OP THE Theological Seminary,^ PRINCETON, N.J. BR 50 .A32 1871 . Aids to faith AIDS TO FAITH; SERIES OF THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. BY SEVERAL WUITERS. IIEIXC A '^gqhX U "fean.'. aiiii '^Ifbite/' EDITED in* WILLIAM ^IIOMSOX, D. D., LORD niSIIOP OF OLOUCESTEU AND nUISTOL. NEW YOPJC : D. APPLE TON AND COMPANY, 90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 1870. PKEFACE The Essays in tliis volume are intended to offer aid to those whose faith, may have been shaken "by recent assaults. The writers do not pretend to have exhausted subjects so vast and so important, within the compass of a few pages ; but they desire to set forth their reasons for be- lieving the Bible, out of which they teach, to be the inspired "Word of God, and for exhorting others still to cherish it as the only message of salvation from God to man. They hope that these Essays may be, to those whose attention they can secure, incentives to further thought and reading. They have avoided, rather than sought, direct controversy. They have excluded j)erson- ality ; they have not sj)oken with undue harsh- ness of the views they have been forced to op- pose. For the choice of contributors and the ar- rangement of subjects the Editor is responsible. Most of the writers gave their names without knowing those of their coadjutors ; and not one of them, but the Editor, has seen all the Essays ^ rilKFACE. u]) to tlio day of publication. Eacli has written independently, Avitliout any editorial interference, beyond a few hints to prevent omissions and rep- etitions, such as must arise when several writers work without concert. On the withdrawal of one of the contributors, Dr. McCaul most kindly undertook a second pa- per, at a shoi-t notice. No one has a better claim to be heard on the important subjects that have been confided to him. Professor Mansel lent much valuable aid to the Editor in an unexpected increase of labour. This volume is humbly offered to the Great Head of the Church, as one attempt among many to keep men true to Him in a time of much doubt and trial. Under His protection. His people need not be afraid. The old difficulties and ob- jections are revived ; but they will meet in one way or another the old defeat. While the world lasts, sceptical books will be written and an- swered, and the books, perhaps, and the answers alike forgotten. But the Eock of Ages shall stand unchangeable ; and men, worn with a sense of sin, shall still find rest " under the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." W. G. ct B. CONTEInTTS. PACK I.-ON MIRACLES AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, . . 9 H. L. Mansel, B. D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford; Tutor and late Fellow of St. John's College. II.-ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAN- ITY, 55 William Fitzgerald, D. D., Lord Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, III.-PROPHECY, 97 A. McCaul, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Tes- tament Exegesis, King's College, London, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. IV.-IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION, 157 F. C. Cook, M. A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, one of II. M.'s Inspectors of Schools, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln. v.— THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION, 219 A. McCaul, D. D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Tes- tament Exegesis, King's College, London, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. 5 CONTENTS. PAGE VI.— ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH, 273 George Ramlinsox, ;M. A., Camden Professor of An- cient History, Oxford, and late Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College. VII.— INSPIRATION, 331 Edward Harold Browne, B. D., Norrisian Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, and Canon Residentiary of Exeter Cathedral. VIII.-TIIE DEATH OF CHRIST, William Thomson, D. D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. IX.— SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION, . . . .425 Charles Joun Ellicott, B. D., Dean of Exeter, au i'rofessor of Divinity, King's College, London. ESSAY I. ON MIRACLES AS EVIDENCES OF CHEISTIANITY. CONTENTS OF ESSAY I. IG. Introdittion'— A Belief in the reality of miracles is indispensable to (Jhrib- tianity. Miracles belons to the moral nswcll as to the sensible evidences of Chris- tianity, and are i)art of its essential doctrines, not merely of its external accessories. Fallacy of the arsniment from the dis- belief'in reported miracles of the pres- ent day; this armunont not applica- ble to the miracles of Christ. Testimony how far able to prove a miracle as such: the proof of one miracle removes the antecedent pre- sumption against others of the same series. Connection between the miraclesof the Old Testament and those of the New. Amount of testimony in support of the Christian miracles. Fitness of the miracles as accompani- ments of man's redemption. Statement of the question as related to modern science. Position of miracles with reference to the empirical laws of matter. Sui)posed objection aijainst miracles from the uniformity of nature — Hume's argument not strengthened by the subsequent progress of science. Advance of physical science tends to increase our conviction of the super- natural character of the Christian miracles. Difference, ns regards science, be- tween physical phenomena and works done by human agency. Final alternative necessitated by sci- ontiflc progress. Kefutation of Hume's argument: a miracle is not properly a violation of the lawH of nature, but the introduc- tioji of a special cause. Introduction of special causes is not incredible — Objection from the sup- jiosed necessary relations of natural forces to each other. E.\cepti«)n to this necessity in the case of the human will— Extension of the argument from the human will to the Divine. 23. 2G. True conception of a miracle as the interposition of a superhuman will — Kelr.tion of this superhuman will to the conception of iiattire, active and passive, and to that of laic. Position of miracles with reference to our conceptions of God's nature and attributes — Limits within which this question must bo discussed— Form which it assumes in relation to mira- cles. Man's conception of God is derived from mind, not from matter. Conceptions of law, and order, and causation, are borrowed by material from mental science. God is necessarily conceived as a Person, and as related to the per- sonal soul of man. Katiire conceals God : man reveals God. Consequences of the above principles : miracles must be judged, not merely from i)hysical, but also from moral and religious grounds, and their prob- ability estimated by that of a revela- tion being given at all. The possibility of miracles follows from the belief in a personal God. Evidential value of miracles. — Erro- neous views on this point — Miracles how far objects, how far evidences of faith. Miracles and doctrines, their relation to each other — Negative character of the doctrinal criterion: its relation to tho question whether miracle* liave been wrought at all. Agency of evil spirits is practically excluded from the question: practical question is between a Divine and a human origin of Christianity, as re- gards the authority due to cnich. Theoretical authority of miracles as 'evidences of doctrines. Pr.ictical extension of this authority — Doctrines of natural religion may practically be proved by miracles, and have actually been so. Principle on which the evidential value of miracles depends. Conclusion. ON MIEACLES AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. What is the exact position of Miracles among the Evidences of Christianity, is a question which may be differently answered by different believers, without prejudice to their common belief. It has pleased the Divine Author of the Christian religion to fortify His revelation with evidences of various kinds, appealing with different degrees of force to different minds, and even to the same mind at different times. The grounds of belief consisting, not in a single demonstration, but in an accumulation of many probabilities, there is room, in the evidences as in the doctrines of Christianity, for special adaptations of different portions to different minds ; nor can such adaptation be regarded as matter of regret or censure, so long as the jDcrsonal preference of certain portions does not involve the rejection of the remainder. The question, however, assumes a very different character when it relates, not to the comparative im- portance of miracles as evidences, but to their reality as facts, and as facts of a supernatural kind. For if this is denied, the denial does not merely remove one of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system of Christian belief with its evidences, the moral no less than the intellectual influences, the precept and exam- ple for the future no less than the history of the past — all Christianity, in short, so far as it has any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the same time. 2. For this question must be considered, not mere- 1* IQ AID3 TO FAITH. [Essay I, ly, as is too often done, in relation to a purely liypo- tlietical case, to a supposition of possible means by wliicli the Christian religion might, had it so pleased God, have been introduced into the world otherwise than it was ; but in relation to the actual means by which it was introduced, to the teaching and practice of Christ and His Apostles, as they are portrayed in the only records from which we can learn anything al)Out them. Whether the doctrinal truths of Cln-isti- anity could or could not have been propagated among men by moral evidence alone, without any miraculous accompaniments, it is at least certain that such was not the manner in which they actually were propagated, according to the narrative of Scripture. If our Lord not only did works apparently surpas>sing human power, but likewise expressly declared that lie did those works by the power of God, and in witness that the Father had sent him ; — if the Apostles not only wrought works of a similar kind to those of their Master, but also ex- pressly declared that they did so in His name, the mira- cles, as thus interpreted by those who wrought them, become part of the moral as well as the sensible evi- dences of the religion which they taught, and cannot be denied without destroying both kinds of evidence alike. '' Tliat ye may know "that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee. Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine house : " " If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you : " " By the name of Jesus Christ of Kazareth, whom ye cnicified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole : "— let us imagine for an instant such words as these to liave been uttered by one who was merely employing a superior knowledge of natural laws to produce a false appearance of supernatural power ; by an astronomer, for instance, who had predicted an eclipse to a crowd of savages, or by a chemist, availing himself of his {sci- ence to exhil)it niative miracles to an ignorant peo])le — and we shall feel at once how even the most plausi- Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 1 1 ble of the natural explanations of miraculous phenom- ena deals the deathblow to the moral character of the teacher, no less than to the sensible evidence of his mission. But there is a yet higher witness to this intimate association of the Christian Evidences one with another, in that great fact which forms at once the central point of apostolical preaching and the earnest of the future hope of all Christian men. If there is one fact recorded in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest sense of the word, to the name of a Miracle, the Eesukrection of Chkist is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the supernatural. " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." Here, at least, is a test by which all the evidences of Christianity alike, internal as well as ex- ternal, moral as w^ell as intellectual, may be tried. If Christ did not truly die and truly rise from the dead, preaching is vain and faith is vain ; the Apostles are false witnesses of God ; nay, Christ Himself, if we may dare to say so, has witnessed falsely of Himself. It is necessary to state the case in this manner, in order to point out the real importance of the interests at stake. ISTothing can be more erroneous than the view somethnes taken, which represents the cpiestion of the possibility of miracles as one which merely af- fects the external accessories of Christianity, leaving the essential doctrines untouched.^' Such might pos- sibly be the case, were the argument merely confined to an inquiry into the evidence in behalf of some one miracle as an isolated fact, without impeaching the pos- sibility of miracles in general. But such is not the question which has been raised, or can be raised, as re- gards the relation of miracles to the alleged discoveries * See ' Essays and ■Reviews,' p. 94 (third edition). A similar view is taken by Schleiermacher, ' Der Christliche Glaubc,' ^^ 14, pp. 10(», f^qq. With f:ir greater tiuth it is maintained on the other hand by Kothc (' Studien und Jvi i- tiken,' 1^58, p. 23) tliat " Jiliracles and Prophecies are not adjuncts appended from without to a revelation in itself iudepcndent of them, but coustitulivc elements of the revelation itself." 22 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. of modern science. If the possibility of miracles be granted, the question, whether any particular miracle did or did not take place, is a question not of science, but of testimony. The scientific question relates to the possibility of supernatural occurrences at all ; and if this be once decided in the negative, Christianity as a religion must necessarily be denied along with it. Some'moral precepts may indeed remain, which may or may not have been first enunciated by Christ, but which in themselves have no essential connection with one person more than with another ; but all belief in Christ as the great Example, as the Teacher sent from God, as the crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to re- turn. The perfect sinlessness of His life and conduct can no longer be held before us as our type and pat- tern, if the works which He professed to pei'form by Divine power were either not performed at all or were performed by human science and skill. No^ mystery impenetrable by human reason, no doctrine incapable of natural proof, can be believed on His authority ; for if He professed to work miracles, and wrought them not, what warrant have w^e for the trustworthiness of otlier parts of His teaching ? The benefits obtained by His Cross and Passion, the promises conveyed by His Resurrection, are no longer the objects of Christian faith and hope ; for if miracles arc impossible. He died as other men die, and was laid unto His fathers, and saw corruption. The prayers whch we ofter to Him who ascended into Heaven, and there liveth to make intercession for us, are a delusion and a mockery, if miracles are impossible ; for then is Christ not ascended into Heaven. 3. In point of fact, even single miracles cannot be treated as isolated occurrences, and judged as we should judge of any similar act narrated at another time. There 'is a latent fallacy in the appeal which is sometimes made to the manner in which well-informed men deal with al- leged marvels at the present day.'^ The Christian mir- * See • Essays and Reviews,' p. lOT. A similar appeal to the practical denial of miracles is made by Kant, 'Religion innerbalb der Grenzen der Essay I.] ON MIIIACLES. 23 acles can only be judged in connection with the scheme of which they form a part, and by the light of all the collateral evidence which that scheme is able to fur- nish. The true question is, not what should we think of, or how should we endeavour to explain, a single mar- vellous occurrence, or even a series of such occur- rences, reported as taking place at the present time ? but, what should we think of one who should come now, as Christ came, supported by all the evidences which combined to bear witness to Him ? If the world, with all its advance in physical science, were morally and religiously in the same state as at the time of Christ's coming ; if we, like the Jews of old, had been taught by a long series of prophecies to expect a Re- deemer in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed ; if the events of our national history tended to show that the time was come to which those prophecies pointed as the epoch of their fulfilment ; if we were in possession of a religion, itself claiming a Divine origin, yet in all its institutions bearing witness to something yet to come — a religion of type, and ceremony, and sacrifice, pointing to a further purpose and a spiritual significance beyond themselves ; if one were to appear, proclaiming himself to be the promised Redeemer, appealing to our sacred writings as testif\'ing of him- self, doing works not only full of power but of good- ness, full of wonder, but also full of love, and con- firmed by Scriptures expressly declaring that such works should be done by him that was to come ; doing them, not in secret, nor in an appointed place, nor with instruments prepared for the purjiose, but openly and without efiort, and upon occasions as they naturally presented themselves, in the street and in the market- place, in the wilderness and on the sea, by the sick man's bed and the dead man's bier ; and expressly de- claring that he did them by the power of God and in proof that God had sent him ; — with all these circum- stances combined, let any unprejudiced man among blossen Vernunft,' p. TOO, cd. Rosenkranz : though Kant does not go so far as to deny the theoretical possibihty of miracles. 24 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. ourselves say wliicli would be tlie more reasonable view to be taken of such works performed by sucli a person ; wdiether to admit his own account of them, guaranteed by all the weight of his character, or to re- fer them to some natural cause, which will at some fu- ture time receive its ex2)lanation by the advance of dis- covery. Surely those who, even in this enlightened age, chose to adopt the latter hypothesis, rather than admit the teacher's own testimony concerning himself, would be the legitimate successors of those who, under like circumstances, declared, " He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." * 4. But it is said that testimony is unable to prove a miracle as such. " JSTo testimony, we are told on high scientific authority, can reach to the supernatural ; tes- timony can apply only to apparent sensible facts ; tes- timony 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." f What- ever may be the value of this ol)jcction as applied to a hypothetical case, in which the objector may select such occun-enccs and such testimonies as suit his pur- pose, it is singularly inapplicable to the works actually recorded as having been done by Christ and His Apos- tles, and to the testimony by which they are actually supported. It may, with certain exceptions, be appli- cable to a case in which the assertion of a supernatural cause rests solely on the testimony of the sjxcfa/or of the fact ; but it is not applicable to those in which the cause is declared by the ■performer. Let us accept, if we please, merely as a narrative of *' apparent sensible facts," the history of the cure of the blind and dumb demoniac, or of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate ; but wc cannot place the same restriction upon the words of our Lord and of St. Peter, which expressly * For lliis arfxumonf I nm partly indebted to Dean Lyall, ' Preparation cf Propliccy,' p. ir.l, cd. 1S.J4. •f 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 107. This objection is partly borrowed fioiii Dean Lyall, p. 'jO, who however uses it lor a very dillerent purpose. Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 15 assign the supernatural cause : " If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you : " " By the name of Jesus Christ of JSTazareth doth this man stand here before you whole." * We have here, at least, a testimony reaching to the super- natural ; and if that testimony be admitted in these cases, it may be extended to the whole series of won- derful works performed by the same persons. For if a given cause can be assigned as the true explanation of any single occurrence of the series,. it becomes at once the most reasonable and probable explanation of the remainder. The antecedent presumption against a nar- rative of miraculous occurrences, whatever may be its weight, is only applicable to the narrative taken as a whole, and to the entire series of miracles which it con- tains. But if a single true miracle be admitted as es- tablished by sufficient evidence, the entire history to which it belongs is at once removed from the ordinary calculations of more or less probability. One miracle is enough to show that the series of events with which it is connected is one which the Almighty has seen fit to mark by exceptions to the ordinary course of His Providence ; and, if this be once granted, we have no d 2^^'^ori grounds on which vre can determine how many of such exceptions are to be expected. If a sin- gle miracle recorded in the Gospels be once admitted, the remainder cease to have any special antecedent im- probability, and may be established by the same evi- dence which is sufficient for ordinary events. For the improbability, Avhatcver it may be, reaches no further than to show that it is unlikely that God should work miracles at all ; not that it is unlikely that He should work more than a certain number. 5. Hitherto w^e have spoken only of the miracles of Christ and His Apostles. But the miracles of the Old Testament also can only be rightly estimated through their connection with tliose of the New. The promise of man's redemption was coeval with his fall ; and the * St. Matt. xii. 28 ; Acts iv. 10. |g AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat I. "U'hole intervening history, as it is told in Scripture, is a narrative of the steps by wliicli the "svorld was pre- pared for tlie fulfilment of that promise. The miracles of the Old Testament, as has been observed, are chiefly grouped romid two great epochs in the history of the theocratic kingdom — that of its foundation under Moses and Joshua, and that of its restoration by Elijah and Elisha." They thus have a direct relation to the es- tablishment and preservation of the Mosaic covenant, itself a supernatural system, provided with supernat- ural institutions, and preparing the way for the final consummation of God's supernatural providence in the advent of His Son.f Not merely the occasional mira- cles of Jewish history, but some of the established and prominent features of their religion down to the time of the Captivity — the gift of Prophecy, the Shechinah, the Urim and Tliummim, the Sabbatical year, and others — manifest themselves as the su2:)ernatural parts of a supernatural system, and that system one having a definite purpose and pointing to a definite end.:]: They were the adjuncts of the Law ; and " the Law was our shoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." G. The real question at issue between the believer and the unbeliever in the Scripture miracles is not whether they are established by suflicient testimony, but v\dicther they can be established by any testimony at all. If it be once granted that testimony is admissi- ])lc in the case, it is scarcely possible to conceive a stronger testimony than that which the Christian mira- cles can claim. It is the testimony, if ever such testi- mony was, not of man merely, but of God. Even as regards one who docs not believe in the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, there are two witnesses to Christ which no other man, whatever may be his worth, can claim — the liistory of the Jewish nation before Ilis coming, and the history both of the Jewish * Sec Trench, 'Notes on the Miracles,' p. 4') (sixtli cditiojiV t Comnurc Ncander, ' I/ife of Christ,' p. 138, Entrlish translation ; Twcs- ten, ' Vorlosinifrcn uobtM' tlie Dogmatik,' ii., ]). 17s ; Vau MilUcrt, ' Boylo Lectures,' SorniDU xxi. X Compare lip. Attcrbuiy, 'Sermons' (1730), vol. i., p. 153. EesAYl.] ON MIRACLES. jy and of the Cliristian world afterwards. Whether it was by natural or "by siij^ernatural means, it cannot be denied that He to whom the natural and the supernat- ural are alike subject has permitted the course of events in the world to bear a witness to Christ, such as has never been borne to any other person who has ap- peared upon earth in the likeness of a man. It cannot be denied that the prophetic writings contain desci-ip- tions which, account for the correspondence as we may, do, as a fact, agree with the person and history of Jesus of N'azareth, as they agree with no other man, or body of men ; that the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion have a meaning as typical of Him, which no other interpretation can give to them ; that the temple and its services were brought to an end after His ajDpearance on earth, as if expressly to exclude the claims of any future Messiah ; that His dominion has been spread over the civilized world to such an ex- tent, and by such means, as no other ruler, temporal or s^^iritual, can claim ; that superstitions have given way before His name which no other adversary had been able to shake ; that doctrines have been established by His teaching which in the hands of other teachers were but plausible and transitory conjectures. However these things may be accounted for, they are sufficient at least to mark Him as the central figure of the world's history, looked forward to by all preceding generations, looked backward to by all following ; they are sufficient to secure for His sayings and His acts an authority which cannot be claimed by those of any other person. Y. It is scarcely necessary to state how mucli this argument is strengthened when it is addressed to one who believes, no matter on what grounds, in any of the fundamental articles of the Christian Faith. I do not speak of one who believes in the narrative of the Gos- pels ; for to such an one tlie miracles are not matters of question ; but of one who in any sense believes in Christ as the Itedeemer of mankind, thoiigli doubting some of the records of His earthly life. If God has 13 -A.IDS TO FAITII. [Essay I. seen fit to redeem the world by Christ and by Christ alone, wliat marvel if the history of Christ and of the dispensation preparatory to Christ exhibits signs and wonders such as no other history can claim ? "The an- tecedent probability, in this case, is for the miracles, not against them. It is to be expected that an event unique in the world's history should be marked by ac- companiments partaking of its own character. The miracles are not every-day events, because the redemp- tion of mankind is not an every-day event ; they be- long to no cycle in the recurring phenomena of nature, because Christ has not often suliered since the founda- tion of the world. Round this great fact of man's re- demption the accessory features of that wondrous nar- rative are grouped and clustered as around their proper centre ; no longer the uncouth prodigies of the king- dom of Xature, but the fitting splendours of the king- dom of Grace. It was meet that lie v\'ho came as the conqueror of sin and death, who had power to lay down His life, and power to take it a^-ain, should come also as the Lord of Body and the Lord of Spirit, having power over the elements of matter and over the thoughts of men's minds ; foretold by predictions which no human wisdom could have suggested, tes- tified to by works which no human power could have accomplished. Yiewed as part of the scheme of Re- demption, the marvels of the Scripture narrative are no longer isolated and unmeaning anomalies, but a fore- ordained and orderly system of powers, working above the ordinary course of nature, because tlicir end is above the ordinary course of nature. The incongruity, tlie anomaly, would be if they were not there — if the salvation of the souls of men was to be brought about by no liiglicr means than those which minister to their bodily appetites and material comforts. The daily wants of the individual, or the progressive culture of the race, may be provided for or advanced by laws which work unceasingly from day to day, and from generation to generation ; but we seek no recurring law of the Scripture miracles, because we expect no re- EssatL] on MIEACLES. I9 currence of that fact to wliicli all Scripture bears witness. 8. The above remarks, though only preliminary to the main question, are necessary in order to show what is the real point to be established, if the belief in the supernatural is to be overthrown. It is not the rarity of miracles — no one asserts them to be common : it is not their general improbability — no one asserts them to be generally probable : it is not that they need an extraordinary testimony as compared with other events — such a testimony we assert that they have. It is neitlier more nor less than their impossibility — an im- possibility to be established on scientific grounds, such as no reasonable man would reject in any other case ; grounds such as those on which we believe that the earth goes round the sun, or that chemical ele- ments combine in definite proportions. In this point of view the argument is altogether of a general character, and is unafiPected by any peculiarities of probability or testimony which may distinguish one miraculous narrative from another. If the progress of physical or metaphysical science has shown be- yond the possibility of reasonable doubt that miracles are impossihle — if, as seems to be the tendency of a recent argument, the assertion of a miracle is now known to be as absurd as the assertion that two and two make five"-'' — it is idle to attempt a comparison be- tween greater or less degrees of probability or testi- mony. The preceding observations will in that case only serve to show what it is that we have to surrender, and to rescue the inquiry from tlie particular fallacy which seeks to underrate its importance by represent- ing it as only affecting the accidents and excrescences of Christianity. Let us, at the outset, be clearly con- * See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 141. It is astonishing that this acute author should not have seen the absurdity of introducing this statement in connection with testimony. No witness could possibly see two and two make five, or four, or any number, in the abstract ; he must see it in connec- tion with certain visihle objects. Put tho case in its only possible form : — let a man say that he had .seen two balls and then two more, put together, and five balls produced from them ; and, instead of an impossibility, we have but the commonest of jugglers' iricks. 2Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. vinced of tlie vital importance of the question, in order that "sve may enter on its examination prepared, if ne- cessary, to sacrifice our most valued convictions at the demand of truth, but, at the same time, so convinced of their value as to he jealous of sacrificing them to anything but truth. 0. The inquiry concerning the possibility of mira- cles in general (as distinguished from that which con- cerns the credibility of the Scripture miracles in par- ticular) involves two distinct questions, which must be considered separately from each other. The first of these questions relates to the position occupied by mira- cles with reference to experience and to the empirical laws of matter ; the second relates to their position with reference to philosophical conceptions of God's nature and attributes. It is indispensable to a clear understanding of the subject that these two questions should be kept apart from each other ; though it will be necessary, in discussing the first, to take for granted some conclusions which w^ll afterwards have to be established in connection with the second. Let us then assume, for the present, that we are justified in con- ceiving God as a Person, and in speaking of His na- ture and operations in the language which we should employ in describing the analogous qualities and actions of men. We shall speak, as theists in general are accustomed to speak, of the luill, and the jyiirioose^ and the design of God ; of the contrast between His general and sjKcial providence ; of His government of the world and control over its laws ; reserving for a subsequent inquiry the vindication of these and similar expressions from a philosophical point of view. 10. The argument which denies the possibility of miracles, on the ground of the uniformity of nature, may be considered under two heads: first, as regards the general conception of a system of natural laws ; and, secondl}^ as regards the special experience of the mode in which those laws are manifested. The former nuiy be fairly stated in the words of Hnme, whose rea- 6oninresent time : it has received no additional strength from the progress of science during the interval, — indeed it is hard to see how the evidence of " a firm and unalterable ex- perience," if such existed at any time, is capable of being made stronger. No scientific man in the last century had any doubt that the sensible phenomena which came under his own experience and that of his contemporaries were owing to some natural cause acting by some natural law, whether the actual cause and law w^ere known or unknown. The nature of this con- viction is not altered by any subsequent increase in the number of known as compared with unknown causes: the general conception of " a firm and unalterable ex- perience " is wide enough to contain all discoveries anticipated in the future, as well as those already made. 11. In one respect, indeed, the advance of physical science tends to strengthen rather than to weaken our conviction of the supernatural character of the Christian miracles. In whatever proportion our knowledge of physical causation is limited, and the number of un- known natural agents comparatively large, in the same proportion is the probability that some of these un- known causes, acting in some imknown manner, may have given rise to the alleged marvels. But this prob- ability diminishes wdien each newly-discovered agent, as its properties become known, is shown to be inade- quate to the production of the supposed eftects, and as the residue of unknown causes, which might produce them, becomes smaller and smaller. We are told, indeed, * * Philosophical Works,' vol. iv., p. 103. 22 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. tliat " tlie inevitable progress of research must, within a longer or shorter period, unravel all that seems most marvellous ;" '^ but we may be permitted to doubt the relevancy of this remark to the present case, until it has been shown that the advance of science has in some degree enabled men to perform the miracles performed by Christ. When the inevitable progress of research shall have enabled men of modern times to^ give sight to the blind with a touch, to still tempests with a word, to raise the dead to life, to die themselves, and to rise again, we may allow that the same causes might possibly have been called into operation, two thousand years earlier, by some great man in advance of his age. But until this is done, the unravelling of the marvellous in other phenomena only serves to leave these mighty works in their solitary grandeur, as wrought by the finger of God, unapproached and un- approachable by all the knowledge and all the power of man. 12. We have already observed that there is one kind of testimony which can reach to the supernatural ; namely, the testimony of the person who himself per- forms the work ; and we may now add that the fact of the work being done by human agency places it, as regards the future progress of science, in a totally different class from mere physical phenomena. The appearance of a comet, or the fall of an aerolite, may be reduced by the advance of science from a supposed supernatural to a natural occurrence ; and this re- duction furnishes a reasonable presumption that other phenomena of a like character will in time meet with a like explanation. But the reverse is the case with re- sjDcct to those phenomena which are narrated as liaving been produced hj personal agency. In propor- tion as the science of to-day surpasses that of former generations, so is the improbability that any man could have done in past times, by natural means, works ^vhich no skill of .the i)resent age is able to imitate. * 'Essays aud Kcvicws,' p. 109. Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 23 The two classes of phenomena rest in fact on exactly o^Dposite foundations. In order that natural occurrences, taking place without human agency, may wear the appearance of prodigies, it is necessary that the cause and manner of their production should be unhiowoi ; and every advance of science from the unknown to the known tends to lessen the number of such prodigies by referring them to natural causes, and increases the probability of a similar explanation of the remainder. Eut on the other hand, in order that a man may per- form marvellous acts by natural means, it is necessary that the cause and manner of their production should be Jcnoicn by the performer; and in this case every fresh advance of science from the unknown to the known diminishes . the probability that "svhat is un- known now could have been known in a former age. 13. The effect therefore of scientific progress, as regards the Scriptural miracles, is gradually to elimin- ate the hypothesis w^hich refers them to unknown natural causes, and to reduce the question to the follow- ing alternative: Either the recorded acts were not performed at all (in wdiicli case it is idle to talk of the l^robable "honesty or veracity" of the witnesses ") or they were performed, as their authors themselves de- clare, by virtue of a supernatural power, consciously exercised for that very purpose. The intermediate theory, Trhicli attempts to explain them as distorted statements of events reducible to hnovyn natural causes, has been tried already, in the scheme of Paulus, and has failed so utterly as to preclude all expectation of its revival, even in the land of its birth. There re- mains only the choice between a deeper faitli and a bolder nnbelief ; between accepting the sacred narra- tive as a true account of miracles actually performed, and rejecting it as wholly fictitious and incredible; "v^dietlier the fiction be attributed to the gradual accre- tion of mythical elements, or (for a later criticism has come back again to the older and more intelligible * See * Essays and Reviews/ p. lOG. 24 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I, tlieory''') to the conscious fabrication of a -svilfiil impostor. 14. The argument of Hume, wliich may be taken as the representative of all those which rest merely on the general conception of laws of nature, was refuted long ago by one who wrote as the advocate of his teaching in some other respects.f A miracle is not "a violation of the laws of nature," in any sense in which such a violation is impossible or inconceivable. It is simply the introduction of a new agent, possessing new powers, and therefore not included under the rules generalized from a previous experience. Its miracu- lous character, distinguishing it from mere new dis- coveries in nature, consists in the fact that the powei*s in question are supposed to be introduced for a special purpose, and to be withdrawn again when that purpose is accomplished, and thus to be excluded from the field of future observation and investigation. But the supposition of such powers need not imply any viola- tion of the present laws observed by present natural agents. The laios of nature^ in the only sense of the phrase which is relevant to the present argument, are simply general statements concerning the powers and prppertics of certain classes of objects wdiich have come under our observation. They say nothing about the powers and properties of other objects or classes of objects which have not been observed, or which have been observed with a different result. There are laws, for instance, of one class of material agents which do not apply to another ; and there are laws of matter in general which are not applicable to mind; and so there may be other orders of beings of which we have no knowledge, the laws of whose action may be different from all that we know of mind or body. A violation of the laws of nature, in this sense of the * In this way the mythical theory of Strauss, after having overthrown the naturalistic theory of I'aulus, has itself in turn been subjected to the criti- cism of IJrnno liauer, who rejects the hypothesis of a traditional origin of the (jospels, in favour of that which ascribes ihem to deliberate fabrication. t See lirown on Cause and Ellect, Note E. I have borrowed the leading idea of Brown's argument, though dissenting from some of his details, ana therefore unable to udoi)t his exact language. Essay I.] ON MIEACLE3. 25 expression, would take place if, in two cases in which the cause or antecedent fact were exactly the same, the effect or consequent fact Vv^ere different. But no such irregularity is asserted by the believer in miracles. He does not assert that miracles are produced by the abnormal action of natural and known causes — on the contrary, he expressly maintains that they are pro- duced by a special interposition of Divine Power; and that such an interposition, constituting in itself a dif- ferent cause, toay reasonably be expected to be follow- ed by a different effect. 15. So ilir then as a miracle is regarded as tiie operation of a special cause, producing a" special effect, it offers no antagonism to that general uniformity of nature, according to which the same effects will always follow from the same causes. The opposition between science and miracle, if any exist, must be sought in another quarter ; namely, in the assumption (provided that such an assumption is warranted by science) that the introduction of a special cause is itself incredible. The ground of such an assumption appears to lie in the hypothesis that the existing forces of nature are so mutually related to each other that no new power can be introduced without either disturbing the whole equilibrium of tlie universe, or involving a series of miracles, coextensive with the universe, to counteract such disturbance. This seems to be the meaning of the following observation by a recent writer: — "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 a?iy two 'material atoms subsisting together without a determinate relation — of any action of the one or 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 2 26 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. series of eternally impressed consequences, following in some necessary chain of orderly connexion — how- ever imperfectly known to ns."* This operation of a series of eternally impressed con- sequences could hardly be described more graphically or forcibly than in the following words of a great Ger- man philosopher: — "Lotus imagine, for instance, this grain of sand lying some few feet further inland than it actually does. Then must the stormwind that drove it in from the sea-shore have been stronger than it actually was. Then must the preceding state of the atmosphere, by which this ^vind was occasioned and its degree of strength determined, have been different from what it actually was ; and the previous changes which gave rise to this particular w^eather ; and so on. We must sup- pose a diiferent temperature from that w^hich really ex- isted, and a difi'erent constitution of the bodies which influenced this temperature. The fertility or barrenness of countries, the duration of the life of man, depend, unquestionably, in a great degree, on temperature. How can you know^ — since it is not given us to penetrate the arcana of nature, and it is therefore allowable to speak of possibilities — how can you know that in such a state of the weather as we have been supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few yards further, some ancestor of yours might not have perished from hunger, or cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from whom you are descended ; that thus you might never have been at all ; and all that you have ever done, and all that you ever hope to do in this world, must have been hindered, in order that a grain of sand might lie in a different place ?"f * 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 133. t Fichte, 'Die Bcstininmug des Mcnschcn/ Wcrkc, ii., p. 1.8. For the translation I am indebted to an excellent American work, which deserves to be better known in this country, and to which I take this opportunity of ex- pressing my own obligations—' The Principles of Metaphysical aud Ethical Science,' by mv friend Professor Bowen, of llarvard College. Schlciermachcr ( < Der Christliche Glaubc,' § 47, p. 200) expresses in feneral terms, and with express reference to miracles, the same view which 'ichtc has exhibited by an instance in relation to necessity in general. " A miracle," he says, " has a positive relation, by which it extends to all that is future, and a negative relation, which in a certain sense atVects all that is past. In so far as that does not follow which would have followed according to the natural connection of tho aggregate of finite causes, in so far an ctlect Essay L] ON MIRACLES. 27 16. Without attempting to criticise the argument as thus eloquently stated, let us make one alteration in the circumstances supposed — an alteration necessary to make it relevant to the present question. Let us suppose that the grain of sand, instead ofbeing carried to its pres- ent position by the wind, has been placed there by a man. Is the student of physical science prepared to enumerate a similar chain of material antecedents, which must have been other than they were, before the man could have chosen to deposit the grain of sand on any other spot than that on wdiich it is now lying? Such a conclusion has indeed been maintained in general terms, without any specification of antecedents, by the advocates of Fatalism ; and it is maintained in the continuation of the passage from which the above extract is taken.^* But the question is, not whether such a conclusion has been asserted, as many other absurdities have been asserted, by the advocates of a theory ; f but whether it has been established on such scientific grounds as to be entitled to the assent of all duly cultivated minds, whatever tlieir own consciousness may say to the con- trary. :j: The most rigid prevalence of law and necessary is hindered, not by the influence of other natural counteracting causes be- longing to the same series, but notwithstanding the concurrence of all effec- tive causes to the production of the etFect, Everything, therefore, which from all past time contributed to this effect is in a ccrtainiueasure annihilat- ed ; and instead of the interpolation of a single supernatural agent into the course of nature, the whole conception of nature is destroyed. On the posi- tive side, something takes place which is conceived as incapable of following from the aggregate of finite causes. But, inasmuch as this event itself now becomes an actual link in the chain of nature, every future event must be other than it would have been had this one miracle not taken place. Every miracle thus not only destroys the original order of nature forever after; but each later miracle destroys the earlier ones, so fiir as these have become parts of the series of eflective causes." Tlie whole argument, as Rothe has ob- served, rests on the assumption of absolute determinism. * Not .however as the author's own conclusion ; but as one of two con- flicting doubts, to be afterwards resolved. + " Nihil tam absurde did potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosopho- rum." — Cicero, De Divinatione, ii., 58. X An attempt has recently been made to prove the non-existence of free will, by means of statistical calculations, showing an average uniformity iu the recurrence of certain actions in certain periods^of time. I'iie resemblance, however, between statistical averages and natural laws fails at the very point on which the whole **'eight of the argument rests. A natural law is valid for a class of objects, only because and in so far as it is valid for each individual of that class: the law of gravitation, for instance, is exhibited in a single apple as much as in an orchard ; and is concluded of the latter from being 28 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. sequence among purely material phenomena may be ad- mitted without apprehension by the firmest believer in miracles, so long as that sequence is so interpreted as to leave room ibr a power indispensable to all moral obligations and to all religions belief — the power of Free Will in man. Deny the existence of a freewill in man ; and neither the possibility of miracles, nor any other question of religion or morality, isworth contending about. Admit the existence of a free will in man ; and we have the experience of a power, analogous, however inferior, to that which is supposed to operate in the production of a miracle, and forming the basis of a legitimate argu- ment from the less to the greater. "'^ In the Will of man we have the solitary instance of an Efficient Cause in the highest sense of the term, acting among and along with the physical causes of the material world, and producing results which would not have been brought about by any invariable sequence of physical causes left to their own action. We have evidence, also, of an elasticity^ so to speak, in the constitution of nature, which permits the inliuence of human power on the phe- nomena of the world to be exercised or suspended at will, without affecting the stability of the whole. We have thus a precedent for allowing the possibility of a sim- ilar interference of a higher will on a grander scale, provided for by a similar elasticity of the matter sub- jected to its influence. Such interferences, whether produced by human or by superhuman will, are not con- trary to the laws of matter ; but neither are they the re- sult of those laws. They are the work of an agent wlio is independent of the laws, and who, tliereforc, neither obeys them nor disobeys tliem.f If a man, of his own free will, throws a stone into the air, the motion of the stone, as soon as it has left his hand, is determined by a observed in the former. But the uniformity represented by statistical aver- ages is one which is observed in masses only, and not in'individuals ; and hence the law, if law it be, which such averages indicate, is one wliich oflcrs no bar to the existence of individual freedom, exercise*!, as all human power must be exercised, within certain limits. * Conipaie Twesten, ' Vorlcsungen uebcr die Dogmatik,' ii., p. 171. t fcJee Kothe, in 'Studieu und Kritiken,' 1858, p. 33. Essay I.] ON MIKACLES. 29 combination of ])urelj material laws ; partly by the attraction of the earth ; partly by the resistance of the air; partlj^ by the magnitude and direction of the force by which it was thrown. But by what Jaio came it to be thrown at all? What law brought about the cir- cumstances though which the aforesaid combination of material laws came into operation on this particular occasion and in this j^fii'ticular manner? The law of gravitation, no doubt, remains constant and unbroken, whether the stone is lying on the ground or moving through the air ; but neither the law of gravitation, nor all the laws of matter put together, could have brought about this particular result, without the interposition of the free will of the man who throws the stone. Sub- stitute the will of God for the will of man ; and the argimient, which in the above instance is limited to the narrow sphere within which man's power can be exer- cised, becomes applicable to the whole extent of creation, and to all the phenomena which it embraces. 17. The fundamental conception, which is indispen- sable to a true apprehension of the nature of a miracle, is that of the distinction of Mind from Matter, and of the power of the former, as a personal, conscious, and free agent, to influence the phenomena of the latter. "We are conscious of this power in ourselves ; we experience it in our everyday life ; but we experience also its restriction within certain narrow limits, the principal one be'ingthat man's influence upon foreign bodies is onl}^ possible through the instrumentality of his own body.'^ Be- yond these limits is the region of the miraculous. In at least the great majority of the miracles recorded in Scripture, the supernatural element appears, not in the relation of matter to matter, but in that of matter to mind ; in the exercise of a personal power tran- scending the limits of man's will. They are not so much sujpermaterial as siijperliunian. Miracles, as evidences of religion, are connected with a teacher of that religion ; and their evidential character consists in the witness which they bear to him as "a man approved of God * Twesten, ' Vorlesungeu ueber die Dogmatik,' i. p. 368. 30 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I by miracles and wonders and signs, wliicli God did b}?" liim." He may make use of naUiral agents, acting by their own laws, or he may not : on this question various conjectures may be hazarded, more or less plausible. The miracle consists in his making use of them, so far as he does so, under circumstances which no human skill could bring about. Y/hen a sick man is healed, or a tempest stilled, by a w^ord, the mere action of matter upon matter may possibly be similar to that which takes place wdien the same effects occur in a natural way: the miracle consists in the means by which that action is brought about. And those means, we are assured by the word of the Teacher himself, are nothing less than the power of God, vouchsafed for the express purpose of bearing w^itness that God has sent him. Is it more reasonable, taking the whole evidence into account, to believe his word ; or to suppose, either that the works were not done at all, or that they were done by a scientific deception? This is the real ques- tion to be decided. If, indeed, we include, under the term natiore^ all that is potential, as well as all that is actual, in the con- stitution of the world — all that can be brought about in it by divine power, as well as all that is brought about in it by physical causes, — in such an extended sense of the term, a miracle, like any other occurrence, may be included within the province of nature. We may, doubtless, believe that God from the beginning, so ordered the constitution of the world as to leave room for the exercise of those miraculous powers which He foresaw would at a certain time be exercised ; just as He has left similar room for the exercise, within nar- rower limits, of the human will. In this sense, some of the scholastic divines maintained, with reason, that a miracle is contrary to nature only in so far as nature is regarded as an active manifestation, not in so far as it is regarded as a passive recipient of power.* If this * This is clearly expressed in the language of Alexander ab Ales, 'Summa,* p. ii., qu. xlii., numb, v., art. o : — " Est cnnn potentia activa, et est potentia susceptiva, et est potentia aptala et potentia non aptata. YA est potentia ac- tiva tain naturae inferioris quam superioris ; susce{)tiva autem naturae infe- rioris. Et verum est quod quicquid est Deo possibilc secundum potentiam PssayL] on M1PwACLE3. 3j distinction is once clearly understood, the question, whether miracles may be represented as the result of law^ or not, is a mere verbal question, which is only important from its liability to be mistaken for a real one. Properly speaking, a natural effect is not produced by a law, but by an agent acting according to a law. Every natural phenomenon has its physical cause in some antecedent natural phenomenon which it regularly follows ; and the laws of nature are merely classifica- tions of some of these sequences with others of a simi- lar character ;'^' or, as they have been aptly called, " the uniformities which exist among natural phenom- ena, when reduced to their simplest expression." f In this sense, miracles cannot be referred to a natural law, known or unknown ; for they do not resemble any se- quence of one sensible phenomenon from another ; nor can any sensible phenomenon or group of phenomena be pointed out, or even supposed to exist, the occurrence of which would be invariably followed by such results. But if the term laio be used in a different sense, to de- note a method or plan conceived in the mind of an intelligent Being; and if, by referring miracles to a law, no more is meant than that they, like other events, formed part of God's purpose from the beginning, and were the result, not of sudden caprice, but of a pre- ordained plan, by which provision was made for them, that they should be wrought at their proper time and place without disturbing the economy of the universe, — such an expression, allowing for the necessary imper- fection of all human terms when applied to divine things, is perhax)S the most true and reverent conception actiram, est naturre possibile, non simpliciter, sed secundum potentiam sns- ceptivam ; et hoc est dicta possibilitas ; sed non secundum activum potentiam, nee secundum aptatam." A similar view is held by Albertus Magnus, ' Sum- ma,' p. ii., tract viii., qu. xxxi.; and by Aquinas,'in 1 Sent., dist. xlii., qu. ii., art. 2. See also Neander, ' Church llistory,' vol. viii., p. IGl, Eng. tr. ed. Bohn. * " No further insight into why the apple falls is acquired by saying it is forced to fall, or it falls by the force of gravitation : by the latter expression we are enabled to relate it most usefully to other phenomena ; but we still know no more of the particular phenomena than that under certain circum- stances the apple does fail." — Grove on the Correlation, of Physical Forces, p. 18, Srd edition. t Mill's * Logic,' vol. i., p. 385. 32 ^II>3 TO FAITH. [EssATi of these events wliicli we are capable of forming during this present life; thongh, like other analogies trans- ferred from the human mind to the Divine, it is the object rather of religions belief than of philosophical speculation. 18. Our argument has hitherto i^roceeded on the assumption that we are justified in regarding the visi- ble world as under the government of a personal God, and in speaking of His acts and pur2:»oses in language which implies an analogy between the Divine mind and the human. It now becomes necessary to make some remarks in vindication of the assumption itself, which has been included by recent criticism in the same condemnation with the consequences which we have endeavoured to deduce from it. Of the argument from design, "as popularly pursued," we are told that it " proceeds on the analogy of a personal agent, whose contrivances are limited by the conditions of the case and the nature of his materials, and pursued by steps corresponding to those of human plans and operations : — an argument leading only to the most unworthy and anthropomorphic conceptions.^ We are told, again, that " to attempt to reason from law to volition, from order to active power, from universal reason to distinct personal- ity, from design to self-existence, from intelligence to in- finite perfection, is in reality to adopt grounds of argu- ment and speculation entirely beyond those of strict philosophical inference." f We are told, again, that " the simple argument from the invariable order of na- * Powell, 'Order of Nature,' p. 237. It is natural to turn to this more elaborate work, publislied but a short time before the ' Essays and Keviews/ as the most probable source from which to complete or explain anything which seems defective or obscure in the author's contribution to the latter volume. At the same time it is but just to call attentiou to some indications of a very difiercnt and a far truer view, in an earlier work by the same writer ; as in the followinp; passage, which I venture to cite, though unable to reconcile it with his latter language : — " It is by analogy with the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within ourselves, that we speak of the Supreme Afi/nl, and Moral Cause of the universe, of whose operation, order, arrangement, and adapta- tion are the external manifestations. Order implies what by analog]/ we call intelligence : subserviency to an observed end implies \r\i(A\'\^cncc }'oresfeing , which, by analogy, we call design." — Ofi the Sjiirit of the inductive J'/til6i- 9j)hj/, p. 1()<). t Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 244. Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 33 tnre is wholly incompetent to give us any conception whatever of the Divine Omnipotence, except as main- taining^ or acting through, that invariable universal sys- tem of physical order and law;" and that "a theism of Omnipotence in any se?ise deviating from the order of nature must be entirely derived from other teaching."'^ In order to test the value of these and similar arguments, it will be necessary that we should clearly understand what this other teaching is, and what it teaches us ; as Avell as the relation in which it stands to the general- izations and inductions of physical science. In examining this question, we are not directly con- cerned with the higher inquiry regarding the degree and character of man's knowledge of God, as a whole and from whatever source derived, in its relation to the absolute essence of its Divine Object, and to the necessary limits of man's faculties. The diffi- culties connected with metaphysical theories of the Ab- solute and Infinite, which have driven so many specu- lative minds into the extravagances of Pantheism, do not affect our present argument. How any relation between the infinite and the finite can be conceived as existing ; — how God can be contemplated as acting in time at all^ whether in connection with the j^henomena of the material world, or with the thoughts and feelings of men: — questions of this kind are equally applicable to every positive conception of Divine Providence which we are capable of forming, and have no direct bear- ing on the peculiar claims of one class of such concep- tions as compared with another. The general answer to such difficulties is to be found in \\\q confession of our ignorance as regards the mystery from which they spring and on which their solution depends ; but this ignorance, arising as it does from the imiversal limits of human thought, has no special relation to one age or state of man's knowledge, more than to another, and is not removed by any advance in those departments which fall within his legitimate field. Pantheistic speculation has flourished with much the same result, * Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 247. 2* 34 AIDS TO FAITH. [Esbat L or want of result, in the earliest and in the latest days of philosophy, in ancient India and in modern Ger- many ; and if any advance is to be expected in relation to the questions with which such speculation deals, it is probably to be looked for, not in the fuller solution of the questions themselves, but in the clearer appre- hension of the reasons why they are insoluble. The question now before us is of another character. It relates to that knowledge of God which, be it more or less philosophically perfect, is that which practically determines the thoughts and feelings and actions of the majority of mankind; being connected with facts of their daily experience, and with ideas intimately asso- ciated with those facts. And the form in which it meets ns at present may be expressed as follows : — Is the truest and highest conception of God to which man can practically attain with his present faculties that which is suggested by the observation of Law and Order, as existing in the material world ? or is there a higher conception, derived from a different class of ob- jects, by which the errors of an exclusively physical theology may be discovered and corrected ? 19. Reduced to its simplest terms the question really stands thus : — Is Matter or Mind the truer image of God ? We are told indeed, ''that the study of physical causes is the sole real clue to the conception of a moral cause ; and that physical order, so far from being op- posed to the idea of supreme intelligence, is the very exponent of it." '" We are referred to "the grand con- templation of cosmical order and unity " as furnishing "proofs of the ever-present mind and reason in nature ;"f but we have yet to learn what is the exact process by which the desired conclusion is elicited from the prem- ises. 20. In opposition to these statements I do not hesi- tate to repeat, with a very slight modification, the words of Sir William Hamilton, " that the class of phenomena which requires that kind of cause we de- nominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phenom- * Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 235. t Ibid., p. 238. Essay L] ON MIRACLES. 35 ena of mind ; that the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves (you will observe the qualification — taken by themselves), do not warrant any inference to the existence of a God."* The argument which would de- duce the conception of God solely from physical causa- tion bears witness, in the very words in which it is announced, to its own imperfection. The very names of law^ and order^ and cause^ had a literal before they had a figurative meaning, and are borrowed, in com- mon w4th the whole phraseology of causation, by the sciences of invariable succession, from those of moral action and obligation. We discern Law as Law, solely . by means of the personal consciousness of duty ; we gain the conception, not by the external observation of what is, but by the internal apprehension of ivhat ought to he. We discern Causation, as Causation, solely in and by the productive energy of the personal will, — the one solitary fact of human experience in which is presented the consciousness ofeffort,^ — oipower in action, exerting itself to the production of an effect. We dis- cern Order, as Order, only in so far as we conceive the many as constituting the One^ — the varied phenomena of sense as combined into a single whole; and the ideas oi unity and totality are given only in the personal con- sciousness,— in the immediate perception of the one indivisible Self, and its several modes of conscious ex- istence.f What do we mean when we speak of the Order of Nature as implying a presiding Mind ? The language is unintelligible save as interpreted by what the personal consciousness tells us of our own mind and its control over the objects that are under its dominion. In the little world of man's thought and its objects, that Order, that System from which the Cosmos derives its name, — that Unity which binds together the diverse elements into a consistent whole, — is the factor contrib- * * Lectures on Metaphysics/ vol. i., p. 26. t " Le moi est la seule unite qui nous soit donnee immediatement i)ar la nature ; nous ne la rencontrons dans aucuue des choses que nos facultts qb- Bervent. Mais rentendcment, qui la trouvc en lui, la met hors de lui par in- duction, et d'un certain nombre des choses coexistantcs il cree des unites ratificielles." — Eoyer-Collard, in Jouffroy's translation of Bcid, vol. ir., p. 350. 36 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay 1 utecl Ly the mind to its objects, — tlic product of Intelli- gence, compreliending, arranging, generalizing, classi- fying. AVithoiit this action of mind upon its objects, the little world of each man's knowledge would be, not a Cosmos, but a Chaos, — not a system of parts in mntual relation to each other, but an endless succession of isolated phantoms coming and going one by one. It is from this little world of our own consciousness, with its many objects, marshalled in their array iiiTder the. rule of the one conscious Mind, that we are led to the thought of the great universe beyond, — that we con- ceive this also as a world of Order, and as being such by virtue of its relation to an ordering and presiding Mind. Design, Purpose, Relation of parts to a whole, of means to an end, — these conceptions borrowed from the world of mind, can alone give order and unity to the world of matter, by representing it as moulded and governed by a ruling and purposing Mind, the centre and the source of that relation which mind does not take from matter, but confers npon it. Through this alone can Chaos be conceived as Cosmos ; through this alone can the Many jDoint to the One. 21. But this is not all. The very conception of a Design in creation implies the existence of a Free Will in the Designer. If man were not conscious of a free will in himself, he could frame no designs, he could con- ceive no purposes of his own ; and without the assump- tion of an analogous Divine Will, there is no meaning in his language wdien he speaks of the Design or Purpose of God. I3ut in conceiving God as a free agent, we neces- sarily conceive Ilini as a Person ; and this conception places Ilim in a totally difi'erent light from that of a mere soul of the world, or intelligence manifested in a system of material phenomena. In conceiving God as a Person, we conceive Ilim as standing in a direct relation to that one object in the world which is most nearly akin to Himself, — the personal soul of man, by whom He is so conceived. The personality, and, as implied in the personality, the moral nature of God, is not, as it has sometimes been represented, an isolated conception, Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 3/7 derived from a distinct class of facts, and superadded to another conception of a Deity derived from the order of nature : " it is the primary and fundamental idea of a God in any distinctive sense of the Avord, — an idea without which no religion and no theology, no feeling of a spiritual relation between God and man, and no conception of a mind superior to nature, can have any existence. To speak, in the language of modern pan- theistic philosophy, of a Reason or Thought in the uni- verse, which first becomes conscious in man, is simply to use terms without a meaning ; for we have no con- ception of reason or thought at all, except as a con- sciousness. And to speak, on the side of physical philosophy, of a Supreme Mind, evinced in tlie laws of matter, is, in like manner, to use terms which have no meaning until we have acquired a conception of what mind is from the consciousness of the mind within ourselves. Our primary religious consciousness is that of man's relation to God as a person to a per- son ; and, unless we begin with this and retain it in our know^ledge, the very name of God is unmeaning. If this be Anthropomorphism, it is, as Jacobi has said, an x\nthropomorphism identical with Theism, and with- out which there remains nothing but Atheism or Fe- tichism.f 22. The following quotation from the same eloquent and profound philosopher is probably already iamiliar to many readers, but is too excellent in itself and too appropriate to the present argument to be omitted. * " At the utmost," says Professor Powell, "a physico-theolog.y can only teach a supreme mind evinced in the laws of the world of matter, and the relations of a Deity to physical things essentially as derived from physical law, A moral or metaphysical theology (so far as it may be substantiated) can only lead us to a Deity related to mind, or to the moral order of the world." — Order of Katuve, p. 245. I consider this separation between two sources of theology as fundamen- tally erroneous. I believe that man's conception of God as mind is primarily derived from the personal consciousness alone; and that, however much it may be enlarged by the contemplation of material objects, it does not oriffi- nate from them, and can only be legitimately ap])licd to them in and by "its primary characteristics of personality and a moral nature. t " Wir bekennen uns demnach zu eiuem von der Ueberzeugung, dass der Mensch Gottes Ebenbild in .sich trage — unzertrcnnliclien Anthropomor- phismus, und behaupten, ausser diesem Anthropomorphismus, der von jeher Theismus geuannt wurde. ist nur Gotteslaugnung oder — Ietichis7nus." — Von den Gottlichen Dingen, Werke, iii., p. 422. 38 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat I. ''^Nature conceals God ; for, throiigli lier whole do- main, Nature reveals only fate, only an indissoluble chain of mere efficient causes,* without beginning and without end, excluding, with equal necessity, both providence and chance. An independent agency, a free original commencement, within her sphere and proceedmg from her powers, is absolutely impossible. Working without will, she takes counsel neither of the' good nor of the beautiful ; creating nothing, she casts up from her dark abyss only eternal transformations of herself, unconsciously and without an end ; furthering, with the same ceaseless industry, decline and increase, death and life, — never producing what alone is of God and what supposes liberty, — the virtuous, the immortal. "Man reveals God ; for Man, by his intelligence, rises above Nature, and, in virtue of this intelligence, is conscious of himself as a power not only independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and capable of resisting, concpiering, and controlling her. As man has a living faith in this power, superior to nature, which dwells in him, so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience of His existence. As he does not believe in this power, so does he not believe in God ; he sees, he experiences nought in existence but nature — necessity — fate."'!' 23. From the above principles it follows (to use the words of Sir William Hamilton) " that the imiverse is governed not only by physical but by moral laws ;" and " that intelhgence stands first in the absolute order of existence — in other words, that final preceded effi- cient causes. ":j: But this involves, as a consequence, that the question concerning the possibility or proba- bility of a miracle is to be judged, not merely from physical, but also, and principally, from moral grounds ; * The phrase efficient causes (wirkende Ursachen), here and in a subse- quent quotation from tlie translator, must be understood in a different sense from that in which it is used by some modern writers, to denote meta- physical as distinguished from physical causes— a sense adopted above, ^. '^S. For the two senses of the phrase, see especially a note in Stewart s ' Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers,' book iii., ch. ii,, Collected Works, vii., p. 27. t Wcrke, iii., p. 425. Translated by Sir W. Hamilton, 'Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., p. 40. X ' Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., p. 28. Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 3q not merely from the evidence furnished by the phe- nomena of the material world, but also from tliat fur- nished by the religions nature of man, and by his rela- tion to a God to whom that nature bears witness. It is altogether an erroneous view to represent the question between general law and special interposition as if it rested on mechanical considerations only — as if it could be judged by the difference between constructing a machine which, wlien once made, can go on continu- ously by its own power, and one which, at successive periods, requires new adjustments.* The miracle is not wrought for the sake of the physical universe, but for the sake of the moral beings within it ; and tlie question to be considered is not whether a divine inter- position is needed to regulate the machinery of nature, but w^hether it is needed or adapted to promote the re- ligious welfare of men. If the spiritual restoration of mankind has in any degree been promoted by means of a religion professing to have been introduced by the aid of miracles, and whose whole truth is involved in the truth of that profession, we have a sufficient reason for the miraculous interjDosition, superior to any that can be urged for or against it from considerations de- rived from the material world. The very conception of a revealed as distinguished from a natural religion implies a manifestation of God different in kind from that which is exhibited by the ordinary course of na- ture ; and the question of the probability of a miracu- lous interposition is simply that of the probability of a revelation being given at all. In the words of Eishop Butler, " Revelation itself is miraculous, and miracles are the proof of it."f 24. As regards the general question of the jpos- sibility of miracles (that of their reality must of course be determined by its own special evidence), Paley's criticism is, after all, the true one : — " Once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not incredible." * This objection against miracles is urged by Yoltaire, ' Dictionnaire Philosophique,' v. 'Miracles,' and is answered by Bishop Van Mildert, 'Boyle Lectures,' Sermon xxi. t 'Analogy,' part ii., ch. ii. 40 AID3 TO FAITH. [Essay I. For an impersonal God is no God at all ; and the con- ception of a personal God in relation to man neces- sarily involves that of a divine purpose, and of the manifestation of that purpose in time. Grant this, and there is no d priori reason why sucli a manifestation may not take ])lace at one time as well as at another ; why the beginning of a spiritual system at one period may not be as credible as the beginning of a material system at another period. It would indeed be a pre- carious argument to attempt to reason positively from an djyriori notion of the divine attributes to the neces- sity of creation or of revehition ; but the very con- ditions which render such an argument doubtful only increase the force of the negative caution, which, re- fusing to dogmatize on. either side concerning what must he or tnust not he, is content to seek for such evi- dence as is v/ithin its reach concerning ichat is. 25. AYith the question oi i\\Q 2^ossihility of miracles is intimately connected that of their valite as evidences. Both questions, indeed, must ultimately be decided on the same principle ; and the influence of that principle is probably at work, though unconsciously, in the minds of some who endeavour to regard the two inquiries as wholly distinct. Sometimes, indeed, we find both united, and apparently treated as parts of the same argument on the side of denial; though it is ob- vious that, if the impossibility of miracles can once be shown, there is no need of any inquiry into their com- parative value. ^Nevertheless, as if the conclusiveness of the former argument were, after all, somewhat doubtful in the eyes of its advocates, we .find it coupled with an attempt to disparage the value of the miracles as evidences, even supposing their reality. It is intimated that they are not so much evidences as ohjects of faith, invested with sanctity and exempted from criticism by virtue of the religious mysteries with which they are connected : '^ and approved divines are referred to as practically making the doctrine the real test of the admissibility of the miracles, and as ac- * See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 140. Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. ^^ knowleclging the right of an appeal, superior to that of all miracles, to our own moral tribunal.''' The feel- ing which dictates this judgment is intelligible at least, if not excusable, as the result of a reaction against the opposite error of a former generation : but, Avhen the judgment is advanced, as it often is, not merely as an expression of the personal feelings of an individual, but as a general statement of the right grounds of be- lief, it is at best nothing more than an attempt to cure one evil by another, introducing a remedy, on the whole, worse than the disease. Some of the questions introduced in this connection properly belong to an earlier stage of our argument ; for though they have been treated by some writers as bearing on the evidential value of miracles, snpposing their reality to be admitted, they more strictly relate to the previous inquiry concerning the grounds on which we believe miracles to have been wrought at all. Thus the assertion that the Gospel miracles are ohjects of faith is undoubtedly true ; but it is true in a sense which is by no means incompatible with their being also evidences.^ To us, in these latter days, as regards the grounds on which we believe the miracles to have taken place at all, they are "objects of faith" in that proper sense of the term faith in which it is opposed, not to reason^ but to sUjlit.X We were not eye-witnesses of the miracles : we know all that we know about them from the testimony of others ; and testimony of all kinds is an appeal to faith, as dis- tinguished from sight, — prcescntia videntur^ creduntur aljsentia.% But to say that miracles are in this sense objects of faith, is a very different thing from making them exempt from criticism by virtue of the religious mysteries with which they are connected. The faith which is called into exercise is only that which is re- * 'Essays and Reviews,' pp. 121, 122. t When it is assorted that the miracles arc objects, not evidences, of faitli, it is obvious that the word _/a/^7i is used in two difi'ercnt senses. In rchition to ohjects, it means an act of belief; in relation to evidences, it means a doctrine to be believed. X 2 Cor. v. 7, " We walk by f\iith, not by sight." § St, Augustine, Epist. cxlvii., c. 2. 42 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L quired in all admission of testimony, "whether connect- ed with religious mysteries or not ; Avhicli exists in all cases in which we accept, on the authority of others, statements Avhich we are unable to verify by our own experience. 26. The often-disputed question, whether the mira- cles j^rove the doctrine, or the doctrine the miracles, is also one which properly belongs to the earlier inquiry concerning the credibility of the miracles as facts, and which, like that of objects and evidences^ derives a seeming plausibility from an epigrammatic antithesis of language covering a confusion of thought. There are certain doctrines which must be taken into account in determining the question whether a true miracle — i.e. an interposition of Divine jpoioer — has taken place at all. If a teacher claiming to work miracles pro- claims doctrines contradictory to previously establish- ed truths, whether to the conclusions of natural re- ligion or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a contradiction is allowed, even by the most zealous de- fenders of the evidential value of miracles, to invali- date the authority of the teacher.^^ But the right con- clusion from this admission is not that true miracles are invalid as evidences, but that the supposed miracles in this case are not true miracles at all ; i.e. are not the effects of Divine power, but of human deception or of some other agency. And the criterion, as has been often observed, is only of a negative character; con- tradiction to known truth is suliicient to disprove a Divine mission ; but conformity to known truth is not * Tims Clarke ('Evidence of Natural and Revealed Rclijxion,' Prop, xiv.) says, "If the doctrine attested by miracles be in itself impious, or manifestly tending to promote vice, then without all question the miracles, how great .«;oever they may appear to us, arc neither worked by God Himself nor by His commission, because our natural knowledge of the attributes of God, and of the necessary ditlerencc between good and evil, is greatly of more force to prove any sucIj doctrine to be false than any miracles in the world can be to prove it true." liut Clarke also shows that this admission is a very different tiling from making the doctrine the jiroof of the miracles ; that, on the contrary, the miracles are the proof of the doctrine, provided that the doctrine he s/tck as is capable of biing juwcd 1)7/ miracles. See also, on the same question, liishop Sherlock, Discourse x.; Penrose, ' Ou the Evidence ©f the Scripture Miracles,' p. 212. Essay I.] ON MIKACLES. 43 sufficient to establish one.* And even the negative criterion, however valid as a general rule, is liable to error in its special applications. The certainty of the truths of natural religion does not guarantee the cer- tainty of all tlie conclusions which this or that man believes to be truths of natural religion, any more than the infallibility of Scripture guarantees the infallibility of every man's interpretation of Scripture. God can- not contradict Himself, whether lie teaches through nature or through revelation ; but man may misinter- pret God's teaching through the one as well as through the other. 27. In regarding the doctrinal criterion as properly relating to the question whether a true miracle has been wrought at all, we set aside, as unworthy of seri- ous consideration, the supposition which has sometimes been advanced in favour of an opposite view ; namely, that real miracles may possibly be performed by evil spirits in behalf of a false doctrine. This supposition, whatever may be its value as a theme for argumenta- tive ingenuity, is not one which we are practically called upon to consider by any of the actual circum- stances with which we are concerned. The objections which may justly be urged against Farmer's argument, when carried to the extent of denying the credibility of demoniacal miracles of any kind, do not apply to it when limited to such miracles as are wrought in evi- dence of a religion, and to the question, not of their theoretical possibility, but of their actual occurrence. It may be unsafe to reason d priori, from our concep- tion of the Divine attributes, that the permission of such agency is inconceivable ; but we may fairly re- fuse to attach any practical importance to the supposi- tion, until some evidence is brought forward to show * Thus Bishop Atterbury, in his Sermon on 'Miracles the most proper way of proving the Divine Authority of any Religion,' says, " Though the badness of any doctrine, and its disagreeableness to the eternal rules of right reason, be a certain sign that it did not conic from God, yet the goodness of it can be no infallible proof that it did." The same argument is handled in Rogers's ' Sermons on the Necessity of Divine Revelation/ pp. 60, lOi), ed. 1757. See also Warburton, 'Divine Legation,' b. ix., c. 5; Clarke, 'Evi- dence,' Prop. ix. 44 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L that it lias actually been realized. It remains yet to be shown that in all human experience any instance can be produced of a real miracle wrought by evil spirits for purposes of deception ;^ and until some probable grounds can be alleged in behalf of the fact, we have not sufficient means of judging concerning the theory. Doubtless, if it is consistent with God's Providence to permit such a temptation, He will also, with the temp- tation, make a way for ns to escape ; but wdiat that way will be, or how far the temptation is consistent with God's Providence, we cannot decide beforehand : we must wait till some actual occurrence, with all its ac- companying circumstances, comes before ns. The only real question at issue is not whether Christianity is a revelation from God or a dehision of Satan ; — a ques- tion which no sane man at the present time would think worthy of a serious discussion ; but whether it is of God or of man ; and, consequently, on what grounds and to what extent it is entitled to the acceptance of mankind. What man has taught, man may revise and improve. If the doctrines of Christianity are no other- wise of divine origin than as all human wisdom is the gift of God, they have, like other products of human wisdom, no further claim to be accepted than as they may be verified by the wisdom of later generations. In that case, we may listen to the teaching of Christ and His apostles as we listen to the teaching of human philosophers, with respect and gratitude, but not neces- sarily with submission : we claim a right to judge and sift, and it may be to reject, as our own reason shall determine us, acknowledging no other authority than that which is due to the wise and good of every gener- ation of mankind. But if, on the other hand, the doc- trines are given to us by Divine revelation such as no hunum wisdom can claim, they have a right to be re- ceived by virtue of the authority on which they rest, distinct from any whicli they may possess througli their owij intrinsic reasonableness or capability of verifica- tion. Of such a Divine authority miracles are the * See Tenrose, ' On the Evidence of the Scripture Miracles,' p. 23. Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 45 natural and proper proof; — a proof which all men are disposed naturally and instinctively to admit in prac- tice, whatever cavils may be raised against it on the ground of imai^inary difficulties in theory. In the W'Ords of one of the ablest of the writers who have dis- cussed this point, "All natural scepticism on the sub- ject of miracles attaches to the question whether they were really performed, not, if ^Derformed, to the author- ity which they possess."'^* For all real purposes of con- troversy, the question may be stated now, as it w^as stated hy Gamaliel of old, whether the counsel and the work be of man or of God ; and the only serious in- quiry that can be raised concerning the miracles of Scripture is w^hether they were wrought by the direct interposition of God, or were the result of human skill or other natural causes, — in other words, whether they w^ere or were not really miracles at all. 28. The question, then, only requires to be disen- tangled of its confusion to be very briefly answered. If it is considered theoretically and in the abstract w^itli reference merely to the logical character of cer- tain doctrines in themselves, and not to the circum- stances and needs of men, we may divide, as is usually done, the doctrines of religion into those which are and those which are not discoverable by human reason; regarding the former as prior to revelation, and fur- nishing a negative criterion which no true revelation can contradict ; while the latter are posterior to reve- lation, and rest immediately on the authority of a divinely commissioned teacher, and mediately on the proofs of his divine mission, whatever these may be.f And it is at this stage of the inquiry that the question concerning the evidential value of miracles properly comes in. A teacher who proclaims himself to be specially sent by God, and whose teaching is to be received on the authority of that mission, must, from the nature of the case, establish his claim by proofs of another kind than those which merely evince his human w^isdom or goodness. A superhuman au- * Penrose, p. 24. t Compare Warburton, ' Divine Legation,' b. ix., c. 5. 46 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay t tliority needs to be substantiated by snpcrliuman evi- dence ; and what is superhuman is miraculous. It is not the truth of the doctrines^ but the authorittj of the teacher^ that miracles are employed to prove ; and the authority being established, the truth of the doctrine follows from it. In this manner our Lord appeals to His miracles as evidences of his mission : " The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me."* It is easy to say that we might have known Jesus Cln-ist to be the Son of God, had He man- ifested Himself merely as a moral teacher, without the witness of miracles. It is easy to say this, because it is impossible io ])Tove it. We cannot reverse the facts of history; we cannot make the earthly life of Christ other than it was. As a matter of fact He did unite miraculous powders wdth pure and holy doctrine ; and, as a matter of fact, He did appeal to His miracles in proof of His divine authority. The miracles are a part of the portrait of Christ ; they are a j^art of that in- fluence which has made the history of the Christian Church what it is. It is idle to speculate on what that history might have been had that influence been difler- ent. We have to do with revelation as w^e have to do with nature, — as God has been pleased to make it, not as He might have made it, had His wisdom been as ours. Such, even at its very lowest estimate, is the eviden- tial character of miracles from the abstract and theo- retical point of view. " The truths," says Bishop Atter- bury, "which are necessaiy in this manner to be at- tested are tliose which are of positive institution; those which, if God had not pleased to reveal tliem, human reason could not have discovered ; and those which, even now they are revealed, human reason cannot fully account for and perfectly comprehend. Such, for ex- ample, are the doctrines of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, of the Ilesurrection of the same Body, of the Distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Es- * St. John V. SG. Essay I.] ON xMIKACLES. ^tj sence, and of tlie Salvation of Mankind by the Blood and Intercession of Jesns. It is this kind of truths that God is properly said to reveal ; truths of which, unless revealed, we should have always continued ignorant ; and 'tis in order only to prove those truths to have been really revealed, that we affirm miracles to be necessary.""^ 29. But practically, in reference to the actual condi- tion and needs of men, the evidence of miracles has a far wider range, and includes all those doctrines, wdiether natural or revealed, which have at any time been taught or revived among men by the preaching of the Christian Faith. This has been pointed out, with his usual practical wisdom, by Bishop Butler. " It is impossible," he says, " to say wdio would have been able to have reasoned out that whole system which we call natural religion, in its genuine simplicit}^, clear of superstition ; but there is certainly no ground to affirm that the generality could. If they could, there is no sort of probability that they would. Admitting there were, they would highly want a standing admo- nition to remind them of it, and inculcate it upon them." To the same effect ho continues : " It may possibly be disputed how far miracles can prove nat- ural religion ; and notable objections may be urged against this proof of it, considered as a matter of spec- ulation ; but, considered as a practical thing, there can be none. For suppose a person to teach natural relig- ion to a nation who had lived in total ignorance or forgetfulness of it ; and to declare he was commissioned by God to do so ; suppose him, in proof of his com- mission, to foretell things future, which no human fore- sight could have guessed at; to divide the sea with a word; feed great multitudes with bread from heaven; cure all manner of diseases ; and raise the dead, even himself, to life : would not this give additional credi- bility to his teaching — a credibility beyond what that of a common man would have ; and be an authorita- * 'Miracles the proper way of proving the Divine Authority of any Relig- ion,' Sermons (1734), vol. i. p. 215. See also Bishop Sherlock, Discourse x. 48 AIDS TO FAITn. [Essay L tive publication of tlie law of nature, i.e. a new proof of it? It would be a practical one, of the strongest kind, perhaps, wliicli human creatures are capable of having given theni."'^^ In this passage, the good sense of Butler has solved the question in its practical aspect, leaving the tlieo- retical difficulty in its proper insignificance. Xo doubt, if we are at liberty to suppose a totally different state of tilings from the actual one, we may deduce a great num-ber of hypothetical consequences concerning what might have i3een the case, but is not. If all men j^ossessed a perfect system of natural religion, no author- itative publication of natural truth would be needed ; and no teaching which contradicted men's natural belief would have any claim to be received. And so, if all men were possessed of perfect bodily health, no med- icine would be needed to give it them ; and any medi- cine which tended to alter their state of health would be injurious. Unhappily, both suppositions are untrue and the conclusions practically fall to the ground with them. It may be granted that the authority of which miracles are a proof is but an accidental and relative evidence of truths of this character. Still, the accident is one which has extended over the greater part of mankind ; and the relation is coextensive with it. Aiul this consideration must serve to modify in practice the negative criterion which is allowed to be valid in theory. In whatever degree any man does not possess a perfect natural religion, in the same degree he is liable to error in judging of the truth of a revelation solely from internal evidence. And even the man who, in the pres- ent day, claims the right to exercise such a judgment, may be reminded that the knowledge on which his claim is based is in no small degree owing to that very authoritative teaching on which his judgment is to be passed : — airekaKTiae KaOairepel ra ircSKapia ^evvrjOevra TTjv fjLTjripa. " The fact," says Mr. Davison, ''is not to be denied ; the religion of Nature A(^5 had the opportu- * 'Analogy,' part ii., cli. i. Essay I] ON MIRACLES. 4g nity of rekindling her faded taper by the Gospel light, whether furtively or unconsciously taken. Let her not dissemble the obligation and the conveyance, and make a boast of the splendour, as though it were originally her own, or had always in her hands been sufficient for the illumination of the w^orld."^ 30. The whole question of the value of miracles as evidences of Christianity must, in fact, be answered by means of the same distinction on w^hich depends the question of their credibility; — the distinction, namely, between God's general manifestations of Himself in the ordinary course of nature, and His special mani- festation of Himself by supernatural signs. Those who deny the existence of any special revelation of religious truths, distinct from that general sense in which man's reason itself and all that it can discover are the gifts of Him from whom every good thing comes ; — those who deny that any teaching has been made to man by special inspiration of particular teachers, in a sense different from that in which all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works proceed from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; — such persons are only consistent when they deny that miracles have any value as evi- dences of religious truth, and are still more consistent if they deny that such works have ever been wrought. If religion teaches nothing but what every man, by God's grace, may discover, or at least verify, for aimself, the distinction between natural and revealed religion ceases to exist, and with it the distinction between natural and supernatural evidences of the truth. If the ordinary witness of man's reason or conscience is sufficient for all purposes of religion, the extraordinary witness becomes su|)erfluous if it agrees with this, and pernicious if it differs from it. But this absolute sufficiency of the natural reason is the very point which history and philosophy concur to call in question. 31. The following words of a learned and thoughtful prelate of the English Church may be cited and adopted * ' Discourses on Prophecy,' p. G (ith cditiou). 3 50 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat I. as expressing tlio conclusions which I have endeavour- ed, however imperfectly, to establish in common with liim : " It appears, then, on a review of the preceding arguments, that the Scripture miracles stand on a solid basis, which no reasoning can overthrow. Their pos- sibility cannot be denied without denying the very na- ture of God as an all-powerful Being : their jprobainlity cannot be questioned without questioning Ilis moral perfections : and their certainty, as matters of fact, can only be invalidated by destroying the very foundations of all human testimony. " Upon these grounds we may safely leave the subject in the hands of any wise and considerate man : and we may venture to affirm that no person of such a character will, after an attentive examination of these points, ever sutler his faith in the miracles, by which the Divine authority of the Christian revelation is supported, to be shaken. Convinced that, by a fair chain of reasoning, every one wdio denies them must be driven to the necessity of maintaining atheistical prin- ciples, by questioning either the power, or wisdom, or goodness of the Creator, the true philosopher will yield to the force of this consideration, as well as to the over- powering evidences of the facts themselves ; and will thankfully accept the dispensation which God hath thus graciousl}^ vouchsafed to reveal. He will sufier neither wit, nor ridicule, nor sophistry, to rob him of this anchor of hisiiiith; but will turn to his Saviour with the confidence so emphatically expressed by Nicodemus : ' Eabbi, we IvNow that thou art a Teacher come from God ; for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him.' ""^^ To these remarks, which are applicable to every age and race of men to whom the Christian evidences may come, it may perhaps not be inappropriate to add a further observation having a more especial reference to ourselves. The very attacks which have been made, in the supposed interests of science, upon the miracu- * Yau Mildcrt, 'Doyle Lectures,' Semiou xxi. Essay I.] ON MIEACLE3. 5^ Ions element of the Gospel narrative, may themselves serve, if rightly considered, to give to that very element a new significance, and to point to a moral purpose more discernible now than of old. An age of advanced physical knowledge has its especial temptations, no less than its especial privileges. Few indeed, it is trusted, will be found to repeat what one great scientific teacher of the present century has been found to assert, that the heavens declare, not the glory of God, but only the glory of the astronomer. Yet this bold and profane language is only the extreme expression of a tendency against which an age like the present has especial need to watch and pray. Against such a tendency it is no small safeguard that men of science should be trained from their earliest childhood in records which at every page tell of the personal presence of Him by whom all things were made, manifested in direct control over the delegated workings of His visible creation. It is but one form of His perpetual presence with His Church, that in founding a Faith destined to ally itself with the intellectual cuUivation of all succeeding generations. He should have founded it in such a manner as to fur- nish, in the record of its origin, a lesson of the spirit in which that cultivation should be pursued, and a safe- guard against the perils to which it is especially ex- posed. If there are times when the very vastness of the material system which science discloses seems to thrust the Author of all to an almost infinite distance from us ; — if there are times when we feel almost tempt- ed to echo the wish of the poet, to be " a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn," so that we might but have a clearer sight of the presence of Deity among the phenomena of nature ; — if there are times when the heaven that is over our heads seems to be brass, and the earth that is under us to be iron, and we feel our hearts sink within us under the calm pressure of un- yielding and unsympathizing Law, as those of the disciples of old sank within them under the stormy vio- lence of wind and wave ; — at such times we may learn our lesson and feel our consolation, as we turn to those ^2 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I. vivid pictures wliicli our Sacred Story portrays of the personal j^ower of the Incarnate God visibly ruling His creation ; and may hear through them the present voice of Him who spake on the waters, *'Ee of good cheer; it is I ; be not afraid." ESSAY II. ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ^, CONTENTS OF ESSAY II. 1. Inteoduction. 2. Eeaction against the study of Evi- dences. 3. Circumstances of the Infidel Contro- versy in the 17th and Ibth centu- ries. 4. Change of position of Christian apolo- gists occasioned by change of tactics of Infidels. 5. Internal condition of the Church. 6. Else of the Methodist and Evangeli- cal movement — its excesses. 7. "Want of Church activity. 8. The " New Birth " preached by Whitfield and the Wesleys. 9. Decay of theological learning among the Evangelical leaders. 10. Ultimate development of false princi- ples when left unchecked. 11. Infiuences loosing men's hold upon the Historical element in Christianity — German Keology. 12. Charms of the foreign literature— In- fluence of the new opinions on the current literature of the country — Keligion regarded as an affair of sen- timent, 13. Inadequacy of the system to meet the mere moral wants of man — protest against the foundation of the whole theory. 14. A religion disentangled from all his torical inquiries, and commending itself to the mind by its intrinsic beauty and suitability to man's wants and wishes, is not Christianity, 15. The essential connexion of Christian- ity with the history of past ages ad- vances civilization wherever Chris- tianity prevails. 16. Disadvantages of the mean and illit- erate in judijing of the historical ev- idences of Christianity. 17. Direct evidence within the reach of the humbler classes. 18. Development of critical inquiry abroad has diminished the dithcul- ties of comparatively unlearned readers. 19. Origin of the Christian religion not a very remote event— Absurdity of the mythical theory as applied to' it. 20. Strauss's 'Life of Jesus' merely the working out of a foregone conclu- sion—Insufliciency of the theories of Strauss's successors — Causes and remedies of the present panic — Dan- ger of concentrating a whole system of belief upon a single point— Eo- manist creed. 21. Order in which sceptical objections arc to bo dealt with. 22. Very little new matter to be produced by Infidelity— Conclusion. ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. " Evidences of Cliristianity ! " exclaims the late Mr. Coleridge in one of the most popular of his prose- works, " I am weary of the word. Make a man feel the want of it and you may safely trust it to its own evidence." There can be little doubt, I think, that these words express the prevailing sentiments of a very considerable number of Christians at the present day ; and it cannot be denied that, for many years back, there has been a general distaste for that ajwlogetic religious literature which was popular in the last century. 2. This has doubtless been greatly owing to a Bcac- Hon from the disproportionate attention paid to such literature by the Divines of a former age, and has taken place in virtue of that general rule which seems to or- dain that an over value of any hranch of knowledge in one generation shall he attended hy an unjust dejrrecia- tion of it in the next. The argumentative value of tilings even so important as the evidences of religion may, unquestionably, engross the public mind too much ; and he who is continually occupied in contem- plating and stating the proofs of its truth will fail of reaching the just standard of a Christian teacher, or a Christian man. Such a person will be like a prince who employs all his time, and strength, and resources in raising fortresses about a territory which he does not carefully govern ; or like a landlord who lives but to accumulate muniments of an estate which he neglects to till. But the folly of such conduct would be no excuse for suffering our frontiers to lie open, or our title-deeds to be lost. Yet something very like such advice is 56 -A-IDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. sometimes offered to ns. Our forefathers, perhaps, were too apt to inchide all strong energy of emotion and play of fancy in their general and unsparing cen- sures of enthusiasm ; and some of us arc disposed to redress the balance by appealing exclusively to the imagination and the feelings. We see that it will not do to address the head alone, and therefore we will not address it at all, but speak only to the heart. Kow, it is important to observe that this reaction was so far from springing from any failure of the ajDolo- gists in their ^^roper work, that it would hardly have been possible if that work had not been thoroughly done. Their proper work was to drive the infidel writers of their own age out of the field ; and never was task more completely accomplished. Xo litera- ture, of any recent date, has perished more completely than the infidel literature of the early and middle parts of the last century. Ipsa; periere rnmce. It is only some curious antiquary, loving to parade forgotten lore, wlio now searches the pages of such writers as Toland or Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and Coward, and Collins — though some of them were really men of parts, and all conspicuous in their day. Their very names, indeed, would have passed wholly from remembrance, but that some of them were an- swered in works which " posterity will not easily let die ; " and almost all are found by the young student of theology enumerated by Leland in his ' Yiew of the Deistical Writers.'- They survive, like the heroes of the ' Newgate Calendar,' in the annals of that public justice which chastised their faults. 3. The long controversy with the infidels assumed, in the course of it, many forms. But these changes of position, on the part of the defenders of Christianity, were caused by the changing tactics of their assailants, * " The best book," says Burke, " that ever has been written against these people, is that in which the author has collected in a body the whole of the infidel code, and has brought their writings into one body, to cut them all off together." — Speech on licUcf of Protestant Di^scuters, 1773. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHEISTIANITY. Qfj who, when driven from one point of attack, immediate- ly occupied a new one. The necessity for an English apologetic * literature began to be felt even before the Restoration, and is at- tested by such works as Jeremy Taylor's ' Moral De- monstration,' and Hammond's remarkable little tract on the ' Evidences of Religion.' After it, still more. Tlie press, indeed, was not yet free to the infidels (though Hobbs, by masking his attack on all religion and morality under the form of a defence of despotism, contrived to evade its restrictions) ; but it is plain, from incidental notices, that sceptical objections were largely circulated in MS. and in conversation. Men read, in secret, authors whose names sound strange to this gen- eration— Averroes, Jordanes Brunus, Cardan, Pompo- natius, Yanini ; and their doubts, denied a free expres- sion, festered into grotesque and monstrous forms of atheism, of which Smith, and More, and Cudworth occasionally reveal to us portentous specimens. Learn- ing, too, was beginning to suggest literary difficulties, of which we have indications in Isaac Yossius and Sir John Marsham. It was in this state of things that those two great works, Cudworth's ' Intellectual System,' and Stilling- fleet's ' Origines Sacrse,' f were published. They were certainly very far from being popular and easy defences * It has been supposed that our early Reformers, conscious of the weak- ness of external proofs, rested the authority of Scripture wholly upon its self-evidencinj^ light. But the doctrine of the self-evidencing light had quite a diflerent origin. The schoolmen had erected theology into a science, properly so called, which required principles as certain as those of natural .science. They could not hnd such a certainty in moral evidence, and there- fore had recourse to supernatural light. The Reformers partook in their mistake in requiring an assent out of proportion to the evidence; but sub- stituted the infallible Scripture as its object for the infallible Church. The true distinction between assent and adhesion was drawn by Hooker in his great sermon on the ' Faith of the Elect,' and, after him, by Jackson, Works, vol. iii., Oxford, 1841. t Let any competent person read the chapters on Ancient History in the first book of the * Origines, 'and the account of the laws against the Christians in b. ii. c. 9, and he will see that those who sneer at "that great work are themselves the proper objects of pity or contem])t. Stillingfli'tt, in his old age, and when his temper had been spoiled by tlattery, and his faculties decayed by years, engaged foolishly in a controversy with Locke, in which he did not appear to advantage. Yet he singled out most of those points which later metaphysicians have deemed the weak points in Locke's harness. 3* 58 AII5S TO FAITH. [Essay II of religion, but tliey were not intended as replies to popular attacks. Tliey were tlie weapons in a war of giants. "Non jaculo, neque enim jaciilo vitam ille dedisset, Sed magnum stridens coiitorta Falarica venit." Tliose who despise tliem have probably never read, and certainly never understood, tliem. 4. The point of attack was now gradually changed. Science was every day bringing fresh aids to religion. Before the arguments of Slore, and Cudworth, and Green, and Ray, and Boyle, and Clarke, the position of Atheism was generally abandoned as untenable. The divines had proved to their opponents that there was such a thing as natural religion ; and those oppo- nents now adopted that system of natural religion, which had been reasoned out for them, as their own ; declared its proofs to have been always so clear and convincing that nothing but the artifices of priestcraft could have obscured them ; and contended that revela- tion should at once be set aside as a su23erfluous incum- brance of its perfection.'^ The war-cry now Avas, " The sufficiency of natural religion ! " The points in Chris- tianity now selected for attack were those j^eculiar to it as distinguished from natural religion. It was con- tended tliat miracles were incredible, or utterly insignifi- cant ; that God could not give a particular revelation ; that He could not have selected a chosen people ; that lie could not accept a vicarious atonement ; that the Gospel doctrine of eternal rewards and 2:)unishment3 subverted morality by making it mercenary, 6cc. It was such objections as these that drew forth the mas- terpieces of Clarke, and Butler,'|' and Warburton. In * Sec some admirable remarks upon the latest form of the same prejudice in Dr. Salmon's • Sermons preached in Trinity College, Dublin,' (Macmillan, 1861), pp. 1G0-1G5. t I have seen a curious criticism upon Butler's style, in which his disuse ol' technical terms is accounted for by saying that he was essentially a Stoic, and may be compared with "Epictetus, Antoninus, and Plutarch," who moralized in the language of common life. The Stoics, I had always thought, were rather remarkable for the use of technical terms. " Ex omnibus Philo- sophis," says Cicero, " Stoici plurima iiovaverunt. Zeno quoque, eorum prmccps, non tam rcrum inventor fuit quani novorum verborum." — De Finihus, lib. iii. c. 2. And most persons who have looked into Antoninus Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHEISTIANITT. 59 their hands the cause of religion Avas safe ; but, in its management by less sagacious writers, one disastrous mistake was committed, the influence of which was long felt to the injury of the Church. In the early stage of the controversy it was the infi- dels wlio maintained (with Hobbes and Spinoza) the selfish system of morals, and the defenders of religion who asserted the nobler doctrine that virtue was an end in itself. So much, indeed, was this the case, that hardly anything excited more the general outcry against Locke's ' Essay ' than the supposition that his denial of innate ideas destroyed the proper foundation of ethics. But, in time, Locke was discovered to have been a Christian ; and the Platonic theory of virtue was turned by Shaftesbury (his somewhat ungenerous pupil) into a support of naturalism, and an engine for assailing Christianity. This circumstance unhappily prejudiced, some of the leading divines against even what w^as soundest in Shaftesbury's writings. They saw an accidental gain, in proving the necessity of rev- elation to assure man that the practice of virtue was, under all circumstances, his dearest interest, and they caught at it too eagerly. Thus " Hamlet and Laertes changed rapiers," and some of the champions of Truth disgraced themselves by using the poisoned weapon which they had wrested from the maintainors of error. But, though some oversights were committed in the conduct of the war, the issue of the conflict was not, on the whole, doubtfuL And now, again, the position had to be altered to meet a new assault. Lord Bolingbroke gave the signal by complaining that " divines had taken much silly pains to establish mystery on metaphysics, revelation on philosophy, and matters of fact on ab- stract reasoning. Eeligion," he says truly — " such as the Christian, which appeals to facts — must be proved as all other facts that pass for authentic are proved. M'ill agree with his editor that, so far from takinc; his diction from common life, "utitur vocibus phme suis, quas raro apud alios autorcs invcnias." As for Plutarch, one is surprised to hear that he was a Stoic. He is commonly Bupposed to have written some rather tniart treatises against the Stoics. QQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IL If tliej arc tlins proved, the religion will prevail with- out the assistance of so mnch profound reasoning.* To the proof of religion, then, as a matter of fact, the Christian divines addressed themselves : and as the points to be considered in this view were the credi- bility of tlie prime witnesses to the miracnlous facts of Christianity, and the trustworthiness of the tradition by which their testimony has been delivered down to us, it was these whicli were the chief subjects of the apolo- getic literature which may be said to terminate in the works of Lardnerf and Paley. But though the defenders of Christianity had been ex]3ressly challenged to this field of ai-gument, it was one into w^hich their antagonists showed little serious disposition to follow them. Certainly Lord Eoling- broke's own performances, in his ' Eemarks on the Canon of Scripture,' and the historical speculations which are scattered in his ' Fragments,' were not very formidable to the faith. Gradually the attack upon revealed religion fell into the hands of persons too ig- norant and too manifestly unscrupulous to produce nmch effect upon the educated part of the public. Such writers as Eurgli and Paine might do mischief among the lower classes ; but they can hardly fill a place In any literary history. Two really illustrious names do, indeed, close the catalogue of the infidels of the last century — Hume and Gibbon. :j: But neither appeared as an ojien assailant of Christianity, and neither owes his chief fame, to those * See Warbnrton's 'Doctrine of Grace.' t "I should be ungrateful," says Mr. Wcstcott, "not lo bear witness to the accuracy and fulness of Lardncr's ' Credibility ; ' for, however imperfect it mav be in the view which it gives of the earliest period of Christian litera- ture, it is, unless I am mistaken, more complete and trustworthy than any work which has been written since on the same subject."— 7//dYo/;y of the Canon, p. 0. X In reference to the supposed difGcultics and discouragements under which infidels labour, it is worth observing that both Hume and Gibbon held lucrative situations under Government. At an earlier period it Avas Wali)ole's policy to patronize some of the most rabid and indecent assailants of religion; and, until the intidels had been thoroughly refuted by the weapoi7s both of wit and argument, the most open avowal of their opinions was rather a recommendation to what was called " polite society." A strong rcaclion in the tone of popular literature began with Steele and Addison. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIRISTLiNITY gj parts of liis writings in wliicli Christianity was assailed. After tliem infidelity in England appeared to have sheathed its sword, furled its banner, and retired from the lield. 5. But Vvhat, meanwhile, was the internal condition of the Church ? It was (to recur to a former compari- son) too much like an estate after the decision of a long- suit in Chancery to settle a litigated title. The contro- versy with the infidels had not been the only one of that busy century. It was an age of a thousand con- troversies. There was the great JS^onjuring Controver- sy, in which political rancour was still more embittered by the gall of the odium theologicum. There was the great Bangorian Controversy, growing ont of the for- mer, and draining into it all the poisoned dregs of its predecessor. There was the great Convocation Contro- versy, which changed comitry parsons into clerical Ilampdens, and ranged Pligli Church divines in strange antagonism against the royal supremacy. There was the great Trinitarian Controversy, begun by Clarke and Waterland, and continued by a host of inferior writers, till the public grew weary of the very thought of Pa- tristic literature."^' These and countless minor ones dis- tracted the attention of churchmen from observing the spiritual destitution that was spreading widely around them amidst all this polemical activity. The brilliant services of the tongue and pen in defending Christian- ity, or orthodoxy, or even faction, eclipsed the less showy, but not less real, and far more generally requi- site, usefulness of the pastoral care, in its ordinary forms of teaching and admonition. Prelates forsook their dioceses for the nobler work of writing controver- sy, or asserting the political interests of their order. Discipline became relaxed; parishes were neglected; and at the end of the century the Cliurch found itself surrounded with a swarming population, and no ade- * Warburton made an cflbrt, in the preface to his 'Julian,' to restore the Fathers to some credit, and to put their character in a favourable light: and, in return, be has been charged with " disdain and ignorance of Catholic theology." 52 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat II. qiiate machinery provided for dealing with this mass of ignorance. It is not true, I think, that the bulk of the lower orders had been leavened with infidelity/'^ Their hea- thenism was negative, not positive ; they had been suifered to grow up in gross ignorance of religion : and it was during the prevalence of such evils that the evan- gelical reaction — commencing with the Methodist move- ment— began. 6. But it would be an error, I apprehend, to sup- pose that it was Whitfield and the "Wesley s who 07'igi- nated a Reformation. Long before them it appears manifest that a healthy reaction had set in. As the old panic dread of fanaticism abated on the one hand, and the necessities of continual controversy became less on the other, preachers insisted more and more on the peculiarities of the Christian faith as the springs and motives of Gospel obedience. Energetic efforts were made to build new churches and establish schools throughout the country : and (what is always a hope- ful sign) some zeal began to be felt for foreign missions, and some sense of responsibility for the religious state of our colonies. A change for the better was going on. The case of Whitfield and the Wesley s was that of other energetic men whose names figure in history as the originators of mighty changes. They fling themselves into a great movement before it has become conspicu- ous to the vulgar eye : they put themselves at its head ; they carry it on to extravagance, and thus accelerate and extend an impulse which they partially misdirect, and may ultimately sj)oil forever. The Methodists, then, had not to convert the English population to a helief in Christianity ; but they had to awaken a sense of the Christian religion in men who had been so long thinking of it as a thing to be i^roved * Even that of the upper Avas greatly overrated : " The truth of the case," says Ilurd, a cool observer, *' is no more than this. A few fashionable men make a noise in the world ; and this clamour being echoed on all sides from the shallow circles of their admirers, misleads the unwary into an opinion that the irreligious spirit is universal and uncontrollable." — See the whole \)assage, 'Mentions on Prophecy^ sermon xii., concUmon. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIEISTIANITY. q3 that tliey had forgotten that it was also a thing to be felt and acted on ; and they had to teach even the ele- ments of that religion to vast numbers of an outlying mass beyond the range of ordinary instruction. This "was the appropriate work to which the circumstances of the times really called them. But, besides the pres- sure of these real wants, there were other craviugs of the popular mind demanding satisfaction. There was (what is to be found in every generation) the great herd of superficial minds who always require the stimulus of something new ; who throw the blame of their own shallowness upon their teachers, and are always asking for something more " deep and earnest and thorough- going," or " more rational and suited to the age," than the current theology, whatever it may be. This is the common sequacious mob of " novarum rerum avidi," who are drawn, like insects, by the loudest noise and the greatest glare. This movable, and indeed restless multitude, swells the decuman wave of every great movement, and retires with its ebb, only to return again on the crest of its successor. Kor can it be reasonably doubted that many of those amiable but weak persons who have latterly been roving over England in the garb of Passionists and Oratorians would have been, in the days of Whitfield's popularity, preaching rank Method- ism on Kennington Common, amidst a shower of mud and turnip-tops. There Avas, then, in the first place, the call for some- thing new. But there was also the call for something fanatical. The terrible experience of the seventeenth century had left a deep impression on the beginning of the eighteenth, of dread and bitter scorn of fanaticism. In the wild tumult of the Commonwealth the nation had been, as it were, drunk with religious enthusiasm ; and, in shame and grief at the remembrance of that horrible debauch and all its crimes, they had hastily vowed a total abstinence from those feelings which Hartley describes under the odd but convenient term Theopathy. But a Avild career of another kind of drunkenness had done much to efiace that impression (34 AIDS TO FAITIL [Essay II. before tlie close of that centuiy ; and the hypocrisy of the Puritans had been thrown into the shade by the brazen profligacy of the race who succeeded them. Enthusiasm was again eagerly demanding its turn for gratification. 7. Furtliermore, there was a want that has been less often remarked as one of the causes of Methodism — the want of what may be called a freer Church-ac- tivity. The busy, bustling democratic spirit of nltra- Protestantism had made itself so hateful in the previous generation, that, within the Church, laymen shrank from meddling. The synodical assemblies of the clergy had only spasmodic fits of action, in which they either tore themselves, or made violent assaults on others. Their time and energies were wasted in disputes be- tween the two Houses, disputes with the Crown, dis- putes with obnoxious brethren ; — till, at last, tlieir action became so manifestly scandalous that the ^linis- ter was able to silence them entirely, to the general satisfaction of' a public wdio had ceased to be enter- tained by their quarrels.""' Thus they no longer broke the dull monotony of quiet which it was the policy of Walpole to maintain per fas aid nefas. " The Convocation gaped, but could not speak." Outside the Church, dissent had been crushed by the rigorous laws of Charles 11. , and the general disgust and contempt of the nation, so effectually, that it could not recover when the Toleration came. The Dissenting teachers w^ere generally either liard, dry, and narrow Calvinistical divines ; or men of enlarged and liberal sentiments, disgusted with their own communion, and no longer retaining the old prejudices against surplices and rochettes, but kept from conformity, partly by he- reditary pride, and partly by dislike to the (loctrlnal fetters of subscription to the Articles and Liturgy.f * Like the old comedy — " Tnrpitcr oLticuit, Bublato jure nooondi." t Sec the notices of negotiations for a comprehension in Doddridp;e's Cor- respondence, iind compare the huic;na.e;o of Ilarewood : " Our separation is not founded in vestments and surplices, in liturgies, crosses, and genu- flexions, in godfathers, godmotliers, and rotatory motions, — it is Athanasiua who drives us from your altars." — Five Dissertations (1772), p. 03. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIKISTIAXITY g5 How far an ultra-liberalism had leavened tlie Dissent- ing teachers became manifest when the Arian move- ment carried, at one sweep, the wliole body of the English Presbyterians, and a great part of the Irish, into a heresy most remote from the traditions of their forefathers. Tims, within the Chnrch and withont, there was a demand beginning to be felt for some free and stirring ecclesiastical activity ; the thonght of wliich men had ceased to associate with any of the old organizations. 8. In such a state of predisposition, Whitlield and the Wcsleys began their work by preaching the !N"ew BmTii. The term had doubtless a sound and valuable meaning. But, in that sense it meant, not the produc- tion of a new 'beliefs but of a new seiue of the reality and importance of momentous truths involved in what had been already assented to. These two things are frequently confounded by careless thinkers ; but, in reality, they are quite dif- ferent : and the. clifi'erence is observable, not only in religious, but in ethical matters, and in the affairs of common life. In all practical matters, mere belief, or acquiescence, is one thing ; and that belief, quickened into a sense of reality, and touching all the springs of action, is another : and, in all practical matters, the most mischievous consequences may result from con- founding together such different things. It would be a great mistake to fancy that Faith had been produced as soon as ever the mind had been brought to recognize the connection of a conclusion with unimpeachable pre- misses : and it would be a great mistake, on the other liand, to suppose that all processes of reasoning might be discarded, and nothing consulted or addressed but the fancy and tlie emotions. " Going over the theory of virtue " may indeed, as Butler has pointed out, not only fail to make a man practically moral, but tend to deaden the sense of moral truths, by weakening their practical, as it shows their rational, associations. But we shoidd not therefore listen to a hotheaded refomier like Kousseau, who would urge us to cast aside all QQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. tlieory and reasoning' in morals, and attend to nothing "but tiie immediate dictates of tlie heart. Into such confusions and mistakes, however, the leaders of the Evangelical movement were rapidly be- guiled by their own sndden and widely-spread snccess. They tanght (and tanglit rightly) that we nnist not only believe, but feel, before we can act, as Christians. In recalling attention to the truth that the Gospel is a reve- lation of God's love to sinners, designed to produce corresponding affections in our hearts — that the faith of Christ is a faith that works through love, they did valuable service, "which should never be dissembled or forgotten. Eut unhappily they went on to teach that the belief and the action were to be grounded upon the feelings, considered as the immediate and sensible opera- tion of the Holy Spirit upon the human mind. Kow such a preposterous mistake as this could hardly have been possible for the general acquiescence of the national mind in the truth of the Christian relig- ion. For I am persuaded that none except the very wildest fanatics (and tl.ie leaders of whom I speak were certainly not mere wild fanatics) do really thus wholly ground their faith upon an imaginary inspiration. There is, in almost all cases, a secret tacit reference in the bottom of the heart to some fixed external standard by w^hich the extravagances of iancy and feeling are moderated and kept in check. The Methodists could assume the general truth of Christianity as ^iioshdainm. They could assume that there was a Holy Spirit ; they couid assume the necessary coincidence of His teaching in the heart with His teaching in the Holy Scriptures ; and they could try the former by the latter. In the first fervours of their preaching they plainly were tempted to appeal to the agitations which it produced in the minds and bodies of their converts as a sort of miraculous attestation of its truth ; but experience soon convinced the shrewder of them that such evi- dence could not be relied upon, and that the true ap- peal must be made elsewhere. But the logical vicioiis- ncss of the circle in which the mind moves in such Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIEISTIANITY. q*] cases can only be hidden from it wlien the external authority on which it falls back is thought of as some- thing unquestioned and nnquestionable. It is only in reference to heretics, who hold in common with himself the inspiration of Scripture, that the Homanist can be guilty of the absurdity of proving his Church by the Scriptures, and the Scriptures by his Church. When dealing with the infidel, he must proceed, just as other Christians proceed, by the way of moral evidence ; and from the ' Summa contra Gentiles ' of Aquinas down to the ' Principia ' of Abbe Hooke, this is the way in which Roman Catholic as well as Protestant apologists have jDroceeded in the argument against infidelity. So, also, when one enthusiast meets another of opposite sentiments, but with persuasions as strong, feelings as lively, satisfaction as complete, and inward peace as perfect as his own, each is driven to " try the spirit " of his antagonist by some external test, forgetting that, upon his own principles, that standard itself was only known by the inward discernment which it is now em- ployed to control. Where such a standard is unhesi- tatingly admitted by both, the fallacy may be long concealed ; but as soon as its authority comes to be generally and openly questioned, the mistake becomes patent, and can only be corrected by abandoning the false principle which has produced the mischief. One circumstance which contributed to favour the Methodistic exaggerations upon tliis subject was, that the doctrine of the influence of the Holy Spirit had been one comparatively reserved in the preaching of the preceding half-century. I do not mean that it was denied, or even wholly omitted. Such strong and wholesale charcres a£]cainst the teach ins: of the Church at that period are often made ; but they are wholly without foundation. But when referred to in more than a general way, the reference was usually for the purpose of guarding against fanatical extravagance — for correcting the abuse rather than illustrating the use of that doctrine ; for showing rather what was not, than what was implied in it. 68 AIDS TO FAlTir. [Essay IL It was not strange, therefore, if, in tlieir ardour to develop fully, on its positive side, tliis cardinal Chris- tian doctrine of a free and intimate communion between God in Christ and the human soul, the evangelical leaders were tempted to overstep the Loimds of so- briety ; and to forget that the Holy Spint is given not to supersede, or supply the place of any of our natural faculties, but to help their infirmity, and restore them to that just balance and due subordination — that proper and healthful exercise — which have been disturbed by sin. From Him, indeed, " all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed ; " but we must first determine that our desires are holy, our counsels good, and our works just, before we can, without intol- erable rashness, attribute them to that sacred influence ; and we cannot detemine that by the mere strength of our persuasions, or the vividness of our fancies, or the depth and earnestness of our feelings, without opening a way for every wild extravagance that can support itself on strong persuasion, vivid fancy, and deep and earnest feeling. B:'t, in the flush and fervour of their triumph, and the general silence of the advocates of infidelity, the evangelical leaders went on securely — comparing proudly their own achievements with the performances of their predecessors — and declaring that they needed no other evidences than the manifest adaptation of their doctrine to the wants of mankind, and its living power, when received, to regenerate a sinful race. 9. The natural consequence of all this was an exten- sive decay of theological learning. A few leading doc- trines were, for them, the essence of the Gospel, and their preaching, in too many cases, became little more than a monotonous repetition of those doctrines. For such a ministry neither deep research nor accurate til inking was at all necessary. On the contrary, it was manifest that, in order to make a great part of the Bible available for the direct teaching of the few sub- jects to which they confined themselves, it was needful to violate all rules of sober criticism, and confound the Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CUlilSTIANlTY. qq Old Testament with the New by an arbitrary spiritual' isinrj interpretation to which reason could set no limits. The practical result of such a course was an extensive, though vague, popular impression that the test of a cor- rect exposition of Scripture was the amount of comfort or edification that the hearer or reader sensibly derived from it. The pious feelings which a text, as he under- stood it, produced in his mind were unhesitatingly re- garded as the consequence of the Spirit's teaching through .the Word. Human agency, it was indeed acknowledged, was necessary to teach a man to read ; and human agency was needful to supply the unlearned with translations of the Bible ; but, beyond this, very little was allowed to any other help than prayer, for* the profitable study of the Scripture. The real tendency, it is evident, of such opinions is not to exalt the authority of the Word of God, but to destroy it. The mind of the reader in such a process of study, instead of receiving instruction from the Scrip- ture, imports a meaning into it. We have, not an Exe- gesis^ but an Isegesis. A certain system of doctrine is first accepted, not -upon the autliority of propounders accredited by external evidence, but for the sake of the doctrine itself: the Scripture becomes valuable only as the vehicle of this doctrine, and valuable in proportion as it can be made the vehicle of this doctrine, and the means of exciting a certain class of pious sentiments : and, as it is soon discovered that what the very ele- ments of criticism would detect as palpable misinter- pretations or mistranslations of the sacred text may be the most cherished vehicles of such doctrine, and pow- erful exciters of such feelings, criticism is laid aside, and the Bible becomes a kind of cipher, to be read not by reason but by fancy. 10. I am tracing here the ultimate development of false principles when left unchecked to their full oper- ation. But, even in cases where no such extravagance was possible, we can perceive through a great part of the religious writings of the last generation a prevailing- tendency to forget the aspect of Fact^ and view only tjQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IL the aspect of Doctrine in contemplating the truths of Christianity. Indeed, if we steadily retain in our minds the historical view of Christianity which is presented in the New Testament, and the primitive creeds, as a religion of Facts, it will be hard to grasp Mr. Cole- ridge's dictum as even a comprehensible utterance. It will immediately strike us as hardly intelligible to say, that the best way to convince a man that Jesus Christ was " conceived by the Holy Ghost ; born of the Yirgin Mary ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; was cru- cified, dead, and buried ; and the third day rose again from the dead;" is to make him sensible of a strong wish that these facts should have taken place. It would at once become plain that the religion which was to be proved by such a process must be something widely different from an historical religion. 11. While such causes as I have endeavoured to in- dicate were in England loosing men's hold upon the historical element in Christianity, other influences were operating at a greater distance towards the same result. The literature of Germany is eminently speculative and metaphysical. There the Governments have been ac- customed to forbid, as dangerous to the public peace, the free discussion of those concrete matters relating to Church and State on which the popular mind wdth us is kept continually interested, and often agitated. The only scope for the activity of the human intellect in dealing with morals, religion, and politics, is in those higli generalities where vulgar minds are unable to follow it. Literary men converse with, and write for, literary men, and feel no necessity to translate their thoughts into the common working-day language of ordinary life. AYithin the esoteric circle, one dialect is spoken ; without it, another : and thus speculation is unchecked by that constant reference to the common sense of mankind which in freer countries curbs its ex- travagance. Tiiese two circumstances — the encouragement of un- limited speculation within bounds remote from vulgar apprehension, and the repression of everything directly Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. /^j tending to agitate the mass of the people, or shake the institutions of the country — gave its peculiar character to German infidelity. The problem to be solved was, the substitution of metaphysical Pantheism for revealed religion, combined with a retaining of the structure and ordinances of the Church, together witli the language of the Scripture and the Creeds, accommodated to the requirements of such metaphysics. The result has been truly described as a system which, "concealing scepticism under faith, using much circumlocution to reach its object, dwelling on the imagination, on poetry, on spirituality, transfigured w^hat it threw into the shade, built up wdiat it destroyed, and affirmed in words what in effect it denied." It was intended for a kind of Euthanasia of Christianity. Revelation was to die out, not amidst the insults of coarse assailants, but the compliments and tender regret of friends, and to leave behind it an honoured name and a conspicuous monument. God was to be merged in the Soul of the Universe: Christ in the Ideal of Humanity: the Incar- nation in the union of the higher and lower principles of human nature ; and the Atonement in the reconcilia- tion of those principles through struggle and suffering. For the successful carrying out of such an enterprise, it was necessary to expel the miraculous from the docu- ments of Christianity, without charging the authors of them with fraud or deliberate imposture : and this was attempted in two ways. The earlier project was to resolve the supposed miracles into a series of odd nat- ural events, sometimes mistaken for supernatural by the excited fancies of the spectators. The later method proposed to turn almost the wdiole narrative, natural and supernatural, into a set of symbolical legends embodying the idea of the Jewish Messiah as modified by the necessity of adapting it to Jesus of Xazareth. Each of these — the naturalistic and the mythical theory — promised well at first; but each was soon found to labour under insuperable difficulties. Common sense revolted at last, even in the studies of German profes- sors, against tlie clumsily elaborate explanations by ^2 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay XL which miracles were converted into natural events. Afresh hypothesis had to be made for each occurrence, and it was at last perceived that such a multitude of strange natural j^henomena, crowded into the narrative of a few years, and gratuitously assumed for the mere purpose of evading the obvious meaning of the story, were really far more improbable than miracles them- selves. On the other hand, the external evidence car- ried back the date of the sacred writings to an age when the true history of Jesus was so recent as to make it incredible that it should have been wholly smotliered then by legends of a mere romantic character ; " while the gravity, consistency, and perfect quietness of the style of those writings themselves made the attempt to turn them into mythical legends a task everywhere difficult in detail, and, in some cases, even ludicrously hopeless. Hence, to account for the historical phenom- ena of Christianity is still really an unsolved problem among German unbelievers. The plain direct account — that Jesus was the Son of God ; that He died, and rose again ; and sent His Holy Spirit to plant His Church in the world — is set aside by an a ])riori pre- sumption against all miracles. But the historical evi- dence, the Books themselves^ still remains a " stone of stumbling, and rock of offence," against which liypothe- sis after hypothesis is dashed to pieces. The irreligious principles which thus, for a long time, infected the critical and philosophic and theological literature of the Continent, made it odious in England ; and the policy at first acted on was to endeavour to ex- clude it altogether from the notice of the British pub- lic, f But such a policy was attended with greater evils than were likely to have ensued if things had been suffered to take their natural course. A great part, indeed, of the critical literature of Germany was * Strauss, for example, is compelled to acknowledjco that I,nkc,thc author of the third Gospel aud the Acts, was the compauion^ and most probably the disciple, of St. Paul. t See some curious details in the Appendix to Goode's * Life of Geddcs.' The scandal occasioned by the translations of Schleicrmacher, and even of Neibuhr, are matters of recent memory. EsaAYlL] EVIDENCES OF CIUIISTIANITY. (73 valuable in no sense whatever. Much ot it was a mere succession of wild livpotheses/-^ springing up, like mushrooms, in the morning, and perishing at night, without leaving even a relic of their decay to manure tlie soil on which they had flourished. Much of it was the mere lost labour of a perverse diligence, and sinister ingenuity, like the fairy toil of the Gnomes and Kobolds in the fables of its own mines and forests. But so vast an amount of intense mental activity and unlimited research into all the recesses of learning, sacred and profane, — so free a questioning of everything ; so vari- ous a combination of new ideas upon such a multitude of subjects, — could not but contain in it seeds of thought that might have usefully stimulated the natural indo- lence of our intellect at home. The mere love of Truth for its own sake is, in general, not sufficient to set men on work, and keep them at work. It is, to a great extent, the collision of thought, the pressure of difficul- ties, the agitation of doubts, that, by " troubling the waters," makes them yield their virtue. Tlie culture of the mind is like the tillage of the soil — " Pater ipse colendi Haud fiicllom esse viam voluit, primusque per artcs Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda, Nee torpere gravi passus sua regua vetcrno." As it was, English scholarship seemed to have settled upon its lees ; and we have scarcely ever had an age so barren of any great efforts as that of which we are now sp caking. f * " It is well known," saj's Do Wette in the Prefoce to his ' Lchrbnch der historisch-kritischen Einlcituni^,' " that from the beginninj:^ .... the pernicious fondness for vain and arbitrary combinations and hypotheses has been bronght into this department The burden of hypotheses under which Biblical introduction labours has been much increased in recent times." He takes credit for bringing hack the history of the Septuagiut ver- sion to the place in which Hodj/ left it in 170-i, t I have purposely avoided any details of the reaction towards Church authority called the Tract Movement. It is certain that, so far from doing anything to revive the study of Cliristian evidences, some of the foremost leaders of that movement went even beyond the most violent ultra-Protes- tants in denouncing that study as dangerous; and ultimately encouraged men to "throw themselves" into a particular system, on the ground mainly of its affording scope to certain religious feelings, and gratifying certain religious tastes. This branch of the subject has been considered in tuo ' Cau- tions/or the Times.' (Parker and Son, London.) 4 fj^ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay XL 12. But nieanwliile men of leisure and curiosity, in the universities and elsewliere, disgusted witli the tame and superficial monotony that prevailed around tliem, were repairing, as it were, in secret, to the fresh stores that had been opened on the continent of Europe. The very circumstance that this foreign literature was se- cluded from the vulgar gaze, and even a kind of contra- band learning, gave it an additional charm. The adejDts felt as if they had been initiated in some higher myste- ries, and were disposed hughly to over-estimate the value of their attainments. Doubts and strange opin- ions which, if they had been freely expressed and ven- tilated in the fresh air and broad sunshine of public discussion, would have soon shrunk to their proper small dimensions, grew into giants in the shade, and over-mastered the minds that had been nursing them in secret. Then, gradually, the influence of the new opin- ions began to pervade the current literature of the country — not in plain and definite statements — that would have too rudely shocked the multitude, but sometimes in hints " vocal to the intelligent," sometimes in ambiguous language adapting to other purposes the religious phrases of the day, sometimes under a cloud of metaphysical jargon that bewildered the admiring reader. Thus it has come to pass that, without any open controversy, but silently, as it were, and " while men slept," the old matter-of-fact faith has died out in many minds, and religion has come to be regarded as an afi'air of sentiment, that should be disentangled, as soon as possible, from its historical elements. 13. It would not, I think, be very difiicult to meet the patrons of such views, even on their own high phil- osophical ground. I think it would not be hard to prove that, even if we took the moral wants of man as the sole measure of religious truth, the Gospel which these persons preach is inadequate to meet the moral wants of man. AVe reqitlre not merely an ideal of hu- man excellence, but to see that ideal realized / and to see further that the issue of that realization has been a triumph over all the ills of life, and over all the men- Essay II.] KYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ^^5 aces of cleatli. We require to be sliown, in fact^ that man can truly serve God, and tliat the end of that ser- vice is evcrhasting life. We Qieed a basis of fact, an historical basis, for onr religions faith ; and without such a basis that faith is a mere castle in the air — a splendid vision, as practically inoperative to resist real temptation as every other ideal picture has ever proved. But, after all, this would be only " answering a fool according to his folly ; " and it is better to begin by protesting at once against the foundation of the whole theory. It is a mere delusion to fancy that man's sup- posed wants or his wishes are to be taken as either the major or the minor limits, or, indeed, as any measure at all, of religious truth. AVe cannot be justified in as- suming that things exist because we seem to ourselves to want, or because we feel that we earnestly desire their existence ; nor can we even be justified in disbe- lieving or disregarding the existence of things which seem to us superfluous, or unpleasant, or even noxious, if assured on good authority that they exist, and that it is important for us to take notice of their existence. That man must, indeed, be a backward scholar in the school of nature wlio has not learned, even from his own experience, how little human wants and wishes are an evidence that the things wanted and wished for really exist. It is the common delusion of over-sanguine youth to fancy that we shall find in life exactly what we seem to require, and that circumstances will infal- libly open for us those opportunities which are most suitable for the display of our talents, and the advance- ment of our fortunes. But how little does stern reality tally with these golden dreams of the inexperienced imagination ! And shall we go on to the grave, trust- ing these promises of our own fancy, which every day is, with continually accumulated evidence, proving to be false ? It is not, if we are wise, to our wants and wishes that we trust, in the aifairs of this world, as evidence tliat the means of remedying those wants, or gratifying tliose wishes, are in store for us ; but to the proper cvi- YQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. dence of matters of fact. And if we would find a solid basis for our religious faltli, we must obtain for it also a similar foundation. The truth is that we may see beforehand that tlie wants and wishes of a creature like man are boundless, and, in their very nature, incapable of being all grati- fied. All creatures are necessarily imperfect ; and every imperfection is the want of some conceivable good ; and every conceivable good is in itself desircible ; and may, if we give the reins to our desire, become an object of our wishes. " Men would be angels, angels would be gods." Nothing short of absolute, of infinite perfection can possibly supply all wants, and gratify all the wishes of an imperfect being, who fancies that he has only to wish strongly in order to obtain his object. And equally vain is the notion that we may safely disregard everything that seems not suitable to our moral nature. Here, again, let us have recourse to that analogy which the great master of that argument has justly described as " the very guide of life." IIow ill would a child reason who should obstinately neo;lect every study, the use of which he could not himself dis- ceri/l And, as to the things of another life, are we not all children ? Shall we, who know not what an hour may bring fortli, — we, whose wisest calculations and most sagacious foresight are perpetually baffled and broughtto nothing in a moment by the changes and chances of even this short mortal life — shall we presume to take our own case . for eternity into our own hands, and determine for ourselves what is sufficient for us to believe ? The Almiglity has taken us under His own care. He has promised us an inheritance of which we know little more than that it is a state of eternal holi- ness and happiness. He has engaged to prepare us for it here, and, for that purpose, has revealed to us those truths which He saw fitting for our discipline. Can we know so certainly how the character which He re- quires is to be formed, as to be able to correct the Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF ClIPJSTIAXITY. ' Y7 method wliicli lie Las been pleased to employ ? Do we know our spiritual diseases so well that we can safely reject the remedies which the Great Physician lias pre- scribed for them ? Are we, in this onr state of infancy, so perfectly acquainted with all that is needful for our manhood that we can manage our own edu(^ation, and determine the training by which we are to be reared for Heaven ? If, indeed, the present life were the whole of each man's existence, if our only immortality were the immortality of the human race, there might bo some specious ground for saying that we had now made such a survey of all our narrow domain, and gained such a knowledge of our capacities and imj)lements, that we were at last entitled to be our own nnisters, and might trust to our own little skill and prudence in the management of our own little territory. But if a boundless and untried existence, beyond the limits of all our experience, really does lie before each individual hereafter, it is surely mere madness to neglect, in mat- ters which concern that existence, the teachings of Him who alone knows the nature of that hidden world into which we are so blindly passing. A prudent man, then, will not only inquire what it is that his heart seems to want, but also how far those wants are, in point of fact, supplied. He will not only consider what he wishes to be true, but what he has reasonable evidence for believing to be true. He will treat the truths of Religion as matters of fact, and seek for the appropriate evidence of matters of fact — that is, in other words, for historical evidence. 14. A religion disentangled entirely from all histor- ical inquiries, and commending itself immediately to the mind by its mere intrinsic beauty and suitability to man's w^ants and wishes, may be a very captivating vision, and seems highly desirable on many accounts ; but it is a gross abuse of words to call such a religion Christianity. Christianity is the religion which was taught by Christ and his Apostles ; and it was certainly an historical religion — a religion made up of matters of fact, and propounded on the evidence of matters of 75 ' AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat II. fact — which they promulgated. " That wliich we have heard and seen with our eyes, and onr hands have han- dled of the Word of Life, declare we unto yon," is the language of the first preachers of the Gospel ; and the modern attempt to separate the ideal Christ, the type of the godlike in man, from the historical person, is not a whit less opposed to the genius of the Apostolic re- ligion than was that teaching of the Gnostics against which the last of the Apostles raised his warning voice as the very spirit of Antichrist. The Christ of the Gnostics was an impalpable ^on ; the Christ of their "successors is something less substantial — an abstract idea. Indeed, whatever may be the case with other re- ligions, the Gospel certainly never made its way by first recommending itself to the conscious wants and wishes of mankind. It seemed, on the contrary, to contradict all man's expectations, and to outrage all their cherished feelings, and to cross all their desires. It was " to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness." It is not until believed and acted upon that it gradually changes the temper and frame of mind into accordance with itself; it is like some of those tonic medicines which, at first, seem bit- ter and disagreeable, until the j^alate is accustomed to their taste, and the stomach braced and strengthened by their wholesome harshness. It may, indeed, on the surface, seem strange that the Christian religion should be thus encumbered, as it were, by an apparatus of history ; and that men should be required to investigate the evidence of past transac- tions in order to find a basis for their Faith, instead of merely consulting their hearts, and finding an echo there, to attest the divinity of its voice. But in this, as in other cases, we shall find, upon reflection, that Avhat seems the foolishness of God, is wiser than men. The careful and candid investigation of the evidences on which Christianity rests — not for the satisfying a mere inquisitive curiosity, but to find truth for the regulation of our lives — is an eminently practical exercise of the Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIPJSTIANITY. tjg understanding, and brings home the great facts of onr religion as facts to the mind, with a feeling of their reality which the most highly raised efforts of the imag- ination cannot give them ; and thus makes rational deliberate faith a counterpoise to the engrossing influ- ence of sense. In the aliairs of the world, we know that realities address themselves, in some shape or other, to the judgment ; and that tliose that exclusively and immediately address the feelings and the imagina- tion are unreal. If, then, the objects of religion en- tered only through this ivory gate of fancy into the mind, a steady practical faith in their reality could be hardly maintained. I say a steady 'practical faith ; for, undoubtedly, if religion were a mere affair of feeling divorced from practice, or of practice divorced from motive, and reduced to the mere mechanism of custom, there might be something intelligible in discarding all investigation of evidence. Every one, even supei'ficially acquainted with the structure of the human mind, is aware that the feelings may, as in the case of a novel or a play, be deeply interested and strongly excited, without anything but, at best, a sort of dim and tran- ' sient belief in the reality of the objects which thus in- terest and excite them ; and that, for such a purpose, scarcely anything more is necessary than that the mind should not, for the time, attend to their imreality. Tliis suffices for mere feeling : but for action, a perfectly sane man requires more. He requires evidence as a ground of belief: and, even in an insane man, — where the fancy has become paramount, and established its throne upon the ruins of the understanding, close ob- servers can generally detect a lurking suspicion of the deceitfulness of the mind's own visions, — an unsteady wavering flicker in the predominating persuasion, which betrays a difference of no small importance between rational and irrational belief ; a secret sense of- insecu- rity and weakness, which makes the mind of the mad- man, except in some high paroxysm of frenzy, succumb and quail before the calmer presence of a well-regulat- ed intellect. gQ AIDS TO FAlTil. [Essay IL 15. There is anotlier use also served l>y tliis compli- cation of religion witli historical inquiry, "svhich it is not unsuitable to notice. The essential connection of Christianity Avith the history of past ages makes a pro- vision for the maintenance and advancement of civiliza- tion in every country in Avliich Christianity prevails. It was this which made the preservation of learning possible when the great Hood of barbarism swept over Europe, and the Church alone contained the sacred de- posit of an earlier civilization — the memory of the past, and the hopes of the future. And it is this v/hich is still a bulwark against barbarism. Barbarism is essen- tially that state of mind which is produced by placing it exclusively under the influences of a contracted j?;/'6'5- ent sphere of circumstances. It is, as Dr. Johnson just- ly said, " by making the past, the distant, and the fu- ture predominate over the present," that we are '' ad- vanced in the dignity of thinking beings." All history, more or less, renders this valuable service to the human mind ; but it cannot be reasonably doubted that the history of the Church, in that view of it which the Bible presents, as one continuous body from the beginning of the world, is, of all others, the best fitted to render such a service. Tlie idea of history, it has been truly said,^^ is that of the biography of a society. There must be, to constitute the narrative properly historical, an unity of action, interest, and purpose among the persons who are the subjects of it. ]S"ow, whether we consider the length of its duration, or the breadth of its extent, — the variety of its fortunes, or the unity of its purpose, — the diversity of its members in age, and character, and lan- guage, and manners, and habits of thought, and stages of cultivation, or the closeness of mutual relation into which all these seemingly scattered persons have been brought, — what other society can anywhere be pointed out which can form so noble and so useful a subject for the historian ? It is the conception of the Church which enables the mind not only to combine, but to blend together, the pastoral simplicity of the primitive * Arnold's Lectures on History. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 times of mankind and tlie elaborate civilization of later Qo-es • to brino- into one collection all the characteris- tics of all the^climes and regions of the world ;— to bring all specimens of the human family, " from the north and from the south, and from the east and from the west," and make them '' sit down " before ns " in the kingdom of God." Nor can I doubt that the pecu- liar strength, and' freedom, and versatility of the mod- ern European intellect are, to a great extent, due to the historical character of Christianity. Xo one can read, intelligently, so much as the prime documents of our faith, even'^in a vernacular translation, without feeling himself transported into a region where the modes of conception and of expression, the events and the insti- tutions to be met with, are strikingly different from those which surround him with the associations of ev- eryday life ; without, in short, finding himself, for the time, emancipated from the mere influence of tlie pres- ent, and brought under that of the distant and the past. Xor could anything have secured such a potent and salutary influence to history over the human mind as the indissoluble tie by which it is connected with relig- ion ; the feeling that, in our nearest and most intimate relations, we are personally connected, as members of one iDody, with the remotest past and the illimitable future,— linked in one unbroken living chain, with ])atri- jirclis and prophets, and apostles and martyrs,— heirs with them of the same promise, and waiting with them for the same completion of the great mystery of God. And it is worth observing that Providence has so ar- ranged matters, that the Eastern world— to which the lano-iia^-e and habits of thought contained in Scripture were most familiar, — seems destined to receive back its lessons, modified by the peculiarities of Western civili- zation and European teaching. In those nations where the language of Christianity was, as it were, a native voice, it produced least influence at first as a source of permanent civilization. It was the leaven oi foreign associations which caused a fermentation in the West- ern mind : and, from the blended mass which was the 4* 82 ^IDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. product of that fermentation, it seems destined to pass back to the realms from which it came, in a form fitted to produce there a similar eftect. In the same degree, then, as any system has a tendency to break the connexion between history and religion, in that same degree it tends to deprive civili- zation itself of one of its chief safeguards, — to with- draw from effective operation one of the most power- ful causes which now stimulate research and bring the minds of the present generation into contact Avith those of the past. If the mind be referred immediately, for religious guidance, not to an historical document, but to a supposed infallible authority of the present Church, or to the supposed infallible authority of each man's fancy and feelings, the influences favourable to barbarism are so far restored : and I think the visible results of both experiments, so far as either has been con- sistently worked out, are such as to show that a retrogres- sion towards barbarism v»'Ould betheirmostprobable con- sequence. To look only at the 2:)re3ent — to live in tho present — shape our habits by the present — adopt, at every change, the vogue of the day — and cast aside whatever we cannot accommodate to the taste of our own generation — this is to do our utmost to restore barbarity, and sink us below tho level on vrhich God and nature intended us to bo placed. And hence we may find fresh reason for admiring the wisdom of the Divine economy wdiich, in the case of the Jewish and of the Christian Church alike, withdrew, after a while, the living voice of inspired guides, and substituted for them, as the ultimate basis of faith, a written historical record of their teaching ; thus building the Church, as a continuous body through all ages, on that foundation of the apostles and prophets, of which Jesus Christ Himself is the chief conier-stone. 16. But then it will be said, — ''Is not Christianity a Gospel to be preached to the poor? and how are the mean and illiterate to judge of the historical evidences of Christianity?" Now, undoubtedly, not in religious matters alone, Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHEISTIANITY. 83 but in respect of almost every useful truth alike — moral, scientific, economical, political— the uneducated and ill-educated classes labour under peculiar disad- vantages ; and this, so far as it is a difficulty ,_ is a difficuhy upon every hypothesis which admits a benevolent Providence and recognises a difference between truth and falsehood." Tlie true lesson to be derived from the circumstance is, that Ave are bound, as far as we can, to raise the condition of our meaner brethren, and make them more and more capable of judging for themselves. Still, however, no doubt, great difference Avill continue to subsist : nor will it ever be possible to equahze all understandings, or make the opportunities and capacities of improvement the same for every mind. But each class must be contented, in this as in other cases, with such an amount of evidence as its circumstances will allow ; and, if the upper classes would faithfully do their duty, this amount of evidence would not be small in any case. Let it be observed tliat the form of this objection allows us to assume that Christianity is true; that it is capable of being proved true by rational evidence to well-informed persons; that, among men of literary attainments, it can hold its ground with the weapons of argument ; that it needs not to fear any amount of light, or shrink from any examination however search- ing; and, assuming this, let us consider what tlie^ con- dition of the lower classes would have been, if the Church had faithfully done its duty. The Christian religion would then come before them as a religion manifestly subserving no interested temporal ends — encumbered with no artifices of priestcraft — notorious- ly based, from the first, upon the ground of rational evidence, and maintaining itself through nil genera- tions upon that ground alone, — open to all challengers, and ready at all times to give a reason of its hope to * The difficulties attcndinfi; the rejection of these being all the marks of design and benevolent intention in the structure of nature and the course of history. 84 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. every one demanding it; — and can it be said that this would not be good evidence to tliem of its truth ; and evidence of the same kind as that upon which they must rely, from their circumstances, for the truth of almost everj'thing of importance at all removed beyond the sphere of their own immediate experience ? ^"' It is the putting of Christianity upon other grounds; it is the claim of authority to silence doubt ; it is the dis- couragement of inquiry, the contempt of reason, the depreciation of intellect in religious matters ; it is the shrinking from light and correction, the suffering pure truth to be encrusted with prejudices and mistakes for fear of unsettling men's minds ; it is the borrowing of the arts and language that are the common-signs of imposture by the friends of truth, and leaving its own bold speech and open ways to its enemies ; it is these unworthy methods that deprive the lower classes of the safeguards wdiich, with such a religion, they might and ought to have for the security of their faith. The Providence of God has linked all classes together in mutual dependence, so that, " if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ;" and the Gospel cannot be preached to the poor, if the well-instructed scribes do not take the only measures by which it can possibly be preached with effect. 17. But, even of direct evidence, the amonnt is not slight that is within the reach of the humbler classes. There is much of most ^^ersuasive evidence of the truth of Christianity which not only requires no dialectical skill to make it felt, but which cannot be drawn out and stated in its full force by any amonnt of dialectical skill. Let any one consider with himself what the nature of the evidence is upon which he has formed his judgment of the characters of the persons with whom he converses in daily life. What a medley of slight traits, looks, gestures, chance expressions, little circumstances, each, perhaps, ambiguous in itself, * Sec an interesting statement of the nature of the evidence witbin the reach of the lower orders, in Archbishop Whately's 'Easy Lessons' on the Evidences, pp. 23-27. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIKISTIANITY. 85 but all conspirini^ in one deiiiiite impression, M'ill it a})pear! And all these he lias gathered in and com- bined, not by a consciously logical ])rocess, watching for and sifting each scruple of evidence as it arose, and then deliberately putting them together, like a clever advocate to make a case ; but unconsciously, and by a kind of instinct, the mind lias drawn its inference from these little circumstances which he can remember, and from a thousand other evanescent phenomena wdiicli he cannot now recall. And yet all this evidence was good evidence, upon which lie unhesitatingly relies. Now such is the reasonable evidence which the Scriptures themselves yield to the candid and attentive reader, who is neither searching for proof nor watch- ing for objections. It deposits, as it were, the practi- cal persuasion of its own truthfulness and honesty by a thousand artless traits Avhilc we converse with its pages. "If we may judge," says Jackson, "of the truth of men's waitings by their outward form or character, as we do of men's honesty by their looks, speech, or behaviour, wdiat history in the w^orld bears so perfect a resemblance to things done and acted, or yields (without further testimony than its own) so full assurance of a true narration?" [Works, vol. i. p. 27.] Men who never consciously framed a syllogism have felt, and are daily feeling, the force of such evidence. They are continually perusing the accounts of miracles so numerous and so striking that the witnesses of them could not be mistaken, and yet imbedded indissolubly * in a narrative so artless, so grave, so honest, so intelli- gent, as palpably to be no product of fraud or foncy ; and, without any elaborate criticism or detailed pro- cess of deduction, their mind talx.cs the impression wdiicli a book so circumstanced is naturally and rea- sonably fitted to impart. Thus many a mind that has scarcely ever felt a doubt, or heard of an inlidel in * "The miracles in the Bible," says Bolin<^broke, "arc not, like those in Livy, detached pieces that do not disturb the civil history, which <;ocs on very well without them. . . . But the whole history is i'ouuded on Iheni ; it consists of little else ; and if it were not a history of them, it would be a his- tory of nothing." gg AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II Christian lands, has, in reality, based its faith upon rational evidence. Its belief has not been built amidst the noise of hammers and the ring of axes, but has grown up, "a noiseless structure," from the ground of an honest and true heart. IS. In some respects, indeed, the result of the un- limited development of critical inquiry abroad has been to diminish, rather than increase the difficulties of comparatively unlearned readers. Almost the only infidel theory which is quite intelligible to the lower orders, is that coarse one v/hich treats the New Testa- ment as a mere forgery throughout, or ascribes the origin of our religion to gross fraud and imposture. Kow, if there be any certain result of German criticism at all, it has been to show that any such theory is utterly un- tenable. The Wolfenbiittel Fragments w^ere almost the last shameful effort in that direction, and their track is a road which no one, with the smallest pretensions to literary character, avouM now venture to pursue. Count- less other evasions of the plain force of evidence, each contradictory of the other, and each rejected with con- tempt by almost every one but its author, have been invented ; but there is, except at Tiibingen, no disposi- tion to return to what may be called the old orthodox system of infidelity. To men of plain common sense, if they fully understood the whole state of the case, it would appear that all the premisses are granted which render inevitable an admission of the substantial truth of Christianity. Put, for example, Paul's undoubted Epistles, with Luke's Gospel and Acts, into the hands of a plain ordinary Englishman, and tell him, "It is no longer questioned that these letters are the genuine work of Paul ; it is no longer questioned that the writer of the other Books was his companion, who com- piled them while the men were still alive, who had conversed with Jesus, and seen him crucified ; it is no longer doubted that Paul and Luke were sincere and honest men who had no design to impose upon their hearers ; and the alternatives before you are either to admit that Christianity was really grounded upon Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. g^ miracles, or to explain these documents by the methods of Paulns, or Stranss, or AVeisse, or some otlier Naturalistic or Mythic Doctor ;" — let this, I say, be the issue placed before an Englishman of ordinary common sense and information, and there can be little doubt that he would regard the first alternative as far less prodigiously incredible than the second. The case stands thus : 19. The origin of the Christian religion is not one of those events so distant as to be lost in a fabulous antiquity. Whatever gave rise to it occurred at a period of which we know a great deal, in a civilized world, and within historic times; and was something which enabled the first preachers to make more converts among enernAes in five years, than our most active missionaries have made in five centuries. Within no long time after the death of Jesus we find Christian Churches difi'used in the most distant places over this civilized world, continually growing in numbers and importance, under the eyes and in spite of the hostility of their powerful neighbours. The consentient tradition of all these Churches ascribes their foundation to the first Disciples of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to those Disciples the Gospel that He had been raised from the dead, and that this Hesurrection, with its preceding and accom- panying miracles, was the ground of their faith. Their creeds, their sacraments, 'their universal observance of Easter and the Aveekly Lord's day, all embody this tradi- tion. These Churches are not without written historical records." They put forward, with one consent, a body of documents, giving a detailed account of Christ's life, and death, and resurrection, and of the first preaching and fortunes of his Apostles, and embracing a collection of letters from some of tliose Apostles themselves. With respect to many of these writings, no literary * " It is allowed," says Mr. AVcstcott, " by Uiosc who have reduced the ffenuine Apostolic works to the narrowest limits, that from the time of Irenaius \i. e. the latter part of the second century] the New Testament was composed essentially of the same books as we receive at present, and that they were regarded' with the same reverence as is now shown to them." — History of the Canon, p. 8. 88 ^IDS TO FAITH. [Essay II man of any character, at present, doubts their genuine- ness With respect to most of the rest, it is at any rate agreed that they are not mere forgeries ofahite age, hut books written in good faith, at a date when tlie true history of the times they refer to was easily to be ob- tained. The testimony of tliese documents is the same as the tradition of the Churches. They put the Christian religion upon the evidence of miraculous facts, and specially of Christ's Resurrection, as attested by the alleged witnesses of it, in the very place where He had been executed as a malefactor, and in the face of the very persons by whom He had been condennied and slain. What vre are called upon to believe is — that all the Churches were mistaken as to the grounds of their own faith ; that all the documents, and the Apostles them- selves, have given a wrong account of it; that the belief in the religion was not grounded on the belief in the miracles, but that the belief in the miracles was grounded on the belief in the religion ; that Jesus, who (if He wrought no miracles and was the subject of no miracles) contradicted, in every circumstance of his birth, and education, and teaching, and life, and death, the best established and most cherished notions of all around Him concerning the promised Messiah, was be- lieved, in spite of all, to be that Messiah; that miracles were ascribed to Him because the Messiah ought to have wrought miracles ; that He was believed to have risen again because it suddenly occurred to somebody that He ought to have risen again ; and that, by such an easy and intelligible process as this, a creed of fobles was transmuted into a creed of facts, and stamped in- delibly, and with one impression, npon the hiith and institutions of the great Christian comnmnities through- out the world. This is, in plain words, the theory ot the origin of Christianity corrected to the latest results of Continental criticism ; and it seems to amount to this — that Chris- tianity HAD NO origin AT ALL. It is, iudccd, Hot criticisHi that has spontaneously yielded these results; but it is Essay 11.] EVIDENXES OF ClIEISTIAXlTy. 89 the djmori prejudice against miracles wliicli lias forced criticism upon this strange enteri)rise. 20. Let any one take np (it is almost forgotten now in Germany, but may be still met with in England) Dr. Stranss's 'Life of Jesns,' and he will see at once that the author is all through merely working out a fore'^-one conclusion. Not one of his orthodox prede- cessors in the seventeenth century ever set himself with more doirged resolution to fight his way through all difficulties in defence of the verbal inspiration, scientific accuracy, and textual integrity of every jot and tittle m the Hebrew Scriptures, and lind a way, or make one, to the goal which he had determined to reach, than Strauss does to destroy it. And so with his successors; the very multitude and discordance of their theories is a witness to their insufficiency. They are the struggles of a strono; animal in toils which he cannot break. Ihe favourable posture for an infidel is that of an objector; when he is forced to recognise the necessity of having something positive on his own side, he finds his own difficulties greater than those over which he has been exulting in the case of his antagonists ; and the end has been that, in Germany, thinking men are either returning to the faith of their fathers, or laying the de- tailed examination of the phenomena of Christianity aside as an insoluble problem. And in reality, the greater part of the panic which has lately spread among 765, from the reappearance of the infidel controversy in England, has arisen from the security, the unhesitating accfuiescence, of the previous generation. Li the general silence of objectors, in the general recognition, which pervaded our whole literature, of the unquestionable truth of Christianity, men had ceased to reflect partic- ularly upon the rational grounds of their laith. The authority of the Bible became a kind of axiom, and everything that was supposed to be involved m that authority was grasped with the same firmness of belief. In such a state of mind, the whole of its creed is no firmer than the weakest part ; and hence, when open attacks began again to be made upon what men had 90 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I L regarded from their cliildliood as essential portions of Christianity — when attention was called to the real dif- ficulties which beset many passages, the undoubtedly strong objections which may be urged against many articles — when writers of learning and ability were quoted as authorities, not for, but against, the traditions of their youth — an ahirm arose as if the whole of religion w^as giving way. This danger always attends the con- centration of a whole system of belief upon a single 23oint. It is like embarking a whole army at once, for a long and perilous voyage, in one gigantic transport. If the ship hold together, much is gained in speed and convenience ; but if the vessel sink, all goes with her to the bottom. It is thus with the Homanist, who builds all on the authority of the present Church. If one portion, how- ever small or slight, of the complicated structure of liis creed be shaken, the basis of it is shaken, and the entire edifice falls to ruin in a moment. And so, when the feelings of tlie reader have been made the test of the inspiration of Scripture ; — when men have been accus- tomed to say, " ^afeel^ from the echo in our bosoms, from the warm sentiments of devotion which it excites, from the sensible comfort that it gives, that this is and must be no less than the voice of God speaking with us;" — in such a case the decision of criticism against the genuineness or authenticity of a. single book, or even of a single passage, becomes a thing formidable to the whole of faith. If the religious sense, on which the reader relies for distinguishing the divine from the human, have erred in any case, its assumed infollibility is gone ; the test itself of inspiration is shown to be fal- lacious; and he is left doubtful whether the whole of his belief may not be founded on a mere delusion. But a laitli founded upon rational evidence is not liable to be thus shaken. If it be shown, for example, that a particular verse in the 1st Epistle of John, or even a long passage in his Gospel, is an interpolation, this does not subvert the proof of the genuineness oi the rest of those pieces; since the evidence for the dis- Essay II.] EVIDEXCES OF CIIIilSTIANITY. gj piited parts, and the evidence for the rest of the docu- ments, is not the same ; and such a faith is grounded npon and proportioned to the evidence. And if the evidences of Christianity, — tlieir nature and degrees, — and even the first elements of the criticism of our sacred books, were made an ordinary part of tlie instruction of every tolerably educated man, we should be free ironi those periodical panics which are a disgrace to the intelligence of a Christian nation. As it is, when suddenly put upon searching the reasons of the faith that is in them, men hardly know at what point to begin, and in their confusion often seize first upon the weakest. 21. In dealing, either for the satisfaction of our- selves or of others, with sceptical objections, it is of vast importance to consider in what order they are to be dealt with. If we suffer ourselves to fall into the error of regarding each part of our position as equally strong in itself, the consecpiences may prove calamitous. There are, for example, narratives of miraculous occurrences in the Bible, which, if w^e met with them separate from the rest, or connected with documents of a different character — if we found them in a life of Pythagoras or ApoUonius — we should reasonably set aside as mere legendary stories, or exaggerations of purely natural events. It would be a grievous over- sight to stake the truth of Christianity at once upon the separate defence of such passages as these. The rea- sonable course is to waive them at the outset ; — to let them stand over for consideration in their due place ; — and to consider, first of all, the most important and best circumstanced facts upon which the claims of Eevelation rest. If these can be established, the others will either be not worth fio^htinc: about, or will follow as a matter of course. "Supposing it acknowl- edged," says Bishop Butler, '' that our Saviour spent some years in a course of working miracles ; there is no more presumption worth mentioning against Ilis having exerted this miraculous power in a certain de- gree greater than in a certain degree less ; in one or 92 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II. two more instances, than in one or two fewer; in tliis, than in another manner." {Aiicdogy^ part ii. c. 2.) It is quite true — and shonhl always be distinctly allowed — that nervons excitement, the strong tonic of a powerful faith and a lively imagination — perhaps also some subtle inlluence, such as animal magnetism — are capable of producing wonderful cures of some disor- ders ; and that, if some of the narratives of miraculous cures in the Gospel and the Acts were all the miracu- lous narratives relating to the first planting of Chris- tianity that we had, it might be reasonable to suppose the cures effected by some such agencies as these. But if other miracles remain which are incapable of any such solution, and sufficient to prove the claims of Christianity to a divine origin, then the natural expla- nations, even of the former, cease to be the more prob- able ; because such natural effects as they assume, though possible, are more or less unlikely ; whereas, there is no improbability in supposing that a person endowed with the power of miracles exerted it upon a particular occasion. It is improbable that any man ever lived in Greece of such strength as is attributed to Hercules ; but if it ^vere once established that such a person lived at a given time, there would be nothing iinj^robable in any story of a particular exertion of that strength, merely on account of its surpassing the vigour of ordinary mortals. Upon similar principles we should carefully avoid entangling the question of the general truth of Chris- tianity with that of the nature or extent of the inspira- tion of the sacred writers. There are, indeed, some arguments for Christianity which tend to prove directly the inspiration, in some form or other, of those writers; as, for instance, that derived from the omission in their works of to]")ics which men in their circumstances would natuvalhj have introduced, an argument which has been pressed with great force by the Archbishop of Dublin in his first series of Essays."^ But, in gen- eral, it is evident that our first concern with the sacred * See also Bishop Iliad's very A-aluable work ou Inspiration. Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIRISTIAXITY. g3 ■writers is in tlieir cliaracter of vv'itiicsscs ; and ^vo slioakl carefully distingnisli in our minds the objec- tions against tlieir character as inspired persons, and objections against their character as trustworthy rela- tors of facts. The question of the nature and extent of their inspiration legitimately comes in after the main facts have been established, which prove our Saviour's divine mission, and the promise of supernatural assist- ance which lie made to His Apostles. Some parts, indeed, of Scripture, such as the proph- ecies, claim inspiration directly, and on the face of them ; and in the case of these, to disprove their in- spiration is to disprove their trustworthiness. But, meanwhile, in the interpretation of such writ- ings, it cannot be reasonable to put out of sight the character which they claim, and insist upon expound- ing them as if they were not inspired at all.'''^ This is a principle of criticism which is never forgotten, ex- cept in the case of Scripture. If the Christian revela- tion be really the completion of the Jewish — if Christ and His Church be really the development of the mys- tery of God, which was gradually wrought and pre- pared for in all the previous dispensations — and if the prophets of those dispensations really " spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," it is no more unrea- sonable to give their lofty expressions a secondary ref- erence to the coming glory than to find allusions to Augustus in the '^neid,' or to Elizabeth and Mary in the 'Faery Queen,' or to the Roman Republic in an ode to Horace's ship.f And, indeed, the very possi- * See 'Charge of the Archbishop of Dublin,' 1861. Puiker and Son, London. t See Hurd on the 'Prophecies,' and Warburton's 'Divine Legation,' b. vi. " In the case of prophecies with a double sense," I have observed else- where, "we may be often sure of the secondary application of some parts of them, even though we may see clearly that other parts have no such ajiplica- tion Thus, for example, no one doubts that, in Spenser's Chronicle of Faery Kings (b. ii. c. x.), the following lines — He left two ponnesa, of which fair Elfcron, The eldeBt brother, did untimely die ; M'/inse euiptir ]>lace the ini^lity Olicron Doublij supitlied in spousall and dominion, ^-c. — lie, dying, left tlie lairest Tanaquill Him to succeed therein, by his last will. Fairer and nobler livetli none thia howre, Ne like in grace, no like in learned skill, &,c. — 94 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay XL l)ility of such an interpretation — the continuity of thought, character, and plan, in a literature spread over so many ages, which makes it feasible — has ever struck thoughtful men, from Justin Martyr to Pascal, as strong evidence for the inspiration of that literature. 22. But to pursue these topics further would be only to repeat what has been a thousand times said already; and when iniidelity comes to drop its reserve, and tell us plainly what the deep objections are that are now only hinted at in more 'or less doubtful forms of insinuation, it will most probably be seen that there is very little new matter to be produced in this great controversy, and that the Church is assailed in tlie nineteenth century with no stronger artillery than her walls have borne for eighteen centuries already. j\Iy earnest wish is, that those who think they can speak would speak out and let us knovv^ the worst. iv Be (j)d€L KoX oXeacTov. And if the literal truth of Christianity fall, it will cer- tainly be a final and total subversion of the whole religion. Let no one suppose that its spirit can remain living and acting among us after its body has been de- composed. Its spirit will return to God who gave it. "That man," says one who was no narrow bigot, "who does not hold Christ's earthly life, with all its mira- cles, to be as properly and really historical as any event in history, and who does not receive all points of the Apostolic creed with the fullest conviction, I do not conceive to be a Protestant Christian. And as for that Christianity which is such according to the fashion of the modern philosophers and pantheistSj without a personal God, without immortality, without an individ- uality of man, without historical faith, it may be a very ingenious and subtle philosophy, but it is no Christianity at all."" No one, I say, doubts that these lines refer to Ilcnrv VIII. and Queen Eliza- beth, tliough there is no consistent parallel between" the succession of Faery kinnjs and British monarchs." — Xote to JiutJcr's Analoo?/, p. '203. To argue from the extravagant abuse of types and double senses against their existence, is like arguing that if we adniit iigurcs of speech in any writ- ing, we cannot be sure that anything in it is literal.. * Niebulir, quoted by Ncandcr in the Preface to the Crd edition of his 'LifoofCl.ri^t.' ESSAY III PEOPHECY. CONTEXTS OF ESSAY III. 1. Introdcction. 2. The Divine Mission of the Proph- ets— Definition of the term " Proph- et." 3. Definition of the title "Seer." 4. Definition of the designation "Man of God." 5. Definition of the phrase " Man of the Spirit." 6. Scripture contrast of the false prophet. 7. The Power to prepict tub Fu- TLM'.E— Popular belief of the He- brews. 8. Claims of the Prophets themselves. 9. Justification of their claims by the fulfilment of their predictions: Ex- amples from Nahum — Hosea — Amos — Micah — Isaiah. 10. Groundlessness of recent insinuations shown by the fulfilment of a re- markable prediction — Untrustwor- thiness of Kationalist criticism. 11. Predictions of Mosos concerninsr the destinies of Israel not disputed or ' explained by Kationalists or Essay- I ists. 12. Messianic Prophecy— The real qucs- ' tion at issue: Whether the New Testament or German critics are to be our guides in interpreting proph- ecy? 13. Variety and diversity of opinions in the German Rationalist School un- bounded. 14. Doctriue of our Lord and the Apos- tles. 15. In citing or applying passages of the prophecies, attention must be paid to the mind and intention of the speaker or writer. IC. Our Lord, and, after Ilim, the Apos- tles, lay down the principle tliat past history may represent that which is to happen hereafter. 17. Prophecies which our Lord and the Apostles interpret as specially spoken in reference to Christ and Christianity— Belief of orthodox writers and Eationalist divines that Christ claimed to be the Messiah foretold by the Prophets. 18. Genuineness of the Book of Daniel. 19. Genuineness of Isaiah xl.-xlvi. 20. Interpretation of Isaiah liii. 21. Conclusion. PROPHECY 1. Hebrew prophecy, like the Hebrew people, stands without parallel' in the history of the world. Other nations have had their oracles, diviners, angurs, soothsayers, necromancers. The Hebrews alone haA'e possessed prophets, and a prophetic literatnre. It is useless, therefore, to go to the manticism of the lieathen to get light as to the nature of Hebrew prophecy.''^ To follow the Eabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies is just as vain. The only reliable sources of information on the subject are the Scriptures of the Old and 'New Testament. They contain documents written when the voice of prophecy still was heard, and it would be strange indeed to interju'ct coeval tes- timonies by theories devised by heathenized Rabbi s,t nearly two thousand years after Hebrew prophecy had ceased. Even a novice in the study of the Bible per- ceives the falsehood of the Rabbinic assertions, that the prophetic gift dwells only in a man who is learned, powerful, and rich ; and that no man can attain to it except by study, combined with a certain rerpiisite mental conformation.:}: The attempt to explain pro- phetic inspiration by the phenomena of animal magnet- ism, seems to be still farther removed from sobriety of * Yitringa, Typus doctr. prnpliot., in ' Obscrvationcs Sacrjo,' lib. vii. p. 4; Carpzov, ' Introd. ad Libr. Bibl. V. T.,' Part iii., p. 7 ; Knobol, * Prophetis- mus der Hebriier/ i. 21 ; C. I. Nitscb, * System dcr Christliclicu Lcbre,' p. 88; Thohick, * Die Propbcten und ibre Wcissaijjunficn,' p. 1, 73. - + :Maimouides and bis scbool, wboni Smitli and otbcrs follow, departed from tbe ancient tradition, and endeavoured to remodel Judaism accordini; to the Greek pbilosopby with which they became acquainted tbroucb Arab translations. Maimonides himself is remarkable for bis dotormined cftbrt to eliminate the supernatural from tbe Old Testament, and may in truth be re- garded as the father of Rationalist Thcoloo;y. X * Doctor Perploxorum,' p. ii. c. -",. Buxtorfs Translation, p. 2*^1 ; * Ilil- choth Ycsode Hattorab,' c. vii.; Salvador, 'Institutions dc Miiise,' i. p. 192-107. 98 AIIJS TO FAITH. [Essay IIL judgment, and Cliristian reverence.* From the Old Testament alone, illustrated by the Xew, is it possible to learn the nature of prophecy and the prophetic office. To interpret the prophetic writings with accuracy, a familiar acquaintance with the original language is necessary. But a correct idea of the prophet's work and office, and of the nature of prophecy in general, may be obtained from any ordinary translation of the Old Testament by any intelligent reader. The student of the English Bible may not be able to exjDlain the meaning of a rare Hebrew word, or an obscure and doubtful passage, nor to perceive beauties and peculi- arities, observable only in the original. He must also occasionally miss the force of j)articular expressions, and sometimes put up with an incorrect rendering. But he can, without any Hebrew, understand the char- acter and history of Moses or Elijah, and know that Elijah foretold a drought, or Elisha a sudden plenty : that Micaiah was a true prophet, and the son of Che- naanah an impostor, just as easily and correctly as Gesenius, or Ewald, or Bunsen. For this no modern criticism is necessary, and in such matters no reader of the Authorized Version ought to allow himself to be mystified or silenced by an ap- peal to foreign critics, much less to be disturbed in his faith, as if he could not apprehend the general teaching of the Bible without profound knowledge of the Semitic dialects, and the latest results of German criticism. All these things are good in their place, but the great and essential outlines of Divine truth, whether in refer- ence to Deity, or piety, or morality, or prophecy, are perceptible without them ; and it would^ be just as reasonable to assert that without these things we can- not understand the Ten Commandments, as to tell the * " The word wbirh wc, after the LXX., translate PropMs, means in the Hebrew, Insinved. Their oricjinal desifination was Seers, men who saw. Chiirvoyance (the so-called magnetic sight) and prophesying in the ecstatic state were of remote antiquity amongst the Jews and their neighbours; and Joseph, a man of a waking spirit, who, as a growing )'onth, possessed a natural gift of second sight, was able as man to see visions in bis cup, just as the Arab boy in Cairo still sees tbcm in bis bowl." — liarou Bunsen, Gott in der Oeschic/dc, p. 1-il. Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. gg reader of tlie Bible in the vernacular, that lie cannot grasp the scope of prophecy, or know whether it has been fulhlled, until he has spent years in the study of Hebrew and of modern commentators. The essential features of prophetic truth are too boldly drawn to be hidden by the veil of translation, and have been as plain and visible in all ages to the Greek, the Syrian, and the Arab, as to the polyglot critic of the nine- teenth century. A knowledge of the Hebrew text, indeed, enables its possessor at once to reject such cavils as those lately revived,'^ that the Hebrew words in Ps. ii. 12 for " Kiss the Son," ought to be trans- lated " Worship purely," or that the Hebrew word for " pierce," in Ps. xxii. 17 ought to be rendered " Like a lion," or that in Isaiah ix. 6. (Hob. 5), the words " Mighty God " ought to be "A strong and mighty one." But the English reader still sees from the con- text, in spite of these alterations, that the 2nd Psalm speaks of an universal King, greater than David, that the 22nd Psalm portrays one persecuted to deatli by man, delivered by God, after whose deliverance " All the ends of the earth remember themselves and turn unto the Lord," and that in Isaiah ix., the prophet speaks of a marvellous child, who is also " The Ever- lasting Father, of the increase of whose government there shall be no end, to order and establish his king- dom forever ; " words amply sufficient to teach the reader that Isaiah spake of no mere man.f The Ile- l)rew student is astonished, in the present state of Bib- lical learning, to sec such objections resuscitated. He knows that the translation " Worship purely " was invented by Pabbinic controversialists ; that the ver- sion " Kiss the Son " is defended even by such an opponent of Christianity as Aben Ezra amongst the Ilal)bis, and by De AYette amongst the Pationalists ; and adopted by Moses Mendelssohn, Eiirst, and his fellow translators, who have " Iluldigt dcm Solme : " * ' Essays and Reviews,' p. OS, 09. t Luther, who translates " Kraft, Ilekl," had do doubts as to the right interpretation of the passage IQQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Ess iY III. and that the ancient Jews interpreted this Psahn of the Messiah'" — that the rendering " Mi^ghty God " is adopted and defended by Ilitzig and KnobeLf But, without depreciating the value of Hebrew learning and criticism, it may be safely asserted, that the nature and teaching of prophecy may be collected from any tolerable version : and, therefore, the Apostles, guided from above, did not perplex the Gentiles by discuss- ing the differences between the LXX. and the Hebrew Text, but wisely used, and sanctioned the use of that Greek Version, which they found providentially pre- pared, already partially known amongst the heathen, and at that time regarded with reverence by the Jews. They understood how Divine Truth may be appre- hended by the milearned in a translation, and hidden from the wise and prudent with all their knowledge of the original.:}: With regard to Hebrew prophecy, there are three things equally perceptible in the origi- nal and in the versions, and at present specially requir- ing attention. These are : — the supernatural mission of the Prophets, their power to predict future events, and their announcements of a coming Saviour. 2. A prophet is a man specially called and sent by God to communicate a Divine revelation.§ This is apparent in the first place from the jiames given to tliose Divine messengers. They are called Froijliets^ * This is confessed even by Rashi. in the lltli century, who says, " Our Rabbis interpreted this Psahn 'of the Messiah;" to which was added in the older copies of his commentary, "But in order to answer tlie heretics, it is better to interpret it of David/' words still found in the commentary on the xxist Psalm. t Knobcl's reasons for rejecting the translation " strong and mighty one, arc thus expressed :—" Because bx never occurs as an adjective, and if ad- jective, ought to be after ^isa. The phrase ^liaS bx 'mighty God' occurs X. 21. Elsewhere also *Ti2a is adjective to ^X, as e. g. Dcut. x. 17; Jcr. xxxii. 18." — 'Commentary on Isaiah,' p. 73. X Matt. xi. 25. i Et hue forte respcxenmt Patres ecclesinc cum Prophetas OeoXoyouy, rerum divinarum consiiltos dixere. Ita Pseudo-Uionysius, cap. 8, dc Cool. Ilierarchia, p. 95. tuiu QioK6yo}v efs, 6 Zaxapias, &,c in quern lo- cum ita commcntatur Pachymores, p. lul. rovs Upovs -Kpocp-firas QeoX6yovs (pTjalu, d's A6yovs Qeov i]ix7u i^ayyiWovTas. Carpzov, 'lutrod. ad Lib. Bibl. V. T., Part iii. p. 4.' Essay III.] ■ mOPIIECY. jq^ secrs^ men of God^ men of the Sjnrit. Tlic Hebrew word for i?ro])liet (Nabi) is, according to its etymology, supposed by some to signify " an inspired person^;* " by others, with more probability, " An ntterer or an- nonncer." - Its meaning, and that of the Englisli word jyrophet as used in the Old Testament, are fully ex- plained by a comparison of two passages, in the book of Exodus : the first, vii. 1, " See I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." The second, iv. IG, "And he shall speak for thee (A. Y. be thy spokesman), and thou, thou shalt be to him for a God." What is jprophet in the first is mouth in the second. Moses was to be as God to Aaron, Aaron as prophet, or mouth, or spokesman to Moses ; Moses to communicate to Aaron, and Aaron to declare the message to Pharaoh and the people. According to this, prophet means the declarer or inter- preter of the Divine will. He is one who does not speak of liimself {a^ eavTov), the workings of his own mind, but declares the mmd and will of God, and sjDeaks what he receives from without. f 3. The title " Seer ":j: refers rather to the mode of receiving the Divine communication than to its utter- ance to others. It is derived from Numb. xii. 6, " If there be ii prophet among you, I, the Loed, will make myself known to him in a vision (sight, nxna)." The /See?' is therefore one who receives a Divine communica- tion in a vision. His vision is not the offspring of his own mind, but the Lokd makes himself known (r^.ipn) * Carpzov, * Introd. ad Lib. Bibl. V. T./ Part iii., p. G. See Gcscnius, 'Thesaurus;' W^inei-'s edition of 'Simonis Lexicon;' Knobel's ' Prophetis- inus,' i. luO; Bleck, 'Einlcitung in das alte Testament,' p. 412; Tlioluck, 'Die I'rophetcn uud ihic Weissagunp;cn,' P- 24. t Heidegger saj'S, " N'^iD proprie est omnis verborum alienomm, ex alieno, non"])roprio nutu et voluntatc pronunciator, orator, qui, ut K. 1). Kiuichi loquitur, Echo ad instar, nihil profcrt aut ])rolatur, nisi quod prius accepit." 'Exerc. Bibl.' viii. § 27. Augustine, ''Nihil aliud esse I'rophctani ])ei, nisi enunciatorem verborum Dei hominibus." Carpzov, ibid., p. 8. Comp. Spinoza, ' Tractat. Thcolog. Polit.' c. 1, \Yho is, with regard to proph- ecy, more candid than the Essayists. X For this there arc two Hebrew words used, but which arc equivalent in sense. They arc both found in Isui. xxx. 10, " which say to the Seers (C^Nl"") sec not, and to the prophets (lit. Seers, CTin) prophesy not (sec not) unto us." 2Q2 ^IDS TO FAITH. [l^ss^i' ^- to the prophet. * It is something received from with- out. " Her prophets also find no vision ^/y^c*?;?. the Lokd (mni^ay (Lam. ii. 9). But the Tvord " vision " does not necessarily imply ecstasy or symbolic representation. It is often equivalent to " The word of the Loed," as, in 1 Sam. iii. 1, " The word of the Lord was precious in those days ; there was no open vision ("pfn)." Sam- uel was a Seer^ but " the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord " (1 Sam. iii. 21). So the first chapter of Isaiah, which is destitute of all sym- bolic imagery, is called " The vision ("ptn) of Isaiah ; " whilst the second chapter has as its title, '' The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saio (nTnV"^ 4. The designation ^' man of God, also implies in- timacy, communion with God, or commission from Him, as the similar phrases, " men of David," " men of Hezekiah," meant those who were in attendance on those monarchs, whom they employed ; and, in this sense, the prophets are called " the servants of Jeho- vah," and " the messengers of God " (2 Chron. xxxvi. 16). 5. The phrase " man of the Spirit, m-i " (Hos. ix. 7), explains the agency by which the communication came, namely, by the Spirit of God ; as St. Peter says, ^' Prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, being borne away {(j^epofievoi) by the Holy Ghost " (2 Pet. i. 21). The Old Testa- ment also makes this impetus of the Spirit the essence of prophecy. In Numb. xi. is related the appointment of the seventy elders to assist Mosea The Lord says, " I will take of the Spirit wdiich is upon thee, and will put it upon them ; " and, accordingly, in the 25th verse, it is said, " The Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it to the seventy ciders ; and it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they proph- esied and did not cease." In like manner, with re- gard to Eldad and Medad, "The Spirit (m-in) rested upon them . . . and they prophesied in the camp." * Comp. Ps. Ixixix. 20 ; Amos i. 1 ; Obad. i. 1 ; Ilab. ii. 2, 3 ; Nahum, i. 1. Essay III.] PEOPHECY. 103 That wliicli caused these two men, as well as the sev- enty elders, to prophesy, was the resting of the Spirit upon them, and, therefore, Moses makes this resting of tlie Spirit equivalent to the gift of prophecy. " AYould God that all the Lokd's people were prophets, and that the LoKD would put his Spirit upon them." * From this passage alone we learn, 1st, That it is the resting of the Spirit of the Lord upon a man that makes that man a prophet. It was not the spirit of Moses, but the Spirit that was upon Moses, that was given to the sev- enty elders, that which Moses himself calls " the Spirit of the Lord." "We learn, in the next place, that it is the Lord who gives the Spirit. Moses was not able to confer it, and it was given altogether independently of Moses to the two men, not present at the tabernacle. The persons upon whom it was conferred, did not choose themselves, and did not take the gift by their own will. Similar instruction is derived from the history of Saul. Samuel (1 Sam. x. 6) said to him, " The Spirit of the LoKD w^ill come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them .... and when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them." It does not appear that he had any previous qualifications, or preparations, or training, as required by Maimonides ; nor yet his servants (1 Sam. xix. 20), of whom it is said, " The Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied." And so, when he came himself on that occasion, certainly in no pious frame of mind, the Spirit came on him also, and lie, like his messengers, prophesied involuntarily. They were (pepcfievoc, borne away by the Holy Ghost, just as the wicked Balaam prophesied when " the Spirit of God came upon him," and Caiaphas unwit- tingly uttered a Divine oracle concerning the vicarious death of the Lord. ^' And this spake he not of himself, a(/)' eavrov, but being High Priest that year, he prophe- sied " (John xi. 51).t * Compare Joel ii. 2^. In the Ilcb. Text, iii. 1. + Comp. 2 Sam. xxiii. 2; 1 Kings, xxii. 24; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20; Isai. Ixi. 1; Jer. i. '.i; Ezck. xi. 5; Joel ii. 21t; (Ilcb. iii. 2); Mic. iii. 8, kc, &c. 204 ^I^S TO FAITH. Ll^eSAT III. 6. This view is confirmed by the Scripture contrast of the false prophet. He is described as one who is not sent by the Lord, and who has not the Spirit of God, but speaks out of his own heart his own imagina- tions. " They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the month of the Lord ; I sent them not, nor commanded them."* " They prophesy out of their own hearts — they follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. They have seen vanity (xnir) and lying divi- nation, saying. The Lord saith ; and the Lord hath not sent them ; and they have made others to hope that they would confirin (fulfil, c-^i^b) the word.'' f And, therefore, even the Great Prophet of the Church dwells frequently iipon the fact that He is sent, and that His doctrine is not His own. " My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be from God, e/c Tov Seov, or whether I speak of myself, utt e/j.avTov, He that speaketh of himself, dcj)' eavrov, seeketh his own glory."$ As, therefore, a true prophet is one who is sent by God, who runs not of himself, upon whom the Spirit of God rests, who speaks the word of God and not his own ; and as there were pretenders, whom God did not send, whose words were not inspired by His Spirit, a test, whereby one could be distinguished from the other, was necessary both for the satisfaction of the prophet himself, and "^for the protection of the people from imposture. To have been trained in the schools of the prophets (for a time there were such schools §) was not enough to constitute a man a prophet. The prophetic commission could not be given by the schoolmaster, nor could the doctrines of men, or their instruction, communicate a Divine message, so as to * Jcr. xxiii. IG, 21, 02, and xiv. 14, &c. + Ezek, xiii. 2-'.i. X John vii. 10-lS ; comp. Isai, Ixi. ^ " Concerning the origin, arrangements, and duration of the so-called schools of the prophets, no detailed or circumstantial information is found in the Old Testament. Schools of the prophets are mentioned only in the histories of the prophets Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, that is from llOO-tf(K), which period must therefore be regarded as the time of their existence." Knobel, Frophetismus, ii. 39, DO. What imaginative historians have written on this subject is, therefore, of little value. Essay III.] rROPnECY. 105 make the speaker's word the word of tlie Lord. Neither Deborah nor Iluldah had tlms received the prophetic calL Indeed, it does not appear that any of the great prophets had been trained in those schools. Notliiiig less than an outward, clear, unmistakable call of God could satisfy the mind and conscience of the proj^het himself. Neither inward persuasion, nor dream, nor ecstasy, was in itself sufficient. Moses was awake and in full possession of all his faculties when he saw a bush burning but not consumed, and heard the voice of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Samuel thought that Eli called, and went twice to the aged l^riest, before he knew that it was the Lord's voice ; and was, therefore, fully roused from slumber before he received the Divine message. Isaiah's eyes were opened to see the Lord on his throne, and his ears to hear the words " Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? " Jeremiah objected his youth, and did not accept the commission until the Lord put forth his liand and touched his mouth. Ezekiel felt that " the Iiand of the Lord was upon him." Amos was a herds- man, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, and the Lord took him " as he followed the flock," and said, " Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." There was a super- natural call. A specific message, also, was delivered, and therefore the prophet was able to say, " Hear ye the word of the Lord," " Thus saith the Lord." Even after this external and supernatural call, every time the prophet uttered a new oracle, it was the result of a new communication, and a special command. He was still unable to prophesy at will. He might incpiire of the Lord and ask counsel, as Moses did in the case of the Sal)bath-breaker, or of Zelophehad's daughters, but had no ]:>ermanent habilitation to declare the will of God. A7ithout this supernatural call, and without this spe- cific message, no one can, according to Scripture idiom, without great confusion of mind, or wilful and dishon- est abuse of language, be said to possess anything like prophetic inspiration. The Apostles of tlie New Testa- ment, called directly by the Lord Jesus Christ, moved 5» 106 -^^^S 'TO FxilTII. [Essay III. by His Holy Spirit, and entrusted with a specific mes- sage, were and may be called prophets in the true sense of the word, for they were able to affirm that the Gos- pel proclaimed of them was " not of man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ ; " and they communicated it " not in words, w^hich man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." But to speak of Poets, ancient or modern, or Philosophers, or Lawgiv- ers, as being inspired, like Moses or Isaiah, is simply to confound things Divine and human, and to manifest great mistiness of apprehension, or daring profanity of spirit. It is just as contrary to Scriptural statement,'-" and as revolting to Christian reverence, as to identity the prophetic character and calling with that of the demagogues of Greece.f Poets and Philosophers exer- cise the high natural gifts bestowed by God, according to the movings of their wdll or the impulse of their gen- ius ; apply, and sometimes abuse them, according to the state of their hearts ; but do not pretend to any external call from God, nor claim for their words the reverence due to the word of the Almighty. The He- brew pro]3hets announced themselves as God's messen- gers, claimed obedience and reverence for their message as the word of God, and therefore carried with them credentials for the satisfaction of the people. These credentials were, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, 'miracle and 2)7'ediction.X To accredit Moses as His messenger to the children of Israel, He empowered him * "At quamvis scicntia naturalis divina sit, ejus tamcn propagatores non possunt vocari propbetae." — Spinoza, Tractat. Theolog. Fvlit. Opera, torn. iii. p. IG. + Leo ' Vorlcsiingen,' 159, 1G8; Berlin, 1828; Salvador, as above, p. 197. X Tbis is admitted even by D. F. Strauss: "To accredit bis Divine mis- sion to tbe people, God enabled Moses to perform certain acts beyond ordi- nary human power; and Moses refers to tbis to prove that be did not come of himself but was sent by God Hand in hand with niiracle, jivediction appears in Biblical history as a credential of Revelation. Thus in the Old Testament God gives Moses a prediction, the fulfilment of which should certify his Divine mission (Exod. iii. 12) In the case of the prophets the occurrence of wonderful events which they had predicted is the proof of their Divine commission (1 Kings xvii. 1, xviii. 41, kc). The prophets also, not rarely, foretell the occurrence of some event, soon to happen, that its occur- rence may be a sign, that what they have predicted concerning the distant future is from God (1 Sam. ii. 31, x. 7, and 1 Kings xiii. 3, 2 Kings, xix. 20; Isai. vii. 2; Jer. xliv. 2ti)." — GUiubenslehre, vol. irp. SG-S'J. Essay III.] rKOPIIECY. J07 to malvG three supcrliiiman manifestations of power, say- ing, *' If tliey will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign." And therefore the prophet like unto Moses, also appealed to His works as greater testimony than that of John the Baptist,''^ and says, " If I had not done among them the works wliich none other man did, they had not had sin, but now have they l)otli seen and hated both me and my Father." The Law of Moses also provided another criterion of a true or false ^^ropliet, in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of his word, " When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing wdiich the Lord hath not spoken " (Deut. xviii. 22). To this Jeremiah alludes when he says, " The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him " (Jer. xxviii. 9). 7. To declare the will of God, and deliver His mes- sage, whether it regarded the past, the present, or the future, was the prophet's great dutj^ And therefore, when the Jewish lawgiver was connnunicating moral or ceremonial precepts, received from God, and when the Messiah, in his Sermon on the Mount, was explain- ing the spirituality of the Law, they were, in the strict sense of the \voi\\^ projyhesi/mr/ just as much as when Moses predicted the destinies of Israel, and the Lord ibretold the destruction and treading down of Jerusalem. To have received a call and message direct from God, and to deliver it, constituted the essence of prophetism. But if we are to form our idea from the Scriptures, we must admit that the Hebrew people believed that the prophets were endowed with, or could attain to, snper- human knowledge, for the benefit and advantage of His people. Tiiis belief was rooted in their concej^tion of the Divine character. "Whether we take the Hebrew Scriptures as inspired or not, it is an incontrovertible fact that the fundamental idea of the Hebrew religion * John XV, 24 ; comp. Matt. xi. 1-5. 108 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III. is that Jeliovali is a God avIio reveals Himself to his creatures; that He has not left the human race to grope their way to the regions of religion or morality as they best can, but that from the beginning He has taken His children by the hand, cared for their wellare, made known to them His will, and marked out for them the way to happiness. This idea runs through all the books of the Old Testament, — Law, History, Psalms, Prophecy, — and is taken up in the JSTew Testament, where is the fullest revelation of the love of our Heavenly Father to man. But the Hebrew believed not only in God as one who reveals Himself for the benefit of the race, but as the loving and watchful Father, who superintended all the everyday concerns of each individual, and who, though He dwelt in tlie high and holy place, yet had regard to the lowly, and considered nothing too small or insignificant for His care. This is evident in the prayer of Abraham's ser- vant to be guided to Pebekah, in the increase of Jacob's cattle, in Leah's fruitfulness, in the answer to Hannah's prayer, not to mention many similar and well-known traits in the lives of God's ancient saints. As, there- fore, the Hebrew peoj^le, liigh and low, regarded the prophet as a messenger from God, enlightened and in- structed by the Holy Spirit, they ascribed to him a supernatural knowledge and the power to give in- formation not attainable by human reasoning or sagacity — in fact the same power possessed by the High Priest of procuring from God a miraculous response by means of the Urim and Thummim: and as they believed in God as their rath(3r, they trusted that He was interested in all their troubles and anxieties, and would not con- sider tlieir temporal concerns too insignificant for His gracious consideration. Hence it is recorded that Pe- bekah went to inquire of the Lord respecting the subject of her anxiety. David inquired of the Lord, by means of the ephod, whether he should smite the Philistines and save Keilah; and again, whether the men ofKeilah would deliver him into the hands of Saul ; and received answers from the Lord. So Saul's servants thought Essay III.] PROPilECY. 109 they might go to Saiiiuol and inquire concerning the h)St asses. In like manner King Jehosha])liat wished to inqnire of the Lord, by means of a propliet, before he ventured into the battle against the Assyrians. And again, when he and Jehoram w^ere in dilliciilties from want of water, he asked, "Is there not a prophet of tlie Lord here that wo may inquire of the Lord by him ? " Even ungodly men like Zedekiah (Jer. xxi. 2, and xxxvii. 17), and the elders of Israel (Ezek. xiv. 1 — T), or heathens like king Benhadad (2 Kings, viii. 7, 8, etc.), believed in this power, and were glad, when occasion required, to avail themselves of it. And there is not only no intimation that they erred in making such in- quiries, but Joshua and the men of Israel are represented as having done WTong because they made peace with the Gibeonites, and "asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord" (Josh. ix. 14). And when Ahaziali sent to Ekron to inquire of Baal-zebub, " the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the King of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron ? " Indeed, some Christian commentators of great name, as well as some of the Eabbis, think that in the Law God has made special provision for this sort of inquiry when He forbids tliem to be diviners or consulters with familiar spirits, and promises them a prophet like Moses to reveal His will (Dent, xviii. 10 — 10). It is certain tliat Isaiah insists on the duty of inquiring of the Lord when he says, "And when they shall say unto you. Inquire of the familiar spirits, and of wizards who peep and mutter: Should not a people inquire of their God? For the living, should they inquire of the dead?" (viii. 19.)^- In some of the cases just mentioned inquiry is made respecting the future, and it is evident that David and * Lowth, and after him, Knobel, translate the last clause, " Instead of the living [God] should thoy inquire of the dead [idols?]," but contrary to the parallelism. The prophet is remonstratincr against the practice of inquiring of the spirits of departed men. "iX is the spirit of a dead man, and there- fore C:\n^: must refer to something similar. 1X0 ^11^9 '^0 FAITH. [Essay III. Jeliosliapliat, as well as Zedekiali, believed that tliroiigli the priest or the prophet they could receive from God, respecting contingencies, answers which the Divine pre- science could alone sup^^ly; that is, that through the Divine help the priest or the prophet could predict future events. This faith rested upon the doctrine of God as taught in the Law, and exemplilied in the whole of their previous history. Before there were prophets God Himself predicted the future. The announcement of the flood to JN'oah and the limitation of the day of grace to 120 years* are predictions. Noah knew the future of the human race, and by the Divine instruction was enabled to provide against the coming calamity. The declaration, at a time when Abraham was child- less, that his posterity should be afflicte-d in a strange land for 400 years, but that their enemies should be punished and they come forth with great wealth, was clearly a prediction. Jacob is represented as having on his death-bed predicted what should befall his pos- terity "in futurity of days" {n^^^n ninnsn). Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams was a prediction of the seven years of jDlenty and of famine, and came from God as well as the dreams. ''What God is about to do he showeth unto Pharaoh " (Gen. xl, 28). It is recorded of most of the prophets mentioned in the historic books that they uttered predictions. Deborah foretold the fate of Sisera. The man of God announced to Eli the judgments coming upon his family, and the death of liis sons in one day. Samuel conflrmed this prediction and declared its certain fulfilment, and it is remarked " that the Lord let none of his words lall to the ground. And all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was accredited (or verified "(^xi) for a prophet to the Lord." Micaiah foretells the defeat of the allied armies of Judah and Israel, and rests his prophetic pretensions upon the fulfilment of what he had an- * The Avords "Yet his days shall be 120 years" do not refer to a diminu- tion of the long life of the antediluvians, nor to the subsequent measure of human life, but to the length of the day of grace, given them to repent. 8uch is the interpretation of the Targums, Luther, Calvin, and many of the best modern commentators. See Delitsch on Genesis, p. 237, 8. Essay IIU PROPHECY. m nounced. ^'If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you." Elijah predicted that there should bo no rain but according to his word, the death of Jezebel, the extermination of Ahab's posterity. Elisha foretold the overthrow of the Moabites, the three defeats of the Syrians. All these things, as well as the birth of Josiah, and tlie continuance of Jehu's posterity on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation, are re- lated as predictions, in the ordinary sense of the word, — as supernatural communications from the Lord, and the fulfilment specially noticed. It may indeed be said, and has been said, that these predictions and the narratives connected with them are mythical narrations, written after the events when the historic substrata had had time to be transmuted into the supernatural. But that, if true, would not alter the fact that the Hebrews believed in the power of the prophets to predict events by supernatural aid from on high ; that this belief is inseparably connected with their ideas of the Divine Being, and everywhere visi- ble in the historical books from Genesis to JSTehemiah ; in fiict that the power of predicting future events is one of the essential features in the character of a prophet. And as it is incontrovertibly a part of the ])opular belief, so it is the doctrine of the prophets themselves, as recorded in their writings. It is hardly possible to open a page of any book of the prophets on which there is not a prediction. " By far the greatest portion of the prophetic discourses consists in delinea- tions of the future, or predictions referring partly to the Jehovah people, and therefore to the kingdoms of Israel and Judali, partly to foreign nations who came in con- tact with the Hebrews, .... partly to individuals of the former, seldom of the latter."- Amos lays it down as an axiom that the Lord reveals to the pro]:)hets his purposes before they are realized. " Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret (1110) to his servants the prophets." (Amos iii. 7.) Upon * Knobcl's * Prophetismus,' i. 293. 212 -^^I^S TO TAITH. [Essay II t. wliicli, Hitzig says : "The prophet predicts the coming evil, which is always an ordinance of Jehovah ; for Jeliovah makes him acquainted beforehand with that which He has decreed." Isaiah makes the prediction of future events a distinguishing characteristic and pre- rogative of Deity, and therefore a proof that the God of Israel is the true and living God. " Remember the former things of old : for I am God and there is none else : I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring futurity (n^nnx) from former time, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done " (xlvi. 9, 10) ; upon wdiich words Knobel thus comments : " The bet- ter view consists in the knowledge that Jeliovah, and none besides, is God, that He is God and nothing like Him. To this view they can easily come by remem- bering the former things, that is, the prophecies for- merly given, which are now being fulfilled (xlii. 9). These prove Jehovah's foreknowledge, and thereby His Godhead." In like manner Isaiah makes the w^ant of predictions amongst idolaters a proof that their gods are no gods. " Produce your cause, bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen : Let them show the former things what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end of them ; or declare for us things for to come. Show the tilings that are to come hereafter, that w^e may know that ye are gods " (xli. 21-23) ; where Gese- nius says, "A new challenge to the idols as in verse 1, &c., again with a reference to Cyrus, but also with a reference to former predictions of the prophets, such as the heathen had none to sIioav." Knobel's words are still stronger : " Let them bring forth their proofs, especially that one which rests upon correct j^rediction of the future ; for the foreknowledge of the future is the peculiar attribute of God, and proves Deity, on which account it was also the credential of the true prophet. (Deut. xviii. 21. Jer. xxviii. 9.) And, on the contrary, the idols never were able, nor are they now, to announce the future. They sliould declare the Essay III] PEOPIIECY. 113 tilings to come hereafter, that is, what shouhl after- ward happen, and Jehovah w^ill see and recognise that they are gods, namely, when their prediction is accom- plished."^ In these places, and many more, it is tanght that Jehovah gives predictions to His servants the prophets, and also that lie fulfils them. "He con- firmeth the w^ord of His servants, and performeth the counsel of His messengers" (Isai. xliv. 26) ; that by so doing He proves not only that the prophets are true prophets, but that He Himself is tlie true God. We have in fact the same proof of the truth of Divine Eev- elation that has been nrged in modern times from ful- filled prophecy, and which has the highest possible sanction in the words of our Lord, "And now I have told yon before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass ye might believe." (John xiv. 29 : comp. xiii. 9, and xvi. 4.) 8. It is evident that the Hebrew people believed that their prophets could predict the future. The prophets themselves afifirm that they have the power and ntter predictions. Were they impostors, or did they deceive themselves? That they were impostors, is not believed by those Eationalists who have given most attention to this snbject, as Gesenius, Ewald, and Knobel, and is disproved by their doctrine and their life. Concerning God they teach that He is One, the Lord, Creator of the heavens and the earth, Everlast- ing, Almighty, Omniscient, Free, All wise, Holy, a righteous Judge, a merciful Saviour, the Governor of tlie w^orld, forgiving iniqnity and sin." Their notion of the religion acceptable to Him is also equally free from fanaticism and formality. They denounce those who " draw near to God with their lips, bnt remove their heart fiir from Him." They teach that to reform the life is better than external demonstrations. "To wdiat purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? . . . Wash you; make you clean; put away the evil of * See Isai. xl. 28, xlir. 6; Jer. x. 10, xxiii. 23, 24; Isai. xiv. 24r, 27 ; Jer. xxxii. 19, xvii. 10 ; Hab. i. 13 ; Mai. ii. 10 ; Isai. Ixiv. 8 ; Jer xi. 20 ; Joel ii. 1-3; Mic. vii.18; Dau. ii. 28; Ezek. xxxi. 'j; Amos lii. 6; Lzek. xviu. 4; Uos. xiii. 14, &c., &c. 114 -^^^S TO FxVITII. [Essay III. your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil, learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed ; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow" (Isaiah i. 11 — IT). "I will have mercy, not sacrifice." They proclaim that honesty, mercy, and humility are the weightiest matters of the Law. " What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " (Mic. vi. 8.) to preach such doctrine was their business ; and boldly to reprove all who lived in opposition to it, whether kings, or priests, or people, was their practice, and this without fee or reward, for they received nothing for their prophesying, but often exposed themselves to persecution and death. They sought not wealth, or honour, or favour, or ease. They were temperate, self- denying, patient, valiant for the truth, leaning upon God as their stay, and looking to God alone for their reward. They were neither morose ascetics, nor un- lettered fanatics. Married and livino^ amono-st the people, in cottages and m courts, they discharged the ordinary duties of citizens. They cultivated letters, and have left a literature unique in the history of the world; if judged according to a human standard, un- surpassed in genius, sublimity, grandeur ; but in purity and morality unequalled by any nation in any age. This jDrojohetic order beginning, if reckoned from Sam- uel, nearly 400 years before the birth of Rome, and closing when the bloom of Grecian genius was only appearing, is, when compared with the state of the world around them, a phenomenon as wonderful as the power of prediction which they claimed. The best days of Greece and Itome can furnish no heroes, pa- triots, or moral teachers to compare with this long and wonderful succession of holy, disinterested, bold re- provers of vice and preachers of virtue, unambitious examples of genuine patriotism, living for the glory of God, and the good of man ; whose writings are so im- bued with ini])erishable and universal truth, that for nearly twenty-four centuries after the death of the last r-i the goodly fellowship, they have continued and still Essay III.] rEOPIlECY. II5 continue to toucli the. hearts, and influence the faith, the thouglits and lives of the wisest, greatest, and most excellent of the human race. That such men could be deceivers, or that imposture could have exercised a power so enduring, is impossible. That thej could have been self-deceiving enthusiasts is equally incredi- ble. Neither their doctrine, nor their lives, nor their writings savour of enthusiasm, nor can they be ac- counted for as mere ebullitions of genius. AVhy did not the poetic inspiration and colossal intellect of Greece produce similar results? AVhy did not Eurip- ides prophesy? Why did Plato never rise to moral purity ? ^ "It is because of the theocracy," say modern diviners. Moses founded a theocracy, and prophetism was the necessary result. But this is oidy to remove the difficulty one step farther back. Why did not the Spartan, or Athenian, or Locrian lawgivers, or the royal disciple of Egeria found a theocracy like that of Moses? Why did not their legislations bring forth prophets ? In a certain sense prophecy did arise out of the original relation established between God and Israel. The same Divine Being, who commanded the theocracy, gave also the prophets, inspired them with their doctrines, revealed to them the future, and ena- bled them to utter 2:>redictions far beyond the powers of human foreboding, sagacity, or conjecture, which by their fulfilment, of old and in the present time, demon- strate that they were not self-deceiving enthusiasts, but spake as they were moved by Him who knows the end from the beginning. 0. It has indeed been Sc^id by foreign writers, and lately repeated in this country, that the predictions arose out of the circumstances of the days in which the prophets lived, and do not extend be3^ond the horizon * Of all the great writers of antiquity Plato is the most striking witness to the corruption of fallen human nature, and the propensity of the grandest intellect, when left to itself, to extenuate the foulest and most odious vice. In nothing does the sui)eriority of Hebrew ethics shine out more brightly. See Wuttke, * Handbuch der Christlichen Sittenlehre, pp. T)")-!)?. At the same time the mercy inculcated in the prophets may be favourably contrasted with the Greek doctrine couceruiug slaves, incurables, cripples, exposure of children, abortion, suicide, &c. IIQ AIDS TO FAIXn. [Essay IIL of their times. The interpreter »" cannot quote IS^ahnni denouncing ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against Tyre, without remembering tliat ah*ead j the Babylonian power threw its shadow across Asia, and Nebuchad- nezzar was mustering his armies." * Some foreign critics, though in the same spirit, take a different view of the occasion of Nahum's prophecy, ascribing it to an attempt by the Medes and their eastern allies. '' This is the remarkable expedition," says Ewald, speaking of the Medes and their oriental confederates under Phraortes, "which JSTahum saw with his own eyes, when, predicting the approaching end of Nineveh, he wrote his still extant oracle ; he lived in Alqush, some- what farther east of the Tigris, and was therefore able, in that place, to see the whole host as it advanced against Nineveh." f The latter supposition, that Na- hum lived near Nineveh, is for good reasons rejected by Knobel, who affirms that he lived at Elkosh in Gali- lee, and, therefore, did not see the Median power ad- vancing against the Assyrian capital. With regard to the relative strength of the Babylonian and Median powers in comparison with that of the Ass^^'ian empire at that time, there was nothing to lead the prophet to anticipate that either the one or the other was able to take Nineveh, or overthrow the Assyrian monarchy, but the contrary. According to Knobel, who, in the eyes of Rationalists, is an unexceptionable w^itness, Nahnm wrote this prophecy between the years 713 and 711 e.g. Nineveh was not overthrown nntil about 612. if Just about the time when Nahum wrote, or, according to others, three or four years § later, the Medes under Deioces revolted from the Assyrians, and set up an independent monarchy. Their power at that time could not have been very formidable, for fifty years later, when tlie Median empire had been consoli- * ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 6S. t ' Gcsciuchte Israel's,' iii. SS'.t. See also Knobcl's * Prophetismus,' ii. 212. X According to Prideuux; but according to Usher, G26. Weber (' Welt- geschichte,' i. 47) places the total destruction of Nineveh in T.OG. § According to Knobel, the Medes revolted in the years immediately pre- ceding YIO, and made Deioces king, and he reigned from 710 on. Conip. M. von Nicbuhr, 'Gcschichtc Assur's und Babel's,' pp. 177, 178. Essay III.] PEOPIIECV. jj/^ dated by tlie long and wise government of Deioces, it was still unable to cope with tlie Assyrians, by whom their army was utterly defeated, their king slain, and their capital taken. The effort of Fhraortes was equally unsuccessful, and therefore Ilitzig says, " The attack of Phraortes is not a sufficient ground [for the confident tone of the prophecy]. The Assyrians destroyed him and his whole host. The capital, which Ewald sup- poses to have been vigorously besieged, does not appear to have been approached by any danger of the kind." '^ The Babylonians were just as little a match for the Assyrians, for, some fifty years before, Esarhaddon had seized Babylon, and reunited it to the Assyrian monar- chy, f When, then, l^ahum wrote, the shadow of the Babylonian or Median power was not such as to cause much alarm for the existence of Nineveh. Notwith- standing the loss of an army of 185,000 men, the As- syrian power was still the greatest in the world ; and whilst it was still the greatest, whilst the kingdom of Babylon was still so inferior as to be unable to under- take anything against it by itself, and was therefore glad to seek the alliance of Hezekiah, one hundred years before the event, Nahum predicted the siege and utter destruction of Nineveh. " And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste . . . The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies ; the fire shall devour thy bars. Draw the waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds ; go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln. There shall the fire devour thee: the^sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm !" :}: Can any of those men who now assert that this pro]:ihecy was a mere conjecture, tell us what will be the late of Paris or London one hundred years hence? They deny the miracle of supernatural foreknowledge, and believe what is more incredible far; that unassisted human * Ilitzlg's 'Minor Prophets,' p. 225. Comp. von Xiobiihr, pp. IR*?, IRO, t According to Nicbuhr, Sennacherib seized Uabylou, aud made Esarhad- don viceroy, ])p. 177, 8. + Nahum iii. 7, 14, 15. 118 AIDS TO FAITH. [Ess>t 'IL knowledge can lift the veil from futurit}-, and 2)resage tlie destinies of empires. ISTalinm is, however, not the only ])ropliet who nttered predictions concerning the Assyrians. " Assur had not yet passed the Euphrates as a conqueror, and the victorious Jeroboam still reigned in the kingdom of Israel, when the prophetic voice of Hosea and Amos already threatened their countrymen Avith the scourge of Assyria. (Amos vi. l-i, vii. 17; Hos. X. 7, 8, xiv. 1.) Some years before the fall of Samaria, Micali uttered these words : — " What is the guilt of Jacob, is it not Samaria? And what are the idol-high places of Judah, are they not Jerusalem? Therefore I wdll make Samaria as an heap of the Held, and as plantings of a vineyard : and I w^ill pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations tliereof." But for three years the As- syrian w^as obliged to lie before the well-fortified city before it fell. Concerning Judali also Micah uttered the oracle: — 'Evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem,' * and thereupon begins the an- nouncement of the desolation of particular country towns of Judea. But at that time Shalmaneser passed by tlie kingdom of Judah in peace, and Hezekiah con tinned to pay his tribute. It was not until the throne had got a new occupant in Sennacherib that he ceased to do so, and thus brought the Assyrian host before the gates of Jerusalem, and caused the fulfilment of the prophecy. But long before this, when the unbelieving Ahaz called upon Tiglath Pileser for help against Syria and Israel, Isaiah, with prophetic eye, looking far be- yond the then present, announced to him that through tlie King of Assyria danger should come upon him, and his father's house, and his people, such as had not been since the division of the kingdoms. (Isai. vii. 17, 18.) Ahaz himself sank into a state of disgraceful Assyrian vassalage, and, perhaps, even experienced the horrors of war in his own land. (2 Chron. xxviii. 20.) But in * He might have added, "0 thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swii't boast; she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion j for the transgressions of Israel were found iu thee." Essay III.] • PllOPIIECY. Hq the clays of Hezekiali the word of the ]>rophet was ful- filled in full measure by Sennacherib."* But the accuracy of Micah's language and of Isaiah's prophetic foreknowledge are worthy of atten- tion. Micah foretells utter destruction to Samaria; to Judali only chastisement, which should reach to the gate of Jerusalem, but no farther. " For it is incura- ble, every one of her blows — it (the blow) is come to Judah. lie hath reached (i'^is touched, or smitten) as far as the gate of my people, to Jerusalem For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good ; but evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind" the chariot to the swift beast." From the history it appears that the word of Micah was exactly fulfilled. ''In the four- teenth year of King Ilezekiah, Sennacherib King of Assyria came np against all the defenced cities and took them [Lachish among the number]. And the King of Assyria sent Kabshakeh from Lachish to Jeru- salem with a great army." (Isaiah xxxvi. 1, &c.) The land of Judah was overrun ; the evil reached even to the gate of Jerusalem, for the city was invested ; but, in conformity with Micah's words, it never entered the city — the Assyrian power was broken, and the king returned by the way he came, as Isaiah had foretold. There is no doubt about the predictions, or the Tact that they were uttered before the event, nor yet about the fulfilment. In the time of Ahaz, Isaiah, who had also foretold the chastisement to be infiicted on Judah by the Assyrians, expressly announced a miraculous de- struction of the Assyrian host. " Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among his fiit ones lean- ness ; and nnder his glory lie shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fiVe. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame : and it shall burn and devour his briers in one day ; and shall con- sume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field both soul and body, and they shall be like the pining away of a sick man,"