precious development, Mr. Parker tells us there was a necessity, — nothing less!*

For this, then, thing he was—through this

man was created; such a thing he was 'ordeal' he passes, — by original destination. If this be the picture of the Father of all, He is less kind to His offspring than the most intimate intuitions' teach them to be to their's . . . . If I am to abjure the Bible, because it gives me unworthy conceptions of the Deity, I must, with more reason abjure, on similar grounds, such a detestable theory of man's creation, destination, and history."†

When Mr. Newman therefore says, "I pollute and defile his God," I deny it. I hope and believe that he does not realise his own theory; but I say that, regarded as a moral Deity-the Deity of his theory-the Moloch of Progress, — cannot be defiled or polluted. It is not the God of the Bible; it is not the God of Nature, which is silent as to any such intimations either of the origin of man, or the administration of the universe; and the general convictions of men in all ages, when framed in · obedience to those moral intuitions, to which Mr. Newman so confidently appeals, prove that such a God is not the God of human consciousness!

Such, however, are the difficulties into which our deistical philosophers are perforce led, and of which they will never get rid. Discarding the revelations of the Bible with contempt, they yet are compelled to give us a book of "Genesis" of their own, and a book of “ Revelation;" and in doing so present us with theories of the origin, primeval condition, and destiny of our race, not only purely conjectural and abundantly contradictory, but unspeakably more difficult to believe than † Page 161.

* Page 160.

that of the Bible itself; and such, let Mr. Newman be assured, that men will sooner become atheists than adopt.

It is in vain for Mr. Newman to say, that we Christians endeavour to destroy every "third" possibility between the Bible and Atheism. This third possibilitysuch a god as he describes, -is felt by the best instincts. of man to be none at all, but an absolute incredibility. They cannot worship the Deity which this theory of Progress presents them with, and would sooner become stark atheists at once. Mr. Newman says that Mr. Holyoake has lectured on his book, and "behaved with courtesy and generosity." No doubt Mr. Holyoake will regard his books with leniency. He well knows whither Mr. Newman's theory will lead, and what sort of converts it will ultimately make. The sportsman does not shoot his own pointer.

Mr. Newman himself instructs us whither his "fixed moral basis" is likely to carry him. He says, "A serious atheist like Mr. G. J. Holyoake holds morality, as I do, to be a fixed certainty, but doubts whether there is any personal God. But Mr. Harrington is unsettled on both points." I should have thought, by the way, that any reader of "The Eclipse" must have been certain that he was not.* Mr. Newman goes on," With him morality has no fixedness; indeed, he is insolent with me because I treat it as an immovable foundation which I will not allow to be tampered with by any pretence of miracle; and he is equally uncertain whether there is any good God. Thus, of my two principles, the real atheist, Mr. Holyoake, holds one, and the more fundamental one; but Mr. Harrington holds neither."† I shall be heartily glad to hear that the words in Italics are an inadvertence; for amidst the variety of human

* See his express disavowal of Atheism, Eclipse, pp. 163-4.

judgments, a fixed basis of morality may easily be shown to be a quicksand without any personal God.

In fine, in reference to the whole subject of these two sections, people will more and more say,-"If the positive evidences for Theism, and the positive evidences for Christianity, be found of force, we cannot allow the parallel moral difficulties still besetting both, to be treated on totally different principles. Reason for both, if you will, or Faith for both, if you will; but not Reason to object to the latter, and then Faith to digest the former. We will not be told that our reason is to bow to the one, and then to rebel against the other, because some man tells us that God cannot do this or that, when not only do we see that He does similar things, (which you tell us are to be received by faith alone,) but the generality of men themselves tell us that they can as soon apply faith to the one class of difficulties as the other." This is the cage which Butler provides for those who reject the Bible on account of a certain class of difficulties; and a fair way of escape must be found.

65

SECTION IV.

THE EXIGENCIES OF DEISM.

AND now, because I insist that there are facts in the universe of God, as difficult to be accounted for, and as baffling to man's reason, as the facts for which the infidel so often rejects the Scripture; and because I insist that the image of the God they often "project"though they intend it not-aggravates all those difficulties a thousand fold, let Mr. Newman, if he will, reiterate his charge, that I am uttering "profane scoffs against the God of Nature, which too clearly come from the heart:" to that I condescend to make no reply. My appeal is to Him who knows the heart, who knows mine, with all its infirmities, faults, and follies, and how much, how infinitely, it needs His compassion and forgiveness; but He knows this also, that it desires to harbour not one disloyal thought to Him as "the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords;" as "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the Blessed and only Potentate; " not a thought that would impugn His infinite Justice, Wisdom, and Goodness. These I believe perfect and infinite, on preponderating evidence, though I confess I cannot reconcile all the acts of His infinite government with the little measure of man's infinitesimal wisdom and goodness. These are my sentiments, in harmony, as I believe, with that Book which has reinforced what at best would have been, but for that, the faltering conclusions of my reason: as such conclusions have ever been but faltering among all the nations that have been without it. I have said what I have said,

F

only to prove the precarious grounds on which many infidels would chiefly persuade us to reject that Book, without even considering the positive evidence for it; and to prevent some of my young countrymen from indulging presumptuous hopes, under the notion that "God is altogether such a one as" themselves, or rather the variable thing several men would make him; sometimes with analogous moral qualities and sometimes not; sometimes exercising a general providence only, sometimes a special one; sometimes this and sometimes that. I have spoken to prevent their resting in vain theories, which tell us, though professedly without authority and infinitely discordant, that God cannot do this or that which He is reported to have done in the Scriptures, when we have but to open our eyes and see that He can do, and does, like things equally strange; and to prevent their rashly casting away that light which wise heathen longed to see, and which would have been so welcome ;-light which we must have as the (shifting course of human speculation shows), if we would confront the mysteries in which the Divine government and our ignorance of the origin and destinies of man involve us. The face of God to guilty man resembles that of the sun-that type and image of His glory ;in himself too bright for the dazzled eye to bear, he now bathes rejoicing nature in the glowing tints of morning or the golden pomp of sunset, now piles the thunderclouds about him and casts a lurid light upon the world from behind that stormy pavilion;--and anon hides himself for days together within an impenetrable curtain of wintry cloud and tempest. Thrice welcome surely, under the changing aspects of the Infinite One, should be the message of Him who came to make known to us the Father in disclosures equally "full of grace and truth;" and to assure us, amidst the variable pheno