[CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— gations, expand also. To bind down to a fixed law in morals, as well as in science, and in religion also, is to forbid all progress, and check the tide of improvement with the arbitrary fiat, hitherto shalt thou come and no further. The aim of the Essenes at purity, proceeded from the oriental assumption of the evil nature of matter;-the body must be subjected, annihilated, that the spirit may be freed and enjoy its own perfection, which is a state of pure contemplation and inanition. The good sense of Jesus and his apostles kept the doctrine from becoming extravagant in their own time; but whenever the sanction of religion is given to error, superstition necessarily follows, and the abuses of monkish asceticism were the legitimate consequences of the gospel precepts. In our day the consequences are deplorable in another direction: nature has forced the abrogation of those faithful austerities, and modern Christians, (save a few genuine copiers of the saints, who are stigmatized as fanatics,) while professing to take the gospels as their rule of life, satisfy themselves that the commands to "love not the world" belonged only to the early disciples, and that they themselves may look for a heavenly reward on much easier conditions. A false pretence of really unattainable sanctity, is the miserable result of accepting as divine an unnatural rule of duty.* It XXXI. responsible for Judaism. In estimating the character of Christianity, and the claim set up for it of Divine wisdom, it is not to be forgotten that standing as it does upon the basis of Judaism, it becomes tacitly responsible for the divinity of that first institution as well as its own. Jesus indeed claimed authority to mitigate some of the ceremonial requirements of the law of Moses, and Paul declared that its end and consummation was arrived; but neither implied a doubt that it had been ordained by God. Thus all the contradictions of geology and astronomy, all the gross physical miracles, all the savage delineations of Deity in the Old Testament, are bound up in the creed which must be believed by the Christian.-Those who say that Judaism was merely a temporary institution, are taking the ground of Infidelity, and at once give up the claim of its being a Revelation: unless, indeed, they believe that God can trifle with his creatures. * See Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, translated by Marian Evans. Chap man's Quarterly Series, No. vI. 1854. p. 208. -INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] Christ; and 3d, as 'the "Let no one seek for a ponding relations in which, as is plainly implied by that doctrine, we XXXI. "Many persons are struck with the air of puerility in a great part of the precepts of the Mosaic Law, from its supposed unsuitableness to the dignity of a Divine Lawgiver. In a future and higher state of existence, we may probably perceive nearly the same, in all the instructions, natural or supernatural, ever given to Man in his highest state of civilization and the difference between the rudest and most advanced conditions of our Species (when once removed from the condition of mere savages) may then appear to us hardly worth notice. The distinction between the ancient Israelites and the most enlightened Christians, may perhaps hereafter appear to us analogous to that between children of four or five years old, and those of eight or nine." "To look for a complete revelation of Gospel truth in every book of the Old Testament, is as if a series of letters from a father to his son, from his childhood to his mature age, were blended together, and it were contended, as necessary to indicate the consistency of the writer, that all should contain the very same instructions."§ "When the Jews came out of Egypt, they were plainly a barbarous and ferocious people-pagan in all their sympathies and habits-rude, savage, and sensual in their tastes. They were a fair specimen of human nature in its animal type-and as such it was necessary to deal with them... Somehow or other, it is certain, spiritualism, starting at the very lowest conceivable point among this people, made steady progress-cleared itself gradually of the grosser forms with which it was first associated— and ultimately brought up the level of human kind to an average of religious conviction and sentiment which rendered possible the presentation * Whately's Essays, pp. 233. 241. 248. 252. 254. 262. XXXII. The true worth of Christianity is not known till it is recognized as natural. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— If we regard Christianity as a natural production, i.e., as a development of Judaism, assisted by broader views from Gentile philosophy, and animated by a more generous spirit of wider philanthropy,-and suffer it to take its proper place in history: at once we are free to appreciate its real merits, and can much the better recognize its good for not being obliged to blind our judgments in the fear lest they should discover its evil. We can admire the benign influence which, just when it was wanted, came to counteract the fierce animal passions that had hitherto held undisputed sway (with regard to the masses) over the superior spiritual instincts struggling to obtain their freedom,-all the more for not conceiving ourselves bound, because the Lord has said it, to "resist no evil", to offer our cheek to the smiter, and our garment to the spoiler. Acknowledging to ourselves without reserve, that we shall exercise our own judgment upon the propriety of our observance of the old precepts, we can much better see and honour the good that is in them. So also our reverence for the leaders of the great Reform, as far as they can be distinguished by us, if less exaggerated, would seem of a more genuine kind when we regard them simply as faithfully working out the problem of their Present, and ministering to its immediate need with all their powers, which if beyond their age, were not so much beyond as that their age could not profit by them, than if we suppose them to be laying down laws for all future generations. When we try to make that which fitted their age, satisfy ours also, the effort it costs us to strain a forced meaning out of them, or to force a meaning of our own into them, causes a frame of mind very different from the implicit confidence of the true disciple; and far inferior too to the frank admiration of one who can estimate the value of truth from having sought it for himself. The Scripture records will be all the more interesting and valuable to us when we seek in them for genuine human information. Not a particle of the truth that is in them can ever be lost. The great amount of the intrinsic worth that is in them, in Christianity, has been shown by the hold it has had over the minds of men during so many ages. And still there are very many for whom it is yet adapted, who therefore cling to it with steadfast attachment,— for whom it is yet divine. But when bit by bit they unwillingly find that parts are manifestly full of human error, then the great evil comes into play, that superstition has placed the stamp of divinity on the whole alike, so that to spare a part, all sorts of deceitful devices of crooked. ingenuity must be used. There is perhaps an inner truth, not appreciable by all, in all doctrines that have ever captivated the human mind. Thus especially in the dogmas of the Incarnation and Atonement, there is something which corresponds with the natural instincts in so profound a manner, that many feel disposed for the sake of this vibrating chord of sentiment, to retain verbally all the associated circumstances in —INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] of divine truth, by Jesus Christ, in the most spiritual form which our nature can apprehend, realize, and enjoy." XXXII. "Lastly, assuming the facts to contain a divine revelation, that interpretation of their spiritual meaning which is found to be congruous with our religious consciousness may complete our conviction that we are rightly instructed in the mind of God. This congruity is, to a great extent, the ultimate basis of very much, if not most, of the actual belief existing in the Christian world. Theories of divine inspiration may be true or not-may be treated as the foundations upon which the authority of God's Word reposes, or as human inventions to secure integrity of doctrine-may be overrated on the one hand, and undervalued on the other-but after all, the steadiest, the surest, the most operative belief in Christianity, is that which is born of the conviction that it answers to our need. There are countless thousands of men who know nothing whatever, and are never likely to know anything, of the incessant controversies waged upon this delicate question, who, nevertheless, rely with unfaltering confidence upon the testimony of the witness within themselves that the gospel, as expounded by the apostles, is an elevating, purifying, gladdening, spiritualizing power. They feel that it has succeeded in quickening in their bosoms a new and more glorious life—that it has set before them a nobler end of living—that it has brought them under the power of a better dominant motive-that it has infused into them a vigour for self-government such as they have derived from no other source -that it has hushed their consciences to peace-that it has changed the entire character of their views of God-that it has intertwined their strongest affections with imperishable objects—that it has filled, even to overflowing, a sensible void in their being-that it has superinduced a willing resignation to all providential arrangements, however hard to bear— that it has overcome in them the fear of death, and endowed them with a hope full of immortality.' With this experience in view, you might as well tell them that God made not the sun nor the eye that sees it, the earth nor the senses to which it ministers enjoyment, as to question with them whether the truths they have found so adapted to their spiritual wants are essentially divine. They wait for no settlement of theological conflicts touching the mode in which Scripture was given, to enable them to recognize the authority of revelation. Its title to reign over them is found in its power to do so. All the religious instincts of their nature determine for them the sufficiency of the New Testament display of God in Christ to answer their demands. And, in truth, the basis of their faith is trustworthy-more trustworthy, perhaps, than any theological dogma, how correct soever, respecting the inspiration of Scrip * Bases of Belief, pp. 401. 406. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION.— How much better the Christian creed which otherwise revolt them.* of Christianity should be felt to be that it can lead the mind on to XXXIII. It made no peculiar impression upon the world at the time. AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION THAT IT IS DEFICIENT IN TESTIMONY FROM That "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation" is a beautiful truth as applied to the growth of moral and religious principles; but that a miraculous interposition in the affairs of men by the personal descent of a Divine Being, should yet not make itself clearly obvious and distinguishable from all the rest of history, is irreconcilable with our experience of what is proper to human nature. Jesus is represented as saying, "if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out :"-a very natural thought to the early disciples. If it be said, God's ways are not like ours, this is in fact acknowledging that the idea of miracle is but a fiction of human invention, and that the quiet even course is the truly divine. The little that is said of Christianity during the first century or two shows, that the sensation it produced and the progress it made were no greater than was to be expected from a religion that had a human origin and human means of propagation. The tampering with ancient manuscripts of which the partizans of Christianity, animated by more piety than honesty, have been notoriously guilty, especially in the dark days when the monks held the literature of the past almost in their sole keeping,—renders suspicious much of the little mention we have of Christ and his first followers in Jewish and Heathen writers. The undisputed passages, however, from Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, may be held sufficient of themselves to substantiate * "I turn away from the Bible, not knowing, if it use our words in a sense so different, so utterly different, from any which we attach to them, what may not be the mystical meaning of any or every verse and fragment of it. It has but employed the words which men use to mock and deceive them. A revelation! Oh, no! no revelation; only rendering the hard life-enigma tenfold harder..I do not disbelieve that in some mysterious transcendental sense, as involved in the system of the entire universe, with so vast an arc that no faculty of man can apprehend its curve,-that in some such sense the Catholic doctrine of the atonement may be true. But a doctrine out of which, with our reason, our feeling, our logic, I at least can gather any practical instruction for mankind-any deeper appreciation of the attributes of God, any deeper love for Him, any stimulant towards our own obedience-such a doctrine I cannot find it. I bury what I am to think of it in the deepest corner of my own heart, where myself I fear to look." Nemesis of Faith, by J. A. Froude, 1849, p. 72. |