of a moving power!'

   Of these would-be philosophers, we find many anxiously dwelling on the
   topic, so undeniably just in itself, of the danger of incautious
   conclusions--of the gross errors into which men fall by over-hasty
   generalizations. They recount with triumph the absurd mistakes into
   which some even eminent philosophers have fallen in prematurely denying
   what experience has since fully shown to be true, because in the then
   state of knowledge it seemed incredible. [104] They feel an elevating
   sense of superiority in putting down the arrogance of scientific
   pretensions by alleging the shortsighted dogmatism with which men of
   high repute in science have evinced a scepticism in points of vulgar
   belief, in which, after all, the vulgar belief has proved right. They
   even make a considerable display of reasoning on such cases; but we
   cannot say that those reasonings are particularly distinguished for
   consistency, force, or originality. The philosopher (for example)
   denies the credibility of alleged events professedly in their nature at
   variance with all physical analogy. These writers, in reply, affect to
   make a solemn appeal to the bar of analogy, and support it by instances
   which precisely defeat their own conclusion. Thus they advance the
   novel and profoundly instructive story of an Indian who denied the
   existence of ice as at variance with experience; and still more from
   the contradiction that being solid, it could not float in water. In
   like manner they dwell upon other equally interesting stories of a
   butterfly, who from the experience of his ephemeral life in summer,
   denied that the leaves were ever brown or the ground covered with snow;
   of a child who watched a clock made to strike only at noon through many
   hours, and therefore concluded it could never strike; of a person who
   had observed that fish are organised to swim, and therefore concluded
   there could be no such animals as flying fish.

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

   It is indeed curious to notice the elaborate multiplication of
   instances adduced by some of the writers referred to, all really
   tending to prove the subordination of facts to laws, clearly evinced as
   soon as the cases were well understood, though, till then, often
   regarded in a sceptical spirit; while of that scepticism they furnish
   the real and true refutation in the principle of law ultimately
   established, under whatever primary appearance and semblance of
   marvellous discordance from all law. It would be beyond our limits to
   notice in detail such instances as are thus dwelt upon, and apparently
   regarded as of sovereign value and importance, to discredit
   philosophical generalization:--such as the disbelief in the marvels
   recounted by Marco Polo; of the miracle of the martyrs who spoke
   articulately after their tongues were cut out; the angel seen in the
   air by 2000 persons at Milan; the miraculous balls of fire on the
   spires at Plausac; Herodotus's story of the bird in the mouth of the
   crocodile; narratives of the sea-serpent, marvels of mesmerism and
   electro-biology; all discredited formerly as fables; vaccination
   observed and attested by peasants, but denied and ridiculed by medical
   men:--

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

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

   Physiological evidence is adduced (which we will suppose well
   substantiated) to show that the excision of the whole tongue does not
   take away the power of speech, though that of the extremity does so;
   hence the denial of the story from imperfect experience. So of other
   cases: the angel at Milan was the aerial reflexion of an image on a
   church; the balls of fire, at Plausac, were electrical; the sea-serpent
   was a basking shark, or a stem of sea-weed. A committee of the French
   Academy of Sciences, with Lavoisier at its head, after a grave
   investigation, pronounced the alleged fall of aërolites to be a
   superstitious fable. It is, however, now substantiated, not as a
   miracle, but as a well-known natural phenomenon. Instances of undue
   philosophical scepticism are unfortunately common; but they are the
   errors, not the correct processes, of inductive inquiry.

   Granting all these instances, we merely ask--what do they
   prove?--except the real and paramount dominion of the rule of law and
   order, of universal subordination of physical causes, as the sole
   principle and criterion of proof and evidence in the region of physical
   and sensible truth; and nowhere more emphatically than in the history
   of marvels and prodigies, do we find a verification of the truth,
   opinionum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat.'

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

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

   Just a similar scepticism has been evinced by nearly all the first
   physiologists of the day, who have joined in rejecting the development
   theories of Lamarck and the Vestiges; and while they have strenuously
   maintained successive creations, have denied and denounced the alleged
   production of organic life by Messrs. Crosse and Weekes, and stoutly
   maintained the impossibility of spontaneous generation, on the alleged
   ground of contradiction to experience. Yet it is now acknowledged under
   the high sanction of the name of Owen, [105] that creation' is only
   another name for our ignorance of the mode of production; and it has
   been the unanswered and unanswerable argument of another reasoner that
   new species must have originated either out of their inorganic
   elements, or out of previously organized forms; either development or
   spontaneous generation must be true: while a work has now appeared by a
   naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's masterly
   volume on The Origin of Species by the law of natural
   selection,'--which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very
   principle so long denounced by the first naturalists,--the origination
   of new species by natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an
   entire revolution of opinion in favour of the grand principle of the
   self-evolving powers of nature.

   By parity of reason it might just as well be objected to Archbishop
   Whately's theory of civilization, we have only for a few centuries
   known anything of savages; how then can we pretend to infer that they
   have never civilized themselves? never, in all that enormous length of
   time which modern discovery has now indisputably assigned to the
   existence of the human race! This theory, however, is now introduced as
   a comment on Paley in support of the credibility of revelation; and an
   admirable argument no doubt it is, though perhaps many would apply it
   in a sense somewhat different from that of the author. If the use of
   fire, the cultivation of the soil, and the like, were Divine
   revelations, the most obvious inference would be that so likewise are
   printing and steam. If the boomerang was divinely communicated to
   savages ignorant of its principle, then surely the disclosure of that
   principle in our time by the gyroscope, was equally so. But no one
   denies revelation in this sense; the philosophy of the age does not
   discredit the inspiration of Prophets and Apostles, though it may
   sometimes believe it in poets, legislators, philosophers, and others
   gifted with high genius. At all events, the revelation of civilization
   does not involve the question of external miracles, which is here the
   sole point in dispute. The main assertion of Paley is that it is
   impossible to conceive a revelation given except by means of miracles.
   This is his primary axiom; but this is precisely the point which the
   modern turn of reasoning most calls in question, and rather adopts the
   belief that a revelation is then most credible, when it appeals least
   to violations of natural causes. Thus, if miracles were in the
   estimation of a former age among the chief supports of Christianity,
   they are at present among the main difficulties, and hindrances to its
   acceptance.

   One of the first inductive philosophers of the age, Professor Faraday,
   has incurred the unlimited displeasure of these profound
   intellectualists, because he has urged that the mere contracted
   experience of the senses is liable to deception, and that we ought to
   be guided in our conclusions--and, in fact, can only correct the errors
   of the senses--by a careful recurrence to the consideration of natural
   laws and extended analogies. [106] In opposition to this heretical
   proposition, they [107] set in array the dictum of two great
   authorities of the Scottish school, Drs. Abercrombie and Chalmers, that
   on a certain amount of testimony we might believe any statement,
   however improbable;' so that if a number of respectable witnesses were
   to concur in asseverating that on a certain occasion they had seen two
   and two make five, we should be bound to believe them!

   This, perhaps it will be said, is an extreme case. Let us suppose
   another:--if a number of veracious witnesses were to allege a real
   instance of witchcraft at the present day, there might no doubt be
   found some infatuated persons who would believe it; but the strongest
   of such assertions to any educated man would but prove either that the
   witnesses were cunningly imposed upon, or the wizard himself deluded.
   If the most numerous ship's company were all to asseverate that they
   had seen a mermaid, would any rational persons at the present day
   believe them? That they saw something which they believed to be a
   mermaid, would be easily conceded. No amount of attestation of
   innumerable and honest witnesses, would ever convince any one versed in
   mathematical and mechanical science, that a person had squared the
   circle or discovered perpetual motion. Antecedent credibility depends
   on antecedent knowledge, and enlarged views of the connexion and
   dependence of truths; and the value of any testimony will be modified
   or destroyed in different degrees to minds differently enlightened.

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

   The case, indeed, of the antecedent argument of miracles is very clear,
   however little some are inclined perceive it. In nature and from
   nature, by science and by reason, we neither have nor can possibly have
   any evidence of a Deity working miracles;--for that, we must go out of
   nature and beyond reason. if we could have any such evidence from
   nature, it could only prove extraordinary natural effects, which would
   not be miracles in the old theological sense, as isolated unrelated,
   and uncaused; whereas no physical fact can be conceived as unique, or
   without analogy and relation to others, and to the whole system of
   natural causes.

   To conclude, an alleged miracle can only be regarded in one of two
   ways;--either (1) abstractedly as a physical event, and therefore to be
   investigated by reason and physical evidence, and referred to physical
   causes, possibly to known causes, but at all events to some higher
   cause or law, if at present unknown; it then ceases to be supernatural,
   yet still might be appealed to in support of religious truth,
   especially as referring to the state of knowledge and apprehensions of
   the parties addressed in past ages; or (2) as connected with religious
   doctrine, regarded in a sacred light, asserted on the authority of
   inspiration. In this case it ceases to be capable of investigation by
   reason, or to own its dominion; it is accepted on religious grounds,
   and can appeal only to the principle and influence of faith.

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

   Some of the most strenuous advocates of the Christian evidences'
   readily avow, indeed expressly contend, that the attestation of
   miracles is, after all, not irresistible; and that in the very
   uncertainty which confessedly remains lies the trial of faith,' [108]
   which it is thus implied must really rest on some other independent
   moral conviction.

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

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

   With a firm belief in constant supernatural interposition, the
   cotemporaries of the Apostles were as much blinded to the reception of
   the gospel, as, with an opposite persuasion, others have been at a
   later period. Those who had access to living Divine instruction were
   not superior to the prepossessions and ignorance of their times. There
   never existed an infallible age' of exemption from doubt or prejudice.
   And if to later times records written in the characters of a long past
   epoch are left to be deciphered by the advancing light of learning and
   science,--the spirit of faith covers continually increasing attestation
   of the Divine authority of the truths they include.

   The reason of the hope that is in us' is not restricted to external
   signs, nor to any one kind of evidence, but consists of such assurance
   as may be most satisfactory to each earnest individual inquirer's own
   mind. And the true acceptance of the entire revealed manifestation of
   Christianity will be most worthily and satisfactorily based on that
   assurance of faith,' by which the Apostle affirms we stand,' (2 Cor.
   ii. 4), and which, in accordance with his emphatic declaration, must
   rest, not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.' (1 Cor. ii.
   5.)
     __________________________________________________________________

   [65] Several such treatises are enumerated and described by Eichhorn.
   See Hallam's Lit. of Europe, i. p. 190.

   [66] Div. Leg. ix. 5.

   [67] Criterion, pp. 239, 241.

   [68] Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 388.

   [69] Essay, Book i. ch. xvi. § 13.

   [70] See Mansel, Bampt. Lect. p. 185.

   [71] Theism, &c. p. 263, comp, p. 113.

   [72] Persuasio de supernaturali et miraculosa eademque immediata Dei
   revelatione, haud bene conciliari videtur cum idea Dei æterni, semper
   sibi constantis, &c.,--Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. § 12.

   [73] Lessons on Evidences, vii. § 5.

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

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

   [76] Matt. xvi. 9; Luke xxiv. 21-25.

   [77] John xiv. 11.

   [78] Orobio, a Jewish writer, quoted by Limborch (De Verit. p. 12-156).
   observes:--Non crediderunt Judæi non illa quæ in Evangelio, narrantur a
   Jesu facta esses negabant; se quia iis se persuaderi non sunt passi ut
   Jesum crederent Messiam.' Celsus ascribed the Christian miracles to
   magic (Origen cont. Cels. i. 38; ii. 9.) as Julian did those of St.
   Paul to superior knowledge of nature. (Ap. Cyr. iii. 100.) The general
   charge of magic is noticed by Tertullian,. Ap. 23. See also Dean Lyall,
   Propædia Prophetica, 439. Neander, Hist. i. 67.

   [79] Essay on Miracles, &c. p. 107.

   [80] Christianity, &c. Davison's transl. 1847, p. 226.

   [81] See Seckendorf's Hist. Luther., iii. 633.

   [82] For some instances of this class of objections, see Dean Lyall's
   Propædia Prophetica, p. 437 et seq.

   [83] See Tracts for the Times, No. lxxxv. pp. 85-100.

   [84] Tract No. x. p. 4.

   [85] British Critic, No. xlviii. p. 304.

   [86] Edin. Rev. No. cxli.

   [87] Aids to Reflexion, i. p. 333.

   [88] Aids to Reflexion, p. 278.

   [89] Ib. p. 338.

   [90] Deut. xiii. 1.

   [91] Gal. i. 8.

   [92] Matt. xxiv. 24.

   [93] Kingdom of Christ, Essay i. § 12.

   [94] Propædia Prophetica, p. 441.

   [95] Boswell's Life, iii. 169. Ed. 1826.

   [96] Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, § xiv.

   [97] Notes on Miracles, p. 27.

   [98] See Phases of Faith., p. 154.

   [99] Ib. pp. 82, 108, 201, 1st Ed.

   [100] Jesus ipse doctrinam quam tradidit divinam esse professus est,
   quantum divina ejus indoles ab homine vere religioso proboque bene
   cognosci potest atque dijudicari.--Wegscheider, in Joh. vii. 17. Nulla
   alia ratio et via eas [doctrinas] examinandi datur quam ut illarum
   placita cum iis quæ via naturali rectæ rationis de Deo ejusque
   voluntate ipsi innotuerint diligenter componat et ad normam sine omni
   superstitione examinet.--Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. Chris. Dogm., § p.

   [101] Such was the argument of the Characteristics, vol. ii. p. 334.
   Ed. 1727.

   [102] Melchior Canus, Loci Theol. ix. 6. about 1540.

   [103] . . . ei gar pistos ei hos einai chre kai phileis ton Christon
   hos philein dei, ou chreian echeis ton semeion; tauta gar apistois
   dedotai.--Hom. xxiii. in Johan. To the same effect also S. Isidore,
   Tunc oportebat mundum, miraculis credere,--nunc vero credentem oportet
   bonis operibus coruscare.' cited is Huss in defence of Wickliff.

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

   [105] British Association Address, 1858.

   [106] Lecture on Mental Education. 1854.

   [107] See Edinburgh Papers, Testimony,' &c., by R. Chambers, Esq.
   F.R.S.E., &c.

   [108] See, e.g. Butler a Analogy, pt. ii. ch. 6.
     __________________________________________________________________

              SEANCES HISTORIQUES DE GENÈVE--THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

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

   It fell to the Comte Léon de Gasparin to illustrate the reign of
   Constantine. He laid it down in the strongest manner, that the
   individualist principle supplies the true basis of the Church, and that
   by inaugurating the union between Church and State Constantine
   introduced into Christianity the false and pagan principle of
   Multitudinism. M. Bungener followed in two lectures upon the age of
   Ambrose and Theodosius. He felt it necessary, for his own satisfaction
   and that of others, to express his dissent from these opinions. He
   agreed in the portraiture drawn by his predecessor of the so-called
   first Christian emperor, and in his estimate of his personal character.
   But he maintained, that the multitudinist principle was not unlawful,
   nor essentially pagan; that it was recognised and consecrated in the
   example of the Jewish theocracy; that the greatest victories of
   Christianity have been won by it; that it showed itself under Apostolic
   sanction as early as the day of Pentecost;--for it would be absurd to
   suppose the three thousand who were joined to the Church on the
   preaching of Peter to have been all converted' persons in the modern
   Evangelical sense of the word. He especially pointed out, that the
   Churches which claim to be founded upon Individualism, fall back
   themselves, when they become hereditary, upon the multitudinist
   principle. His brief, but very pertinent observations on that subject
   were concluded in these words:--

   Le multitudinisme est une force qui peut, comme toute force, être mal
   dirigée, mal exploitée, mais qui pout aussi l'être au profit de la
   vérité, de la piété, de la vie. Les Eglises fondées sur un autre
   principe ont aidé à rectifier celui-là; c'est un des incontestables
   services qu'elles ont rendus, de nos jours, à la cause de l'Evangile.
   Elles ont droit à notre reconnaissance; mais à Genève, qu'elles ne nous
   demandent pas ce que nous ne pouvons faire, et qu'on me permette de le
   dire, ce qu'elles ne font pas elles-mêmes. Oui! le multitudinisme
   genevois est resté vivant chez elles, et certainement elles lui doivent
   une portion notable de leur consistance au dedans, de leur influence au
   dehors. Elles font appel, comme nous, à ses souvenirs et à ses gloires;
   elles forment, avec nous, ce que le monde chrétien appelle et appellera
   toujours l'Eglise de Genève. Nous ne la renions, au fond, pas plus les
   uns que les autres. Elle a été, elle est, elle restera notre mère à
   tous.' [109]

   Such are the feelings in favour of Nationalism on the part of M.
   Bungener, a member of the Genevan Church; a Church to which many would
   not even concede that title, and of which the ecclesiastical renown
   centres upon one great name; while the civil history of the country
   presents but little of interest either in ancient or modern times. But
   the questions at issue between these two Genevans are of wide Christian
   concern, and especially to ourselves. If the Genevans cannot be proud
   of their Calvin, as they cannot in all things--and even he is not truly
   their own--they have little else of which to speak before Christendom.
   Very different are the recollections which are awakened by the past
   history of such a Church as ours. Its roots are found to penetrate deep
   into the history of the most freely and fully developed nationality in
   the world, and its firm hold upon the past is one of its best auguries
   for the future. It has lived through Saxon rudeness, Norman rapine,
   baronial oppression and bloodshed; it has survived the tyranny of
   Tudors, recovered from fanatical assaults, escaped the treachery of
   Stuarts; has not perished under coldness, nor been stifled with
   patronage, nor sunk utterly in a dull age, nor been entirely depraved
   in a corrupt one. Neither as a spiritual society, nor as a national
   institution, need there be any fear that the Church of this country,
   which has passed through so many ordeals, shall succumb, because we may
   be on the verge of some political and ecclesiastical changes. We,
   ourselves, cohere with those who have preceded us, under very different
   forms of civil constitution, and under a very different creed and
   externals of worship. The rude forefathers,' whose mouldering bones,
   layer upon layer, have raised the soil round the foundations of our old
   churches, adored the Host, worshipped the Virgin, signed themselves
   with the sign of the cross, sprinkled themselves with holy water, and
   paid money for masses for the relief of souls in purgatory. But it is
   no reason, because we trust that spiritually we are at one with the
   best of those who have gone before us in better things than these, that
   we should revert to their old-world practices; nor should we content
   ourselves with simply transmitting to those who shall follow us,
   traditions which have descended to ourselves, if we can transmit
   something better. There is a time for building up old waste places, and
   a time for raising fresh structures; a time for repairing the ancient
   paths, and a time for filling the valleys and lowering the hills in the
   constructing of new. The Jews, contemporaries of Jesus and his
   Apostles, were fighters against God, in refusing to accept a new
   application of things written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms;
   the Romans in the time of Theodosius were fighters against Him, when
   they resisted the new religion with an appeal to old customs; so were
   the opponents of Wycliffe and his English Bible, and the opponents of
   Cranmer and his Reformation. Meddle not with them that are given to
   change is a warning for some times, and self-willed persons may bring
   in damnable heresies;' at others, old things are to pass away,' and
   that is erroneously called heresy' by the blind, which is really a
   worshipping the God of the Fathers in a better way.

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

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

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

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

   There may be a certain amount of literature circulating among us in a
   cheap form, of which the purpose, with reference to Christianity, is
   simply negative and destructive, and which is characterized by an
   absence of all reverence, not only for beliefs, but for the best human
   feelings which have gathered round them, even when they have been false
   or superstitious. But if those who are old enough to do so would
   compare the tone generally of the sceptical publications of the present
   day with that of the papers of Hone and others about forty years ago,
   they would be reminded that assaults were made then upon the Christian
   religion in far grosser form than now, and long before opinion could
   have been inoculated by German philosophy--long before the more
   celebrated criticisms upon the details of the Evangelical histories had
   appeared. But it was attacked then as an institution, or by reason of
   the unpopularity of institutions and methods of government connected,
   or supposed to be connected, with it. The anti-christian agitation of
   that day in England was a phase of radicalism, and of a radicalism
   which was a terrific and uprooting force, of which the counterpart can
   scarcely be said to exist among us now.

   The sceptical movements in this generation are the result of
   observation and thought, not of passion. Things come to the knowledge
   of almost all persons, which were unknown a generation ago, even to the
   well informed. Thus the popular knowledge, at that time, of the surface
   of the earth, and of the populations which cover it, was extremely
   incomplete. In our own boyhood the world as known to the ancients was
   nearly all which was known to ourselves. We have recently become
   acquainted--intimate--with the teeming regions of the far East, and
   with empires, pagan or even atheistic, of which the origin runs far
   back beyond the historic records of Judæa or of the West, and which
   were more populous than all Christendom now is, for many ages before
   the Christian era. Not any book learning--not any proud exaltation of
   reason--not any dreamy German metaphysics--not any minute and captious
   Biblical criticism--suggest questions to those who on Sundays hear the
   reading and exposition of the Scriptures as they were expounded to our
   forefathers, and on Monday peruse the news of a world of which our
   forefathers little dreamed;--descriptions of great nations, in some
   senses barbarous compared with ourselves, but composed of men of flesh
   and blood like our own--of like passions, marrying and domestic,
   congregating in great cities, buying and selling and getting gain,
   agriculturists, merchants, manufacturers, making wars, establishing
   dynasties, falling down before objects of worship, constituting
   priesthoods, binding themselves by oaths, honouring the dead. In what
   relation does the Gospel stand to these millions? Is there any trace on
   the face of its records that it even contemplated their existence? We
   are told, that to know and believe in Jesus Christ is in some sense
   necessary to salvation. It has not been given to these. Are they--will
   they be, hereafter, the worse off for their ignorance? As to abstruse
   points of doctrine concerning the Divine Nature itself, those subjects
   may be thought to lie beyond the range of our faculties; if one says,
   aye, no other is entitled to say no to his aye; if one says, no, no one
   is entitled to say aye to his no. Besides, the best approximative
   illustrations of those doctrines must be sought in metaphysical
   conceptions, of which few are capable, and in the history of old
   controversies, with which fewer still are acquainted. But with respect
   to the moral treatment of His creatures by Almighty God, all men, in
   different degrees, are able to be judges of the representations made of
   it, by reason of the moral sense which lie has given them. As to the
   necessity of faith in a Saviour to these peoples, when they could never
   have had it, no one, upon reflection, can believe in any such
   thing--doubtless they will be equitably dealt with. And when we hear
   fine distinctions drawn between covenanted and uncovenanted mercies, it
   seems either to be a distinction without a difference, or to amount to
   a denial of the broad and equal Justice of the Supreme Being. We cannot
   be content to wrap this question up and leave it for a mystery, as to
   what shall become of those myriads upon myriads of non-christian races.
   First, if our traditions tell us, that they are involved in the curse
   and perdition of Adam, and may justly be punished hereafter
   individually for his transgression, not having been extricated from it
   by saving faith, we are disposed to think, that our traditions cannot
   herein fairly declare to us the words and inferences from Scripture;
   but if on examination it should turn out that they have, we must say,
   that the authors of the Scriptural books have, in those matters,
   represented to us their own inadequate conceptions, and not the mind of
   the Spirit of God; for we must conclude with the Apostle, Yea, let God
   be true and every man a liar.'

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

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

   So likewise a very grave modification of an evidence' heretofore
   current must ensue in another respect, in consequence of an increased
   knowledge of other facts connected with the foregoing. It has been
   customary to argue that, a priori, a supernatural revelation was to be
   expected at the time when Jesus Christ was manifested upon the earth,
   by reason of the exhaustion of all natural or unassisted human efforts
   for the amelioration of mankind. The state of the world, it has been
   customary to say, had become so utterly corrupt and hopeless under the
   Roman sway, that a necessity and special occasion was presented for an
   express divine intervention. Our recently enlarged ethnographical
   information shows such an argument to be altogether inapplicable to the
   case. If we could be judges of the necessity for a special divine
   intervention, the stronger necessity existed in the East. There immense
   populations, like the Chinese, had never developed the idea of a
   personal God, or had degenerated from a once pure theological creed, as
   in India, from the religion of the Vedas. Oppressions and tyrannies,
   caste. distinctions, common and enormous vices, a polluted idolatrous
   worship, as bad as the worst which disgraced Rome, Greece, or Syria,
   had prevailed for ages.

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

   There are many other sources of the modern questionings of traditional
   Christianity which cannot now be touched upon, originating like those
   which have been mentioned, in a change of circumstances wherein
   observers are placed; whereby their thoughts are turned in new
   directions, and they are rendered dissatisfied with old modes of
   speaking. But such a difficulty as that respecting the souls of
   heathendom, which must now come closely home to multitudes among us,
   will disappear, if it be candidly acknowledged that the words of the
   New Testament, which speak of the preaching of the Gospel to the whole
   world, were limited to the understanding of the times when they were
   spoken; that doctrines concerning salvation, to be met with in it, are
   for the most part applicable only to those to whom the preaching of
   Christ should come; and that we must draw our conclusions respecting a
   just dealing hereafter with the individuals who make up the sum of
   heathenism, rather from reflections suggested by our own moral
   instincts than from the express declarations of Scripture writers, who
   had no such knowledge, as is given to ourselves, of the amplitude of
   the world, which is the scene of the divine manifestations.

   .Moreover, to our great comfort, there have been preserved to us words
   of the Lord Jesus himself, declaring that the conditions of men in
   another world will be determined by their moral characters in this, and
   not by their hereditary or traditional creeds; and both many words and
   the practice of the great Apostle Paul, within the range which was
   given him, tend to the same result. He has been thought even to make en
   allusion to the Buddhist Dharmma, or law, when he said, When the
   gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in
   the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show
   the work of the law written in their hearts,' &c. (Rom. ii. 14, 15.)
   However this may be, it is evident that if such a solution as the above
   is accepted, a variety of doctrinal statements hitherto usual,
   Calvinistic and Lutheran theories on the one hand, and sacramental and
   hierarchical ones on the other, must be thrown into the background, if
   not abandoned.

   There may be a long future during which the present course of the world
   shall last. Instead of its drawing near the close of its existence, as
   represented in Millennarian or Rabbinical fables, and with so many more
   souls, according to some interpretations of the Gospel of Salvation,
   lost to Satan in every age and in every nation, than have been won to
   Christ, that the victory would evidently be on the side of the Fiend,
   we may yet be only at the commencement of the career of the great
   Spiritual Conqueror even in this world. Nor have we any right to say
   that the effects of what He does upon earth shall not extend and
   propagate themselves in worlds to come. But under any expectation of
   the duration of the present secular constitution, it is of the deepest
   interest to us, both as observers and as agents, placed evidently at an
   epoch when humanity finds itself under new conditions, to form some
   definite conception to ourselves of the way in which Christianity is
   henceforward to act upon the world which is our own.

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

   Although the consequences of what the Gospel does will be carried on
   into other worlds, its work is to be done here; although some of its
   work here must be unseen, yet not all; nor much even of its unseen work
   without at least some visible manifestation and effects. The invisible
   Church is to us a mere abstraction. Now it is acknowledged on all
   hands, that to the multitudinist principle are due the great external
   victories which the Christian name has hitherto won. On the other hand,
   it is alleged by the advocates of Individualism, that these outward
   acquisitions and numerical accessions have always been made at the
   expense of the purity of the Church; and, also, that Scriptural
   authority and the earliest practice is in favour of Individualism.
   Moreover, almost all the corruptions of Christianity are attributed by
   individualists to the effecting by the Emperor Constantine of an unholy
   alliance between Church and State. Yet a fair review, as far as there
   are data for it, of the state of Christianity before the time of that
   emperor will leave us in at least very great doubt, whether the
   Christian character was really, in the anterior period, superior on the
   average to what it has subsequently been. We may appeal to the most
   ancient records extant, and even to the Apostolic Epistles themselves,
   to show, that neither in doctrine nor in morals did the primitive
   Christian communities at all approach to the ideal which has been
   formed of them. The moral defects of the earliest converts are the
   subject of the gravest expostulation on the part of the Apostolic
   writers: and the doctrinal features of the early Church are much more
   undetermined than would be thought by those who read them only through
   the ecclesiastical creeds.

   Those who belong to very different theological schools acknowledge at
   times, that they cannot with any certainty find in the highest
   ecclesiastical antiquity the dogmas which they consider most important.
   It is customary with Lutherans to represent their doctrine of
   justification by subjective faith as having died out shortly after the
   Apostolic age. In fact, it never was the doctrine of any considerable
   portion of the Church till the time of the Reformation. It is not met
   with in the immediately post-Apostolic writings, nor in the Apostolic
   writings, except those of St. Paul, not even in the Epistle to the
   Hebrews, which is of the Pauline or Paulo-Johannean school. The faith
   at least of that Epistle, the substance of things hoped for,' is a very
   different faith from the faith of the Epistle to the Romans,--if the
   Lutherans are correct in representing that to be, a conscious
   apprehending of the benefits to the individual soul, of the Saviour's
   merits and passion. Then, on the other hand, it is admitted, even
   maintained, by a very different body of theologians, as by the learned
   Jesuit Petavius and many others, that the doctrine afterwards developed
   into the Nicene and Athanasian, is not to be found explicitly in the
   earliest Fathers, nor even in Scripture, although provable by it. One
   polemical value of this view to those who uphold it, is to show the
   necessity of an inspired Church to develope Catholic truth.

   But although the primitive Christians fell far short both of a
   doctrinal and ethical ideal, them is this remarkable distinction to be
   noted between the primitive aspects of doctrine and of ethics. The
   morals of the first Christians were certainly very far below the
   estimate which has been formed of them; but the standard by which they
   were measured was unvarying, lofty, and peculiar; moreover, the nearer
   we approach to the fountain head, the more definite do we find the
   statement of the Christian principle, that the source of religion is in
   the heart. On the contrary, the nearer we come to the original sources
   of the history, the less definite do we find the statements of
   doctrines, and even of the facts from which the doctrines were
   afterwards inferred. And, at the very first, with our Lord Himself and
   His Apostles, as represented to us in the New Testament, morals come
   before contemplation, ethics before theoretics. In the patristic
   writings, theoretics assume continually an increasingly
   disproportionate value. Even within the compass of our New Testament
   there is to be found already a wonderful contrast between the words of
   our Lord and such a discourse as the Epistle to the Hebrews. There is
   not wanting, indeed, to this Epistle an earnest moral appeal, but the
   greater part of it is illustrative, argumentative, and controversial.
   Our Lord's discourses have almost all of them a direct moral bearing.
   This character of His words is certainly more obvious in the three
   first Gospels than in the fourth; and the remarkable unison of those
   Gospels, when they recite the Lord's words, notwithstanding their
   discrepancies in some matters of fact, compel us to think, that they
   embody more exact traditions of what He actually said than the fourth
   does. [110]

   As monuments or witnesses, discrepant in a certain degree as to other
   particulars, the evidence afforded by the three Synoptics to the Lord's
   own words is the most precious element in the Christian records. We are
   thereby placed at the very root of the Gospel tradition. And these
   words of the Lord, taken in conjunction with the Epistle of St. James,
   and with the first, or genuine, Epistle of St. Peter, leave no
   reasonable doubt of the general character of His teaching having been
   what, for want of a better word, we must perhaps call moral. But to
   represent the Spirit of Christ as a moral Spirit is not merely to
   proclaim Him as a Lawgiver, enacting the observance of a set of
   precepts, but as fulfilled with a Spirit given to Him without measure,'
   of which, indeed, all men are partakers who have a sense of what they
   ought' to be and do; yet flowing over from Him, especially on those who
   perceive in His words, and in His life, principles of ever-widening
   application to the circumstances of their own existence; who learn from
   Him to penetrate to the root of their conscience, and to recognise
   themselves as being active elements in the moral order of the universe.

   We may take an illustration of the relative value in the Apostolic age
   of the doctrinal and moral principles, by citing a case which will be
   allowed to be extreme enough. It is evident there were among the
   Christian converts in that earliest period, those who had no belief in
   a corporeal resurrection. Some of these had, perhaps, been made
   converts from the sect of the Sadducees, and had brought with them into
   the Christian congregation the same doubts or negative beliefs which
   belonged to them before their conversion. The Jewish church embraced in
   its bosom both Pharisees and Sadducees: but our Lord, although he
   expressly taught a resurrection, and argued with the Sadducees on the
   subject, never treated them as aliens from Israel because they did not
   hold that doctrine; is much more severe on the moral defects and
   hypocrisies of the Pharisees than upon the doctrinal defects of the
   Sadducees. The Christian Church was recruited in its Jewish branch
   chiefly from the sect of the Pharisees, and it is somewhat difficult
   for us to realize the conversion of a Sadducee to Christianity,
   retaining his Sadducee disbelief or scepticism. But the some among you
   who say that there is no resurrection of the dead,' (1 Cor. xv. 12,
   comp. 2 Tim ii. 18) can leave us in no doubt upon the matter, that
   there were Christians of Sadducee or Gentile prejudices, like those who
   mocked or those who hesitated when Paul preached at Athens the
   resurrection of the dead. But St. Paul argues with such elaborately in
   that chapter, without expelling them from the Church, although he
   always represents faith in the resurrection as the corner-stone of the
   Christian belief. He endeavours rather to conciliate and to remove
   objections. First, he represents the rising to life again, not as
   miraculous or exceptional, but as a law of humanity, or at least of
   Christian and spiritualized humanity; and he treats the resurrection of
   Christ, not as a wonder, but as a prerogative instance. Secondly, he
   shows, upon the doctrine of a spiritual body, how the objections
   against a resurrection from the gross conception of a flesh and blood
   body, fall to the ground. [111] Now, if there might thus be Sadducee,
   or quasi-Sadducee, Christians in the Church, their Christianity must
   have consisted in an appreciation of the moral spirit of Jesus, and in
   an obedience, such as it might be, to the Christian precepts; they
   could have been influenced by no expectation of a future recompense.
   Their obedience might or might not be of as high an order as that which
   is so motived; it might have been a mere legal habit, or an exalted
   disinterested life. Now, let us compare a person of this description
   with such as those who are indicated, (1 Cor. xv. 19, 32); and we
   cannot think that St. Paul is there speaking of himself personally, but
   of the general run of persons reluctant to exercise self-restraint and
   to expose themselves to persecution for the Gospel's sake, yet induced
   to do so by the hope of a future recompense. Let us consider these two
   descriptions of persons. The one class is defective in the Christian
   doctrine, and in the most fundamental article of the Apostle's
   preaching, the other in the Christian moral life; can we say that the
   one defect was more fatal than the other? We do not find the Apostle
   excommunicating these Corinthians, who said there was no resurrection
   of the dead. [112] On the Other hand, we know it was only in an extreme
   case that he sanctioned excommunication for the cause of immorality.
   And upon the whole, if we cannot effectually compare the person
   deficient in a true belief of the resurrection, with an immoral or evil
   liver--if we can only say they were both bad Christians--at least we
   have no reason to determine that the good liver who disbelieved the
   resurrection was treated by St. Paul as less of a Christian than the
   evil liver who believed it. We cannot suppose the evil life always to
   have brought on the disbelief in the doctrine, nor the disbelief in the
   doctrine to have issued always in an evil life.

   Now, from what has been said we gather two important
   conclusions:--first, of the at least equal value of the Christian life,
   as compared with the Christian doctrine; and, secondly, of the
   retaining within the Church, both of those who were erroneous and
   defective in doctrine, and of those who were by their lives unworthy of
   their profession; they who caused divisions and heresies were to be
   marked and avoided but not expelled, and if any called a brother were a
   notoriously immoral person, the rest were enjoined, to not to eat with
   him but he was not to be refused the name of brother Christian. (1 Cor.
   v. 11.)

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

   The Apostolic Churches were thus multitudinist, and they early tended
   to become National Churches; from the first they took collective names
   from the localities where they were situate. And it was natural and
   proper they should, except upon the Calvinistic theory of conversion.
   There is some show of reasonable independence, some appearance of
   applying the protestant liberty of private judgment, in maintaining the
   Christian unlawfulness of the union of Church and state, corruption of
   national establishments, and like propositions. But it will be found,
   that where they are maintained by serious and religious people, they
   are parts of a Calvinistic system, and are held in connexion with
   peculiar theories of grace, immediate conversion, and arbitrary call.
   It is as merely a Calvinistic and Congregational commonplace to speak
   of the unholy union of Church and State accomplished by Constantine, as
   it is a Romish commonplace to denounce the unholy schism accomplished
   by Henry the Eighth. But in fact both those sovereigns only carried
   out, chiefly for their own purposes, that which was already in
   preparation by the course of events; even Henry would not have broken
   with the Pope it he had not seen the public mind to be in some degree
   ripe for it, nor would Constantine have taken the first steps towards
   an establishment of Christianity, unless the empire had already been
   growing Christian.

   Unhappily, together with his inauguration of Multitudinism,
   Constantine, also inaugurated a principle essentially at variance with
   it, the principle of doctrinal limitation. It is very customary to
   attribute the necessity of stricter definitions of the Christian creed
   from time to time to the rise of successive heresies. More correctly,
   there succeeded to the fluid state of Christian opinion in the first
   century after Christ, a gradual hardening and systematizing of
   conflicting views; and the opportunity of reverting to the freedom of
   the Apostolic and immediately succeeding periods, was finally lost for
   many ages by the sanction given by Constantine to the decisions of
   Nicæa. We cannot now be very good judges, whether it would have been
   possible, together with the establishment of Christianity as the
   imperial religion, to enforce forbearance between the great antagonisms
   which were then in dispute, and to hove insisted on the maxim, that
   neither had a right to limit the common Christianity to the exclusion
   of the other. At all events a principle at variance with a true
   Multitudinism was then recognised. All parties it must be acknowledged
   were equally exclusive. And exclusion and definition have since been
   the rule for almost all Churches, more or less, even when others of
   their principles might seem to promise a greater freedom.

   That the members of a Calvinistic Church, as in the Geneva of Calvin
   and Beza, or in the Church of Scotland, should coincide with the
   members of the State--that election' and effectual call' should be
   hereditary, is, of course, too absurd to suppose; and the
   congregational Calvinists are more consistent than the Calvinists of
   Established Churches. Of Calvinism, as a system of doctrine, it is not
   here proposed to say anything, except, that it must of necessity be
   hostile to every other creed; and the members of a Calvinistic Church
   can never consider themselves but as parted by an insuperable
   distinction from all other professors of the Gospel; they cannot stand
   on a common footing, in any spiritual matter, with those who belong to
   the world, that is, with all others than themselves. The exclusiveness
   of a multitudinist Church, which makes, as yet, the ecclesiastical
   creeds the terms of its communion, may cease when that test or
   limitation is repealed. But the exclusiveness of a Calvinistic Church,
   whether free from the creeds or not, is inherent in its principles.
   There is no insuperable harrier between Congregationalists not being
   Calvinists, and a multitudinist Church which should liberate itself
   sufficiently from the traditional symbols. Doctrinal limitations in the
   multitudinist form of Church are not essential to it; upon larger
   knowledge of Christian history, upon a more thorough acquaintance with
   the mental constitution of man, upon an understanding of the obstacles
   they present to a true Catholicity, they may be cast off. Nor is a
   multitudinist Church necessarily or essentially hierarchical, in any
   extreme or superstitious sense; it can well admit, if not pure
   congregationalism, a large admixture of the congregational spirit.
   Indeed, a combination of the two principles will alone keep any Church
   in health and vigour. Too great importance attached to a hierarchical
   order will lead into superstitions respecting Apostolical succession,
   ministerial illumination, supernatural sacramental influence; mere
   congregationalism tends to keep ministers and people at a dead
   spiritual level. A just recognition and balance of the two tendencies,
   allows the emerging of the most eminent of the congregation into
   offices for which they are suited; so that neither are the true
   hierarchs and leaders of thought and manners drawn down and made to
   succumb to a mere democracy, nor those clothed in the priests' robe who
   have no true unction from above. And this just balance between the
   hierarchy and the congregation would be at least as attainable in the
   national form of Church as in any other, if it were free from
   dogmatical tests and similar intellectual bondage. But there are some
   prejudices against Nationalism which deserve to be farther considered.

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

   Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.

   If the love felt and inculcated by St. John towards the brethren was
   the more intense, the charity with which St. Paul comprehended all men
   was the more ample; and it is not from every point of view we should
   describe St. John as pre-eminently the Apostle of love. With St. John,
   the whole world lieth in wickedness,' while St. Paul exhorts prayers
   and supplications to be made for all men, for kings, and for all that
   are in authority.' Taking a wide view of the world and its history, we
   must acknowledge political constitutions of men to be the work of God
   Himself; they are organizations into which human society grows by
   reason of the properties of the elements which generate it. But the
   primitive Christians could scarcely be expected to see, that ultimately
   the Gospel was to have sway in doing more perfectly that which the
   heathen religions were doing imperfectly; that its office should be,
   not only to quicken the spirit of the individual and to confirm his
   future hopes, but to sanctify all social relations and civil
   institutions, and to enter into the marrow of the national life;
   whereas heathenism had only decorated the surface of it.

   Heathendom had its national Churches. Indeed, the existence of a
   national Church is not only a permissible thing, but is necessary to
   the completion of a national life, and has shown itself in all nations,
   when they have made any advance in civilization. It has been usual, but
   erroneous, to style the Jewish constitution a theocracy in a peculiar
   and exclusive sense, as if the combination of the religious and civil
   life had been confined to that people. Even among barbarous tribes the
   fetish-man establishes an authority over the rest, quite as much from
   the yearning of others after guidance as from his own superior cunning.
   Priesthoods have always been products. Priests have neither been, as
   some would represent, a set of deliberate conspirators against the free
   thoughts of mankind; nor, on the other hand, have they been the sole
   divinely commissioned channels for communication of spiritual truth. If
   all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be swept from
   the face of the earth, they would soon be reproduced. If the human
   race, or a given people--and a recent generation saw an instance of
   something like it in no distant nation--were resolved into its
   elements, and all its social and religious institutions shattered to
   pieces it would reconstruct a political framework, and a spiritual
   organization, re-constituting governors, laws, and magistrates,
   educators, and ministers of religion.

   The distinction between the Jewish people and the other nations, in
   respect of this so-called theocracy, is but feebly marked on both
   sides. For the religious element was much stronger than has been
   supposed in other nationalities, and the priesthood was by no means
   supreme in the Hebrew State. [113]

   Constantly the title occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, of the Lord's
   people,' with appeals to Jehovah as their Supreme Governor, Protector,
   and Judge. And so it is with polytheistic nations; they are the
   offspring of the gods; the deities are their guides and guardians, the
   authors of their laws and customs; their worship is interwoven with the
   whole course of political and social life. It will of course be said,
   the entire difference is no more than this--the object of worship in
   the one case was the true God, in the other cases idols or demons. But
   it is very clear to unprejudiced persons, that the conceptions which
   the Hebrews formed of Jehovah, though far superior to the conceptions
   embodied in any other national religion, were obscured by figurative
   representations of Him in accordance with the character of His
   worshippers. The passions ascribed to Him were not those most base and
   degrading ones attributed to their deities by the pagans; and on that
   account it has been less easy to separate the figurative description
   from the true idea of Him. The better pagans could easily perceive the
   stories of their gods to have been, at the best, allegories, poetical
   embellishments, inventions of some kind or other. Jews did not
   perceive, that the attribution of wrath and jealousy to their God could
   only be by a figure of speech; and what is worse, it is difficult to
   persuade many Christians of the same thing, and solemn inferences from
   the figurative expressions of the Hebrew literature have been
   crystallized into Christian doctrine.

   All things sanctioned among the Jews are certainly not to be imitated
   by us, nor all pagan institutions to be abhorred. In respect of a State
   religion, Jew and Gentile were more alike than has been thought. All
   nations have exhibited, in some form or another, the development of a
   public religion, and have done so by reason of tendencies inherent in
   their nationality. The particular form of the religion has been due to
   various causes. Also in periods of transition there would, for a time,
   be a breaking in upon this feature of national life. While prophets,
   philosophers, reformers, were at work, or some new principle winning
   its way, the national uniformity would be disturbed. So it was at the
   first preaching of the Gospel; St. Paul and the Lord Jesus himself
   offered it to the Jews as a nation, on the multitudinist principle; but
   when they put it from them, it must make progress by kindling a fire in
   the earth, even to the dividing families, two against three and three
   against two. Thereupon Christians appear for a while to be aliens from
   their countries and commonwealths, but only for a while. We must not
   confound with an essential principle of Christianity that which only
   resulted from a temporary necessity. The individualist principle may
   have been the right one for a time, and under certain circumstances,
   not consequently the right one, under all circumstances, nor even the
   possible one. In this question, as in that of hierarchy, and in various
   ceremonial discussions, the appeal to a particular primitive antiquity
   is only an appeal from the whole experience of Christendom to a partial
   experience limited to a short period. Moreover, as to the mind of Jesus
   himself with respect to Nationalism it is fully revealed in those
   touching words, preserved both in the first and third Gospels, How
   often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
   gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.'

   Christianity was therefore compelled, as it were against its will, and
   in contradiction to its proper design, to make the first steps in its
   progress by cutting across old societies, filtering into the world by
   individual conversions, showing, nevertheless, from the very first, its
   multitudinist tendencies; and before it could comprehend countries or
   cities, embracing families and households, the several members of which
   must have been on very different spiritual levels (Acts xvi. 31-34).
   The Roman world was penetrated in the first instance by an individual
   and domestic Christianity, to which was owing the first conversion of
   our own country; in the second or Saxon conversion, the people were
   Christianized en masse. Such conversions as this last may not be
   thought to have been worth much, but they were worth the abolition of
   some of the grossness of idolatry; they effected all of which the
   subjects of them were for the time capable, and prepared the way for
   something better in another generation. The conversions operated by the
   German Apostle, Boniface, were of the same multitudinous kind as those
   of Austin and Paulinus in Britain, and for a like reason; in both cases
   the development of Christianity necessarily followed the forms of the
   national life.

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

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

   It has been matter of great boast within the Church of England, in
   common with other Protestant Churches, that it is founded upon the Word
   of God,' a phrase which begs many a question when applied to the
   canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, a phrase which is never
   applied to them by any of the Scriptural authors, and which, according
   to Protestant principles, never could be applied to them by any
   sufficient authority from without. In that which may be considered the
   pivot Article of the Church this expression does not occur, but only
   Holy Scripture,' Canonical Books,' Old and New Testaments.' It contains
   no declaration of the Bible being throughout supernaturally suggested,
   nor any intimation as to which portions of it were owing to a special
   divine illumination, nor the slightest attempt at defining inspiration,
   whether mediate or immediate, whether through, or beside, or overruling
   the natural faculties of the subject of it,--not the least hint of the
   relation between the divine and human elements in the composition of
   the Biblical books. Even if the Fathers have usually considered
   canonical' as synonymous with miraculously inspired,' there is nothing
   to show that their sense of the word must necessarily be applied in our
   own sixth Article. The word itself may mean either books ruled and
   determined by the Church, or regulative books; and the employment of it
   in the Article hesitates between these two significations. For at one
   time Holy Scripture' and canonical books are those books of whose
   authority never was any doubt in the Church,' [114] that is, they are
   determined' books; and then the other, or uncanonical books, are
   described as those which the Church doth not apply to establish any
   doctrine,' that is, they are not regulative' books. And if the other
   principal Churches of the Reformation have gone farther in definition
   in this respect than our own, that is no reason we should force the
   silence of our Church into unison with their expressed declarations,
   but rather that we should rejoice in our comparative freedom. [115]

   The Protestant feeling among us has satisfied itself in a blind way
   with the anti-Roman declaration, that Holy Scripture containeth all
   things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein,
   nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it
   should be believed as an article of the faith,' &c., and without
   reflecting how very much is wisely left open in that Article. For this
   declaration itself is partly negative and partly positive; as to its
   negative part it declares that nothing--no clause of creed, no decision
   of council, no tradition or exposition--is to be required to be
   believed on peril of salvation, unless it be Scriptural; but it does
   not lay down, that everything which is contained in Scripture must be
   believed on the same peril. Or it may be expressed thus--the Word of
   God is contained in Scripture, whence it does not follow that it is
   co-extensive with it. The Church to which we belong does not put that
   stumbling-block before the feet of her members; it is their own fault
   if they place it there for themselves, authors of their own offence.
   Under the terms of the sixth Article one may accept literally, or
   allegorically, or as parable, or poetry, or legend, the story of a
   serpent tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, of an arresting
   of the earth's motion, of a reversal of its motion, of waters standing
   in a solid heap, of witches, and a variety of apparitions. So, under
   the terms of the sixth Article, every one is free in judgment as to the
   primeval institution of the Sabbath, the universality of the deluge,
   the confusion of tongues, the corporeal taking up of Elijah into
   Heaven, the nature of angels, the reality of demoniacal possession, the
   personality of Satan, and the miraculous particulars of many events. So
   the dates and authorship of the several books received as canonical are
   not determined by any authority, nor their relative value and,
   importance.

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

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

   It is ill to be deterred from giving expression to the truth or from
   prosecuting the investigation of it, from a fear of making concessions
   to revolutionary or captious dispositions. For the blame of this
   captiousness, when it exists, lies in part at the door of those who
   ignore the difficulties of others, because they may not feel any for
   themselves. To this want of wisdom on the part of the defenders of old
   opinions is to be attributed, that the noting of such differences as
   are to be found in the Evangelical narratives, or in the books of Kings
   and Chronicles, takes the appearance of an attack upon a holy thing.
   The like ill consequences follow from not acknowledging freely the
   extent of the human element in the sacred books; for if this were
   freely acknowledged on the one side, the divine element would be
   frankly recognised on the other. Good men--and they cannot be good
   without the Spirit of God--may err in facts, be weak in memory, mingle
   imagination with memory, be feeble in inferences, confound illustration
   with argument, be varying in judgment and opinion. But the Spirit of
   absolute Truth cannot err or contradict Himself, if He speak
   immediately, even in small things, accessories, or accidents. Still
   less can we suppose Him to suggest contradictory accounts, or accounts
   only to be reconciled in the way of hypothesis and conjecture. Some
   things indited by the Holy Spirit may appear to relate to objects of
   which the whole cannot be embraced by the human intellect, and it may
   not, as to such objects, be possible to reconcile opposite sides of
   Divine truth. Whether this is the general character of Scripture
   revelations is not now the question; but the theory is supposable and
   should be treated with respect, in regard to some portions of
   Scripture. To suppose, on the other hand, a supernatural influence to
   cause the record of that which can only issue in a puzzle, is to lower
   infinitely our conception of the Divine dealings in respect of a
   special revelation.

   Thus it may be attributed to the defect of our understandings, that we
   should be unable altogether to reconcile the aspects of the Saviour as
   presented to us in the three first Gospels, and in the writings of St.
   and St. John. At any rate, there were current the primitive Church very
   distinct Christologies. But neither to any defect in our capacities,
   nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any
   partial spiritual endowments in the narrators, can we attribute the
   difficulty, if not impossibility, of reconciling the genealogies of St.
   Matthew and St. Luke, or the chronology of the Holy Week, or the
   accounts of the Resurrection; nor to any mystery in the subject-matter
   can be referred the uncertainty in which the New Testament writings
   leave us, as to the descent of Jesus Christ according to the flesh,
   whether by his mother He were of the tribe of Judah, or of the tribe of
   Levi.

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

   As far as opinion privately entertained is concerned, the liberty of
   the English clergyman appears already to be complete. For no
   ecclesiastical person call be obliged to answer interrogations as to
   his opinions, nor be troubled for that which he has not actually
   expressed, nor be made responsible for inferences which other people
   may draw from his expressions. [116]

   Still, though there may be no power of inquisition into the private
   opinions either of ministers or people in the Church of England, there
   may be some interference with the expression of them; and a great
   restraint is supposed to be imposed upon the clergy by reason of their
   subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Yet it is more difficult than
   might be expected, to define what is the extent of the legal obligation
   of those who sign them; and in this case the strictly legal obligation
   is the measure of the moral one. Subscription may be thought even to be
   inoperative upon the conscience by reason of its vagueness. For the act
   of subscription is enjoined, but its effect or meaning nowhere plainly
   laid down; and it does not seem to amount to more than an acceptance of
   the Articles of the Church as the formal law to which the subscriber is
   in some sense subject. What that subjection amounts to, must be
   gathered elsewhere, for it does not appear on the face of the
   subscription itself.

   The ecclesiastical authority on the subject is to be found in the
   Canons of 1603, the fifth and the thirty-sixth. The fifth, indeed, may
   be applicable theoretically both to lay and to ecclesiastical persons;
   practically it can only concern those of whom subscription is really
   required. It is entitled, Impugners of the Articles of Religion
   established in this Church of England censured. Whosoever shall
   hereafter affirm, that any of the nine and thirty articles, &c., are in
   any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good
   conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated, &c.' We need not
   stay to consider what the effects of excommunication might be, but
   rather attend to the definition which the canon itself supplies of
   impugning.' It is stated to be the affirming, that any of the
   Thirty-nine Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous.' Yet
   an Article may be very inexpedient, or become so; may be
   unintelligible, or not easily intelligible to ordinary people; it may
   be controversial, and such as to provoke controversy and keep it alive
   when otherwise it would subside; it may revive unnecessarily the
   remembrance of dead controversies--all or any of these, without being
   erroneous;' and though not superstitious,' some expressions may appear
   so, such as those which seem to impute an occult operation to the
   Sacraments. The fifth canon does not touch the affirming any of these
   things, and more especially, that the Articles present truths
   disproportionately, and relatively to ideas not now current.

   The other canon which concerns subscription is the thirty-sixth, which
   contains two clauses explanatory to some extent, of the meaning of
   ministerial subscription, That he alloweth the Book of Articles, &c.'
   and that he acknowledgeth the same to be agreeable to the Word of God.'
   We allow' many things which we do not think wise or practically useful;
   as the less of two evils, or an evil which cannot be remedied, or of
   which the remedy is not attainable, or is uncertain in its operation,
   or is not in our power, or concerning which there is much difference of
   opinion, or where the initiation of any change does not belong to
   ourselves, nor the responsibility belong to ourselves, either of the
   things as they are, or of searching for something better. Many
   acquiesce in, submit to, allow,' a law as it operates upon themselves
   which they would be horror-struck to have enacted; yet they would
   gladly and in conscience, allow' and submit to it, as part of a
   constitution under which they live, against which they would never
   think of rebelling, which they would on no account undermine, for the
   many blessings of which they are fully grateful--they would be silent
   and patient rather than join, even in appearance, the disturbers and
   breakers of its laws. Secondly, he acknowledgeth' the same to be
   agreeable to the Word of God. Some distinctions may be founded upon the
   word acknowledge.' He does not maintain, nor regard it as self-evident,
   nor originate it as his own feeling, spontaneous opinion, or
   conviction; but when it is suggested to him, put in a certain shape,
   when the intention of the framers is borne in mind, their probable
   purpose and design explained, together with the difficulties which
   surrounded them, he is not prepared to contradict, and he acknowledges.
   There is a great deal to be said, which had not at first occurred to
   him; many other better and wiser men than himself have acknowledged the
   same thing--why should he be obstinate? Besides, he is young, and has
   plenty of time to reconsider it; or he is old and continues to submit
   out of habit, and it would be too absurd, at his time of life, to be
   setting up as a Church reformer.

   But after all, the important phrase is, that the Articles are agreeable
   to the Word of God.' This cannot mean that the Articles are precisely
   coextensive with the Bible, much less of equal authority with a whole.
   Neither separately, nor altogether, do they embody all which is said in
   it, and relatively which they draw from it are only good relatively and
   secundum quid and quatenus concordant. If their terms are Biblical
   terms, they must be presumed to have the same sense in the Articles
   which they have in the Scripture; and if they are not all Scriptural
   ones, they undertake in the pivot Article not to contradict the
   Scripture. The Articles do not make any assumption of being
   interpretations of Scripture or developments of it. The greater must
   include the less, and the Scripture is the greater.

   On the other hand, there may be some things in the Articles which could
   not be contained, or have not been contained, in the Scripture--such as
   propositions or clauses concerning historical facts more recent than
   the Scripture itself; for instance, that there never has been any doubt
   in the Church concerning the books of the New Testament. For without
   including such doubts as a fool might have, or a very conceited person,
   without carrying doubts founded upon mere criticism and internal
   evidence only, to such an extent as a Baur or even an Ewald, there was
   a time when certain books existed and certain others were not as yet
   written;--for example, the Epistles of St. Paul were anterior, probably
   to all of the Gospels, certainly to that of St. John, and of course the
   Church could not receive without doubt books not as yet composed. But
   as the canon grew, book after book emerging into existence and general
   reception, there were doubts as to some of them, for a longer or
   shorter period, either concerning their authorship or their authority.
   The framers of the Articles were not deficient in learning, and could
   not have been ignorant of the passages in Eusebius where the different
   books current in Christendom in his time are classified as genuine or
   acknowledged, doubtful and spurious. If there be an erroneousness in
   such a statement, as that there never was any doubt in the Church
   concerning the book of the Revelation, the Epistle to the Hebrews, or
   the second of St. Peter, it cannot be an erroneousness in the sense of
   the fifth canon, nor can it be at variance with the Word of God
   according to the thirty-sixth. Such things in the Articles as are
   beside the Scripture are not in the contemplation of the canons. Much
   less can historical questions not even hinted at in the Articles be
   excluded from free discussion--such as concern the dates and
   composition of the several books, the compilation of the Pentateuch,
   the introduction of Daniel into the Jewish canon, and the like with
   some books of the New Testament--the date and authorship, for instance,
   of the fourth Gospel.

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

   We have spoken hitherto of the signification of subscription which may
   be gathered from the canons; there is, also, a statute, a law of the
   land, which forbids, under penalties, the advisedly and directly
   contradicting any of them by ecclesiastics, and requires subscription
   with declaration of assent' from beneficed persons. This statute (13
   Eliz. c. 52), three hundred years old, like many other old enactments,
   is not found to be very applicable to modern cases; although it is only
   about fifty years ago that it was said by Sir William Scott to be in
   viridi observantiâ. Nevertheless, its provisions would not easily be
   brought to bear on questions likely to be raised in our own days. The
   meshes are too open for modern refinements. For not to repeat
   concerning the word assent' what has been said concerning allow' and
   acknowledge,' let the Articles be taken according to an obvious
   classification. Forms of expression, partly derived from modern modes
   of thought on metaphysical subjects, partly suggested by a better
   acquaintance than heretofore with the unsettled state of Christian
   opinion in the immediately post-apostolic age, may be adopted with
   respect to the doctrines enunciated in the five first Articles, without
   directly contradicting, impugning, or refusing assent to them, but
   passing by the side of them--as with respect to the humanifying of the
   Divine Word and to the Divine Personalities. Then those which we have
   called the pivot Articles, concerning the rule of faith and the
   sufficiency of Scripture, are, happily, found to make no effectual
   provision for an absolute uniformity, when once the freedom of
   interpretation of Scripture is admitted; they cannot be considered as
   interpreting their own interpreter; this has sometimes been called a
   circular proceeding; it might be resembled to a lever becoming its own
   fulcrum. The Articles, again, which have a Lutheran and Calvinistic
   sound, are found to be equally open, because they are, for the most
   part, founded on the very words of Scripture, and these, while worthy
   of unfeigned assent, are capable of different interpretations. Indeed,
   the Calvinistic and Arminian views have been declared by a kind of
   authority to be both of them tenable under the seventeenth Article; and
   if the Scriptural terms of election' and predestination may be
   interpreted in an anti-Calvinistic sense, faith,' in the tenth and
   following Articles, need not be understood in the Lutheran. These are
   instances of legitimate affixing different significations to tones in
   the Articles, by reason of different interpretations of Scriptural
   passages.

   If, however, the Articles of religion and the law of the Church of
   England be in effect liberal, flexible, or little stringent, is there
   any necessity for expressing dissatisfaction with them, any sufficient
   provocation to change? There may be much more liberty in a Church like
   our own, the law of which is always interpreted, according to the
   English spirit, in the manner most favourable to those who are subject
   to its discipline, than in one which, whether free or not from
   Articles, might be empowered to develope doctrine and to denounce new
   heresies. Certainly the late Mr. Irving, if he had been a clergyman of
   the Church of England, could scarcely have been brought under the terms
   of any ecclesiastical law of ours, for the expression of opinions upon
   an abstruse question respecting the humanity of Jesus Christ, which
   subjected him to degradation in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
   And this transition state may be a state of as much liberty as the
   Church of England could in any way as yet have been enabled to attain,
   a state of greater practical liberty than has been attained in Churches
   supposed to be more free; it is a state of safety and protection to
   those who use it wisely, under which a farther freedom may be prepared.

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

   And farther than this, the present apparent stringency of subscription
   as required of the clergy of the Church of England does not belong to
   it as part of its foundation, is not even coeval with its
   reconstruction at the period of the Reformation. For the Canons are of
   the date of 1603, and the Act requiring the public reading of the
   Thirty-nine Articles, with declaration of assent by a beneficed person
   after his induction, is the 13th Elizabeth. An enactment prohibiting
   the bishops from requiring the subscriptions under the third article of
   the thirty-sixth canon, together with the repeal of 13th Elizabeth,
   except as to its second section, would relieve many scruples, and make
   the Church more national, without disturbing its ultimate law. The
   Articles would then obviously become for the clergy that which they are
   for the laity of the Church, articles of peace, not to be contradicted
   by her sons,' as the wise and liberal Burnet described them: and there
   is forcible practical reason for leaving the Thirty-nine Articles as
   the ultimate law of the Church, not to be contradicted, and for
   confining relaxation to the abolition of subscription.

   A large portion of the Articles were originally directed against the
   corruptions of the Church of Rome, and whatever may be thought of the
   unadvisableness of retaining tests to exclude opinions which few think
   of reviving in their old shape, these Roman doctrines and practices are
   seen to be flourishing in full life and vigour. And considering the
   many grievous provocations which the people of England have suffered
   from the Papacy both in ancient and modern times, they would naturally
   resist any change which might by possibility weaken the barriers
   between the National Church and the encroachments of the Church of
   Rome. It is evident, moreover, that the act of signature to the
   Thirty-nine Articles contributes nothing to the exclusion from the
   Church of Romish views. For, as it is; opinions and practices prevail
   among some of the clergy, which are extremely distasteful to the
   generality of the people, by reason of their Romish character. Those of
   the Articles which condemn the Romish errors, cannot themselves be made
   so stringent as to bar altogether the intrusion of some opinion of a
   Roman tone, which the Reformers, if they could have foreseen it, might
   have desired to exclude, and which is equally strange and repugnant to
   the common sense of the nation. No act of subscription can supply this
   defect of stringency in the formulas themselves. Now it would be
   impossible to secure the advantages of freedom in one direction without
   making it equal as far as it goes. We must endeavour to liberate
   ourselves from the dominion of an unwise and really unchristian
   principle with the fewest possible risks and inconveniences.

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

   For, the act of subscription being abolished, there would disappear the
   invidious distinction between the clergy and laity of the same
   communion, as if there were separate standards for each of belief and
   morals. There would disappear also a semblance of a promissory oath on
   a subject which a promise is incapable of reaching. No promise can
   reach fluctuations of opinion and personal conviction. Open teaching
   can, it is true, if it be thought wise, be dealt with by the law and
   its penalties; but the law should content itself with saying, you shall
   not teach or proclaim in derogation of my formularies; it should not
   require any act which appears to signify I think.' Let the security be
   either the penal or the moral one, not a commingling of the two. It
   happens continually, that able and sincere Persons are deterred from
   entering the ministry of the national Church by this consideration;
   they would be willing to be subject to the law forbidding them to teach
   Arianism or Pelagianism--as what sensible man in our day would desire
   to teach them?--but they do not like to say, or be thought to say, that
   they assent to a certain number of' anti-Arian and anti-Pelagian
   propositions. And the absence of vigorous tone--not confined to one
   party in the Church, which is to be lamented of late years in its
   ministry, is to be attributed to the reluctance of the stronger minds
   to enter an Order in which their intellects may not have free play. The
   very course of preparation for ordination, tied down as it is in one
   department to the study of the Articles, which must perforce be proved
   consentaneous to the Word of God' according to some, and to Catholic
   antiquity' according to others, has an enervating effect upon the non
   which is compelled to embrace much scholastic matter, not as a history
   of doctrine, but as a system of truth of which it ought to be
   convinced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   And if the objects of the care of each nearly coincide, when the office
   of the Church is properly understood, so errors and mistakes in
   defining Church-membership, or in constituting a repulsive mode of
   Church teaching, are fatal to the purposes both of Church and State
   alike.

   It is a great misrepresentation to exhibit the State as allying itself
   with one out of many sects--a misrepresentation, the blame of which
   does not rest wholly with political persons, nor with the partisans of
   sects adverse to that which is supposed to be unduly preferred. It
   cannot concern a State to develop as part of its own organization a
   machinery or system of relations founded on the possession of
   speculative truth. Speculative doctrines should be left to
   philosophical schools. A national Church must be concerned with the
   ethical development of its members. And the wrong of supposing it to be
   otherwise, is participated by those of the clericalty who consider the
   Church of Christ to be founded, as a society, on the possession of an
   abstractedly true and supernaturally communicated speculation
   concerning God, rather than upon the manifestation of a divine life in
   man.

   It has often been made matter of reproach to the heathen State
   religions, that they took little concern in the moral life of the
   citizens. To a certain extent this is true, for the heathens of
   classical history had not generally the same conceptions of morals as
   we have. But as far as their conceptions of morals reached, their
   Church and State were mutually bound together, not by a material
   alliance, nor by a gross compact of pay and preferment passing between
   the civil society and the priesthood, but by the penetrating of the
   whole public and domestic life of the nation with a religious
   sentiment.. All the social relations were consecrated by the feeling of
   their being entered into and carried on under the sanction--under the
   very impulse of Deity. Treaties and boundaries, buying and selling,
   marrying, judging, deliberating on affairs of State, spectacles and all
   popular amusements, were under the protection of Divinity; all life was
   a worship. It can very well be understood how philosophers should
   esteemed atheists, when they began to speculate upon origins, causes,
   abstract being, and the like.

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

   But in order to the possibility of recruiting any national ministry
   from the whole of the nation, in order to the operation upon the nation
   at large of the special functions of its Church, no needless
   intellectual or speculative obstacles should be interposed. It is not
   to be expected that terms of communion could be made so large, as by
   any possibility to comprehend in the national Church the whole of such
   a free nation as our own. There will always be those who, from a
   conscientious scruple, or from a desire to define, or from
   peculiarities of temper, will hold aloof from the religion and the
   worship of the majority; and it is not desirable that it should be
   otherwise, so long as the national unity and the moral action of
   society are not thereby seriously impaired. No doubt, speaking
   politically, and regarding merely the peacefulness with which the
   machinery of ordinary executive government can be carried on, it has
   proved very advantageous to the State, that an Established Church has
   existed in this country, to receive the shafts which otherwise might
   have been directed against itself. Ill-humour has evaporated harmlessly
   in Dissent, which might otherwise have materially deranged the body
   politic; and village Hampdens have acquired a parochial renown,
   sufficient to satisfy their ambition, in resistance to a Church-rate,
   whose restlessness sought have urged them to dispute, even to prison
   and spoiling of their goods, the lawfulness of a war-tax. But whatever
   root of conscientiousness and truth-seeking there has been in
   non-conformity, whatever amount of indirect good is produced by the
   emulation of the different religious bodies, whatever safety to social
   order by the escapement for temper so provided--the moral influence of
   the better people in their several neighbourhoods is neutralized or
   lost for want of harmony and concentration, when the alienation from
   the national Church reaches the extent which it has done in our
   country. Even in the more retired localities, industry, cleanliness,
   decency in the homes of the poor, school discipline and truthfulness,
   are encouraged far less than they might otherwise be, by reason of the
   absence of religious unanimity in the superior classes. And if the
   points of speculation and of form which separate Dissenters from the
   Church of England were far more important than they are, and the
   approximative truth preponderatingly upon the side of Dissent, it would
   do infinitely more harm by the dissension which it creates, than it
   possibly could accomplish of good, by a greater correctness in doctrine
   and ecclesiastical constitution. If this statement concerns Dissent
   itself on one side it concerns the Church on the other, or rather those
   who so limit the terms of its communion as to provoke, and--as human
   beings are constituted--to necessitate separation from it. It is stated
   by Neal, [117] that if the alterations in the Prayer-book, recommended
   by the Commissioners of 1689 had been adopted, it would in all
   probability have brought in three parts in four of the Dissenters.' No
   such result could be expected from any amendments' or concessions' now.
   Much less could anything be hoped for, by means of a Conference.' But
   it concerns the State, on the highest grounds of public policy, to
   rectify, as far as possible, the mistakes committed in former times by
   itself or by the Church under its sanction; and without aiming at an
   universal comprehension, which would be Utopian, to suffer the
   perpetuation of no unnecessary barriers excluding from the communion or
   the ministry of the national Church.

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

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

   It does not seem to be contradicted, that when Church formularies adopt
   the words of Scripture, these must have the same meaning, and be
   subject to the same questions, in the formularies, as in the Scripture.
   And we may go somewhat farther and say, that the historical parts of
   the Bible, when referred to or presupposed in the formularies, have the
   same value in them which they have in their original seat; and this
   value may consist, rather in their significance, in the ideas which
   they awaken, than in the scenes themselves which they depict. And as
   Churchmen, or as Christians, we may vary as to their value in
   particulars--that is, as to the extent of the verbal accuracy of a
   history, or of its spiritual significance, without breaking with our
   communion, or denying our sacred name. These varieties will be
   determined partly by the peculiarities of men's mental constitution,
   partly by the nature of their education, circumstances, and special
   studies. And neither should the idealist condemn the literalist, nor
   the literalist assume the right of excommunicating the idealist. They
   are really fed with the same truths; the literalist unconsciously, the
   idealist with reflection. Neither can justly say of the other that he
   under. values the Sacred Writings, or that he holds them as inspired
   less properly than himself.

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

   It will be observed that the ideal method is applicable in two ways;
   both to giving account of the origin of parts of Scripture, and also in
   explanation of Scripture. It is thus either critical or exegetical. An
   example of the critical ideology carried to excess is that of Strauss,
   which resolves into an ideal the whole of the historical and doctrinal
   person of Jesus; so again, much of the allegorizing of Plato and Origen
   is an exegetical ideology, exaggerated and wild. But it by no means
   follows, because Strauss has substituted a mere shadow for the Jesus of
   the Evangelists, and has frequently descended to a minute captiousness
   in details, that there are not traits in the scriptural person of
   Jesus, which are better explained by referring them to an ideal than an
   historical origin: and without falling into fanciful exegetics, there
   are parts of scripture more usefully interpreted ideologically than in
   any other manner--as, for instance, the history of the temptation of
   Jesus by Satan, and accounts of demoniacal possessions. And liberty
   must be left to all as to the extent in which they apply the principle,
   for there is no authority, through the expressed determination of the
   Church, nor of any other kind, which can define the limits within which
   it may be reasonably exercised.

   Thus some may consider the descent of all mankind from Adam and Eve as
   an undoubted historical fact; others may into perceive in that relation
   a form of narrative, into which in early ages tradition would easily
   throw itself spontaneously. Each race naturally--necessarily, when
   races are isolated--supposes itself to be sprung from a single pair,
   and to be the first, or the only one, of races. Among a particular
   people this historical representation became the concrete expression of
   a great moral truth--of the brotherhood of all humans beings, of their
   community, as in other things, so also in suffering and in frailty, in
   physical pains and in moral corruption.' And the force, grandeur, and
   reality of these ideas are not a whit impaired in the abstract, nor
   indeed the truth of the concrete history as their representation, even
   though mankind should have been placed upon the earth in many pairs at
   once, or in distinct centres of creation. For the brotherhood of men
   really depends, not upon the material fact of their fleshly descent
   from a single stock, but upon their constitution, as possessed in
   common, of the same faculties and affections, fitting them for mutual
   relation and association; so that the value of the history, if it were
   a history strictly so called, would lie in its emblematic force and
   application. And man narratives of marvels and catastrophes in the Old
   Testament are referred to in the New, as emblems, without either
   denying or asserting their literal truth--such as the destruction of
   Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven, and the Noachian deluge. And
   especially if we bear in mind the existence of such a school as that
   which produced Philo, or even the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
   we must think it would be wrong to lay down, that whenever the New
   Testament writers refer to Old Testament histories, they imply of
   necessity that the historic truth was the first to them. For their
   purposes it was often wholly in the background, and the history,
   valuable only in its spiritual application. Tire same may take place
   with ourselves, and history and tradition be employed emblematically,
   without, on that account, being regarded as untrue. We do not apply the
   term untrue' to parable, fable, or proverb, although their words
   correspond with ideas, not with material facts; as little should we do
   so, when narratives have been the spontaneous product of true ideas,
   and are capable of reproducing them.

   The ideologian is evidently in possession of a principle which will
   enable him to stand in charitable relation to persons of very different
   opinions from his own, and of very different opinions mutually. And if
   he has perceived to how great extent the history of the origin itself
   of Christianity rests ultimately upon probable evidence, his principle
   will relieve him from many difficulties which might otherwise be very
   disturbing. For relations which may repose on doubtful grounds as
   matter of history, and, as history, be incapable of being ascertained
   or verified, may yet be equally suggestive of true ideas with facts
   absolutely certain. The spiritual significance is the same of the
   transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing the tongue of the
   stammerer to speak plainly, of feeding multitudes with bread in the
   wilderness, of cleansing leprosy, whatever links may be deficient in
   the traditional record of particular events. Or, let us suppose one to
   be uncertain, whether our Lord were born of the house and lineage of
   David, or of the tribe of Levi, and even to be driven to conclude that
   the genealogies of Him have little historic value; nevertheless, in
   idea, Jesus is both Son of David and Son of Aaron, both Prince of Peace
   and High Priest of our profession; as He is, under another idea, though
   not literally, without father and without mother.' And He is none the
   less Son of David, Priest Aaronical, or Royal Priest Melchizedecan, in
   idea and spiritually, even if it be unproved, whether He were any of
   them in historic fact. In like manner it need not trouble us, if, in
   consistency, we should have to suppose both an ideal origin and to
   apply an ideal meaning to the birth in the city of David, and to other
   circumstances of the infancy. So, again, the incarnification of the
   divine Immanuel remains, although the angelic appearances which herald
   it in the narratives of the Evangelists may be of ideal origin
   according to the conceptions of former days. The ideologian may
   sometimes be thought sceptical, and be sceptical or doubtful, as to the
   historical value of related facts; but the historical value is not
   always to him the most important; frequently it is quite secondary.
   And, consequently, discrepancies in narratives, scientific
   difficulties, defects in evidence, do not disturb him as they do the
   literalist.

   Moreover, the same principle is capable of application to some of those
   inferences which have been the source, according to different
   theologies, of much controversial acrimony and of wide ecclesiastical
   separations; such as those which have been drawn from the institution
   of the sacraments. Some, for instance, cannot conceive a presence of
   Jesus Christ in His institution of the Lord's Supper, unless it be a
   corporeal one, nor a spiritual influence upon the moral nature of man
   to be connected with baptism, unless it be supernatural,
   quasi-mechanical, effecting a psychical change then and there. But
   within these concrete conceptions there lie hid the truer ideas of the
   virtual presence of the Lord Jesus everywhere that He is preached,
   remembered, and represented, and of the continual force of His spirit
   in His words, and especially in the ordinance which indicates the
   separation of the Christian from the world.

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


   Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind,

   Seen God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind.'

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

   Jesus Christ has not revealed His religion as a theology of the
   intellect, nor as an historical faith; and it is a stifling of the true
   Christian life, both in the individual and in the Church, to require of
   many men a unanimity in speculative doctrine, which is unattainable,
   and a uniformity of historical belief, which can never exist. The true
   Christian life is the consciousness of bearing a part in a great moral
   order, of which the highest agency upon earth has been committed to the
   Church. Let us not oppress this work nor complicate the difficulties
   with which it is surrounded; not making the heart of the righteous sad,
   whom the Lord hath not made sad, nor strengthening the hands of the
   wicked by promising him life.'

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

   polloi men narthekophoroi, bakchoi de ge pauroi.

   Calvinism has a keen perception of this truth; and we shrink from
   Calvinism and Augustinianism, not because of their perceiving how few,
   even under Christian privileges, attain to the highest adoption of
   sons; but because of the inferences with which they clog that
   truth--the inferences which they draw respecting the rest, whom they
   comprehend in one mass of perdition.

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

   [109] Séances Historiques de Genève--Le Christianisme au 4ième Siècle,
   p. 153.

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

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

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

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

   [114] This clause is taken from the Wirtemburg Confession (1552), which
   proceeds: Hanc Scripuram credimus et confitemur esse oraculum Spiritus
   Sancti, cælestibus testimoniis ita confirmatum, ut Si Angelus de cælo
   aliud prædicaverit, anathema sit.'

   [115] Thus the Helvetic Confession states: We believe and profess the
   Canonical Scriptures of the Holy Prophets and Apostles, of the Old and
   New Testaments, are the very Word of God, and have sufficient authority
   from themselves and not from men.' The Saxon Confession refers to the
   creeds as interpreters of Scripture--nos vera fide amplecti omnia
   scripta Prophetarum et Apostolorum; et quidem in hac ipsa nativa
   sententia, quæ express est in Symbolis, Apostolico, Nicæno et
   Athanasiano.--De Doctrina.

   [116] The oath ex officio in the ecclesiastical law, is defined to be
   an oath whereby any person may be obliged to make any presentment of
   any crime or offence, or to confess or accuse himself or herself of any
   criminal matter or thing, whereby he or she may be liable to any
   censor, penalty, or punishment whatsoever. 4 Jac. The lords of the
   council at Whitehall demanded of Popham and Coke, chief justices, upon
   motion made by the Commons in Parliament, in what cases the ordinary
   may examine any person ex officio upon oath.' They answered--1. That
   the ordinary cannot constrain any man, ecclesiastical or temporal, to
   swear generally to answer each interrogations as shall be administered
   to him, &c. 2. That no man, ecclesiastical or temporal, shall be
   examined upon the secret thoughts of his heart, or of his secret
   opinion, but something ought to be objected against him, which he hath
   spoken or done. Thus 13 Jac. Dighton and Holt were committed by the
   high commissioners because they being convented for slanderous words
   against the book of Common Prayer and the government of the Church, and
   being tendered the oath to be examined, they refused. The case being
   brought before the K.B. on habeus corpus, Coke, C.J., gave the
   determination of the Court. That they ought to be delivered, because
   their examination is made to cause them to accuse themselves of a
   breach of a penal law, which is against law, for they ought to proceed
   against them by witnesses, and not inforce them to take an oath to
   accuse themselves.' Then by 13 Car. 2, c. 12, it was enacted. that it
   shall not be lawful for any person, exercising ecclesiastical
   jurisdiction, to tender or administer to any person whatsoever the oath
   usually called the oath ex-officio, or any other oath, whereby such
   person to whom the same is tendered, or administered, may be charged,
   or compelled to confess, or accuse, or to purge himself, or herself, of
   any criminal matter or thing,' &c.--Burn's Eccl. Law, iii. 14, 15. Ed.
   Phillimore.

   [117] Hist. Pur. iv. p. 618.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               MOSAIC COSMOGONY.

   ON the revival of science in the 16th century, some of the earliest
   conclusions at which philosophers arrived were found to be at variance
   with popular and long-established belief. The Ptolemaic system of
   astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men,
   contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable
   centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the
   beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous
   globule, a merely subordinate member of a family of planets, which the
   terrestrials had until then fondly imagined to be but pendants and
   ornaments of their own habitation. The Church naturally took a lively
   interest in the disputes which arose between the philosophers of the
   new school and those who adhered to the old doctrines, inasmuch as the
   Hebrew records, the basis of religious faith, manifestly countenanced
   the opinion of the earth's immobility and certain other views of the
   universe very incompatible with those propounded by Copernicus. Hence
   arose the official proceedings against Galileo, in consequence of which
   he submitted to sign his celebrated recantation, acknowledging that the
   proposition that the son is the centre of the world and immovable from
   its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical,
   because it is expressly contrary to the Scripture;' and that the
   proposition that earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable
   but that it moves and also with a diurnal motion, is absurd,
   philosophically false, and at least erroneous in faith.'

   The Romish Church, it is presumed, adheres to the old views to the
   present day. Protestant instincts however, in the 17th century were
   strongly in sympathy with the augmentation of science, and consequently
   Reformed Churches more easily allowed themselves to be helped over the
   difficulty, which, according to the views of inspiration then held and
   which have survived to the present day, was in reality quite as
   formidable for them as for those of the old faith. The solution of the
   difficulty offered by Galileo and others was, that the object of a
   revelation or divine unveiling of mysteries, must be to teach man
   things which he is unable and must ever remain unable to find out for
   himself; but not physical truths, for the discovery of which he has
   faculties specially provided by his Creator. Hence it was not
   unreasonable that, in regard to matters of fact merely, the Sacred
   Writings should use the common language and assume the common belief of
   mankind, without purporting to correct errors upon points morally
   indifferent. So, in regard to such a text as, The world is established,
   it cannot be moved,' though it might imply the sacred penman's
   ignorance of the fact that the earth does move, yet it does not put
   forth this opinion as an indispensable point of faith. And this remark
   is applicable to a number of texts which present a similar difficulty.

   It might be thought to have been less easy to reconcile in men's minds
   the Copernican view of universe with the very plain and direct
   averments contained in the opening chapter of Genesis. It can scarcely
   be said that this chapter is not intended in part to teach and convey
   at least some physical truth, and taking its words in their plain sense
   it manifestly gives a view of the universe adverse to that of modern
   science. It represents the sky as a watery vault in which the sun,
   moon, and stars are set. But the discordance of this description with
   facts does not appear to have been so palpable to the minds of the
   seventeenth century as it is to us. The mobility of the earth was a
   proposition startling not only to faith but to the senses. The
   difficulty involved in this belief having been successfully got over,
   other discrepancies dwindled in importance. The brilliant progress of
   astronomical science subdued the minds of men; the controversy between
   faith and knowledge gradually fell to slumber; the story of Galileo and
   the Inquisition became a school commonplace, the doctrine of the
   earth's mobility found its way into children's catechisms, and the
   limited views of the nature of the universe indicated in the Old
   Testament, ceased to be felt as religious difficulties.

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

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

   When this new cause of controversy first arose, some writers more hasty
   than discreet, attacked the conclusions of geologists, and declared
   them scientifically false. This phase may now be considered past, and
   although school-books probably continua to teach much as they did, no
   well-instructed person now doubts the great antiquity of the earth any
   more than its motion. This being so, modern theologians, forsaking the
   maxim of Galileo, or only using it vaguely as an occasional
   make-weight, have directed their attention to the possibility of
   reconciling the Mosaic narrative with those geological facts which are
   admitted to be beyond dispute. Several modes of doing this have been
   proposed which have been deemed more or less satisfactory. In a
   text-book of theological instruction widely used, [118] we find it
   stated in broad terms, Geological investigations, it is now known, all
   prove the perfect harmony between scripture and geology, in reference
   to the history of creation.'

   In truth, however, if we refer to the plans of conciliation proposed,
   we find them at variance with each other and mutually destructive. The
   conciliators are not agreed among themselves, and each holds the views
   of the other to be untenable and unsafe. The ground is perpetually
   being shifted, as the advance of geological science may require. The
   plain meaning of the Hebrew record is unscrupulously tampered with, and
   in general the pith of the whole process lies in divesting the text of
   all meaning whatever. We are told that Scripture not being designed to
   teach us natural philosophy, it is in vain to attempt to make out a
   cosmogony from its statements. If the first chapter of Genesis convey
   to us no information concerning the origin of the world, its statements
   cannot indeed be contradicted by modern discovery. But it is absurd to
   call this harmony. Statements such as that above quoted are, we
   conceive, little calculated to be serviceable to the interests of
   theology, still less to religion and morality. Believing, as we do,
   that if the value of the Bible as a book of religious instruction is to
   be maintained, it must be not by striving to prove it scientifically
   exact, at the expense of every sound principle of interpretation, and
   in defiance of common sense, but by the frank recognition of the
   erroneous views of nature which it contains, we have put pen to paper
   to analyse some of the popular conciliation theories. The inquiry
   cannot be deemed a superfluous one, nor one which in the interests of
   theology had better be let alone. Physical science goes on
   unconcernedly pursuing its own paths. Theology, the science whose
   object is the dealing of God with man as a moral being, maintains but a
   shivering existence, shouldered and jostled by the sturdy growths of
   modern thought, and bemoaning itself for the hostility which it
   encounters. Why should this be, unless because theologians persist in
   clinging to theories of God's procedure towards man, which have long
   been seen to be untenable? If, relinquishing theories, they would be
   content to inquire from the history of man what this procedure has
   actually been, the so-called difficulties of theology would, for the
   most part, vanish of themselves.

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

   This earth apparently so still and stedfast, lying in majestic repose
   beneath the ætherial vault, is a globular body of comparatively
   insignificant size, whirling fast through space round the sun as the
   centre of its orbit, and completing its revolution in the course of one
   year, while at the same time it revolves daily once about its own axis,
   thus producing the changes of day and night. The sun, which seems to
   leap up each morning from the east, and traversing the skyey bridge,
   slides down into the west, is relatively to our earth motionless. In
   size and weight it inconceivably surpasses it. The moon, which occupies
   a position in the visible heavens only second to the sun, and far
   beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness, is but a
   subordinate globe, much smaller than our own, and revolving round the
   earth as its centre, while it accompanies it in yearly revolutions
   about the sun. Of itself it has no lustre, and is visible to us only by
   the reflected sunlight. Those beautiful stars which are perpetually
   changing their position in the heavens, and shine with a soft and
   moon-like light, are bodies, some much larger, some less, than our
   earth, and like it revolve round the sun, by the reflection of whose
   rays we see them. The telescope has revealed to us the fact that
   several of these are attended by moons of their own, and that besides
   those which the unassisted eye can see, there are others belonging to
   the same family coursing round the sun. As for the glittering dust
   which emblazons the nocturnal sky, there is reason to believe that each
   spark is a self-luminous body, perhaps of similar material to our sun,
   and that the very nearest of the whole tribe is at an incalculable
   distance from us, the very least of them of enormous size compared with
   our own humble globe. Thus has modern science reversed nearly all the
   primâ facie views to which our senses lead us as to the constitution of
   the universe; but so thoroughly are the above statements wrought into
   the culture of the present day, that we are apt to forget that mankind
   once saw these things very differently, and that but a few centuries
   have elapsed since such views were startling novelties.

   Our earth then is but one of the lesser pendants of a body which is
   itself only an inconsiderable unit in the vast creation. And now if we
   withdraw our thoughts from the immensities of space, and look into the
   construction of man's obscure home, the first question is whether it
   has ever been in any other condition than that in which we now see it,
   and if so, what are the stages through which it has passed, and what
   was its first traceable state. Here geology steps in and successfully
   carries back the history of the earth's crust to a very remote period,
   until it arrives at region of uncertainty, where philosophy is reduced
   to mere guesses and possibilities, and pronounces nothing definite. To
   this region belong the speculations which have been ventured upon as to
   the original concretion of the earth and planets out of nebular matter
   of which the sun may have been the. nucleus. But the first clear view
   which we obtain of the early condition of the earth, presents to us a
   ball of matter, fluid with intense heat, spinning on its own axis and
   revolving round the sun. How long it may have continued in this state
   is beyond calculation or surmise. It can only be believed that a
   prolonged period, beginning and ending we know not when, elapsed before
   the surface became cooled and hardened and capable of sustaining
   organized existences. The water which now enwraps a large portion of
   the face of the globe, must for ages have existed only in the shape of
   steam, floating above and enveloping the planet in one thick curtain of
   mist. When the cooling of the surface allowed it to condense and
   descend, then commenced the process by which the lowest stratified
   rocks were formed, and gradually spread out in vast layers. Rains and
   rivers now acted upon the scoriaceous integument, grinding it to sand
   and carrying it down to the depths and cavities. Whether organized
   beings co-existed with this state of things we know not, as the early
   rocks have been acted upon by interior heat to an extent which must
   have destroyed all traces of animal and vegetable life, if any such
   ever existed. This period has been named by geologists the Azoic, or
   that in which life was not. Its duration no one presumes to define.

   It is in the system of beds which overlies these primitive formations
   that the first records of organisms present themselves. In the
   so-called Silurian system we have a vast assemblage of strata of
   various kinds, together many thousands of feet thick, and abounding in
   remains of animal life. These strata were deposited at the bottom of
   the sea, and the remains are exclusively marine. The creatures whose
   exaviæ have been preserved belong to those classes which are placed by
   naturalists the lowest with respect to organization, the mollusca,
   articulata, and radiata. Analogous beings exist at the present day, but
   not their lineal descendants, unless time can effect transmutation of
   species, an hypothesis not generally accepted by naturalists. In the
   same strata with these inhabitants habitants of the early seas are
   found remains of fucoid or seaweed-like plants, the lowest of the
   vegetable tribe, which may have been the first of this kind of
   existences introduced into the world. But, as little has yet been
   discovered to throw light upon the state of the dry land and its
   productions at this remote period, nothing can be asserted positively
   on the subject. [119]

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

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

   In the next great geological section, the so-called Secondary period,
   in which are comprised the oolitic and cretaceous systems, the
   predominant creatures are different from those which figured
   conspicuously in the preceding. The land was inhabited by gigantic
   animals, half-toad, half-lizard, who hopped about, leaving often their
   foot-prints like those of a clumsy human hand, upon the sandy shores of
   the seas they frequented. The waters now abounded with monsters,
   half-fish, half-crocodile, the well-known saurians, whose bones have
   been collected in abundance. Even the air had its tenantry from the
   same family type, for the pterodactyls were creatures, half-lizard,
   half-vampyre, provided with membranous appendages which must have
   enabled them to fly. In early stage of this period traces of birds
   appear, and somewhat later those of mammals, but of the lowest class
   belonging to that division, namely, the marsupial or pouch-bearing
   animals, in which naturalists see affinities to the oviparous tribes.
   The vegetation of this period seems to have consisted principally of
   the lower classes of plants, according to the scale of organization
   accepted by botanists, but it was luxuriant and gigantic.

   Lastly, comes the Tertiary period, in which mammalia of the highest
   forms enter upon the scene, while the composite growths of the
   Secondary period in great part disappear, and the types of creatures
   approach more nearly to those which now exist. During long ages this
   state of things continued, while the earth was the abode principally of
   mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, and their thick-hided congeners,
   many of them of colossal proportions, and of species which have now
   passed away. The remains of these creatures have been found in the
   frozen rivers of the north, and they appear to have roamed over regions
   of the globe where their more delicate representatives of the present
   day would be unable to live. During this era the ox, horse, and deer,
   and perhaps other animals, destined to be serviceable to man, became
   inhabitants of the earth. Lastly, the advent of man may be considered
   as inaugurating a new and distinct epoch, that in which we now are, and
   during the whole of which the physical conditions of existence cannot
   have been very materially different from what they are now. Thus, the
   reduction of the earth into the state in which we now behold it has
   been the slowly continued work of ages. The races of organic beings
   which have populated its surface have from time to time passed away,
   and been supplanted by others, introduced we know not certainly by what
   means, but evidently according to a fixed method and order, and with a
   gradually increasing complexity and fineness of organization, until we
   come to man as the crowning point of all. Geologically speaking, the
   history of his first appearance is obscure, nor does archæology do much
   to clear this obscurity. Science has, however, made some efforts
   towards tracing man to his cradle, and by patient observation and
   collection of facts much more may perhaps be done in this direction. As
   for history and tradition, they afford little upon which anything can
   be built. The human race, like each individual man, has forgotten its
   own birth, and the void of its early years has been filled up by
   imagination, and not from genuine recollection. Thus much is clear,
   that man's existence on earth is brief, compared with the ages during
   which unreasoning creatures were the sole possessors of the globe.

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

   We are told that in the beginning God created the heaven and the
   earth.' It has been matter of discussion amongst theologians whether
   the word created' (Heb. bara) here means simply shaped or formed, or
   shaped or formed out of nothing. From the use of the verb bara in other
   passages, it appears that it does not necessarily mean to make out of
   nothing, [120] but it certainly might impliedly mean this in a case so
   peculiar as the present. The phrase the heaven and the earth,' is
   evidently used to signify the universe of things, inasmuch as the
   heaven in its proper signification has no existence until the second
   day. It is asserted then that God shaped the whole material universe,
   whether out of nothing, or out of pre-existing matter. But which sense
   the writer really intended is not material for our present purpose to
   enquire, since neither astronomical nor geological science affects to
   state anything concerning the first origin of matter.

   In the second verse the earliest state of things is described;
   according to the received translation, the earth was without form and
   void.' The prophet Jeremiah [121] uses the same expression to describe
   the desolation of the earth's surface occasioned by God's wrath, and
   perhaps the words empty and waste' would convey to us at present
   something more nearly approaching the meaning of tohu va-bohu, than
   those which the translators have used.

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

   The work of the second day of creation is to erect the vault of Heaven
   (Heb. rakia; Gr. stereoma; Lat. firmamentum) which is represented as
   supporting an ocean of water above it. The waters are said to be
   divided, so that some are below, some above the vault. That the Hebrews
   understood the sky, firmament, or heaven to be a permanent solid vault,
   as it appears to the ordinary observer, is evident enough from various
   expressions made use of concerning it. It is said to have pillars (Job
   xxvi. 1), foundations (2 Sam. xxii. 8), doors (Ps. lxxviii. 23), and
   windows (Gen. vii. 1). No quibbling about the derivation of the word
   rakia, which is literally something beaten out, [122] can affect the
   explicit description of the Mosaic writer, contained in the words the
   waters that are above the firmament,' or avail to show that he was
   aware that the sky is but transparent space.

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

   On the fourth day, the two great lights, the sun and moon, are made
   (Heb. hasah) and set in the firmament of heaven to give light to the
   earth, but more particularly to serve as the means of measuring time,
   and of marking out years, days, and seasons. This is the most prominent
   office assigned to them (v. 14-18). The formation of the stars is
   mentioned in the most cursory manner. It is not said out of what
   materials all these bodies were made, and whether the writer regarded
   them as already existing, and only waiting to have a proper place
   assigned them, may be open to question. At any rate, their allotted
   receptacle--the firmament--was not made until the second day, nor were
   they set in it until the fourth; vegetation, be it observed, having
   already commenced on the third, and therefore independently of the
   warming influence of the sun.

   On the fifth day the waters are called into productive activity, and
   bring forth fishes and marine animals, as also the birds of the air.
   [123] It is also said that God created or formed (bara) great whales
   and other creatures of the water and air. On the sixth day the earth
   brings forth living creatures, cattle, and reptiles, and also the beast
   of the field,' that is, the wild beasts. And here also it is added that
   God made (hasah) these creatures after their several kinds. The
   formation of man is distinguished by a variation of the creative fiat.
   Let us make man in our image after our likeness.' Accordingly, man is
   made and formed (bara) in the image and likeness of God, a phrase which
   has been explained away to mean merely perfect, sinless,' although the
   Pentateuch abounds in passages showing that the Hebrews contemplated
   the Divine being in the visible form of a man. [124] Modern
   spiritualism has so entirely banished this idea, that probably many may
   not without an effort be able to accept the plain language of the
   Hebrew writer in its obvious sense in the 26th verse of the 1st chapter
   of Genesis, though they will have no difficulty in doing so in the (3rd
   verse of the 5th chapter, where the same words image' and likeness' are
   used. Man is said to have been created male and female, and the
   narrative contains nothing to show that a single pair only is intended.
   [125] He is commanded to increase and multiply, and to assume dominion
   over all the other tribes of beings. The whole of the works of creation
   being complete, God gives to man, beast, fowl, and creeping thing, the
   vegetable productions of the earth as their appointed food. And when we
   compare the verses Gen. i. 29, 30, with Gen. ix. 3, in which, after the
   Flood, animals are given to man for food in addition to the green herb,
   it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that in the earliest view
   taken of creation, men and animals were supposed to have been, in their
   original condition, not carnivorous. It is needless to say that this
   has been for the most part the construction put upon the words of the
   Mosaic writer, until a clear perception of the creative design which
   destined the tiger and lion for flesh-eaters, and latterly the
   geological proof of flesh-eating, monsters having existed among the
   pre-adamite inhabitants of the globe, rendered it necessary to ignore
   this meaning.

   The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd verses of the second chapter of Genesis, which
   have been most absurdly divided from their context, conclude the
   narrative. [126] On the seventh day God rests from His work, and
   blesses the day of rest, a fact which is referred to in the Commandment
   given from Sinai as the ground of the observance of Sabbatic rest
   imposed upon the Hebrews.

   Remarkable as this narrative is for simple grandeur, it has nothing in
   it which can be properly called poetical. It bears on its face no trace
   of mystical or symbolical meaning. Things are called by their right
   names with a certain scientific exactness widely different from the
   imaginative cosmogonies of the Greeks, in which the powers and
   phenomena of nature are invested with personality, and the passions and
   qualities of men are represented as individual existences.

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

   The task which sundry modern writers have imposed upon themselves is to
   prove, that the Mosaic narrative, however apparently at variance with
   our knowledge, is essentially, and in fact true, although never
   understood properly until modern science supplied the necessary
   commentary and explanation.

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

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

   The first verse of Genesis, therefore, seems explicitly to assert the
   creation of the universe; the heaven, including the sidereal systems;
   and the earth, especially specifying our own planet, as the subsequent
   scene of the operations of the six days about to be described; no
   information is given as to events which may have occurred upon this
   earth, unconnected with the history of man, between the creation of its
   component matter recorded in the first verse, and the era at which its
   history is resumed in the second verse: nor is any limit fixed to the
   time during which these intermediate events may have been going on:
   millions of millions of years may have occupied the indefinite
   interval, between the beginning in which God created the heaven and the
   earth, and the evening or commencement of the first day of the Mosaic
   narrative.'

   ' The second verse may describe the condition of the earth on the
   evening of this first day (for in the Jewish mode of computation used
   by Moses each day is reckoned from the beginning of one evening to the
   beginning of another evening). This first evening may be considered as
   the termination of the indefinite time which followed the primeval
   creation announced in the first verse, and as the commencement of the
   first of the six succeeding days in which the earth was to be filled
   up, and peopled in a manner fit for the reception of mankind. We have
   in this second verse, a distinct mention of earth and waters, as
   already existing and involved in darkness; their condition also is
   described as a state of confusion and emptiness (tohu bohu), words
   which are usually interpreted by the vague and indefinite Greek term
   chaos, and which may be geologically considered as designating the
   wreck and ruins of a former world. At this intermediate point of time
   the preceding undefined geological periods had terminated, a new series
   of events commenced, and the work of the first morning of this new
   creation was the calling forth of light from a temporary darkness,
   which had overspread the ruins of the ancient earth.'

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

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

   Dr. Buckland appears to assume that when it is said that the heaven and
   the earth were created in the beginning, it is to be understood that
   they were created in their present form and state of completeness, the
   heaven raised above the earth as we see it, or seem to see it now. This
   is the fallacy of his argument. The circumstantial description of the
   framing of the heaven out of the waters, proves that the words heaven
   and earth,' in the first verse, must be taken either proleptically, as
   a general expression for the universe, the matter of the universe in
   its crude and unformed shape, or else the word bara must mean formed,
   not created, the writer intending to say God formed the heaven and
   earth in manner following,' in which case heaven is used in its
   distinct and proper sense. But these two senses cannot be united in the
   manner covertly assumed in Dr Buckland's argument.

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

   It is needless to discuss the scientific probability of this
   hypothesis, but the violence done to the grand and simple words of the
   Hebrew writer must strike every mind. And God said, Let there be
   light--and there was light--and God saw the light that it was good. And
   God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day,
   and the darkness called he night; and the evening and the morning were
   the first day.' Can any one sensible the value of words suppose, that
   nothing more is here described, or intended to be described, than the
   partial clearing away of a fog? Can such a manifestation of light have
   been dignified by the appellation of day? Is not this reducing the
   noble description which has been the admiration of ages to a pitiful
   caput mortuum of empty verbiage?

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

   The hypothesis adopted by Dr. Buckland was first promulgated at a time
   when the gradual and regular formation of the earth's strata was not
   seen or admitted so clearly as it is now. Geologists were more disposed
   to believe in great catastrophes and sudden breaks. Buckland's theory
   supposes that previous to the appearance of the present races of
   animals and vegetables there was a great gap in the globe's
   history,--that the earth was completely depopulated, as well of marine
   as land animals; and that the creation of all existing plants and
   animals was coæval with that of man. This theory is by no means
   supported by geological phenomena, and is, we suppose, now rejected by
   all geologists whose authority is valuable. Thus writes Hugh Miller in
   1857--I certainly did once believe with Chalmers and with Buckland that
   the six days were simply natural days of twenty-four hours each--that
   they had comprised the entire work of the existing creation--and that
   the latest of the geologic ages was separated by a great chaotic gap
   from our own.My labours at the time as a practical geologist had been
   very much restricted to the palæozoic and secondary rocks, more
   especially to the old red and carboniferous systems of the one
   division, and the oolitic system of the other; and the long-extinct
   organisms organisms which I found in them certainly did not conflict
   with the view of Chalmers. All I found necessary at the time to the
   work of reconciliation was some scheme that would permit me to assign
   to the earth a high antiquity, and to regard it as the scene of many
   succeeding creations. During the last nine years, however, I have spent
   a few weeks every autumn in exploring the late formations, and
   acquainting myself with their particular organisms. I have traced them
   upwards from the raised beaches and old coast lines of the human
   period, to the brick clays, Clyde beds, and drift and boulder deposits
   of the Pleistocene era; and again from them, with the help of museums
   and collections, up through the mammaliferous crag of England to its
   red and coral crags; and the conclusion at which I have been compelled
   to arrive is, that for many long ages ere man was ushered into being,
   not a few of his humbler contemporaries of the fields and woods enjoyed
   life in their present haunts, and that for thousands of years anterior
   to even their appearance, many of the existing molluscs lived in our
   seas. That day during which the present creation came into being, and
   in which God, when he had made the beast of the earth after his kind,
   and the cattle after their kind,' at length terminated the work by
   moulding a creature in His own image, to whom He gave dominion over
   them all, was not a brief period of a few hours' duration, but extended
   over, mayhap, millenniums of centuries. No blank chaotic gap of death
   and darkness separated the creation to which man belongs from that of
   the old extinct elephant, hippopotamus, and hyæna; for familiar
   animals, such as the red deer, the roe, the fox, the wild cat, and the
   badger, lived throughout the period which connected their time with our
   own; and so I have been compelled to hold that the days of creation
   were not natural but prophetic days, and stretched far back into the
   bygone eternity.' [127]

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

   But whether contemplated from a geological point of view, or whether
   from a philological one, that is, with reference to the value of words,
   the use of language, and the ordinary rules which govern writers whose
   object it is to make themselves understood by those to whom their works
   are immediately addressed, the interpretation proposed by Buckland to
   be given to the Mosaic description will not bear a moment's serious
   discussion. It is plain, from the whole tenor of the narrative, that
   the writer contemplated no such representation as that suggested, nor
   could any such idea have entered into the minds of those to whom the
   account was first given. Dr. Buckland endeavours to make out that we
   have here simply a case of leaving out facts which did not particularly
   concern the writer's purpose, so that he gave an account true so far as
   it went, though imperfect. We may fairly ask,' he argues, of those
   persons who consider physical science a fit subject for revelation,
   what point they can imagine short of a communication of Omniscience at
   which such a revelation might have stopped without imperfections of
   omission, less in degree, but similar in kind, to that which they
   impute to the existing narrative of Moses? A revelation of so much only
   of astronomy as was known to Copernicus would have seemed imperfect
   after the discoveries of Newton; and a revelation of the science of
   Newton would have appeared defective to La Place: a revelation of all
   the chemical knowledge of the eighteenth century would have been as
   deficient in comparison with the information of the present day, as
   what is now known in this science will probably appear before the
   termination of another age; in the whole circle of sciences there is
   not one to which this argument may not be extended, until we should
   require from revelation a full development of all the mysterious
   agencies that uphold the mechanism of the material world.' Buckland's
   question is quite inapplicable to the real difficulty, which is, not
   that circumstantial details are omitted--that might reasonably be
   expected--but that what is told, is told so as to convey to ordinary
   apprehensions an impression at variance with facts. We are indeed told
   that certain writers of antiquity had already anticipated the
   hypothesis of the geologist, and two of the Christian fathers,
   Augustine and Episcopius, are referred to as having actually held that
   a wide interval elapsed between the first act of creation, mentioned in
   the Mosaic account, and the commencement of the six days' work. [128]
   If, however, they arrived at such a conclusion, it was simply because,
   like the modern geologist, they had theories of their own to support,
   which led them to make somewhat similar hypotheses.

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

   It should be borne in mind,' says Dr. Buckland, that the object of the
   account was, not to state in what manner, but by whom the world was
   made.' Every one must see that this is an unfounded assertion, inasmuch
   as the greater part of the narrative consists in a minute and orderly
   description of the manner in which things were made. We can know
   nothing as to the object of the account, except from the account
   itself. What the writer meant to state is just that which he has
   stated, for all that we can know to the contrary. Or can we seriously
   beleive that if appealed to by one of his Hebrew hearers or readers as
   to his intention, he would have replied, My only object in what I have
   written is to inform you that God made the world; as to the manner of
   His doing it, of which I have given so exact an account, I have no
   intention that my words should be taken in their literal meaning.

   We come then to this, that if we sift the Mosaic narrative of all
   definite meaning, and only allow it to be the expression of the most
   vague generalities, if we avow that it admits of no certain
   interpretation, of none that may not be shifted and altered as often as
   we see fit, and as the exigencies of geology may require, then may we
   reconcile it with what science teaches. This mode of dealing with the
   subject has been broadly advocated by a recent writer of mathematical
   eminence, who adopts the Bucklandian hypothesis, a passage from whose
   work we shall quote. [129]

   The Mosaic account of the six days' work is thus harmonized by some. On
   the first day, while the earth was without form and void,' the result
   of a previous convulsion in nature, and darkness was upon the face of
   the deep,' God commanded light to shine upon the earth. This may have
   been effected by such a clearing of the thick and loaded atmosphere, as
   to allow the light of the sun to penetrate its mass with a suffused
   illumination, sufficient to dispel the total darkness which had
   prevailed, but proceeding from a source not yet apparent on the earth.
   On the second day a separation took place in the thick vapoury mass
   which lay upon the earth, dense clouds were gathered up aloft and
   separated by an expanse from the waters and vapours below. On the third
   day these lower vapours, or fogs and mists which hitherto concealed the
   earth, were condensed and gathered with the other waters of the earth
   into seas, and the dry land appeared. Then grass and herbs began to
   grow. On the fourth day the clouds and vapours so rolled into separate
   masses, or were so entirely absorbed into the air itself, that the sun
   shone forth in all its brilliancy, the visible source of light and heat
   to the renovated earth, while the moon and stars gave light by night,
   and God appointed them henceforth for signs, and for seasons, and for
   days, and for years, to his creatures whom he was about to call into
   existence, as he afterwards set or appointed his bow in the clouds,
   which had appeared ages before, to be a sign to Noah and his
   descendants. The fifth and sixth days' work needs no comment.

   According to this explanation, the first chapter of Genesis does not
   pretend (as has been generally assumed) to be a cosmogony, or an
   account of the original creation of the material universe. The only
   cosmogony which it contains, in that sense at least, is confined to the
   sublime declaration of the first verse, In the beginning God created
   the heavens and the earth.' The inspired record thus stepping over an
   interval of indefinite ages with which man has no direct concern,
   proceeds at once to narrate the events preparatory to the introduction
   of man on the scene; employing phraseology strictly faithful to the
   appear- ances which would have met the eye of man, could, he have been
   a spectator on the earth of what passed during those six days. All this
   has been commonly supposed to be a more detailed account of the general
   truth announced in the first verse, in short, a cosmogony: such was the
   idea of Josephus; such probably was the idea of our translators; for
   their version, without form and void, points to the primæval chaos, out
   of which all things were then supposed to emerge; and these words
   standing in limine, have tended, perhaps more than anything else, to
   foster the idea of a cosmogony in the minds of general readers to this
   very day.

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

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

   We venture to think that the world at large will continue to consider
   the account in the first chapter of Genesis to be a cosmogony. But as
   it is here admitted that it does not describe physical realities, but
   only outward appearances, that is, gives a description false in fact,
   and one which can teach us no scientific truth whatever, it seems to
   matter little what we call it. If its description of the events of the
   six days which it comprises be merely one of appearances and not of
   realities, it can teach us nothing regarding them.

   Dissatisfied with the scheme of conciliation which has been discussed,
   other geologists have proposed to give an entirely mythical or
   enigmatical sense to the Mosaic narrative, and to consider the creative
   days described as vast periods of time. This plan was long ago
   suggested, but it has of late enjoyed a high degree of popularity,
   through the advocacy of the Scotch geologist Hugh Miller, an extract
   from whose work has been already quoted. Dr. Buckland gives the
   following account of the first form in which this theory was
   propounded, and of the grounds upon which he rejected it in favour of
   that of Chalmers: [130] --

   A third opinion has been suggested both by learned theologians and by
   geologists, and on grounds independent of one another--viz., that the
   days of the Mosaic creation need not be understood to imply the same
   length of time which is now occupied by a single revolution of the
   globe, but successive periods each of great extent; and it has been
   asserted that the order of succession of the organic remains of a
   former world accords with the order of creation recorded in Genesis.
   This assertion, though to a certain degree apparently correct, is not
   entirely supported by geological facts, since it appears that the most
   ancient marine animals occur in the same division of the lowest
   transition strata with the earliest remains of vegetables, so that the
   evidence of organic remains, as far as it goes, shows the origin of
   plants and animals to have been contemporaneous: if any creation of
   vegetables preceded that of animals, no evidence of such an event has
   yet been discovered by the researches of geology. Still there is, I
   believe, by no sound critical or theological objection to the
   interpretation of the word day' as meaning a long period.'

   Archdeacon Pratt also summarily rejects this view as untenable: [131]
   --

   There is one other class of interpreters, however, with whom I find it
   impossible to agree,--I mean those who take the six days to be six
   periods of unknown indefinite length. This is the principle of
   interpretation in a work on the Creation and the Fall, by the Rev. D.
   Macdonald; also in Mr. Hugh Miller's posthumous work, the Testimony of
   the Rocks, and also in an admirable treatise on the Præ-Adamite Earth
   in Dr. Lardner's Museum of Science. In this last it is the more
   surprising because the successive chapters are in fact an accumulation
   of evidence which points the other way, as a writer in the Christian
   Observer, Jan. 1858, has conclusively shown. The late M. D'Orbigny has
   demonstrated in his Prodrome de Palæontologie, after an elaborate
   examination of vast multitudes of fossils, that there have been at
   least twenty-nine distinct periods of animal and vegetable
   existence--that is, twenty nine creations separated one from another by
   catastrophes which have swept away the species existing at the time,
   with a very few solitary exceptions, never exceeding one and a-half per
   cent, of the whole number discovered which have either survived the
   catastrophe, or have been erroneously designated. But not a single
   species of the preceding period survived the last of these
   catastrophes, and this closed the Tertiary period and ushered in the
   Human period. The evidence adduced by M. D'Orbigny shows that both
   plants and animals appeared in every one of those twenty-nine periods.
   The notion, therefore, that the days' of Genesis represent periods of
   creation from the beginning of things is at once refuted. The parallel
   is destroyed both in the number of the periods (thirty, including the
   Azoic, instead of six), and also in the character of the things
   created. No argument could be more complete; and yet the writer of the
   Præ-Admite Earth, in the last two pages, sums up his lucid sketch of M.
   D'Orbigny's researches by referring the account in the first chapter of
   Genesis to the whole creation from the beginning of all things, a
   selection of epochs being made, as he imagines, for the six days or
   periods.'

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

   He begins by pointing out that the families of vegetables and animals
   were introduced upon earth as nearly as possible according to the great
   classes in which naturalists have arranged the modern flora and fauna.
   According to the arrangement of Lindley, he observes--Commencing at the
   bottom of the scale we find the thallogens, or flowerless plants, which
   lack proper stems and leaves--a class which includes all the algæ. Next
   succeed the acrogens, or flowerless plants that possess both stems and
   leaves--such as the ferns and their allies. Next, omitting an
   inconspicuous class, represented by but a few parasitical plants
   incapable of preservation as fossils, come the endogens--
   monocotyledonous flowering plants, that include the palms, the
   liliaceæ, and several other families, all characterised by the parallel
   venation of their leaves. Next, omitting another inconspicuous tribe,
   there follows a very important class, the gymnogens--polycotyledonous
   trees, represented by the comferæ and cycadaceæ. And last of all come
   the dicotyledonous exogens--a class to which all our fruit and what are
   known as our forest trees belong, with a vastly preponderating majority
   of the herbs and flowers that impart fertility and beauty to our
   gardens and meadows.' The order in which fossils of these several
   classes appear in the strata, Hugh Miller states to be as follows:--In
   the Lower Silurian we find only thallogens, in the Upper Silurian
   acrogens are added. The gymnogens appear rather prematurely, it might
   be thought, in the old red sandstone, the endogens (monocotyledonous)
   coming after them in the carboniferous group. Dicotyledonous exogens
   enter at the close of the oolitic period, and come to their greatest
   development in the tertiary. Again, the animal tribes have been
   introduced in an order closely agreeing with the geological divisions
   established by Cuvier. In the Silurian beds the invertebrate creatures,
   the radiata, articulata, and mollusca, appear simultaneously. At the
   close of the period, fishes, the lowest of the vertebrata, appear:
   before the old red sandstone period had passed away, reptiles had come
   into existence; birds, and the marsupial mammals, enter in the oolitic
   period; placental mammals in the tertiary; and man last of all.

   Now, these facts do certainly tally to some extent with the Mosaic
   account, which represents fish and fowl as having been produced from
   the waters on the fifth day, reptiles and mammals from the earth on the
   sixth, and man as made last of all. The agreement, however, is far from
   exact, as according to geological evidence, reptiles would appear to
   have existed ages ages before birds and mammals, whereas here the
   creation of birds is attributed to the fifth day, that of reptiles to
   the sixth. There remains, moreover, the insuperable difficulty of the
   plants and trees being represented as made on the third day--that is,
   more than an ago before fishes and birds; which is clearly not the
   case.

   Although, therefore, there is a superficial resemblance in the Mosaic
   account to that of the geologists, it is evident that the bare theory
   that a day' means an age or immense geological period might be made to
   yield some rather strange results. What becomes of the evening and
   morning of which each day is said to have consisted? Was each geologic
   age divided into two long intervals, one all darkness, the other all
   light? and if so, what became of the plants and trees created in the
   third day or period, when the evening of the fourth day (the evenings,
   be it observed, precede the mornings) set in? They must have passed
   through half a seculum of total darkness, not even cheered by that dim
   light which the sun, not yet completely manifested, supplied on the
   morning of the third day. Such an ordeal would have completely
   destroyed the whole vegetable creation, and yet we find that it
   survived, and was appointed on the sixth day as the food of man and
   animals. In fact, we need only substitute the word period' for day' in
   the Mosaic narrative to make it very apparent that the writer at least
   had no such meaning, nor could he have conveyed any such meaning to
   those who first heard his account read.

   It has been held,' says Hugh Miller, by accomplished philologists, that
   the days of Mosaic creation may be regarded without doing violence to
   the Hebrew language, as successive periods of great extent.' [132] We
   do not believe that there is any ground for this doctrine. The word
   day' is certainly used occasionally in particular phrases, in an
   indefinite manner, not only in Hebrew, but other languages. As for
   instance, Gen. xxxix. 11--About this time,' Heb. literally, about this
   day.' But every such phrase explains itself and not only philology but
   common sense disclaims the notion, that when day' is spoken of in terms
   like those in the first chapter of Genesis, and described as consisting
   of an evening and a morning, it can be understood to mean a seculum.

   Archdeacon Pratt, treating on the same subject, says (p, 41, note),
   Were there no other ground of objection to this mode of interpretation,
   I think the wording of the fourth commandment is clearly opposed to it.
   Ex. xx. 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 9. Six days shalt
   thou labour and do all thy work. 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath
   of the Lord thy God. In it thou, shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy
   son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy
   cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. 11. For in six days
   the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and
   rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
   hallowed it.'

   Is it not a harsh and forced interpretation to suppose that the six
   days in v. 9 do not mean the same as the six days in v. 11, but that in
   this last place they mean six periods? In reading through the eleventh
   verse, it is extremely difficult to believe that the seventh day is a
   long period, and the sabbath day an ordinary day, that is, that the
   same word day should be used in two such totally different senses in
   the same short sentence and without any explanation.'

   Hugh Miller saw the difficulty; but he endeavours to escape the
   consequences of a rigorous application of the periodic theory by
   modifying it in a peculiar, and certainly ingenious manner. Waiving,'
   he says, the question as a philological one, and simply holding with
   Cuvier, Parkinson and Silliman, that each of the six days of the Mosaic
   account in the first chapter were what is assuredly meant by the day
   [133] referred to in the second, not natural days but lengthened
   periods, I find myself called on, as a geologist, to account for but
   three out of the six. Of the period during which light was created, of
   the period during which it firmament was made to separate the waters
   from the waters, or of the period during which the two great lights of
   the earth, with the other heavenly bodies, became visible from the
   earth's surface--we need expect to find no record in the rocks. Let me,
   however, pause for a moment, to remark the peculiar character of the
   language in which we are first introduced in the Mosaic narrative, to
   the heavenly bodies--sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though absolutely
   one of the smallest lights of our system, is described as secondary and
   subordinate to only its greatest light, the sun. It is the apparent,
   then, not the actual, which we find in the passage--what seemed to be,
   not what was; and as it was merely what appeared to be greatest that
   was described as greatest, on what grounds are we to hold that it may
   not also have been what appeared at the time to be made that has been
   described as made? The sun, moon, and stars, may have been created long
   before, though it was not until this fourth day of creation that they
   became visible from the earth's surface.' [134]

   The theory founded upon this hint is that the Hebrew writer did not
   state facts, but merely certain appearances, and those not of things
   which really happened, as assumed in the explanation adopted by
   Archdeacon Pratt, but of certain occurrences which were presented to
   him in a vision, and that this vision greatly deceived him as to what
   he seemed see; and thus, in effect, the real discrepancy of the
   narrative with facts is admitted. He had in all, seven visions, to each
   of which he attributed the duration of a day, although indeed each
   picture presented to him the earth during seven long and distinctly
   marked epochs. While on the one hand this supposition admits all
   desirable latitude for mistakes and misrepresentations, Hugh Miller, on
   the other hand, endeavours to show that a substantial agreement with
   the truth exists, and to give sufficient reason for the mistakes. We
   must let him speak for himself. The geologist, in his attempts to
   collate the Divine with the geologic record, has, I repeat, only three
   of the six periods of creation to account for [135] --the period of
   plants, the period of great sea-monsters and creeping things, and the
   period of cattle and beasts of the earth. He is called on to question
   his systems and formations regarding the remains of these three great
   periods, and of them only. And the question once fairly stated, what, I
   ask, is the reply? All geologists agree in holding that the vast
   geological scale naturally divides into three great parts. There are
   many lesser divisions--divisions into systems, formations, deposits,
   beds, strata; but the master divisions, in each of which we find a type
   of life so unlike that of the others, that even the unpractised eye can
   detect the difference, are simply three: the Palaeozoic, or oldest
   fossiliferous division; the secondary, or middle fossiliferous
   division; and the tertiary, or latest fossiliferous division. In the
   first, or palæozoic division, we find corals, crustaceans, molluscs,
   fishes; and in its later formations, a few reptiles. But none of these
   classes give its leading character to the palæozoic; they do not
   constitute its prominent feature, or render it more remarkable as a
   scene of life than any of the divisions which followed. That which
   chiefly distinguished the palæozoic from the secondary and tertiary
   periods was its gorgeous flora. It was emphatically the period of
   plants--of herbs yielding seed after their kind.' In no other age did
   the world ever witness such a flora; the youth of the earth was
   peculiarly a green and umbrageous youth--a youth of dusk and tangled
   forests, of huge pines and stately araucarians, of the reed-like
   calamite, the tall tree-fern, the sculptured sigillaria, and the
   hirsute lepidodendrons. Wherever dry land, or shallow lakes, or running
   stream appeared, from where Melville Island now spreads out its icy
   coast under the star of the pole, to where the arid plains of Australia
   lie solitary beneath the bright cross of the south, a rank and
   luxuriant herbage cumbered every foot-breadth of the dank and steaming
   soil; and even to distant planets our earth must have shone through the
   enveloping cloud with a green and delicate ray. . . . The geologic
   evidence is so complete as to be patent to all, that the first great
   period of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic record,
   peculiarly a period of herbs and trees yielding seed after their kind.'

   The middle great period of the geologist--that of the secondary
   division--possessed, like the earlier one, its herbs and plants, but
   they were of a greatly less luxuriant and conspicuous character than
   their predecessors, and no longer formed the prominent trait or feature
   of the creation to which they belonged. The period had also its corals,
   its crustaceans, molluscs, its fishes, and in some one or two
   exceptional instances, its dwarf mammals. But the grand existences of
   the age--the existences in which it excelled every other creation,
   earlier or later--were its enormous creeping things--its enormous
   monsters of the deep, and, as shown by the impressions of their
   footprints stamped upon the rocks, its gigantic birds. It was
   peculiarly the age of egg-bearing animals, winged and wingless. Its
   wonderful whales, not however, as now, of the mammalian, but of the
   reptilian class,--ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and cetosaurs, must have
   tempested the deep; its creeping lizards and crocodiles, such as the
   teliosaurns, megalosaurus, and iguanodon--creatures, some of which more
   than rivalled the existing elephant in height, and greatly more than
   rivalled him in bulk--must have crowded the plains, or haunted by
   myriads the rivers of the period; and we know that the foot-prints of
   at least one of its many birds are of fully twice the size of those
   made by the horse or camel. We are thus prepared to demonstrate, that
   the second period of the geologist was peculiarly and
   characteristically a period of whale-like reptiles of the sea, of
   enormous creeping reptiles of the land, and of numerous birds, some of
   them of gigantic size; and in meet accordance with the fact, we find
   that the second Mosaic period with which the geologist is called on to
   deal, was a period in which God created the fowl that flieth above the
   earth, with moving (or creeping) creatures, both in the waters and on
   land, and what our translation renders great whales, but that I find
   rendered in the margin great sea-monsters. The tertiary period had also
   its prominent class of existences. Its flora seems to have been no more
   conspicuous than that of the present time; its reptiles occupy a very
   subordinate place; but its beasts of the field were by far the most
   wonderfully developed, both in size and numbers, that ever appeared on
   earth. Its mammoths and its mastodons, its rhinoceri and its
   hippopotami, its enormous dinotherium, and colossal megatherium,
   greatly more than equalled in bulk the hugest mammals of the present
   time, and vastly exceeded them in number * * * Grand, indeed,' says an
   English naturalist, was the fauna of the British Islands in these early
   days. Tigers as large again as the biggest Asiatic species lurked in
   the ancient thickets; elephants a nearly twice the bulk of the largest
   individuals that now exist in Africa or Ceylon roamed in herds; at
   least two species of rhinoceros forced their way through the primæval
   forest; and the lakes and rivers were tenanted by hippopotami as bulky
   and with as great tusks as those of Africa.' The massive cave-bear and
   large cave-hyæna belonged to the same formidable group, with at least
   two species of great oxen (Bos longifrons and Bos primigenius), with a
   horse of smaller size, and an elk (Megaceros Hibernicus) that stood ten
   feet four inches in height. Truly this Tertiary age--this third and
   last of the great geologic periods--was peculiarly the age of great
   beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind.''

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

   There is something in this hypothesis very near to the obvious truth,
   while at the same time something very remote from that truth is meant
   to be inferred. If it be said the Mosaic account is simply the
   speculation of some early Copernicus or Newton who devised a scheme of
   the earth's formation, as nearly he might in accordance with his own
   observations of nature, and with such views of things as it was
   possible for an unassisted thinker in those days to take, we may admire
   the approximate correctness of the picture drawn, while we see that the
   writer, as might be expected, took everything from a different point of
   view from ourselves, and consequently represented much quite
   differently from the fact. But nothing of this sort is really intended.
   We are asked to believe that a vision of creation was presented to him
   by Divine power, for the purpose of enabling him to inform the world of
   what he had seen, which vision inevitably led him to give a description
   which has misled the world for centuries, and in which the truth can
   now only with difficulty be recognised. The Hebrew writer informs us
   that on the third day the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding
   seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in
   itself, after his kind;' and in the 29th verse, that God on the sixth
   day said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is
   upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the
   fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to
   every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to
   everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have
   given every green herb for meat.' Can it be disputed that the writer
   here conceives that grass, corn, and fruit, were created on the third
   day, and with a view to the future nourishment of man and beast? Yet,
   according to the vision hypothesis, he must have been greatly deceived;
   for that luxuriant vegetation which he saw on the third day, consisted
   not of plants destined for the food of man, but for his fuel. It was
   the flora of the carboniferous period which he beheld; concerning which
   Hugh Miller makes the following remark, p. 24:--The existing plants
   whence we derive our analogies in dealing with the vegetation of this
   early period, contribute but little, if at all, to the support of
   animal life. The ferns and their allies remain untouched by the grazing
   animals. Our native club-mosses, though once used in medicine, are
   positively deleterious; the horsetails, though harmless, so abound in
   silex, which wraps them round with a cuticle of stone, that they are
   rarely cropped by cattle; while the thickets of fern which cover our
   hill-sides, and seem so temptingly rich and green in their season,
   scarce support the existence of a single creature, and remain untouched
   in stem and leaf from their first appearance in spring, until they
   droop and wither under the frosts of early winter. Even the insects
   that infest the herbaria of the botanist almost never injure his ferns.
   Nor are our resin-producing conifers, though they nourish a few
   beetles, favourites with the herbivorous tribes in a much greater
   degree. Judging from all we yet know, the earliest terrestrial flora
   may have covered the dry land with its mantle of cheerful green, and
   served its general purposes, chemical and others, in the well-balanced
   economy of nature; but the herb-eating animals would have fared but
   ill, even where it throve most luxuriantly; and it seems to harmonize
   with the fact of its unedible character that up to the present time we
   know not that a single herbivorous animal lived amongst its shades. The
   Mosaic writer is, however, according to the theory, misled by the mere
   appearance of luxurious vegetation, to describe fruit trees and edible
   seed-bearing vegetables as products of the third day.

   Hugh Miller's treatment of the description of the first dawn of light
   is not more satisfactory than that of Dr. Buckland. He supposes the
   prophet in his dream to have heard the command Let there be light'
   enunciated, whereupon straightway a grey diffused light springs up in
   the east, and casting its sickly gleam over a cloud-limited expanse of
   steaming vaporous sea, journeys through the heavens towards the west.
   One heavy, sunless day is made the representative of myriads; the faint
   light waxes fainter,--it sinks beneath the dim, undefined horizon.'

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

   In one respect the theory of Hugh Miller agrees with that advocated by
   Dr. Buckland and Archdeacon Pratt. Both these theories divest the
   Mosaic narrative of real accordance with fact; both assume that
   appearances only, not facts, are described, and that in riddles, which
   would never have been suspected to be such, had we not arrived at the
   truth from other sources. It would be difficult for controversialists
   to cede more completely the point in dispute, or to admit more
   explicitly that the Mosaic narrative does not represent correctly the
   history of the universe up to the time of man. At the same time, the
   upholders of each theory see insuperable objections in details to that
   of their allies, and do not pretend to any firm faith in their own. How
   can it be otherwise when the task proposed is to evade the plain
   meaning of language, and to introduce obscurity into one of the
   simplest stories ever told, for the sake of making it accord with the
   complex system of the universe which modern science has unfolded? The
   spectacle of able and, we doubt not, conscientious writers engaged in
   attempting the impossible is painful and humiliating. They evidently do
   not breathe freely over their work, but shuffle and stumble over their
   difficulties in a piteous manner; nor are they themselves again until
   they return to the pure and open fields of science.

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

   Admitting, as is historically and in fact the case, that it was the
   mission of the Hebrew race to lay the foundation of religion upon the
   earth, and that Providence used this people specially for this purpose,
   is it not our business and our duty to look and see how this has really
   been done? not forming for ourselves theories of what a revelation
   ought to be, or how we, if entrusted with the task, would have made
   one, but enquiring how it has pleased God to do it. In all his theories
   of the world, man has at first deviated widely from the truth, and has
   only gradually come to see how far otherwise God has ordered things
   than the first daring speculator had supposed. It has been popularly
   assumed that the Bible, bearing the stamp of Divine authority, must be
   complete, perfect, and unimpeachable in all its parts, and a thousand
   difficulties and incoherent doctrines have sprung out of this theory.
   Men have proceeded in the matter of theology, as they did with physical
   science before inductive philosophy sent them to the feet of nature,
   and bid them learn in patience and obedience the lessons which she had
   to teach. Dogma and groundless assumption occupy the place of modest
   enquiry after truth, while at the same time the upholders of these
   theories claim credit for humility and submissiveness. This is exactly
   inverting the fact; the humble scholar of truth is not he who, taking
   his stand upon the traditions of rabbins, Christian fathers, or
   school-men, insists upon bending facts to his unyielding standard, but
   he who is willing to accept such teaching as it has pleased Divine
   Providence to afford, without murmuring that it has not been furnished
   more copiously or clearly.

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

   The early speculator was harassed by no such scruples, and asserted as
   facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities. But we are not on
   that account to doubt his perfect good faith, nor need we attribute to
   him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which
   he knew not to be true. He had seized one great truth, in which,
   indeed, he anticipated the highest revelation of modern
   enquiry--namely, the unity of the design of the world, and its
   subordination to one sole Maker and Lawgiver. With regard to details,
   observation failed him. He knew little of the earth's surface, or of
   its shape and place in the universe; the infinite varieties of
   organized existences which people it, the distinct floras and faunas of
   its different continents, were unknown to him. But he saw that all
   which lay within his observation bad been formed for the benefit and
   service of man, and the goodness of the Creator to his creatures was
   the thought predominant in his mind. Man's closer relations to his
   Maker is indicated by the representation that he was formed last of all
   creatures, and in the visible likeness of God. For ages, this simple
   view of creation satisfied the wants of man, and formed a sufficient
   basis of theological teaching, and if modern research now shows it to
   be physically untenable, our respect for the narrative which has played
   so important a part in the culture of our race need be in nowise
   diminished. No one contends that it can be used as a basis of
   astronomical or geological teaching, and those who profess to see in it
   an accordance with facts, only do this sub modo, and by processes which
   despoil it of its consistency and grandeur, both which may be preserved
   if we recognise in it, not an authentic utterance of Divine knowledge,
   but a human utterance, which it has pleased Providence to use
   Providence a special way for the education of mankind.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [118] Horne's Introduction, to the Holy Scriptures (1856, tenth
   Edition.)

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

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

   [121] Chap. iv. 33.

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

   [123] In the second narrative of creation, in which no distinction of
   days is made, the birds are said to have been formed out of the ground.
   Gen ii.

   [124] See particularly the narrative in Genesis xviii.

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

   [126] The common arrangement of the Bible in chapters is of
   comparatively modern origin, and is admitted, on all hands, to have no
   authority or philological worth whatever. In many cases, the division
   is most preposterous, and interferes greatly with an intelligent
   perusal of the text.

   [127] Testimony of the Rocks, P. 10.

   [128] See Dr. Pusey's note--Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 24,
   25.

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

   [130] Bridgewater Treatise, p. 17.

   [131] Science and Scripture not at Variance, p. 40, note.

   [132] Testimony, p. 133.

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

   [134] Testimony, p. 134.

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

             TENDENCIES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND, 1688-1750.

   THE thirty years of peace which succeeded the Peace of Utrecht (1714),
   was the most prosperous season that England had ever experienced; and
   the progression, though slow, being uniform, the reign of George II.
   might not disadvantageously be compared for the real happiness of the
   community with that more brilliant, but uncertain and oscillatory
   condition which has ensued. A labourer's wages have never for many ages
   commanded so large a portion of subsistence as in this part of the 18th
   century.' (Hallam, Const. Hist. ii. 464.)

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

   The Stoical moralists of the second century who witnessed a similar
   coincidence of moral degradation and material welfare, had no
   difficulty in connecting them together as effect with cause. Bona rerum
   secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.' (Seneca, ad Lucil. 66.)
   But the famous theory which satisfied the political philosophers of
   antiquity, viz., that the degeneracy of nations is due to the inroads
   of luxury, is laughed to scorn by modern economists. It is at any rate
   a theory which can hardly be adopted by those who pour unmeasured
   contempt on the 18th, by way of contrast with the revival of higher
   principles by the l9th century. It is especially since the High Church
   movement commenced that the theology of the 18th century has become a
   byeword. The genuine Anglican omits that period from the history of the
   Church altogether. In constructing his Catenæ Patrum he closes his list
   with Waterland or Brett, and leaps at once to 1833, when the Tracts for
   the Times commenced--as Charles II. dated his reign from his father's
   death. Such a legal fiction may be harmless or useful for purposes of
   mere form, but the facts of history cannot be disposed of by forgetting
   them. Both the Church and the world of to-day are what they are as the
   result of the whole of their antecedents. The history of a party may be
   written on the theory of periodical occultation; but he who wishes to
   trace the descent of religious thought, and the practical working of
   the religious ideas, must follow these through all the phases they have
   actually assumed. We have not yet learnt, in this country, to write our
   ecclesiastical history on any better footing than that of praising up
   the party, in or out of the Church, to which we happen to belong. Still
   further are we from any attempt to apply the laws of thought, and of
   the succession of opinion, to the course of English theology. The
   recognition of the fact, that the view of the eternal verities of
   religion which prevails in any given age is in part determined by the
   view taken in the age which preceded it, is incompatible with the
   hypothesis generally prevalent among us as to the mode in which we form
   our notions of religious truth. Upon none of the prevailing theories as
   to this mode is a deductive history of theology possible. 1. The
   Catholic theory, which is really that of Roman-Catholics, and
   professedly that of some Anglo-Catholics, withdraws Christianity
   altogether from human experience and the operation of the ordinary laws
   of thought. 2. The Protestant theory of free inquiry, which supposes
   that each mind takes a survey of the evidence, and strikes the balance
   of probability according to the best of its judgment--this theory,
   defers indeed to the abstract laws of logic, but overlooks the
   influences of education. If, without hypothesis, we are content to
   observe facts, we shall find that we cannot decline to study the
   opinions of any age only because they are not our own opinions. There
   is a law of continuity in the progress of theology which, whatever we
   may wish, is never broken off. In tracing the filiation of consecutive
   systems, we cannot afford to overlook any link in the chain, any age,
   except one in which religious opinion did not exist. Certainly we, in
   this our time, if we would understand our own position in the Church,
   and that of the Church in the age, if we would hold any clue through
   the maze of religious pretension which surrounds us, cannot neglect
   those immediate agencies in the production of the present, which had
   their origin towards the beginning of the 18th century.

   Of these agencies there are three, the present influence of which
   cannot escape the most inattentive. 1. The formation and gradual growth
   of that compromise between Church and State, which is culled
   Toleration, and which, believed by many to be a principle, is a mere
   arrangement between two principles. But such as it is, it is part of
   our heritage from the last age, and is the foundation, if foundation it
   can be called, upon which we still continue to build, as in the late
   Act for the admission of the Jews to Parliament. 2. The great
   rekindling of the religious consciousness of the people which, without
   the Established Church, became Methodism, and within its pale has
   obtained the name of the Evangelical movement. However decayed may be
   the Evangelical party as a party, it cannot be denied that its
   influence, both on our religious ideas, and on our church life, has
   penetrated far beyond those party limits. 3. The growth and gradual
   illusion through all religious thinking of the supremacy of reason.
   This, which is rather a principle, or a mode of thinking, than a
   doctrine, may be properly enough called Rationalism. This term is used
   in this country with so much laxity that it is impossible to define the
   sense in which it is generally intended. But it is often taken to mean
   a system opposed to revealed religion imported into this country from
   Germany at the beginning of the present century. A person, however, who
   surveys the course of English theology during the eighteenth century
   will have no difficulty in recognising that throughout all discussions,
   underneath all controversies, and common to all parties, lies the
   assumption of the supremacy of reason in matters of religion. The
   Kantian Philosophy did but bring forward into light, and give
   scientific form and a recognised position to, a principle which had
   long unconsciously guided all treatment of religious topics both in
   Germany and in England. Rationalism was not an anti-Christian sect
   outside the Church making war against religion. It was a habit of
   thought ruling all minds, under the conditions of which all alike tried
   to make good the peculiar opinions they might happen to cherish. The
   Church-man differed from the Socinian, and the Socinian from the Deist,
   as to the number of articles in his creed; but all alike consented to
   test their belief by the rational evidence for it. Whether given
   doctrines or miracles were conformable to reason or not was disputed
   between the defence and the assault; but that all doctrines were to
   stand or fall by that criterion was not questioned. The principles and
   the priority of natural religion formed the common hypothesis on the
   ground of which the disputants argued whether anything, and what, had
   been subsequently communicated to man in a supernatural way. The line
   between those who believed much and those who believed little cannot be
   sharply drawn. Some of the so-called Deists were, in fact, Socinians;
   as Toland, who expressly admits all those parts of the New Testament
   revelation which are, or seem to him, comprehensible by reason.
   (Christianity not Mysterious.) Nor is there any ground for thinking
   that Toland was insincere in his profession of rational Christianity,
   as was insinuated by his opponents--e.g. Leland. (View of the Deistical
   Writers, vol. i. p. 49.) A more candid adversary, Leibnitz, who knew
   Toland personally, is glad to believe that the design of this author, a
   man of no common ability, and as I think, a well-disposed person, was
   to withdraw men from speculative theology to the practice of its
   precepts. (Annotatiunculæ subitaneæ.) Hardly one here and there, as
   Hume, professed Rationalism in the extent of Atheism; the great
   majority of writers were employed in constructing a via media between
   Atheism and Athanasianism, while the most orthodox were diligently
   hewing and chiselling Christianity into an intelligible human system,
   which they then represented, as thus mutilated, as affording a
   remarkable evidence of the truth of the Bible.' (Tracts for the Times,
   vol. ii. No. 73.) The title of Locke's treatise, The Reasonableness of
   Christianity, may be said to have been the solitary thesis of Christian
   theology in England for great part of a century.

   If we are to put chronological limits to this system of religious
   opinion in England, we might, for the sake of a convenient landmark,
   say that it came in with the Revolution of 1688 and began to decline in
   vigour with the reaction against the Reform movement about 1830.
   Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity would thus open, and the
   commencement of the Tracts for the Times mark the fall of Rationalism.
   Not that chronology can ever exactly applied to the mutations of
   opinion. For there were Rationalists before Locke, e.g. Hales of Eton,
   and other Arminians, nor has the Church of England unanimously adopted
   the principles of the Tracts for the Times. But if we were to follow up
   Cave's nomenclature, the appellation Seculum rationalisticum might be
   affixed to the eighteenth century with greater precision than many of
   his names apply to the previous centuries. For it was not merely that
   Rationalism then obtruded itself as a heresy, or obtained a footing of
   toleration within the Church, but the rationalizing method possessed
   itself absolutely of the whole field of theology. With some trifling
   exceptions, the whole of religious literature was drawn in to the
   endeavour to prove the truth' of Christianity. The essay and the
   sermon, the learned treatise and the philosophical disquisition,
   Addison the polite writer, and Bentley the classical philologian
   (Addison: Evidences of the Christian Religion, a posthumous
   publication. Bentley: Eight Sermons at Boyle's Lecture, 1692), the
   astronomer Newton (Four letters, &c., Lond. 1756), no less than the
   theologians by profession, were all engaged upon the same task. To one
   book of A. Collins, A Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the
   Christian Religion, Lond. 1724, are counted no less than thirty-five
   answers. Dogmatic theology had ceased to exist; the exhibition of
   religious truth for practical purposes was confined to a few obscure
   writers. Every one who had anything to say on sacred subjects drilled
   it into an array of argument against a supposed objector. Christianity
   appeared made for nothing else but to be proved;' what use to make of
   it when it was proved was not much thought about. Reason was at first
   offered as the basis of faith, but gradually became its substitute. The
   mind never advanced as far as the stage of belief, for it was
   unceasingly engaged in reasoning up to it. The only quality in
   Scripture which was dwelt upon was its credibility.' Even the
   Evangelical' school, which had its origin in a reaction against the
   dominant Rationalism, and began in endeavours to kindle religious
   feeling, was obliged to succumb at last. It, too, drew out its rational
   scheme of Christianity,' in which the atonement was made the central
   point of a system, and the death of Christ was accounted for as
   necessary to satisfy the Divine Justice.

   This whole rationalist age must again be subdivided into two periods,
   the theology of which, though belonging to the common type, has
   distinct specific characters. These periods are of nearly equal length,
   and we may conveniently take the middle year of the century, 1750, as
   our terminus of division. Though both periods were engaged upon the
   proof of Christianity, the distinction between them is that the first
   period was chiefly devoted to the internal, the second to the external,
   attestations. In the first period the main endeavour was to show that
   there was nothing in the contents of the revelation which was not
   agreeable to reason. In the second, from 1750 onwards, the controversy
   was narrowed to what are usually called the Evidences,' or the
   historical proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the Christian
   records. From this distinction of topic arises an important difference
   of value between the theological produce of the two periods. A great
   injustice is done to the 18th century, when its whole speculative
   product is set down under the description of that Old Bailey theology
   in which, to use Johnson's illustration, the Apostles are being tried
   once a week for the capital crime of forgery. This evidential
   school--the school of Lardner, Paley, and Whately--belongs strictly to
   the latter half only of the period now under consideration. This
   school, which treated the exterior evidence was the natural sequel and
   supplement of that which had preceded it, which dealt with the
   intrinsic credibility of the Christian revelation. This historical
   succession of the schools is the logical order of the argument. For
   when we have first shown that the facts of Christianity are not
   incredible, the whole burden of proof is shifted to the evidence that
   the facts did really occur. Neither branch of the argument can claim to
   be religious instruction at all, but the former does incidentally enter
   upon the substance of the Gospel. It may be philosophy rather than
   theology, but it raises in its course some of the most momentous
   problems which can engage the human mind. On the other hand, a mind
   which occupies itself with the external evidences' knows nothing of the
   spiritual intuition, of which it renounces at once the difficulties and
   the consolations. The supply of evidences in what for the sake of a
   name may be called the Georgian period (1750-1830), was not occasioned
   by any demands of controversy. The attacks through the press were
   nearly at an end, the Deists bad ceased to be. The clergy continued to
   manufacture evidence as an ingenious exercise, a literature which was
   avowedly professional, a study which might seem theology without being
   it, which could awaken none of the scepticism then dormant beneath the
   surface of society. Evidences are not edged tools; they stir no
   feeling; they were the proper theology of an age, whose literature
   consisted in writing Latin hexameters. The orthodox school no longer
   dared to scrutinize the contents of revelation. The preceding period
   had eliminated the religious experience, the Georgian had lost besides,
   the power of using the speculative reason.

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

   It seems, indeed, a singular infelicity that the construction of the
   historical proof should have been the task which the course of events
   allotted to the latter half of the 18th century. The critical knowledge
   of antiquity had disappeared from the Universities. The past,
   discredited by a false conservatism, was regarded with aversion, and
   the minds of men directed habitually to future, some with fear, others
   with hope. The disrespect in which history was held by the French
   philosophes is notorious; one of the soberest of them, D'Alembert, we
   believe, was the author of the wish that all record of past events
   could be blotted out.' (Mill, Dissertations, vol. i. p. 426.) The same
   sentiment was prevalent, though not in the same degree, in this
   country. Hume writing to an Englishman in 1756, speaks of your
   countrymen' as given over to barbarous and absurd faction.' Of his own
   history the publisher, Millar, told him he had only sold forty-five
   copies in a twelvemonth. (My Own Life, p. 5.) Warburton had long before
   complained of the Chronicles published by Hearne that there is not one
   that is not a disgrace to letters; most of them are so to common sense,
   and some even to human nature.' (Parr's Tracts, &c., p. 109.) The
   oblivion into which the remains of Christian antiquity had sunk, till
   disinterred by the Tractarian movement, is well known. Having neither
   the critical tools to work with, nor the historical materials to work
   upon, it is no wonder if they failed in their art. Theology had almost
   died out when it received a new impulse and a new direction from
   Coleridge. The evidence-makers ceased from their futile labours all at
   once, as beneath the spell of some magician. Englishmen heard with as
   much surprise as if the doctrine was new, that the Christian faith, the
   Athanasian Creed, of which they had come to wish that the Church was
   well rid, was the perfection of human intelligence;' that, the
   compatibility of a document with the conclusions of self-evident
   reason, and with the laws of conscience, is a condition a priori of any
   evidence adequate to the proof of its having been revealed by God' and
   that this is a principle clearly laid down by Moses and St. Paul;'
   lastly, that there are mysteries in Christianity, but that these
   mysteries are reason, reason in its highest form of self-affirmation.'
   (Aids to Reflection, pref. Lit. Remains, iii. 293.) In this position of
   Coleridge, the rationalist theology of England, which was in the last
   stage of decay and dotage, seemed to recover a second youth, and to
   revert at once to the point from which it had started a century before.

   Should the religious historian then acknowledge that the impatient
   contempt with which the last century' is now spoken of, is justifiable
   with respect to the later period, with its artificial monotone of proof
   that is no proof, he will by no means allow the same of the earlier
   period 1688-1750. The superiority which the theological writing of this
   period has over that which succeeded it, is to be referred in part to
   the superiority of the internal, over the external, proof of
   Christianity, as an object of thought.

   Both methods alike, as methods of argumentative proof, place the mind
   in an unfavourable attitude for the consideration of religious truth.
   It is like removing ourselves for the purpose of examining an object to
   the furthest point from which the object is visible. Neither the
   external nor the internal evidences are properly theology at all.
   Theology is--1st, and primarily, the contemplative, speculative habit,
   by means of which the mind places itself already in another world than
   this; a habit begun here, to be raised to perfect vision hereafter.
   2ndly, and in an inferior degree, it is ethical and regulative of our
   conduct as men, in those relations which are temporal and transitory.
   Argumentative proof that such knowledge is possible can never be
   substituted for the knowledge without detriment to the mental habit.
   What is true of an individual is true of an age. When an age is found
   occupied in proving its creed, this is but a token that the age has
   ceased to have a proper belief in it Nevertheless, there is a
   difference in this respect between the sources from which proof may be
   fetched. Where it is busied in establishing the genuineness and
   authenticity' of the books of Scripture, neglecting its religious
   lessons, and drawing out instead the undesigned coincidences,'
   Rationalism is seen in its dullest and least spiritual form. When, on
   the other hand, the contents of the Revelation are being freely
   examined, and reason as it is called, but really the philosophy in
   vogue, is being applied to determine whether the voice be the voice of
   God or not, the reasoner is indeed approaching his subject from a false
   point of view, but he is still engaged with the eternal verities. The
   reason has prescribed itself an impossible task when it has undertaken
   to prove, instead of evolve them; to argue instead of appropriate them.
   But anyhow, it is handling them; and by the contact is raised in some
   measure to the height of that great argument.'

   This acknowledgment seems due to the period now referred to. It is,
   perhaps, rather thinking of its pulpit eloquence than its
   controversies, that Professor Fraser does not hesitate to call this the
   golden age of English theology.' (Essays in Philosophy, p. 205.) Such
   language, as applied to our great preachers, was once matter of course,
   but would now hardly be used by any Anglican, and has to be sought for
   in the mouth of members of another communion. The names which once
   commanded universal homage among us--the Souths, Barrows, Tillotsons,
   Sherlocks,--excite, perhaps, only a smile of pity. Literary taste is
   proverbially inconstant; but theological is still more so, for here we
   have no rule or chart to guide us but the taste of our age. Boussuet,
   Bourdaloue, and Massillon have survived a dozen political revoltions.
   We have no classical theology, though we have not had a political
   revolution since 1660. For in this subject matter the most of
   Englishmen have no other standard of merit than the prejudices of sect.
   Eminence only marks out a great man for more cordial hatred; every
   flippant High Church reviewer has learnt to fling at Locke, the father
   of English Rationalism, and the greatest name among its worthies.
   Others are, perhaps, only less disliked because less known; qui n'a pas
   de lecteurs, n'a pas d'adversaires.' The principal writers in the
   Deistical Controversy, either side of it, have expiated the attention
   they once engrossed by as universal an oblivion.

   The Deistical Controversy, the all-absorbing topic of religious writers
   and preachers during the whole of this first period, has pretty
   well-defined limits. Stillingfleet, who died Bishop of Worcester in the
   last year (1699) of the seventeenth century, marks the transition from
   the old to the new argument. In the six folios of Stillingfleet's works
   may be found the latest echoes of the Romanist Controversy, and the
   first declaration of war against Locke. The Deistical Controversy
   attained its greatest intensity in the twenties (1720-1740), after the
   subsidence of the Bangorian controversy, which for a time had diverted
   attention to itself, and it gradually died out towards the middle of
   the century. The decay of interest in the topic is sufficiently marked
   by the fact that the opinions of Hume failed to stimulate curiosity or
   antagonism. His Treatise of Human Nature (1739) fell dead-born from the
   press,' and the only one of his philosophical writings which was
   received with favour on its first appearance was one on the new
   topic--Political Discourses (1752). Of this he says it was the only
   work of mine which was successful on the first publication, being well
   received both abroad and at home.' (My Own Life.) Bolingbroke, who died
   in 1751, was the last of the professed Deists. When his works were
   brought out by his executor, Mallet, in 1754, the interest in them was
   already gone; they found the public cold or indisposed. It was a rusty
   blunderbuss, which he need not have been afraid to have discharged
   himself, instead of leaving half-a-crown to a Scotchman to let it off
   after his death.' (Boswell, p. 88.) To talk Deism had ceased to be
   fashionable as soon as it ceased to attract attention.

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

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

   Tillotson (Archbishop of Canterbury), Sermons, vol. iii. p. 485. All
   our reasonings about revelation are necessarily gathered by our natural
   notions about religion, and therefore he who sincerely desires to do
   the will of God is not apt to be imposed on by vain pretences of divine
   revelation; but if any doctrine be proposed to him which is pretended
   to come from God, he measures it by those sure and steady notions which
   he has of the divine nature and perfections; he will consider the
   nature and tendency of it, or whether it be a doctrine according to
   godliness, such as is agreeable to the divine nature and perfections,
   and tends to make us like unto God; if it be not, though an angel
   should bring it, he would not receive it.'

   Rogers (John, D.D.), Sermons at Boyle's Lecture, 1727, p. 59. Our
   religion desires no other favour than a sober and dispassionate
   examination. It submits its grounds and reasons to an unprejudiced
   trial, and hopes to approve itself to the conviction of any equitable
   enquirer.'

   Butler, (Jos., Bp. of Durham), Analogy, &c., pt. 2, ch. 1. Indeed, if
   in revelation there be found any passages, the seeming meaning of which
   is contrary to natural religion, we may most certainly conclude such
   seeming meaning not to be the real one.' Ibid., ch. 8: I have argued
   upon the principles of the fatalists, which I do not believe; and have
   omitted a thing of the utmost importance which I do believe: the moral
   fitness and unfitness of actions, prior to all will whatever, which I
   apprehend as certainly to determine the divine conduct, as speculative
   truth and falsehood necessarily determine the divine judgment.'

   To the same elect the leading preacher among the Dissenters, James
   Foster, Truth and Excellency of the Christian Revelation, 1731. The
   faculty of reason which God hath implanted in mankind, however it may
   have been abused and neglected in times past, will, whenever they begin
   to exercise it aright, enable them to judge of all these things. As by
   means of this they were capable of discovering at first the being and
   perfections of God, and that he governs the world with absolute wisdom,
   equity, and goodness, and what those duties are which they owe to him
   and to one another, they must be as capable, if they will divest
   themselves of prejudice, and reason impartially, of rectifying any
   mistakes they may have fallen into about these important points. It
   matters not whether they have hitherto thought right or wrong, nor
   indeed whether they have thought at all; let them but begin to consider
   seriously and examine carefully and impartially, and they must be able
   to find out all those truths which as reasonable creatures they are
   capable of knowing, and which affect their duty and happiness.'

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

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

   According to this assumption, a man's religious belief is a result
   which issues at the end of an intellectual process. In arranging the
   steps of this process, they conceived natural religion to form the
   first stage of the journey. That stage theologians of all shades and
   parties travelled in company. It only when they had reached the end of
   it that the Deists and the Christian apologists parted. The former
   found that the light of reason which had guided them so far indicated
   no road beyond. The Christian writers declared that the same natural
   powers enabled them to recognise the truth of revealed religion. The
   sufficiency of natural religion thus became the turning point of the
   dispute. The natural law of right and duty, argued the Deists, is so
   absolutely perfect that God could not add anything to it. It is
   commensurate with all the real relations in which man stands. To
   suppose that God has created artificial relations, and laid upon man
   positive precepts, is to take away the very notion of morality. The
   moral law is nothing but the conditions of our actual being, apparent
   alike to those of the meanest and of the highest capacity. It is
   inconsistent with this to suppose that God has gone on to enact
   arbitrary statutes, and to declare them to man in an obscure and
   uncertain light. This was the ground taken by the great champion of
   Deism--Tindal, and expressed in the title of the treatise which he
   published in 1732, when upwards of seventy, Christianity as old as the
   Creation; or, the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature.
   This was the point which the Christian defenders laboured most, to
   construct the bridge which should unite the revealed to the natural.
   They never demur to making the Natural the basis on which the Christian
   rests, to considering the natural knowledge of God as the starting
   point both of the individual mind and of the human race. This
   assumption is necessary to their scheme, in which revelation is an
   argument addressed to the reason. Christianity is a résumé of the
   knowledge of God already attained by reason, and a disclosure of
   further truths. These further truths could not have been thought out by
   reason; but when divinely communicated, they approve themselves to the
   same reason which has already put us in possession of so much. The new
   truths are not of another order of ideas, for Christianity is a
   particular scheme under the general plan of Providence,' (Analogy, pt.
   2, ch. 4) and the whole scheme is of a piece and uniform. If the
   dispensation be indeed from God, all the parts of it will he seen to be
   the correspondent members of one entire whole, which orderly
   disposition of things essential to a religious system will assure us of
   the true theory of the Christian faith.' (Warburton, Divine Legation,
   &c., B. ix. Introd. Works, vol. iii. p. 600.) How these relations are
   made known, whether by reason or revelation, makes no alteration in the
   case, because the duties arise out of the relations themselves, not out
   of the manner in which we are informed of them. (Analogy, pt. 2, ch.
   1.) Those very articles of belief and duties of obedience, which were
   formerly natural with respect to their manner of promulgation, are now
   in the declaration of them also supernatural.' (Ferguson, Reason in
   Religion, 1675, p. 29.) The relations to the Redeemer and the
   Sanctifier are not artificial, but as real as those to the Maker and
   Preserver, and the obligations arising out of the one set of relations
   as natural as those arising out of the other.

   The deference paid to natural religion is farther seen in the attempts
   to establish a priori the necessity of a revelation. To make this out
   it was requisite to show that the knowledge with which reason could
   supply us was inadequate to be the guide of life, yet reason must not
   be too much depressed, inasmuch as it was needed for the proof of
   Christianity. On the one hand, the moral state of the heathen world
   prior to the preaching of Christianity, and of Pagan and savage tribes
   in Africa and America now, the superstitions of the most civilized
   nations of antiquity, the intellectual follies of the wisest
   philosophers, are exhibited in great detail. The usual arguments of
   scepticism on the conscious weakness of reason are brought forward, but
   not pushed very far. Reason is to be humiliated so far as that
   supernatural light shall be seen to be necessary, but it must retain
   its competence to judge of the evidence of this supernatural message.
   Natural religion is insufficient as a light, and a motive to show us
   our way and to make us walk in it; it is sufficient as a light, and a
   motive to lead us to revelation, and to induce us to embrace it. How
   much of religious truth was contained in natural knowledge, or how much
   was due to supernatural communication, was very variously estimated.
   Locke, especially, had warned against our liability to attribute to
   reason much of moral truth that had in fact been derived from
   revelation. But the uncertainty of the demarcation between the two is
   only additional proof of the identity of the scheme which they disclose
   between them. The whole of God's government and dealings with man form
   one wide-spread and consistent scheme, of which natural reason
   apprehends a part, and of which Christianity was the manifestation of a
   further part. Consistently herewith they treated natural religion, not
   as an historical dispensation, but as an abstract demonstration. There
   never was a time when mankind had realized or established an actual
   system of natural religion, but it lies always potentially in his
   reason. It held the same place as the social contract in political
   history. The original contract' had never had historical existence, but
   it was a hypothesis necessary to explain the existing fact of society.
   No society had, in fact, arisen on that basis, yet it is the
   theoretical basis on which all society can be shown to rest. So there
   was no time or country where the religion of nature had been fully
   known, yet the knowledge of God is the only foundation in the human
   mind on which can be built a rational Christianity. Though not an
   original condition of any part of mankind, it is an ever-originating
   condition of every human mind, as soon as it begins to reason on the
   facts of religion, rendering all the moral phenomena available for the
   construction of a scientific theory of religion.

   In accordance with this view they interpreted the passages in St. Paul
   which speak of the religion of the heathen; e.g., Rom. ii. 14. Since
   the time of Augustine (De Spir. et Lit. § 27) the orthodox
   interpretation had applied this verse, either to the Gentile converts,
   or to the favoured few among the heathen who had extraordinary divine
   assistance. The Protestant expositors, to whom the words do by nature
   the things contained in the law,' could never bear their literal force,
   sedulously preserved the Augustinian explanation. Even the Pelagian
   Jeremy, Taylor is obliged to gloss the phrase by nature,' thus: By
   fears and secret opinions which the Spirit of God who is never wanting
   to men in things necessary was pleased to put into the hearts of men.
   (Duct. Dubit. B. ii. ch. 1, § 3.) The rationalists, however, find the
   expression by nature' in its literal sense exactly conformable to their
   own views, (Wilkins, Of Nat. Rel. ii. c. 9) and have no difficulty even
   in supposing the acceptableness of these works, and the salvability of
   those who do them. Burnet on Art. xviii., in his usual confused style
   of eclecticism, suggests both opinions without seeming to see that they
   are incompatible relics of divergent schools of doctrine.

   Consequent with such a theory of religion was their notion of its
   practical bearings. Christianity was a republication of the moral
   law--a republication rendered necessary by the helpless state of moral
   debasement into which the world was come by the practice of vice. The
   experience of ages had proved that, though our duty might be
   discoverable by the light of nature, yet virtue was not able to
   maintain itself in the world without additional sanctions. The
   disinterestedness of virtue was here a point much debated. The Deists,
   in general, argued from the notion of morality, that so far as any
   private regard to my own interest, whether present or future,
   influenced my conduct, so far my actions had no moral worth. From this
   they drew the inference that the rewards and punishments of
   Christianity--these additional sanctions--could not be a divine
   ordinance, inasmuch as they were subversive of morality. The orthodox
   writers had to maintain the theory of rewards and punishments in such a
   way as not to be inconsistent with the theory of the disinterestedness
   of virtue which they had made part of their theology. Even here no
   precise line can be drawn between the Deistical and the Christian
   moralists. For we find Shaftesbury placing in a very clear light the
   mode in which religious sanctions do, in fact, as society is
   constituted, support and strengthen virtue in the world, though he does
   not deny that the principle of virtue in the individual may suffer from
   the selfish passion being appealed to by the hope of reward or the fear
   of punishment. (Characteristicks, vol. ii. p. 66.) But with whatever
   variation in individual disputants, the tone of the discussions is
   unmistakeable. When Collins was asked, Why he was careful to make his
   servants go to Church?' he is said to have answered, I do it that they
   may neither rob nor murder me.' This is but an exaggerated form of the
   practical religion of the age. Tillotson's Sermon (Works, vol. iii. p.
   43) On the Advantages of Religion to Societies;' is like Collins' reply
   at fuller length. The Deists and their opponents alike assume that the
   purpose of the supernatural interference of the Deity in revelation
   must have been to secure the good behaviour of man in this that the
   future life and our knowledge of it may be a means to this great end;
   that the next world, if it exist at all, bears that relation to the
   present. We are chiefly familiar with these views from their having
   been long the butt of the Evangelical pulpit, a chief topic in which
   was to decry the mere legal' preaching of a preceding age. To abstain
   from vice, to cultivate virtue, to fill our station in life with
   propriety, to bear the ills of life with resignation, and to use its
   pleasures moderately--these things are indeed not little; perhaps no
   one can name in his circle of friends a man whom he thinks equal to
   these demands. Yet the experience of the last age has shown us
   unmistakeably that where this is our best ideal of life, whether, with
   the Deists, we establish the obligation of morality on independent'
   grounds; or, with the orthodox, add he religious sanction--in Mr.
   Mill's rather startling mode of putting it (Dissertations, vol. ii. p.
   436), Because God is stronger than we, and able to damn us if we
   don't'--it argues a sleek and sordid epicurism, in which religion and a
   good conscience have their place among the means by which life is to be
   made comfortable. To accuse the divines of this age of a leaning to
   Arminianism is quite beside the mark. They did not intend to be other
   than orthodox. They did not take the Arminian side rather than the
   Calvinistic in the old conflict or concordat between Faith and Works,
   between Justification and Sanctification. They had dropt the
   terminology, and with it the mode of thinking, which the terms implied.
   They had adopted the language and ideas of the moralists. They spoke
   not of sin, but of vice, and of virtue, not of works. In the old
   Protestant theology actions had only a certain exterior relation to the
   justified man; gute fromme Werke machen nimmermehr einen guten frommen
   Mann sondern ein guter frommer Mann macht gute Werke.' (Luther.) Now,
   our conduct was thought of, not as a product or efflux of our
   character, but as regulated by our understanding; by a perception of
   relations, or a calculation of consequences. This intellectual
   perception of regulative truth is religions Faith. Faith is no longer
   the devout condition of the entire inner man. Its dynamic nature, and
   interior working, are not denied, but they are unknown; and religion is
   made to regulate life from without, though the logical proof of the
   being and attributes of God, upon which an obligation to obey him can
   be raised.

   The preachers of any period are not to be censured for adapting their
   style of address and mode of arguing to their hearers. They are as
   necessarily bound to the preconceived notions, as to the language, of
   those whom they have to exhort. The pulpit does not mould the forms
   into which religious thought in any age runs, it simply accommodates
   itself to those that exist. For this very reason, because they must
   follow and cannot lead, sermons are the surest index of the prevailing
   religious feeling of their age. When we are reminded of the powerful
   influence of the pulpit at the Reformation, in the time of the Long
   Parliament, or at the Methodist revival, it must also be remembered
   that these preachers addressed a different class of society from that
   for which our classical pulpit oratory was written. If it could be said
   that Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain,' it was because the
   populace were gone to hear mad Henley on his tub. To charge Tillotson
   or Foster with not moving the masses which Whitefield moved, is to
   charge them with not having preached to another congregation than that
   to which they had to preach. Nor did they preach to empty pews, though
   their carefully-written discourses' could never produce effects such as
   are recorded of Burnet's extempore addresses, when he was often
   interrupted by the deep hum of his audience, and when, after preaching
   out the hour-glass, he held it up in his hand, the congregation
   clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once
   more.' (Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 177.). The dramatic oratory of Whitefield
   could not have sustained its power over the same auditors; he had a
   fresh congregation every Sunday. And in the judgment of one quite
   disposed to do justice to Whitefield there is nothing in his sermons
   such as are printed. Johnson (ap. Boswell) speaking of the comparisons
   drawn between the preaching in the Church and that of the Methodists to
   the disadvantage of the former, says, I never treated Whitefield's
   ministry with contempt; I believe he did good. But when familiarity and
   noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must
   beat down such pretensions.' It is, however, the substance, and not the
   manner, of the classical sermons of the eighteenth century which is
   meant, when they are complained of as cold and barren. From this
   accusation they cannot be vindicated. But let it be rightly understood
   that it is a charge not against the preachers but against the religious
   ideas of the period. In the pulpit, the speaker has no choice but to
   take his audience as he finds them. He can but draw them on to the
   conclusions already involved in their premises. He cannot supply them
   with a new set of principles, and alter their fixed forms of thought.
   The ideas out of which the Protestant or the Puritan movement proceeded
   were generated elsewhere than in the pulpit.

   The Rationalist preachers of the eighteenth century are usually
   contrasted with the Evangelical pulpit which displaced them. Mr. Neale
   has compared them disadvantageously with the mediæval preachers in
   respect of Scripture knowledge. He selects a sermon of the eighteenth
   and one of the twelfth century; the one by the well-known Evangelical
   preacher John Newton, Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth; the other by
   Guarric, Abbot of Igniac. In Newton's sermon we find nine references to
   the Gospels, two to the Epistles, nine to the Prophets, one to the
   Psalms, and none to any other part of Scripture. In the sermon of
   Guarric we find seven references to the Gospels, one to the Epistles,
   twenty-two to the Psalms, nine to the Prophets, and eighteen to other
   parts of Scripture. Thus the total number of quotations made by the
   Evangelical preacher is twenty-one, by Guarric fifty-seven, and this in
   sermons of about equal length.' (Mediæval Preaching, Introd. xxvi.) Mr.
   Neale has, perhaps, not been fortunate in his selection of a specimen
   sermon. For having the curiosity to apply this childish test to a
   sermon of John Blair, taken at random out of his four volumes, I found
   the number of texts quoted thirty-seven. But, passing this by Mr. Neale
   misses his inference. He means to show how much more Scripture
   knowledge was possessed by the preachers of the dark ages.' This is
   very likely, if familiarity with the mere words of the Vulgate version
   be Scripture knowledge. But it is not proved by the abstinence of the
   eighteenth century preacher from the use of Biblical phraseology. The
   fact, so far as it is one, only shows that our divines understood
   Scripture differently, some will say better, than the Middle Age
   ecclesiastic. The latter had, in the mystical theology of the Christian
   Church, a rich store of religious sentiment, which it was an exercise
   of their ingenuity to find in the poetical books of the Hebrew canon.
   Great part of this fanciful allegorizing is lost, apart from the
   Vulgate translation. But of this the more learned of them were quite
   aware, and on their theory of Scripture interpretation, according to
   which the Church was its guaranteed expositor, the verbal meanings of
   the Latin version were equally the inspired sense of the sacred record.
   It was otherwise with the English divine of the eighteenth century.
   According to the then received view of Scripture, its meaning was not
   assigned by the Church, but its language was interpreted by
   criticism--i.e., by reason. The aids of history, the ordinary rules of
   grammar and logic, were applied to find out what the sacred writers
   actually said. That was the meaning of Scripture, the message
   supernaturally communicated. Where each text of Scripture has but one
   sense, that sense in which the writer penned it, can only be cited in
   that sense without doing it violence. This was the turn by which Selden
   so discomfited the Puritan divines, who, like the Catholic mystics,
   made Scripture words the vehicle of their own feelings. Perhaps in your
   little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves the translation may be thus, but
   the Greek or Hebrew signifies otherwise.' (Whitelocke, Johnson's Life
   of Selden, p, 303.) If the preacher in the eighteenth century had
   allowed himself to make these allusions, the taste of his audience
   would have rejected them. He would have weakened his argument instead
   of giving it effect.

   No quality of these Discourses' strikes us more now than the good sense
   which pervades them. They are the complete reaction against the Puritan
   sermon of the 17th century. We have nothing far-fetched, fanciful,
   allegoric. The practice of our duty is recommended to us on the most
   undeniable grounds of prudence. Barrow had indulged in ambitious
   periods, and South had been jocular. Neither of these faults can be
   alleged against the model sermon of the Hanoverian period. No topic is
   produced which does not compel our assent as soon as it is understood,
   and none is there which is not understood as soon as uttered. It is one
   man of the world speaking to another. Collins said of St. Paul, that he
   had a great respect for him as both a man of sense and a gentleman.' He
   might have said the same of the best pulpit divines of his own time.
   They bear the closest resemblance to each other, because they all use
   the language of fashionable society, and say exactly the proper thing.
   A person,' says Waterland, must have come knowledge of men, besides
   that of books to succeed well here; and must have a kind of practical
   sagacity which nothing but the grace of God joined with recollection
   and wise observation can bring, to be able to represent truths to the
   life, or to any considerable degree of advantage.' This is from his
   recommendatory preface prefixed an edition of Blair's Sermons (1739);
   not the Presbyterian Dr. Hugh Blair, but John Blair, the founder and
   first President of a Missionary College in Virginia, whose Sermons on
   the Beatitudes' were among the most approved models of the day, and
   recommended by the bishops to their candidates for orders. Dr Hugh
   Blair's Sermons, which Johnson thought excellently written, both as to
   doctrine and language,' (ap. Boswell, p. 528), are in a different
   taste--that of the latter half of the century, when solid and sensible
   reasoning was superseded by polished periods and flowery rhetoric.
   Polished as marble,' says Hugh J. Rose, but also as lifeless and as
   cold.' The sermons which Waterland recommends to young students of
   divinity comprise Tillotson, Sharp, Calamy, Sprat, Blackhall, Hoadly,
   South, Claggett, and Atterbury. Of these, Sharp's, Calamy's, and
   Blackhall's are the best models for an easy, natural, and familiar way
   of writing. Sprat is fine, florid and elaborate in his style, artful in
   his method, and not so open as the former, but harder to be imitated.
   Hoadly is very exact and judicious, and both his sense and style just,
   close, and clear. The others are very sound, clear writers, only Scot
   is too swelling and pompous, and South is something too full of wit and
   satire, and does not always observe a decorum in his style.' He advises
   the student to begin his divinity course with reading sermons, because
   they are the easiest, plainest, and most entertaining of any books of
   divinity; and might be digested into a better body of divinity than any
   that is yet extant.' (Advice to a Young Student, 1730).

   Not only the pulpit, but the whole theological literature of the age,
   takes the same tone of appeal. Books are no longer addressed by the
   cloistered academic to a learnedly educated class, they are written by
   popular divines--men of leisure,' Butler calls them--for the use of
   fashionable society. There is an epoch in the history of letters when
   readers and writers change places; when it ceases to be the reader's
   business to come to the writer to be instructed, and the writer begins
   to endeavour to engage the attention of the reader. The same necessity
   was now laid upon the religious writer. He appeared at the bar of
   criticism, and must gain the wits, and the town. At the debate between
   the Deists and the Christian apologists the public was umpire. The time
   was past when Baxter talked about another world like one that had been
   there, and was come as a sort of express from thence to make a report
   concerning it.' (Calamy, Life, i. 220). As the preacher now no longer
   spoke with the authority of a heavenly mission, but laid the state of
   the argument before his hearers, so philosophy was no longer a
   self-centered speculation, an oracle of wisdom. The divine went out
   into the streets, with his demonstration of the being and attributes of
   God printed on a broadside; he solicits your assent in the new
   court-jargon.' When Collins visited Lord Barrington at Torts, as they
   were all men of letters, and had a taste for Scripture criticism, it is
   said to have been their custom, after dinner, to have a Greek Testament
   laid on the table.' (Biog. Brit. Art. Barrington.') These discussions
   were not necessarily unprofitable. Lord Bolingbroke was seldom in the
   company of the Countess of Huntingdon without discussing some topic
   beneficial to his eternal interests, and he always paid the utmost
   respect and deference to her ladyship's opinion.' (Memoirs of Countess
   of Hunt., i. 180.) Bishop Butler gives his clergy hints how to conduct
   themselves when sceptical and profane men bring up the subject
   (religion) at meetings of entertainment, and such as are the freer
   sort; innocent ones, I mean, otherwise I should not suppose you would
   be present at them.' (Durham Charge, 1751). Tindal's reconversion from
   Romanism is said to have been brought about by the arguments he heard
   in the coffee-houses. This anecdote, given in Curll' catch-penny Life,'
   rests, not on that bookseller's authority, which is worthless, but on
   that of the medical man who attended him in his last illness. It was
   the same with the controversy on the Trinity, of which Waterland says,
   in 1723, that it was spread abroad among all ranks and degrees of men,
   and the Athanasian creed become the subject of common and ordinary
   conversation.' (Critical Hist. of the Athan. Creed, Introd) The
   Universities were invaded by the spirit of the age, and instead of
   taking students through a laborious course of philosophy, natural and
   moral, turned out accomplished gentlemen upon the classics' and a
   scantling of logic. Berkeley's ironical portrait of the modish
   philosopher is of date 1732. Lysicles smiled, and said he believed
   Euphranor had figured to himself philosophers in square caps and long
   gowns, but thanks to these happy times, the reign of pedantry was over.
   Our philosophers are of a very different kind from those awkward
   students who think to come at knowledge by poring on dead languages and
   old authors, or by sequestering themselves from the cares of the world
   to meditate in solitude and retirement. They are the best bred men of
   the age, men who know the world, men of pleasure, men of fashion, and
   fine gentlemen. Euph.: I have some small notion of the people you
   mention, but should never have taken them for philosophers. Cri.: Nor
   would any one else till of late. The world was long under a mistake
   about the way to knowledge, thinking it lay through a tedious course of
   academical education and study. But among the discoveries of the
   present age, one of the principal is the finding out that such a method
   doth rather retard and obstruct, than promote knowledge. Lys.: I will
   undertake, a lad of fourteen, bred in the modern way, shall make a
   better figure, and be more considered in any drawing-room, or assembly
   of polite people, than one at four-and-twenty, who hath lain by a long
   time at school and college. He shall say better things, in a better
   manner, and be more liked by good judges. Euph. Where doth he pick up
   this improvement? Cri. Where our grave ancestors would never have
   looked for it, in a drawing-room, a coffee-house, a
   chocolate-late-house, at the tavern, or groom-porter's. In these and
   the like fashionable places of resort, it is the custom for polite
   persons to speak freely on all subjects, religious, moral, or
   political. So that a young gentleman who frequents them is in the way
   of hearing many instructive lectures, seasoned with wit and raillery,
   and uttered with spirit. Three or four sentences from a man of quality,
   spoken with a good air, make more impression, and convey more
   knowledge, than a dozen dissertations in a dry academical way. . . .
   You may now commonly see a young lady, or a petit maître non-plus a
   divine or an old-fashioned gentleman, who bath read many a Greek and
   Latin author, and spent much time in hard methodical study.'
   (Alciphron, Dial. i. § 11.)

   Among a host of mischiefs thus arising, one positive good may be
   signalized. If there must be debate, there ought to be fair play; and
   of this, publicity is the best guarantee. To make the public arbiter in
   an abstract question of metaphysics is doubtless absurd, yet it is at
   least a safeguard against extravagance and metaphysical lunacy. The
   verdict of public opinion on such topics is worthless, but it checks
   the inevitable tendency of closet speculation to become visionary.
   There is but one sort of scepticism that is genuine, and deadly in
   proportion as it is real; that namely, which is forced upon the mind by
   its experience of the hollowness of mankind; for men may be read, as
   well as books, too much.' That other logical scepticism which is
   hatched by over-thinking can be cured by an easy remedy; ceasing to
   think.

   The objections urged against revelation in the course of the Deistical
   controversy were no chimæras of a sickly brain, but solid charges; the
   points brought into public discussion were the points at which the
   revealed system itself impinges on human reason. No time can lessen
   whatever force there may be in the objection against a miracle; it is
   felt as strongly in one century as in another. The debate was not
   frivolous; the objections were worth answering, because they were not
   pitched metaphysically high. To a platonizing divine they look trivial;
   picked up in the street. So Origeu naturally thought that a faith which
   could be shaken by such objections as those of Celsus was not worth
   much.' (Cont. Cels., Pref. § 4.) Just such were the objections of the
   Deists; such as come spontaneously into the thoughts of practical men,
   who never think systematically, but who are not to be imposed upon by
   fancies. Persons sneer at the shallow Deism' of the last century; and
   it is customary to reply that the antagonist orthodoxy was at least as
   shallow. The truth is, the shallowness' imputed belongs to the mental
   sphere into which the debate was for the time transported. The
   philosophy of the age was not above its mission. Philosophy,' thought
   Thomas Reid, in 1764, has no other root but the principles of common
   sense; it grows out of them, it draws its nourishment from them;
   severed from this root, its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it
   dies and rots.' (Inquiry, &c., Intr. § 4.) We, in the present
   generation, have seen the great speculative movement in Germany die out
   from this very cause, because it became divorced from the facts on
   which it speculated. Shut up in the Universities, it turned inwards on
   itself, and preyed on its own vitals. It has only been neglected by the
   world, because it first neglected the great facts in which the world
   has, and feels, an interest.

   If ever there was a time when abstract speculation was brought down
   from inaccessible heights and compelled to be intelligible, it was the
   period from the Revolution to the middle of the last century. Closet
   speculation had been discredited; the cobwebs of scholasticism were
   exploded; the age of feverish doubt and egotistical introspection had
   not arrived. In that age the English higher education acquired its
   practical aim; an aim in which the development of the understanding,
   and the acquisition of knowledge are considered secondary objects to
   the formation of a sound secular judgment, of the scholar and the
   gentleman' of the old race of schoolmasters. Burke contrasting his own
   times with the preceding age considered our forefathers as deeper
   thinkers than ourselves, because they set a higher value on good sense
   than on knowledge in various sciences, and their good sense was derived
   very often from as much study and more knowledge, though of another
   sort.' (Recollections by Samuel Rogers, p. 81.)

   When a dispute is joined, e.g. on the origin and composition of the
   Gospels, it is, from the nature of the case, confined to an inner
   circle of Biblical scholars. The mass of the public must wait outside,
   and receive the result on their authority. The religious public were
   very reluctant to resign the verse 1 John v. 7, but they did so at last
   on the just ground that after a philological controversy conducted with
   open doors, it had been decided to be spurious. No serious man would
   consider a popular assembly a proper court to decide on the doctrine of
   transubstantiation, or on the Hegelian definition of God, though either
   is easily capable of being held up to the ridicule of the half-educated
   from the platform or the pulpit. It is otherwise with the greater part
   of the points raised in the Deistical controversy. It is not the
   speculative reason of the few, but the natural conscience of the many,
   that questions the extirpation of the Canaanites, or the eternity of
   hell-torments. These are points of divinity that are at once
   fundamental and popular. Butler, though not approving of entering into
   an argumentative defence of religion in common conversation,'
   recommends his clergy to do so from the pulpit on the ground that, such
   as are capable of seeing the force of objections, are capable also of
   seeing the force of the answers which are given to them.' (Durham
   Charge.) If the philosophic intellect be dissatisfied with the answers
   which the divines of that day gave to the difficulties started, let it
   show how, on the rationalist hypothesis, these difficulties are
   removeable for the mass of those who feel them. The transcendental
   reason provides an answer which possibly satisfies itself; but to the
   common reason the answer is more perplexing than the difficulty it
   would clear.

   M. Villemain has remarked in Pascal, that foresight which revealed to
   him so many objections unknown to his generation, and which inspired
   him with the idea of fortifying and intrenching positions which were
   not threatened.' The objections which Pascal is engaged with are not
   only not those of his age, they are not such as could ever become
   general in any age. They are those of the higher reason, and the
   replies are from the same inspiration. Pascal's view of human depravity
   seems to the ordinary man but the despair and delirium of the
   self-tormenting ascetic. The cynical view of our fallen nature,
   however, is at least a possible view. It is well that it should be
   explored, and it will always have its prophets, Calvin or
   Rochefoucault. But to ordinary men an argument in favour of revelation,
   founded on such an assumption, will seem to be in contradiction to his
   daily experience. Pascal's Pensées stand alone; a work of individual
   genius, not belonging to any age. The celebrity which the Analogy of
   Bishop Butler has gained is due to the opposite reason. It is no
   paradox to say that the merit of the Analogy lies in its want of
   originality. It came (1736) towards the end of the Deistical period. It
   is the result of twenty year's study--the very twenty years during
   which the Deistical notions formed the atmosphere which educated people
   breathed. The objections it meets are not new and unseasoned
   objections, but such as had worn well, and has borne the rub of
   controversy, because they were genuine. And it will be equally hard to
   find in the Analogy any topic in reply, which had not been suggested in
   the pamphlets and sermons of the preceding half century. Like
   Aristotle's physical and political treatises, it is a résumé of the
   discussions of more than one generation. Its admirable arrangement only
   is all its own. Its closely packed and carefully fitted older speaks of
   many years' contrivance. Its substance are the thoughts of a whole age,
   not barely compiled, but each reconsidered and digested. Every brick in
   the building has been rung before it has been relaid, and replaced in
   its true relation to the complex and various whole. In more than one
   passage we see that the construction of this fabric of evidence, which
   consists in a long series of things, one preparatory to and confirming
   another from the beginning of the world to the present time,' (Durham
   Charge) was what occupied Butler's attention. Compass of thought, even
   amongst persons of the lowest rank,' (Pref. to Sermon), is that form of
   the reflective faculty to which he is fond of looking both for good and
   evil. He never will forget that justice must be done to every part of a
   subject when we are considering it.' (Sermon iv.) Harmony, and law, and
   order, he will suppose even where he does not find. The tendency of his
   reason was that which Bacon indicates; the spirit of a man being of an
   equal and uniform substance doth usually suppose and feign in nature a
   greater equality and uniformity than is in truth.' (Advancement of
   Learning.) This is, probably, the true explanation of the obscurity'
   which persons sometimes complain of in Butler's style. The reason or
   matter he is producing is palpable and plain enought. But he is so
   solicitous to find its due place in the then stage of the argument, so
   scrupulous to give it its exact weight and no more, so careful in
   arranging its situation relatively to the other members of the proof,
   that a reader who does not bear in mind that the effect of the whole'
   is what the architect is preparing, is apt to become embarrassed, and
   to think that obscurity which is really logical precision. The
   generality of men are better qualified for understanding particulars
   one by one, than for taking a comprehensive view of the whole. The
   philosophical breadth which we miss in Butler's mode of conceiving is
   compensated for by this judicial breadth in his mode of arguing, which
   gives its place to each consideration, but regards rather the
   cumulative force of the whole. Many writers before Butler had insisted
   on this character of the Christian evidences. Dr. Jenkin, Margaret
   Professor at Cambridge, whose Reasonableness and Certainty of the
   Christian Religion was the Paley' of divinity students then, says,
   there is an excellency in every part of our religion separately
   considered, but the strength and vigour of each part is in the relation
   it has to the rest, and the several parts must be taken altogether, if
   we would have a true knowledge, and make a just estimate of the whole.
   (Reasonableness, &c. Pt. ii. Pref. 1721.) But Butler does not merely
   take the hint from others. It is so entirely the guiding rule of his
   hand and pen that it would appear to have been forced upon him by some
   peculiar experience of his own. It was in society, and not in his
   study, that he had learned the weight of the Deistical arguments. At
   the Queen's philosophical parties, where these topics were canvassed
   with earnestness and freedom, he must have often felt the impotence of
   reply in detail, and seen, as he says, how impossible it must be, in a
   cursory conversation, to unite all this into one argument, and
   represent it as it ought.' (Durham Charge.) Hence his own labour to
   work up his materials into a connected framework, a methodized
   encyclopædia of all the extant topics.

   Not that he did not pay attention to the parts. Butler's eminence over
   his contemporary apologists is seen in nothing more than in that
   superior sagacity which rejects the use of any plea that is not
   entitled to consideration singly. In the other evidential books of the
   time we find a miscellaneous crowd of suggestions of very various
   value; never fanciful, but often trivial; undeniable, but weak as proof
   of the point they are brought to prove. Butler seems as if he had
   sifted these books, and retained all that was solid in them. If he
   built with brick, and not with marble, it was because he was not
   thinking of reputation, but of utility, and an immediate purpose.
   Mackintosh wished Butler had had the elegance and ornament of Berkeley.
   They would have been sadly out of place. There was not a spark of the
   littleness of literary ambition about him. There was a certain
   naturalness in Butler's mind, which took him straight to the questions
   on which men differed around him. Generally it is safer to prove what
   no one denies, and easier to explain difficulties which no one has ever
   felt. A quiet reputation is best obtained in the literary quæstiunculæ
   of important subjects. But a simple and straightforward man studies
   great topics because he feels a want of the knowledge which they
   contain. He goes straight to the real doubts and fundamental
   discrepancies, to those on which it is easy to excite odium, and
   difficult to give satisfaction; he leaves to others the amusing
   skirmishing and superficial literature accessory to such studies. Thus
   there is nothing light in Butler, all is grave, .serious, and
   essential; nothing else would be characteristic of him.' (Bagehot,
   Estimates, &c., p. 189.) Though he has rifled their books he makes no
   display of reading. In the Analogy he never names the author he is
   answering. In the Sermons he quotes, directly, only Hobbes,
   Shaftesbury, Wollaston, Rochefoucauld, and Fenelon. From his writings
   we should infer that his reading was not promiscuous, even had he not
   himself given us to understand how much opportunity he had of seeing
   the idleness and waste of time occasioned by light reading. (Sermons,
   Pref.)

   This popular appeal to the common reason of men, which is one
   characteristic of the rationalist period, was a first effort of English
   theology to find a new basis for doctrine which should replace those
   foundations which had failed it. The Reformation had destroyed the
   authority of the Church upon which Revelation had so long rested. The
   attempt of the Laudian divines to substitute the voice of the national
   Church for that of the Church universal had met with only very partial
   and temporary success. When the Revolution of 1688 introduced the
   freedom of the press and a general toleration, even that artificial
   authority which, by ignoring non-conformity, had produced an appearance
   of unity, and erected a conventional standard of truth and falsehood,
   fell to the ground The old and venerated authority had been broken by
   the Reformation. The new authority of the Anglican establishment had
   existed in theory only, and never in fact, and the Revolution had
   crushed the theory, which was now confined to a small band of
   non-jurors. In reaction against Anglican authority,' the Puritan
   movement had tended to rest faith and doctrine upon the inward light
   within each man's breast. This tendency of the new Puritanism, which we
   may call Independency, was a development of the old, purely scriptural,
   Puritanism of Presbyterianism. But it was its natural and necessary
   development. It was consequence of the controversy with the
   establishment. For both the Church and Dissent agreed in acknowledging
   Scripture as their foundation, and the controversy turned on the
   interpreter of Scripture. Nor was the doctrine of the inner light,
   which individualized the basis of faith, confined to the
   Nonconformists. It was shared by a section of the Church, of whom
   Cudworth is the type, to whom Scripture faith is not a mere believing
   of historical things, and upon artificial arguments or testimonies
   only, but a certain higher and diviner power in the soul that
   peculiarly correspondeth with the Deity.' (Intellectual System, Pref.)
   The inner light or witness of the Spirit in the soul of the individual
   believer had, in its turn, fallen into discredit through the
   extravagances to which it had given birth. It was disowned alike by
   Churchmen and Nonconformists, who agree in speaking with contemptuous
   pity of the sectaries of the last age.' The re-action against
   individual religion led to this first attempt to base revealed truth on
   reason. And for the purpose for which reason was now wanted, the
   higher, or philosophic, reason was far less fitted than that universal
   understanding in which all men can claim a share. The inner light,'
   which had made each man the dictator of his own creed, had exploded in
   ecclesiastical anarchy. The appeal from the frantic discord of the
   enthusiasts to reason must needs be, not to an arbitrary or particular
   reason in each man, but to a common sense, a natural discernment, a
   reason of universal obligation. As it was to be universally binding, it
   must be generally recognisable. It must be something not confined to
   the select few, a gift of the self-styled elect, but a faculty
   belonging to all men of sound mind and average capacity. Truth must be
   accessible to the bulk of mankind.' It was a time when the only refuge
   from a hopeless maze, or wild chaos, seemed to be the rational consent
   of the sensible and unprejudiced. Have the bulk of mankind,' writes
   Locke, no other guide but accident and blind chance to conduct them to
   their happiness or misery? Are the current opinions and licensed guides
   of every country sufficient]evidence and security to every man to
   venture his great concernments on? Or, can those be the certain and
   infallible oracles and standards of truth which teach one thing in
   Christendom, and another in Turkey? Or shall a poor countryman be
   eternally happy for having the chance to be born in Italy? Or a day
   labourer be unavoidably lost because he had the ill-luck to be born in
   England? How ready some men may be to say some of these things, I will
   not here examine; but this I am sure, that men must allow one or other
   of these to be true, or else grant that God has furnished men with
   faculties sufficient to direct them in the way they should take, if
   they will but seriously employ them that way, when their ordinary
   vocations allow them the leisure.' (Essay, Book iv. ch. 19, § 3.)

   Such an attempt to secure a foundation in a new consensus will
   obviously forfeit depth to gain in comprehensiveness. This phase of
   rationalism--Rationalismus vulgaris'--resigns the transcendental, that
   it may gain adherents. It wants, not the elect, but all men. It cannot
   afford to embarrass itself with the attempt to prove what all may not
   be required to receive. Accordingly there can be no mysteries in
   Christianity. The word musterion, as Archbishop Whately points out
   (Essays, 2nd ser., 5th ed., p. 288), always means in the New Testament
   not that which is incomprehensible, but that which was once a secret,
   though now it is revealed it is no longer so. Whately, who elsewhere
   (Paley's Evidence, new ed.) speaks so contemptuously of the cast-off
   clothes' of the Deists, is here but adopting the argument of Toland in
   his Christianity not Mysterious. (Cf. Balguy, Discourses, p. 237.)
   There needs no special preparation of heart' to receive the Gospel, the
   evidences of religion are sufficient to convince every unprejudiced
   inquirer. Unbelievers are blameworthy as deaf to an argument which is
   so plain that they cannot but understand it, and so convincing that
   they cannot but be aware of its force. Under such self-imposed
   conditions religious proof seems to divest itself of all that is
   divine, and out of an excess of accommodation to the recipient faculty
   to cease to be a transforming thought. Rationalism can object to the
   old sacramental system that it degrades a spiritual influence into a
   physical effect. But rationalism itself, in order to make the proof of
   revelation universal, is obliged to resolve religion into the moral
   government of God by rewards and punishments, and especially the
   latter. It is this anthropomorphic conception of God as the Governor of
   the universe,' which is presented to us in the theology of the
   Hanoverian divines, a theology which excludes on principle not only all
   that is poetical in life, but all that is sublime in religious
   speculation. To degrade religion to the position of a mere purveyor of
   motive to morality is not more dishonourable to the ethics which must
   ask, than to the religion which will render such assistance.' (A. J.
   Vaughan, Essays, vol. 1. p. 61.) It is this character that makes the
   reading even of the Analogy so depressing to the soul, as Tholuck
   (Vermischte Schriften, i. 193) says of it we weary of a long journey on
   foot, especially through deep sand.' Human nature is not only humbled
   but crushed. It is a common charge against the 18th century divines
   that they exalt man too much, by insisting on the dignity of human
   nature, and its native capacities for virtue. This was the charge urged
   against the orthodox by the evangelical pulpit. But only very
   superficial and incompetent critics of doctrine can suppose that man is
   exalted by being thrown upon his moral faculties. The history of
   doctrine teaches a very different lesson. Those periods when morals
   have been represented as the proper study of man, and his only
   business, have been periods of spiritual abasement and poverty. The
   denial of scientific theology, the keeping in the back-ground the
   transcendental objects of faith, and the restriction of our faculties
   to the regulation of our conduct, seem indeed to be placing man in the
   foreground of the picture, to make human nature the centre round which
   all things revolve. But they do so not by exalting the visible, but by
   materializing the invisible. If there be a sphere of knowledge level to
   our capacities and of the utmost importance to us, we ought surely to
   apply ourselves with all diligence to this our proper business, and
   esteem everything else nothing, nothing as to us, in comparison of it.
   . . . . Our province is virtue and religion, life and manners; the
   science of improving the temper and making the heart better. This is
   the field assigned to us to cultivate; how much it has lain neglected
   is indeed astonishing. . . . Ile who should find out one rule to assist
   us in this work would deserve infinitely better of mankind than all the
   improvers of other knowledge put together.' (Sermon xv.) This is the
   theology of Butler and his contemporaries; a utilitarian theology, like
   the Baconian philosophy, contemning all employment of mental power that
   does not bring in fruit. Intellectui non plumæ, sed plumbum addendum et
   pondera,' (Bacon, Nov. Or., i. 104,) might be its device.

   In the Analogy it is the same. His term of comparison, the constitution
   and course of nature,' is not what we should understand by that term;
   not what science can disclose to us of the laws of the cosmos, but a
   narrow observation of what men do in ordinary life. We see what he
   means by the constitution of things,' by his saying (Sermon xv.) that
   the writings of Solomon are very much taken up with reflections upon
   human nature and human life; to which he hath added, in Ecclesiastes,
   reflections upon the constitution of things.' In Part i. ch. 3, of the
   Analogy, he compares the moral government of God with the natural--the
   distinction is perhaps from Balguy (Divine Rectitude, p. 39), that is
   to say, one part of natural religion with another; for the distinction
   vanishes, except upon a very conventional sense of the term moral.'
   Altogether we miss in these divines not only distinct philosophical
   conceptions, but a scientific use of terms. Dr. Whewell considers that
   Butler shunned the appearance of technical terms for the elements of
   our moral constitution on which he speculated,' and thinks that he was
   driven to indirect modes of expression.' (Moral Philosophy in England,
   p. 109.) The truth is that Butler uses the language of his day upon the
   topics on which he writes. The technical terms, and strict logical
   forms, which had been adhered to by the writers, small as well as
   great, of the 17th century, had been disused as pedantic; banished
   first from literature, and then from education. They did not appear in
   style, because they did not form part of the mental habit of the
   writers. Butler does not, as Dr. Whewell supposes, think in one form,
   and write in another, out of condescension to his readers. He thinks in
   the same language in which he and those around him speak. Mr. Hort's
   remark that Butler's writings are stoic to the core in the true and
   ancient sense of the word' (Cambridge Essays, 1856, p. 337) must be
   extended to their style. The English style of philosophical writing in
   the Hanoverian period is to the English of the 17th century, as the
   Greek of Epictetus, Antoninus, or Plutarch, is to that of Aristotle.
   And for the same reason. The English stoics and their Greek
   predecessors were practical men who moralised in a practical way on the
   facts of common life, and in the language of common life. Neither the
   rhetorical Schools of the Empire, nor the Universities of England, any
   longer taught the correct use of metaphysical language. To imitate
   classical Latin was become the chief aim of the University man in his
   public exercises, and precision of language became under that
   discipline very speedily a lost art.

   Upon the whole, the writings of that period are serviceable to us
   chiefly as showing what can and what cannot be effected by common-sense
   thinking in theology. It is of little consequence to inquire whether or
   not the objections of the Deists and the Socinians were removed by the
   answers brought to meet them. Perhaps, on the whole, we might be borne
   out in saying that the defence is at least as good as the attack; and
   so, that even on the ground of common reason, the Christian evidences
   may be arranged in such a way as to balance the common-sense
   improbability of the supernatural--that there are three chances to one
   for revelation, and only two against it.' (Tracts for the Times, No.
   85.) Had not circumstances given a new direction to religious
   interests, the Deistical controversy might have gone on indefinitely,
   and the amoebæan strain of objection and reply, et cantare pares et
   respondere parati'--have been prolonged to this day without any other
   result. But that result forces on the mind the suggestion that either
   religious faith has no existence, or that it must be to be reached by
   some other road than that of the trial of the witnesses.' It is a
   reductio ad absurdum of common-sense philosophy, of home-baked
   theology, when we find that the result of the whole is that it is safer
   to believe in a God, lest, if there should happen to be one, he might
   send us to hell for denying his existence.' (Maurice, Essays, p. 236.)
   If a religion be wanted which shall debase instead of elevating, this
   should be its creed. If the religious history of the eighteenth century
   proves anything it is this:--That good sense, the best good sense, when
   it sets to work with the materials of human nature and Scripture to
   construct a religion, will find its way to an ethical code,
   irreproachable in its contents, and based on a just estimate and wise
   observation of facts of life, ratified by Divine sanctions in the shape
   of hope and fear, of future rewards and penalties of obedienceand
   disobedience. This the eighteenth century did and did well. It has
   enforced the truths of natural morality with a solidity of argument and
   variety of proof which they have not received since the Stoical epoch,
   if then. But there its ability ended. When it came to the supernatural
   part of Christianity its embarrassment began. It was forced to keep it
   as much in the background as possible, or to bolster it up by lame and
   inadequate reasonings. The philosophy of common-sense had done its own
   work; it attempted more only to show, by its failure, that some higher
   organon was needed for the establishment of supernatural truth. The
   career of the evidential school, its success and failure,--its success
   in vindicating the ethical part of Christianity and the regulative
   aspect of revealed truth, its failure in establishing the supernatural
   and speculative part, have enriched the history of doctrine with a
   complete refutation of that method as an instrument of theological
   investigation.

   This judgment, however, must not be left unbalanced by a consideration
   on the other side. It will hardly be supposed that the drift of what
   has been said is that common-sense is out of place in religion, or in
   any other matter. The defect of the eighteenth century theology was not
   in having too much good sense, but in having nothing besides. In the
   present day when a godless orthodoxy threatens, as in the fifteenth
   century, to extinguish religious thought altogether, and nothing is
   allowed in the Church of England but the formulæ of past thinkings,
   which have long lost all sense of any kind; it may seem out of season
   to be bringing forward a misapplication of common-sense in a bygone
   age. There are times and circumstances when religious ideas will be
   greatly benefited by being submitted to the rough and ready tests by
   which busy men try what comes in their way; by being made to stand
   their trial, and be freely canvassed, coram populo. As poetry is not
   for the critics, so religion is not for the theologians. When it is
   stiffened into phrases, and these phrases are declared to be objects of
   reverence but not of intelligence, it is on the way to become a useless
   encumbrance, the rubbish of the past, blocking the road. Theology then
   retires into the position it occupies in the Church of Rome at present,
   an unmeaning frostwork of dogma, out of all relation to the actual
   history of man. In that system, theological virtue is an artificial
   life quite distinct from the moral virtues of real life. Parmi nous,'
   says Remusat, un homme religieux est trop souvent un homme qui se croit
   entouré d'ennemis, qui voit avec défiance ou scandale les événements et
   les institutions du siècle, qui se désole d'être né dans les jours
   maudits, et qui a bosoin d'un grand fond de bonté innée pour empêcher
   ses pieuses aversions de devenir de mortelles haines.' This system is
   equally fatal to popular morality and to religious theory. It locks up
   virtue in the cloister, and theology in the library. It originates
   caste sanctity, and a traditional philosophy. The ideal of holiness
   striven after may once have been lofty, the philosophy now petrified
   into tradition may once have been a vital faith, but now that they are
   withdrawn from public life, they have ceased to be social influences.
   On the other hand, the eighteenth century exhibits human attainment
   levelled to the lowest secular model of prudence and honesty, but
   still, such as it was, proposed to all men as their rule of life.
   Practical life as it was, was the theme of the pulpit, the press, and
   the drawing-room. Its theory of life was not lofty, but it was true as
   far as it went. It did not, substitute a factitious phraseology, the
   pass-words of the modern pulpit, for the simple facts of life, but
   called things by their right names. Nullum numen habes si sit
   prudentia' was its motto, not denying the numen,' but bringing him very
   close to the individual person, as his moral governor.' The prevailing
   philosophy was not a profound metaphysic, but it was a soundly based
   arrangement of the facts of society; it was not a scheme of the
   sciences, but a manual for every-day use. Nothing of the wild spirit of
   universal negation which was spread over the Continent fifty years
   later belonged to the solid rationalism of this period. The human
   understanding wished to be satisfied, and did not care to believe that
   of which it could not see the substantial ground. The reason was coming
   slowly to see that it had duties which it could not devolve upon
   others; that a man must think for himself, protect his own rights, and
   administer his affairs. The reason was never less extravagant than in
   this its first essay of its strength. Its demands were modest, it was
   easily satisfied; far too easily, we must think, when we look at some
   of the reasonings which passed as valid.

   The habits of controversy in which they lived deceived the belligerents
   themselves. The controversial form of their theology, which has been
   fatal to its credit since, was no less detrimental to its soundness at
   the time. They could not discern the line between what they did, and
   what they could not, prove. The polemical temper deforms the books they
   have written. Literature was indeed partially refined from the coarser
   scurrilities with which the Caroline divines, a century before, had
   assailed their Romanist opponents. But there is still an air of
   vulgarity about the polite writing of the age, which the divines adopt
   along with its style. The cassocked divine assumes the airs of the
   roaring blade,' and ruffles it on the mall with a horsewhip under his
   arm. Warburton's stock argument is a threat to cudgel anyone who
   disputes his opinion. All that can be said is that this was a habit of
   treating your opponent which pervaded society. At a much later period
   Porson complains, In these ticklish times . . . talk of religion it is
   odds you have infidel, blasphemer, atheist, or schismatic, thundered in
   your ears; touch upon politics, you will be in luck if you are only
   charged with a tendency to treason. Nor is the innocence of your
   intention any safeguard. It is not the publication that shows the
   character of the author, but the character of the author that shows the
   tendency of the publication.' (Luard's Porson,' Camb. Essays, 1857.) A
   license of party vituperation in the House of Commons existed, from the
   time of the opposition to Walpole onwards, which has long been banished
   by more humane manners. The men who took a foremost part seemed to be
   intent on disparaging each other, and proving that neither possessed
   any qualification of wisdom, knowledge, or public virtue. . . Epithets
   of reproach were lavished personally on Lord North, which were
   applicable only to the vilest and most contemptible of mankind.'
   (Massey, Hist. of England, ii. 218.)

   Were this blustering language a blemish of style and nothing more, it
   would taint their books with vulgarity as literature, but it would not
   vitiate their matter. But the fault reaches deeper than skin-deep. It
   is a most serious drawback on the good-sense of the age that it wanted
   justice in its estimate of persons. They were no more capable of
   judging their friends than their foes. In Pope's satires there is no
   medium; our enemies combine all the odious vices, however incongruous;
   our friends have every virtue under heaven.' We hear sometimes of
   Pope's peculiar malignity.' But he was only doing what every one around
   him was doing, only with a greatly superior literary skill. Their
   savage invective against each other is not a morally worse feature than
   the style of fulsome compliment in which friends address each other.
   The private correspondence of intimate friends betrays an unwholesome
   insincerity, which contrasts strangely with their general manliness of
   character. The burly intellect of Warburton displays an appetite for
   flattery as insatiable as that of Miss Seward and her coterie.

   This habit of exaggerating both good and evil the divines share with
   the other writers of the time. But theological literature, as a written
   debate, had a form of malignant imputation peculiar to itself. This is
   one arising out of the rationalistic fiction which both parties
   assumed, viz., that their respective beliefs were determined by an
   impartial inquiry into the evidence. The orthodox writers considered
   this evidence so clear and certain for their own conclusions, that they
   could account for its not seeming so to others only by the supposition
   of some moral obliquity which darkened the understanding in such cases.
   Hence the obnoxious assumption of the divines that the Deists were men
   of corrupt morals, and the retort of the infidel writers, that the
   clergy were hired advocates. Moral imputation, which is justly banished
   from legal argument, seems to find a proper place in theological. Those
   Christian Deists who, like Toland or Collins, approached most nearly in
   their belief to Revelation, were treated, not better, but worse, by the
   orthodox champions; their larger admissions being imputed to
   disingenuousness or calculated reserve. This stamp of advocacy which
   was impressed on English theology at the Reformation--its first work of
   consideration was an Apology'--it has not to this day shaken off. Our
   theologians, with rare exceptions, do not penetrate below the surface
   of their subject, but are engaged in defending or vindicating it. The
   current phrases of the bulwarks of our faith,' dangerous to
   Christianity,' are but instances of the habitual position in which we
   assume ourselves to stand. Even more philosophic minds cannot get rid
   of the idea that theology is polemical. Theological study is still the
   study of topics of defence. Even Professor Fraser can exhort us that by
   the study of these topics we might not merely disarm the enemies of
   religion of what, in other times has been, and will continue to be a
   favourite weapon of assault, but we might even convert that weapon into
   an instrument of use in the Christian service.' (Essays in Philosophy,
   p. 4,) Modern science,' as it is called, is recommended to the young
   divine, because in it he may find means of "confuting infidelity.'

   A little consideration will show that the grounds on which advocacy
   before a legal tribunal rests, make it inappropriate in theological
   reasoning. It is not pretended that municipal law is coextensive with
   universal law, and therefore incapable of admitting right on both
   sides. It is allowed that the natural right may be, at times, on one
   side, and the legal title on the other; not to mention the extreme case
   where communis error facit jus.' The advocate is not there to supply
   all the materials out of which the judge is to form his decision, but
   only one side of the case. He is the mere representative of his
   client's interests and has not to discuss the abstract merits of the
   juridical point which may be involved. He does not undertake to show
   that the law is conformable to natural right, but to establish the
   condition of his client relatively to the law. But the rational
   defender of the faith has no place in his system for the variable, or
   the indifferent, or the non-natural. He proceeds on the supposition
   that the whole system of the Church is the one and exclusively true
   expression of reason upon the subject on which it legislates. He claims
   for the whole of received knowledge what the jurist claims for
   international law, to be a universal science. He lays before us, on the
   one hand, the traditional canon or symbol of doctrine. On the other
   hand, he teaches that the free use of reason upon the facts of nature
   and Scripture is the real mode by which this traditional symbol is
   arrived at. To show, then, that the candid pursuit of truth leads every
   partial intellect to the Anglican conclusion was the task which, on
   their theory of religious proof, their theology had to undertake. The
   process, accordingly, should have been analogous to that of the jurist
   or legislator with regard to the internal evidence, and to that of the
   judge with regard to the external evidence. If theological argument
   forgets the judge and assumes the advocate, or betrays the least bias
   to one side, the conclusion is valueless, the principle of free inquiry
   has been violated. Roman Catholic theologians consistently enough teach
   that apologetics' make no part of theology, as usually conducted as
   replies to special objections urged, but that a true apologetic must be
   founded (1) on a discovery of the general principle from which the
   attack proceeds, and (2) on the exhibition, per contra, of that general
   ground-thought of which the single Christian truths are developments.
   (Hageman, Die Aufgabe der Catholischen Apologetik.)

   With rare exceptions the theology of the Hanoverian period is of the
   most violently partisan character. It seats itself, by its theory, in
   the judicial chair, but it is only to comport itself there like Judge
   Jefferies. One of the favourite books of the time was Sherlock's Trial
   of the Witnesses. First published in 1729, it speedily went through
   fourteen editions. It concludes in this way:--

   Judge.--What say you? Are the Apostles guilty of giving false evidence
   in the case of the resurrection of Jesus, or not guilty?

   Foreman.--Not guilty.

   Judge.--Very well; and now, gentlemen, I resign my commission, and am
   your humble servant. The company then rose up, and were beginning to
   pay their compliments to the Judge and the counsel, but were
   interrupted by a gentleman, who went up to the Judge and offered him a
   fee. What is this?' says the Judge. A fee, sir,' said the gentleman. A
   fee to a judge is a bribe,' said the Judge. True, sir,' said the
   gentleman; but you have resigned your commission, and will not be the
   first judge who has come from the bench to the bar without any
   diminution of honour. Now, Lazarus's case is to come on next, and this
   fee is to retain you on his side.' One might say that the apologists of
   that day had in like manner left the bench for the bar, and taken a
   brief for the Apostles. They are impatient at the smallest demur, and
   deny loudly that there is any weight in anything advanced by their
   opponents. In the way they override the most serious difficulties, they
   show anything but the temper which is supposed to qualify for the
   weighing of evidence. The astonishing want of candour in their
   reasoning, their blindness to real difficulty, ill-concealed
   predetermination to find a particular verdict, the rise of their style
   in passion in the same proportion as their argument fails in strength,
   constitute a class of writers more calculated than any other to damage
   their own cause with young ingenuous minds, bred in the school of Locke
   to believe that to love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of
   human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
   (Locke, æt. 73. Letter to Collins.) Spalding has described the moral
   shock his faith received on hearing an eminent clergyman in
   confidential conversation with another, who had cited some powerful
   argument against revelation, say, That's truly awkward; let us consider
   a little how we get out of that;' wie wir uns salviren.
   (Selbstbiographie, p. 128.) A truthful mind is a much rarer possession
   than is commonly supposed, for it is as easy to close the eyes of the
   mind as those of the body.' (Butler, Sermon x.) And in this rarity
   there is a natural limit to the injury which uncandid vindications of
   revelation can cause. To whatever causes is to be attributed the
   decline of Deism, from 1750. onwards, the books polemically written
   against it cannot reckon among them. When Casaubon first visited Paris,
   and was being shown over the Sorbonne, his guide said, This is the hall
   in which the doctors have disputed for 300 years.' Aye! and what they
   settled?' was his remark.

   Some exceptions, doubtless, there are to the inconclusiveness of this
   debate. Here again the eminent exception is the Analogy. Butler, it is
   true, comes forward not as an investigator, but as a pleader. But when
   we pass from his inferior brethren to this great master of the art we
   find ourselves in the hands of one who knows the laws of evidence, and
   carefully keeps his statements within them. Butler does not, like his
   fellow apologists, disguise the fact that the evidence is no stronger
   than it is. If it be a poor thing,' to argue in this way, the epithet
   poor may be applied, I fear, as properly to great part, or the whole,
   of human life, as it is to the things mentioned.' (Analogy, Part ii.
   ch. 8.) Archbishop Whately, defining the temper of the rational
   theologian, says:--A good man will, indeed, wish to find the evidence
   of the Christian religion satisfactory; but a wise man will not, for
   that reason, think it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence the
   more carefully on account of the importance of the question.' (Essays,
   2nd series, p 24.) This character Butler's argument exemplifies. We can
   feel, as we read, how his judgment must have been offended in his
   contemporaries by the disproportion between the positiveness of their
   assertion and the feebleness of their argument. Nor should we expect
   that Butler satisfied them. They thought him a little too little
   vigorous,' and wished he would have spoke more earnestly.' (Byrom's
   Journal, March, 1737.) Men who believed that they were in possession of
   a demonstration' of Christianity' not likely to be satisfied with one
   who saw so strongly the doubtfulness in which things were involved'
   that he could not comprehend men's being impatient out of action or
   vehement in it.' (Unpublished Remains, &c.) Warburton, who has a proof
   which is very little short of mathematical certainty, and to which
   nothing but a mere physical possibility of the contrary can be opposed'
   (Divine Leg., b. i. § 1), was the man for the age, which did not care
   to stand higgling with Butler over the degrees of probability. What
   could the world do with a man who designed the search after truth as
   the business of my life (Correspondence with Dr. Clarke), and who was
   so little prepared to "dogmatise about the future world that he rather
   felt that there is no account to be given in the way of reason of men's
   so strong attachments to the present world.' (Sermon vii.) Butler's
   doubtfulness, however, it should be remarked, is not the unsteadiness
   of the sceptical, but the wariness of the judicial mind; a mind
   determined for itself by its own instincts, but careful to confine its
   statements to others within the evidence produced in court. The Analogy
   does not depicture an inward struggle in his own mind, but as he told a
   friend, his way of writing it had been to endeavour to answer as he
   went along, every possible objection that might occur to any one
   against any position of his in his book.' (Bartlett's Life of Butler,
   p. 50.) He does not doubt himself, but he sees, what others do not see,
   the difficulty of proving religion to others. There is a saying of Pitt
   circulating to the effect that the Analogy is a dangerous book; it
   raises more doubts than it solves.' All that is true in this is, that
   to a mind which has never nourished objections to revelation a book of
   evidences may be the means of first suggesting them. But in 1736 the
   objections were everywhere current, and the answers to them were mostly
   of that truly dangerous' sort in which assertion runs ahead of proof.
   The merit of Butler lies not in the irrefragable proof,' which
   Southey's epitaph epitaph attributes to his construction, but in his
   showing the nature of the proof, and daring to admit that it was less
   than certain; to own that a man may be fully convinced of the truth of
   a matter and upon the strongest reasons, and yet not be able to answer
   all the difficulties which may be raised upon it.' (Durham Charge,
   1751.)

   Another, perhaps the only other, book of this polemical tribe which can
   be said to have been completely successful as an answer, is one most
   unlike the Analogy in all its nobler features. This is Bentley's
   Remarks upon a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Phileleutherus
   Lipsiennis, 1713. Coarse, arrogant, and abusive with all Bentley's
   worst faults of style and this masterly critique is decisive. Not, of
   course, of the Deistical controversy, on which the critic avoids
   entering. The Discourse of Freethinking was a small tract published in
   1713 by Anthony Collins. Collins was a gentleman of independent
   fortune, whose high personal character and general respectability
   seemed to give a weight to his words, which assuredly they do not carry
   of themselves. By freethinking, he means liberty of thought--the right
   of bringing all received opinions whatsoever to the touchstone of
   reason. Among the grounds or authorities by which he supports this
   natural right, Collins unluckily had recourse to history, and largely,
   of course, to the precedent of the Greek philosophers. Collins, who had
   been bred at Eton and King's, was probably no worse a scholar than his
   contemporary Kingsmen, and the range of his reading was that of a man
   who had made the classics the companions of his maturer years. But that
   scholarship which can supply a quotation from Lucan, or flavour the
   style with an occasional allusion to Tully or Seneca, is quite
   incompetent to apply Greek or Roman precedent properly to a modern
   case. Addison, the pride of Oxford, had done no better. In his Essay on
   the Evidences of Christianity, Addison assigns as grounds for his
   religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cocklane ghost, and
   foreries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about
   the thundering legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the Senate to
   admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, King
   of Edessa, to be a record of great authority.' (Macaulay: Essays.) But
   the public was quite satisfied with Addison's citations, in which a
   public, which had given the victory to Boyle in the Phalaris
   controversy, could hardly suspect anything wrong. Collins was not to
   escape so easily. The Freethinker flounders hopelessly among the
   authorities he has invoked. Like the necromancer's apprentice, he is
   worried by the fiends he has summoned but cannot lay, and Bentley, on
   whose nod they wait, is there like another Cornelius Agrippa hounding
   them on and enjoying the sport. Collins's mistakes, mistranslations,
   misconceptions, and distortions are so monstrous, that it is difficult
   for us now, forgetful how low classical learning had sunk, to believe
   that they are mistakes, and not wilful errors. It is rare sport to
   Bentley, this rat-hunting in an old rick, and he lays about him in high
   glee, braining an authority at every blow. When he left off abruptly,
   in the middle of a Third Part,' it was not because he was satiated with
   slaughter, but to substitute a new excitement, no less congenial to his
   temper--a quarrel with the University about his fees. A grace, voted
   1715, tendering him the public thanks of the University, and praying
   him in the name of the University to finish what remains of so useful a
   work,' could not induce him to resume his pen. The Remarks of
   Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, unfinished though they are, and trifling as
   was the book which gave occasion to them, are perhaps the best of all
   Bentley's performances. They have all the merits of the Phalaris
   dissertation, with the advantage of far nobler subject. They show how
   Bentley's exact appreciation of the value of terms could, when he chose
   to apply it to that purpose, serve him as a key to the philosophical
   ideas of past times, no less than to those of poetical metaphor. The
   tone of the pamphlet is most offensive, not only not insipid, but
   exceedingly bad-tasted.' We can only say the taste is that of his age,
   while the knowledge is all his own. It was fair to show that his
   antagonist undertook to interpret the Prophets and Solomon without
   Hebrew; Plutarch and Zosimus (Collins spells it Zozimus) without Greek;
   and Cicero and Lucan without Latin.' (Remarks, Part i. No. 3.) But the
   dirt endeavoured to be thrown on Collins will cleave to the hand that
   throws it. It may be worth mention that this tract of Bentley contains
   the original of Sidney Smith's celebrated defence of the prizes' in the
   Church. The passage is a favourable specimen of the moral level of a
   polemic who was accusing his opponent of holding opinions the most
   abject and base that human nature is capable of.' (Letter prefixed to
   Remarks.)

   He can never conceive or wish a priesthood either quieter for him, or
   cheaper, than that of the present Church of England. Of your quietness
   himself is a convincing proof, who has writ this outrageous book, and
   has met with no punishment nor prosecution. And for the cheapness, that
   appeared lately in one of your parliaments, when the accounts exhibited
   showed that 6,000 of your clergy, the greater part of your whole
   number, had, at a middle rate one with another, not 50 pounds a year. A
   poor emolument for so long, so laborious, so expensive an education, as
   must qualify them for holy orders. While I resided at Oxford, and saw
   such a conflux of youth to their annual admissions, I have often
   studied and admired why their parents would, under such mean
   encouragements, design their sons for the church; and those the most
   towardly, and capable, and select geniuses among their children, who
   must needs have emerged in a secular life. I congratulated, indeed, the
   felicity of your establishment, which attracted the choice youth of
   your nation for such very low pay; but my wonder was at the parents,
   who generally have interest, maintenance and wealth, the first thing in
   their view, till at last one of your state-lotteries ceased my
   astonishment. For as in that, a few glittering prizes, 1,000, 5,000,
   10,000 pounds among an infinity of blanks, drew troops of adventurers,
   who, if the whole fund had been equally ticketted, would never have
   come in; so a few shining dignities in your church, prebends,
   deaneries, bishopricks, are the pious fraud that induces and decoys the
   parents to risk their child's fortune in it. Everyone hopes his own
   will get some prize in the church, and never reflects on the thousands
   of blanks in poor country livings. And if a foreigner may tell you his
   mind, from what he sees at home, tis this part of your establishment
   that makes your clergy excel ours [i. e., in Germany, from which
   Phileleutherus Lipsiensis is supposed to write]. Do but once level all
   your preferments, and you'll soon be as level in your learning. For,
   instead of the flower of the English youth, you'll have only the refuse
   sent to your academies, and those, too, cramped and crippled in their
   studies, for want of aim and emulation. So that, if your Freethinkers
   had any politics, instead of suppressing your whole order, they should
   make you all alike; or, if that cannot be done, make your preferments a
   very lottery in the whole similitude. Let your church dignities be pure
   chance prizes, without regard to abilities, or morals, or letters.'
   (Remarks, Part ii. § 40.)

   It has been mentioned that Bentley does not attempt to reply to the
   argument of the Discourse on Freethinking. His tactic is to ignore it,
   and to assume that it is only meant as a covert attack on Christianity;
   that Collins is an Atheist fighting under the disguise of a Deist. Some
   excuse perhaps may be made for a man nourished on pedagogic latin, and
   accustomed to launch furious sarcasm at any opponent who betrayed a
   brutal ignorance of the difference between ac' and et.' But Collins was
   not a sharper, and would have disdained practices to which Bentley
   stooped for the sake of a professorship. When Bentley, in pride of
   academic dignity, could thus browbeat a person of Collins's
   consideration, it was not to be expected that the inferior fry of
   Deistical writers,--Toland, a writer for the press; Tindal, a fellow of
   a college; or Chubb, a journeyman glover--met with fairer treatment
   from their opponents. The only exception to this is the case of
   Shaftesbury, to whom, as well after his death as in his lifetime, his
   privileges as a peer seem to have secured immunity from hangman s
   usage. He is simply a late noble author.' Nor was this respect inspired
   by the Earl's profession of christianity. He does, indeed, make this
   profession with the utmost unreserve. He asserts his steady orthodoxy,'
   and entire submission to the truly Christian and Catholic doctrines of
   our holy Church, as by law established,' and that he holds the
   mysteries of our religion even in the minutest particulars.'
   (Characteristicks, Vol. iii. p. 315.) But this outward profession would
   only have brought down upon any other writer an aggravated charge of
   cowardly malice and concealment of Atheism. If Shaftesbury was spared
   on account of his rank, the orthodox writers were not altogether wrong
   in fastening upon this disingenuousness as a moral characteristic of
   their antagonists. The excuse for this want of manliness in men who
   please themselves with insinuating unpopular opinions which they dare
   not advocate openly, is that it is an injustice perpetrated by those
   who have public feeling on their side. They make,' says Mr. Tayler, the
   honest expression of opinion penal, and then condemn men for
   disingenuousness. They invite to free discussion, but determine
   beforehand that only one conclusion can be sound and moral. They fill
   the arena of public debate with every instrument of torture and
   annoyance for the feeling heart, the sensitive imagination, and the
   scrupulous intellect, and then are angry that men do not rush headlong
   into the martyrdom that has been prepared for them.' (Religious Life of
   England, p. 282.)

   In days when the pillory was the punishment for common libel, it cannot
   be thought much that heresy and infidelity should be punished by public
   opprobrium. And public abhorrence was the most that a writer against
   revelation had now to fear. Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, indeed, was
   presented as a nuisance by the grand jury of Middlesex, in 1723, as
   were Bolingbroke's collected Works,' in 1752, and Toland's Christianity
   not Mysterious, in 1699. We find, too that Toland had to fly from
   Dublin, and Collins to go out of the way to Holland, for fear of
   further consequence. But nothing ever came of these presentments. The
   only prosecution for religious libel was that of Woolston, 2 George
   II., in which the defendant, who was not of sound mind, provoked and
   even compelled the law officers of the crown to proceed against him,
   though they were very reluctant to do so. When thus compelled to
   declare the law, on this occasion, the Lord Chief Justice (Raymond)
   would not allow it to be doubted that to write against Christianity in
   general was punishable at common law.' Yet both then and since, judges
   and prosecutors have shown themselves shy of insisting upon the naked
   offence of impugning the truth of Christianity.' That it is an offence
   at common law, independent of 9 & 10 William III., no lawyer will deny.
   But an instinctive sense of the incompatibility of this legal doctrine
   with the fundamental tenet of Protestant rationalism has always served
   to keep it in the background. The judges seem to have played fast and
   loose in this matter, in such sort as might enable the future judge to
   quote the tolerant or the intolerant side of their doctrine as might
   prove convenient; and while seemingly disavowing all interference with
   fair discussion, they still kept a wary hold of the precedents of Hale
   and Raymond, and of the great arcanum of part and parcel;'
   semiauimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant.' (Considerations on
   the Law, of Libel. By John Search, 1833.)

   Whatever excuse the Deistical writers might have for their insidious
   manner of writing, it is more to the present purpose to observe that we
   may draw from it the conclusion that public opinion was throughout on
   the side of the defenders of Christianity. It might seem almost
   superfluous to say this, were it not that complaints meet us on every
   side, which seem to imply the very contrary; that in the words of Mr.
   Gregory, the doctrine of our Church is exploded, and our holy religion
   become only a name which is everywhere spoken against.' (Pref. to
   Beveridge's Private Thoughts, 1709.) Thirty years later Butler writes,
   that it is come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so
   much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now, at length, discovered
   to be fictitious. Accordingly they treat it as if in the present age
   this were an agreed point among all people of discernment, and nothing
   remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule,
   as it were by way of reprisals for its leaving so long interrupted the
   pleasures of the world.' (Advertisement to Analogy, 1736.) However a
   loose kind of Deism might he the tone of fashionable circles, it is
   clear that distinct disbelief of Christianity was by no means the
   general state of the public mind. The leaders of the Low-church and
   Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstanding the universal
   complaints of the High-church party a the prevalence of infidelity, it
   is obvious that this mode of thinking was confined, to a very small
   section of society. The Independent Whig (May 4, 1720), in the middle
   of its blustering and endeavours to terrify the clergy with their
   unpopularity, is obliged to admit that the High-church Popish clergy
   will laugh in their sleeves at this advice, and. think there is folly
   enough yet left among the laity to support their authority; and will
   laugh themselves, and rejoice over the ignorance of the Universities,
   the stupidity of the drunken squires, the panic of the tender sex, and
   the never-to-be-shaken constancy of the multitude.' A still better
   evidence is the confidence and success with which the writers on the
   side of Revelation appealed to the popular passions, and cowed their
   Deistical opponents into the use of that indirect and disingenuous
   procedure with which they then taunted them. The clerical sphere was
   much more a sphere by itself than it has since become. Notwithstanding
   the large toleration really practised, strict professional etiquette
   was still observed in the Church and the Universities. The horizontal
   hat, the starched band, and the cassock, were still worn in public, and
   certain proprieties of outward manner were expected from the cloth.'
   The violation of these proprieties was punished by the forfeiture of
   the offenders' prospects of preferment, a point on which the most
   extreme sensitiveness existed. In the Balguy and Waterland set an
   officious spirit of delation seems to have flourished. The general
   habit of publicly canvassing religious topics was very favourable to
   this espionage; as, at the Reformation, the Catholics gathered their
   best calumnies against Luther from his unreserved table-talk.'

   It was not difficult to draw the unhappy Middleton into unguarded
   expressions' (Van Mildert, Life of Walerland, p. 162); and something
   which had fallen from Rundle in his younger days was used against him
   so successfully that even the Talbot interest was able to procure him
   only an Irish bishoprick. Lord Chesterfield, seeing what advantage the
   High-church party derived from this tactic, endeavoured to turn it
   against them. He gives a circumstantial account of a conversation with
   Pope, which would tend to prove that Atterbury was, nearly all his
   life, a sceptic. The thing was not true, as Mr. Carruthers has shown
   (Life of Pope, 2nd ed. p. 213), and true or false, the weapon in
   Chesterfield's hands was pointless.

   Though the general feeling of the country was sufficiently decided to
   oblige all who wished to write against Christianity, to do so under a
   mask, this was not the ease with attacks upon the Clergy. Since the
   days of the Lollards there had never been a time when the established
   ministers of religion were held in so much contempt as in the
   Hanoverian period, or when satire upon churchmen was so congenial to
   general feeling. This too was the more extraordinary, as there was no
   feeling against the Church Establishment, nor was non-conformity as a
   theory ever less in favour. The contempt was for the persons, manners,
   and character of the ecclesiastics. When Macaulay brought out his
   portrait of the clergyman of the revolution period, his critics
   endeavoured to show that that portrait was not true to life. They seem
   to have brought out the fact that it was pretty fairly true to
   literature. The difficult point is to estimate how far the satirical
   and popular literature of any age may be taken as representative of
   life. Satire to be popular must exaggerate, but it must be exaggeration
   of known and recognised facts. Mr. Churchill Babington (Character of
   the Clergy, &c., considered, p. 48) sets aside two of Macaulay's
   authorities, Oldham and T. Wood, because Oldham was an Atheist and Wood
   a Deist. Admitting that an Atheist and a Deist can be under no
   obligation to truth, yet a satirist, who intends to be read, is under
   the most inevitable engagement to the probable. Satire does not create
   the sentiment to which it appeals. A portrait of the country parson
   temp. George the Second which should be drawn verbatim from the
   pamphlets of the day would be no more historical, than is that portrait
   of the begging friar of the sixteenth century which our historians
   repeat after Erasmus and the Epistolæ Obscurum Virorum. History may be
   extracted from them, but these caricatures are not themselves history.

   One inference which we may safely draw is that public feeling
   encouraged such representations. It is a symptom of the religious
   temper of the times, that the same public which compelled the Deist to
   wear the mask of 'solemn sneer' in his assaults upon Christian doctrine
   required no such disguise or reserve when the ministers of the Church
   were spoken of. Nor does the evidence consist in a few stray extracts
   from here and there a Deist or a cynic, it is the tone of all the
   popular writers of that time. The unedifying lives of the clergy are a
   standard theme of sarcasm, and continue to be so till a late period in
   the century, when a gradual change may be observed in the language of
   literature. This antipathy to the clergy visible in the Hanoverian
   period, admits of comparison with that vein which colours the popular
   songs of the Wickliffite era. In the fifteenth century, the satire is
   not indiscriminate. It is against the monks and friars, the bishops and
   cardinals, as distinct from the poor persoun of a toun.' Its point
   against the organized hypocrisy of the Papal Churchmen is given it by
   the picture of the ideal minister of Christe's Gospel' which always
   accompanies the burlesque. In the eighteenth century the license of
   satire goes much beyond this. In the early part of the century we find
   clerical satire observing to some extent a similar discrimination. The
   Tory parson is libelled always with an ostentatious reserve of
   commendation for the more enlightened and liberal Hanoverian, the
   staunch maintainer of the Protestant succession. This is the tone of
   the Independent Whig, one of the numerous weekly sheets called into
   being in imitation of the Tatler. It was started in 1720, taking for
   its exclusive theme the clergy, whom it was its avowed object to abuse.
   A paper came out every Wednesday. It was not a newspaper, and does not
   deal in libel or personalities, hardly ever mentioning a name, very
   rarely quoting a fact, but dilating in general terms upon clerical
   ignorance and bigotry. This dull and worthless trash not only had a
   considerable circulation at the time, but was reprinted, and passed
   through several editions in a collected form. The bishops talked of
   prohibiting it, but, on second thoughts, acted more wisely in taking no
   notice of it. The only part of the kingdom into which it could not find
   entrance was the Isle of Man, where the saintly Wilson combined with
   apostolic virtues much of the old episcopal claims over the consciences
   of his flock. The Independent Whig, though manifestly written by a man
   of no religion, yet finds it necessary to keep up the appearance of
   encouraging the better sort' of clergy, and affecting to despise only
   the political priests, the meddling chaplain, the preferment-hunter,
   the toper, who is notable at bowls, and dexterous at whisk.

   As we advance towards the middle of the century, and the French
   influence begins to mingle with pure English Deism, the spirit of
   contempt spreads till it involves all priests of all religions. The
   language now is, The established clergy in every country are generally
   the greatest enemies to all kinds of reformation, as they are generally
   the most narrow-minded and most worthless set of men in every country.
   Fortunately for the present times, the wings of clerical power and
   influence are pretty close trimmed, so that I do not think their
   opposition to the proposed reformations could be of any great
   consequence, more of the people being inclined to despise them, than to
   follow them blindly.' (Burgh, Political Disquisition, 1774.) It was no
   longer for their vices that the clergy were reviled, for the
   philosopher now had come to understand that their virtues were more
   dangerous' to society. Strictness of life did but increase the dislike
   with which the clergyman was regarded; his morality was but double-dyed
   hypocrisy; religious language from his mouth was methodistical cant.
   Nor did the orthodox attempt to struggle with this sentiment. They
   yielded to it, and adopted for their maxim of conduct, surtout point de
   zèle.' Their sermons and pamphlets were now directed against
   Enthusiasm,' which became the bugbear of that time. Every clergyman,
   who wished to retain any influence over the minds of his parishioners,
   was anxious to vindicate himself from all suspicion of enthusiasm. When
   he had set himself right in this respect, he endeavoured to do the same
   good office for the Apostles. But if he were not an enthusiast,' he was
   an impostor.' For every clergyman of the Church had against him an
   antecedent presumption as a priest.' It was now well understood, by all
   enlightened men, that the whole sacerdotal brood were but a set of
   impostors, who lived by deceiving the people, and who had invented
   religion for their own benefit. Natural religion needed no priests' to
   uphold it; it was obvious to every understanding, and could maintain
   itself in the world without any confraternity sworn to the secret.

   Again came a change. As the Methodist movement gradually leavened the
   mass beneath, zeal came again into credit. The old Wickliffite, or
   Puritan, distinction is revived between the Gospel preachers' and the
   dumb dogs.' The antipathy to priests was no longer promiscuous. Popular
   indignation was reserved for the fox-hunter and the pluralist; the
   Hophni and Phinehas generation; the men, who are described as careless
   of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching a carnal and
   soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by
   receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes where
   they did not so much as look on the faces of the people more than once
   a year.' In the well-known satire of Cowper, it is no longer
   irreligious mocking at sacred things under pretence of a virtuous
   indignation. It becomes again what it was before the Reformation--an
   earnest feeling, a religious sentiment, the moral sense of man; Huss or
   Savonarola appealing to the written morality of the Gospel against the
   practical immorality consecrated by Church.

   Something too of the old anti-hierarchical feeling accompanies this
   revival of the influence of the inferior clergy; a faint reflection of
   the bitter hatred which the Lollard had borne to pope and cardinal, or
   Puritan to Prelacy.' The utility of the episcopal and capitular
   dignities continued to be questioned long after the evangelical parish
   pastor had re-established himself in the affections of his flock, and
   1832 saw the cathedrals go down amid the general approbation of all
   classes. In the earlier half of the century the reverse was the case.
   The boorish country parson was the man whose order was despised then,
   and his utility questioned. The Freethinkers themselves could not deny
   that the bench and the stalls were graced by some whose wit,
   reputation, and learning would have made them considerable in any
   profession. The higher clergy had with them the town and the mart, the
   country clergy sided with the squires. The mass of the clergy were not
   in sympathy, either politically or intellectually, with their
   ecclesiastical superiors. The Tory fox-hunter in the Freeholder (No.
   22.) thinks the neighbouring shire very happy for having scarce a
   Presbyterian in it except the bishop;' while Hickes thanks God that the
   main body of the clergy are in their hearts Jacobites.' The bishops of
   George the Second deserved the respect they met with. At no period in
   the history of our Church has the ecclesiastical patronage of the crown
   been better directed than while it was secretly dispensed by Queen
   Caroline. For a brief period, liberality and cultivation of mind were
   passports to promotion in the Church. Nor were politics a hindrance;
   the queen earnestly pressed an English see upon Bishop Wilson. The
   corruption which began with the Duke of Newcastle (1746) gradually
   deepened in the subsequent reign, as political orthodoxy and connexion
   were made the tests, and the borough-holders divided the dignities of
   the Church among their adherents.

   Of an age so solid and practical it was not to be expected that its
   theology and metaphysics would mount into the more remote spheres of
   abstraction. Their line of argument was, as has been seen, regulated by
   the necessity they laid themselves under of appealing to sound sense
   and common reason. But not only was their treatment of their topic
   popular, the motive of their writings was an immediate practical
   necessity. Bishops and deans might be made for merit, but it was not
   mere literary merit, classical scholarship, or University distinction.
   The Deistical controversy did not originate, like some other
   controversies which have made much noise in their time, in speculative
   fancy, in the leisure of the cloister, or the college. It had a living
   practical interest in its complication with the questions of the day.
   The endeavour of the moralists and divines of the period to rationalize
   religion was in fact an effort to preserve the practical principles of
   moral and religious conduct for society. It was not an academical
   disputation, or a contest of wits for superiority, but a life and death
   struggle of religious and moral feeling to maintain itself. What they
   felt they had to contend against was moral depravity, and not
   theological error; they wrote less in the interest of truth than in
   that of virtue. A general relaxation of manners, in all classes of
   society, is universally affirmed to be characteristic of that time; and
   theology and philosophy applied themselves to combat this. A striking
   instance of this is Bishop Berekely, the only metaphysical writer of
   the time, besides Locke, who has maintained a very high name in
   philosophical history. He forms a solitary--it might seem a
   singular--exception to what has been said of the prosaic and
   unmetaphysical character of this moralising age. The two peculiar
   metaphysical notions which are connected with Berkeley's name, and
   which, though he did not originate, he propounded with a novelty and
   distinctness equal to originality, have always ranked as being on the
   extreme verge of rational speculation, if not actually within the
   region of unfruitful paradox and metaphysical romance. These two
   memorable speculations, as propounded by Berkeley in the Alciphron,
   come before us not as a Utopian dream, or an ingenious play of reason,
   but interwoven in a polemic against the prevailing unbelief. They are
   made to bend to a most practical purpose, and are Berkeley's
   contribution to the Deistical controversy. The character of the man,
   too, was more in harmony with the plain utilitarian spirit of his time
   than with his own refining intellect. He was not a closet-thinker like
   his master Malebranche, but a man of the world and of society,
   inquisitive and well informed in many branches of practical science.
   Practical schemes, social and philanthropic, occupied his mind more
   than abstract thinking. In pushing the received metaphysical creed to
   its paradoxical consequences, as much as much as in prescribing
   tar-water,' he was thinking only of an immediate benefit to mankind.'
   He seems to have thought nothing of his argument until he had brought
   it to bear on the practical question of the day.

   Were the corruption of manners' merely the complaint of one party or
   set of writers, a cry of factious Puritanism, or of men who were at war
   with society, like the Nonjuring clergy, or of a few isolated
   individuals of superior piety, like William Law, it would be easily
   explicable. The world' at all times, and in all countries, can be
   described with truth as lying in wickedness,' and the rebuke of the
   preacher of righteousness is equally needed in every age. There cannot
   be a darker picture than that drawn by the Fathers of the third century
   of the morals of the Christians in their time. (See passages in Jewel's
   Apology.) The rigorous moralist, heathen or Christian, can always point
   in sharp contrast the vices and the belief of mankind. But, after
   making every allowance for the exaggeration of religious rhetoric, and
   the querulousness of defeated parties, there seems to remain some real
   evidence for ascribing to that age a more than usual moral licence, and
   contempt of external restraints. It is the concurrent testimony of men
   of all parties, it is the general strain of the most sensible and
   worldly divines, prosperous men who lived with this very world they
   censure, men whose code of morals was not large nor their standard
   exacting. To attempt the inquiry what specific evils were meant by the
   general expressions decay of religion' and corruption of manners,' the
   stereotype phrases of the time, is not within the limits of this paper.
   No historian, as far as I am aware, has attempted this examination; all
   have been content to render, without valuation, the charges as they
   find them. I shall content myself with producing here one statement of
   contemporary opinion on this point; for which purpose I select a
   layman, David Hartley. (Observations on Man, vol.ii. p. 441.)

   There are six things which seem more especially to threaten ruin and
   dissolution to the present States of Christendom.

   1st. The great growth of atheism and infidelity, particularly amongst
   the governing parts of these States.

   2nd. The open and abandoned lewdness to which great numbers of both
   sexes, especially in the high ranks of life, have given themselves up.

   3rd. The sordid and avowed self-interest, which is almost the sole
   motive of action in those who are concerned in the administration of
   public affairs.

   4th. The licentiousness and contempt of every kind of authority, divine
   or human, which is so notorious in inferiors of all ranks.

   5th. The great worldly-mindedness of the clergy, and their gross
   neglect in the discharge of their proper functions.

   6th. The carelessness and infatuation of parents and magistrates with
   respect to the education of youth, and the consequent early corruption
   of the rising generation.

   All these things have evident mutual connexions and influences; and as
   they all seem likely to increase from time to time, so can scarce be
   doubted by a considerate man, whether he be a religious one or no, but
   that they will, sooner or later bring on a total dissolution of all the
   forms of government that subsist at present in the Christian countries
   of Europe.'

   Though there is this entire unanimity as to the fact of the prevailing
   corruption, there is the greatest diversity of opinion as to its cause.
   Each party is found in turn attributing it to the neglect or disbelief
   of the abstract propositions in which its own particular creed is
   expressed. The Nonjurors and High-Churchmen attribute it to the
   Toleration Act and the latitudinarianism allowed in high places. One of
   the very popular pamphlets of the year 1721 was a fast-sermon preached
   before the Lord Mayor by Edmund Massey, in which he enumerates the
   evils of the time, and affirms that they are justly chargeable upon the
   corrupt explication of those words of our Saviour, My kingdom is not of
   this world'--i.e., upon Hoadley's celebrated sermon. The latitudinarian
   clergy divide the blame between the Freethinkers and the Nonjurors. The
   Freethinkers point to the hypocrisy of the Clergy, who, they say, lost
   all credit with the people by having preached passive obedience' up to
   1688, and then suddenly finding out that it was not a scriptural truth.
   The Nonconformists lay it to the enforcement of conformity and
   unscriptural terms of communion;; while the Catholics rejoice to see in
   it the Protestant Reformation at last bearing its natural fruit.
   Warburton characteristically attributes it to the bestowal of
   preferment' by the Walpole administration. (Dedication to Lord
   Mansfield, Works, ii. 268.) The power of preferment was not
   under-estimated then. George II. maintained to the last that the growth
   of Methodism was entirely owing to ministers not having listened to his
   advice, and made Whitefield a bishop.' Lastly, that everyone may have
   his say, a professor of moral philosophy in our day is found
   attributing the same facts to the prevalence of that low view of
   morality which rests its rules upon consequences merely.'

   The reverence which,' says Dr. Whewell, handed down by the traditions
   of ages of moral and religious teaching, had hitherto protected the
   accustomed forms of moral good, was gradually removed. Vice, and crime,
   and sin, ceased to be words that terrified the popular speculator.
   Virtue, and goodness, and purity were no longer things which he looked
   up to with mute respect. He ventured to lay a sacrilegious hand even
   upon these hallowed shapes. He saw that when this had been dared by
   audacious theorists, those objects, so long venerated, seemed to have
   no power of punishing the bold intruder. There was a scene like that
   which occurred when the barbarians broke into the Eternal City. At
   first, in spite of themselves, they were awed by the divine aspect of
   the ancient magistrates; but when once their leader had smitten one
   these venerable figures with impunity, the coarse and violent mob
   rushed onwards, and exultingly mingled all in one common destruction.'
   (Moral Philosophy in England, p. 79.)

   The actual sequence of cause and effect seems, if it be not
   presumptuous to say so, to be as nearly as possible inverted in this
   eloquent statement. The licentiousness of talk and manners was not
   produced by the moral doctrines promulgated; but the doctrine of moral
   consequences was had recourse to by the divines and moralists as the
   most likelyremedy of the prevailing licentiousness. It was an attempt,
   well-meant but not successful, to arrest the wanton proceedings of the
   coarse and violent mob.' Good men saw with alarm, almost with despair,
   that what they said in the obsolete language of religious teaching was
   not listened to, and tried to address the age in plain and
   unmistakeable terms. The new theory of consequences not introduced by
   men of leisure' to supplant and overthrow a nobler and purer view of
   religion and morality, it was a plain fact of religion stated in plain
   language, in the hope of deterring the wicked from his wickedness. It
   was the address of the Old Testament prophet, Why will ye die, O house
   of Israel?' That there is a God and moral governor, and that obedience
   to His commands is necessary to secure our interests in this world and
   the next--if any form of rational belief can control the actions of a
   rational being, it is surely this. On the rationalist hypothesis, the
   morality of consequences ought to produce the most salutary effects on
   the general behaviour of mankind. This obligation of obedience, the
   appeal to our desire of our own welfare, was the substance of the
   practical teaching of the age. It was stated with great cogency of
   reasoning, and enforced with every variety of illustration. Put its
   proof at the lowest, let it be granted that they did not succeed in
   removing all the objections of the Deistical writers, it must, at
   least, be allowed that they showed, to the satisfaction of all prudent
   and thinking men, that it was safer to believe Christianity true than
   not. The obligation to practice in point of prudence was as perfect as
   though the proof had been demonstrative. And what was the surprising
   result? That the more they demonstrated the less people believed. As
   the proof of morality was elaborated and strengthened, the more it was
   disregarded, the more ungodliness and profaneness flourished and grew.
   This is certainly not what we should antecedently expect. If, as Dr.
   Whewell assumes, and the whole doctrinaire school with him, the
   speculative belief of an age determines its moral character, that
   should be the purest epoch where the morality of consequences is placed
   in the strongest light--when it is most convincingly set before men
   that their present and future welfare depends on how they act; that all
   we enjoy and great part of what we suffer, is placed in our own hands.'

   Experience, however, the testimony of history, displays to us a result
   the very reverse. The experiment of the eighteenth century may surely
   be considered as a decisive one on this point. The failure of a
   prudential system of ethics as a restraining force upon. society was
   perceived, or felt in the way of reaction, by the Evangelical and
   Methodist generation of teachers who succeeded the Hanoverian divines.
   So far their perception was just. They went on to infer that, because
   the circulation of one system of belief had been inefficacious, they
   should try the effect of inculcating a set of truths as widely remote
   from the former as possible. Because legal preaching, as they phrased
   it, had failed, they would essay Gospel preaching. The preaching of
   justification by works had not the power to check wickedness, therefore
   justification by faith, the doctrine of the Reformation, was the only
   saving truth. This is not meant as a complete account of the origin of
   the Evangelical school. It is only one point of view--that point which
   connects the school with the general line of thought this paper has
   been pursuing. Their doctrine of conversion by supernatural influence
   must on no account be forgotten. Yet it appears that they thought the
   channel of this supernatural influence was, in some way or other,
   preaching. Preaching, too, not as rhetoric, but as the annunciation of
   a specific doctrine--the Gospel. They certainly insisted on the heart'
   being touched, and that the Spirit only had the power savingly to
   affect the heart; but they acted as though this were done by an appeal
   to the reason, and scornfully rejected the idea of religious education.

   It should also be remarked that even the divines of the Hanoverian
   school were not wholly blind to some flaw in their theory, and to the
   practical inefficacy of their doctrine. Not that they underrated the
   force of their demonstrations. As has been already said, the greater
   part of them over-estimated their convincingness, but they could not
   but see that they did not, in fact convince. When this was forced upon
   their observation, when they perceived that an a priori demonstration
   of religion might be placed before a man, and that he did not see its
   force, then, inconsequent with their own theory, they had recourse to
   the notion of moral culpability. If a person refused to admit the
   evidence for revelation, it was because he did not examine it with a
   dispassionate mind. His understanding was biassed by his wishes; some
   illicit passion he was resolved on gratifying, but which prudence,
   forsooth, would not have allowed him to gratify so long as he continued
   to believe in a future judgment. The wish that there were no God
   suggested the thought that there is not. Speculative unbelief is thus
   asserted to be a consequence of a bad heart: it is the grounds upon
   which we endeavour to prove to ourselves and others that the indulgence
   of our passions is consistent with a rational prudence. As levelled
   against an individual opponent, this is a poor controversial shift.
   Many of the Deists were men of worth and probity; of none of them is
   anything known which would make them worse men than the average their
   class in life. Mr. Chichester (Deism compared with Christianity, 1821,
   vol. iii. p. 220) says Tindal was infamous for vice in general;' but I
   have not able to trace his authority for the assertion. As an
   imputation not against individual unbelievers, but against the
   competency of reason in general, it may be true, but is quite
   inconsistent with the general hypothesis of the school of reasoners who
   brought it. If reason be liable to an influence which warps it, then
   there is required some force which shall keep this influence under, and
   reason alone is no longer the all-sufficient judge of truth. In this
   way we should be forced back to the old orthodox doctrine of the
   chronic' impotence of reason, superinduced upon it by the Fall; a
   doctrine which the reigning orthodoxy had tacitly renounced.

   In the Catholic theory the feebleness of Reason is met half-way and
   made good by the authority of the Church. When the Protestants threw
   off this authority, they did not assign to Reason what they took from
   the Church, but to Scripture. Calvin did not shrink from saying that
   Scripture shone sufficiently by its own light.' As long as this could
   be kept to, the Protestant theory of belief was whole and sound. At
   least it was as sound as the Catholic. In both, Reason, aided by
   spiritual illumination, performs the subordinate function of
   recognising the supreme authority of the Church, and of the Bible,
   respectively. Time, learned controversy, and abatement of zeal drove
   the Protestants generally from the hardy but irrational assertion of
   Calvin. Every foot of ground that Scripture lost was gained by one or
   other of the three substitutes: Church-authority, the Spirit, or
   Reason. Church-authority was essayed by the Laudian divines, but was
   soon found untenable, for on that footing it was found impossible to
   justify the Reformation and the breach with Rome. The Spirit then came
   into favour along with Independency. But it was still more quickly
   discovered that on such a basis only discord and disunion could be
   reared. There remained to be tried Common Reason, carefully
   distinguished from recondite learning, and not based on metaphysical
   assumptions. To apply this instrument to the contents of Revelation was
   the occupation of the early half of the eighteenth century; with what
   success has been seen. In the latter part the century the same Common
   Reason was applied to the external evidences. But here the method fails
   in a first requisite--universality; for even the shallowest array of
   historical proof requires some book-learning to apprehend. Further than
   this, the Lardner and Paley school could not complete their proof
   satisfactorily, inasmuch as the materials for the investigation of the
   first and second centuries of the Christian era were not at hand.

   Such appears to be the past history of the Theory of Belief in the
   Church of England. Whoever would take the religious literature of the
   present day as a whole, and endeavour to make out clearly on what basis
   Revelation is supposed by it to rest, whether on Authority, on the
   Inward Light, on Reason, on self-evidencing Scripture, or on the
   combination of the four, or some of them, and in what proportions,
   would probably find that he had undertaken a perplexing but not
   altogether profitless inquiry.
     __________________________________________________________________

                       ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE

   IT is a strange, though familiar fact, that great differences of
   opinion exist respecting the Interpretation of Scripture. All
   Christians receive the Old and New Testament as sacred writings, but
   they are not agreed about the meaning which they attribute to them. The
   book itself remains as at the first; the commentators seem rather to
   reflect the changing atmosphere of the world or of the Church.
   Different individuals or bodies of Christians have a different point of
   view, to which their interpretation is narrowed or made to conform. It
   is assumed, as natural and necessary, that the same words will present
   one idea to the mind of the Protestant, another to the Roman Catholic;
   one meaning to the German, another to the English interpreter. The
   Ultramontane or Anglican divine is not supposed to be impartial in his
   treatment of passages which afford an apparent foundation for the
   doctrine of purgatory or the primacy of St. Peter on the one hand, or
   the three orders of clergy and the divine origin of episcopacy on the
   other. It, is a received view with many, that the meaning of the Bible
   is to be defined by that of the Prayer-book; while there are others who
   interpret the Bible and the Bible only' with a silent reference to the
   traditions of the Reformation. Philosophical differences are in the
   background, into which the differences about Scripture also resolve
   themselves. They seem to run up at last into a difference of opinion
   respecting Revelation itself--whether given beside the human faculties
   or through them, whether an interruption of the laws of nature or their
   perfection and fulfilment.

   This effort to pull the authority of Scripture in different directions
   is not peculiar to our own day; the same phenomenon appears in the past
   history of the Church. At the Reformation, in the Nicene or Pelagian
   times, the New Testament was the ground over which men fought; it might
   also be compared to the armoury which furnished them with weapons.
   Opposite aspects of the truth which it contains were appropriated by
   different sides, Justified by faith without works' and justified by
   faith as well as works' are equally Scriptural expressions; the one has
   become the formula of Protestants, the other of Roman Catholics. The
   fifth and ninth chapters of the Romans, single verses such as a 1
   Corinthians iii. 15, John iii. 3, still bear traces of many a life-long
   strife in the pages of commentators. The difference of interpretation
   which prevails among ourselves is partly traditional, that is to say,
   inherited from the controversies of former ages. The use made of
   Scripture by Fathers of the Church, as well as by Luther and Calvin,
   affects our idea of its meaning at the present hour.

   Another cause of the multitude of interpretations is the growth or
   progress of the human mind itself. Modes of interpreting vary as time
   goes on; they partake of the general state of literature or knowledge.
   It has not been easily or at once that mankind have learned to realize
   the character of sacred writings--they seem almost necessarily to veil
   themselves from human eyes as circumstances change; it is the old age
   of the world only that has at length understood its childhood. (Or only
   rather perhaps is beginning to understand it, and learning to make
   allowance for its own deficiency of knowledge; for the infancy of the
   human race, as of the individual, affords but few indications of the
   workings of the mind within.) More often than we suppose the great
   sayings mid doings upon the earth, thoughts that breathe and words that
   burn,' are lost in a sort of chaos to the apprehension of those that
   come after. Much of past history is dimly seen and receives only a
   conventional interpretation, even when the memorials of it remain.
   There is a time at which the freshness of early literature is lost;
   mankind have turned rhetoricians, and no longer write or feel in the
   spirit which created it. In this unimaginative period in which sacred
   or ancient writings are partially unintelligible, many methods have
   been taken at different times to adapt the ideas of the past to the
   wants of the present. One age has wandered into the flowery paths of
   allegory,

   In pious meditation fancy fed.'

   Another has straitened the liberty of the Gospel by a rigid application
   of logic, the former being a method which was at first more naturally
   applied to the Old Testament, the latter to the New. Both methods of
   interpretation, the mystical and logical, as they may be termed, have
   been practised on the Vedas and the Koran, as well as on the Jewish and
   Christian Scriptures, the true glory and note of divinity in these
   latter being not that they have hidden mysterious or double meanings,
   but a simple and universal one, which is beyond them and will survive
   them. Since the revival of literature, interpreters have not
   unfrequently fallen into error of another kind from a pedantic and
   misplaced use of classical learning; the minute examination of words
   often withdrawing the mind from more important matters. A tendency may
   be observed within the last century to clothe systems of philosophy in
   the phraseology of Scripture. But new wine cannot thus be put into old
   bottles.' Though roughly distinguishable by different ages, these modes
   or tendencies also exist together; the remains of all of them may be
   remarked in some of the popular commentaries of our own day.

   More common than any of these methods, and not peculiar to any age, is
   that which may be called by way of distinction the rhetorical one. The
   tendency to exaggerate or amplify the meaning of simple words for the
   sake of edification may indeed have a practical use is sermons, the
   object of which is to awaken not so much the intellect as the heart and
   conscience. Spiritual food, like natural, may require to be of a
   certain bulk to nourish the human mind. But this tendency to
   edification' has had an unfortunate influence on the interpretation of
   Scripture. For the preacher almost necessarily oversteps the limits of
   actual knowledge, his feelings overflow with the subject; even if he
   have the power, he has seldom the time for accurate thought or inquiry.
   And in the course of years spent in writing, perhaps, without study, he
   is apt to persuade himself, if not others, of the truth of his own
   repetitions. The trivial consideration of making a discourse of
   sufficient length is often a reason why he overlays the words of Christ
   and his Apostles with commonplaces. The meaning of the text is not
   always the object which he has in view, but some moral or religious
   lesson which he has found it necessary to append to it; some cause
   which he is pleading, some error of the day he has to combat And while
   in some passages which he hardly dares to trust himself with the full
   force of Sciripture (Matthew v. 34; ix. 13; xix. 21; Acts v. 29), in
   others he extracts more from words than they really imply (Matthew
   xxii. 21; xxviii. 20; Romans xiii. 1; &c.), being more eager to guard
   against the abuse of some precept than to enforce it, attenuating or
   adapting the utterance of prophecy to the requirements or to the
   measure of modern times. Any one who has ever written sermons is aware
   how hard it is to apply Scripture to the wants of his hearers and at
   the same time to preserve its meaning.

   The phenomenon which. has been described in the preceding pages is so
   familiar, and yet so extraordinary, that it requires an effort of
   thought to appreciate its true nature. We do not at once see the
   absurdity of the same words having many senses, or free our minds from
   the illusion that the Apostle or Evangelist must have written with a
   reference to the creeds or controversies or circumstances of other
   times. Let it be considered, then, that this extreme variety of
   interpretation is found to exist in the case of no other book, but of
   the Scriptures only. Other writings are preserved to us in dead
   languages--Greek, Latin, Oriental, some of them in fragments, all of
   them originally in manuscript. It is true that difficulties arise in
   the explanation of these writings, especially in the most ancient, from
   our imperfect acquaintance with the meaning of words, or the
   defectiveness of copies, or the want of some historical or geographical
   information which is required to present an event or character in its
   true bearing. In comparison with the wealth and light of modern
   literature, our knowledge of Greek classical authors, for example, may
   be called imperfect and shadowy. Some of them have another sort of
   difficulty arising from subtlety or abruptness in the use of language;
   in lyric poetry especially, and some of the earlier prose, the
   greatness of the thought struggles with the stammering lips. It may he
   observed that all these difficulties occur also in Scripture; they are
   found equally in sacred and profane literature. But the meaning of
   classical authors is known with comparative certainty; and the
   interpretation of them seems to rest on a scientific basis. It is not,
   therefore, to philological or historical difficulties that the greater
   part of the uncertainty in the interpretation of Scripture is to be
   attributed. No ignorance of Hebrew or Greek is sufficient to account
   for it. Even the Vedas and the Zendavesta, though beset by obscurities
   of language probably greater than are found in any portion of the
   Bible, are interpreted, at least by European scholars, according to
   fixed rules, and beginning to be clearly understood.

   To bring the parallel home, let us imagine the remains of some
   well-known Greek author, as Plato or Sophocles, receiving the same
   treatment at the hands of the world which the Scriptures have
   experienced. The text of such an author, when first printed by Aldus or
   Stephens, would be gathered from the imperfect or miswritten copies
   which fell in the way of the editors; after awhile older and better
   manuscripts come to light, and the power of using and estimating the
   value of manuscripts is greatly improved. We may suppose, further, that
   the readings of these older copies do not always conform to some
   received canons of criticism. Up to the year 1550, or 1624,
   alterations, often proceeding on no principle, have been introduced
   into the text; but now a stand is made--an edition which appeared at
   the latter of the two dates just mentioned is invested with authority;
   this authorized text is a pièce de resistance against innovation. Many
   reasons are given why it is better to have bad readings to which the
   world is accustomed than good ones which are novel and strange--why the
   later manuscripts of Plato or Sophocles are often to be preferred to
   earlier ones--why it is useless to remove imperfections where perfect
   accuracy is not to be attained. A fear of disturbing the critical
   canons which have come down from former ages is, however, suspected to
   be one reason for the opposition. And custom and prejudice, and the
   nicety of the subject, and all the arguments which are intelligible to
   the many against the truth, which is intelligible only to the few, are
   thrown into the scale to preserve the works of Plato or Sophocles as
   nearly as possible in the received text.

   Leaving the text we proceed to interpret and translate. The meaning of
   Greek words is known with tolerable certainty; and the grammar of the
   Greek language has been minutely analysed both in ancient and modern
   times. Yet the interpretation of Sophocles tentative and uncertain; it
   seems to vary from age to age: to some the great tragedian has appeared
   to embody in his choruses certain theological or moral ideas of his own
   age or country; there are others who find there an allegory of the
   Christian religion or of the history of modern Europe. Several schools
   of critics have commented on his works; to the Englishman he has
   presented one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the German a third;
   the interpretations have also differed with the philosophical systems
   which the interpreters espoused. To one the same words have appeared to
   bear a moral, to another a symbolical meaning; a third is determined
   wholly by the authority of old commentators; while there is a
   disposition to condemn the scholar who seeks to interpret Sophocles
   from himself only and with reference to the ideas and beliefs of the
   age in which he lived. And the error of such an one is attributed not
   only to some intellectual but even to a moral obliquity which prevents
   his seeing the true meaning.

   It would be tedious to follow into details the absurdity which has been
   supposed. By such methods it would be truly said that Sophocles or
   Plato may be made to mean anything. It would seem as if Novum Organum
   were needed to lay down rules of interpretation for ancient literature.
   Still one other supposition has to be introduced which will appear,
   perhaps, more extravagant than any which have preceded. Conceive then
   that these modes of interpreting Sophocles had existed for ages; that
   great institutions and interests had become interwoven with them, and
   in some degree even the honour of nations and churches--is it too much
   to say that in such a case they would be changed with difficulty, and
   that they would continue to be maintained long after critics and
   philosophers had seen that they were indefensible?

   No one who has a Christian feeling would place classical on a level
   with sacred literature; and there are other particulars in which the
   preceding comparison fails, as, for example, the style and subject.
   But, however different the subject, although the interpretation of
   Scripture requires a vision and faculty divine,' or at least a moral
   and religious interest which is not needed in the study of a Greek poet
   or philosopher, yet in what may be termed the externals of
   interpretation, that is to say, the meaning of words, the connexion of
   sentences, the settlement of the text, the evidence of facts, the same
   rules apply to the Old and New Testaments as to other books. And the
   figure is no exaggeration of the erring fancy of men in the use of
   Scripture, or of the tenacity with which they cling to the
   interpretations of other times, or of the arguments by which they
   maintain them. All the resources of knowledge may be turned into a
   means not of discovering the true rendering, but of upholding a
   received one. Grammar appears to start from an independent point of
   view, yet inquiries into the use of the article or the preposition have
   been observed to wind round into a defence of some doctrine. Rhetoric
   often magnifies its own want of taste into the design of inspiration.
   Logic (that other mode of rhetoric) is apt to lend itself to the
   illusion, by stating erroneous explanations with a clearness which is
   mistaken for truth. Metaphysical aid' carries away the common
   understanding into a region where it must blindly follow. Learning
   obscures as well as illustrates; it heaps up chaff when there is no
   more wheat. These are some of the ways in which the sense of Scripture
   has become confused, by the help of tradition, in the course of ages,
   under a load of commentators.

   The book itself remains as at the first unchanged amid the changing
   interpretations of it. The office of the interpreter is not to add
   another, but to recover original one; the meaning, that is, of the
   words as they first struck on the ears or flashed before the eyes of
   those who heard and read them. He has to transfer himself to another
   age; to imagine he is a disciple of Christ or Paul; to disengage
   himself from all that follows. The history of Christendom is nothing to
   him; but only the scene at Galilee or Jerusalem, the handful of
   believers who gathered themselves together at Ephesus, or Corinth, or
   Rome. His eye is fixed on the form of one like the Son of man, or of
   the prophet who was girded with a garment of camel's hair, or of the
   Apostle who had a thorn in the flesh. The greatness of the Roman Empire
   is nothing to him; it is an inner not an outer world that he is
   striving to restore. All the after-thoughts of theology are nothing to
   him; they are not the true lights which light him in difficult places.
   His concern is with a book in which as in other ancient writings are
   some things of which we are ignorant; which defect of our knowledge
   cannot however be supplied by the conjectures of fathers or divines.
   The simple words of that book he tries to preserve absolutely pure from
   the refinements or distinctions of later times. He acknowledges that
   they are fragmentary, and would suspect himself, if out of fragments he
   were able to create a well-rounded system or a continuous history. The
   greater part of his learning is a knowledge of the text itself; he has
   no delight in the voluminous literature which has overgrown it. He has
   no theory of interpretation; a few rules guarding against common errors
   are enough for him. His object is to read Scripture like any other
   book, with a real interest and not merely a conventional one. He wants
   to be able open his eyes and see or imagine things as they truly are.

   Nothing would be more likely to restore a natural feeling on this
   subject than a history of the Interpretation of Scripture. It would
   take us back to the beginning; it would present in one view the causes
   which have darkened the meaning of words in the course of ages; it
   would clear away the remains of dogmas, systems, controversies, which
   are encrusted upon them. It would show us the erring fancy' of
   interpreters assuming sometimes to have the Spirit of God Himself, yet
   unable to pass beyond the limits of their own age, and with a judgment
   often biassed by party. Great names there have been among them, names
   of men who may be reckoned also among the benefactors of the human
   race, yet comparatively few who have understood the thoughts of other
   times, or who have bent their minds to interrogate' the meaning of
   words. Such a work would enable us to separate the elements of doctrine
   and tradition with which the meaning of Scripture is encumbered in our
   own day. It would mark the different epochs of interpretation from the
   time when the living word was in process of becoming a book to Origen
   and Tertullian, from Origen to Jerome and Augustine, from Jerome and
   Augustine to Abelard and Aquinas; again making a new beginning with the
   revival of literature, franc Erasmus, the father of Biblical criticism
   in more recent times, with Calvin and Beza for his immediate
   successors, through Grotius and Hammond, down to De Witte and Meier,
   our own contemporaries. We should see how the mystical interpretation
   of Scripture originated in the Alexandrian age; how it blended with the
   logical and rhetorical; how both received weight and currency from
   their use in support of the claims and teaching of the Church. We
   should notice how the new learning' of the fifteenth and sixteenth
   centuries gradually awakened the critical faculty in the study of the
   sacred writings; how Biblical criticism has slowly followed in the
   track of philosophical and historical (not without a remoter influence
   exercised upon it also by natural science); how, too, the form of the
   scholastic literature, and even of notes on the classics, insensibly
   communicated itself to commentaries on Scripture. We should see how the
   word inspiration, from being used in a general way to express what may
   be called the prophetic spirit of Scripture, has passed, within the
   last two centuries, into a sort of technical term; how in other
   instances, the practice or feeling of earlier ages has been hollowed
   out into the theory or system of later ones, We should observe how the
   popular explanations of prophecy as in heathen (Thucyd. ii. 54), so
   also in Christian times, had adapted themselves to the circumstances of
   mankind. We might remark that in our own country, and in the present
   generation especially, the interpretation of Scripture had assumed an
   apologetic character, as though making an effort to defend itself
   against some supposed inroad of science and criticism; while among
   German commentators there is, for the first time in the history of the
   world, an approach to agreement and certainty. For example, the
   diversity among German writers on prophecy is far less than among
   English ones. That is a new phenomenon which has to be acknowledged.
   More than any other subject of human knowledge, Biblical criticism has
   hung to the past; it has been hitherto found truer to the traditions of
   the Church than to the words of Christ. It has made, however, two great
   steps onward--at the time of the Reformation and in our day. The
   diffusion of a critical spirit in history and literature is affecting
   the criticism of the Bible in our own day in a manner not unlike the
   burst of intellectual life in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
   Educated persons are beginning to ask, not what Scripture may be made
   to mean, but what it does. And it is no exaggeration to say that he who
   in the present state of knowledge will confine himself to the plain
   meaning of words and the study of their context may know more of the
   original spirit and intention of the authors of the New Testament than
   all the controversial writers of former ages put together.

   Such a history would be of great value to philosophy as well as to
   theology. It would be the history of the human mind in one of its most
   remarkable manifestations. For ages which are not original show their
   character in the interpretation of ancient writings. Creating nothing,
   and incapable of that effort of imagination which is required in a true
   criticism of the past, they read and explain the thoughts of former
   times by the conventional modes of their own. Such a history would form
   a kind of preface or prolegomena to the study of Scripture. Like the
   history of science, it would save many a useless toil; it would
   indicate the uncertainties on which it is not worth while to speculate
   further; the byepaths or labyrinths in which men lose themselves; the
   mines that are already worked out. He who reflects on the multitude of
   explanations which already exist of the number of the beast,' the two
   witnesses,' the little horn,' the man of sin,' who observes the manner
   in which these explanations have varied with the political movements of
   our own time, will be unwilling to devote himself to a method of
   inquiry in which there is so little appearance of certainty or
   progress. These interpretations would destroy one another if they were
   all placed side by side in a tabular analysis. It is an instructive
   fact, which may be mentioned in passing, that Joseph Mede, the greatest
   authority on this subject, twice fixed the end of the world in the last
   century and once during his own lifetime. In like manner, he who
   notices the circumstance that the explanations of the first chapter of
   Genesis have slowly changed, and, as it were, retreated before the
   advance of geology, will be unwilling to add another to the spurious
   reconcilements of science and revelation. Or to take an example of
   another kind, the Protestant divine who perceives that the types and
   figures of the Old Testament are employed by Roman Catholics in support
   of the tenets of their church, will be careful not to use weapons which
   it is impossible to guide, and which may with equal force be turned
   against himself. Those who have handled them on the Protestant side
   have before now fallen victims to them, not observing as they fell that
   it was by their own hand.

   Much of the uncertainty which prevails in the interpretation of
   Scripture arises out of party efforts to wrest its meaning to different
   aides. There are, however, deeper reasons which have hindered the
   natural meaning of the text from immediately and universally
   prevailing. One of these is the unsettlement of many questions which
   have an important but indirect bearing on this subject. Some of these
   questions veil themselves in ambiguous terms; and no one likes to draw
   them out of their hiding-place into the light of day. In natural
   science it is felt to be useless to build on assumptions; in history we
   look with suspicion on a priori ideas of what ought to have been; in
   mathematics, when a step is wrong, we pull the house down until we
   reach the point at which the error is discovered. But in theology it is
   otherwise; there the tendency has been to conceal the unsoundness of
   the foundation under the fairness and loftiness of the superstructure.
   It has been thought safer to allow arguments to stand which, although
   fallacious, have been on the right side, than to point out their
   defect. And thus many principles have imperceptibly grown up which have
   overridden facts. No one would interpret Scripture, as many do, but for
   certain previous suppositions with which we come to the perusal of it.
   There can be no error in the Word of God,' therefore the discrepancies
   in the books of Kings and Chronicles are only apparent, or may be
   attributed to differences in the copies. It is a thousand times more
   likely that the interpreter should err than the inspired writer.' For a
   like reason the failure of a prophecy is never admitted, in spite of
   Scripture and of history (Jer. xxxvi. 30; Isai. xxiii.; Amos vii.
   10-17); the mention of a name later than the supposed age of the
   prophet is not allowed, as in other writings, to be taken in evidence
   of the date (Isaiah xlv. 1). The accuracy of the Old Testament is
   measured not by the standard of primeval history, but of a modern
   critical one, which, contrary to all probability, is supposed to be
   attained; this arbitrary standard once assumed, it becomes a point of
   honour or of faith to defend every name, date, place, which occurs. Or
   to take another class of questions, it is said that the various
   theories of the origin of the three first Gospels see all equally
   unknown to the Holy Catholic Church,' or as another writer of a
   different school expresses himself, they tend to sap the inspiration of
   the New Testament.' Again, the language in which our Saviour speaks of
   his own union with the Father is interpreted by the language of the
   creeds. Those who remonstrate against double senses, allegorical
   interpretations, forced reconcilements, find themselves met by a sort
   of presupposition that God speaks not as man speaks.' The limitation of
   the human faculties is confusedly appealed to as a reason for
   abstaining from investigations which are quite within their limits. The
   suspicion of Deism, or perhaps of Atheism, awaits inquiry. By such
   fears a good man refuses to be influenced, a philosophical mind is apt
   to cast them aside with too much bitterness. It is better or to close
   the book than to read it under conditions of thought which are imposed
   from without. Whether those conditions of thought are the traditions of
   the Church, or the opinions of the religious world--Catholic or
   Protestant--makes no difference. They are inconsistent with the freedom
   of the truth and the moral character of the Gospel. It becomes
   necessary, therefore, to examine briefly some of these prior questions
   which lie in the way of a reasonable criticism.

   § 2.

   Among. these previous questions, that which first presents itself is
   the one already alluded to--the question of inspiration. Almost all
   Christians agree in the word, which use and tradition have consecrated
   to express the reverence which they truly feel for the Old and New
   Testaments. But here the agreement of opinion ends; the meaning of
   inspiration has been variously explained, or more often passed over in
   silence from a fear of stirring the difficulties that would arise about
   it. It is one of those theological terms which may be regarded as great
   peacemakers,' but which are also sources of distrust and
   misunderstanding. For while we are ready to shake hands with any one
   who uses the same language as ourselves, a doubt is apt to insinuate
   itself whether he takes language in the same senses--whether a
   particular term conveys all the associations to another which it does
   to ourselves--whether it is not possible that one who disagrees about
   the word may not be more nearly agreed about the thing. The advice has,
   indeed, been given to the theologian that he should take care of words
   and leave things to themselves;' the authority, however, who gives the
   advice is not good--it is placed by Goethe in the mouth of
   Mephistopheles. Pascal seriously charges the Jesuits with acting an
   similar maxim--excommunicating those who meant the same thing and said
   another, holding communion with those who said the same thing and meant
   another. But this is not the way to heal the wounds of the Church of
   Christ; we cannot thus skin and film' the weak places of theology.
   Errors about words, and the attribution to words themselves of an
   excessive importance, lie at the root of theological as of other
   confusions. In theology they are more dangerous than in other sciences,
   because they cannot so readily be brought to the test of facts.

   The word inspiration has received more numerous gradations and
   distinctions of meaning than perhaps any other in the whole of
   theology. There is an inspiration of superintendence and an inspiration
   of suggestion; an inspiration which would have been consistent with the
   Apostle or Evangelist falling into error, and an inspiration which
   would have prevented him from erring; verbal organic inspiration by
   which the inspired person is the passive utterer of a Divine Word, and
   an inspiration which acts through the character of the sacred writer;
   there is an inspiration which absolutely communicates the fact to be
   revealed or statement to be made, and an inspiration which does not
   supersede the ordinary knowledge of human events; there is an
   inspiration which demands infallibility in matters of doctrine, but
   allows for mistakes in fact. Lastly, there is a view of inspiration
   which recognises only its supernatural and prophetic character, and a
   view of inspiration which regards the Apostles and Evangelists as
   equally inspired in their writings and in their lives, and in both
   receiving the guidance of the Spirit of truth in a manner not different
   in kind but only in degree from ordinary Christians. Many of these
   explanations lose sight of the original meaning and derivation of the
   word; some of them are framed with the view of meeting difficulties;
   all perhaps err in attempting to define what, though real, is incapable
   of being defined in an exact manner. Nor for any of the higher or
   supernatural views of inspiration is there any foundation in the
   Gospels or Epistles. There is no appearance in their writings that the
   Evangelists or Apostles had any inward gift, or were subject to any
   power external to them different from that of preaching or teaching
   which they daily exercised; nor do they anywhere lead us to suppose
   that they were free from error or infirmity. St. Paul writes like a
   Christian teacher, exhibiting all the emotions and vicissitudes of
   human feeling, speaking, indeed, with authority, but hesitating in
   difficult cases and more than once correcting himself, corrected, too,
   by the course of events in his expectation of the coming of Christ. The
   Evangelist who saw it, bare record, and his record is true: and he
   knoweth that he saith true' (John xix. 35). Another Evangelist does not
   profess to be an original narrator, but only to set forth in order a
   declaration of what eye-witnesses had delivered,' like many others
   whose writings have not been preserved to us (Luke i. 1, 2). And the
   result is in accordance with the simple profession and style in which
   they describe themselves; there is no appearance, that is to say, of
   insincerity or want of faith; but neither is there perfect accuracy or
   agreement. One supposes the original dwelling-place of our Lord's
   parents to have been Bethlehem (Matthew ii. 1, 22), another Nazareth
   (Luke ii. 4); they trace his genealogy in different ways; one mentions
   the thieves blaspheming, another has preserved to after-ages the record
   of the penitent thief; they appear to differ about the day and hour of
   the Crucifixion; the narrative of the woman who anointed our Lord's
   feet with ointment is told in all four, each narrative having more or
   less considerable variations. These are a few instances of the
   differences which arose in the traditions of the earliest ages
   respecting the history of our Lord. But he who wishes to investigate
   the character of the sacred writings should not be afraid to make a
   catalogue of them all with the view of estimating their cumulative
   weight. (For it is obvious that the answer which would be admitted in
   the case of a single discrepancy, will not be the true answer when
   there are many.) He should further consider that the narratives in
   which these discrepancies occur are short and partly identical--a cycle
   of tradition beyond which the knowledge of the early fathers never
   travels, though if all the things that Jesus said and did had been
   written down, the world itself could not have contained the books that
   would have been written' (John xx. 30; xxi. 25). For the proportion
   which these narratives bar to the whole subject, as well as their
   relation to one another, is an important element in the estimation of
   differences. In the same way, he who would understand the nature of
   prophecy in the Old Testament, should have the courage to examine how
   far its details were minutely fulfilled. The absence of such a
   fulfilment may further lead him to discover that he took the letter for
   the spirit in expecting it.

   The subject will clear of itself if we bear in mind two
   considerations:--First, that the nature of inspiration can only be
   known from the examination of Scripture. There is no other source to
   which we can turn for information; and we have no right to assume some
   imaginary doctrine of inspiration like the infallibility of the Roman
   Catholic Church. To the question, What is inspiration?' the first
   answer therefore is, That idea of Scripture which we gather from the
   knowledge of it.' It is no mere a priori notion, but one to which the
   book is itself a witness. It is a fact which we infer from the study of
   Scripture--not of one portion only, but of the whole. Obviously then it
   embraces writings of very different kinds--the book of Esther, for
   example, or the Song of Solomon, as well as the Gospel of St. John. It
   is reconcileable with the mixed good and evil of the characters of the
   Old Testament, which nevertheless does not exclude them from the favour
   of God, with the attribution to the Divine Being of actions at variance
   with that higher revelation, which he has given of himself in the
   Gospel; tit is not inconsistent with imperfect or opposite aspects of
   the truth as in the book of Job or Ecclesiastes, with variations of the
   fact in the Gospels or the books of Kings and Chronicles, with
   inaccuracies of language in the Epistles of St. Paul. For these are all
   found in Scripture; neither is there any reason why they should not be,
   except a general impression that Scripture ought to have been written
   in a way different from what it has. A principle of progressive
   revelationadmits them all; and this is already contained in the words
   of our Saviour, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts;' or even
   in the Old Testament Henceforth there shall be no more this proverb in
   the house of Israel.' For what is progressive is necessarily imperfect
   in its earlier stages, and even erring to those who come after, whether
   it be the maxims of a half-civilized world which are compared with
   those of a civilized one, or the law with the Gospel. Scripture itself
   points the way to answer the moral objections to Scripture. Lesser
   difficulties remain, but only such as would be found commonly in
   writings of the same age or country. There is no more reason why
   imperfect narratives should be excluded from Scripture than imperfect
   grammar; no more ground for expecting that the New Testament would be
   logical or Aristotelian in form, than that it would be written in Attic
   Greek.

   The other consideration is one which has been neglected by writers on
   this subject. It is this--that any true doctrine of inspiration must
   conform to all well-ascertained facts of history or of science. The
   same fact cannot be true and untrue, any more than the same words can
   have two opposite meanings. The same fact cannot be true in religion
   when seen by the light of faith, and untrue in science when looked at
   through the medium of evidence or experiment It is ridiculous to
   suppose that the sun goes round the earth in the same sense in which
   the earth goes round the sun; or that the world appears to have
   existed, but has not existed during the vast epochs of which geology
   speaks to us. But if so, there is no need of elaborate reconcilements
   of revelation and science; they reconcile themselves the moment any
   scientific truth is distinctly ascertained. As the idea of nature
   enlarges, the idea of revelation also enlarges; it was a temporary
   misunderstanding which severed them. And as the knowledge of nature
   which is possessed by the fee is communicated in its leading features
   at least to the many, they will receive with it a higher conception of
   the ways of God to man. It may hereafter appear as natural to the
   majority of mankind to see the providence of God in the order of the
   world, as it once was to appeal to interruptions of it.

   It is true that there are a class of scientific facts with which
   popular opinions on theology often conflict which do not seem to
   conform in all respects to the severer conditions of inductive science:
   such especially are the facts relating to the formation of the earth
   and the beginnings of the human race. But it is not worth while to
   fight on this debateable ground a losing battle in the hope that a
   generation will pass away before we sound a last retreat. Almost all
   intelligent persons are agreed that the earth has existed for myriads
   of ages; the best informed are of opinion that the history of nations
   extends back some thousand years before the Mosaic chronology; recent
   discoveries in geology may perhaps open a further vista of existence
   for the human species, while it is possible, and may one day be known,
   that mankind spread not from one but from many centres over the globe;
   or as others say, that the supply of links which are at present wanting
   in the chain of animal life may lead to new conclusions respecting the
   origin of man. Now let it be granted that these facts, being with the
   past, cannot be shown in the same palpable and evident manner as the
   facts of chemistry or physiology; and that the proof of some of them,
   especially of those last mentioned, is wanting; still it wanting; still
   it is a false policy to set up inspiration or revelation in opposition
   to them, a principle which can have no influence on them and should be
   rather kept out of their way. The sciences of geology and comparative
   philology are steadily gaining ground (many of the guesses of twenty
   years ago have become certainties, and the guesses of twenty years ago
   have become certainties, and the guesses of to-day may hereafter become
   so). Shall we peril religion on the possibility of their untruth? on
   such a cast to stake the life of man implies not only a recklessness of
   facts but a misunderstanding of the nature of the Gospel. If it is
   fortunate for Christian truth, that the admission of Galileo's
   discovery has for ever settled the principle of the relations between
   them.

   A similar train of thought may be extended to the results of historical
   inquiries. These results cannot be barred by the dates or narrative of
   Scripture; neither should they be made to wind round into agreement
   with them. Again, the idea of inspiration must expand and take them in.
   Their importance in a religious point of view is not that they impugn
   or confirm the Jewish history, but that they show more clearly the
   purposes of God towards the whole human race. The recent chronological
   discoveries from Egyptian monuments do not tend to overthrow
   revelation, nor the Ninevite inscriptions to support it. The use of
   them on either side may indeed arouse a popular interest in them; it is
   apt to turn a scientific inquiry into a semi-religious controversy. And
   to religion either use is almost equally injurious, because seeming to
   rest truths important to human life on the mere accident of an
   archaeological discovery. Is it to be thought that Christianity gains
   anything from the deciphering of the names of some Assyrian and
   Babylonian kings, contemporaries chiefly with the later Jewish history?
   As little as it ought to lose from the appearance of a contradictory
   narrative of the Exodus in the chamber of an Egyptian temple of the
   year B.C. 1500. This latter supposition may not be very probable. But
   it is worth while to ask ourselves the question whether we can be right
   in maintaining view of religion which can be affected by such a
   probability.

   It will be a further assistance in the consideration of this subject,
   to observe that the interpretation of Scripture has nothing to do with
   any opinion respecting its origin. The meaning of Scripture is one
   thing; the inspiration of Scripture is another. It is conceivable that
   those who hold the most different views about the one, may be able to
   agree about the other. Rigid upholders of the verbal inspiration of
   Scripture, and those who deny inspiration of altogether, may
   nevertheless meet on the common ground of the meaning of words. If the
   term inspiration were to fall into disuse, no fact of nature, or
   history, or language, no event in the life of man, or dealings of God
   with him, would be in any degree altered. The word itself is but of
   yesterday, not found in the earlier confessions of the reformed faith;
   the difficulties that have arisen about it are only two or three
   centuries old. Therefore the question of inspiration, though in one
   sense important, is to the interpreter as though it were not important;
   he is in no way called upon to determine a matter with which he has
   nothing to do, and which was not determined by fathers of the Church.
   And he had better go on his way and leave the more precise definition
   of the word to the progress of knowledge and the results of the study
   of Scripture, instead of entangling himself with a theory about it.

   It is one evil of conditions or previous suppositions in the study of
   Scripture that the assumption of them has led to an apologetic temper
   in the interpreters of Scripture. The tone of apology is always a tone
   of weakness and does injury to a good cause. It is the reverse of ye
   shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' It is
   hampered with the necessity of making a defence, and also with previous
   defences of the same side; it accepts, with an excess of reserve and
   caution, the truth itself, when it comes from an opposite quarter.
   Commentators are often more occupied with the proof of miracles than
   with the declaration of life and immortality; with the fulfilment of
   the details of prophecy than with its life and power; with the
   reconcilement of the discrepancies in the narrative of the infancy,
   pointed out by Schleiermacher, than with the importance of the great
   event of the appearance of the Saviour. To this end was I born and for
   this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the
   truth.' The same tendency is observable also in reference to the Acts
   of the Apostles and the Epistles, which are not only brought into
   harmony with each other, but interpreted with a reference to the
   traditions of existing communions. The natural meaning of particular
   expressions, as for example: Why are they then baptized for the dead'
   (1 Corinthians xv. 29)? or the words because of the angels' (1
   Corinthians xi. 10); or, this generation shall not pass away until all
   these things be fulfilled' (Matthew xxiv. 34); or, upon this rock will
   I build my Church (Matthew xvi. 18), is set aside in favour of others,
   which, however improbable, are more in accordance with preconceived
   opinions, or seem to be more worthy of the Sacred writers. The
   language, and also the text, are treated on the same defensive and
   conservative principles. The received translations of Philippians ii. 6
   (Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
   God'), or of Romans iii. 25 (Whom God hath set forth to be a
   propitiation through faith in his blood'), or Romans xv. 6 (God, even
   the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'), though erroneous, are not given
   up without a struggle; the 1 Timothy iii. 16, and 1 John v. 7, (the
   three witnesses), though the first (God manifest in the flesh, ThS for
   OS) is not found in the best manuscripts, and the second in no Greek
   manuscript worth speaking of, have not yet disappeared from the
   editions of the Greek Testament commonly in use in England, and still
   less from the English translation. An English commentator who, with
   Lachman and Tischendorf, supported also by authority of Erasmus,
   ventures to alter the punctuation of the doxology in Romans ix. 5 (Who
   is over all God blessed for ever') hardly escapes the charge of heresy.
   That in most of these cases the words referred to have a direct bearing
   on important controversies is a reason not for retaining, but for
   correcting them.

   The temper of accommodation shows itself especially in two ways: first,
   in the attempt to adapt the truths of Scripture to the doctrines of the
   creeds; secondly, in the adaptation of the precepts and maxims of
   Scripture to the language or practice of our own age. Now the creeds
   are acknowledged to be a part of Christianity; they stand in a close
   relation to the words of Christ and his Apostles; nor can it be said
   that any heterodox formula makes a nearer approach to a simple and
   scriptural rule of faith. Neither is anything gained by contrasting
   them with Scripture, in which the germs of the expressions used in them
   are sufficiently apparent. Yet it does not follow that they should be
   pressed into the service of the interpreter. The growth of ideas in the
   interval which separated the first century from the fourth or sixth
   makes it impossible to apply the language of the one to the explanation
   of the other. Between Scripture and the Nicene or Athanasian Creed, a
   world of the understanding comes in--that world of abstractions and
   second notions; and mankind are no longer at the same point as when the
   whole of Christianity was contained in the words, Believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ and thou mayest be saved,' when the Gospel centred in the
   attachment to a living or recently departed friend and Lord. The
   language of the New Testament is the first utterance and consciousness
   of the mind of Christ; or the immediate vision of the Word of life (1
   John i. 1) as it presented itself before the eyes of his first
   followers, or as the sense of his truth and power grew upon them
   (Romans i. 3, 4); the other is the result of three or four centuries of
   reflection and controversy. And although this last had a truth suited
   to its age, and its technical expressions have sunk deep into the heart
   of the human race, it is not the less unfitted to be the medium by the
   help of which Scripture is to be explained. If the occurrence of the
   phraseology of the Nicene age in a verse of the Epistles would detect
   the spuriousness of the verse in which it was found, how can the Nicene
   or Athanasian Creed be a suitable instrument for the interpretation of
   Scripture? That advantage which the New Testament has over the teaching
   of the Church, as representing what may be termed the childhood of the
   Gospel, would be lost if its language were required to conform to that
   of the Creeds.

   To attribute to St. Paul or the Twelve the abstract notion of Christian
   truth which afterwards sprang up in the Catholic Church, is the same
   sort of anachronism as to attribute to them a system of philosophy. It
   is the same error as to attribute to Homer the ideas of Thales or
   Heraclitus, or to Thales the mom developed principles of Aristotle and
   Plato. Many persons who have no difficulty in tracing the growth of
   institutions, yet seem to fail in recognising the more subtle progress
   of an idea. It is hard to imagine the absence of conceptions with which
   we are familiar; to go back to the germ of what we know only in
   maturity; to give up what has grown to us, and become a part of one
   minds. In the present case however the development is not difficult to
   prove. The statements of Scripture are unaccountable if we deny it; the
   silence of Scripture is equally unaccountable. Absorbed as St. Paul was
   in the person of Christ with an intensity of faith and love of which in
   modern days and at this distance of time we can scarcely form a
   conception--high as he raised the dignity of his Lord above all things
   in heaven and earth--looking to him as the Creator of all things, and
   the head of quick and dead, he does not speak of him as equal to the
   Father,' or of one substance with the Father.' Much of the language of
   the Epistles (passages for example such as Romans i. 2; Philippians ii.
   6) would lose their meaning if distributed in alternate clauses between
   our Lord's humanity and divinity. Still greater difficulties would be
   introduced into the Gospels by the attempt to identify them with the
   Creeds. We should have to suppose that He was and was not tempted; that
   when he prayed to his Father he prayed also to Himself; that He knew
   and did not know of that hour' of which He as well as the angels were
   ignorant. How could He have said My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
   me?' or Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me.' How could
   He have doubted whether when the Son cometh he shall find faith upon
   the earth?' These simple and touching words have to be taken out of
   their natural meaning and connexion to be made the theme of apologetic
   discourses if we insist on reconciling them with the distinctions of
   later ages.

   Neither, as has been already remarked, would the substitution of any
   other precise or definite rule of faith, as for example the Unitarian,
   be more favourable to the interpretation of Scripture. How could the
   Evangelist St. John have said the Word was God,' or God was the Word'
   (according to either mode of translating), or how would our Lord
   Himself have said, I and the Father are one' if either had meant that
   Christ was a mere man, a prophet or as one of the prophets?' No one who
   takes words in their natural sense can suppose that in the beginning'
   (John i. 1) means at the commencement of the ministry of Christ?' or
   that the Word was with God,' only relates to the withdrawal of Christ
   to commune with God,' or that The Word is said to be God,' in the
   ironical sense of John x. 35. But while venturing to turn one eye on
   these (perhaps obsolete) perversions of the meanings of words in old
   opponents, we must not forget also to keep the other open to our own.
   The object of the preceding remark is not to enter into controversy
   with them, or to balance the statements of one side with those of the
   other, but only to point out the error of introducing into the
   interpretation of Scripture the notions of a later age which is common
   alike to us and them.

   The other kind of accommodation which was alluded to above arises out
   of the difference between the social and ecclesiastical state of the
   world, as it exists in actual fact, and the ideal which the Gospel
   presents to us. An ideal is, by its very nature, far removed from
   actual life. It is enshrined not in the material things of the external
   world, but in the heart and conscience. Mankind are dissatisfied at
   this separation; they fancy that they can make the inward kingdom an
   outward one also. But this is not possible. The frame of civilization,
   that is to say, institutions and laws, the usages of business, the
   customs of society, these are for the most part mechanical, capable
   only in a certain degree of a higher and spiritual life. Christian
   motives have never existed in such strength, as to make it safe or
   possible to entrust them with the preservation of social order. Other
   interests are therefore provided and other principles, often
   independent of the teaching of the Gospel, or even apparently at
   variance with it. If a man smite thee on the right cheek turn to him
   the other also;' is not a regulation of police but an ideal rule of
   conduct, not to be explained away, but rarely if ever to be literally
   acted upon in a civilized country; or rather to be acted upon always in
   spirit, yet not without a reference to the interests of the community.
   If a missionary were to endanger the public peace and come like the
   Apostles saying, I ought to obey God rather than man,' it is obvious
   that the most Christian of magistrates could not allow him (say in
   India or New Zealand) to shield himself under the authority of these
   words. For in religion as in philosophy there are two opposite poles;
   of truth and action, of doctrine and practice, of idea and fact. The
   image of God in Christ is over against the necessities of human nature
   and the state of man on earth. Our Lord himself recognises this
   distinction, when he says, Of whom do the kings of the earth gather
   tribute?' and then are the children free.' (Matth. xvii. 26.) And
   again, Notwithstanding lest we should offend them,' &c. Here are
   contrasted what may be termed the two poles of idea and fact.

   All men appeal to Scripture, and desire to draw the authority of
   Scripture to their side; its voice may be heard in the turmoil of
   political strife; a merely verbal similarity, the echo of a word, has
   weight in the determination of a controversy. Such appeals are not to
   be met always by counter-appeals; they rather lead to the consideration
   of deeper questions as to the manner in which Scripture is to be
   applied. In what relation does it stand to actual life? Is it a law, or
   only a spirit? for nations, or for individuals? to be enforced
   generally, or in details also? Are its maxims to be modified by
   experience, or acted upon in defiance of experience? Are the accidental
   circumstances of the first believers to become a rule for us? Is
   everything, in short, done or said by our Saviour and His Apostles, to
   be regarded as a precept or example which is to be followed on all
   occasions and to last for all time? That can hardly be, consistently
   with the changes of human things. It would be a rigid skeleton of
   Christianity (not the image of Christ), to which society and politics,
   as well as the lives of individuals, would be conformed. It would be
   the oldness of the letter, on which the world would be stretched; not
   the law of the spirit life' which St. Paul teaches. The attempt to
   force politics and law into the framework of religion is apt to drive
   us up into a corner, in which the great principles of truth and justice
   have no longer room to make themselves felt. It is better, as well as
   safer, to take the liberty with which Christ has made us free. For our
   Lord himself has left behind Him words, which contain a principle large
   enough to admit all the forms of society or of life; My kingdom is not
   of this world.' (John xviii. 36.) It does not come into collision with
   politics or knowledge; it has nothing to do with the Roman government
   or the Jewish priesthood, or with corresponding institutions in the
   present day; it is a counsel of perfection, and has its dwelling-place
   in the heart of man. That is the real solution of questions of Church
   and State; all else is relative to the history or circumstances of
   particular nations. That is the answer to a doubt which is also raised
   respecting the obligation of the letter of the Gospel on individual
   Christians. But this inwardness of the words of Christ is what few are
   able to receive; it is easier to apply them superficially to things
   without, than to be a partaker of them from within. And false and
   miserable applications of them are often made, and the kingdom of God
   becomes the tool of the kingdoms of the world.

   The neglect of this necessary contrast between the ideal and the actual
   has had a twofold effect on the Interpretation of Scripture. It has led
   to an unfair appropriation of some portions of Scripture and an undue
   neglect of others. The letter is in many cases really or apparently in
   harmony with existing practices, or opinions, or institutions. In other
   cases it is far removed from them; it often seems as if the world would
   come to an end before the words of Scripture could be realized. The
   twofold effect just now mentioned, corresponds to these two classes.
   Some texts of Scripture have been eagerly appealed to and made (in one
   sense) too much of; they have been taken by force into the service of
   received opinions and beliefs; texts of the other class have been
   either unnoticed or explained away. Consider, for example, the
   extraordinary and unreasonable importance attached to single words,
   sometimes of doubtful meaning, in reference to any of following
   subjects:--1, Divorce; 2, Marriage with Wife's Sister; 3, Inspiration;
   4, the Personality of the Holy Spirit; 5. Infant Baptism; 6,
   Episcopacy; 7, Divine Right of Kings; 8, Original Sin. There is,
   indeed, a kind of mystery in the way in which the chance words of a
   simple narrative, the occurrence of some accidental event, the use even
   of a figure of speech, or a mistranslation of a word in Latin or
   English, have affected the thoughts of future ages and distant
   countries. Nothing so slight that it has not been caught at; nothing so
   plain that it may not be explained away. What men have brought to the
   text they have also found there; what has received no interpretation or
   witness, either in the customs of the Church or in the thoughts of many
   hearts,' is still an unknown tongue' to them. It is with Scripture as
   with oratory, its effect partly depends on the preparation in the mind
   or in circumstances for the reception of it. There is no use of
   Scripture, no quotation or even misquotation of a word which is not a
   power in the world, when it embodies the spirit of a great movement or
   is echoed by the voice of a large party.

   On the first of the subjects referred to above, it is argued from
   Scripture that adulterers should not be allowed to marry again; and the
   point of the argument turns on the question whether the words (ektos
   logou porneias) saving for the cause of fornication, which I occur in
   the first clause of an important text on marriage, were designedly or
   accidentally omitted in the second (Matth. v. 32.) Whosoever shall put
   away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to
   commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced
   committeth adultery; compare also Mark x. 11, 12). 2. The Scripture
   argument in the second instance is almost invisible, being drawn from a
   passage the meaning of which is irrelevant (Lev. xviii. 18, Neither
   shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover her
   nakedness beside the other in her lifetime'); and transferred from the
   Polygamy which prevailed in Eastern countries 3000 years ago to the
   Monogamy of the nineteenth century and the Christian Church, in spite
   of the custom and tradition of the Jews and the analogy of the
   brother's widow. 3. In the third case the word (theopneustos) given by
   inspiration of God' is spoken of the Old Testament, and is assumed to
   apply to the New, including that Epistle in which the expression occurs
   (2 Tim. iii. 16.) 4. In the fourth example the words used are
   mysterious (John xiv. 26; xvi. 15), and seem to come out of the depths
   of a divine consciousness; they have sometimes, however, received a
   more exact meaning than they would truly bear; what is spoken in a
   figure is construed with the severity of a logical statement, while
   passages of an opposite tenour are overlooked or set aside. 5. In the
   fifth instance, the mere mention of a family of a jailer at Philippi
   who was baptized (he and all his,' Acts xvi. 33), has led to the
   inference that in this family there were probably young children, and
   hence that infant baptism is, first, permissive, secondly, obligatory.
   6. In the sixth case the chief stress of the argument from Scripture
   turns on the occurrence of the word (episkopos) bishop in the Epistles
   to Timothy and Titus, which is assisted by a supposed analogy between
   the position of the Apostles and of their successors; although the term
   bishop is clearly used in the passages referred to as well as in other
   parts of the New Testament indistinguishably from Presbyter, and the
   magisterial authority of bishops in after ages is unlike rather than
   like the personal authority of the Apostles in the beginning of the
   Gospel. The further development of Episcopacy into Apostolical
   succession has often been rested on the promise, Lo, I am with you
   alway, even to the end of the world.' 7. In the seventh case the
   precepts of order which are addressed in the Epistle to the fifth
   monarchy men of those days,' are transferred to a duty of obedience to
   hereditary princes; the fact of the house of David, the Lord's
   anointed' sitting on the throne of Israel is converted into a principle
   for all times and countries. And the higher lesson which our Saviour
   teaches: Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's,' that is to
   say, Render unto all their due, and to God above all,' is spoiled by
   being made into a precept of political subjection. 8. Lastly, the
   justice of God who rewardeth every man according to his works,' and the
   Christian scheme of redemption has been staked on two figurative
   expressions of St. Paul to which there is no parallel in any other part
   of Scripture (1 Corinthians xv. 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in
   Christ shall all be made alive,' and the corresponding passage in
   Romans v. 12); notwithstanding the declaration of the Old Testament as
   also of the New, Every soul shall bear its own iniquity,' and neither
   this man sinned nor his parents.' It is not necessary for our purpose
   to engage further in the matters of dispute which have arisen by the
   way in attempting to illustrate the general argument. Yet to avoid
   misconception it may be remarked that many of the principles, rules, or
   truths mentioned, as for example, Infant Baptism, or the Episcopal Form
   of Church Government, have sufficient grounds; the weakness is the
   attempt to derive them from Scripture.

   With this minute and rigid enforcement of the words of Scripture in
   passages where the ideas expressed in them either really or apparently
   agree with received opinions or institutions, there remains to be
   contrasted the neglect, or in some instances the misinterpretation of
   other words which are not equally in harmony with the spirit of the
   age. In many of our Lord's discourses he speaks of the blessedness of
   povrty:' of the hardness which they that have riches will experience in
   attaining eternal life.' It is easier for a camel to go through a
   needle's eye,' and Son, thou in they lifetime receivedst thy good
   things,' and again, One thing thou lackest, go sell all that thou
   hast.' Precepts like these do not appeal to our own experience of life;
   they are unlike anything that we see around us at the present day, even
   among good men; to some among us they will recall the remarkable saying
   of Lessing,--that the Christian religion had tried for eighteen
   centuries; the religion of Christ remained to be tried.' To take them
   literally would be injurious to ourselves and to society (at least, so
   we think). Religious sects or who have seized this aspect of
   Christianity have come to no good, and have often ended in
   extravagance. It will not do to go into the world saying Woe unto you,
   ye rich men,' or on entering a noble mansion to repeat the
   denunciations of the prophet about cedar and vermillion,' or on being
   shown the prospect of a magnificent estate to cry out Woe unto them
   that lay field to field that they may be placed alone in the midst of
   the earth.' Times have altered, we say, since these denunciations were
   uttered; what appeared to the Prophet or Apostle a violation of the
   appointment of Providence has now become a part of it. It will not do
   to make a great supper, and mingle at the same board the two ends of
   society, as modern phraseology calls them, fetching in the poor, the
   maimed, the lame, the blind,' to fill the vacant places of noble
   guests. That would be eccentric in modern times, and even hurtful.
   Neither is it suitable for us to wash one another's feet, or to perform
   any other menial office, because our Lord set us the example. The
   customs of society do not admit it; no good would done by it, and
   singularity is of itself an evil. Well, then, are the precepts of
   Christ not to be obeyed? Perhaps in their fullest sense they cannot be
   obeyed. But at any rate they are not to be explained away; the standard
   of Christ is not to be lowered to ordinary Christian life, because
   ordinary Christian life cannot rise, even in good men, to the standard
   of Christ. And there may be standing aamong us' some one in ten
   thousand whom we know not,' in whom there is such a divine union of
   charity and prudence that he is most blest in the entire fulfilment of
   the precept--Go sell all that thou hast,'--which to obey literally in
   other cases would be evil, and not good. Many there have been,
   doubtless (not one or two only), who have given all that they had on
   earth to their family or friends--the poor servant casting her two
   mites into the treasury,' denying herself the ordinary comforts of life
   for the sake of an erring parent or brother; that is not probably an
   uncommon case, and as near an approach as in this life we make to
   heaven. And there may be some one or two rare natures in the world in
   whom there is such a divine courtesy, such a gentleness and dignity of
   soul, that differences of rank seem to vanish before them, and they
   look upon the face of others, even of their own servants and
   dependents, only as they are in the sight of God and will be in His
   kingdom. And there may be some tender and delicate woman among us, who
   feels that she has a divine vocation to fulfil the most repulsive
   offices towards the dying inmates of a hospital, or the soldier
   perishing in a foreign land. Whether such examples of self-sacrifice
   are good or evil, must depend, not altogether on social or economical
   principles, but on the spirit of those who offer them, and the power
   which they have in themselves of making all things kin.' And even if
   the ideal itself were not carried out by us in practice, it has
   nevertheless what may be termed a truth of feeling. Let them be as eh h
   g. Let them that have riches be as though they had them not.' Let the
   rich man wear the load lightly; he will one day fold them up as a
   vesture.' Let not the refinement of society make us forget that it is
   not the refined only who are received into the kingdom of God; nor the
   daintiness of life hide from us the bodily evils of which the rich man
   and Lazarus are alike heirs. Thoughts such as these have the power to
   reunite us to our fellow-creatures from whom the accidents of birth,
   position, wealth have separated us; they soften our hearts towards
   them, when divided not only by vice and ignorance, but what is even a
   greater barrier, difference of manners and associations. For if there
   be anything in our own fortune superior to that of others, instead of
   idolizing or cherishing it in the blood, the Gospel would have us cast
   it from us; and if there be anything mean or despised in those with
   whom we have to do, the Gospel would have us regard such as friends and
   brethren, yea, even as having the person of Christ.

   Another instance of apparent, if not real neglect of the precepts of
   Scripture, is furnished by the commandment against swearing. No precept
   about divorce is so plain, so universal, so exclusive as this; Swear
   not at all.' Yet we all know how the custom of Christian countries has
   modified this counsel of perfection' which was uttered by the Saviour.
   This is the more remarkable because in this case the precept is not, as
   in the former, practically impossible of fulfilment or even difficult.
   And yet in this instance again, the body who have endeavoured to follow
   more nearly the letter of our Lord's commandment, seem to have gone
   against the common sense of the Christian world. Or to add one more
   example: Who, that hears of the Sabbatarianism, as it is called, of
   some Protestant countries, would imagine that the Author of our
   religion had cautioned his disciples, not against the violation of the
   Sabbath, but only against its formal and Pharisaical observance; or
   that the chiefest of the Apostles had warned the Colossians to Let no
   man judge them in respect of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days.'
   (ii. 16.)

   The neglect of another class of passages is even more surprising, the
   precepts contained in them being quite practicable and in harmony with
   the existing state of the world. In this instance it seems as if
   religious teachers had failed to gather those principles of which they
   stood most in need. Think ye that those eighteen upon whom the tower of
   Siloam fell?' is the characteristic lesson of the Gospel on the
   occasion of any sudden visitation. Yet it is another reading of such
   calamities that is commonly insisted upon. The observation is seldom
   made respecting the parable of the good Samaritan, that the true
   neighbour is also a person of a different religion. The words, Forbid
   him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that
   can lightly speak evil of me,' are often said to have no application to
   sectarian differences in the present day, when the Church is
   established and miracles have ceased. The conduct of our Lord to the
   woman taken in adultery, though not intended for our imitation always,
   yet affords a painful contrast to the excessive severity with which
   even a Christian society punishes the errors of women. The boldness
   with which St. Paul applies the principle of individual judgment, Let
   every man be fully persuaded in his mind,' as exhibited also in the
   words quoted above, Let no man judge you in respect of the new moon, or
   of the sabbath-days,' is far greater than would be allowed in the
   present age. Lastly, that the tenet of the damnation of the heathen
   should ever have prevailed in the Christian world, or that the
   damnation of Catholics should have been a received opinion among
   Protestants, implies a strange forgetfulness of such passages as Romans
   ii. 1-16. Who rewardeth every man according to his work; and When the
   Gentiles, which know not the law, do by nature the things contained in
   the law,' &c. What a difference between the simple statement which the
   Apostle makes of the justice of God and of uncovenanted mercies' or
   invincible ignorance' of theologians half reluctant to give up, yet
   afraid to maintain the advantage of denying salvation to those are
   extra palum Ecclesiæ!'

   The same habit of silence or misinterpretation extends to words or
   statements of Scripture in which doctrines are thought to be
   interested. When maintaining the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, we
   do not readily recall the verse, of that hour knoweth no man, no not
   the Angels of God, neither the Son, but the Father.' (Mark xiii. 30.)
   The temper or feeling which led St. Ambrose to doubt the genuineness of
   the words marked in italics, leads Christians in our own day to pass
   them over. We are scarcely just to the Millenarians or to those who
   maintain the continuance miracles or spiritual gifts in the Christian
   Church, in not admitting the degree of support which is afforded to
   their views by many passages of Scripture. The same remark applies to
   the Predestinarian controversy; the Calvinist is often hardly dealt
   with, in being deprived of his real standing ground in the third and
   ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. And the Protestant who
   thinks himself bound to prove from Scripture the very details of
   doctrine or discipline which are maintained in his Church, is often
   obliged to have recourse to harsh methods, and sometimes to deny
   appearances which seem to favour some particular tenet of Roman
   Catholicism. (Matthew xvi. 18, 19; xviii. 18; 1 Cor. iii. 15.) The
   Roman Catholic, on the other hand, scarcely observes that nearly all
   the distinctive articles of his creed are wanting in the New Testament;
   the Calvinist in fact ignores almost the whole of the sacred volume for
   the sake of a few verses. The truth is, that in seeking to prove our
   own opinions out of common Scripture, we are constantly falling into
   the common fallacy of opening our eyes to one class of facts and
   closing them to another. The favourite verses shine like stars, while
   the rest of the page is thrown into the shade.

   Nor indeed is it easy to say what is the meaning of proving a doctrine
   from Scripture.' For when we demand logical equivalents and similarity
   of circumstances, when we balance adverse statements, St. James and St.
   Paul, the New Testament with the Old, it will be hard to demonstrate
   from Scripture any complex system either of doctrine or practice. The
   Bible is not a book of statutes in which words have been chosen to
   cover the multitude of cases, but in the greater portion of it,
   especially the Gospels and Epistles, like a man talking to his friend.'
   Nay, more, it is a book written in the East, which is in some degree
   liable to be misunderstood, because it speaks the language and has the
   feeling of Eastern lands. Nor can we readily determine in explaining
   the words of our Lord or of St. Paul, how much (even of some of the
   passages just quoted) is to be attributed to Oriental modes of speech.
   Expressions which would be regarded as rhetorical exaggerations in the
   Western world are the natural vehicles of thought to an Eastern people.
   How great then must be the confusion where an attempt is made to draw
   out these Oriental modes with the severity of a philosophical or legal
   argument! Is it not such a use of the words of Christ which he himself
   rebukes when he says, It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh
   profiteth nothing.' (John vi. 52, 63.)

   There is a further way in which the language of creeds and liturgies as
   well as the ordinary theological use of terms exercises a disturbing
   influence on the interpretation of Scripture. Words which occur in
   Scripture are singled out and orated in systems like stones taken out
   of an old building and put into a new one. They acquire a technical
   meaning more or less divergent from the original one. It is obvious
   that their use in Scripture, and not their later and technical sense,
   must furnish the rule of interpretation. We should not have recourse to
   the meaning of a word in Polybius, for the explanation of its use in
   Plato, or to the turn of a sentence in Lycophron, to illustrate a
   construction of Æschylus. It is the same kind of anachronism which
   would interpret Scripture by the scholastic or theological use of the
   language of Scripture. It is remarkable that this use is indeed
   partial, that is to say it affects one class of words and not another.
   Love and truth, for example, have never been theological terms; grace
   and faith, on the other hand, always retain an association with the
   Pelagian or Lutheran controversies. Justification and inspiration are
   derived from verbs which occur in Scripture, and the later substantive
   has clearly affected the meaning of the original verb or verbal in the
   places where they occur. The remark might be further illustrated by the
   use of Scriptural language respecting the Sacraments, which has also
   had a reflex influence on its interpretation in many passages of
   Scripture especially in the Gospel of St. John. (John iii. 5; vi, 56,
   &c.) Minds which are familiar with the mystical doctrine of the
   Sacraments seem to see a reference to them in almost every place in the
   Old Testament as well as in the New, in which the words water,' or
   bread and wine' may happen to occur.

   Other questions meet us on the threshold of a different kind, which
   also affect therefore the interpretation of Scripture, and demand an
   answer. Is it admitted that the Scripture has one and only one true
   meaning? Or are we to follow the fathers into mystical and allegorical
   explanations? or with the majority of modern interpreters to confine
   ourselves to the double senses of prophecy, and the symbolism of the
   Gospel in the law? In either case, we assume what can never be proved,
   and an instrument is introduced of such subtlety and pliability as to
   make the Scriptures mean anything--Gallus in campanili,' as the
   Waldenses described it; the weathercock on the church tower,' which is
   turned hither and thither by every wind of doctrine. That the present
   age has grown out of the mystical methods of the early fathers is a
   part of its intellectual state. No one will now seek to find hidden
   meanings in the scarlet thread of Rahab, or the number of Abraham's
   followers, or in the little circumstance mentioned after the
   resurrection of the Saviour that St. Peter was the first to enter the
   sepulchre. To most educated persons in the nineteenth century, these
   applications of Scripture appear foolish. Yet is rather the excess of
   the method which provokes a smile than the method itself. For many
   remains of the mystical interpretation exist among ourselves; it is not
   the early fathers only who have read the Bible crosswise, or deciphered
   it as a book of symbols. And the uncertainty is the same in any part of
   Scripture if there is a departure from the plain and obvious meaning.
   If, for example, we alternate the verses in which our Lord speaks of
   the last things between the day of judgment and the destruction of
   Jerusalem; or, in the elder prophecies, which are the counterparts of
   these, make a corresponding division between the temporal and the
   spiritual Israel; or again if we attribute to the details of the
   Mosaical ritual a reference to the New Testament; or, once more,
   supposing the passage of the Red Sea to be regarded not merely as a
   figure of baptism, but as a pre-ordained type, the principle is
   conceded; there is no good reason why the scarlet thread of Rahab
   should not receive the explanation given to it by Clement. A little
   more or a little less of the method does not make the difference
   between certainty and uncertainty in the interpretation of Scripture.
   In whatever degree it is practised it is equally incapable of being
   reduced to any rule; it is the interpreter's fancy, and is likely to be
   not less but more dangerous and extravagant when it adds the charm of
   authority from its use in past ages.

   The question which has been suggested runs up into a more general one,
   the relation between the Old and New Testaments.' For the Old Testament
   will receive a different meaning accordingly as it is explained from
   itself or from the New. In the first case a careful and conscientious
   study of each one for itself is all that is required; in the second
   case the types and ceremonies of the law, perhaps the very facts and
   persons of the history, will be assumed to be predestined or made after
   a pattern corresponding to the things that were to be in the latter
   days. And this question of itself stirs another question respecting the
   interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. Is such interpretation
   to be regarded as the meaning of the original text, or an accommodation
   of it to the thoughts of other times?

   Our object is not to attempt here the determination of these questions,
   but to point out that they must be determined before any real progress
   can be made or any agreement arrived at in the interpretation of
   Scripture. With one more example of another kind we may close this part
   of the subject. The origin of the three first Gospels is an inquiry
   which has not been much considered by English theologians since the
   days of Bishop Marsh. The difficulty of the question has been sometimes
   misunderstood; the point being how there can be so much agreement in
   words, and so much disagreement both in words and facts; the double
   phenomenon is the real perplexity--how in short there can be all
   degrees of similarity and dissimilarity, the kind and degree of
   similarity being such as to make it necessary to suppose that large
   portions are copied from each other or from common documents; the
   dissimilarities being of a kind which seem to render impossible any
   knowledge in the authors of one another's writings. The most probable
   solution of this difficulty is that the tradition on which the three
   first Gospels are based was at first preserved orally, and slowly put
   together and written in the three forms which it assumed at a very
   early period, those forms being in some places, perhaps, modified by
   translation. It is not necessary to develope this hypothesis farther.
   The point to be noticed is, that whether this or some other theory be
   the true account (and some such account is demonstrably necessary), the
   assumption of such a theory, or rather the observation of the facts on
   which it rests, cannot but exercise an influence on interpretation. We
   can no longer speak of three independent witnesses of the Gospel
   narrative. Hence there follow some other consequences. (1.) There is no
   longer the same necessity as heretofore to reconcile inconsistent
   narratives; the harmony of the Gospels only means the parallelism of
   similar words. (2.) There is no longer any need to enforce everywhere
   the connexion of successive verses, for the same words will be found to
   occur in different connexions in the different Gospels. (3.) Nor can
   the designs attributed to their authors be regarded as the free
   handling of the same subject on different plans; the difference
   consisting chiefly in the occurrence or absence of local or verbal
   explanations or the addition or omission of certain passages. Lastly,
   it is evident that no weight can be given to traditional statements of
   facts about the authorship, as, for example, that respecting St. Mark
   being the interpreter of St. Peter, because the Fathers who have handed
   down these statements were ignorant or unobservant of the great fact,
   which is proved by internal evidence, that they are for the most part
   of common origin.

   Until these and the like questions are determined by interpreters, it
   is not possible that there should be agreement in the interpretation of
   Scripture. The Protestant and Catholic, the Unitarian and Trinitarian
   will continue to fight their battle on the ground Of the New Testament,
   The Preterists and Futurists, those who maintain that the roll of
   prophecies is completed in past history, or in the apostolical age;
   those who look forward to a long series of events which are yet to come
   [eis aphanes ton muthon anenenkon ouk echu elenchon], may alike claim
   the authority of the book of Daniel, or the Revelation. Apparent
   coincidences will always he discovered by those who want to find them.
   Where there is no critical interpretation of Scripture, there will be a
   mystical or rhetorical one. If words have more than one meaning; may
   have any meaning. Instead of being a rule of life or faith, Scripture
   becomes the expression of the ever-changing aspect of religious
   opinions. The un-changeable word of God, in the name of which we
   repose, is changed by each age and each generation in accordance with
   its passing fancy. The book in which we believe all religious truth to
   be contained, is the most uncertain of all books, because interpreted
   by arbitrary and uncertain methods.

   § 2.

   It is probable that some of the preceding statements may be censured as
   a wanton exposure of the difficulties of Scripture. It will be said
   that such inquiries are for the few, while the printed page lies open
   to the many, and that the obtrusion of them may offend some weaker
   brother, some half-educated or prejudiced soul, for whom,'
   nevertheless, in the touching language of St. Paul, Christ died.' A
   confusion of the heart and head may lead sensitive minds into a
   desertion of the principles of the Christian life, which are their own
   witness, because they are in doubt about facts which are really
   external to them. Great evil to character may sometimes ensue from such
   causes. No man can serve two' opinions without a sensible harm to his
   nature. The consciousness of this responsibility should be always
   present to writers on theology. But the responsibility is really
   two-fold; for there is a duty to speak the truth as well as a duty to
   withhold it. The voice of a majority of the clergy throughout the
   world, the half sceptical, half conservative instincts of many laymen,
   perhaps, also, individual interest, are in favour of the latter course;
   while a higher expediency pleads that honesty is the best policy,' and
   that truth alone makes free.' To this, it may be replied that truth is
   not truth to those who are unable to use it; no reasonable man would
   attempt to lay before the illiterate such a question as that concerning
   the origin of the Gospels. And yet it may be rejoined once more, the
   healthy tone of religion among the poor depends upon freedom of thought
   and inquiry among the educated. In this conflict of reasons, individual
   judgment must at last decide. That there has been no rude, or improper
   unveiling of the difficulties of Scripture in the preceding pages, is
   thought to be shown by the following considerations:

   First, that the difficulties referred to are very well know; they force
   themselves on the attention, not only of the student, but of every
   intelligent reader of the New Testament, whether in Greek or English.
   The treatment of such difficulties in theological works is no measure
   of public opinion respecting them. Thoughtful persons, whose minds have
   turned towards theology, are continually discovering that the critical
   observations which they make themselves have been made also by others
   apparently without concert. The truth is that they have been led to
   them by the same causes, and these again lie deep in the tendencies of
   education and literature in the present age. But no one is willing to
   break through the reticence which is observed on these subjects; hence
   a sort of smouldering scepticism. It is probable that the distrust is
   greatest at the time when the greatest efforts are made to conceal it.
   Doubt comes in at the window, when inquiry is denied at the door. The
   thoughts of able and highly educated young men almost always stray
   towards the first principles of things; it is a great injury to them,
   and tends to raise in their minds a sort of incurable suspicion, to
   find that there is one book of the fruit of the knowledge of which they
   are forbidden freely to taste, that is, the Bible. The same spirit
   renders the Christian minister almost powerless in the hands of his
   opponents. He can give no true answer to the mechanic or artizan who
   has either discovered by his mother-wit or who retails at second-hand
   the objections of critics; for he is unable to look at things as they
   truly are.

   Secondly, as the time has come when it is no longer possible to ignore
   the results of criticism, it is of importance that Christianity should
   be seen to be in harmony with them. That objections to some received
   views should be valid, and yet that they should be always held up as
   the objections of infidels, is a mischief to the Christian cause. It is
   a mischief that critical observations which any intelligent man can
   make for himself, should be ascribed to atheism or unbelief. It would
   be a strange and almost incredible thing that the Gospel, which at
   first made war only on the vices of mankind, should now be opposed to
   one of the highest and rarest of human virtues--the love of truth. And
   that in the present day the great object of Christianity should be, not
   to change the lives of men, but to prevent them from changing their
   opinions; that would be a singular inversion of the purposes for which
   Christ came into the world. The Christian religion is in a false
   position when all the tendencies of knowledge are opposed to it. Such a
   position cannot be long maintained, or can only end in the withdrawal
   of the educated classes from the influences of religion. It is a grave
   consideration whether we ourselves may not be in an earlier stage of
   the same religious dissolution, which seems to have gone further in
   Italy and France. The reason for thinking so is not to be sought in the
   external circumstances of our own or any other religious communion, but
   in the progress of ideas with which Christian teachers seem to be ill
   at ease. Time was when the Gospel was before the age; when it breathed
   a new life into a decaying world--when the difficulties of Christianity
   were difficulties of the heart only, and the highest minds found in its
   truths not only the rule of their lives, but a well-spring of
   intellectual delight. Is it to be held a thing impossible that the
   Christian religion, instead of shrinking into itself, may again embrace
   the thoughts of men upon the earth? Or is it true that since the
   Reformation all intellect has gone the other way?' and that in
   Protestant countries reconciliation is as hopeless as Protestants
   commonly believe to be the case in Catholic.

   Those who hold the possibility of such a reconcilement or restoration
   of belief, are anxious to disengage Christianity from all suspicion of
   disguise or unfairness, They wish to preserve the historical use of
   Scripture as the continuous witness in all ages of the higher things in
   the heart of man, as the inspired source of truth and the way to the
   better life. They are willing to take away some of the external
   supports, because they are not needed and do harm; also, because they
   interfere with the meaning. They have a faith, not that after a period
   of transition all things will remain just as they were before, but that
   they will all come round again to the use of man and to the glory of
   God. When interpreted like any other book, by the same rules of
   evidence and the same canons of criticism, the Bible will still remain
   unlike any other book; its beauty will be freshly seen, as of a picture
   which is restored after many ages to its original state; it will create
   a new interest and make for itself a new kind of authority by the life
   which is in it. It will be a spirit and not a letter; as it was in the
   beginning, having an influence like that of the spoken word, or the
   book newly found. The purer the light in the human heart, the more it
   will have an expression of itself in the mind of Christ; the greater
   the knowledge of the development of man, the truer will be the insight
   gained into the increasing purpose' of revelation. In which also the
   individual soul has a practical part, finding a sympathy with its own
   imperfect feelings, in the broken utterance of the Psalmist or the
   Prophet as well as in the fulness of Christ. The harmony between
   Scripture and the life of man, in all its stages, may be far greater
   than appears at present. No one can form any notion from what we see
   around us, of the power which Christianity might have if it were at one
   with the conscience of man, and not at variance with his intellectual
   convictions. There, a world weary of the heat and dust of
   controversy--of speculations about God and man--weary too of the
   rapidity of its own motion, would return home and find rest.

   But for the faith that the Gospel might win again the minds of
   intellectual men, it would be better to leave religion to itself,
   instead of attempting to draw them together. Other walks in literature
   have peace and pleasure and profit; the path of the critical
   Interpreter of Scripture is almost always a thorny one in England. It
   is not worth while for any one to enter upon it who is not supported by
   a sense that he has a Christian and moral object. For although an
   Interpreter of Scripture in modern times will hardly say with the
   emphasis of the Apostle, Woe is me, if I speak not the truth without
   regard to consequences,' yet he too may feel it a matter of duty not to
   conceal the things which he knows. He does not hide the discrepancies
   of Scripture, because the acknowledgment of them is the first step
   towards agreement among interpreters. He would restore the original
   meaning, because seven other' meanings take the place of it; the book
   is made the sport of opinion and the instrument of perversion of life.
   He would take the excuses of the head out of the way of the heart;
   there is hope too that by drawing Christians together on the ground of
   Scripture, he may also draw them nearer to one another. He is not
   afraid that inquiries, which have for their object the truth, can ever
   be displeasing to the God of truth; or that the Word of God is in any
   such sense a word as to be hurt by investigations into its human origin
   and conception.

   It may be thought another ungracious aspect of the preceding remarks,
   that they cast a slight upon the interpreters of Scripture in former
   ages. The early Fathers, the Roman Catholic mystical writers, the Swiss
   and German Reformers, the Nonconformist divines, have qualities for
   which we look in vain among ourselves; they throw an intensity of light
   upon the page of Scripture which we nowhere find in modern
   commentaries. But it is not the light of interpretation. They have a
   faith which seems indeed to have grown dim now-a-days, but that faith
   is not drawn from the study of Scripture; it is the element in which
   their own mind moves which overflows on the meaning of the text. The
   words of Scripture suggest to them their own thoughts or feelings. They
   are preachers, or in the New Testament sense of the word, prophets
   rather than interpreters. There is nothing in such a view derogatory to
   the saints and doctors of former ages. That Aquinas or Bernard did not
   shake themselves free from the mystical method of the Patristic times,
   or the Scholastic one which was more peculiarly their own; that Luther
   and Calvin read the Scriptures in connexion with the ideas which were
   kindling in the mind of their age, and the events which were passing
   before their eyes, these and similar remarks are not to be construed as
   depreciatory of the genius or learning of famous men of old; they
   relate only to their interpretation of Scripture, in which it is no
   slight upon them to maintain that they were not before their day.

   What remains may be comprised in a few precepts, or rather is the
   expansion of a single one. Interpret the Scripture like any other book.
   There are many respects in which Scripture is unlike any other book;
   these will appear in the results of such an interpretation. The first
   step is to know the meaning, and this can only be done in the same
   careful and impartial way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles or
   of Plato. The subordinate principles which flow out of this general one
   will also be gathered from the observation of Scripture. No other
   science of Hermeneutics is possible but an inductive one, that is to
   say, one based on the language and thoughts and narrations of the
   sacred writers. And it would be well to carry the theory of
   interpretation no further than in the case of other works. Excessive
   system tends to create an impression that the meaning of Scripture is
   out of our reach, or is to be attained in some other way than by the
   exercise of manly sense and industry. Who would write a bulky treatise
   about the method to be pursued in interpreting Plato or Sophocles? Let
   us not set out on our journey so heavily equipped that there is little
   chance of our arriving at the end of it. The method creates itself as
   we go on, beginning only with a few reflections directed against plain
   errors. Such reflections are the rules of common sense, which we
   acknowledge with respect to other works written in dead languages:
   without pretending to novelty they may help us to return to nature' in
   the study of the sacred writings.

   First, it may be laid down that Scripture has one meaning--the meaning
   which it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered
   or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it. Another view
   may be easier or more familiar to us, seeming to receive a light and
   interest from the circumstances of our own age. But such accommodation
   of the text must be laid aside by the interpreter, whose business is to
   place himself as nearly as possible in the position of the sacred
   writer. That is no easy task--to call up the inner and outer life of
   the contemporaries of our Saviour; to follow the abrupt and involved
   utterance of St. Paul or one of the old Prophets; to trace the meaning
   of words when language first become Christian. He will often have to
   choose the more difficult interpretation (Galatians ii. 20; Romans iii.
   15, &c.), and to refuse one more in agreement with received opinions,
   because the latter is less true to the style and time of the author. He
   may incur the charge of singularity, or confusion of ideas, or
   ignorance of Greek, from a misunderstanding of the peculiarity of the
   subject in the person who the charge. For if it be said that the
   translation of some Greek words is contrary to the usages of grammar
   (Galatians iv. 3), that is not in every instance to be denied; the
   point is whether the usages of grammar are always observed. Or if it be
   objected to some interpretation of Scripture that it is difficult and
   perplexing, the answer is--that may very well be--it is the fact,'
   arising out of differences in the modes of thought of other times, or
   irregularities in the use of language which no art of the interpreter
   can evade. One consideration should be borne in mind, that the Bible is
   the only book in the world written in different styles and at many
   different times, which is in the hands of persons of all degrees of
   knowledge and education. The benefit of this outweighs the evil, yet
   the evil should be admitted--namely, that it leads to a hasty and
   partial interpretation of Scripture, which often obscures the true one.
   A sort of conflict arises between scientific criticism and popular
   opinion. The indiscriminate use of Scripture has a further tendency to
   maintain erroneous readings or translations; some which are allowed to
   be such by scholars have been stereotyped in the mind of the English
   reader; and it becomes almost a political question how far we can
   venture to disturb them.

   There are difficulties of another kind in many parts of Scripture, the
   depth and inwardness of which require a measure of the same qualities
   in the interpreter himself. There are notes struck in places, which
   like some discoveries of science have sounded before their time; and
   only after many days have been caught up and found a response on the
   earth. There are germs of truth which after thousands of years have
   never yet taken root in the world. There are lessons in the Prophets
   which, however simple, mankind hare not yet learned even in theory; and
   which the complexity of society rather tends to hide; aspects of human
   life in Job and Ecclesiastes which have a truth of desolation about
   them which we faintly realize in ordinary circumstances. It is,
   perhaps, the greatest difficulty of all to enter into the meaning of
   the words of Christ--so gentle, so human, so divine, neither adding to
   them nor marring their simplicity. The attempt to illustrate or draw
   them out in detail, even to guard against their abuse, is apt to
   disturb the balance of truth. The interpreter needs nothing short of
   fashioning' in himself the image of the mind of Christ. He has to be
   born again into a new spiritual or intellectual world, from which the
   thoughts of this world are shut out. It is one of the highest tasks on
   which the labour of a life can be spent, to bring the words of Christ a
   little nearer the heart of man.

   But while acknowledging this inexhaustible or infinite character of the
   sacred writings, it does not, therefore, follow that we are willing to
   admit of hidden or mysterious meanings in them (in the same way we
   recognise the wonders and complexity of the laws of nature to be far
   beyond what eye has seen or knowledge reached, yet it is not therefore
   to be supposed that we acknowledge the existence of some other laws
   different in kind from those we know which are incapable of
   philosophical analysis). In like manner we have no reason to attribute
   to the Prophet or Evangelist any second or hidden sense different from
   that which appears on the surface. All that the Prophet meant may not
   have been consciously present to his mind; there were depths which to
   himself also were but half revealed. He beheld the fortunes of Israel
   passing into the heavens; the temporal kingdom was fading into an
   eternal one. It is not to be supposed that what he saw at a distance
   only was clearly defined to him; or that the universal truth which was
   appearing and reappearing in the history of the surrounding world took
   a purely spiritual or abstract form in his mind, There is a sense in
   which we may still say with Lord Bacon, that the words of prophecy are
   to be interpreted as the words of one with whom a thousand years are as
   one day, and one day as a thousand years.' But that is no reason for
   turning days into years, or for interpreting the things that must
   shortly come to pass' in the book of Revelation, as the events of
   modern history, or for separating the day of judgment from the
   destruction of Jerusalem in the Gospels. The double meaning which is
   given to our Saviour's discourse respecting the last things is not that
   form of eternity' of which Lord Bacon speaks; it resembles rather the
   doubling of an object when seen through glasses placed at different
   angles. It is true also that there are types in Scripture which were
   regarded as such by the Jews themselves, as for example, the scapegoat,
   or the paschal lamb. But that is no proof of all outward ceremonies
   being types when Scripture is silent;--(if we assume the New Testament
   as a tradition running parallel with the Old, may not the Roman
   Catholic assume with equal reason a tradition running parallel with the
   New?) Prophetic symbols, again, have often the same meaning in
   different places (e g., the four beasts or living creatures, the
   colours white or red); the reason is that this meaning is derived from
   some natural association (as of fruitfulness, purity, or the like); or
   again, they are borrowed in some of the later prophecies from earlier
   ones; we are not, therefore, justified in supposing any hidden
   connexion in the prophecies where they occur. Neither is there any
   ground for assuming design of any other kind in Scripture any more than
   in Plato or Homer. Wherever there is beauty and order, there is design;
   but there is no proof of any artificial design, such as is often traced
   by the Fathers, in the relation of the several parts of a book, or of
   the several books to each other. That is one of those mischievous
   notions which enables us, under the disguise of reverence, to make
   Scripture mean what we please. Nothing that can be said of the
   greatness or sublimity, or truth, or depth, or tenderness, of many
   passages, is too much. But that greatness is of a simple kind; it is
   not increased by double senses, or systems of types, or elaborate
   structure, or design. If every sentence was a mystery, every word a
   riddle every letter a symbol, that would not make the Scriptures more
   worthy of a Divine author; it is a heathenish or Rabbinical fancy which
   reads them in this way. Such complexity would not place them above but
   below human compositions in general; for it would deprive them of the
   ordinary intelligibleness of human language. It is not for a Christian
   theologian to say that words were given to mankind to conceal their
   thoughts, neither was revelation given them to conceal the Divine.

   The second rule is an application of the general principle; interpret
   Scripture from itself' as in other respects, like any other book
   written in an age and country of which little or no other literature
   survives, and about which we know almost nothing except what is derived
   from its pages. Not that all the parts of Scripture are to be regarded
   as an indistinguishable mass. The Old Testament is not to be identified
   with the New, nor the Law with the Prophets, nor the Gospels with the
   Epistles, nor the Epistles of St. Paul to be violently harmonised with
   the Epistle of St James. Each writer, each successive age, has
   characteristics of its own, as strongly marked, or more strongly, than
   those which are found in the authors or periods of classical
   literature. These differences are not to be lost in the idea of a
   Spirit from whom they proceed or by which they were overruled. And
   therefore, illustration of one part of Scripture by another should be
   confined to writings of the same age and the same authors, except where
   the writings of different ages or persons offer obvious similarities.
   It may be said further that illustration should be chiefly derived, not
   only from the same author, but from the same writing, or from one of
   the same period of his life. For example, the comparison of St. John
   and the synoptic' Gospels, or of the Gospel of St. John with the
   Revelation of St. John, will tend rather to confuse than to elucidate
   the meaning of either; while, on the other hand, the comparison of the
   Prophets with one another, and with the Psalms, offers many valuable
   helps and lights to the interpreter. Again, the connexion between the
   Epistles written by the Apostle St. Paul about the same time (e.g.
   Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians,--Colossians, Philippians,
   Ephesians,--compared with Romans, Colossians,--Ephesians, Galatians,
   &c.,) is far closer than of Epistles which are separated by an interval
   of only a few years.

   But supposing all this to be understood, and that by the interpretation
   of Scripture from itself is meant a real interpretation of like by
   like, it may be asked, what is it that we gain from a minute comparison
   of a particular author or writing? The indiscriminate use of parallel
   passages taken from one end of Scripture and applied to the other
   (except so far as earlier compositions may have afforded the material
   or the form of later ones) is useless and uncritical. The uneducated,
   or imperfectly educated person who looks out the marginal references of
   the English Bible, imagining himself in this way to gain a clearer
   insight into the Divine meaning, is really following the religious
   associations of his own mind. Even the critical use of parallel
   passages is not without danger. For are we to conclude that an author
   meant in one place what he says in another? Shall we venture to mend a
   corrupt phrase on the model of some other phrase, which memory,
   prevailing over judgment, calls up and thrusts into the text? It is
   this fallacy which has filled the pages of classical writers with
   useless and unfounded emendations.

   The meaning of the Canon Non nisi ex Scripturâ Scripturam potes
   interpretari,' is only this, That we cannot understand Scripture
   without becoming familiar with it.' Scripture is a world by itself,
   from which we must exclude foreign influences, whether theological or
   classical. To get inside that world is an effort of thought and
   imagination, requiring the sense of a poet as well as a
   critic--demanding much more than learning a degree of original power
   and intensity of mind. Any one who, instead of burying himself in the
   pages of the commentators, would learn the sacred writings by heart,
   and paraphrase them in English, will probably make a nearer approach to
   their true meaning that he would gather from any commentary. The
   intelligent mind will ask its own questions, and find for the most part
   its own answers. The true use of interpretation is to get rid of
   interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the author. When the
   meaning of Greek words is once known, the young student has almost all
   the real materials which are possessed by the greatest Biblical
   scholar, in the book itself. For almost our whole knowledge of the
   history of the Jews is derived from the Old Testament and the
   Apocryphal books, and almost our whole knowledge of the life of Christ
   and of the Apostolical age is derived from the New; whatever is added
   to them is either conjecture, or very slight topographical or
   chronological illustration. For this reason the rule given above, which
   is applicable to all books, is applicable to the New Testament more
   than any other.

   Yet in this consideration of the separate books of Scripture it is not
   to be forgotten that they have also a sort of continuity. We make a
   separate study of the subject, the mode of thought, in some degree also
   of the language of each book. And at length the idea arises in our
   minds of a common literature, a pervading life, an overruling law. It
   may be compared to the effect of some natural scene in which we
   suddenly perceive a harmony or picture, or to the imperfect appearance
   of design which suggests itself in looking at the surface of the globe.
   That is to say, there is nothing miraculous or artificial in the
   arrangement of the books of Scripture; it is the result, not the
   design, which appears in them when bound in the same volume. Or if we
   like so to say, there is design, but a natural design which is revealed
   to after ages. Such continuity or design is best expressed under some
   notion of progress or growth, not regular, however, but with broken and
   imperfect stages, which the want of knowledge prevents our minutely
   defining. The great truth of the unity of God was there from the first;
   slowly as the morning broke in the heavens, like some central light, it
   filled and afterwards dispersed the mists of human passion in which it
   was itself enveloped. A change passes over the Jewish religion from
   fear to love, from power to wisdom, from the justice of God to the
   mercy of God, from the nation to the individual, from this world to
   another; from the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the
   children, to every soul shall bear its own iniquity;' from the fire,
   the earthquake, and the storm, to the still small voice. There never
   was a time after the deliverance from Egypt, in which the Jewish people
   did not bear a kind of witness against the cruelty and licentiousness
   of the surrounding tribes. In the decline of the monarchy, as the
   kingdom itself was sinking under foreign conquerors, whether springing
   from contact with the outer world, or from some reaction within, the
   undergrowth of morality gathers strength; first, in th anticipation of
   prophecy, secondly, like a green plant in the hollow rind of
   Pharisaism,--and individuals pray and commune with God each one for
   himself. At length the tree of life blossoms; the faith in immortality
   which had hitherto slumbered in the heart of man, intimated only in
   doubtful words (2 Sam. xii. 23; Psalm xvii. 15), or beaming for an
   instant in dark places (Job xix. 25), has become the prevailing belief.

   There is an interval in the Jewish annals which we often exclude from
   our thoughts, because it has no record in the canonical
   writings--extending over about four hundred years, from the last of the
   prophets of the Old Testament to the forerunner of Christ in the New.
   This interval, about which we know so little, which is regarded by many
   as a portion of secular rather than of sacred history, was nevertheless
   as fruitful in religious changes as any similar period which preceded.
   The establishment of the Jewish sects, and the wars of the Maccabees,
   probably exercised as great an influence on Judaism as the captivity
   itself. A third influence was that of the Alexandrian literature, which
   was attracting the Jewish intellect, at the same time that the Galilæan
   zealot was tearing the nation in pieces with the doctrine that it was
   lawful to call no man master but God.' In contrast with that wild
   fanaticism as well as with the proud Pharisee, came One most unlike all
   that had been before, as the kings or rulers of mankind. In an age
   which was the victim of its own passions, the creature of its own
   circumstances, the slave of its own degenerate religion, our Saviour
   taught a lesson absolutely free from all the influences of a
   surrounding world. He made the last perfect revelation of God to man; a
   revelation not indeed immediately applicable to the state of society or
   the world, but in its truth and purity inexhaustible by the after
   generations men. And of the first application of the truth which he
   taught as a counsel of perfection to the actual circumstances of
   mankind, we have the example in the Epistles.

   Such a general conception of growth or development in Scripture,
   beginning with the truth of the Unity of God in the earliest books and
   ending with the perfection of Christ, naturally springs up in our minds
   in the perusal of the sacred writings. It is a notion of value to the
   interpreter, for it enables him at the same time to grasp the whole and
   distinguish the parts. It saves him from the necessity of maintaining
   that the Old Testament is one and the same everywhere; that the books
   of Moses contain truths or precepts, such as the duty of prayer or the
   faith in immortality, or the spiritual interpretation of sacrifice,
   which no one has ever seen there. It leaves him room enough to admit
   all the facts of the case. No longer is he required to defend or to
   explain away David's imprecations against his enemies, or his
   injunctions to Solomon, any more than his sin in the matter of Uriah.
   Nor is he hampered with a theory of accommodation. Still the sense of
   the increasing purpose which through the ages ran' is present to him,
   nowhere else continuously discernible or ending in a divine perfection.
   Nowhere else is there found the same interpenetration of the political
   and religious element--a whole nation, though never good for much at
   any time,' possessed with the conviction that it was living in the face
   of God--in whom the Sun of righteousness shone upon the corruption of
   an Eastern nature--the fewest of all people,' yet bearing the greatest
   part in the education of the world. Nowhere else among the teachers and
   benefactors of mankind is there any form like His, in whom the desire
   of the nation is fulfilled, and not of that nation only,' but of all
   mankind, whom He restores to His Father and their Father, to His God
   and their God.

   Such a growth or development may be regarded as a kind of progress from
   childhood to manhood. In the child there is an anticipation of truth;
   his reason is latent in the form of feeling; many words are used by him
   which he imperfectly understands; he is led by temporal promises,
   believing that to be good is to be happy always; he is pleased by
   marvels and has vague terrors. He is confined to a spot of earth, and
   lives in a sort of prison of sense, yet is bursting also with a fulness
   of childish life; he imagines God to be like a human father, only
   greater and more awful; he is easily impressed with solemn thoughts,
   but soon rises up to play' with other children. It is observable that
   his ideas of right and wrong are very simple, hardly extending to
   another life; they consist chiefly in obedience to his parents, whose
   word is his law. As he grows older he mixes more and more with others;
   first with one or two who have a great influence in the direction of
   his mind. At length the world opens upon him; another work of education
   begins; and he learns to discern more truly the meaning of things and
   his relation to men in general. (You may complete the image, by
   supposing that there was a time in his early days when he was a
   helpless outcast in the land of Egypt and the house of bondage). And as
   he arrives at manhood he reflects on his former years, the progress of
   his education, the hardships of his infancy, the home of his youth (the
   thought of which is ineffaceable in after life), and he now understands
   that all this was but a preparation for another state of being, in
   which he is to play a part for himself. And once more in age you may
   imagine him like the patriarch looking back on the entire past, which
   he reads anew, perceiving that the events of life had a purpose or
   result which was not seen at the time; they seem to him bound each to
   each by natural piety.'

   Which things are an allegory,' the particulars of which any one may
   interpret for himself. For the child born after the flesh is the symbol
   of the child born after the Spirit. The law was a schoolmaster to bring
   men to Christ,' and now we are under a schoolmaster' no longer. The
   anticipation of truth which came from without to the childhood or youth
   of the human race is witnessed to within; the revelation of God is not
   lost but renewed in the heart and understanding of the man. Experience
   has taught us the application of the lesson in a wider sphere. And many
   influences have combined to form the after life' of the world. When at
   the close (shall we say) of a great period in the history of man, we
   cast our eyes back on the course of events, from the angel of his
   presence in the wilderness' to the multitude of peoples, nations,
   languages, who are being drawn together by His Providence--from the
   simplicity of the pastoral state in the dawn of the world's day, to all
   the elements of civilization and knowledge which are beginning to meet
   and mingle in a common life, we also understand that we are no longer
   in our early home, to which, nevertheless, we fondly look; and that the
   end is yet unseen, and the purposes of God towards the human race only
   half revealed. And to turn once more to the Interpreter of Scripture,
   he too feels that the continuous growth of revelation which he traces
   in the Old and New Testament, is a part of a larger whole extending
   over the earth and reaching to another world.

   § 3.

   Scripture has an inner life or soul; it has also an outward body or
   form. That form is language, which imperfectly expresses our common
   notions, much more those higher truths which religion teaches. At the
   time when our Saviour came into the world the Greek language was itself
   in a state of degeneracy and decay. It had lost its poetic force, and
   was ceasing to have the sway over the mind which classical Greek once
   held. That is a more important revolution in the mental history of
   mankind, than we easily conceive in modern times, when all languages
   sit loosely on thought, and the peculiarities, or idiosyncrasies of one
   are corrected by our knowledge of another. It may be numbered among the
   causes which favoured the growth of Christianity. That degeneracy was a
   preparation for the Gospel--the decaying soil in which the new elements
   of life were to come forth--the beginning of another state of man, in
   which language and mythology and philosophy were no longer to exert the
   same constraining power as in the ancient world. The civilised portion
   of mankind were becoming of one speech, the diffusion of which along
   the shores of the Mediterranean sea made a way for the entrance of
   Christianity into the human understanding, just as the Roman empire
   prepared the framework of its outward history. The first of all
   languages, for glory and for beauty,' had become the common' dialect of
   the Macedonian kingdoms; it had been moulded in the schools of
   Alexandria to the ideas of the East and the religious wants of Jews.
   Neither was it any violence to its nature to be made the vehicle of the
   new truths which were springing up in the heart of man. The
   definiteness and absence of reflectiveness in the earlier forms of
   human speech, would have imposed a sort of limit on the freedom and
   spirituality of the Gospel; even the Greek of Plato would have coldly
   furnished forth' the words of eternal life.' A religion which was to be
   universal required the divisions of languages, as of nations, to be in
   some degree broken down. [Poena linguarum dispersit homines, donum
   linguarum in unum collegit.'] But this community or freedom of language
   was accompanied by corresponding defects; it had lost its logical
   precision; it was less coherent; and more under the influence of
   association. It might be compared to a garment which allowed and yet
   impeded the exercise of the mind by being too large and loose for et

   From the inner life of Scripture it is time to pass on to the
   consideration of this outward form, including that other framework of
   modes of thought and figures of speech which is between the two. A
   knowledge of the original language is a necessary qualification of the
   Interpreter of Scripture. It takes away at least one chance of error in
   the explanation of a passage; it removes one of the films which have
   gathered over the page; it brings the meaning home in a more intimate
   and subtle way than a translation could do. To this, however, another
   qualification should be added, which is, the logical power to perceive
   the meaning of words in reference to their context. And there is a
   worse fault than ignorance of Greek in the interpretation of the New
   Testament, that is, ignorance of any language. The Greek Fathers, for
   example, are far from being the best verbal commentators, because their
   knowledge of Greek often leads them away from the drift of the passage.
   The minuteness of the study in our own day has also a tendency to
   introduce into the text associations which are not really found there.
   There is a danger of making words mean too much; refinements of
   signification are drawn out of them, perhaps contained in their
   etymology, which are lost in common use and parlance. There is the
   error of interpreting every particle, as though it were a link in the
   argument, instead of being, as is often the case, an excrescence of
   style. The verbal critic magnifies his art, which is really great in
   Æschylus or Pindar, but not of equal importance in the interpretation
   of the simpler language of the New Testament. His love of scholarship
   will sometimes lead him to impress a false system on words and
   constructions. A great critic [136] who has commented on the three
   first chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians, has certainly afforded
   a proof that it is possible to read the New Testament under a
   distorting influence from classical Greek. The tendency gains support
   from the undefined feeling that Scripture does not come behind in
   excellence of language any more than of thought. And if not as in
   former days, the classic purity of the Greek of the New Testament, yet
   its certainty and accuracy, the assumption of which, as any other
   assumption, is only the parent of inaccuracy, is still maintained.

   The study of the language of the New Testament has suffered in another
   way by following too much the track of classical scholarship. All dead
   languages which have passed into the hands of grammarians, have given
   rise to questions which have either no result or in which the
   certainty, or if certain, the importance of the result, is out of
   proportion to the labour spent in attaining it. The field is exhausted
   by great critics, and then subdivided among lesser ones. The subject,
   unlike that of physical science, has a limit, and unless new ground is
   broken up, as for example in mythology, or comparative philology, is
   apt to grow barren. Though it is not true to say that we know as much
   about the Greeks and Romans as we ever shall,' it is certain that we
   run a danger from the deficiency of material, of wasting time in
   questions which do not add anything to real knowledge, or in
   conjectures which must always remain uncertain, and may in turn give
   way to other conjectures in the next generation. Little points may be
   of great importance when rightly determined, because the observation of
   them tends to quicken the instinct of language; but conjectures about
   little things or rules respecting them which were not in the mind of
   Greek authors themselves, are not of equal value. There is the
   scholasticism of philology, not only in the Alexandrian, but in our own
   times; as in the middle ages, there was the scholasticism of
   philosophy. Questions of more orthography, about which there cannot be
   said to have been a right or wrong, have been pursued almost with a
   Rabbinical minuteness. The story of the scholar who regretted that he
   had not concentrated his life on the dative case,' is hardly a
   caricature of the spirit of such inquiries. The form of notes to the
   classics often seems to arise out of a necessity for observing a
   certain proportion between the commentary and the text. And the same
   tendency is noticeable in many of the critical and philological
   observations which are made on the New Testament. The field of Biblical
   criticism is narrower, and its materials more fragmentary; so too the
   minuteness and uncertainty of the questions raised has been greater.
   For example, the discussions respecting the chronology of St. Paul's
   life and his second imprisonment: or about the identity of James, the
   brother of the Lord, or in another department, respecting the use of
   the Greek article, have gone far beyond the line of utility.

   There seem to be reasons for doubting whether any considerable light
   can be thrown on the New Testament from inquiry into the language. Such
   inquiries are popular, because they are safe; but their popularity is
   not the measure of their use. It has not been sufficiently considered
   that the difficulties of the New Testament are for the most part common
   to the Greek and the English. The noblest translation in the world has
   a few great errors, more than half of them in the text; but we do it
   violence' to haggle over the words. Minute corrections of tenses or
   particles are no good; they spoil the English without being nearer the
   Greek. Apparent mistranslations are often due to a better knowledge of
   English rather than a worse knowledge of Greek. It is true that the
   signification of a few uncommon expressions, e.g., exousia, epibalon,
   sunapagomenoi, k.t.l. is yet uncertain. But no result of consequence
   would follow from the attainment of absolute certainty respecting the
   meaning of any of these. A more promising field opens to the
   interpreter in the examination of theological terms, such as faith
   (pistis,), grace (charis), righteousness (dikaiosune), sanctification
   (hagiasmos), the law (nomos), the spirit (pneuma), the comforter
   (parakletos), &c., provided always that the use of such terms in the
   New Testament is clearly separated (1) from their derivation or
   previous use in Classical or Alexandrian Greek, (2) from their after
   use in the Fathers and in systems of theology. To which may be added
   another select class of words descriptive of the offices or customs of
   the Apostolic Church, such as Apostle (apostolos), Bishop (episkopos),
   Elder (presbuteros), Deacon and Deaconess (ho kai he diakonos),
   love-feast (agapai), the Lord's day (he kuriake hemera), &c. It is a
   lexilogus of these and similar terms, rather than a lexicon of the
   entire Greek Testament that is required. Interesting subjects of real
   inquiry are also the comparison of the Greek of the New Testament with
   modern Greek on the one hand, and the Greek of the LXX. on the other.
   It is not likely, however, that they will afford much more help than
   they have already done in the elucidation of the Greek of the New
   Testament.

   It is for others to investigate the language of the Old Testament, to
   which the preceding remarks are only in part applicable. [It may be
   observed in passing of this, as of any other old language, that not the
   later form of the language, but the cognate dialects, must ever be the
   chief source of its illustration. For in every ancient language,
   antecedent or contemporary forms, not the subsequent ones, afford the
   real insight into its nature and structure. It must also be admitted
   that very great and real obscurities exist in the English translation
   of the Old Testament, which even a superficial acquaintance with the
   original has a tendency to remove.] Leaving, however, to others the
   consideration of the Semitic languages which raise questions of a
   different kind from the Hellenistic Greek, we will offer a few remarks
   on the latter. Much has been said of the increasing accuracy of our
   knowledge of the language of the New Testament the old Hebraistic
   method of explaining difficulties of language or construction, has
   retired within very narrow limits; it might probably with advantage be
   confined to still narrower ones--[if it have any place at all except in
   the Apocalypse or the Gospel St. Matthew]. There is, perhaps, some
   confusion between accuracy of our knowledge of language, and the
   accuracy of language itself; which is also strongly maintained. It is
   observed that the usages of barbarous as well as civilized nations
   conform perfectly to grammatical rules; that the uneducated in all
   countries have certain laws of speech as much as Shakespear or Bacon;
   the usages of Lucian, it may be said, are as regular as those of Plato,
   even when they are different. The decay of language seems rather to
   witness to the permanence than to the changeableness of its structure;
   it is the flesh, not the bones, that begins to drop off. But such
   general remarks, although just, afford but little help in determining
   the character of the Greek of the New Testament, which has of course a
   certain system, failing in which it would cease to be a language. Some
   further illustration is needed of the change which has passed upon it.
   All languages do not decay in the same manner; and the influence of
   decay in the same language may be different in different countries;
   when used in writing and in speaking--when applied to the matters of
   ordinary life and to the higher truths of philosophy or religion. And
   the degeneracy of language itself is not a mere principle of
   dissolution, but creative also; while dead and rigid in some of its
   uses, it is elastic and expansive in others. The decay of an ancient
   language is the beginning of the construction of a modern one. The loss
   of some usages gives a greater precision and freedom to others. The
   logical element, as for example in the Mediæval Latin, will probably be
   strongest when the poetical has vanished. A great movement, like the
   Reformation in Germany, passing over a nation, may give a new birth
   also to its language.

   These remarks may be applied to the Greek of the New Testament, which
   although classed vaguely under the common dialect,' has, nevertheless,
   many features which are altogether peculiar to itself, and such as are
   found in no other remains of ancient literature. 1. It is more unequal
   in style even in the same books, that is to say, more original and
   plastic in one part, more rigid and unpliable in another. There is a
   want of the continuous power to frame a paragraph or to arrange clauses
   in subordination to each other, even to the extent to which it was
   possessed by a Greek scholiast or rhetorician. On the other hand there
   is a fulness of life, a new birth,' in the use of abstract terms which
   is not found elsewhere, after the golden age of Greek philosophy.
   Almost the only passage in the New Testament which reads like a Greek
   period of the time, is the first paragraph of the Gospel according to
   St. Luke, and the corresponding words of the Acts. But the power and
   meaning of the characteristic words of the New Testament is in
   remarkable contrast with the vapid and general use of the same words in
   Philo about the same time. There is also a sort of lyrical passion in
   some passages (1 Cor. xiii.; 2 Cor. vi. 6-10; xi. 21-33) which is is
   new thing in the literature of the world; to which, at any rate, no
   Greek author of a later age furnishes any parallel. 2. Though written,
   the Greek of the New Testament partakes of the character of a spoken
   language; it is more lively and simple, and. less structural than
   ordinary writing--a peculiarity of style which further agrees with the
   circumstance that the Epistles of St. Paul were not written with his
   own hand, but probably dictated to an amanuensis, and that the Gospels
   also probably originate in an oral narrative. 3. The ground colours of
   the language may be said to be two; first, the LXX. which is modified,
   secondly, by the spoken Greek of eastern countries, and a differences
   which might be expected to arise between a translation and an original;
   many Hebraisms would occur in the Greek of a translator, which would
   never have come to his pen but for the influence of the work which he
   was translating. 4. To which may be added a few Latin and Chaldee
   words, and a few Rabbinical formulæ. The influence of Hebrew or Chaldee
   in the New Testament is for the most part at a distance, in the
   background, acting not directly, but mediately, through the LXX. It has
   much to do with the clausular structure and general form, but hardly
   anything with the grammatical usage. Philo too, did not know Hebrew, or
   at least the Hebrew Scriptures, yet there is also a mediate' influence
   of Hebrew traceable in his writings. 5. There is an element of
   constraint in the style of the New Testament, arising from the
   circumstance of its authors writing in a language which was not their
   own. This constraint shows itself in the repetition of words and
   phrases; in the verbal oppositions and anacolutha of St. Paul; in the
   short sentences of St. John. This is further increased by the fact that
   the writers of the New Testament were unlearned men,' who had not the
   same power of writing as of speech. Moreover, as has been often
   remarked, the difficulty of composition increases in proportion to the
   greatness of the subject; e.g., the narrative of Thucydides is easy and
   intelligible, while his reflections and speeches are full of confusion;
   the effort to concentrate seems to interfere with the consecutiveness
   and fluency of ideas. Something of this kind is discernible in those
   passages of the Epistles in which the Apostle St. Paul is seeking to
   set forth the opposite sides of God's dealing with man, e.g., Romans
   iii. 5-9; ix., x.; or in which the sequence of the thought is
   interrupted by the conflict of emotions, 1 Cor. ix. 20; Gal. iv. 11-20.
   6. The power of the Gospel over language must be recognised, showing
   itself, first of all, in the original and consequently variable
   signification of words (pistis, charis, soteria), which is also more
   comprehensive and human than the heretical usage of many of the same
   terms, e.g., gnosis (knowledge), sophia (wisdom), ktisis (creature,
   creation); secondly, in a peculiar use of some constructions, such
   as--dikaiosune Theou(righteousness of God), pistis Iesou Christou
   (faith of Jesus Christ), en Christo (in Christ), en Theo (in God),
   huper hemon (for us), in which the meaning of the genitive case or of
   the preposition almost escapes our notice, from familiarity with the
   sound of it. Lastly, the degeneracy of the Greek language is traceable
   in the failure of syntactical power; in the insertion of propositions
   to denote relations of thought, which classical Greek would have
   expressed by the case only; in the omission of them when classical
   Greek would have required them; in the incipient use of hina with the
   subjunctive for the infinitive; in the confusion of ideas of cause and
   effect; in the absence of the article in the case of an increasing
   number of words which are passing into proper names; in the loss of the
   finer shades of difference in the negative particles; in the occasional
   confusion of the aorist and perfect; in excessive fondness for
   particles of reasoning or inference; in various forms of apposition,
   especially that of the word to the sentence; in the use, sometimes
   emphatic, sometimes only pleonastic, of the personal and demonstrative
   pronouns. These are some of the signs that the language is breaking-up
   and losing its structure.

   Our knowledge of the New Testament is derived almost exclusively from
   itself. Of the language, as well as of the subject, it may be truly
   said that what other writers contribute is nothing in comparison of
   that which is gained from observation of the text. Some inferences
   which may be gathered from this general fact, are the
   following:--First, that less weight should be given to lexicons, that
   is, to the authority of other Greek writers, and more to the context.
   The use of a word in a new sense, the attribution of a neuter meaning
   to a verb elsewhere passive, (Romans iii. 9, proechometha), the
   resolution of the compound into two simple notions, (Galatians iii. 1,
   proegraphe); these, when the context requires it, are not to be set
   aside by the scholar because sanctioned by no known examples. The same
   remark applies to grammars as well as lexicons. We cannot be certain
   that dia with the accusative never has the same meaning as dia with the
   genitive, (Gal. iv. 13; Phil. i. 15), or that the article always
   retains its defining power (1 Cor. i. 17; Acts xvii. 1), or that the
   perfect is never used in place of the aorist (1 Cor. xv. 4; Rev. v. 7,
   &c.); still less can we affirm that the latter end of a sentence never
   forgets the beginning (Rom. ii. 17-21; v. 12-18; ix. 22; xvi. 25-27;
   &c. &c.). Foreign influences tend to derange the strong natural
   perception or remembrance of the analogy of our own language. That is
   very likely to have occurred in the case of some of the writers of the
   New Testament; that there is such a derangement, is a fact. There is no
   probability in favour of St. Paul writing in broken sentences, but
   there is no improbability which should lead us to assume in such
   sentences, continuous grammar and thought, as appears to have been the
   feeling of the copyists who have corrected the anacolutha. The
   occurrence of them further justifies the interpreter in using some
   freedom with other passages in which the syntax does not absolutely
   break down. When confusion of two constructions,' meaning to say one
   thing and finishing with another;' saying two things in one instead of
   disposing them in their logical sequence,' are attributed to the
   Apostle; the use of these and similar expressions is defended by the
   fact that more numerous anacolutha occur in St. Paul's writings than in
   any equal portion of the New Testament, and far more than in the
   writings of any other Greek author of equal length.

   Passing from the grammatical structure, we may briefly consider the
   logical character of the language of the New Testament. Two things
   should be here distinguished, the logical form and the logical sequence
   of thought. Some ages have been remarkable for the former of these two
   characteristics; they have dealt in opposition, contradiction, climax,
   pleonasm, reason within reason, and the like; mere statements taking
   the form of arguments--each sentence seeming to be a link in a chain.
   In such periods of literature, the appearance of logic is rhetorical,
   and is to be set down to the style. That is the case with many passages
   in the New Testament which are studded with logical or rhetorical
   formulæ, especially in the Epistles of St Paul. Nothing can be more
   simple or natural than the object of the writer. Yet forms of the
   schools' appear (whether learnt at the feet of Gamaliel, that reputed
   master of Greek learning, or not,) which imply a degree of logical or
   rhetorical training.

   The observation of this rhetorical or logical element has a bearing on
   the Interpretation of Scripture. For it leads us to distinguish between
   the superficial connexion of words and the real connexion of thoughts.
   Otherwise injustice is done to the argument of the sacred writer, who
   may be supposed to violate logical rules, of which he is unconscious.
   For example, the argument of Rom. iii. 19, may be classed by the
   logicians under some head of fallacy (Ex aliquo non sequitur omnis');
   the series of inferences which follow one another in Rom. i. 16-18, are
   for the most part different aspects or statements of the same truth. So
   in Rom. i. 32 the climax rather appears to be an anticlimax. But to
   dwell on these things interferes with the true perception of the
   Apostle's meaning which is not contained in the repetitions of gar by
   which it is hooked together; nor are we accurately to weigh the
   proportions expressed by his ou monon--alla kai; or pollo mallon; need
   we suppose that where men is found alone, there was a reason for the
   omission of de, (Rom. i. 8; iii. 2); or that the opposition of words
   and sentences is always the opposition of ideas (Rom. v. 7; x. 10). It
   is true that these and similar forms or distinctions of language, admit
   of translation into English; and in every ease the interpreter may find
   a some point of view in which the simplest truth of feeling may be
   drawn out in an antithetical or argumentative form. But whether these
   points of view were in the Apostle's mind at the time of writing may be
   doubted; the real meaning, or kernel, seems to lie deeper and to be
   more within. When we pass from the study of each verse to survey the
   whole at a greater distance, the form of thought is again seen to be
   unimportant in comparison of the truth which is contained in it. The
   same remark may be extended to the opposition, not only of words, but
   of ideas, which is found in the Scriptures generally, and almost seems
   to be inherent in human language itself. The law is opposed to faith,
   good to evil, the spirit to the flesh, light to darkness, the world to
   the believer, the sheep are set on his right hand, but the goats on the
   left. The influence of this logical opposition been great and not
   always without abuse in practice. For the opposition is one of ideas
   only which is not realized in fact. Experience shows us not that there
   are two classes of men animated by two opposing principles, but an
   infinite number of classes or individuals from the lowest depth of
   misery and sin to the highest perfection of which human nature is
   capable, the best not wholly good, the worst not entirely evil. But the
   figure or mode of representation changes these differences of degree
   into differences of kind. And we often think and speak and act in
   reference both to ourselves and others, as though the figure were
   altogether a reality.

   Other questions arise out of the analysis of the modes of thought of
   Scripture. Unless we are willing to use words without inquiring into
   their meaning, it is necessary for us to arrange them in some relation
   to our own minds. The modes of thought of the Old Testament are not the
   same with those of the New, and those of the New are only partially the
   same with those in use among ourselves at the present day. The
   education of the human mind may be traced as clearly from the Book of
   Genesis to the Epistles of St. Paul, as from Homer to Plato and
   Aristotle. When we hear St. Paul speaking of body and soul and spirit,'
   we know that such language as this would not occur in the Books of
   Moses or in the Prophet Isaiah. It has the colour of a later age, in
   which abstract terms have taken the place of expressions derived from
   material objects. When we proceed further to compare these or other
   words or expressions of St. Paul with the body and mind,' or mind' and
   matter,' which is a distinction, not only of philosophy, but of common
   language among ourselves, it is not easy at once to determine the
   relation between them. Familiar as is the sound of both expressions,
   many questions arise when we begin to compare them.

   This is the metaphysical difficulty in the Interpretation of Scripture,
   which it is better not to ignore, bemuse the consideration of it is
   necessary to the understanding of many passages, and also because it
   may return upon us in the form of materialism or scepticism. To some
   who are not aware how little words affect the nature of things it may
   seem to raise speculations of a very serious kind. Their doubts would,
   perhaps, find expression in some such exclamations as the
   following:--How is religion possible when modes of thought are
   shifting? and words changing their meaning, and statements of doctrine
   though starched' with philosophy, are in perpetual danger of
   dissolution from metaphysical analysis?

   The answer seems to be, that Christian truth is not dependent on the
   fixedness of modes of thought. The metaphysician may analyse the ideas
   of the mind just as the physiologist may analyse the powers or parts of
   the bodily frame, yet morality and social life still go on, as in the
   body digestion is uninterrupted. That is not an illustration only; it
   represents the fact. Though we had no words for mind, matter, soul, and
   the like, Christianity would remain the same. This is obvious, whether
   we think of the case of the poor, who understand such distinctions very
   imperfectly, or of those nations of the earth, who have no precisely
   corresponding division of ideas. It is not of that subtle or evanescent
   character which is liable to be lost in shifting the use of terms.
   Indeed, it is an advantage at times to discard these terms with the
   view of getting rid of the oppositions to which they give rise. No
   metaphysical analysis can prevent our taking up the cross and following
   Christ,' or receiving the kingdom of heaven as little children. To
   analyse the trichotomy' of St. Paul is interesting as a chapter in the
   history of the human mind and necessary as a part of Biblical exegesis,
   but it has nothing to do with the religion of Christ. Christian duties
   may be enforced, and the life of Christ may be the centre of our
   thoughts, whether we speak of reason and faith, of soul and body, or of
   mind and matter, or adopt a mode of speech which dispenses with any of
   these divisions.

   Connected with the modes of thought or representation in Scripture, are
   the figures of speech of Scripture, about which the same question may
   be asked: What division can we make between the figure and the
   reality?' And the answer seems to be of the same kind, that We cannot
   precisely draw the line between them.' Language, and especially the
   language of Scripture, does not admit of any sharp distinction. The
   simple expressions of one age become the allegories or figures of
   another; many of those in the New Testament are taken from the Old. But
   neither is there anything really essential in the form of these
   figures; nay, the literal application of many of them has a great
   stumblingblock to the reception of Christianity. A recent commentator
   on Scripture appears willing to peril religion on the literal truth of
   such an expression as We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the
   air.' Would he be equally ready to stake Christianity on the literal
   meaning of the words, Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
   quenched?'

   Of what has been said, this is the sum;--That Scripture, like other
   books, has one meaning, which is to be gathered from itself without
   reference to the adaptations of Fathers or Divines; and without regard
   to a priori notions about its nature and origin. It to be interpreted
   like other books, with attention to the character of its authors, and
   the prevailing state of civilization and knowledge, with allowance for
   peculiarities of style and language, and modes of thought and figures
   of speech. Yet not without a sense that as we read there grows upon us
   the witness of God in the world, anticipating in a rude and primitive
   age the truth that was to be, shining more and more unto the perfect
   day in the life of Christ, which again is reflected from different
   points of view in the teaching of His Apostles.'

   § 4.

   It has been a principal aim of the preceding pages to distinguish the
   interpretation from the application of Scripture. Many of the errors
   alluded to, arise out of a confusion of the two. The present is nearer
   to us than the past, the circumstances which surround us pre-occupy our
   thoughts; it is only by an effort that we reproduce the ideas, or
   events, or persons of other ages. And thus, quite naturally, almost by
   a law of the human mind, the application of Scripture takes the place
   of its original meaning. And the question is, not how to get rid of
   this natural tendency, but how we may have the true use of it. For it
   cannot be got rid of, or rather is one of the chief instruments of
   religious usefulness in the world: Ideas must be given through
   something;' those of religion find their natural expression in the
   words of Scripture, in the adaptation of which to another state or life
   it is hardly possible that the first intention of the writers should be
   always preserved. Interpretation is the province of few; it requires a
   finer perception of language, and a higher degree of cultivation than
   is attained by the majority of mankind. But applications are made by
   all, from the philosopher reading God in History,' to the poor woman
   who finds in them a response to her prayers, and the solace of her
   daily life. In the hour of death we do not want critical explanations;
   in most cases, those to whom they would be offered are incapable of
   understanding them. A few words, breathing the sense of the whole
   Christian world, such as I know that my Redeemer liveth' (though the
   exact meaning of them may be doubtful to the Hebrew scholar); I shall
   go to him, but he shall not return to me;' touch a chord which would
   never be reached by the most skilful exposition of the argument of one
   of St. Paul's Epistles.

   There is also a use of Scripture in education and literature. This
   literary use, though secondary to the religious one, is not
   unimportant. It supplies a common language to the educated and
   uneducated, in which the best and highest thoughts of both are
   expressed; it is a medium between the abstract notions of the one and
   the simple feelings of the other. To the poor especially, it conveys in
   the form which they are most capable of receiving, the lesson of
   history and life. The beauty and power of speech and writing would be
   greatly impaired, if the Scriptures ceased to be known or used among
   us. The orator seems to catch from them a sort of inspiration; in the
   simple words of Scripture which he stamps anew, the philosopher often
   finds his most, pregnant expressions. If modern times have been richer
   in the wealth of abstract thought, the contribution of earlier ages to
   the mind of the world has not been less, but, perhaps greater, in
   supplying the poetry of language. There is no such treasury of
   instruments and materials as Scripture. The loss of Homer, or the loss
   of Shakespear, would have affected the whole series of Greek or English
   authors who follow. Bat the disappearance of the Bible from the books
   which the world contains, would produce results far greater; we can
   scarcely conceive the degree in which it would alter literature and
   language--the ideas of the educated and philosophical, as well as the
   feelings and habits of mind of the poor. If it has been said, with an
   allowable hyperbole, that Homer is Greece' with much more truth may it
   be said, that the Bible is Christendom.'

   Many by whom considerations of this sort will be little understood,
   may, nevertheless, recognise the use made of the Old Testament in the
   New. The religion of Christ was first taught by an application of the
   words of the Psalms and the Prophets. Our Lord Himself sanctions this
   application. Can there be a better use of Scripture than that which is
   made by Scripture?' Or any more likely method of teaching the truths of
   Christianity than that by which they were first taught?' For it may be
   argued that the critical interpretation of Scripture is a device almost
   of yesterday; it is the vocation of the scholar or philosopher, not of
   the Apostle or Prophet. The new truth which was introduced into the Old
   Testament, rather than the old truth which was found there, was the
   salvation and the conversion of the world. There are many quotations
   from the Psalms and the Prophets in the Epistles, in which the meaning
   is quickened or spiritualized, but hardly any, probably none, which is
   based on the original sense or context. That is not so singular a
   phenomenon as may at first sight be imagined. It may appear strange to
   us that Scripture should be interpreted in Scripture, in a manner not
   altogether in agreement with modern criticism; but would it not be more
   strange that it should be interpreted otherwise, than in agreement with
   the ideas of the age or country in which it was written? The
   observation that there is such an agreement, leads to two conclusions
   which have a bearing on our present object. First, it is a reason for
   not insisting on the applications which the New Testament makes of
   passages in the Old, as their original meaning. Secondly, it gives
   authority and precedent for the use of similar applications in our own
   day.

   But, on the other hand, though interwoven with literature, though
   common to all ages of the Church, though sanctioned by our Lord and His
   Apostles, it is easy to see that such an employment of Scripture is
   liable to error and perversion. For it may not only receive a new
   meaning; it may be applied in a spirit alien to itself. It may become
   the symbol of fanaticism, the cloke of malice, the disguise of policy.
   Cromwell at Drogheda, quoting Scripture to his soldiers; the well-known
   attack on the Puritans in the State Service for the Restoration, Not
   every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord;' the reply of the Venetian
   Ambassador to the suggestion of Wolsey, that Venice should take a lead
   in Italy, which was only the Earth is the Lord's and the fulness
   thereof,' are examples of such uses. In former times, it was a real and
   not an imaginary fear, that the wars of the Lord in the Old Testament
   might arouse a fire in the bosom of Franks and Huns. In our own day
   such dangers have passed away; it is only a figure of speech when the
   preacher says, Gird on thy sword, O thou most mighty.' The warlike
   passions of men are not roused by quotations from Scripture, nor can
   states of life such as slavery or polygamy which belong to a past age,
   be defended, at least in England, by the example of the Old Testament.
   The danger or error is of another kind; more subtle, but hardly less
   real. For if we are permitted to apply Scripture under the pretence of
   interpreting it, the language of Scripture becomes only a mode of
   expressing the public feeling or opinion of our own day. Any passing
   phase of politics or art, or spurious philanthropy, may have a kind of
   Scriptural authority. The words that are used are the words of the
   Prophet or Evangelist, but we stand behind and adapt them to our
   purpose. Hence it is necessary to consider the limits and manner of a
   just adaptation; how much may be allowed for the sake of ornament; how
   far the Scripture, in all its details, may be regarded as an allegory
   of human life--where the true analogy begins--how far the
   interpretation of Scripture will serve as a corrective to its practical
   abuse.

   Truth seems to require that we should separate mere adaptations, from
   the original meaning of Scripture. It is not honest or reasonable to
   confound illustration with argument, in theology, any more than in
   other subjects. For example, if a preacher chooses to represent the
   condition of a church or of an individual in the present day, under the
   figure of Elijah left alone among the idolatrous tribes of Israel, such
   an allusion is natural enough; but if he goes on to argue that
   individuals are therefore justified in remaining in what they believe
   to be an erroneous communion--that is a mere appearance of argument
   which ought not to have the slightest weight with a man of sense. Such
   a course may indeed be perfectly justifiable, but not on the ground
   that a prophet of the Lord once did so, two thousand five hundred years
   ago. Not in this sense were the lives of the Prophets written for our
   instruction. There are many important morals conveyed by them, but only
   so far as they themselves represent universal principles of justice and
   love. These universal principles they clothe with flesh and blood; they
   show them to us written on the hearts of men of like passions with
   ourselves. The prophecies, again, admit of many applications to the
   Christian Church or to the Christian life. There is no harm in speaking
   of the Church as the Spiritual Israel, or in using the imagery of
   Isaiah respecting Messiah's kingdom, as the type of good things to
   come. But when it is gravely urged, that from such passages as Kings
   shall be thy nursing fathers,' we are to collect the relations of
   Church and State, or from the pictorial description of Isaiah, that it
   is to be inferred there will be a reign of Christ on earth--that is a
   mere assumption of the forms of reasoning by the imagination. Nor is it
   a healthful or manly tone of feeling which depicts the political
   opposition to the Church in our own day, under imagery which is
   borrowed from the desolate Sion of the captivity. Scripture is apt to
   come too readily to the lips, when we are pouring out our own
   weaknesses, or enlarging on some favourite theme--perhaps idealizing in
   the language of prophecy the feebleness of preaching or missions in the
   present day, or from the want of something else to say. In many
   discussions on these and similar subjects, the position of the Jewish
   King, Church, Priest, has led to a confusion, partly caused by the use
   of similar words in modern senses among ourselves. The King or Queen of
   England may be called the Anointed of the Lord, but we should not
   therefore imply that the attributes of sovereignty are the same as
   those which belonged to King David. All these are figures of speech,
   the employment of which is too common, and has been injurious to
   religion, because it prevents our looking at the facts of history or
   life as they truly are.

   This is the first step towards a more truthful use of Scripture in
   practice--the separation of adaptation from interpretation. No one who
   is engaged in preaching or in religious instruction can be required to
   give up Scripture language; it is the common element in which his
   thoughts and those of his hearers move. But he may be asked to
   distinguish the words of Scripture from the truths of Scripture--the
   means from the end. The least expression of Scripture is weighty; it
   affects the minds of the hearers in a way that no other language can.
   Whatever responsibility attaches to idle words, attaches in still
   greater degree to the idle or fallacious use of Scripture terms. And
   there is surely a want of proper reverence for Scripture, when we
   confound the weakest and feeblest applications of its words with their
   true meaning--when we avail ourselves of their natural power to point
   them against some enemy--when we divert the eternal words of charity
   and truth into a defence of some passing opinion. For not only in the
   days of the Pharisees, but in our own, the letter has been taking the
   place of the spirit; the least matters, of the greatest, and the
   primary meaning has been lost in the secondary use.

   Other simple cautions may also be added. The applications of Scripture
   should be harmonized and, as it were, interpenetrated with the spirit
   of the Gospel, the whole of which should be in every part; though the
   words may receive a new sense, the new sense ought to be in agreement
   with the general truth. They should be used to bring home practical
   precepts, not to send the imagination on a voyage of discovery; they
   are not the real foundation of our faith in another world, nor can
   they, by pleasant pictures, add to our knowledge of it. They should not
   confound the accidents with the essence of religion--the restrictions
   and burdens of the Jewish law with the freedom of the Gospel--the
   things which Moses allowed for the hardness of the heart, with the
   perfection of the teaching of Christ. They should avoid the form of
   arguments, or they will insensibly be used, or understood to mean more
   than they really do. They should be subjected to an overruling
   principle, which is the heart and conscience of the Christian teacher,
   who indeed stands behind them,' not to make them the vehicles of his
   own opinions, but as the expressions of justice, and truth, and love.

   And here the critical interpretation of Scripture comes in and
   exercises a corrective influence on its popular use. We have already
   admitted that criticism is not for the multitude; it is not what the
   Scripture terms the Gospel preached for the poor. Yet, indirectly
   passing from the few to the many, it has borne a great part in the
   Reformation of religion. It has cleared the eye of the mind to
   understand the original meaning. It was a sort of criticism which
   supported the struggle of the sixteenth century against the Roman
   Catholic Church; it is criticism that is leading Protestants to doubt
   whether the doctrine that the Pope is Antichrist, which has descended
   from the same period, is really discoverable in Scripture. Even the
   isolated thinker, against whom the religious world is taking up arms,
   has an influence on his opponents. The force of observations, which are
   based on reason and fact, remains when the tide of religious or party
   feeling is gone down. Criticism has also a healing influence in
   clearing away what may be termed the Sectarianism of knowledge. Without
   criticism it would be impossible to reconcile History and Science with
   Revealed Religion; they must remain for ever in a hostile and defiant
   attitude. Instead of being like other records, subject to the
   conditions of knowledge which existed in an early stage of the world,
   Scripture would be regarded on the one side as the work of organic
   Inspiration, and as a lying imposition on the other.

   The real unity of Scripture, as of man, has also a relation to our
   present subject. Amid all the differences of modes of thought and
   speech which have existed in different ages, of which much is said in
   our own day, there is a common element in human nature which bursts
   through these differences and remains unchanged, because akin to the
   first instincts of our being. The simple feeling of truth and right is
   the same to the Greek or Hindoo as to ourselves. However great may be
   the diversities of human character, there is a point at which these
   diversities end, and unity begins to appear. Now, this admits of an
   application to the books of Scripture, as well as to the world
   generally. Written at many different times, in more than one language,
   some of them in fragments, they, too, have a common element of which
   the preacher may avail himself. This element is twofold, partly divine
   and partly human; the revelation of the truth and righteousness of God,
   and the cry of the human heart towards Him. Every part of Scripture
   tends to raise us above ourselves--to give us a deeper sense of the
   feebleness of man, and of the wisdom and power of God. It has a sort of
   kindred, as Plato would say, with religious truth everywhere in the
   world. It agrees also with the imperfect stages of knowledge and faith
   in human nature, and answers to its inarticulate cries. The universal
   truth easily breaks through the accidents of time and place in which it
   is involved. Although we cannot apply Jewish institutions to the
   Christian world, or venture in reliance on some text to resist the tide
   of civilization on which we are borne, yet it remains, nevertheless, to
   us, as well as to the Jews and first Christians, that Righteousness
   exalteth a nation,' and that love is the fulfilling not of the Jewish
   law only, but of all law.'

   In some cases, we have only to enlarge the meaning of Scripture to
   apply it even to the novelties and peculiarities of our own times. The
   world changes, but the human heart remains the same; events and details
   are different, but the principle by which they are governed, or the
   rule by which we are to act, is not different. When, for example, our
   Saviour says, Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
   free,' it is not likely that these words would have conveyed to the
   minds of the Jews who heard Him any notion of the perplexities of doubt
   or inquiry. Yet we cannot suppose that our Saviour, were He to come
   again upon earth, would refuse thus to extend them. The Apostle St.
   Paul, when describing the Gospel, which is to the Greek foolishness,
   speaks also of a higher wisdom which is known to those who are perfect.
   Neither is it unfair for us to apply this passage to that reconcilement
   of faith and knowledge, which may be termed Christian philosophy, as
   the nearest equivalent to its language in our own day. Such words,
   again, as Why seek ye the living among the dead?' admit of a great
   variety of adaptations to the circumstances of our own time. Many of
   these adaptations have a real germ in the meaning of the words. The
   precept, Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the
   things that a4e God's,' may be taken generally as expressing the
   necessity of distinguishing the divine and human--the things that
   belong to faith and the things that belong to experience. It is worth
   remarking in the application made of these words by Lord Bacon, Da
   fidei quæ fidei sunt;' that, although the terms are altered, yet the
   circumstance that the form of the sentence is borrowed from Scripture
   gives them point and weight.

   The portion of Scripture which more than any other is immediately and
   universally applicable to our own times is, doubtless, that which is
   contained in the words of Christ Himself. The reason is that they are
   words of the most universal import. They do not relate to the
   circumstances of the time, but to the common life of all mankind. You
   cannot extract from them a political creed; only, Render unto Cæsar the
   things that are Cæsar's,' and The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses'
   seat; whatsoever, therefore, they say unto you do, but after their
   works do not.' They present to us a standard of truth and duty, such as
   no one can at once and immediately practise--such as, in its
   perfection, no one has fulfilled in this world. But this idealism does
   not interfere with their influence as a religious lesson. Ideals, even
   though unrealized, have effect on our daily life. The preacher of the
   Gospel is, or ought to be, aware that his calls to repentance, his
   standard of obligations, his lamentations over his own shortcomings or
   those of others, do not at once convert hundreds or thousands, as on
   the day of Pentecost. Yet it does not follow that they are thrown away,
   or that it would be well to substitute for them mere prudential or
   economical lessons, lectures on health or sanitary improvement. For
   they tend to raise men above themselves, providing them with Sabbaths
   as well as working days, giving them a taste of the good word of God'
   and of the powers of the world to come.' Human nature needs to be
   idealized; it seems as if it took a dislike to itself when presented
   always in its ordinary attire; it lives on in the hope of becoming
   better. And the image or hope of a better life--the vision of Christ
   crucified--which is held up to it, doubtless has an influence; not like
   the rushing mighty wind of the day of Pentecost; it may rather be
   compared to the leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of
   meal, till the whole was leavened.'

   The Parables of our Lord are a portion of the New Testament, which we
   may apply in the most easy and literal manner. The persons in them are
   the persons among whom we live and move; there are times and occasions
   at which the truths symbolized by them come home to the hearts of all
   who have ever been impressed by religion. We have been prodigal sons
   returning to our Father; servants to whom talents have been entrusted;
   labourers in the vineyard inclined to murmur at our lot, when compared
   with that of others, yet receiving every man his due; well-satisfied
   Pharisees; repentant Publicans:--we have received the seed, and the
   cares of the world have choked it--we hope also at times that we have
   found the pearl of great price after sweeping the house--we are ready
   like the Good Samaritan to show kindness to all mankind. Of these
   circumstances of life or phases of mind, which are typified by the
   parables, most Christians have experience. We may go on to .apply many
   of them further to the condition of nations and churches. Such a
   treasury has Christ provided us of things new and old, which refer to
   all time and all mankind--may we not say in His own words--Because He
   is the Son of Man?'

   There is no language of Scripture which penetrates the individual soul,
   and embraces all the world in the arms of its love, in the same manner
   as that of Christ Himself. Yet the Epistles contain lessons which are
   not found in the Gospels, or, at least, not expressed with the same
   degree of clearness. For the Epistles are nearer to actual life--they
   relate to the circumstances of the first believers, to their struggles
   with the world without, to their temptations and divisions from
   within--their subject is not only the doctrine of the Christian
   religion, but the business of the early Church. And although their
   circumstances are not our circumstances--we are not afflicted or
   persecuted, or driven out of the world, but in possession of the
   blessings, and security, and property of an established religion--yet
   there is a Christian spirit which infuses itself into all
   circumstances, of which they are a pure and living source. It is
   impossible to gather from a few fragmentary and apparently not always
   consistent expressions, how the Communion was celebrated, or the Church
   ordered, what was the relative position of Presbyters and Deacons, or
   the nature of the gift of tongues, as a rule for the Church in after
   ages;--such inquiries have no certain answer, and at the best, are only
   the subject of honest curiosity. But the words, Charity never faileth,'
   and Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
   charity, I am nothing'--these have a voice which reaches to the end of
   time. There are no questions of meats and drinks now-a-days, yet the
   noble words of the Apostle remain: If meat make my brother to offend, I
   will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to
   offend.' Moderation in controversy, toleration towards opponents, or
   erring members, is a virtue which has been thought by many to belong to
   the development and not to the origin of Christianity, and which is
   rarely found in the commencement of a religion. But lessons of
   toleration may be gathered from the Apostle, which have not yet been
   learned either by theologians or by mankind in general. The
   persecutions and troubles which awaited the Apostle, no longer await
   us; we cannot, therefore, without unreality, except, perhaps, in a very
   few cases, appropriate his words, I have fought the good fight, I have
   finished my course, I have kept the faith.' But that other text still
   sounds gently in our ears: My strength is perfected in weakness,' and
   when I am weak, then am I strong.' We cannot apply to ourselves the
   language of authority in which the Apostle speaks of himself as an
   ambassador for Christ, without something like bad taste. But it is not
   altogether an imaginary hope that those of us who are ministers of
   Christ, may attain to a real imitation of his great diligence, of his
   sympathy with others, and consideration for them--of his willingness to
   spend and be spent in his Master's service.

   Such are a few instances of the manner in which the analogy of faith
   enables us to apply the words of Christ and His Apostles, with a strict
   regard to their original meaning. But the Old Testament has also its
   peculiar lessons which are not conveyed with equal point or force in
   the New. The beginnings of human history are themselves a lesson having
   a freshness as of the early dawn. There are forms of evil against which
   the Prophets and the prophetical spirit of the Law carry on a warfare,
   in terms almost too bold for the way of life of modern times. There,
   more plainly than in any other portion of Scripture, is expressed the
   antagonism of outward and inward, of ceremonial and moral, of mercy and
   sacrifice. There all the masks of hypocrisy are rudely torn asunder, in
   which an unthinking world allows itself to be disguised. There the
   relations of rich and poor in the sight of God, and their duties
   towards one another, are most clearly enunciated. There the religion of
   suffering first appears--adversity, the blessing' of the Old Testament,
   as well as of the New. There the sorrows and aspirations of the soul
   find their deepest expression, and also their consolation. The feeble
   person has an image of himself in the bruised reed;' the suffering
   servant of God passes into the beloved one, in whom my soul
   delighteth.' Even the latest and most desolate phases of the human mind
   are reflected in Job and Ecclesiastes; yet not without the solemn
   assertion that to fear God and keep his commandments' is the beginning
   and end of all things.

   It is true that there are examples in the Old Testament which were not
   written for our instruction, and that, in some instances, precepts or
   commands are attributed to God Himself, which must be regarded as
   relative to the state of knowledge which then existed of the Divine
   nature, or given for the hardness of men's hearts,' It cannot be denied
   that such passages of Scripture are liable to misunderstanding; the
   spirit of the Old Covenanters, although no longer appealing to the
   action of Samuel, hewing Agag in Pieces before the Lord in Gilgal,' is
   not altogether extinguished. And a community of recent origin in
   America found their doctrine of polygamy on the Old Testament. But the
   poor generally read the Bible unconsciously; they take the good, and
   catch the prevailing spirit, without stopping to reason whether this or
   that practice is sanctioned by the custom or example of Scripture. The
   child is only struck by the impiety of the children who mocked the
   prophet; he does not think of the severity of the punishment which is
   inflicted on them. And poor, in this respect, are much like children;
   their reflection on the morality or immorality of characters or events
   is suppressed by reverence for Scripture. The Christian teacher has a
   sort of tact by which he guides them to perceive only the spirit of the
   Gospel everywhere; they read in the Psalms, of David's sin and
   repentance; of the never-failing goodness of God to him, and his
   never-failing trust in Him, not of his imprecations against his
   enemies. Such difficulties are greater in theory and on paper, than in
   the management of a school or parish. They are found to affect the
   half-educated, rather than either the poor, or those who are educated
   in a higher sense. To be above such difficulties is the happiest
   condition of human life and knowledge, or to be below them; to see, or
   think we see, how they may be reconciled with Divine power and wisdom,
   or not to see how they are apparently at variance with them.

   § 5.

   Some application of the preceding subject may be further made to
   theology and life.

   Let us introduce this concluding inquiry with two remarks.

   First, it may be observed, that a change in some of the prevailing
   modes of interpretation is not so much a matter of expediency as of
   necessity. The original meaning of Scripture is beginning to be clearly
   understood. But the apprehension of the original meaning is
   inconsistent with the reception of a typical or conventional one. The
   time will come when educated men will be no more able to believe that
   the words, "Out of Egypt have I called my son" (Matth. ii. 15; Hosea
   xi. 1), were intended by the prophet to refer to the return of Joseph
   and Mary from Egypt, than they are now able to believe the Roman
   Catholic explanation of Gen. iii. 15, Ipsa conteret caput tuum,' They
   will no more think that the first chapters of Genesis relate the same
   tale which Geology and Ethnology unfold than they now think the meaning
   of Joshua x. 12, 13, to be in accordance with Galileo's discovery.

   From the circumstance that in former ages there has been a four-fold or
   a seven-fold Interpretation of Scripture, we cannot argue to the
   possibility of upholding any other than the original one in our own.
   The mystical explanations of Origen or Philo were not seen to be
   mystical; the reasonings of Aquinas and Calvin were not supposed to go
   beyond the letter of the text. They have now become the subject of
   apology; it is justly said that we should not judge the greatness of
   the Fathers or Reformers by their suitableness to our own day. But this
   defence of them shows that their explanations of Scripture are no
   longer tenable; they belong to a way of thinking and speaking which was
   once diffused over the world, but has now passed away. And what we give
   up as a general principle we shall find it impossible to maintain
   partially, e.g., in the types of the Mosaic Law and the double meanings
   of prophecy, at least, in any sense in which it is not equally
   applicable to all deep and suggestive writings.

   The same observation may be applied to the historical criticism of
   Scripture. From the fact that Paley or Butler were regarded in their
   generation as supplying a triumphant answer to the enemies of
   Scripture, we cannot argue that their answer will be satisfactory to
   those who inquire into such subjects in our own. Criticism has far more
   power than it formerly had; it has spread itself over ancient, and even
   modern, history; it extends to the thoughts and ideas of men as well as
   to words and facts; it has also a great place in education. Whether the
   habit of mind which has been formed in classical studies will not go on
   to Scripture; whether Scripture can be made an exception to other
   ancient writings, now that the nature of both is more understood;
   whether in the fuller light of history and science the views of the
   last century will hold out--these are questions respecting which the
   course of religious opinion in the past does not afford the means of
   truly judging.

   II. It has to be considered whether the intellectual forms under which
   Christianity has been described may not also be in a state of
   transition and resolution in this respect contrasting with the
   never-clanging truth of the Christian life. (1 Cor. xiii. 8.) Looking
   backwards at past ages, we experience a kind of amazement at the
   minuteness of theological distinctions, and also at their permanence.
   They seem to have borne a part in the education of the Christian world,
   in an age when language itself had also a greater influence than
   now-a-days. It is admitted that these distinctions are not observed in
   the New Testament, and are for the most part of a later growth. But
   little is gained by setting up theology against Scripture, or Scripture
   against theology; the Bible against the Church, or the Church against
   the Bible. At different periods either has been a bulwark against some
   form of error: either has tended to correct the abuse of the other. A
   true inspiration guarded the writers of the New Testament from Gnostic
   or Manichean tenets; at a later stage, a sound instinct prevented the
   Church from dividing the humanity and Divinity of Christ. It may be
   said that the spirit of Christ forbids us to determine beyond what is
   written; and the decision of the council of Nicæa has been described by
   an eminent English prelate as the greatest misfortune that ever befel
   the Christian world.' That is, perhaps, true; yet a different decision
   would have been a greater misfortune. Nor does there seem any reason to
   suppose that the human mind could have been arrested in its theological
   course. It is a mistake to imagine that the dividing and splitting of
   words is owing to the depravity of the human heart; was it not rather
   an intellectual movement (the only phenomenon of progress then going on
   among men) which led, by a sort of necessity, some to go forward to the
   completion of the system, while it left others to stand aside? A veil
   was on the human understanding in the great controversies which
   absorbed the Church in earlier ages; the cloud which the combatants
   themselves raised intercepted the view. They did not see--they could
   not have imagined--that there was a world which lay beyond the range of
   the controversy.

   And now, as the Interpretation of Scripture is receiving another
   character, it seems that distinctions of theology, which were in great
   measure based on old Interpretations, are beginning to fade away. A
   change is observable in the manner in which doctrines are stated and
   defended; it is no longer held sufficient to rest them on texts of
   Scripture, one, two, or more, which contain, or appear to contain,
   similar words or ideas. They are connected more closely with our moral
   nature; extreme consequences are shunned; large allowances are made for
   the ignorance of mankind. It is held that them is truth on both sides;
   about many questions there is a kind of union of opposites; others are
   admitted to have been verbal only; all are regarded in the light which
   is thrown aims them by church history and religious experience. A
   theory has lately been put forward, apparently as a defence of the
   Christian faith, which denies the objective character of any of them.
   And there are other signs that times are changing, and we are changing
   too. It would be scarcely possible at present to revive the interest
   which was felt less than twenty years ago in the doctrine of Baptismal
   Regeneration; nor would the arguments by which it was supported or
   impugned have the meaning which they once had. The communion of the
   Lord's Supper is also ceasing, at least in the Church of England, to be
   a focus or centre of disunion--

   Our greatest love turned to our greatest hate.'

   A silence is observable on some other points of doctrine around which
   controversies swarmed a generation ago. Persons begin to ask what was
   the real difference which divided the two parties. They are no longer
   within the magic circle, but are taking up a position external to it.
   They have arrived at an age of reflection, and begin to speculate on
   the action and reaction, the irritation and counter-irritation, of
   religious forces; it is a common observation that revivals are not
   permanent;' the movement is criticised even by those who are subject to
   its influence. In the present state of the human mind, any
   consideration of these subjects, whether from the highest or lowest or
   most moderate point of view, is unfavourable to the stability of
   dogmatical systems, because it rouses inquiry into the meaning of
   words. To the sense of this is probably to be attributed the reserve on
   matters of doctrine and controversy which characterizes the present
   day, compared with the theological activity of twenty years ago.

   These reflections bring us back to the question with which we
   began--What effect will the critical interpretation of Scripture have
   on theology and on life? Their tendency is to show that the result is
   beyond our control, and that the world is not unprepared for it. More
   things than at first sight appear are moving towards the same end.
   Religion often bids us think of ourselves, especially in later life, as
   each one in his appointed place, carrying on a work which is fashioned
   within by unseen hands. The theologian, too, may have peace in the
   thought that he is subject to the conditions of his age rather than one
   of its moving powers. When he hears theological inquiry censured as
   tending to create doubt and confusion, he knows very well that the
   cause of this is not to be sought in the writings of so-called
   rationalists or critics who are disliked partly because they unveil the
   age to itself; but in the opposition of reason and feeling, of the past
   and the present, in the conflict between the Calvinistic tendencies of
   an elder generation, and the influences which even in the same family
   naturally affect the young.

   This distraction of the human mind between adverse influences and
   associations, is a fact which we should have to accept and make the
   best of, whatever consequences might seem to follow to individuals or
   Churches. It is not to be regarded as a merely heathen notion that
   truth is to be desired for its own sake even though no good' result
   from it.' As a Christian paradox it may be said, What hest thou to do
   with good;' follow thou Me.' But the Christian revelation does not
   require of us this Stoicism in most cases; it rather shows how good and
   truth are generally coincident. Even in this life, there are numberless
   links which unite moral good with intellectual truth. It is hardly too
   much to say that the one is but a narrower form of the other. Truth is
   to the world what holiness of life is to the individual--to man
   collectively the source of justice and peace and good.

   There are many ways in which the connexion between truth and good may
   be traced in the interpretation of Scripture. Is it a mere chimera that
   the different sections of Christendom may meet on the common ground of
   the New Testament? Or that the individual may be urged by the vacancy
   and unprofitableness of old traditions to make the Gospel his own--a
   life of Christ in the soul, instead of a theory of Christ which is in a
   book or written down? Or that in missions to the heathen Scripture may
   become the expression of universal truths rather than of the tenets of
   particular men or churches? That would remove many obstacles to the
   reception of Christianity. Or that the study of Scripture may have a
   more important place in a liberal education than hitherto? Or that the
   rational service' of interpreting Scripture may dry up the crude and
   dreamy vapours of religious excitement? Or, that in preaching, new
   sources of spiritual health may flow from a more natural use of
   Scripture? Or that the lessons of Scripture may have a nearer way to
   the hearts of the poor when disengaged from theological formulas? Let
   us consider more at length some of these topics.

   1. No one casting his eye over the map of the Christian world can
   desire that the present lines of demarcation should always remain, any
   more than he will be inclined to regard the division of Christians to
   which he belongs himself, as in a pre-eminent or exclusive sense the
   Church of Christ. Those lines of demarcation seem to be political
   rather than religious; they are differences of nations, or governments,
   or ranks of society, more than of creeds or forms of faith. The feeling
   which gave rise to them has, in a great measure, passed away; no
   intelligent man seriously inclines to believe that salvation is to be
   found only in his own denomination. Examples of this sturdy orthodoxy,'
   in our own generation, rather provoke a smile than arouse serious
   disapproval. Yet many experiments show that these differences cannot be
   made up by any formal concordat or scheme of union; the parties cannot
   be brought to terms, and if they could, would cease to take an interest
   in the question at issue. The friction is too great when persons are
   invited to meet for a discussion of differences; such a process is like
   opening the doors and windows to put out a slumbering flame. But that
   is no reason for doubting that the divisions of the Christian world are
   beginning to pass away. The progress of politics, acquaintance with
   other countries, the growth of knowledge and of material greatness,
   changes of opinion in the Church of England, the present position of
   the Roman Communion--all these phenomena show that the ecclesiastical
   state of the world is not destined to be perpetual. Within the envious
   barriers which divide human nature into very little pieces' (Plato,
   Rep. iii. 395), a common sentiment is springing up of religious truth;
   the essentials of Christianity are contrasted with the details and
   definitions of it; good men of all religions find that they are more
   nearly agreed than heretofore. Neither is it impossible that this
   common feeling may so prevail over the accidental circumstances of
   Christian communities, that their political or ecclesiastical
   separation may be little felt. The walls which no adversary has scaled
   may fall down of themselves. We may perhaps figure to ourselves the
   battle against error and moral evil taking the place of one of sects
   and parties.

   In this movement, which we should see more clearly but for the
   divisions of the Christian world which partly conceal it, the critical
   interpretation of Scripture will have a great influence. The Bible will
   be no longer appealed to as the witness of the opinions of particular
   sects, or of our own age; it will cease to be the battle field of
   controversies. But as its true meaning is more clearly seen, its moral
   power will also be greater. If the outward and inward witness, instead
   of parting into two, as they once did, seem rather to blend and
   coincide in the Christian consciousness, that is not a source of
   weakness but of strength. The Book itself, which links together the
   beginning and end of the human race, will not have a less inestimable
   value because the Spirit has taken the place of the letter. Its
   discrepancies of fact, when we become familiar with them, will seem of
   little consequence in comparison with the truths which it unfolds. That
   these truths, instead of floating down the stream of tradition, or
   being lost in ritual observances, have been preserved for ever in a
   book, is one of the many blessings which the Jewish and Christian
   revelations have conferred on the world--a blessing not the less real,
   because it is not necessary to attribute it to miraculous causes.

   Again, the Scriptures are a bond of union to the whole Christian world.
   No one denies their authority, and could all be brought to an
   intelligence of their true meaning, all might come to agree in matters
   of religion. That may seem to be a hope deferred, yet not altogether
   chimerical. If it is not held to be a thing impossible, that there
   should be agreement in the meaning of Plato or Sophocles, neither is it
   to be regarded as absurd, that there should be a like agreement in the
   interpretation of Scripture. The disappearance of artificial notions
   and systems will pave the way to such an agreement. The recognition of
   the fact, that many aspects and stages of religion are found in
   Scripture; that different, or even opposite parties existed in the
   Apostolic Church; that the first teachers of Christianity had a
   separate and individual mode of regarding the Gospel of Christ; that
   any existing communion is necessarily much more unlike the brotherhood
   of love in the New Testament than we are willing to
   suppose--Protestants in some respects, as much so as Catholics--that
   rival sects in our own day--Calvinists and Arminians--those who
   maintain and those who deny the final restoration of man--may equally
   find texts which seem to favour their respective tenets (Mark ix.
   44-48; Romans xi. 32)--the recognition of these and similar facts will
   make us unwilling to impose any narrow rule of religious opinion on the
   ever-varying, conditions of the human mind and Christian society.

   II. Christian missions suggest another sphere in which a more
   enlightened use of Scripture might offer a great advantage to the
   teacher. The more he is himself penetrated with the universal spirit of
   Scripture, the more he will he able to resist the literal and servile
   habits of mind of Oriental nations. You cannot transfer English ways of
   belief, and almost the history of the Church of England itself, as the
   attempt is sometimes made--not to an uncivilized people, ready like
   children to receive new impressions, but to an ancient and decaying
   one, furrowed with the lines of thought, incapable of the principle of
   growth. But you may take the purer light or element of religion, of
   which Christianity is the expression, and make it shine on some
   principle in human nature which is the fallen image of it. You cannot
   give a people who have no history of their own, a sense of the
   importance of Christianity, as an historical fact: but, perhaps, that
   very peculiarity of their character may make them more impressible by
   the truths or ideas of Christianity. Neither is it easy to make them
   understand the growth of Revelation in successive ages--that there are
   precepts of the Old Testament which are reversed in the New--or that
   Moses allowed many things for the hardness of men's hearts. They are in
   one state of the world, and the missionary who teaches them is in
   another, and the Book through which they are taught, does not
   altogether coincide with either. Many difficulties thus arise which we
   are most likely to be successful in meeting, when we look them in the
   face. To one inference they clearly point, which is this: that it is
   not the Book of Scripture which we should seek to give them, to be
   reverenced like the Vedas or the Koran, and consecrated in its words
   and letters, but the truth of the Book, the mind of Christ and His
   Apostles, in which all lesser details and differences should be lost
   and absorbed. We want to awaken in them the sense that God is their
   Father, and they His children;--that is of more importance than any
   theory about the Inspiration of Scripture. But to teach in this spirit,
   the missionary should himself be able to separate the accidents from
   the essence of religion; he should be conscious that the power of the
   Gospel resides not in the particulars of theology, but in the Christian
   life.

   III. It may be doubted whether Scripture has ever been sufficiently
   regarded as an element of liberal education. Few deem it worth while to
   spend in the study of it the same honest thought or pains which are
   bestowed on a classical author. Nor as at present studied, can it be
   said always to have an elevating effect. It is not a useful lesson for
   the young student to apply to Scripture, principles which he would
   hesitate to apply to other books; to make formal reconcilements of
   discrepancies which he would not think of reconciling in ordinary
   history; to divide simple words into double meanings; to adopt the
   fancies or conjectures of Fathers and Commentators as real knowledge.
   This laxity of knowledge is apt to infect the judgment when transferred
   to other subjects. It is not easy to say how much of the unsettlement
   of mind which prevails among intellectual young men is attributable to
   these causes; the mixture of truth and falsehood in religious
   education, certainly tends to impair, at the age when it is most
   needed, the early influence of a religious home.

   Yet Scripture studied in a more liberal spirit might supply a part of
   education which classical literature fails to provide. The best book
   for the heart might also be made the best book for the intellect.' The
   noblest study of history and antiquity is contained in it; a poetry
   which is also the highest form of moral teaching; there, too, are lives
   of heroes and prophets, and especially of One whom we do not name with
   them, because He is above them. This history, or poetry, or biography
   is distinguished from all classical or secular writings by the
   contemplation of man as he appears in the sight of God. That is a sense
   of things into which we must grow as well as reason ourselves, without
   which human nature is but a truncated, half-educated sort of being. But
   this sense or consciousness of a Divine presence in the world, which
   seems to be natural to the beginnings of the human race, but fades away
   and requires to be renewed in its after history, is not to be gathered
   from Greek or Roman literature, but from the Old and New Testament. And
   before we can make the Old and New Testament a real part of education,
   we must read them not by the help of custom or tradition, in the spirit
   of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary laws of
   human knowledge.

   IV. Another use of Scripture is that in sermons, which seems to be
   among the tritest, and yet is far from being exhausted. If we could
   only be natural and speak of things as they truly are with a real
   interest and not merely a conventional one! The words of Scripture come
   readily to hand, and the repetition of them requires no effort of
   thought in the writer or speaker. But, neither does it produce any
   effect on the hearer, which will always be in proportion to the degree
   of feeling or consciousness in ourselves. It may be said that
   originality is the gift of few; no Church can expect to have, not a
   hundred, but ten such preachers as Robertson or Newman. But, without
   originality, it seems possible to make use of Scripture in sermons in a
   much more living way than at present. Let the preacher make it a sort
   of religion, and proof of his reverence for Scripture, that he never
   uses its words without a distinct meaning; let him avoid the form of
   argument from Scripture, and catch the feeling and spirit. Scripture is
   itself a kind of poetry, when not overlaid with rhetoric. The scene and
   country has a freshness which may always be renewed; there is the
   interest of antiquity and the interest of home or common life as well.
   The facts and characters of Scripture might receive a new reading by
   being described simply as they are. The truths of Scripture again would
   have greater reality if divested of the scholastic form in which
   theology has cast them. The universal and spiritual aspects of
   Scripture might be more brought forward to the exclusion of questions
   of the Jewish law, or controversies about the sacraments, or
   exaggerated statements of doctrines which seem to be at variance with
   morality. The life of Christ, regarded quite naturally as of one who
   was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,' is also the
   life and centre of Christian teaching. There is no higher aim which the
   preacher can propose to himself than to awaken what may be termed the
   feeling of the presence of God and the mind of Christ in Scripture; not
   to collect evidences about dates and books, or to familiarize
   metaphysical distinctions; but to make the heart and conscience of his
   hearers bear him witness that the lessons which are contained in
   Scripture--lessons of justice and truth--lessons of mercy and peace--of
   the need of man and the goodness of God to him, are indeed not human
   but divine.

   V. It is time to make an end of this long disquisition--let the end be
   a few more words of application to the circumstances of a particular
   class in the present age. If any one who is about to become a clergyman
   feels or thinks that he feels that some of the preceding statements
   cast a shade of trouble or suspicion on his future walk of life, who,
   either from the influence of a stronger mind than his own, or from some
   natural tendency in himself, has been led to examine those great
   questions which lie on the threshold of the higher study of theology,
   and experiences a sort of shrinking or dizziness at the prospect which
   is opening upon him; let him lay to heart the following
   considerations:--First, that he may possibly not be the person who is
   called upon to pursue such inquiries. No man should busy himself with
   them who has not clearness of mind enough to see things as they are,
   and a faith strong enough to rest in that degree of knowledge which God
   has really given; or who is unable to separate the truth from his own
   religious wants and experiences. For the theologian as well as the
   philosopher has need of dry light,' unmingled with any tincture of the
   affections,' the more so as his conclusions are oftener liable to be
   disordered by them. He who is of another temperament may find another
   work to do, which is in some respects a higher one. Unlike philosophy,
   the Gospel has an ideal life to offer, not to a few only, but to all.
   There is one word of caution, however, to be given to those who
   renounce inquiry; it is that they cannot retain the right to condemn
   inquirers. Their duty is to say with Nicodemus, Doth the Gospel condemn
   any man before it hear him?' although the answer may be only Art thou
   also of Galilee?' They have chosen the path of practical usefulness,
   and they should acknowledge that it is a narrow path. For any but a
   strong swimmer' will be insensibly drawn out of it by the tide of
   public opinion or the current of party.

   Secondly, let him consider that the difficulty is not so great as
   imagination sometimes paints it. It is a difficulty which arises
   chiefly out of differences of education in different classes of
   society. It is a difficulty which tact, and prudence, and, much more,
   the power of a Christian life may hope to surmount. Much depends on the
   manner in which things are said; on the evidence in the writer or
   preacher of a real good will to his opponents, and a desire for the
   moral improvement of men. There is an aspect of truth which may always
   be put forward so as to find a way to the hearts of men. If there is
   danger and shrinking from one point of view, from another, there is
   freedom and sense of relief. The wider contemplation of the religious
   world may enable us to adjust our own place in it. The acknowledgment
   of churches as political and national institutions is the basis of a
   sound government of them. Criticism itself is not only negative; if it
   creates some difficulties, it does away others. It may put us at
   variance with a party or section of Christians in our own
   neighbourhood. But on the other hand, it enables us to look at all men
   as they are in the sight of God, not as they appear to human eye,
   separated and often interdicted from each other by lines of religious
   demarcation, it divides us from the parts to unite us to the whole.
   That is a great help to religious communion. It does away with the
   supposed opposition of reason and faith. It throws us back on the
   conviction that religion is a personal thing, in which certainty is to
   be slowly won and not assumed as the result of evidence or testimony.
   It places us, in some respects (though it be deemed a paradox to say
   so), more nearly in the position of the first Christians to whom the
   New Testament was not yet given, in whom the Gospel was a living word,
   not yet embodied in forms or supported by ancient institutions.

   Thirdly, the suspicion or difficulty which attends critical inquiries
   is no reason for doubting their value. The Scripture nowhere leads us
   to suppose that the circumstance of all men speaking well of us is any
   ground for supposing that we are acceptable in the sight of God. And
   there is no reason why the condemnation of others should be witnessed
   to by our own conscience. Perhaps it may be true that, owing to the
   jealousy or fear of some, the reticence of others, the terrorism of a
   few, we may not always find it easy to regard these subjects with
   calmness and judgment. But, on the other hand, these accidental
   circumstances have nothing to do with the question at issue; they
   cannot have the slightest influence on the meaning of words, or on the
   truth of facts. No one can carry out the principle that public opinion
   or church authority is the guide to truth, when he goes beyond the
   limits of his own church or country. That is a consideration which may
   well make him pause before he accepts of such a guide in the journey to
   another world. All the arguments for repressing inquiries into
   Scripture in Protestant countries hold equally in Italy and Spain for
   repressing inquiries into matters of fact or doctrine, and so for
   denying the Scriptures to the common people.

   Lastly, let him be assured that there is some nobler idea of truth than
   is supplied by the opinion of mankind in general, or the voice of
   parties in a church. Every one, whether a student of theology or not,
   has need to make war against his prejudices no less than against his
   passions; and, in the religious teacher, the first is even more
   necessary than the last. For, while the vices of mankind are in a great
   degree isolated, and are, at any rate, reprobated by public opinion,
   their prejudices have a sort of communion or kindred with the world
   without. They are a collective evil, and have their being in the
   interest, classes, states of society, and other influences amid which
   we live. He who takes the prevailing opinions of Christians and decks
   them out in their gayest colours--who reflects the better mind of the
   world to itself--is likely to be its favourite teacher. In that
   ministry of the Gospel, even when assuming forms repulsive to persons
   of education, no doubt the good is far greater than the error or harm.
   But there is also a deeper work which is not dependent on the opinions
   of men in which many elements combine, some alien to religion, or
   accidentally at variance with it. That work can hardly expect to win
   much popular favour, so far as it runs counter to the feelings of
   religious parties. But he who bears a part in it may feel a confidence,
   which no popular caresses or religious sympathy could inspire, that he
   has by a Divine help been enabled to plant his foot somewhere beyond
   the waves of time. He may depart hence before the natural term, worn
   out with intellectual toil; regarded with suspicion by many of his
   contemporaries; yet not without a sure hope that the love of truth,
   which men of saintly lives often seem to slight, is, nevertheless,
   accepted before God.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [136] Herman.
     __________________________________________________________________

                     NOTE ON BUNSEN'S BIBLICAL RESEARCHES.

   SINCE the Essay on Bunsen's Biblical Researches was in type, two more
   parts of the Bible for the People' have reached England. One includes a
   translation of Isaiah, but does not separate the distinguishable
   portions in the manner of Ewald, or with the freedom which the
   translator's criticisms would justify. The other part comprehends
   numerous dissertations on the Pentateuch, entering largely on questions
   of its origin, materials, and interpretation. There seems not an entire
   consistency of detail in these dissertations, and in the views
   deducible from the author's Egypt, but the same spirit and breadth of
   treatment pervade both. The analysis of the Levitical laws, by which
   the Mosaic germs are distinguished from subsequent accretions, is of
   the highest interest. The Ten Plagues of Egypt are somewhat
   rationalistically handled, as having a true historical basis, but as
   explicable by natural phenomena, indigenous to Egypt in all ages. The
   author's tone upon the technical definition of miracles, as distinct
   from great marvels and wonders, has acquired a firmer freedom, and
   would be represented by some among ourselves as painfully sceptical.'
   But even those who hesitate to follow the author in his details must be
   struck by the brilliant suggestiveness of his researches, which tend
   more and more, in proportion as they are developed, to justify the
   presentiment of their creating a new epoch in the science of Biblical
   criticism.

   R. W.

   THE END.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Genesis

   [1]1:14-18   [2]1:16   [3]1:21   [4]1:26   [5]1:26-27   [6]1:29
   [7]1:29   [8]1:29-30   [9]2:1   [10]2:1-3   [11]2:1-25   [12]2:4
   [13]2:4   [14]3:15   [15]5:3   [16]7:1   [17]9:3   [18]18:1-33
   [19]39:11   [20]49:10

   Exodus

   [21]20:8   [22]20:9   [23]20:9   [24]20:10   [25]20:11   [26]20:11

   Leviticus

   [27]18:18

   Deuteronomy

   [28]13:1

   Joshua

   [29]10:12-13

   1 Samuel

   [30]8:1-22   [31]12:1-25

   2 Samuel

   [32]12:23   [33]22:8

   Job

   [34]19:25   [35]26:1

   Psalms

   [36]17:15   [37]22:17   [38]26:1   [39]34:1-22   [40]78:23
   [41]109:6-19   [42]137:1-9

   Ecclesiastes

   [43]49:6-7

   Isaiah

   [44]7:16   [45]8:4   [46]23:1-18   [47]40:1-31   [48]42:1-25
   [49]42:1-25   [50]43:1-5   [51]43:10-14   [52]43:14-15   [53]44:7-8
   [54]45:1   [55]46:1-9   [56]46:10   [57]48:12-16   [58]48:20
   [59]48:22   [60]49:1-26   [61]49:1-26   [62]49:3   [63]50:5-6
   [64]52:1-14   [65]52:1-15   [66]52:1-15   [67]52:10-13   [68]53:1-12
   [69]53:1-12   [70]53:1-12   [71]53:1-12   [72]53:2   [73]53:8
   [74]54:1-17

   Jeremiah

   [75]1:1-19   [76]1:18-19   [77]4:33   [78]11:19   [79]11:19
   [80]11:19-23   [81]12:3   [82]14:11   [83]15:1   [84]16:15
   [85]18:18   [86]18:20   [87]20:9-17   [88]20:10   [89]23:1-2
   [90]26:11-15   [91]30:1-3   [92]30:10   [93]30:18   [94]31:6-12
   [95]36:19   [96]36:30   [97]37:16   [98]38:4-6   [99]41:2-3
   [100]41:9-10   [101]44:15-16   [102]45:1-3   [103]45:2-3   [104]50:6-17

   Lamentations

   [105]1:17   [106]3:1-13   [107]3:52-54

   Daniel

   [108]10:4

   Hosea

   [109]11:1

   Amos

   [110]7:10-17

   Matthew

   [111]2:1   [112]2:15   [113]2:22   [114]5:32   [115]5:34   [116]9:13
   [117]12:38   [118]12:39   [119]16:9   [120]16:18   [121]16:18-19
   [122]17:26   [123]18:18   [124]19:21   [125]22:21   [126]24:24
   [127]24:34   [128]28:20

   Mark

   [129]9:44-48   [130]10:11-12   [131]13:30

   Luke

   [132]1:1-2   [133]2:4   [134]20:27-35   [135]24:21-25

   John

   [136]1:1   [137]3:3   [138]3:5   [139]3:13   [140]6:2-30   [141]6:52
   [142]6:56   [143]6:63   [144]7:17   [145]10:35   [146]11:46
   [147]14:11   [148]14:26   [149]16:15   [150]18:36   [151]19:35
   [152]20:30   [153]21:25

   Acts

   [154]5:29   [155]16:31-34   [156]16:33   [157]17:1   [158]19:11

   Romans

   [159]1:1-3   [160]1:2   [161]1:3-4   [162]1:8   [163]1:16-18
   [164]1:32   [165]2:1-16   [166]2:14   [167]2:14-15   [168]2:17-21
   [169]3:2   [170]3:5-9   [171]3:9   [172]3:15   [173]3:19   [174]3:25
   [175]5:7   [176]5:12   [177]5:12-18   [178]9:1-33   [179]9:5
   [180]9:22   [181]10:1-21   [182]10:10   [183]10:18   [184]11:32
   [185]13:1   [186]15:6   [187]16:25-27

   1 Corinthians

   [188]1:17   [189]2:5   [190]3:15   [191]3:15   [192]5:2   [193]5:11
   [194]9:20   [195]11:10   [196]13:1-13   [197]13:8   [198]15:4
   [199]15:12   [200]15:19   [201]15:22   [202]15:29   [203]15:32

   2 Corinthians

   [204]2:4   [205]6:6-10   [206]11:21-33

   Galatians

   [207]1:8   [208]2:20   [209]3:1   [210]4:3   [211]4:11-20   [212]4:13
   [213]5:19

   Philippians

   [214]1:15   [215]2:6   [216]2:6

   Colossians

   [217]1:23   [218]2:16

   1 Thessalonians

   [219]4:3

   1 Timothy

   [220]3:16

   2 Timothy

   [221]2:18   [222]3:16

   Hebrews

   [223]2:3   [224]3:14   [225]10:2   [226]10:25-32   [227]13:7

   1 John

   [228]1:1   [229]5:7   [230]5:7

   Revelation

   [231]5:7

   2 Maccabees

   [232]15:13-14
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Greek Words and Phrases

     * agapai: [233]1
     * alla ti; ou pros ton nomon legei, kai tous photizomenous hup'
       autou, k.t.l.: [234]1
     * apostolos: [235]1
     * hagiasmos: [236]1
     * ektos logou porneias: [237]1
     * en Theo: [238]1
     * en Christo: [239]1
     * exousia, epibalon, sunapagomenoi, k.t.l.: [240]1
     * episkopos: [241]1 [242]2
     * he kuriake hemera: [243]1
     * hina: [244]1
     * Ieremias, kai sun auto Barouch, Threnoi, Epistole kai met' auton
       Iezekiel, k.t.l.: [245]1
     * ho antikeimenos: [246]1
     * ho kai he diakonos: [247]1
     * huper hemon: [248]1
     * ThS: [249]1
     * OS: [250]1
     * gar: [251]1
     * gnosis: [252]1
     * de: [253]1
     * dia: [254]1 [255]2
     * dikaiosune: [256]1
     * dikaiosune Theou: [257]1
     * eis aphanes ton muthon anenenkon ouk echu elenchon: [258]1
     * thaumata morois: [259]1
     * theopneustos: [260]1
     * ktisis: [261]1
     * men: [262]1
     * musterion: [263]1
     * nomon etheto mete proskunein Theous . . . . sunaptesthai de medeni
       plen ton sunomosmenon; autos de . . . . epempse presbeis pros tous
       hupo Tethmoseos apelathentas poimenas . . . . kai hexiou
       sunepistrateuein k.t.l.: [264]1
     * nomos: [265]1
     * ou monon--alla kai: [266]1
     * pistis: [267]1
     * pistis Iesou Christou: [268]1
     * pistis, charis, soteria: [269]1
     * parakletos: [270]1
     * pneuma: [271]1
     * pollo mallon: [272]1
     * polloi men narthekophoroi, bakchoi de ge pauroi: [273]1
     * presbuteros: [274]1
     * proegraphe: [275]1
     * proechometha: [276]1
     * semeia: [277]1
     * sophia: [278]1
     * stereoma: [279]1
     * tirata: [280]1
     * to kalon: [281]1
     * charis: [282]1
     * . . . ei gar pistos ei hos einai chre kai phileis ton Christon hos
       philein dei, ou chreian echeis ton semeion; tauta gar apistois
       dedotai.: [283]1
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Hebrew Words and Phrases

     * 'ln: [284]1
     * dv ,lkvn: [285]1
     * dmyh yt s'r': [286]1
     * h: [287]1
     * hqyphvny: [288]1
     * yngvn tvldt qvds': [289]1
     * klvy'ym: [290]1
     * klvym: [291]1
     * m: [292]1
     * n: [293]1
     * ng lmv: [294]1
     * nqph: [295]1
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Latin Words and Phrases

     * Adducuntur primum ratione exteri ad fidem, et quasi præparantur; .
       . . . . . . signis ergo et miraculis via fidei per sensus et
       rationem sternitur.: [296]1
     * Anima hominis naturâ, suâ in se habet Trinitatis simulacrum; in se
       enim tria complectitur, Mentem, Intellectum, et Voluntatem; . . .
       cogitat . . . percipit . . . vult.: [297]1
     * Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.: [298]1
     * Cavillatur . . . . quod posuerim, . . . . Adorate purè: [299]1
     * Condonet Dominus hoc R. Hillel: [300]1
     * Contra retiarium baculo: [301]1
     * Da fidei quæ fidei sunt: [302]1
     * Ex aliquo non sequitur omnis: [303]1
     * Gallus in campanili: [304]1
     * Hanc Scripuram credimus et confitemur esse oraculum Spiritus
       Sancti, cælestibus testimoniis ita confirmatum, ut Si Angelus de
       cælo aliud prædicaverit, anathema sit: [305]1
     * Intellectui non plumæ, sed plumbum addendum et pondera: [306]1
     * Ipsa conteret caput tuum: [307]1
     * Jesus ipse doctrinam quam tradidit divinam esse professus est,
       quantum divina ejus indoles ab homine vere religioso proboque bene
       cognosci potest atque dijudicari.: [308]1
     * Neque sermo aliud quam Deus neque caro aliud quam homo: [309]1
     * Non nisi ex Scripturâ Scripturam potes interpretari: [310]1
     * Novum Organum: [311]1
     * Nulla alia ratio et via eas [doctrinas] examinandi datur quam ut
       illarum placita cum iis quæ via naturali rectæ rationis de Deo
       ejusque voluntate ipsi innotuerint diligenter componat et ad normam
       sine omni superstitione examinet: [312]1
     * Nullum numen habes si sit prudentia: [313]1
     * Poena linguarum dispersit homines, donum linguarum in unum
       collegit: [314]1
     * Paulus in 1mâ ad Corinthios notat negatores et dubitatores
       resurrectionis. Hæc opinio propria Sadducæorum: partem ejus usurpat
       Marcion et Apelles, et Valentinus et si qui alii resurrectionem
       carnis infringunt--æque tangit eos qui dicerent factam jam
       resurrection: id de se Valentini adseverant.: [315]1
     * Persuasio de supernaturali et miraculosa eademque immediata Dei
       revelatione, haud bene conciliari videtur cum idea Dei æterni,
       semper sibi constantis: [316]1
     * Quasi non unitas, irrationaliter : [317]1
     * Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.: [318]1
     * Rationalismus vulgaris: [319]1
     * Seculum rationalisticum: [320]1
     * Tunc oportebat mundum, miraculis credere,--nunc vero credentem
       oportet bonis operibus coruscare: [321]1
     * a priori: [322]1 [323]2 [324]3 [325]4 [326]5 [327]6 [328]7
     * ac: [329]1
     * bonâ fide: [330]1
     * caput mortuum: [331]1
     * communis error facit jus.: [332]1
     * coram populo: [333]1
     * et: [334]1
     * et cantare pares et respondere parati': [335]1
     * ex carne homo, ex spiritu Deus: [336]1
     * ex officio: [337]1 [338]2
     * ex-officio: [339]1
     * extra palum Ecclesiæ: [340]1
     * firmamentum: [341]1
     * habeus corpus: [342]1
     * in limine: [343]1
     * in viridi observantiâ: [344]1
     * lexilogus: [345]1
     * limbus infantium: [346]1
     * nos vera fide amplecti omnia scripta Prophetarum et Apostolorum; et
       quidem in hac ipsa nativa sententia, quæ express est in Symbolis,
       Apostolico, Nicæno et Athanasiano.: [347]1
     * opinionum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat: [348]1
     * per contra: [349]1
     * primâ facie: [350]1 [351]2
     * quæstiunculæ: [352]1
     * quatenus concordant: [353]1
     * reductio ad absurdum: [354]1
     * residuum: [355]1
     * seculum: [356]1
     * secundum quid: [357]1
     * semiauimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant: [358]1
     * sub modo: [359]1
     * via media: [360]1
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of French Words and Phrases

     * Parmi nous,' says Remusat, un homme religieux est trop souvent un
       homme qui se croit entouré d'ennemis, qui voit avec défiance ou
       scandale les événements et les institutions du siècle, qui se
       désole d'être né dans les jours maudits, et qui a bosoin d'un grand
       fond de bonté innée pour empêcher ses pieuses aversions de devenir
       de mortelles haines.': [361]1
     * Le multitudinisme est une force qui peut, comme toute force, être
       mal dirigée, mal exploitée, mais qui pout aussi l'être au profit de
       la vérité, de la piété, de la vie. Les Eglises fondées sur un autre
       principe ont aidé à rectifier celui-là; c'est un des incontestables
       services qu'elles ont rendus, de nos jours, à la cause de
       l'Evangile. Elles ont droit à notre reconnaissance; mais à Genève,
       qu'elles ne nous demandent pas ce que nous ne pouvons faire, et
       qu'on me permette de le dire, ce qu'elles ne font pas elles-mêmes.
       Oui! le multitudinisme genevois est resté vivant chez elles, et
       certainement elles lui doivent une portion notable de leur
       consistance au dedans, de leur influence au dehors. Elles font
       appel, comme nous, à ses souvenirs et à ses gloires; elles forment,
       avec nous, ce que le monde chrétien appelle et appellera toujours
       l'Eglise de Genève. : [362]1
     * en masse: [363]1
     * petit maître: [364]1
     * philosophes: [365]1
     * pièce de resistance: [366]1
     * qui n'a pas de lecteurs, n'a pas d'adversaires: [367]1
     * résumé: [368]1
     * surtout point de zèle: [369]1
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Pages of the Print Edition

   [370]i  [371]ii  [372]iii  [373]1  [374]2  [375]3  [376]4  [377]5
   [378]6  [379]7  [380]8  [381]9  [382]10  [383]11  [384]12  [385]13
   [386]14  [387]15  [388]16  [389]17  [390]18  [391]19  [392]20  [393]21
   [394]22  [395]23  [396]24  [397]25  [398]26  [399]27  [400]28  [401]29
   [402]30  [403]31  [404]32  [405]33  [406]34  [407]35  [408]36  [409]37
   [410]38  [411]39  [412]40  [413]41  [414]42  [415]43  [416]44  [417]45
   [418]46  [419]47  [420]48  [421]49  [422]50  [423]51  [424]52  [425]53
   [426]54  [427]55  [428]56  [429]57  [430]58  [431]59  [432]60  [433]61
   [434]62  [435]63  [436]64  [437]65  [438]66  [439]67  [440]68  [441]69
   [442]70  [443]71  [444]72  [445]73  [446]74  [447]75  [448]76  [449]77
   [450]79  [451]79  [452]80  [453]81  [454]82  [455]83  [456]84  [457]85
   [458]86  [459]87  [460]88  [461]89  [462]90  [463]91  [464]92  [465]93
   [466]94  [467]95  [468]96  [469]97  [470]98  [471]99  [472]100
   [473]101  [474]102  [475]103  [476]104  [477]105  [478]106  [479]107
   [480]108  [481]109  [482]110  [483]111  [484]112  [485]113  [486]114
   [487]115  [488]116  [489]117  [490]118  [491]119  [492]120  [493]121
   [494]122  [495]123  [496]124  [497]125  [498]126  [499]127  [500]128
   [501]129  [502]130  [503]131  [504]132  [505]133  [506]134  [507]135
   [508]136  [509]137  [510]138  [511]139  [512]140  [513]141  [514]142
   [515]143  [516]144  [517]145  [518]146  [519]147  [520]148  [521]149
   [522]150  [523]151  [524]152  [525]153  [526]154  [527]155  [528]156
   [529]157  [530]158  [531]159  [532]160  [533]161  [534]162  [535]163
   [536]164  [537]165  [538]166  [539]167  [540]168  [541]169  [542]170
   [543]171  [544]172  [545]173  [546]174  [547]175  [548]176  [549]177
   [550]178  [551]179  [552]180  [553]181  [554]182  [555]183  [556]184
   [557]185  [558]186  [559]187  [560]188  [561]189  [562]190  [563]191
   [564]192  [565]193  [566]194  [567]195  [568]196  [569]197  [570]198
   [571]199  [572]200  [573]201  [574]202  [575]203  [576]204  [577]205
   [578]206  [579]207  [580]208  [581]209  [582]210  [583]211  [584]212
   [585]213  [586]214  [587]215  [588]216  [589]217  [590]218  [591]219
   [592]220  [593]221  [594]222  [595]223  [596]224  [597]225  [598]226
   [599]227  [600]228  [601]229  [602]230  [603]231  [604]232  [605]233
   [606]234  [607]235  [608]236  [609]237  [610]238  [611]239  [612]240
   [613]241  [614]242  [615]243  [616]244  [617]245  [618]246  [619]247
   [620]248  [621]249  [622]250  [623]251  [624]252  [625]253  [626]254
   [627]255  [628]256  [629]257  [630]258  [631]259  [632]260  [633]261
   [634]262  [635]263  [636]264  [637]265  [638]266  [639]267  [640]268
   [641]269  [642]270  [643]271  [644]272  [645]273  [646]274  [647]275
   [648]276  [649]277  [650]278  [651]279  [652]280  [653]281  [654]282
   [655]283  [656]284  [657]285  [658]286  [659]287  [660]288  [661]289
   [662]290  [663]291  [664]292  [665]293  [666]294  [667]295  [668]296
   [669]297  [670]298  [671]299  [672]300  [673]301  [674]302  [675]303
   [676]304  [677]305  [678]306  [679]307  [680]308  [681]309  [682]310
   [683]311  [684]312  [685]313  [686]314  [687]315  [688]316  [689]317
   [690]318  [691]319  [692]320  [693]321  [694]322  [695]323  [696]324
   [697]325  [698]326  [699]327  [700]328  [701]329  [702]330  [703]331
   [704]332  [705]333  [706]334  [707]335  [708]336  [709]337  [710]338
   [711]339  [712]340  [713]341  [714]342  [715]343  [716]344  [717]345
   [718]346  [719]347  [720]348  [721]349  [722]350  [723]351  [724]352
   [725]353  [726]354  [727]355  [728]356  [729]357  [730]358  [731]359
   [732]360  [733]361  [734]362  [735]363  [736]364  [737]365  [738]366
   [739]367  [740]368  [741]369  [742]370  [743]371  [744]372  [745]373
   [746]374  [747]375  [748]376  [749]377  [750]378  [751]379  [752]380
   [753]381  [754]382  [755]383  [756]384  [757]385  [758]386  [759]387
   [760]388  [761]389  [762]390  [763]391  [764]392  [765]393  [766]394
   [767]395  [768]396  [769]397  [770]398  [771]399  [772]400  [773]401
   [774]402  [775]403  [776]404  [777]405  [778]406  [779]407  [780]408
   [781]409  [782]410  [783]411  [784]412  [785]413  [786]414  [787]415
   [788]416  [789]417  [790]418  [791]419  [792]420  [793]421  [794]422
   [795]423  [796]424  [797]425  [798]426  [799]427  [800]428  [801]429
   [802]430  [803]431  [804]432  [805]433  [806]434
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

   1. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=14#vii-p27.1
   2. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=16#vii-p84.1
   3. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=21#vii-p20.1
   4. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=26#vii-p30.2
   5. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=26#vii-p20.2
   6. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=29#vii-p26.1
   7. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=29#vii-p82.1
   8. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=29#vii-p31.1
   9. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=1#iv-p21.6
  10. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=1#vii-p32.1
  11. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=1#vii-p29.1
  12. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=4#iv-p21.5
  13. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=4#vii-p76.1
  14. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=3&scrV=15#ix-p96.3
  15. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=5&scrV=3#vii-p30.3
  16. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=7&scrV=1#vii-p24.6
  17. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=9&scrV=3#vii-p31.2
  18. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=18&scrV=1#vii-p30.1
  19. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=39&scrV=11#vii-p72.1
  20. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=49&scrV=10#iv-p21.3
  21. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=8#vii-p73.1
  22. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=9#vii-p73.2
  23. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=9#vii-p74.1
  24. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=10#vii-p73.3
  25. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=11#vii-p73.4
  26. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=20&scrV=11#vii-p74.2
  27. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Lev&scrCh=18&scrV=18#ix-p31.4
  28. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=13&scrV=1#v-p98.1
  29. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Josh&scrCh=10&scrV=12#ix-p96.5
  30. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=1Sam&scrCh=8&scrV=1#vi-p38.1
  31. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=1Sam&scrCh=12&scrV=1#vi-p38.1
  32. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=2Sam&scrCh=12&scrV=23#ix-p56.1
  33. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=2Sam&scrCh=22&scrV=8#vii-p24.4
  34. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=19&scrV=25#ix-p56.3
  35. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=26&scrV=1#vii-p24.3
  36. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=17&scrV=15#ix-p56.2
  37. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=22&scrV=17#iv-p37.3
  38. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=26&scrV=1#iv-p58.1
  39. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=34&scrV=1#iv-p37.2
  40. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=78&scrV=23#vii-p24.5
  41. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=109&scrV=6#iv-p21.7
  42. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=137&scrV=1#iv-p30.1
  43. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Eccl&scrCh=49&scrV=6#iv-p60.1
  44. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=7&scrV=16#iv-p38.5
  45. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=8&scrV=4#iv-p23.1
  46. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=23&scrV=1#ix-p15.3
  47. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=40&scrV=1#iv-p43.2
  48. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=42&scrV=1#iv-p43.7
  49. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=42&scrV=1#iv-p63.4
  50. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=43&scrV=1#iv-p58.2
  51. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=43&scrV=10#iv-p58.2
  52. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=43&scrV=14#iv-p24.1
  53. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=44&scrV=7#iv-p59.3
  54. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=45&scrV=1#ix-p15.5
  55. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=46&scrV=1#iv-p59.3
  56. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=46&scrV=10#iv-p59.3
  57. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=48&scrV=12#iv-p24.2
  58. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=48&scrV=20#iv-p43.1
  59. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=48&scrV=22#iv-p24.3
  60. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=49&scrV=1#iv-p43.8
  61. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=49&scrV=1#iv-p63.5
  62. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=49&scrV=3#iv-p45.2
  63. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=50&scrV=5#iv-p59.3
  64. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=52&scrV=1#iv-p62.1
  65. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=52&scrV=1#iv-p43.3
  66. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=52&scrV=1#iv-p43.5
  67. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=52&scrV=10#iv-p59.3
  68. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=1#iv-p47.3
  69. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=1#iv-p43.6
  70. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=1#iv-p62.2
  71. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=1#iv-p66.1
  72. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=2#iv-p63.1
  73. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=8#iv-p63.2
  74. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=54&scrV=1#iv-p43.4
  75. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=1&scrV=1#iv-p60.2
  76. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=1&scrV=18#iv-p56.2
  77. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=4&scrV=33#vii-p22.1
  78. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=11&scrV=19#iv-p51.1
  79. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=11&scrV=19#iv-p57.1
  80. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=11&scrV=19#iv-p53.1
  81. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=12&scrV=3#iv-p50.1
  82. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=14&scrV=11#iv-p54.1
  83. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=15&scrV=1#iv-p54.1
  84. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=16&scrV=15#iv-p59.2
  85. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=18&scrV=18#iv-p55.1
  86. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=18&scrV=20#iv-p54.1
  87. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=20&scrV=9#iv-p55.1
  88. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=20&scrV=10#iv-p53.1
  89. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=23&scrV=1#iv-p50.1
  90. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=26&scrV=11#iv-p56.2
  91. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=30&scrV=1#iv-p59.2
  92. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=30&scrV=10#iv-p59.2
  93. file:///ccel/t/temple_f/essays/cache/essays.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=30&scrV=18#iv-p59.2
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