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THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM

ITS FOUNDATIONS

CONTRASTED WITH ITS SUPERSTRUCTURE.

THE

CREED OF CHRISTENDOM:

ITS FOUNDATIONS CONTRASTED WITH ITS
SUPERSTRUCTURE.

BT
WILLTAM RATHBONE GKREGh

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DETROIT :
ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY.
MDCCCLXXVIII.

" I should, perhaps, be a happier, at all events a more useful, man, if my
mind were otherwise constituted. But so it is : and even with regard to
Christianity itself, like certain plants, I creep towards the light, even
though it draw me away from the more nourishing warmth. Yea, I should
do so, even if the light made its way through a rent in the wall of th«
Temple." — Coleridge. " Perplex'd in faith, but poor in deeds,
At last he beat his music out ;
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
" He fought his doubts and gather'd strength ;
He would not make his judgment blind ;
He faced the spectres of the mind,
And laid them : thus he came at length
" To find a stronger faith hisVwn ;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,
" But in the darkness and the cloud." Tennyson.
" No inquirer canlix a direct and clear-sighted gaze towards Truth, who is
casting side-glances all the while on the prospects of his soul."— -Martineau.
" What hope of answer or redress ?
Behind the veil, behind the veil." Tennyson.

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFATORY NOTE TO THIS EDITION  7
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION  9
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION  63
THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
CHAPTER I.
INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES  75
CHAPTER II.
MODERN MODIFICATIONS OP THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION  96
CHAPTER lT±.
AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHORITY OF THE PENTATEUCH AND THE OLD TES
TAMENT CANON GENERALLY  106
CHAPTER IV.

THE PROPHECIES .

126

CHAPTER V.
THEISM OF THE JEWS IMPURE AND PROGRESS!!*"  145
CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS  '.  153
CHAPTER VII.
FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY — NATURE AND LIMITS  16

6 CONTENTS. PAGE
CHAPTER VIII.
FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY CONTINUED —MATTHEW  185

CHAPTER IX.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED — MARK AND LUKE  199
CHAPTER X.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED— GOSPEL OF JOHN  210
CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM  223
CHAPTER XII.
THE LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY  235
CHAPTER XIII.
MIRACLES  263
CHAPTER XIV.
RESURRECTION OF JESUS  281

CHA

CHAPTER XV.
IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ?  297
CHAPTER XVI.
CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM  318
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GREAT ENIGMA  353

PREFATORY NOTE TO THIS EDITION.

A work so celebrated as Mr. Greg's " Creed of Christen
dom" needs no introduction to the American public.
The present edition has been printed from the latest
English, — the fifth. Where possible the references, which
are very numerous, have been verified,, and a considerable
number of clerical and typographical errors and other
slips have been corrected. These emendations, being of
a minute chai'acter, — for the most part in the number of
a chapter or verse in the Bible, — have been made silently,
so as not to incumber the text with additional notes. In
every other respect the text is an exact reprint of the
English edition. The utility of the work has been still
further enhanced by the addition of a very full index,
which no previous edition, either English or American,
has possessed. By these means it is hoped that the pre
sent edition has been made the most accurate and com
plete ever issued.

INTRODUCTION

THIRD EDITION

This book was originally published nearly a quarter of a
century ago. Its sale since then, though by no means
large, has been singularly continuous and regular — the
number of copies taken by the public having scarcely
varied from year to year ; and the second edition was
disposed of somewhat more rapidly than the first. It is,
theref ore„ fair to conclude that the work met a perma
nent want felt by many of my countrymen which no
other writings at the time accessible to them could fur
nish, and at least temporarily filled a gap in our literature
which, so far as I am aware, has not since been otherwise
supplied. During the period that has elapsed since its
publication, moreover, I have received many gratifying
and even touching testimonies both from friends and
strangers as to the assistance which it rendered them
and the comfort which it suggested to them, when their
minds were perplexed and agitated by the doubts and
the questions which had disturbed my own. Under
these circumstances, I have acceded without demur to
the wish of my publisher to issue a new and revised
edition. I have re-perused every chapter with great care, but I
have added little and altered less. Here and there I
have modified a phrase where I thought I had expressed
myself too confidently or too harshly, or where I appeared
to have fallen into incorrectness or exaggeration ; but the
changes introduced have been few and slight. Whatever
I have added in the way of commentary or confirmation
B

10 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
is distinguished by brackets [ ]. On the whole, I thought
it wisest and fairest to leave the text as it originally
stood, bearing distinct marks of the date at which it was
written, when the topics discussed were comparatively
new to English readers, and when the several authors
who have since handled them, and thrown so much light
upon them, had not yet put their views before the world.
But I have re-considered every point with caution, and I
am sure with candour ; I have read with attention and
respect and with a real desire to profit, the various criti
cisms and replies which the book on its first publication
called forth ; and I am bound to say that I see no reason
to believe that I was in error as to any essential point.
The progress made in Biblical criticism and historical
science during the last five-and-twenty years has fur
nished abundant confirmation, but I think refutation in
no single instance. It is in no spirit of elation or self-
applause that I say this — even if with some unfeigned
surprise ; for I know better than most with how little
learning the book was written, and how much learning —
to say nothing of genius and insight — has since been
brought to bear upon the subject. Strauss's great work
had, indeed, been published and translated into English
before my work appeared; but Bishop Colenso's " Inquiry
into the Pentateuch," "EcceHomo," Renan's" Vie deJe"sus"
and his Apostolic volumes, " The Jesus of History," by
Sir R. D. Hanson, Chief Justice of South Australia — a
work well worth perusal, as having in some degree a
special stand-point of its own, and showing the impres
sion made by the evidence adducible on a trained legal
mind — and Arnold's " Literature and Dogma," are all of
much later date.
The marvellously painstaking, conscientious, and mi
nute investigations of the Bishop of Natal, embodied in
his five volumes on the so-called books of Moses, have
succeeded in making those conclusions as to the character
and origin of the Pentateuch certain which I could only
state as probable, and have furnished fifty proofs of the
thesis here maintained, where I was content with addu-

BISHOP COLENSO. 11
cing three or four. It is, I think, all but impossible now
for any one who has really followed these researches, to
retain the common belief in the five first books of the
Old Testament as either accurate, strictly historical, or
Mosaic, — quite impossible after perusing " The Speaker's
Commentary" on these same books. It is with the same
curiously sad feeling of mingled sickness and despair in
spired by the proceedings of the Pan-Anglican Synod
and the recent discussions in Convocation on the Athan-
asian Creed, that we read those wonderful comments
which the highest dignitaries of the Church — two Arch
bishops and at least four Bishops — have permitted their
most learned theologians to lay before Christendom, in
their name and with their sanction, as the most adequate
replies they can furnish to the close and crushing argu
ments of German and English scholarship combined.
They look like bows and arrows, or the sling of David,
against Armstrong guns. The impression they leave
most clearly on the mind is of an utter incapacity on the
part of the writers to perceive either the strength of their
adversaries' position, or the scope and bearing of their
own admissions. On the one hand, the insuperable diffi
culties in reference to the Biblical figures '(chronological
and other) are neither candidly admitted nor clearly and
distinctly met; while the legends relating to the Creation
and to Noah's Ark — both of which are ostensibly assumed
to be veracious histories — are dealt with in a fashion al
most incredible in its feeble puerility. On the other
hand, it appears to be admitted that, as the two versions
of the Ten Commandments delivered from Mount Sinai,
contained in Exodus xx. and Deuteronomy v., differ ma
terially, both of them cannot contain the ipsissima verba
of the Most High, though both claim to do so, and that
in all probability neither of them can make good this
pretension ; — that, in fact, when Scripture writes, " God
spake these words," He did not in reality speak those
words, but only some of them; and that while the actual
dicta, " Thou shalt " and " Thou shalt not," came from
Him, the reasons and enlargements interwoven with
them in both versions are merely the explanatory com-

12 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
ments of the annotator or historian. At least it is diffi
cult to read the notes in Part I., p. 336 and p. 822, as
intended to convey any other meaning.
Renan's work appears to me to be in some respects of
extraordinary, and almost unique value. He proposed to
himself the task of reproducing the actual life and teach
ing of Christ, out of such historical or semi-historical ma
terials as have reached us, by replacing himself in imagi
nation amid the surroundings, — social, moral, intellectual,
and physical, — of eighteen centuries ago. He endeavours
to do this, first, by examining on the spot the scenery,
climate, and natural objects among which the early years
of Jesus were passed, as well as the habits of life of the
primitive people among whom he dwelt ; thus imbibing,
as far as might be, the influences which must have oper
ated so powerfully upon the character and tone of mind
of the Founder of our faith. He then labours thoroughly
to imbue himself with the special peculiarities — so diffi
cult to us Westerns to realise — of the Oriental or Semi
tic nature, — its mingled impassibility, mysticism, and
simplicity, its boundless capacity of enthusiasm and of
belief, its utter incapacity for cold, critical, scientific in
vestigation. Finally, he studies with exhaustive patience
the state of thought and opinion prevalent in the times
and the countries of early Christianity, as well as the
several political conditions in the midst of which that
marvellous drama was acted out. He thus approaches
the problem of what Jesus truly was and did with an
intelligence and a fancy saturated, as it were, by mere
force of sympathy with the colouring and temperament
of the country and the age, and by this means is enabled
to lay before us a picture astonishingly lifelike and at
tractive. Two points, more especially, he brings out with
unequalled vividness ; the first is the gradual alteration
which came over the language and conceptions of Christ
as he exchanged the sanguine and buoyant enthusiasm of
the earlier months of his career for the gravity and dis
couragement of its later period, when the sympathetic
affections and cheerful scenery of Galilee had been left

renan's "vie DE JESUS." 13
f
behind for the arid and sombre landscape of Judea, and
the obstinate and incredulous hostility he there encoun
tered, and when the full difficulty of his mission and its
inevitable ending had grown clear to his conception ; —
changes which convey a painful sense of inconsistency
and inharmoniousness to those who regard His ministry
as a single transaction arranged and thought out from the
beginning. The second specially valuable contribution
towards a true conception of Christ's history which we
owe to Renan, is his masterly description of the manner
in which miracles (jroiv up, as it were, around the steps
of every great prophet and reformer in the East, apart
from his initiation, sometimes without even his conni
vance, occasionally too, in spite of his reluctance and his
protests. On the other hand, the value of the book, if I may
venture to pronounce such a judgment, is much impaired,
and the fidelity of the portrait it presents singularly
marred, by one pervading and persistent error. The
wonderful reproductive imagination of the author has not
been steadily kept in check by his critical acumen. Al
most in spite of himself and at issue with his intended
caution, he has been led to draw the materials of his
picture of the character and proceedings of Christ too
promiscuously from faithful traditions and authentic rec
ords, and from sources either apocryphal or spurious.
When he originally wrote, he believed the fourth gospel
to be the production of the apostle whose name it bears,
and in consequence (as the narrative of an eye-witness,
though an aged one) to have an equal or superior author
ity to that of the Synoptists. He therefore endeavoured
to reconstruct the Jesus of actual life from two sources
utterly discrepant — i.e., to frame a breathing, living, pure,
self-consistent teacher from narrators whose respective
conceptions of that teacher were in most essential points
quite at variance, — in fact, to create one solid Reality
out of two incongruous Ideals. Naturally, the result was,
to a great extent, a failure, — a painful and, in the eyes of
many, an offensive, failure ; inasmuch as this funda
mental error forced Renan to attribute to Christ preten-

14 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
sions, assumptions, and language irreconcilable with that
perfect sincerity and transparent truthfulness in act and
word, which it wounds the susceptibility of all his dis
ciples not to believe was his unfailing characteristic.
In the 13th edition, the author recognised his error,
and endeavoured, but not quite successfully, to eliminate
its consequences. After long and searching investigation,
he arrived at the definite conclusion, that the fourth^ gos
pel, however valuable in many points of view, was neither
the work of the apostle whose name it bears, nor in any
distinct sense historical. But the mischief was done ; the
study of that gospel had so influenced M. Renan's concep
tion "of the great original, that he has been able only most
imperfectly to shake himself free from the bias therein
derived, and all his careful corrections have not quite
sufficed to shake his portrait free from incongruous and
disfiguring features. But this is not all. Several passages
in the other gospels, which M. Renan's exegesis had
decided him to reject as spurious, or at least, as entirely
unauthentic, he yet has allowed to influence him in his
delineation of Christ's character and actions; while endea
vouring (most ineffectually) to undo the mischief by foot
notes calling attention to the " feeble authority " or the
total ungenuineness of the materials with which he has
yet allowed himself to build. The unfortunate result is
shewn more especially in chapters xviii. and xix., though
reappearing frequently throughout the volume. But with
all these drawbacks, the impresion left upon my mind by a
second perusal, after an interval of several years, is that
M. Renan's book is perhaps the most essential contribu
tion to a faithful, and rational, and adequate conception
of what Christ was, and did, and taught, which the nine
teenth century has given us. Like four or five other
works which orthodoxy eyes askance, or furiously de
nounces as open or insidious attacks, it should be viewed
rather as proceeding from an independent auxiliary and a
cordial ally, than from a hostile critic of real Christianity'.*
* The following passage will justify this estimate in the eyes of all candid
readers, xxviii. pp. 462-3 :
" Jesus a fixe* pour toujours la maniere dont il faut concevoir le culte pur.

" ECCE HOMO." 15
" Ecce Homo " is a book of very different stamp from
the Vie de JSsus, though composed with a similar purpose.
It is an attempt to reproduce the historical Christ, or
perhaps we should rather say, to create out of the moral
consciousness of the author and the sum total of the
traditional materials before him, a complete and consis
tent picture of the ideal Christ, whom history has left so
dim and whom theology has so distorted. The plan is
worked out with singular power and beauty, with a lofty
imagination and a fine deep insight which, as far as our
reading goes, are almost unrivalled. Perhaps so rich and
noble, as well as so lovable, a conception of our great
example has scarcely been given to the world. Probably,
however, its accurate fidelity to the original reality is not
equal to the grandeur of the ensemble, — the constructive
fancy of the author being decidedly superior to his
critical instinct or acumen. There is scarcely a single
reference to chapter and verse throughout the volume; —
while Renan and Strauss almost overload their pages with
such justificatory citations. In the only two that we
have noticed (the cases of Zaccheus and Nicodemus) he
appears entirely to misrepresent the sense of the original.
Sa religion n'est point limite'e. L'Eglise a eu ses epoques et ses phases ; elle
s'est renfermee dans des symboles qui n'ont eu ou qui n'auront qu'un
temps : — Je"sus a fonde" la religion absolue, n'excluant rien, ne determinant
rien si ce n'est le sentiment. Ses symboles ne sont pas de dogmes arr6te"s ;
ce sont des images suseeptibles d'interpre'tations indelinies. On chereherait
vainement une proposition theologique dans l'Evangile. Toutes les prof es-
sions defoi sont des travestissements de l'ide'e de J6«us, a peu pres comme la
Scolastique du moyen age, en proclamant Aristote le maitre unique d'une
science achevee, faussait la pensfe d' Aristote. Aristote, s'il eut assists aux
de"bats de l'eeole, eut repudie' cette doctrine e'troite ; il eut 6ti du parti
de la science progressive contre la routine qui se couvrait de son autorite" : —
il eut applaudi a ses contradicteurs. De meme, si Jesus revenait parmi
nous il reconnaltrait pour disciples, non ceux qui pre"tendent le renfermertout
entier dans quelques phrases de Catechisme, mais ceux qui travaillent a le
continuer. La gloire e'ternelle, dans tons les ordres de grandeurs, est d'avoir
pose" la premiere pierre  Quelles que puissent 6tre lea transfor
mations du dogme, Jesus restera en religion le createur du sentiment pur ;
le sermon sur la montagne ne sera pas de'passe'. Aucune revolution ne fera
que nous ne nous rattachions en religion a la grande famille intellectuelle et
morale en tSte de laquelle brille le nom de Je"sus. En ce sens- nous sommes
Chretiens, m6me quand nous aeparons sur presque tous les points de la
tradition chre"tienne qui nous a pre'ce'de's.
Et cette grande fondation fut bien l'ceuvre personelle de Je"sus. Pour
s'&re fait adorer a ce point, il faut qu'il ait e'te' adorable." Vie de Jesus
-p. 462.

16 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
Indeed, on more than" one occasion — as in his remarks on
forgiving offences " till seventy times seven," — he takes
strange liberties with the text. The author of " Ecce
Homo " seems to have not so much studied and examined
the Gospels with the view of ascertaining what was
historical and what was legendary, as to have imbued his
mind with their entire contents, and then suffered the
whole to ferment patiently, till out of it arose before him
a conception in seipso totus, teres, atque rotundus. As
suming half unconsciously (rather than asserting dogmati
cally) that the narratives are in the main genuine and
faithful, — and believing unquestioningly (again without
thinking it necessary to affirm) that Christ's character
and purpose must have been from the first and through
out complete, self-consistent, and divine, — he has built up
his interpretation and his portraiture confidently on these
two foundations — both of which we, in common with
Renan, F. W. Newman, and others, deem to be at least
problematic. The result is, that his reproduction, mag
nificent and admirable, and in many respects singularly
penetrating as it is, fails (it seems to us) in this : — That
he attributes to Christ a deliberate scheme, plan, purpose,
and organization for the conquest and conversion of the
world, which, in its completeness at least, we believe to
have been a conception of much later date, and to have
flitted only fitfully, if at all, through the mind of Jesus
himself. He seems unable to picture our Lord otherwise
than as founding a special society or " commonwealth,"
and as acting from the beginning upon a carefully formed
and well-matured system of philosophy, indicative of the
prof oundest study and experience of human nature. Thus,
while the idea of " Ecce Homo " is the loftier, that of
Renan seems to us historically the truer and more prob
able. We cannot understand the positiveness of the
writer's assertion that Jesus considered himself above all
things a king, and his followers as subjects; that he
peremptorily insisted upon the rite of baptism as the con
dition of being admitted among his followers ; and that
the Rulers, Pharisees, and Scribes put him to death, not
because he denounced them and led away the people from

" ECCE HOMO." 17
them, but because he would not fulfil their notions of
what a king should do. Apart from these objections, the
conception, as a whole, is full of truth and beauty — of
truth that has been often missed, of beauty that has been
deplorably disfigured. His idea of the " faith," spoken
of in the Gospels as the one indispensable condition of
membership in Christ's commonwealth, is new and stri
king, and may be correct. " He who, when goodness is
impressively put before him, exhibits an instinctive loyalty
to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts himself to it,
such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is
in him. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal
and faithful instinct will place him above many
who practise virtue." The distinction drawn by the
author between the religion of Jesus and the phil
osophies of the ancient moralists and reformers, is
valuable and well-defined, though not new. But the
more original suggestions of the book, those which
entitle it to be considered as a real and fresh contribution
to our understanding of what Christianity in truth is, or
was at the outset designed to be, appear to be these
four : — First, The contrast between the highest notion
of virtue reached in the old world, as consisting in the
control and subjugation of all bad passions and propen
sities, and the holiness required by Christ, as consisting
in a state of mind in which all these passions and
propensities are extinguished, burned up in the flame of a
stronger affection and desire — in a word, between temp
tation resisted, and temptation non-existent ; so that
what Christ demands is far less a course of life strictly
and resolutely virtuous, than a frame of feeling to which
vice is simply impossible because repugnant. Second,
The contrast between the negative character of the
heathen conception of consummate excellence, and the
positive and expansive virtue required from the Christian
disciple — the one being commanded merely to abstain
from wrong, the other to devote himself to active good.
Third, That love for, and sympathy with, all fellow-men
— growing out of, and embodied in an absorbing affec
tion and admiration for Jesus himself as the representa-

18 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
five of all that was lovable in man, — which previous
times felt and prescribed only for fellow-citizens and
kindred. This the author calls "The Enthusiasm of
Humanity," and regards as the special creation and
triumph of Christ's life and teaching, and as affording a
clue to the real significance of that predominant and
constantly asserted " personality," which has given oc
casion to such strange misconceptions in different direc
tions. Fourth, The peculiar, high-strung, and almost
extravagant character of both the devotion and the
morality inculcated by Jesus — a pervading tone of
tension (so to speak) — of lofty enthusiasm which is
almost excitement, and has often fatally become such
among his followers. " No heart (he writes) is pure that is
not passionate. No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.
And such an enthusiastic virtue Christ was to introduce."
Mr. Arnold's "Literature and Dogma" is a most
noteworthy and even startling production, on several
accounts. In one respect it resembles " Ecce Homo," but
differs from it in many more. Like that work it is (in
the later portion at least) an attempt to conceive the
precise purpose and mission of Christ, as well as the
essentials of his character. But the conclusion arrived at
is singularly discrepant. According to Mr. Arnold, the
specific work of Christ was to restore that reign of
righteousness which the Hebrew Race was the chosen
instrument for establishing on earth ; and to do this by
bringing back the idea of personal holiness, which by
that time the Jews had almost wholly merged in the no
tion of social and national obedience to positive and rigid
law. His "method " was /aeTavoia, a change in the inner man ;
his "secret" was self-renunciation. So far there is no
great discrepancy; but while "Ecce Homo" finds the
clearest and most predominant characteristic of Jesus to
consist in a fervent zeal, an undying enthusiasm, which
was quite passion, and almost fanaticism, — Mr. Arnold,
on the contrary, sees a " sweet reasonableness " (emeiKeia),
a "mild winning gentleness," to be the most marked
peculiarity of his nature. Such are the opposite results

Arnold's " literature and dogma." 19
which men arrive at from the same materials when their
morality is not a science but a taste. So partial and im
perfect are at best the constructions of the keenest
insight and the richest culture when acting under the
orders of that " moral consciousness " which is in fact
each man's highest, but still individual, standard of the
good and true.
It cannot for a moment be doubted by any one who
reads '' Literature and Dogma" in an appreciative and
unprejudiced temper, that Mr. Arnold's religious instincts
and intuitions are often remarkably penetrating, and
nearly always beautiful and touching, even if habitually
too much coloured by his own inherent preferences ; and
where they are erroneous and fanciful, the error arises
not so much from any defect of intellectual — we might
almost say spiritual — perception, as from a sort of naive
and confident audacity which enables him to deal with
his materials rather as a creative poet than a conjecturing
and investigating critic. He does not so much guess or
infer, — he Knows what each writer meant, even where
that writer's words do not exactly tally with his reason
ing. The specially personal, concrete, anthropomorphic
God of the Hebrews (whose name in his translation
becomes not Jehovah, but " The Eternal ") he volatilizes
into the " everlasting stream of tendency," — " a power,
not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." He takes
almost precisely the same view we have in this volume
endeavoured to make good, of the essence of religion and
Christianity as distinct from the accretions and corrup
tions — or what he terms the " Aberglaube" or extra-belief
— with which popular imagination and tradition have
overlaid it. His pages are full of rich and fine and
prolific suggestions, and bring much invaluable aid to
that reaction towards pure and simple Christianity, for
which we have been pleading all along ; but the aid is
less in the form of distinct argument or cogent demon
stration, than in the quiet confident assumption of an
intelligence of consummate culture, looking at these
matters from those " regions mild of calm and serene air "
where doubt and disturbance never reach, that such and

20 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
such must he the conclusions of all competent and true-
minded inquirers. There is much in the tone of the book
which will give just and gratuitous offence to the prej
udices of orthodox readers ; some passages which will
grate upon the feelings of many, and the taste of nearly
all. There is a good deal that is fanciful, and not a little
that is flippant; but no one who reads it patiently through,
in spite of these drawbacks, can fail, we think, to find his
mind enriched as well as stirred by the perusal.
But still more remarkable than the book itself is the
fact that such a book should have been written by such
a man. If we wished to measure the progress made in
the last few years by the general mind of England in
reference to this class of questions, we could not do better
than compare what Mr. Arnold has written in 1873
with what he wrote only ten years ago. In 1863 he
published in Macmillan's Magazine* two attacks singu
larly unmeasured and unfair, upon the Bishop of Natal,
condemning that dignitary with the utmost harshness
and severity for having blurted out to the common world
his discoveries that the Pentateuch is often inaccurate, and,
therefore, as a whole, could not possibly be inspired ; that
much of it was obviously unhistorical, legendary, and al
most certainly not Mosaic. He did not, indeed, affect to
question Dr. Colenso's conclusions, but he intimated that
such dangerous truths ought to be reserved for esoteric
circles, not laid bare before such babes and sucklings as
the mass of men consists of. I ventured at the timey- to
protest against the injustice of this assault upon a writer
who was merely endeavouring in laborious humility to make
good that very right to treat the Bible as an uninspired,
and consequently criticable narrative, which his assailant
quietly, and without humility, assumed as undeniable. The
keynote and motive of Mr. Arnold's criticism was plainly
indignation at the Bishop for having written what must
shake that faith in the Old Testament as the Word of
God, which he held to be so valuable and so comforting
* " The Bishop and the Philosopher." " Stanley's Lectures on the Jew
ish Church." January and February, 1863.
+ " Literary and Social Judgments." — Truth versus Edification.

Arnold's " literature and dogma." 21
to the popular mind. And now the critic himself comes for
ward to do precisely the same thing in a far more sweeping
fashion, and in a far less tentative and modest temper.
He avows that the general belief in Scripture as a truth
ful narrative and an inspired record — as anything, in
short, that can in any distinct sense be called " The Word
of God" — is quite erroneous, and can no longer be de
fended ; that the old ground on which the Bible was so
cherished having been cut from under us, those who value
and reverence its teaching as Mr. Arnold does, must set
to work to build it up on some fresh foundation in the
minds of men. Colenso and others having so grubbed at
the basement that the edifice is seriously endangered,
Mr. Arnold zealously and earnestly undertakes to under
pin it. In 1863 he would fain have kept things as they
were, and fixed men's thoughts on what was " edifying "
in the Bible, on its grand devotion and its uncompromis
ing inculcation of righteousness, maintaining a decorous
silence as to the hollow basis of the common creed. In
1873 he can say "hush, hush!" no longer. The secret
has been indiscreetly revealed; the enfant terrible of
Natal has lifted up the curtain ; and all the collabora-
teurs of the Speaker's Commentary cannot now shut out
the light. So Mr. Arnold sets himself manfully to remedy
the mischief. It must be admitted that he does his work
with a rare courage, and, in the latter portions at least of
the volume, with consummate skill. But the painstaking,
almost timid inferences of the Episcopal heretic are but
the thin end of the wedge in comparison with the-broad
vasf; assumptions of the ex-Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
He argues seldom — he demonstrates little ; but he treats
all the creeds of the orthodox and the established notions
of Christendom with a curiously calm indifference, which
is almost contempt — a quiet lofty scorn admirably calcu
lated to give spirit and confidence to less audacious free
thinkers. Prophecies, miracles, transcendental dogmas,
metaphysical propositions, " schemes of salvation," the
Apostles' creed (" the popular science of Christianity"),
the Nicene creed ("the learned science"), the Athanasian
creed (the learned science " with a strong dash of violent

22 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
and vindictive temper"), all go down before his lance
under the comprehensive phrase of "Aberglaube ; " and it .
is by no means clear that either a personal God or a future
life is left standing amid the heap of ruins. It is surely
a significant circumstance that one of the most popular
authors of the day — "the Apostle of Culture" — gifted
with a sagacious tact as to all the intellectual currents of
the age — who at the beginning of the decade came, like
Balaam, to curse bold and searching Biblical criticism,
should, at the end of that decade, have remained to lead,
to bless, and to exemplify it so remarkably. It is, perhaps,
more significant still that it should be impossible to re
gard his work, trenchantly iconoclastic though it indisputa
bly is, as otherwise than conceived in the interest, and im
bued with the spirit of sincere religion. Many will describe
Mr. Arnold as having run a ruthless and sacrilegious tilt
•against the Bible. I should say rather -that he had lifted
it off one pedestal to put it on another — with much rever
ence, and perhaps a little condescension.
It was remarked by a friendly critic of my first edition
that in approaching the question of the resurrection of
Christ from the side of the Gospels, instead of from that
of the Epistles, I had thrown away the main strength of
the case. The criticism is just, and in deference to it, I
have since reconsidered the subject from the point of
views suggested. The Epistles were of prior date to the
Gospels ;* the earliest statement, therefore, that we pos
sess of the fact of the resurrection, as well as the only
one .whose author we know for certain, is that contained
in Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians xv. 3-8. "it is
likewise the only distinct apostolic assertion of the fact ;
for though Peter (i. 3 ; ii. 21,) alludes to and assumes it,
he does not affirm it, and James and John do not even
mention it. Leaving out of view the Gospels, then, the

* The date of the Gospels is at best conjectural. No authority, however
we believe, would place even the earliest of them before ad 60 or 65 ¦—
many much later. Now, the Epistle to the Corinthians was written almost
certainly about A.D. 57, and the other Pauline writings between 52 and 08
— (See Conybeare and Howson.)

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 23
evidence of the great foundation doctrine of the Chris
tian Creed, consists in these two indisputable points, — that
all the_ apostles and disciples believed it — had no doubt
about it — held it with a conviction so absolute that it in
spired them with zeal and courage to live as missionaries
and to die as martyrs ; — and that Paul, five and twenty
years after the event, wrote of it thus : — " For I delivered
unto you first of all that which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; and
that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures,* and that he was seen of
Cephas, then of the twelve ; after that he was seen of
above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles.
And last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born
out of due season."
Now, if this were all — if we had no further testimony
to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead than that it
was believed by the whole original Christian Church ;
that the apostles and personal followers of Christ, who
must be supposed to have had the best means of knowing
it, clung to the conviction enthusiastically, and witnessed
to it by their preaching and their death ; and that Paul,
not a personal follower, but in constant communication
with those who were, made the above assertions in a letter
addressed to one of the principal churches, and published
while most of the eye-witnessess to whom he appeals
were still alive to confirm or to contradict his statements, —
if the case rested on this only, and terminated here, every
one, I think, would feel that our grounds for accepting
the resurrection as an historical fact in its naked simpli
city would be far stronger than they actually are. In
truth, they would appear to be nearly unassailable and ir-
* Our readers will not fail to notice the shadow of doubt which the ex
pression " according to the Scriptures " throws over even this direct testi
mony. " According to the Scriptures" simply means, wherever it occurs,
"in supposed fulfilment of the erroneous interpretation of the Old Testa
ment Psalms and Prophecies then current." Paul, moreover, it should be
observed, here merely speaks at second hand, and declares what lie Int.d been.
told by others— "that which I also received."

24 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
resistible, except by those who can imagine some probable
mode in which such a positive and vivifying conviction
could have grown up without the actual occurrence hav
ing taken place to create it. Such explanation has been
offered by many writers — by Strauss, by Renan, by Ar
nold, by Hanson, and others. I have considered them
all, I think dispassionately ; — and ingenious as they are
(especially the detailed one of M. Renan), I am bound to
say they do not satisfy my mind. They do not convince
me, I mean, that the belief arose as they suggest. They
are very skilful, they are even probable enough ; but they
do not make me feel that the true solution of the mystery
has been reached. Nor can I with any confidence offer
one of my own, though I can conceive one more simple
and inherently likely than those propounded.
But the real difficulty lies in the gospel narratives.
The evangelists contradict the apostle. Nay more, — they
shew that the belief of the Christian Church was not
simple, uniform, and self-consistent, as Paul's statement
would lead us to suppose ; but that it was singularly
vague, various, and self-contradictory. Nay, worse still,
— they not only show in how many fluctuating shapes it
existed, but they suggest how the belief may have formed
itself by specifying a number of the circumstantial details
around which it grew and solidified so rapidly. In the
Epistles and the Acts, we find simply the assertion of the
fact, and evidence to the universal conviction. In the
Gospels, we read the several traditions accepted in the
Christian community thirty or more years after the event,
as to the nature and surrounding context of that event.
Now here commences our serious embarrassment ; and
the embarrassment consists in this, that the new witnesses
called — possibly very incompetent ones — make it impos
sible to arrive at any clear or definite conclusion as to the
vjJud or the hoiv. That is to say, — ive cannot frame any
theory whatever as to the resurrection, which is not dis
tinctly negatived by one or other of the evangelical ac
counts. If the occurrence were to rest only on the gos
pel narratives, rational belief would be almost out of the
question. If the belief in the early church had been

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 25
based upon these narratives (which it was not), that belief
could carry with it only the faintest authority. Let us
follow out this view a little in detail.
Some have imagined that the reappearance of the
risen Jesus to his disciples was of the nature of those
apparitions of departed friends as to the occurrence of
which there exists such a mass of overwhelming testi- ~
mony ; and the related mode of his appearances and
disappearances gives some primd facie colouring to the
idea. He vanished out of the sight of the companions at
Emmaus ; he ceased to be seen of them. When the dis
ciples were assembled at Jerusalem Jesus himself stood in
the midst of them (John adds in two passages, that the
doors were shut). " While he blessed them he was parted
from them, and carried up into heaven." In the Acts,
a cloud received him out of their sight. This view may
be said, moreover, to be countenanced by the language of
Paul himself, who classes the appearance of Jesus to
himself along with his appearances to others ; yet his we
know was an apparition (rather an audition, for he
speaks of hearing him, not of seeing him). But then this
theory is distinctly negatived by the assertions that Jesus
assured the affrighted disciples (who had imagined him to
be an apparition) that he was actually thus present in
flesh and bones, his real old self, with hands and feet and
bodily organs, and able and desirous to eat. In fact Jesus
seems positively to have refused to be considered in the
light of the supernatural being his startled followers
would at once have made of him, and did make of him
shortly after.
Others, again, adopt the supposition that Jesus did
not actually die upon the cross, but merely swooned, and
revived naturally (or by the aid of Joseph of Arimathea),
when taken down and laid in a temporary sepulchre.
And this theory has many considerations in its favour,
all which are discussed by Strauss and Renan. It ap
pears — though the several accounts do not tally very
closely — that he was not more than six hours, or
perhaps not more than four upon the cross (how long in
the grave we do not know — perhaps not an hour) ; and

26 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
that, though so highly wrought and delicate an organi
zation as that of Jesus must have been, might well have
succumbed to even that brief period of agony, yet that
such speedy death from crucifixion was most unusual,
and excited the surprise of Pilate. On this supposition
the subsequent appearances narrated in Luke and Mat
thew are simple and natural enough ; nor need we trouble
ourselves to speculate on his after history and final dis
appearance from the scene. But, then, this theory
neutralizes entirely the religious -value of the occurrence
— besides being irreconcilable with the "non-recogni
tion " feature of the narratives, to which I now proceed.
This feature is, in truth, the terrible embarrassment
which the gospel narratives present to those who hold
the common creed on the subject of the resurrection.
Those narratives relate that many of the disciples who
saw him after he rose from the dead did not recognise
him. They relate this of three or four of his most re
markable appearances. Those who had lived with him
for years, and who had parted from him on the Friday,
did not know him again on the Sunday. If then, he
was so changed — so entirely not his former self — that
they could not recognise him, how could they know, or
how can we know, that the person assumed to be Jesus was
actually their risen Lord ? Does not this non-recognition
almost irresistibly suggest the inferences, that the ex
cited imaginations of his more susceptible disciples as
sumed some stranger to be Jesus, when they learned that
his body had disappeared from the sepulchre and that
angels had affirmed that he was risen ; and that those
" whose eyes were holden," who " doubted," or "did not be
lieve for joy and wonder," were the more prosaic and less
impressible of the beholders ? The difficulty is obviously
tremendous : — let us look at the particulars.
Matthew relates two appearances, in very general
terms: — Of the. second he says, "but some doubted."
Mark — the genuine gospel of Mark, which, as we know,
terminates with the 8th verse of the 16th chapter  says
nothing of any appearances ; but, in the spurious addi
tion, repeats twice that those who asserted that they had

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 27
seen him, were disbelieved, and that Christ, when he ap
peared himself to the eleven, " upbraided them with their
unbelief." Luke narrates two appearances, and inciden
tally mentions that " the eleven " reported a third, " to
Simon." With reference to the first, he says of the two
disciples, Cleophas and a friend, who walked, talked, and
ate with Jesus at Emmaus for several hours, " their eyes
were holden that they should not know him." With ref
erence to the second appearance (" to the eleven ") it is
said, first, " that they were affrighted, thinking they had
seen a spirit," and shortly afterwards, that " they yet be
lieved not for joy, and wondered." But it is in the fourth
Gospel that the non-recognition feature becomes most
marked. Mary Magdalene, after Jesus had spoken to
her, and she had turned to look at him, still " supposed
him to be the gardener." His most intimate disciples,
when they saw him in Galilee, " knew not that it was
Jesus," even though he spoke to them; and even John him
self only inferred the^presence of his master in consequence
of the miraculous draught of fishes, and Peter only accepted
the inference on John's authority. " Therefore, that dis
ciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, ' It is the Lord.'
Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he
girt on his fisher's coat and did cast himself into the sea."
One more difficulty — a very grave one — raised by the
traditional accounts transmitted to us in the Gospels, must
be indicated, but needs nothing beyond indication. These
accounts all insist in the strongest manner upon the de
tailed demonstration, that it was Jesus in bodily shape, in
the same actual form, with the same hands and feet, and
the same digestive organs and human needs, whom
they had known three days before, and had seen nailed to
the cross, who now again came among them and conversed
with them. Jesus himself is made to assure them that
he was not a spirit, but flesh and bones that could be
handled. In this well-known presence, with these bodily
organs and this earthly frame, he is said to have been
seen to ascend into heaven. Can flesh and blood inherit
the spiritual kingdom ? or where was the body dropped ?
and when was the transmutation carried out ?

28 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
But, now, instead of taking the gospel narratives as
they stand promiscuously and as a whole, let us discard
those portions which are certainly or most probably un-
genuine or spurious, and take into consideration only that
residue which may be fairly assumed to embody the ear
liest traditions of the Christian community ; and we shall
find most of the difficulties we have thus mentioned either
vastly mitigated or quite dispersed. In fact — and I would
draw particular attention to this conclusion— we who
show that the Gospels are rather traditional than strictly
historical narratives absolutely authoritative and correct,
are the persons who do special service to the doctrine of
the resurrection by removing obstacles to its credibility.
The whole of the accounts in the fourth Gospel then fall
away and cease to embarrass us at all. At most, they only
serve to indicate how tradition had been at work and
grown between the first and the second century — at least
one generation, possibly two. Mark, probably the earliest
writer of all, never presented any embarrassment at all —
unless, indeed, a negative one — for he says not a word of
post-sepulchral appearances, and merely mentions the ap
pearance of " a young man " at the tomb, who tells the
disciples simply, and as a message, that Jesus is no longer
there, but has gone before them into Galilee* Matthew,
again, deals in general terms, and gives an account almost
identical with that of Paul, though even less full and
particular.-f Luke, alone, remains to trouble us ; Luke,
who probably wrote when apparitional accounts had be
gun to multiply and magnify ; whose perplexing narra
tive about Emmaus is not even alluded to by any of the
other evangelists, and must almost certainly, have been
unknown to them ; and who directly contradicts Matthew
as to the alleged command of Jesus, that they should go
into Galilee to meet him. Matthew says, " go into Galilee."
Luke says, " tarry in Jerusalem." Looking, then, at the
* The word he uses, moreover, is significant : he says, rjyepBri, "he is
risen," — not arcMrr&crei, he is risen from the dead.
f Moreover, it is the opinion of some very competent critics, that the con
cluding portion of the last chapter of Matthew is not entitled to the same
character of indisputable genuineness as the rest of the gospel.

EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 29
matter in this light, we may not unfairly accept Paul's
statement as embodying the whole of the recognised and
authorized tradition of the early church on the subject of
the appearances of the crucified and risen Jesus. This
assertion, and the general and absolute conviction of the
apostolic community, remain as our warrant for believing
in the miraculous resurrection of our Lord. Are they ade
quate ? This is practically the residual question calling for
decision. It is perhaps far less important than is commonly fan
cied. I have already (chap, xiv.) given my reasons for
holding that, except it be regarded as establishing, and as
needed to establish, the authority of the teaching of Christ,
his resurrection has no bearing — certainly no favourable
or confirmatory bearing — on the question of our future
life. Just as the confident conviction of the earliest Chris
tians and the mighty influence that conviction exercised
over their character and actions, constitute the chief evi
dence of the Resurrection of Christ, — so the existence of
the Christian faith, its vast mark in history, and its
establishment over the most powerful, progressive, and
intellectual races of mankind, constitute the strongest
testimony we possess to its value and its truth. This
may, or may not, be sufficient to prove its divine origin
and its absolute correctness, but it is the best we have,
and is more cogent by far than any documentary evidence
could be. Christianity as it prevails over all Europe and
America, constituting the cherished creed, and at least the
professed and reverenced moral guide of probably two
hundred millions of the foremost nations upon earth, is a
marvellous fact which requires accounting for — a mighty
effect indicating a cause or causes of corresponding efficacy.
Whatever we may conclude as to its origin, that origin
must, in one way or other, have been adequate to the sub
sequent growth. In some sense, in some form, the victory
of the Christian religion must be due to some inherent
energy, excellence, vitality, suitability to the wants and
character of man. Mere circumstances could not explain

0 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
this victory. We may safely go a step further, and say
that this vital force, this inherent excellence, this appro
priateness, must have been something strange, subtle,
unexampled. Those who conclude it, in consequence, to
have been a special divine revelation, offer what we must
admit to be primd facie the simplest and easiest solution.
But the argument, as just stated, must not be pushed
too far. Three considerations serve to indicate with how
much caution, with what a large survey of history, with
what a wide grasp and deep analysis of the phenomena of
mind in various times and among various races, the prob
lem must be approached. Christianity is not the most
widely spread of the religions of mankind. Buddhism is
of earlier date, and counts more millions among its vota
ries. Islamism took its rise later, was diffused more
rapidly, and rules over a larger area of the earth's surface.
At one time it seemed as if Christianity would go down
before its triumphant career. Some readers of history may
even be disposed to argue that but for two men and two
battles, — possibly but for a special charge of cavalry, or it
may be a sudden inspiration of the leading generals, — it
might have done so. The spread of Buddhism, the spread
of Islamism, must have had an adequate cause, as well as
the spread of Christianity.
Again, the enthroned position and commanding influ
ence of our religion testify, with power which we make
no pretence of resisting, to its truth and its surpassing
excellences. So much no sceptic, we fancy, would wish,
or would venture to deny. But this testimony is borne
to Christianity — not any dogma of the creed carelessly
called by that name ; to something inherent and essential
in the religion — not to any particular thing which this or
that sect chooses to specify as its essence. It does not
testify at all — at least the orthodox are not entitled to
assume that it does — to the divinity of our Lord, to his
miraculous resurrection, to his atoning blood, to the Trin
itarian mystery, or to any one of the scholastic problems
into which the Athanasian Creed has endeavoured to
condense the faith of Christendom ; it may testify only,
we believe it does, to that apocalypse and exemplification

" ARE WE YET CHRISTIANS ? " 31
of the possibilities of holiness and lovableness latent in
humanity, which was embodied in the unique life and
character of Jesus.
And, thirdly, it must be admitted without recalcitra-
tion, though the admission carries with it some vague and
startling alarm of danger, that Christianity, with all its
unapproached truth and beauty, owes its rapid progress
and, in some vast degree, its wide and firm dominion, at
least as distinctly if not as much, to the errors which were
early mingled with it, as to the central and faultless ideas
those errors overlaid. On one point, at least, all — even
the thinking minds among the most orthodox — will agree :
— that the mightiest and most inspiring conviction among
the earliest Christians, that which vivified their zeal,
warmed, their eloquence, made death easy and fear impos
sible, that which in fact more than any other influence
caused their victories, was their unhesitating belief in the
approaching end of the world, and the speedy coming of
their Lord in glory. That this was an entire delusion we
now all acknowledge. Many of us go much further.
Few will doubt that the doctrine of the Messiahship of
Jesus aided most powerfully the triumph of his reli
gion among the Jews, and that of his proper deity among
the Gentiles (not to mention other scholastic and pagan
accretions) ; — and many now hold that these are as indis
putable delusions as the other. In a word, truth has
floated down to us upon the wings of error, treasured up
and borne along in an ark built of perishable materials
and by human • hands ; some devotees, therefore, still
cling to the ark and the error as sacred agencies, worthy
of all reverence and worship, confounding what they have
done wi%h what they are. But we do not read that Noah
thought it incumbent upon him to continue out of grati
tude living in the ark when the waters had subsided. On
the contrary, as soon as there was dry, firm ground for the
sole of his feet, he came forth from his preserving prison-
house, and gave thanks and offered sacrifice to the Lord.
" Are we yet Christians ? " is the momentous question
of the day, which is being asked everywhere in a variety

32 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
of forms. It is the question asked, and answered in the neg
ative, in the last remarkable and unsatisfactory volume of
Strauss, " Der alte und der neue Glaube." It is the question
asked, but not answered, in a striking monograph so en
titled, which appeared in a recent number of the Fort
nightly Review* It is the question which is forcing
itself upon the minds of all students of the tone and
temper of the times, who cannot fail to recognise, with
anxious speculation as to the results, that a vast proportion
of the higher and stronger intellect of the age in nearly
all branches of science and thought- — as well as large
bodies, if not the mass, of the most energetic section of the
working classes — is day by day more and more decidedly
and avowedly shaking itself free from every form and
variety of established creeds. It is the question, finally,
which is implied, rather than openly asked, in the various
uneasy and spasmodic, perhaps somewhat blind, attempts
on the part of the clergy, in the shape of " Speaker's
Commentaries," new churches, open-air preachings, Pan-
Anglican Synods, and the like, to meet a danger which
they perceive through the mist, but of which they have
scarcely yet measured the full significance and bearing.
Are we then ceasing to be Christians ? Is Christianity
as a religion in very truth dying out from among us amid
the conflicting or converging influences of this fermenting
age. Most observers, seeing Christianity only in the
popular shape and the recognised formularies, feel that
there can be little doubt about the matter. Strauss, ac
cepting the " Apostles' Creed " as the received and correct
representation of the Christian faith is just as distinct in
his reply.
" If then we are to seek no subterfuges, if we are not to
halt between two opinions, if our yea is to be yea, and
our nay, nay, — if we are to speak as honourable and
straightforward men — then we must recognise the fact
that we are no longer Christians ? "
I should give a different reply, but only because I
attach to the principal word a less conventional, but as-
* March, 1873,

" ARE WE YET CHRISTIANS ? " 33
suredly a more correct and etymological signification. I
entirely refuse to recognise the Apostles' Creed, or the
Nicene Creed, or the Westminster Confession, or the
Longer or Shorter Catechism, or the formularies of any
church, whether Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinistic, or United,
as faithful embodiments or authoritative representations
of Christianity.* Rightly regarded, the very shape,
character, purport, and title of these several docu
ments negative their claims to be accepted as such.
Christianity was not, in its origin, a series of senten
tious propositions, nor a code of laws, nor a system
of doctrine, nor a " scheme " of salvation,-)- but the
* The Guardian (a recognised orthodox authority, I believe), June 11,
1873, gives the f611owing definition of what it conceives Christianity to be-
which would have astonished the Jesus of the Gospels : —
" Now, for the purposes of this critique, we shall employ the word belief,
as signifying belief in Christianity, and the word unbelief as signifying re
jection of the same. And if, further, it be demanded what we mean by
Christianity, we say, as we have done before in similar cases, that we under
stand by it that religion^ which teaches— that man is alienated from the
great Being who made him, in consequence of an original and hereditary
enf eeblement ; that he has thereby lost the power of fulfilling, and even of
thoroughly knowing, his duty upon earth, and of preparing for the life
to eome ; and that deliverance from this condition, a reopening of the
sources of pardon, of virtue, and of life, has been made by the advent of
God in human form to this lower world ; by the life and death, the resur
rection and ascension, of Jesus Christ."
t The very phrase, " scheme of salvation," as applied to Christianity
(like a somewhat analogous one often employed " making our peace with
God"), strikes us as offensive and, when considered in relation to the details
of the imagined scheme, almost monstrous. To those who have been brought .
up to this scheme from infancy of course it is not so (to such nothing would «
be); but as describing the impression made upon those who come to it later
in life, and who look at it from the outside, the word is not too strong. A
scheme is a " contrivance " — a contrivance for attaining an object, or getting
out of a difficulty ; and in the popular orthodox view, the Christian dispen
sation is in plain words — and putting it in plain words will perhaps be found
its best and sufficient refutation and dissolvent — a " contrivance " concocted
between God and His Son, between the first and second persons of the
Trinity (or as we should say between the Creator of all worlds and Jesus of
Nazareth, " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"), for enabling the
human race to escape from a doom and a curse which certain scholastic theo
logians fancy (as an inference from particular texts of Scripture) to have
been in spme way incurred, either from the offences of each individual or
from the offence of a remote ancestor. The "scheme " first assumes that the
original sin of our first parents (to say nothing of our own) cannot be for
given, nor the taint inherited by their innocent descendants wiped out, with
out the rigid exaction of a penalty ("damnation," eternal fire, and the like)
altogether disproportioned to the offence, — that the attributes of the Deity
imply and involve this "cannot." Then, since this doom is too horrible,
and the doctrine laid down in the above assumption too repellant, alike iv

34 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
outcome and combination of a holy life, a noble death,
a wonderfully pure and perfect character and na
ture, a teaching at once self -proving and sublime — the
whole absolutely unique in their impressive lovableness.
I cannot but remember — what is so strangely though so
habitually forgotten by all Christian sects — that this life
was lived, this death consummated, this character dis
played, this devotion exemplified and inspired, this right
eousness preached and embodied, and this impression
made — years before any convert or disciple conceived the
fatal idea of formalising it all into a " creed." Nay, more,
Icannot but remember that it was not till long after the
elevating, spiritualising, restraining influence of the ac
tual presence and the daily example of Jesus was with
drawn, that anything fairly to be called " dogma " began
to grow up among that apostolic society, whose best
leaders even, as is obvious from the gospel narrative,
stood on a moral and intellectual level so far below their
Master's.* I recognise more and more — what I believe
its basis and its consequences, to be endured or accepted, the "scheme" then
imagines the only Sou of God (one hour's pain of whom, as a partaker of the
divine nature, is an equivalent to the eternal sufferings of all human beings)
agreeing to bear this doom instead of the myriads of the offending race. An
impossible debt is first invented, necessitating the invention of an incon
ceivable coin in which to pay it. A God is imagined bent on a design and
entertaining sentiments which it seems simple blasphemy and contradiction
to ascribe to the Father in heaven, whom Jesus of Nazareth came to reveal
to us, — and then he is represented as abandoning that design in considera
tion of a sacrifice, in which it is impossible to recognise one gleam of appro
priateness or of human equity. What looks very like a legal fiction, purely
gratuitous, is got rid of by what looks very like a legal chicanery, purely
fanciful. To use a terse simile of Macaulay, the scheme "resembles nothing
so much as a forged bond, with a forged release endorsed oir the back of it."
But the essential point to bear in mind is that not only do none of the
genuine, authentic, indisputable words of Christ contain or countenance
this "scheme," but the entire tone and context of his teaching distinctly
ignore it, and are at variance with its fundamental conceptions.
* "Is the Apostles' Creed the original Christianity? we ask. Was it
the mission of Jesus to draw up a Confession and to give currency to a f oimu-
lated doctrine, rather than to wake up fresh religious life and to lay down
principles which must always hold good in matters of religion for every doc
trinal system ? Was He, who dropped everything that was formal and
therefore unessential m religion and morality, and preached the fulfilment
of the moral element of the law and the prophets, and who, instead of laying
down rules for the moral life of man, insisted upon principles and change of
heart,— was He who, of all that Israel considered holy in the Scriptures
retained as essential no more than love to God and to one's neighbour an<5
preached as the rule of life, ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do 'unto

" ARE WE YET CHRISTIANS ? " 35
will be generally admitted now — that the articles of faith,
the sententious dogmas, the "scheme" of salvation,
which have usurped the name of " Christianity " and
" the Christian religion," originated almost wholly with
Paul ; and that not only did they not form the substance
of the teaching of Jesus, but that they are not to be found
in, nor can obtain anything beyond the most casual, ap
parent, and questionable countenance from, his genuine
and authentic words. And, finally, I remember and wish
to recall to the reflection of my readers that this Paul,
who thus transformed the pure, grand religion of his cru
cified Master, was distinguished by a character of intellect,
subtle, metaphysical, and cultured, and therefore singu
larly discrepant from that of Jesus ; that, moreover, he
never knew Jesus upon earth, had never come under his
influence, or been sobered by his saintly spirit and his
clear, practical conceptions ; had never seen him in the
flesh, nor heard his voice save in trance, in noonday vi
sions, and ecstatic desert communings.
It was the sincere and earnest, if somewhat ambitious
purpose of this book to disentangle and disencumber the
religion taught and lived by Jesus from the misconceptions
and accretions which have gathered round it, obscured it,
overlaid it, often actually transmuted it, and which began
to gather round it almost as soon as its Founder had disap
peared from the scene of his ministry. I shall have failed
if I have not vindicated our right, and shown it to be our
duty, to seek that pure original of devotional spirit and
righteous life in the authentic words and deeds of Christ,
and in these alone ; and, in the prosecution of this search,
to put aside respectfully but courageously, whenever we
you, do you even so unto them, for this is the law and the prophets,' — was
He a dogmatist, a propounder of articles ? Was He, who made the true
moral life of love as independent of Jewish doctrines as of the forms of the
J ewish theocracy, who gave its tone to genuine humanity everywhere, even
in the Samaritan and the heathen, — nay, even placed the humane Samaritan
above the orthodox priest and Levite, — was He, who, without appealing to
any ecclesiastical authority of tradition or of Scripture, found his witnesses in
the common sense and in the conscience of mankind, and recognised the
true prophet by the moral power he displayed, — was He a dogmatist? Surely
Christianity in its original form was not a confession nor a symbol ; and to
pass judgment on it as such is logically inadmissible. "— Scholten, Theol.
Eeview, April, 1873.

36 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
see warrant for it, whatever, whether in the Gospels or
the Epistles, confuses, obscures, blots, or conflicts with
this spirit and this life. I conceive that I have vindica
ted this right, and established this obligation by showing
that even the immediate personal disciples of our Lord
misconceived him ; that the chief of the apostles never
was a companion or follower of Jesus in any sense, but
claimed and gloried in what he declared to be a special,
separate, and post mortem revelation ; and that even the
Gospels contain some things certainly, and several things
probably, which did not emanate from Christ.
I am disposed, therefore, to give an entirely opposite
answer to Strauss's question to that which Strauss him
self has given, and to believe that when we have really
penetrated to the actual teaching of Christ, and fairly dis
interred that religion of Jesus which preceded all creeds
and schemes and formulas, and which we trust will sur
vive them all, we shall find that, so far from this, the true
essence of Christianity, being renounced or outgrown by
the progressive intelligence of the age, its rescue, re-dis
covery, purification, and re-enthronement as a guide of
life, a fountain of truth, an object of faith, a law written
on the heart, .will be recognised as the grandest and most
beneficent achievement of that intelligence. It may well
prove its slowest as its hardest achievement ; for it is pro
verbially more difficult to restore than to build up afresh.
To renovate without destroying is of all functions that
which requires the most delicate perceptions, the finest
intuition, the most reverent and subtle penetration into
the spirit of the original structure, as well as manipula
tion at once the most skilful and the most courageous.
And the task imposed upon the thought and piety of the
coming time is to perform this function on the faith and
creed of centuries and nations ; — and to perform it amid
the bewildering cries of interests and orders whom you
will have rooted out of their comfortable and venerable
nests ; of age, which you will have disturbed in its most
cherished prejudices ; of affections, which you will have
wounded in their tenderest points ; of massive multitudes
whom you will have disturbed in what they fancied were

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 37
convictions and ideas ; of worshippers whose Idol only
you will have overthrown, but who will cry out that you
have desecrated and unshrined their God ; of craftsmen
of the Ephesian type, who " know that by this craft they
have their wealth ; " and of cynical and faithless states
men whose unpaid policemen and detectives (the more
efficient and more feared because unseen), and whose self-
supporting penal settlement elsewhere (the more dreaded
by malefactors because remotely placed, invisible, and un
defined), you will be supposed to have abolished.
Another cognate question has been much discussed of
late, and may be answered, we think, nearly in the same
way. It is asked, not only, " Are we Christians ? " but
" Can a Christian life be lived out in modern days ? " " Can
we, and ought we to, regulate our personal and social life
according to the precepts of Christ ? " " Is Christianity,
in very deed and as nakedly preached and ordinarily
taught, applicable to modern society and extant civiliza
tion ? " " Is it possible, would it be permitted, can it be
wise or right, to obey and act out the Christian rule of
life in the British Isles and in 1873 1 " — No question can
be more vital, none more urgent, none more essential to
our peace of conscience. None, we may add, is more
sedulously and scandalously shirked. There is no courage
and no sincerity or downrightness among us in this mat
ter. We half say one thing and half believe another.
We preach and profess what we do not think of practis
ing ; what we should be scouted and probably punished
if we did practise ; what in our hearts and our dim, fled-
from thoughts, we suspect it would be wrong to practise.
Wherein lies the explanation of this demoralizing and dis
reputable untruthfulness of spirit ? Are the principles
we profess mistaken ? Is the rule of life we hold up as a
guide erroneous, impracticable, or inapplicable to the
altered conditions of the age ; or is it our conduct that is
cowardly, feeble, self-indulgent, and disloyal ? Is it our
standard that is wrong, or merely our actions that are
culpable and rebellious ? Is Christianity a code to be
lived up to, or is it a delusion, a mockery, and a snare ?

38 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The specialities for the conduct of life prescribed by
Christ's precepts and example, as gathered from the
Gospels and the proceedings of his first disciples, which
current Civilisation does trammel and oppose, and which
current Thought does question and controvert, are five in
number : — non-resistance to violence, the duty of alms
giving, the impropriety of providence and forethought,
the condemnation of riches, and the communism which
was supposed to be inculcated, and which certainly was
practised, by the earliest Christians. How far and under
what modifications were these special precepts wise and
sound at that time, and are they obligatory, permissible,
or noxious now ?
I. The precepts commanding non-resistance and sub
mission to violence are too distinct and specific to allow
us to pare them away to anything at all reconcilable with
modern sentiments and practice, even by the most extreme
use of the plea of oriental and hyperboli9 language* They
go far beyond a prohibition of mere retaliation or blame
of hasty resentment or vindictive memory. They dis
tinctly command unresisting endurance of violence and
wrong, whether directed against person or property. Now,
can this precept be carried out, and would it be well that
it should be ?
The first consideration that occurs to us is, that obedi
ence to it has never been seriously attempted. The com
mon sense or the common instinct of Christians in all
ages and in all lands, has quietly but peremptorily put it
aside as not meant for use. Indeed, Christians have habit-
* " I say unto you, that ye resist not evil : but whosoever shall smite thee
on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man  take
away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whomsoever shall compel
thee to go a mile, go with him twain. " " Put up thy sword, for all they that
take the sword shall perish by the sword." "Blessed are the Meek, for they
shall inherit the Earth."
It is true that in one of the Evangelists, just before his arrest, Jesus is
reported to have said to the twelve : "He that hath no sword, let him sell
his garment and buy one." But the passage is so unintelligible, and so
entirely out of keeping with the context, that it is almost certainly a case of
misreporting, or misconception, or wholly unwarranted tradition. A few
hours later, Jesus said " My kingdom is not of this world : else would my
servants fight."

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 39
ually fought from the earliest times just as savagely as
Pagans. They have seldom dreamed even of confining
themselves to self-defence — self-defence, indeed, being-
condemned just as decidedly as aggression. Nay, they
have habitually fought in the name, and, as they firmly
believed, in the cause of Christ, have gloried in the title of
" good soldiers of Christ," have died with priestly blessing
and absolution amid the rage of conflict, confident that
their reward was sure, and that angels would bear them
straightway to the bosom of the beloved Master whose
orders they had so strangely set at naught. One sect,
indeed, among Christians have professed to take this pre
cept of Jesus literally — and what precept is to be so taken
if this is not ? — and have professed to obey it to the letter.
But in the first place, the Society of Friends never pre
tended to carry out more than one-half of it. They never
went the length commanded in the text of facilitating
assault and coercion. They never, we believe, denied them
selves the luxury of passive resistance in its most resolute
and ingenious devices. They did not return a blow ; but
they did not make the first so easy or so pleasant as to
invite a second. And they have nearly died out. In the
next place, they tried the experiment under circumstances
which practically made non-resistance comparatively safe
and easy, — namely, under the segis of police and law. It
is but seldom that any of us now have actually to ward
off a blow, or by force to resist an attempt at robbery,
because, theoretically and potentially at least, the assail
ant knows and we know that the accredited guardians of
order are there to do it for us. In fact, the daily routine
of civilized life is organized on the assumption that the
necessity for self-defence and resistance to evil is taken off
our hands. Obedience to Christ's precept becomes won
derfully simplified — or rather it is dexterously evaded —
when we have only to hand over our enemy to the nearest
constable. We, in fact, do resist, and resist like the merest
Pagan ; — only we resist by deputy — disobeying vicari
ously, that we may be in a condition to obey in person.
The truth is, that the whole of our criminal law and our
police arrangements are based upon a systematic repudi-

40 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
ation of the precept in question. ; and the order of modern
Society, and the security of modern life could not other
wise exist. In savage communities and in disordered
times, every man must succumb to violence or must defend
himself. In such times obedience to the Christian precept
would simply mean the extermination or enslavement of
all Christians, the supremacy of the violent by the self-
suppression of the gentle. In our days, division of labour
is in the ascendant ; and we delegate the duties of resist
ing violence and evil to a professional class. If bad men
abound — and where would be the meaning of Christian
precepts and exhortations to a Christian life if they did
not ? — then, if the criminal class are not to prosper and to
reign, police and the repressive and punitive law must
exist and act, must restrain and retribute. Who among us
would for a moment advocate their abolition ? Who that
deems it right to maintain them can pretend that the
Christian precept of non-resistance is obeyable in these
days, or that he is endeavouring to obey it ? His mind
may be penetrated with the spirit of patience, humanity,
and consideration for his fellow men which led Jesus to
utter that command ; but the command itself he simply
repudiates and evades.
The impossibility and impropriety of regarding the pre
cept of non-resistance to evil violence as extant aud oblig
atory becomes obvious from another class of considera
tions. We may, as the Quakers do, deem it forbidden to
resist or resent such violence when directed against our
selves, — though even they practically decline to recognise
that the same command which forbids us to return a blow
forbids us also to ward it off. But no one, however imbued
with the spirit of the Gospel (unless, indeed, false inter
pretations have crushed all the manhood out of him),
would fail to resist the blows directed against our neigh
bours, — against those whom we are taught to love, to assist,
and to protect. A man may be so disciplined as to take
meekly the blow struck at himself, but would never dream
it his duty to endure in the same fashion the blow struck
at the woman leaning on his arm. One command of the
Gospel here distinctly clashes with another, and no one

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 41
doubts for an instant which ought to be obeyed. We are
then landed in the absurdity that of two persons walking
in the street together, violence aimed at A. is to be ac
cepted with submission, and violence aimed at B. to be
resented ; or that A. and B. may each resist the other's
assailant, but not his own.
There is still another view of the subject to be taken.
The worst ill-service you can do to the violent, is to show
them that they may work their wicked will unpunished
and unchecked by the natural instincts of humanity. It
is to make them " masters of the situation," to encourage
them by success and impunity, to enthrone them as mon-
archs of the world. It is to put goodness under the foot
of evil, and so to drive back the progress of Humanity,
to retard the coming of " the Kingdom of Heaven." It
is, too, to harden the sinner in his wrong, the criminal in
his crime, the brute in his brutality ; to teach him to
proceed in outrages and iniquities that pay so well ; to
make him heap up wrath against the day of wrath. Hun
dreds, who would have been stopped at the outset of their
criminal career by prompt and timely resistance, are led
on by the impunity which submission secures, till habits
of crime are formed and recovery becomes hopeless. Non-
resistance, then, becomes connivance and complicity in
wrong. The orthodox reply to these common-sense representa
tions is well known, but has never been convincing.
The wrong-doer, it is said, will be so amazed and melted
by the calm acquiescence of his victim, that his heart
will be touched and his conscience awakened by the un
expected issue. He will be taken unawares, as it were —
approached on an unguarded side ; and thus be disarmed
in place of being baffled, and converted instead of being
defeated. But, we apprehend, this anticipation assumes
one or two postulates fatal to its realization, and some
what contradictory. It assumes that resistance and re
taliation are the rule — else there would be nothing in
the attitude of meek endurance to surprise the violent
man into reflection and repentance. It implies, more
over, a susceptibility on the part of the violent which
D

42 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
the habit of violence soon destroys. It seems, too, to
presuppose a moral atmosphere that could only be cre
ated by a community of non-resisting Christians — or a
world at least in which the wrong-doers were so compar
atively few that they did not suffice to form a public
opinion and class-sympathies of their own. It imagines
the criminal, the oppressor, and the self-seeker, recoiling
from the very facility and completeness of their success,
and at the very moment when the prospect of its joys
most radiantly dawns upon them. It expects them to be
" touched by grace " just when the career of wrong looks
most inviting and most full of promise. Such things may
be ; such things have been in isolated instances. But can
they ever become normal ? Can they be counted upon
so as to form a safe or rational guide for conduct ?
There is, however, one case in which the non-resistance
doctrine is so obviously inapplicable that no one, we be
lieve, has ever dreamed of practising it ; namely, in the
case of quarrels between nations. For one country to
submit to outrage and wrong at the hands of another,
when the means of resistance lay in its power, has never
been held right or obligatory. The question has never
seriously been brought under discussion ; it being per
fectly clear that — the relative position of different nations
from the earliest times even to our own having always
been that of jealous rivalry, ceaseless controversy either
smouldering or flagrant, and hostility latent or avowed —
any people that habitually and notoriously submitted to
violence would simply be overrun, enslaved, or trampled
out. The doctrine of non-resistance would mean nothing
but the destruction of the gentler and finer races, and the
rampant tyranny of the stronger ; the reign of violence,
not of peace ; the triumph of Satan, not of Christ ; in a
word, the suicide of all meek and truly Christian peoples. v
It is plain then that we have here one of three or four
instances in which true Christianity must be held to re
quire a disregard of its own precepts in favour of its own
principles, in which Christ's exhortations are a guide to
the spirit we must cherish, not to the conduct we must

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 43
pursue. We must cultivate the temper which will effec
tually prevent us from being quick to resent or prone to
retaliate or severe to punish ; but without abnegating
those natural instincts which are sometimes our safest
guides, or ceasing to maintain that firm attitude of self-
protection which, under the governance of good feeling
and good sense, is the best antagonist to the prevalence of
violence upon earth.
II. Alms-giving* — Scarcely any precept in the Gos
pel is more distinct or reiterated than this. No duty has
been more peremptorily insisted upon by the Church in
all times and in all countries. It was one of the chief
functions of the monastic institutions in the middle ages.
It was made a legal obligation in the days which succeeded
them. It is periodically inculcated from Protestant pul
pits, and the Catholics are still more positive in enforcing
it on all the faithful. Our own country swarms with
proofs how literally and widely, generation after genera
tion, the obligation has been acknowledged and fulfilled.
The Reports of the Charity Commission, in countless vol
umes, bear testimony to the innumerable charities that
exist, and explain a little what they have done. The rec
ognition of the obligation of alms-giving is, to this day,
nearly as prevalent and as influential as ever. It is of all
Christian precepts that which is most strictly obeyed —
obedience to it being easier than to any other. A pious
man and a tender-hearted woman do not feel comfortable
or good, unless they habitually give to beggars, or spend
a given portion of their income in succouring the poor —
or those who seem such.
Yet nothing can be more certain than that all this is
very wrong and does infinite mischief. The more lit
erally the precept [" give to him that asketh of thee "] is
obeyed, the more harm does it do. No conclusion has
* " Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of
thee turn not thou away." " Sell that thou hast and give alms." "Let
thine alms be in secret, and thy Father, who seeth thee in secret, himself shall
reward thee openly. " " He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that
hath none." "Give alms of such things as ye have; and behold all things
are clean unto you."

44 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
been more distinctly or definitely proved tban that nearly
all charity, popularly so called — more especially all indis
criminate alms-giving — is simply and singularly noxious.
It is noxious most of all to the objects of it — whom it
fosters in all mean and unchristian vices, in idleness, self-
indulgence, and falsehood. It is noxious in the next place
to the deserving and industrious poor, from whom it di
verts sympathy. It is noxious, also, to the entire com
munity, among whom it creates and cherishes a class of
most pernicious citizens. The form which charity has a
tendency to assume in societies so complicated as all civ
ilized societies are growing now, is such as to drain the
practice of nearly all its incidental good, and aggravate its
peculiar mischiefs. The alms-giver has not his kindly
feelings called forth by personal intercourse with the poor ;
he subscribes, he does not give; and charitable endowments
and bequests are ingenious contrivances for diffusing the
most wide-spread pauperism. Paupers become sneaks and
vagrants ; and vagrants soon growinto criminals. It is need
less to dwell on this : — the consentaneous voice of modern
benevolence and statesmanship alike is crying out against
alms-giving as a mischief and a sin — as anything but
philanthropy or charity — as a sentimental self-indulgence,
and the very reverse of a Christian virtue, — a distinct, and
now nearly always a conscious, complicity in imposture,
fraud, laziness, and sensuality. Every one conversant with
the question, all true lovers of their fellow-men, all earnest
and practical labourers in the field of social improvement,
in the precise measure of their experience agree that, in
all schemes and efforts for rectifying the terrible evils of
our crowded civilization, the most ubiquitous and insur
mountable impediments arise out of the practice of indis
criminate alms-giving and systematic charity. One of
the most pernicious and objectionable of our daily habits is
in strict obedience to one of the clearest and most positive
of Christian precepts.
Nor is it in England only that alms-giving is bad. It
is bad everywhere ; it is bad even in the East ; it is very
bad in Italy ; it is worst of all perhaps in Spain. Every
where it creates a special class of the worthless and the

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 45
vicious, who soon become the criminal. It is of its essence
to do this. The antagonism between the Christian pre
cept and what ought to be the conduct of really Christian
men is direct, complete, undeniable, and all but universal.
The mischief has arisen out of the time-honoured
practice — a practice which surely now-a-days would be
more honoured in the breach than the observance — of
looking into the Gospel as a code of conduct instead of a
well-spring of spiritual influence, and picking out texts
to act by and to judge by, as a French judge opens chap
ter and verse of the Code Napoleon, — instead of imbuing
ourselves with " the same mind that was in Christ," and
letting our behaviour afterwards flow freely therefrom.
Christ directed us " to do good " to our fellow-men, espe
cially to the poor and helpless among them. In our stu
pid literalism we have taken this as a command to do all
the harm we can. " He that hath two coats, let him
impart to him that hath none," — read as an exhortation
to use our abundance and our advantages to succour the
needy and assist the less fortunate, is conceived in a beau
tiful and righteous spirit. But how when the second
coat has been provided to meet next year's exigencies at
the cost of much difficult self-denial, and when the coat
of the coatless man has been pawned for drink, and when
the one which I gave him is sure to follow its predecessor up
the spout ? Is thrift to be discouraged and sodden sensu
ality to be fostered, in the name of Christian duty ? The
solution of the difficulty is very rplain. Jesus put the
abstract principle in a parable or a concrete shape — as he
always did : — He commanded a benevolent frame of mind
in the form of a precept to the simplest action to which
that frame of mind would instinctively lead in circum^
stances when reflection would suggest nothing to con^
trol the impulse. Probably he never reflected on the ]
danger of creating a whole tribe of begging impostors/
Perhaps the danger did not exist in that day. In any
case, what he really designed and desired was to produce
a spirit of boundless compassion and love which should
inspire his disciples with anxiety to do all the good possi
ble, to render all the aid possible to those who were in

46 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
distress or want ; Ihis aim was to elevate, not to degrade,
to foster the Christian virtues, not the selfish vices ; and
the very texts that we read as enjoining alms-giving are
really those which, interpreted aright, most distinctly
prohibit it. Here it is not that a Christian life is not feasi
ble in our days ; — it is only that it has become more diffi
cult because less simple; and that in order to disentangle
its dictates from its dicta, and to pierce to its inner signif
icance, demands more intellectual effort and more intel
lectual freedom than we are prone to exercise. Here, if
anywhere, it is " the letter that killeth, and the spirit that
giveth life." What we have to ask ourselves is, " What
would Christ, with all the circumstances before him,
have directed in these times ? "
III. Improvidence. — There is scarcely any exhortation
in the line of social morality more incessantly or more
unanimously addressed to the people of this country than
that which urges them to provide for the future, " to lay
by for a rainy day ; " to store up something of their daily
earnings against the time when those earnings may fail
or be interrupted. Assuredly there is no exhortation of
which they stand more in need, nor one which they more
habitually neglect. Manifestly there is no duty the sedu
lous discharge of which more vitally concerns their future
welfare and their present peace. It is their improvidence
that condemns them to squalor, to indigence, to dependence,
to wretched habitations, to unwholesome surroundings,
and to all those moral evils and dangers which follow in
the wake of these things. Few things can be more cer
tain than that if our working classes are ever to emerge
from their present most unsatisfactory condition, if they
are to become respectable citizens and true Christians,
they must learn to save for to-morrow's needs, and to
regard it as something very like a sin to leave to-morrow
to take care of itself. To spend all their gains when
those gains are ample, as they so habitually do, is ob
viously not only a folly, but something very like a fraud,
— inasmuch as it is wasting their own substance, in re
liance that when it fails they will be fed out of the sub-

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE? 47
stance of others. It is the conduct so distinctly condemned
in the case of the foolish virgins — with an aggravation..
They do not forget to bring their oil ; they deliberately
waste it, — knowing that they may say to their wiser
neighbours, " Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone
out." The workman who in receipt of good wages saves
nothing out of those wages is wilfully improvident, rely
ing on the providence of others ; for what is the property
from which charitable funds are derived and on which
Poor Rates are levied, but the accumulated savings of
the provident and thoughtful ? What is all invested
wealth, indeed, but the steadily augmented economies of
those who, generation after generation, have taken
thought for the morrow ? It is not too much to say that
if our artisan classes would for two generations — perhaps
even for one — be as frugal and as hoarding as the French
peasant is, and as the better portion of the Scotch and
Swiss once were, the whole face of the country would be
changed ; — they would be men of property instead of
being Proletaires ; they could live in comfortable dwellings
in placeof wretched hovels and crowded alleys; they might
be men of comparative leisure instead of mere toilers all day
and every day, from childhood to old age ; education would
be as much within their reach as it is withio. the reach of
their betters now ; and the soil would be prepared in which
all the Christian virtues and most civilized enjoyments
could easily take root and flourish. With providence would
come sobriety, with property would come independence,
and all the facilities for a worthy and happy life would
grow up around them. In a word, providence, if not the
very first duty of the social man, ranks very high among
his duties, and is the sine qua non of any decided and
permanent improvement in either his social or his moral
state. About this there can be no doubt. As to this
there is no difference of opinion.
Yet it is not to be denied that this prime duty, this im
perative obligation, this indispensable condition of human
advancement, is not only deprecated but actually de
nounced and prohibited in that Sermon on the Mount,

48 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
which we are accustomed to look to as the embodiment of
the Christian rule of life.*
The words of Christ, and the exhortations of Christian
statesmen, economists, and moralists, are, then, directly at
variance — and the latter are undeniably in the right.
How is the difficulty to be met 1 How must the discrep
ancy be reconciled ? Why not meet the question honestly
and boldly, and avow that Jesus was addressing hearers
in a very different position and state of mind from the
labourers and artizans of England — hearers who were
wont to be not too careless, but too anxious, about the mor
row; whose climate rendered comparatively little necessary,
and yielded that little to very moderate toil; the conditions
of whose civilization were incomparably simpler than ours,
and the obligations of whose labour less onerous, f It
may well be, then, that the exhortations which were sound
and appropriate to them are inapplicable to us. But we
may probably, with perfect safety and with no irreverence,
go a step further, and observe that Jesus, as was natural
and customary, not only spoke with that Oriental pictur-
esqueness of style which is almost inevitably exaggeration,
but fixed his own thought and directed that of his hearers
upon the one side and phase of truth with which he was
at the moment dealing, to the exclusion of all qualifying
considerations which must be taken into account as soon
as we begin to frame a code of conduct or a system of ac
tion out of one isolated discourse addressed to one fraction
* " Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on  Behold the
fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not better than they ?
.... And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say
unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field . . . shall he not
much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith? .... Take, therefore, no
thought, saying what shall we eat ? or what shall we drink ? or wherewithal
shall we be clothed ? _ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous
ness, and all these things shall be added unto you  Take there
fore, no thought for the morrow ; for the morrow shall take thought for the
things of itself."
f See Renan; Vie de Jlsus, ch. x., for a vivid delineation of the entirely
different surroundings and features of the life of the Galilean fishermen and
peasants to whom these exhortations were originally addressed.

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 49
of a great problem.* Here, as elsewhere, the idea which
lies at the root of the teaching is undeniably correct, —
for that idea deprecates and assails the inordinate worldli
ness which constituted one of the most insurmountable
obstacles to the reception of Christ's doctrine. The error
is ours, not Christ's — and consists in perversely applying
an exhortation addressed to a congregation among whom
a particular quality of mind and temper was in excess to
a congregation with whom it is almost lamentably defi
cient. Had Jesus preached to English artizans, we may
feel certain that he would have chosen a different theme,
and used far other language. But this is by no means all
that needs to be said. Not a word of Christ's rebuke to
those who were eaten up by excessive care for the good
things of the world, and were led thereby to neglect treas
ures immeasurably more precious, can be pleaded in justi
fication of those who are so far from undervaluing these
good things that they insist upon their instantaneous en
joyment and their immediate exhaustion ; who lay by
nothing for to-morrow only because, like the brutes that
perish, they choose to eat up everything to-day ; — who, if
they follow the letter of the law in laying up no treasure
upon earth, utterly flout its spirit, inasmuch as they cer
tainly lay up no treasure in heaven either. To eschew
over-anxiety for future comfort and well-being, in order
that we may be the freer for the work of righteousness,
is the part of all true followers of Jesus : — " to take no
thought for the morrow " that we may indulge the more
unrestrainedly in the indolence and sensualities of to-day,
and to plead Gospel warrant for the sin, is to "wrest Scrip
ture .to our own destruction." It would be well that
divines should make this more clear. The form which
Christ's teaching would take were he to come on earth
now, without the least real change in its essential spirit,
would probably be : — Take thought for to-morrow, and
provide for its necessities, in order that, when to-morrow
* It must be remembered, too. that all these exhortations to lay up treas
ures in heaven, and not on earth, were delivered under the prevailing im
pression that the Kingdom of Heaven, where all things would he differently
ordered, was close at hand.

50 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
comes, you may be free enough from sordid wants and
gnawing cares to have some moments to spare for the
things that belong unto your peace.
IV Denunciation of Wealth. — There is no line of con
duct so emphatically condemned by Christ, and so eagerly
pursued by Christians, as the pursuit of riches. There is
no mistake about either fact. Throughout the Gospels
riches are spoken of not only as a peril and temptation to
the soul, but as something evil in themselves, something
to be atoned for, something to be singled out for condem
nation. The young man who has kept all the command
ments from his youth up, and asks what he must do fur
ther to secure eternal life, is told to despoil himself of all
his great possessions and give them to the poor. He is
reluctant to do so, and Jesus thereupon observes that " a
rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."
According to Luke he said, " Blessed are ye poor, for yours
is the Kingdom of God. Woe unto you that are rich, for
you have received your consolation." '' Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth." In the parable of Dives
and Lazarus, the rich man, without the faintest intima
tion that he had any other fault than wealth, is relegated
to the place of torment ; while the beggar, without the
faintest intimation that he had any other merit but his
indigence and his sores, is carried by angels into Abra
ham's bosom ; and the startling and sole reason assigned
for the award is that now it is the turn of Lazarus to be
made comfortable. It is true that in one passage the
harshness of Christ's denunciation is modified into the
phrase, " How hard it is for them that trust in uncertain
riches to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ; " and when
his disciples are horrified at hearing that hard sentence
about the needle's eye, and exclaim, " Who, then, can be
saved ? " he holds out a mysterious hope that in the infi
nite resources of the Most High some way of escape from
the sweeping condemnation may be found. Still the pre
vailing tone and teaching of the Gospel cannot be gain
said or veiled. It is to the effect that the poor are the
more especial favourites of God ; that wealth is a thing

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 51
to be shunned, not to be sought ; that it distinctly stands
in the way of salvation, and will probably have to be
atoned for hereafter by terrific compensation.
Yet in spite of this emphatic warning, riches have been
the most general pursuit of Christians in all ages and
among all classes, with rare exceptions in the monkish
ages ; among real and earnest, as well as among merely
professing Christians ; among the accredited teachers of
the Gospel (to a considerable extent), as well as among the
mere following flock of lay disciples. Nay more, the most
really Christian nations have been, and still are, the most
devoted to the pursuit of gain ; the most rigidly and os
tentatiously Christian sections of those nations — shall we
say the Quakers and the Scotch ?— have been among the
steadiest and most quietly successful in the search. Nor
do they even affect to fancy that they are wrong or dis
obedient in thus eagerly striving for that wealth which
their Master so distinctly ordered them to eschew and
dread ; — they put aside or pass by his teaching with a sort
of staring unconsciousness, as if it in no way concerned
them ; — with a curious unanimity theyT vote his exhorta
tions obsolete, abstract, or inapplicable ; — the most respect
able of the religious world give one day to their Saviour,
and six days to their ledger ; — the most pious banker, the
purest liver, the most benevolent nobleman, never dreams
of " despising riches," or of casting from him his super
fluous possessions as a snare to his feet and a peril to his
soul. On the contrary, he is grateful to God for them ;
he returns thanks for the favour which has so blessed his
poor efforts to grow affluent ; he resolves that he will use
his wealth for the glory of God.
Now, which is wrong — Christ in denouncing riches, or
Christians in cherishing them ? Our Master in exhorting
us to shun them, or his disciples in seeking them so eager
ly ? Will modern society permit us to despise them ?
And would it be well for modern society that we should ?
—The answer, if we dare to state it plainly, does not seem
to be doubtful, or very recondite. We must imbue our
selves with the spirit of Christ's teaching as enduring and
surviving, ever extant through all forms and all times ; —

52 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
and then we may safely ignore the letter as simply the
accidental and temporary garment in which he clothed
his meaning. This is probably the unperverted impulse
of every true man, if he be a reflective man as well.
Perhaps, indeed, the discrepancy between what Jesus
preached, and that which every good and wise man would
echo now, lies rather in the phraseology than in the essence
of the doctrine. Jesus — living among the poor, cognizant
of their " sacred patience " and their humble virtues, bent
upon startling his world out of the self-indulgent ease into
which it had sunk, and profoundly impressed with the
terrible influence which the abundance and the love of
earthly possessions exercise in enervating the soul, inca
pacitating it for all high enterprise, all self-denying effort,
all difficult achievement, seeing with a clearness which
excluded for the moment all modifying considerations, the
benumbing power of that fatal torpor and apathy which
creeps over even nobler natures when this life is too lux
urious and too joyful, — saw that absolute renunciation
would be easier and safer than the righteous use of wealth.
We, on the other hand, who know — what was invisible
in those simpler days — how necessary is the accumulation
of capital to those great undertakings which carry on the
progress and the civilization of our complex modern com
munities — naturally and rightly regard the employment
of affluence, and not its pursuit or its possession, as the
fit subject of our moral judgments. It was in the grave
of a rich disciple that Jesus was laid after the crucifixion ;
— and in the parable of the talents he praised and recom
pensed the men who had doubled their capital by honest
trading, while condemning and despoiling the feckless and
unprofitable idler. And the wise and right-minded of our
day would denounce as unmercifully as Christ himself the
rich man whose riches blind him to the far higher value
of spiritual aims and intellectual enjoyments; whose lux
ury and lavish expenditure make life difficult for all
around him ; whose ostentation is an evil and a tempta
tion to those who take him as their model ; to whom
opulence is not a grand means, a solemn trust, and a orave
responsibility, but merely a source of sensual indulgence

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 53
and of vacant worthlessness; or passes his youth and man
hood in adding house to house and field to field, wasting
life without what alone renders life worth having. We
see, too, perhaps more clearly than could be seen in earlier
times, that poverty has its own special and terrible tempta
tions and obstacles to virtue, as well as wealth ; and that
with us at least, not affluence indeed, but assuredly com
petence, smooths the way, for the weaker brethren, to a
crowd of Christian excellences. And finally, we recognise
now, what was not known — perhaps was not the case —
then, that though a rich man may use his wealth right
eously and well, it is scarcely possible for him to get rid of
it without doing mischief, and therefore doing wrong.
V. Communism. — It cannot be said that the Gospel
anywhere distinctly preaches a community of goods,
though it may be felt that the general tone of Christ's
exhortations tends in that direction. But there can be no
doubt that the earliest body of disciples, those who con
stituted what is termed the " Church of Jerusalem," did so
interpret the teaching of their Master, and " had all things
in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and
parted them to all, as every man had need." The same
statement is repeated still more fully and distinctly in
the 4th chapter of the Acts : — " There was no one among
them that lacked ;" " lands and houses were sold, and the
produce laid at the apostles' feet for distribution ;" —
" neither said any man that ought of the things which he
possessed was his own, but they had all things common."
It is difficult to describe the sinking of all private prop
erty in a common fund in plainer language ; and the
strange story of Ananias and Sapphira, though the words
are peculiar, can scarcely be held to invalidate the con
clusion. We can scarcely deny, then, that Communism is in some
sort a corollary of Christ's teaching, though not a posi
tively commanded part of Christianity. It has been held
to be such by reforming sects and theorists in many ages,
and various are the attempts recorded in history to re
duce it to practice. The notion has been constantly re-

54 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
appearing during the last century, now in France, now in
America. Many minds of no ordinary power have spo
ken in favour of the conception. Even Mr. J. S. Mill —
who would have been a great Christian if he had not been
a great Thinker — has said that the idea at the root of it
was irrefragably sound : — " that every man should work
according to his capacities, and should receive according
to his wants." Yet nothing is more certain than that
every endeavour to carry out the scheme in practice has
always failed, and as the eminent man just named has ad
mitted, must always fail, — being constantly shipwrecked
on the same rock. The characteristics of human nature
forbid success. As men are constituted, if they receive
according to their wants, they never will work according
to their capacities. If they are fed and provided with all
they need, they will, as a rule, work as little as they can.
As regards masses of men, it is only their regard for self
that will compel them to do their duty by the community.
The institution of private property, the conviction that
" if any man will not work, neither shall he eat," alone
calls forth adequate exertions, alone controls indefinite
multiplication, alone counteracts inveterate laziness, alone
raises nations out of squalor and barbarism, alone lifts
man above the condition of the beasts that perish. Where
communism prevails, nine men out of every ten try to get
as much and to do as little as they can ; — and the system,
therefore, is found to be simply suicidal. It encounters,
too, whenever attempted, another fatal difficulty. It is
impossible for any external authority to determine what
are each man's capacities, or each man's needs. Practi
cally, therefore, communism is fatal to civilization, fatal
to order, fatal to freedom, fatal to progress; — and if
Christianity commands, favours, or indicates communism,
Christianity is fatal to all these good things. But the dim
idea, the sound nucleus, which lies latent in the communis
tic creed — the conception, namely, that all our possessions,
as well as all our gifts, are to be held in trust for the
general good of all — is eminently and distinctively
Christian. It will be answered that Christianity aims, and pro-

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 55
f esses, so to remould men's natures, and to eliminate their
vices, and to neutralize their selfishness, as to make a
community of goods feasible, and not only compatible
with, but conducive to, the highest and surest advance of
the species. But we are dealing with the practical ques
tion : — " Is a Christian life livable in our day ? " And
if Communism be only possible and safe when all men are
moulded in Christ's image, and permeated by his spirit,
and is noxious and fatal to the best interests of humanity
under all other conditions, — then, if a community of
goods be implied in a Christian life, that life indisputably
is not practicable now. It is found in actual fact, and
has been found in all lands and in all times, that the in
stitution of private property, with all the selfishness it
involves, and all the selfishness it fosters, is alone
capable of drawing forth from our imperfect natures
that strenuous and enduring exertion from which
all progress springs. And this experience is the one
sufficing, and perhaps the only unanswerable, justifica
tion of that often assailed and questioned institution.
To sum up the results of our inquiry. It may be safely
pronounced that Non-resistance, Alms-giving, Improvi
dence, and Communism, are not practicable in these days,
and would be decidedly noxious, and therefore obviously
wrong; while contempt of riches, if stopping short of
that naked condemnation of them conveyed in the bald
letter of the Gospel teaching, would be feasible enough.
But the spirit and ^temper which Oriental imagination,
hasty generalization, unreflecting intelligence, unacquaint-
ance with the requirements of complex civilization, and
habitually hyperbolic phraseology, would naturally em
body in those four exhortations, are as obligatory and as
feasible as ever. The thought — the nucleus of inner
meaning — is sacred still and of enduring truth. It is only
the casual and separable shell of words in which that
thought was once conveyed that we must regard as hav
ing passed away, or possibly as never having been more
than figuratively or exceptionally appropriate.
And we may use our freedom of penetrating to the true

6 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
spirit and meaning of Christ's teaching through its casual
or disguising letter, with the more boldness that it is only
this spirit as to which we can feel absolutely certain.
Jesus spoke in Aramaic, while his sayings are recorded for
us in Greek ; — and they must, therefore, have passed
through the process of translation from one language into
another ; and, moreover, from one language into another
whose genius is as singularly distinct as that of the Ger
man from that of the French. The record, too, it is pretty
certain, did not take shape till at least half a century, or
about a generation and a half after the date of the events
recorded — ample time for those events (whether facts
or words) to have been moulded and modified by
the invariable practice of tradition into the con
ceptions of the human intermediaries by whose agency
they were handed down ; — a time so ample that this pro
cess of modification could not fail to have operated large
ly. And, finally, the Gospels themselves abound in in
dications that both the disciples who heard and repeated
Christ's sayings, and the Evangelists who recorded them
in a foreign language, did not always conceive them right
ly or comprehend them fully. Thus, what our English
Testament practically contains is simply the form which
the precepts of a Great Prophet and Master, orally delivered,
have definitively assumed after having passed for a space
of fifty years or more, by the process of oral tradition,
through a succession of uncritical and imaginative minds,
none of which grasped or understood them in their fulness
or their pure simplicity ; and after being subsequently ex
posed to the double risk of transfusion, first from a Se
mitic into an Aryan, and then from a Classic into a Teu
tonic, tongue. It would seem, therefore, self-evident that
this is a case in which reliance on special phrases and ex
pressions, as well as on particular narrative details, must
be singularly unsafe and unwise ; and, as a fact, we find
that even theologians, who most loudly deprecate and re
pudiate this conclusion when formalised in words, do prac
tically recognise its truth, by putting their own gloss and
interpretation on the bare language of Scripture wherever
they find it necessary to do so ;'and that the extent to

IS A CHRISTIAN LIFE FEASIBLE ? 57
which they use this liberty is merely a question of degree.
Only then, we may fairly conclude — indeed are forced to
conclude — only that "mind which was in Christ," that spirit,
temper, enduring and inspiring character — that Life, in
fine, which shone through all his actions and permeated all
his sayings, and which was so vital, so essential, so omnipres
ent and so unmistakable, as to have survived through all the
channels and processes of transmission we have described,
and defied their perils, can safely be taken or followed as his
real teaching. Doubts and disputes among Christians have
been infinite as to the " doctrine " of Christ — as to the
" particulars " of what he said and did. .None, we believe,
ever truly differed as to the tone and temper of his mind
or of his teaching — as to the essential features of his char
acter — as to what he meant by " Me," when he said,
" Follow me," " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of
heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls."
We may see now, too, how shallow and how groundless
are the fallacies of those who jump to the conclusion that
in order to realise and carry out a truly Christian life, it
is necessary to upset Society, to abolish the hierarchy of
ranks, ajid introduce a forced equality of position and
possessions. The Gospel, rightly read, gives no counten
ance to those wild theories of ignorance, thoughtlessness,
and envy. The New Testament contains many precepts
as to our behaviour in those relations which spring out
of that very 'inequality of conditions which Christianity,
in the view of Communists, is supposed to discountenance.
Some of the more distinctively Christian virtues, such as
obedience and humility, would seem to be especially ap
propriate to a social organization where rank, if not " caste,"
holds sway. Certainly, as we have learned by experience,
some of the most unchristian vices, such as envy, lie deep
at the root of the passion for equality, and have been seen
to flourish with malignant strength where that passion
has been most clamorous. Assuredly, too, we should say
that a system of Civilization in which Masters and Ser
vants, Rulers and Subjects, rich and poor, the humble and
the great, are recognised and established, appears to offer
field and scope for a wider range and a greater variety of
E

58 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
Christian excellences than a community in which a dead
level of uniformity should prevail. Nor can we conceive
any single form or manifestation of " the mind which was
in Christ," that may not thrive in fullest vitality in So
ciety as now constituted, and find ample work in purging
its evils and developing its capabilities, without seeking
to disturb its foundations. If Christianity cannot flour
ish under any phase of social and political organiza
tion, — if the seed of its more peculiar qualities can oirly
germinate and fructify in soil enriched with the ruins of
ancient orders and ancestral institutions, and flattened
down by the hard grinding steam-roller of Democracy,—
it can scarcely be the mighty or divine moral agency we
have hitherto conceived it.
Our conclusion, then, is, that we are and may remain
Christians, and that we can and ought to obey the Chris
tian rule of life ; but that in order to do either we must
deal with the kernel, not the husk ; we must penetrate to
the true mind and temper of Jesus through the accretions
which have overlaid it, the literalism which has disfigured
it, and (be it said with all reverence) the Orientalism and
the incompleteness, if not the imperfection, which min
gled with and coloured it. Holding this, the utmost pos
sible conquests of intelligence and learning are divested
of their terrors. It is not with Christianity that science
can ever be at issue ; only with theology calling itself
Christian. And now, having reached a time of life when most sub
jects are grave, and when some have grown very solemn
— when the angry passions of the controversialist can find
no breath or aliment in the thin calm atmosphere of fading
years — when egotism has little left to gather round it —
and when few sentiments survive in pristine vividness
but the love of nature and the reverence for truth, — I may
be allowed one parting word, which, though personal, will
scarcely be deemed obtrusive. I not only disclaim any
position or feeling of antagonism to Christianity ; I claim
to have written this book on behalf, and in the cause, of
the religion of Jesus, rightly understood. I entirely re-

CONCLUDING WORDS. 59
pudiate the pretensions of those whom I hold to have
specially misconceived and obscured that religion, to be
its exclusive or rightful representatives. I hold that
thousands of the truest servants of our Lord are to be
found among those who decline to wear what it is the
fashion to pronounce his livery, with the grotesque and
hideous facings of each successive age. I resent as an ar
rogant assumption the habitual practice of refusing the
name of Christian to all who shrink away from or assail
the errors and corruptions with which its official defen
ders have overlaid the faith of Christ. And I can find no
words of adequate condemnation for the shallow insolence
of men who are not ashamed to fling the "name of atheist"
on all whose conceptions of the Deity are purer, loftier,
more Christian, than their own. Those who dare to dog
matise about His nature or His purposes, prove by that
very daring their hopeless incapacity even to grasp the
skirts or comprehend the conditions of that mighty prob
lem.* Even if the human intellect could reach the truth
about Him, human language would hardly be adequate to
give expression to the transcendent thought. Meanwhile,
recognising and realising this with an unfeigned humble
ness which yet has nothing disheartening in its spirit, my
own conception — perhaps from early mental habit, per-
* It must be that the light divine,
That on your soul is pleased to shine,
Is other than what falls on mine :
For you can fix and formalise
The Power on which you raise your eye <,
And trace him in his palace-skies.
You can perceive and almost touch
His attributes, as such and such —
Almost familiar over much.
You can his thoughts and ends display,
In fair historical array,
From Adam to the judgment-day.
I cannot think Him here or there —
I think Him ever everywhere -
Unfading light, unstifled air.
The Two Theologies : Palm Leaves,
by Lord Houghton.

60 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
haps from incurable and very conscious metaphysical in
aptitude — approaches far nearer to the old current image
of a personal God than to any of the sublimated substi
tutes of modern thought. Strauss's "Universuni," Comte's
"Humanity," even Mr. Arnold's " Stream of Tendency that
makes for Righteousness," excite in me no enthusiasm, com
mand from me no worship. I cannot pray to the "Immen
sities" and the "Eternities" of Carlyle. They proffer me
no help ; they vouchsafe no s\''mpathy ; they suggest no
comfort. It may be that such a Personal God is a mere
anthropomorphic creation. It may be — as philosophers
with far finer instruments of thought than mine affirm —
that the conception of such a being, duly analysed, is
demonstrably a self- contradictory one. But at least in
resting in it, I rest in something I almost seem to realise ;
at least I share the view which Jesus indisputably held
of the Father whom he obeyed, communed with, and wor
shipped ; at least I escape the indecent familiarity and
the perilous rashness, stumbling now into the grotesque,
now into the blasphemous, of the infallible creed-concoc-
tors who stand confidently ready with their two-foot rule
to measure the Immeasurable, to define the Infinite, to
describe in precise scholastic phraseology the nature of
the Incomprehensible, and the substance of the great
Spirit of the universe.
I have but one word more to say — and that is an expres
sion of unfeigned amazement— so strong as almost to throw
into the shade every other sentiment, and increasing with
every year of reflection, and every renewed perusal of
the genuine words and life of Jesus — that, out of anything
so simple, so beautiful, so just, so loving, and so grand,
could have grown up or been extracted anything so mar
vellously unlike its original as the current creeds of
Christendom ; that so turbid a torrent Could have flowed
from so pure a fountain, and yet persist in claiming that
fountain as its source ; that any combination of human
passion, perversity, and misconception could have reared
such a superstructure upon such foundations. Out of the
teaching ofi perhaps the most sternly anti-sacerdotal

CONTRAST BETWEEN CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 61
prophet who ever inaugurated a new religion, has been
built up (among the Catholics and their feeble imitators
here) about the most pretentious and oppressive priest
hood that ever weighed down the enterprise and the
energy of the human mind. Out of the life and words of
a master, whose every act and accent breathed love and
mercy and confiding hope to the whole race of man, has
been distilled (among Calvinists and their cognates) a
creed of general damnation and of black despair. Christ
set at naught " observances," and trampled upon those
prescribed with a rudeness that bordered on contempt :
— Christian worship, in its most prevailing form, has been
made almost to consist in rites and ceremonies, in sacra
ments and feasts and fasts and periodic prayers. Christ
preached personal righteousness, with its roots going
deep down into the inner nature, as the one thing need
ful : — his accredited messengers . and professed followers
say No ! purity and virtue are filthy rags ; salvation is
to be purchased only through vicarious merits and " im
puted " holiness. Jesus taught his disciples to trust in,
and to worship a tender Father, long-suffering and plen
teous in mercy : — those who speak in his name in these
later days, tell us rather of a relentless Judge, in whose
picture, as they draw it, it is hard to recognise either
justice or compassion. In Christ's grand and simple creed,
expressed in his plainest words, " eternal life " was the
assured inheritance of those who loved God with all their
hearts, who loved their neighbours as themselves, and who
walked purely, humbly, and beneficently while on earth :
— in the Christian sects and churches of to-day, in their
recognised formularies and their elaborate creeds, all this
is repudiated as infantine and obsolete ; the official means
and purchase-money of salvation are altogether changed ;
eternal life is reserved for those, and for those only, who
accept or profess a string of metaphysical propositions
conceived in a scholastic brain and put into scholastic
phraseology ; and, to crown the whole, a Hell is conceived
so horrible as to make Heaven an impossibility, — fpr
what must be the temper of the Elect Few who could
taste an hour's felicity, while the immeasurable myriads

62 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION.
of their dearest fellow-beings — their husbands and wivesl
their mothers, their children — were writhing in eterna?
torments within sight and hearing of their paradise
Theologians transmogrify the pure precepts and devotion
of Jesus into a religion as nearly as possible their opposite,
and then decree that, whoever will not adopt their travesty
" without doubt shall perish everlastingly." It is the old
spectacle which so disturbed Jeremiah, reproduced in our
own days : — " A wonderful and a horrible thing is com
mitted in the land ; the prophets prophesy falsely, and
the priests bear rule through their means ; and the people
love to have it so : and what will be the end thereof V
Park Lodge,
September, /873.

PEEFAOE

FI RST EDI^IOF.

This work was commenced in the year 1845, and was
finished in 1848. This much it is necessary to state, that
I may not be supposed to have borrowed without ac
knowledgment from works which have preceded mine in
order of publication.
It is now given to the world after long hesitation; with
much diffidence, and with some misgiving. For some
time I was in doubt as to the propriety of publishing a
work which, if it might correct and elevate the views of
some, might also unsettle and destroy the faith of many.
But three considerations have finally decided me.
First. I reflected that, if I were right in believing that
I had discerned some fragments or gleams of truth which
had been missed by others, I should be acting a criminal
and selfish part if I allowed personal considerations to
withhold me from promulgating them ;— that I was not
entitled to take upon myself the privilege of judging
what amount of new light the world could bear, nor
what would be the effect of that light upon individual
minds ; — that sound views are formed and established by
the contribution, generation after generation, of widows'
mites ; — that if my small quota were of any value it
would spread and fructify, and if worthless, would come
to naught.
Secondly. Much observation of the conversation and
controversy of the religious world had wrought the con
viction that the evil resulting from the received notions

64 PREFACE.
as to Scriptural authority has been immensely under
estimated. I was compelled to see that there is scarcely a
low and dishonouring conception of God current among
men, scarcely a narrow and malignant passion of the hu
man heart, scarcely a moral obliquity, scarcely a political
error or misdeed, which Biblical texts are not, and may
not be without any violence to their obvious signification,
adduced to countenance and justify. On the other hand,
I was compelled to see how many clear, honest, and as
piring minds have been hampered and baffled in their
struggles after truth and light, how many tender, pure,
and loving hearts havebeenhardened,perverted, and forced
to a denial of their nobler nature and their better in
stincts, by the ruthless influence of some passages of
Scripture which seemed in the clearest language to con
demn the good and to denounce the true. No work con
tributed more than Mr. Newman's Phases of Faith, to
force upon me the conviction that little progress can be
hoped either for religious science or charitable feeling till
the question of Biblical authority shall have been placed
upon a sounder footing, and viewed in a very different
light. Thirdly. I called to mind the probability that there
were many other minds like my own pursuing the same
inquiries, and groping towards the same light ; and that
to all such the knowledge that they have fellow-labourers
where they least expected it, must be a cheering and sus
taining influence. | [
It was also clear to me that this work must be per
formed by laymen. Clergymen of all denominations are,
from the very nature of their position, incapacited from
pursuing this subject with a perfect freedom from all ul
terior considerations. They are restrained and shackled
at once by their previous confession of Faith, and by the
consequences to them of possible conclusions. It re
mained, therefore, to see what could be done by an un
fettered layman, endowed with no learning, but bringing to
the investigation the ordinary education of an English
gentleman, and a logical faculty exercised in other walks.
The three conclusions which I have chiefly endeavoured

PREFACE. 65
to make clear are these : — that the tenet of the Inspira
tion of the Scriptures is baseless and untenable under
any form or modification which leaves to it a dogmatic
value ; — that the Gospels are not textually faithful rec
ords of the sayings and actions of Jesus, but occasionally
at least, ascribe to him words which he never uttered, and
deeds which he never did ; — and that the apostles only
partially comprehended, and imperfectly transmitted, the
teaching of their Great Master. The establishment of
these points is the contribution to the progress of reli
gious science which I have attempted to render.
I trust it will not be supposed that I regard this work
in any other light than as a pioneering one. A treatise
on religion that is chiefly negative and critical can never
be other than incomplete, partial, and preparatory. But
the clearing of the ground is a necessary preliminary to
the sowing of the seed ; the removal of superincumbent
rubbish is indispensable to the discovery and extraction
of the buried and intermingled ore ; and the liberation
of the mind from forestalling misconceptions, misguiding
prejudices, and hampering and distracting fears, must pre
cede its setting forth, with any chance of success, in the
pursuit of Truth.
Nor, I earnestly hope, will the book be regarded as
antagonistic to the Faith of Christ. It is with a strong
conviction that popular Christianity is not the religion
of Jesus that I have resolved to publish my views.
What Jesus really did and taught, and whether his
doctrines were perfect or superhuman, are questions
which afford ample matter for an independent work.
There is probably no position more safe and certain,
than that our religious views must of necessity be essen
tially imperfect and incorrect ; — that at best they can
only form a remote approximation to the truth, while
the amount of error they contain must be large and
varying, and may be almost unlimited. And this must
be alike, though not equally, the case, whether these
views are taught us by reason or by revelation ; — that
is, whether we arrive at them by the diligent and honest
use of those faculties with which God has endowed us,

66 PREFACE.
or by listening to those prophets whom He may have
ordained to teach us. The difference cannot be more
than this : that in the latter case our views will contain
that fragment, or that human disguise, of positive truth
which God knows our minds are alone capable of re
ceiving, or which He sees to be fitted for their guidance ;
— while in the former case they will contain that form
or fragment of the same positive truth which He framed
our minds with the capability of achieving. In the one
case they will contain as much truth as we can take in
— in the other, as much as we can discover ; — but in both
cases this truth must necessarily not only be greatly
limited, but greatly alloyed, to bring it within the com
petence of finite human intelligences. Being finite, we
can form no correct or adequate idea of the Infinite : —
being material, we can form no clear conception of the
Spiritual. The question of a Revelation can in no way
affect this conclusion ; since even the Omnipotence of God
cannot infuse infinite conceptions into finite minds, —
cannot, without an entire change of the conditions of our
being, pour a just and full knowledge of His nature into
the bounded capacity of a mortal's soul. Human in
telligence could not grasp it ; human language could not
express it.
"The consciousness of the individual (says Fichte)
reveals itself alone ; — his knowledge cannot pass beyond
the limits of his own being. His conceptions of other
things and other beings are only his conceptions ; — they
are not those things or beings themselves. The living
principle of a living Universe must be infinite, while all
our ideas and conceptions are finite, and applicable only
to finite beings. The Deity is thus not an object of
knowledge, but of faith ; — not to be approached by the
understanding, but by the moral sense ;— not to be con
ceived, but to be felt. All attempts to embrace the in
finite in the conception of the finite are, and must be,
only accommodations to the frailty of man 
" Atheism is a charge which the common understanding
has repeatedly brought against the finer speculations of
philosophy, when, in endeavouring to solve the riddle of

PREFACE. 67
existence, they have approached, albeit with reverence
•and humility, the source from which all existence pro
ceeds. Shrouded from human comprehension in an ob
scurity from which chastened imagination is awed back
and thought retreats in conscious weakness, the Divine
nature is surely a theme on which man is little entitled
to dogmatize. Accordingly it is here that the philosophic
intellect becomes most painfully aware of its own in
sufficiency. . . . But the common understanding has
no such humility ; its God is an Incarnate Divinity ; —
imperfection imposes its own limitations on the Illimi
table, and clothes the inconceivable Spirit of the Universe
in sensuous and intelligible forms derived from finite
nature !"
This conviction once gained, the whole rational basis
for intolerance is cut away. We are all of us (though
not all equally) mistaken ; and the cherished dogmas of
each of us are not, as we had fondly supposed, the pure
truth of God, but simply our own special form of error—
the fragmentary and refracted ray of light which has
fallen on our own minds.*
But are we therefore to relax in our pursuit of truth,
or to acquiesce contentedly in error ? — By no means. The
obligation still lies upon us as much as ever to press for
ward in the search ; for though absolute truth be unattain
able, yet the amount of error in our views is capable of
progressive and perpetual diminution ; and it is not to
be supposed that all errors are equally innocuous. To
rest satisfied with a lower degree of truth than our facul
ties are capable of attaining, — to acquiesce in errors which
we might eliminate, — to lie down consciously and con
tentedly in unworthy conceptions of the Nature and Prov
idence of God, — is treason alike to Him and to our own
Soul. It is true that all our ideas concerning the Eternal
Spirit must, considered objectively, be erroneous; and
* " Our little systems have their day ;
They have their day, and cease to be :
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."
In Memoria/m.

68 PREFACE.
that no revelation can make them otherwise ; — all, there
fore, that we require, or can obtain, is such an image or
idea of Him as shall satisfy our souls, and meet our needs;
— as shall (we may say) be to us subjectively true. But
this conception, in order to become to us such satisfying
and subjective truth, must of course be the highest and
noblest that our minds are capable of forming* ; — every
man's conception of God must consequently vary with
his mental cultivation and mental powers. If he con
tent himself with any lower image than his intellect can
grasp, he contents himself with that which is false to him,
as well as false in fact, — one which, being lower than he
could reach, he must ipso facto feel to be false. The
Peasant's idea of God — true to him — would be false to
me, because I should feel it to be unworthy and inade
quate. If the nineteenth century after Christ adopts the
conceptions of the nineteenth century before him, — if
cultivated and chastened Christians adopt the conceptions
of the ignorant, narrow, and vindictive Israelite, — they
are guilty of thinking worse of God, of taking a lower,
meaner, more-limited view of His Nature, than the facul
ties He has bestowed are capable of inspiring ; — and as
the highest view we are capable of forming must neces
sarily be the nearest to the truth, they are wilfully
acquiescing in a lie. They are guilty of what Bacon calls
" the Apotheosis of error " — stereotyping and canonising
one particular stage of the blunders through which
thought passes on its way to truth.
Now to think (or speak) ill of God is to incur the guilt
of blasphemy. It is surprising that this view of the
matter should so rarely have struck the orthodox. But
they are. so intently occupied with the peril on one side,
that they have become blind or careless to the at least
equal peril that lies on the other. If, as they deem, er
roneous belief be dangerous and criminal, it must be so
whether it err on the side of deficiency or of excess.
They are sensitively and morbidly alive to the peril and

* Religious truth is therefore necessarily progressive, because our powers
are progressive, — a position fatal to positive dogma.

PREFACE. 69
the sin of not believing everything which Revelation has
announced, yet they are utterly blind to what should be
regarded as the deeper peril and the darker guilt of be
lieving that Revelation has announced doctrines dis
honouring to the pure majesty of God. If it be wrong
and dangerous to doubt what God has told us of Himself,
it must surely be equally so, or more so, to believe, on
inadequate evidence or on no evidence at all, that He ever
taught doctrines so derogatory to His attributes as many
which orthodox theology ascribes to Him. To believe
that He is cruel, short-sighted, capricious, and unjust, is
an affront, an indignity, which (on the orthodox supposi
tion that God takes judicial cognizance of such errors)
must be immeasurably more guilty and more perilous, than
to believe that the Jews were mistaken in imagining that
He spoke through Moses, or the Christians in imagining
that He spoke through Paul. He is affirmed to be a
jealous God, an angry God, a capricious God, — punishing
the innocent for the sins of the guilty, — punishing with in
finite and endless torture men whom He had created weak,
finite, and ephemeral, — nay, whom He had foreordained to
sin, — a God who came down from Heaven, walked among
men, feasted at their tables, endured their insults, died by
their hands. Is there no peril in all this ? — no sin in
believing all these unworthy puerilities of a Creator who
has given us Reason and Nature to teach us better things ?
— Yet countless Christians accept them all with hasty and
trembling dismay, as if afraid that God will punish them
for being slow to believe evil of Him.
We have seen that the highest views of religion which
we can attain here must, from the imperfection of our
faculties, be necessarily inaccurate and impure. But we
may go further than this. It is more than probable that
Religion, in order to obtain currency and influence with
the great mass of mankind, must be alloyed with an
amount of error which places it far below the standard
attainable by human capacities. A pure religion — by
which we mean one as pure as the loftiest and most cul
tivated earthly reason can discern — would probably not

70 PREFACE.
be comprehended by, or effective over, the less-educated
portion of mankind. What is truth to the Philosopher
would not be truth, nor have the effect of truth, to the
Peasant. The Religion of the many must necessarily be
more incorrect than that of the refined and reflective few,
— not so much in its essence, as in its forms — not so
much in the spiritual idea which lies latent at the bottom
of it, as in the symbols and dogmas in which that idea is
embodied. In many points true religion would not be
comprehensible by the ignorant, nor consolatory to them,
nor guiding and supporting for them. Nay, true reli
gion would not be true to them : — that is, the effect it
would produce on their mind would not be the right one,
— would not be the same it would produce on the mind
of one fitted to receive it, and competent to grasp it. To
undisciplined minds, as to children, it is probable that
coarser images and broader views are necessary to excite
and sustain the efforts of virtue. The belief in an imme
diate Heaven of sensible delight and glory will enable an
uneducated man to dare the stake in the cause of faith
or freedom ; — the idea of Heaven as a distant scene of
slow, patient, and perpetual progress in intellectual and
spiritual being, would be inadequate to fire his imagina
tion, or to steel his nerves. Again : to be grasped by, and
suitable to, such minds, the views presented them of God
must be anthropomorphic, not spiritual ; — and in propor
tion as they are so they are false : — the views of His Gov
ernment must be special, not universal ; — and in propor
tion as they are so they will be false.* The sanctions
which a faith derives from being announced from Heaven
amid clouds and thunder, and attested by physical prod
igies, are of a nature to attract and impress the rudest
and most ignorant minds — perhaps in proportion to their
rudeness and their ignorance : the sanctions derived from
accordance with the breathings of Nature and the dictates
J There are, we are disposed to think, several indications in Scripture
that the doctrines which Christ desired to teach were put forth by him, not
in the language of strict verity (even as he conceived it), but in that clothing
which would most surely convey to his hearers the practical essentials of the
doctrine— the important part of the idea. — (See Bush's Anastasis, p. 143.)

PREFACE. 71
of the soul, are appreciable in their full strength by the
trained and nurtured intelligence alone.*
The rapid spread and general reception of any religion
may unquestionably be accepted as proof that it contains
some vital truth ; — it may be regarded also as an equally
certain proof that it contains a large admixture of error,
— of error, that is, cognizable and detectable by the higher
human minds of the age. A perfectly pure faith would
find too little preparation for it in the common mind and
heart to admit of prompt reception. The Christian reli
gion would hardly have spread as rapidly as it did, had it
remained as pure as it came from the lips of Jesus. It
owes its success probably at least as much, to the corrup
tions which speedily encrusted it, and to the errors which
were early incorporated with it, as to the ingredient of
pure and sublime truth which it contained. Its progress
among the Jews was owing to the doctrine of the Mes
siahship, which they erroneously believed to be fulfilled
in Jesus. Its rapid progress among the Pagans was
greatly attributable to its metaphysical accretions and its
heathen corruptions. Had it retained its original purity
and simplicity — had it been kept free from all extraneous
admixtures, a system of noble Theism and lofty morality
as Christ delivered it, — where would it now have been 1
Would it have reached our times as a substantive religion ?
— Would truth have floated down to us without borrow
ing the wings of error ? These are interesting, though
purely speculative, questions.
One word in conclusion. Let it not be supposed that
the conclusions sought to be established in this book have
been arrived at eagerly, or without pain and reluctance.
The pursuit of truth is easy to a man who has no human
sympathies, whose vision is impaired by no fond partiali-
All who have eome much into contact with the minds of children or of
the uneducated classes, are fully aware how unfitted to their mental condi
tion are the more wide, catholic, and comprehensive views of religion,
which yet we hold to be the true ones, and how essential it is to them to
have a well-defined, positive, somewhat dogmatic, and above all a divinely-
attested and authoritative creed, deriving its sanctions from without. Such
are best dealt with by rather narrow, decided, and undoubting minds.

72 PREFACE.
ties, whose heart is torn by no divided allegiance. _ To
him the renunciation of error presents few difficulties ;
for the moment it is recognised as error, its charm ceases.
But the case is very different with the Searcher whose
affections are strong, whose associations are quick, whose
hold upon the Past is clinging and tenacious. He may
love Truth with an earnest and paramount devotion ;
but he loves much else also. He loves errors, which were
once the cherished commotions of his soul. He loves dog
mas, which were once full of strength and beauty to his
thoughts, though now perceived to be baseless or falla
cious. He loves the Church where he worshipped in his
happy childhood ; where his friends and his family wor
ship still ; where his grey -haired parents await the resur
rection of the Just : but where he can worship and await
no more. He loves the simple old creed, which was the
creed of his earlier and brighter days ; which is the creed
of his wife and children still ; but which inquiry has
compelled him to abandon. The Past and the Familiar
have chains and talismans which hold him back in his
career, till every fresh step forward becomes an effort and
an agony ; every fresh error discovered is a fresh bond
snapped asunder ; every new glimpse of light is like a
fresh flood of pain poured in upon the soul. To such a
man the pursuit of Truth is a daily martyrdom — how
hard and bitter let the martyr tell. Shame to those who
make it doubly so : honour to those who encounter it
saddened, weeping, trembling, but unflinching still. " I Hi
in vos sseviant qui nesciunt cum quo labore verum inven-
ietur ; qui nesciunt cum quanta difficultate sanetur oculus
interioris hominis."*
To this martyrdom, however, we believe there is an
end : for this unswerving integrity there is a rich and
sure reward. Those who flinch from inquiry because
they dread the possible conclusion ; who turn aside from
the path as soon as they catch a, glimpse of an unwelcome
goal ; who hold their dearest hopes only on the tenure
of a closed eye and a repudiating mind, — will, sooner or

* St. Augustine,

PREFACE. 73
later, have to encounter that inevitable hour when doubt
will not be silenced, and inquiry can no longer be put by;
when the spectres of old misgivings which have been
rudely repulsed, and of questionings which have been
sent empty away, will return " to haunt, to startle, to
waylay ; " — and will then find their faith crumbling
away at the moment of greatest need, not because it is
false, but because they, half wilfully, half fearfully,
grounded it on false foundations. But the man whose
faith in God and futurity has survived an inquiry pur
sued with that " single eye " to which alone light is
promised, has attained a serenity of soul possible only to
the fearless and the just. For him the progress of science
is fraught with no dark possibilities of ruin ; no dreaded
discoveries lie in wait for him round the corner ; since he
is indebted for his short and simple creed, not to shelter
ing darkness, but to conquered light.
The Cbaig, Dec. 4, 1850.

THE
CREED OF CHRISTENDOM

CHAPTER I.
INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES.
When an Inquirer, brought up in the popular Theology of
England, questions his teachers as to the foundations and
evidence of the doctrines he has imbibed, he is referred at
once to the Bible as the source and proof of all : " The
Bible and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants."
The Bible, he is told, is a sacred book of supreme and un
questionable authority, being the production of writers
directly inspired by God to teach us truth — being in the
ordinary phrase, The Word of God. This view of the
Bible he finds to be universal among all religious sects,
and nearly all religious teachers ; all at least, of whom, in
this country, he is likely to hear. This belief in the In
spiration of the Scriptures (®£07n/evo-Tia) is, indeed, stated
with some slight variations, by modern Divines ; some
affirming, that every statement and word was immediately
dictated from on high ; these are the advocates of Plenary
or Verbal Inspiration ; — others holding merely that the
Scriptural writers were divinely informed and authorized
Teachers of truth and narrators of fact, thoroughly im
bued with, and guided by, the Spirit of God, but that the
words, the earthly form in which they clothed the ideas,
were their own. These are the believers in the Essential
Inspiration of the Bible.
It is obvious that the above are only two modes of
stating the same doctrine — a doctrine incapable of being

76 the creed of Christendom.
defined or expressed with philosophical precision, from our
ignorance of the modus operandi of divine influences on
the mind of man. Both propositions mean, if they have
any distinct meaning at all, this affirmation : — that every
statement of fact contained in the Scriptures is true, as
being information communicated by the Holy Spirit —
that every dogma of Religion, every idea of Duty, every
conception of Deity, therein asserted, came from God, in
the natural and unequivocal sense of that expression.
That this is the acknowledged and accepted doctrine of
Protestant Christendom at least is proved by the circum
stance that all controversies among Christian sects turn
upon the interpretation, not the authority of the Scrip
tures ; insomuch that we constantly hear disputants make
use of this language : " Only show me such or such a
doctrine in the Bible and I am silenced." — It is proved,
too, by the pains taken, the humiliating subterfuges so
often resorted too, by men of science, to show that their
discoveries are not at variance with any text of Scrip
ture ; — pains and subterfuges now happily discarded by
nearly all, as unworthy alike of the dignity of Science
and the rights of controversy, and as no longer required
amid the increasing enlightenment of the age. — It is proved
by the observation, so constantly forced upon us, of theo
logians who have been compelled to abandon the theory
of Scriptural Inspiration or to modify i± into a negation
still retaining, as tenaciously as ever, the consequences
and corollaries of the doctrine ; phrases which sprung out
of it, and have no meaning apart from it ; and deductions
which could flow from it alone. — It is proved, moreover,
by the indiscriminate and peremptory manner in which
texts are habitually quoted from every part of the Bible, .»
to enforce a precept, to settle a doctrine, or to silence an
antagonist. — It is proved, finally, by the infinite efforts
made by commentators and divines to explain discrep
ancies and reconcile contradictions which, independently
of this doctrine, could have no importance or significance
.whatever. This, accordingly, is the first doctrine for which our
Inquirer demands evidence and proof. It does not oecur

inspiration of the scriptures. 77
to him to doubt the correctness of so prevalent a belief :
he is only anxious to discover its genesis and its found
ation. He immediately perceives that the Sacred Scrip
tures consist of two separate series of writings, wholly
distinct in their character, chronology, and language —
the one containing the sacred books of the Jews, the other
those of the Christians. We will commence with the
former. Most of our readers who share the popular belief in the
divine origin and authority of the Jewish Scriptures,
would probably be much perplexed when called upon to
assign grounds to justify the conviction which they en
tertain from habit. All that they could discover may be
classed under the following heads :
I. That these books were received as sacred, authori
tative, and inspired Writings by the Jews themselves.
II. That they repeatedly and habitually represent
themselves as dictated by God, and containing His ipsis-
sima verba.
III. That their ' contents proclaim their origin and
parentage, as displaying a purer morality, a loftier re
ligion, and altogether a holier tone, than the unassisted,
uninspired human faculties could, at that period, have
attained. IV. That the authority of the Writers, as directly com-
misioned from on High, was in many cases attested by
miraculous powers, either of act or prophecy.
V. That Christ and His Apostles decided their sacred
character, by referring to them, quoting them, and as
suming or affirming them to be inspired.
Let us examine each of these grounds separately.
I. It is unquestionably true that the Jews received the
Hebrew Canon, or what we call the Old Testament, as a
collection of divinely-inspired writings, and that Christ
ians, on their authority, have generally adopted the same
belief. — Now, even if the Jews had held the same views
of inspiration that now prevail, and attached the modern
meaning to the word ; even if they had known accurately
who were the Authors of the sacred books, and on what

78 the creed of Christendom.
authority such and such writings were admitted into the
Canon, and such others rejected ;— we do not see why
their opinion should be regarded as a sufficient guide and
basis for ours ; especially when we remember that they
rejected as an Impostor the Prophet whom we conceive to
have been inspired beyond all others. What rational or
consistent ground can we assign for disregarding the
decision of the Jews in the case of Jesus, and accepting it
submissively in the case of Moses, David, and Isaiah ?
But, on a closer examination, it is discovered that the
Jews cannot tell us when, nor by whom, nor on what
principle of selection, this collection of books was formed.
All these questions are matters of pure conjecture, or of
difficult and doubtful historic inference ; — and the ablest
critics agree only in the opinion that no safe opinion can
be pronounced. One ancient Jewish legend attributes
the formation of the Canon to the Great Synagogue, an
imagined " company of scribes," o-vmywyr) •ypa/j./ta-rcwv, pre
sided over by Ezra. — Another legend, equally destitute
of authority, relates that the collection already existed,
but had become much corrupted, and that Ezra was in
spired for the purpose of correcting and purifying it ; —
that is, was inspired for the purpose of ascertaining, cor
recting, and affirming the inspiration of his Predecessors.
A third legend mentions Nehemiah as the Author of the
Canon. The opinion of De Wette — probably the first
authority on these subjects — an opinion founded on mi
nute historical and critical investigations, is, that the
different portions of the Old Testament were collected or
brought into their present form, at various -periods, and
that the whole body of it " came gradually into existence,
and, as it were, of itself and by force of custom and public
use, acquired a sort of sanction." He conceives the Pen
tateuch to have been completed about the time of Josiah,
the collection of Prophets soon after Nehemiah, ahd the
devotional writings not till the age of the Maccabees*
His view of the grounds which led to the reception of
* Introduction to the Critical Study of the Old Testament (by Parker),
i. 26-35,

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 79
the various books into the sacred Canon, is as follows : —
" The writings attributed to Moses, David, and the Proph
ets, were considered inspired on account of the personal
character of their authors. But the other writings, which
are in part anonymous, derive their title to inspiration
sometimes from their contents, and sometimes from the
cloud of antiquity which rests on them. Some of the
writings which were composed after the exile — such, for
example, as the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel
— were put on this list on account of the ancient authors
to whom they were ascribed; — others — for example,
Chronicles and Esther — on account of their contents;
and others again, as Ezra and Nehemiah, on account of
the distinguished merit of their authors in restoring the
Law and worship of God."*
Again : the books of the Hebrew Canon were custom
arily classed among the Jews into three several divisions
— the Books of the Law, the Prophets, and the other
sacred writings, or Hagiographa, as they are termed — and
it is especially worthy of remark that Philo, Josephus,
and all the Jewish authorities ascribed different degrees
of inspiration to each class, and moreover did not con
ceive such inspiration to be exclusively confined to the
Canonical writers, but to be shared, though in a scantier
degree, by others ; Philo extending it even to the Greek
translators of the Old Testament ; 'Josephus hinting that
he was not wholly destitute of it himself; and both
maintaining that even in their day the gifts of prophecy
and inspiration were not extinct, though limited to few.-f-
The Talmudists held the same opinion ; and went so far
as to say that a man might derive a certain kind or
degree of inspiration from the study of the Law and the
Prophets. In the Gospel of John xi. 51, we have an inti
mation that the High Priest had a kind of ex officio in
spiration or prophetic power. — It seems clear, therefore,
* De Wette, i. 40.
t De Wette, i. 39-43. A marked confirmation of the idea of graduated
inspiration is to be found in Numbers xii. 6-8. Maimonides (De Wette, ii.
361) distinguishes eleven degrees of inspiration, besides that which was
granted to Moses. Abarbanel (De Wette i. 14) makes a similar distinction.

80 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
that the Jews, on whose authority we accept the Old
Testament as inspired, attached a very different meaning
to the word from that in which our Theologians employ
it ; in their conception it approaches (except in the case
of Moses) much more nearly to the divine afflatus which
the Greeks attributed to tt eir Poets.- — " Between the
Mosaic and the Prophetic Inspiration, the Jewish Church
asserted such a difference as amounts to a diversity . .
To Moses and to Moses alone — to Moses, in the recording
no less than in the receiving of the law — and to every
part of the five books called the books of Moses, the
Jewish Doctors of the generation before and coeval with
the Apostles, assigned that unmodified and absolute
8eoTrvev<TTLa, which our divines, in words at least, attribute
to the Canon collectively."* The Samaritans, we know,
carried this distinction so far that they received the Pen
tateuch alone as of divine authority, and did not believe
the other books to be inspired at all.
It will then be readily conceded that the divine author
ity, or proper inspiration (using the word in our modern,
plain, ordinary, theological sense), of a series of writings
of which we know neither the date, nor the authors, nor
the collectors, nor the principle of selection — cannot de
rive much support or probability from the mere opinion
of the Jews ; especially when the same Jews did not
confine the quality of- inspiration to these writings exclu
sively ; — when a large section of them ascribed this
attribute to five books only out of" thirty -nine ; — and
when they assigned to different portions of the collection
different degrees of inspiration — an idea quite inconsistent
with the modern one of infallibility. — " In infallibility
there can be no degrees."-)-
* Coleridge. Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 19. As I shall have
to refer to this eminent writer more than once, I wish it to be borne in mind
that, though not always speculatively orthodox, he was a dogmatic Christ
ian, and an intolerant Trinitarian ; at least he always held the language of
one. -f Coleridge, p. 18. [Moreover, if we may trust a very remarkable and
learned article on the Talmud, which appeared in the July number, 1873,
of the Edinburgh Eeview, much of the Old Testament which Christian
divines, in their ignorance of Jewish lore, have insisted on receiving and
interpreting literally, the better informed Rabbins never dreamed of regard-

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES.* 81
II. The second ground alleged for the popular belief in
the Inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures, appears to in
volve both a confusion of reasoning, and a misconception
of fact. These writings, I believe I am correct in stating,
nowhere affirm their own inspiration, divine origin, or
infallible authority. They frequently, indeed, use the
expressions, " Thus saith Jehovah," and " the Word of
the Lord came to Moses," &c, which seem to imply
that in these instances they consider themselves as re
cording the very words of the Most High ; but they do
not declare that they are as a whole dictated by God, nor
even that in these instances they are enabled to record
His words with infallible accuracy. But even if these
writings did contain the most solemn and explicit asser
tion of their own inspiration, that assertion ought not to
have, and in the eye of reason could not have, any weight
whatever, till that inspiration is proved from indepen
dent sources — after which it becomes superfluous. . It is
simply the testimony* of a witness to himself, — a testi
mony which the falsest witness can bear as well as the
truest. To take for granted the attributes of a writer
from his own declaration of those attributes, is, one would
imagine, too coarse and too obvious a logical blunder not
to be abandoned as soon as it is stated in plain language.
Yet, in the singular work which I have already quoted —
singular and sadly remarkable, as displaying the strange
inconsistencies into which a craven terror of heresy (or
the imputation of it) can betray even the acutest think
ers — Coleridge says, first, " that he cannot find any such
claim (to supernatural inspiration) made by the writers in
question, explicitly or by implication " (p. 16) ; — secondly,
that where the passages asserting such a claim are sup
posed to be found, " the conclusion drawn from them in
volves obviously a petitio principii, namely, the superna
tural dictation, word by word, of the book in which the
ing as anything but allegorical. The "literalists " they called fools. The
account of the Creation was one of the portions which the unlearned were
specially forbidden to meddle with.]
* " If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true " (i.e., is not to be
regarded), John v. 31.

82 *THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
assertion is found ; for until this is established, the ut
most such a text can prove, is the current belief of the
Writer's age and country " (p. 17) ; and, thirdly, that,
" whatever is referred by the sacred penman to a direct
communication from God ; and whenever it is recorded
that the subject of the history had asserted himself 'to
have received this or that command, information, or as
surance, from a superhuman intelligence ; or where the
Writer, in his own person, and in the character of an his
torian, relates that the word of God came to Priest, '
Prophet, Chieftain, or other Individual ; i" receive the same
with full belief, and admit its inappellable authority "
(p. 27). — What is this, but to say, at p. 27, that he re
ceives as " inappellable " that which, at p. 17, he declares
to involve an obvious petitio principii ? — that any self-
asserted infallibility — any distinct affirmation of divine
communication or command, however improbable, contra
dictory, or revolting — made in any one of a collection of
books, " the dates, selectors, and compilers of which " he
avers to be " unknown, or recorded by known fabulists "
(p. 18), — must be received as of supreme authority, with
out question, and without appeal ? — What would such a
reasoner as Coleridge think of such reasoning as this, on
any other than a Biblical question ?
III. The argument for the inspiration of the Old Tes
tament Scriptures derived from the character of their
contents, will bear no examination. , It is true that many
parts of them contain views of Duty, of God, and of
Man's relation to Him, which are among the purest and
loftiest that the human intellect can grasp ; — but it is no
less true that other passages, at least as numerous and
characteristic, depict feelings and opinions on these topics,
as low, meagre, and unworthy, as ever took their rise in
savage and uncultured minds. These passages, as is well
knownj have long been the opprobium of orthodoxy and
the despair of Theologians ; and so far are they from be
ing confirmatory of the doctrine of scriptural inspiration,
that nothing but the inconsiderate and absolute reception
of this doctrine has withheld men from regarding and
representing them in their true light. The contents of

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 83
the Hebrew Canon as a whole, form the most fatal and
convincing argument against its inspiration as a whole.
By the popular creed as it now stands, the nobler portions
are compelled to bear the mighty burden of the lower
and less worthy ; — and often sink under their weight.
IV. The argument for the Inspiration of the Old Tes
tament Writers, drawn from the supposed miraculous or
prophetic powers conferred upon the writers, admits of a
very brief refutation. In the first place, as we do not
'know who the Writers were, nor at what date the books
were written, we cannot possibly decide whether they
were endowed with any such powers, or not. — Secondly,
as the only evidence we have for the reality of the mira
cles rests upon the divine authority, and consequent un
failing accuracy, of the books in which they are recorded,
they cannot, without a violation of all principles of rea
soning, be adduced to prove that authority and accuracy.
— Thirdly, in those days, as is well known, superhuman
powers were not supposed to be confined to the direct
and infallible organs of the divine commands, nor neces
sarily to imply the possession of the delegated authority
of God ; — as we learn from the Magicians of Pharaoh,
who could perform many, though not all, of the miracles
of Moses ; from the case of Aaron, who, though miracu
lously gifted, and God's chosen High Priest, yet helped
the Israelites to desert Jehovah, and bow down before
the Golden Calf ; — and from the history of Balaam, who,
though in daily communication with God, and specially
inspired by Him, yet accepted a bribe from His enemies
to curse His people, and pertinaciously endeavoured to
perform his part of tiie contract. — And, finally, as the
dogmatic or credential value of prophecy depends on' our
being able to ascertain the date at which it was uttered,
and the precise events which it was intended to predict,
and the impossibility of foreseeing such events by mere
human sagacity, and, moreover, upon the original lan
guage in which the prophecy was uttered not having been
altered by any subsequent recorder or transcriber to
match the fulfilment more exactly ; — and as in the case of
the prophetical books of the Hebrew Canon (as will be

84 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
seen in a subsequent chapter), great doubt rests upon al
most all these points ; and as, moreover, for one predic
tion which was justified, it is easy to point to two which
were falsified, by the event ; — the prophecies, even if oc
casionally fulfilled, can assuredly, in the present stage of
our inquiry, afford us no adequate foundation on which
to build the inspiration of the library (for such it is) of
which they form a part.
V. But the great majority of Christians would, if
questioned, rest their belief in the Inspiration of the Old
Testament Scriptures, upon the supposed sanction or
affirmation of this view by Christ and his Apostles.
— Now, as Coleridge has well argued in a passage already
cited, until we know that the words of Christ conveying
this doctrine have been faithfully recorded, so that we
are actually in possession of his view — and that the
apostolic writings conveying this doctrine were the pro
duction of inspired men — "the utmost such texts can
prove is the current belief of the Writer's age and
country concerning the character of the book then
called the Scriptures." — The inspiration of the Old
Testament, in this point of view, therefore, rests upon the
inspiration of the New — a matter to be presently con
sidered. But let us here ascertain what is the actual
amount of divine authority attributed to the Old, by the
writers of the New Testament.
It is unquestionable that these Scriptures are constantly
referred to and quoted, by the Apostles and Evangel
ists, as authentic and veracious histories. It is unques
tionable, also, that the prophetic writings were considered
by them to be prophecies — to contain predictions of
future events, and especially of events relating to Christ.
They received them submissively ; but misquoted, mis
understood, and misapplied them, as will hereafter be
shewn. Further ; however incorrectly we may believe
the words of Christ to have been reported, his references
to the Scriptures are too numerous, too consistent, and too
probable, not to bring us to the conclusion that he quoted
them as having, and deserving to have, unquestioned
authority over the Jewish mind. On this point, however,

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 85
the opinions of Christ, as recorded in the' Gospel, present
remarkable decrepancies, and even contradictions. On
the one hand, we read of His saying, " Think not that I
am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets : I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto
you, Till Heaven and Earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled."*
He quotes the Decalogue as " from God ;" and he says
that " God spake to Moses."-f- It is true that he nowhere
affirms the inspiration of the Scriptures, but he quotes
the prophecies, and even is said to represent them as
prophesying of him.j He quotes the Psalms controver
sially, to put down antagonists, and adds the remark,
" the Scriptures cannot be broken."§ He is represented
as declaring, once positively and once incidentally, || that
" Moses wrote of him. "IT
On the other hand, he contradicted Moses, and abro
gated his ordinances in an authoritative and peremptory
manner, which precludes the idea that he supposed him
self dealing with the direct commands of God.** This is
done in many points specified in Matth. v. 34-44 ; — in the
case of divorce, in the most positive and naked manner
(Matth. v. 31-32; xix. 8 ; Luke xvi. 18; Mark x. 4-12) ;— in
the case of the woman taken in adultery, who would have
been punished with a cruel death by the Mosaic law, but
whom Jesus dismissed with — "Neitheir do I condemn thee:
go, and sin no more" (John viii. 5-11) ; — in the case of clean
and unclean meats, as to which the Mosaic law is rigorous in
the extreme, but which Christ puts aside as trivial, affirm-
* Matth. r. 17, 18. Luke xvi. 17.
+ Matth. xv. 4-6 ; xxii. 31. Mark vii. 9-13 ; xii. 26.
J Matth. xv. 7 ; xxiv. 15. Luke iv. 17-21 ; xxiv. 27.
§ John x. 35.
II John v. 46. Luke xxiv. 44.
IT It seems more than doubtful whether any passages in the Pentateuch
can fairly be considered as having reference to Christ. But passing over
this, if it shall appear that what we now call " The Books of Moses " were
not written by Moses, it will follow, either that Christ referred to Mosaic
writings which we do not possess ; or that, like the contemporary Jews and
modern Christians, he erroneously ascribed to Moses books which Moses
did not write.
** " Ye have heard that it has been said of old time ; " — " Moses, for the
hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives," &c, &c.

86 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ing that unclean meats cannot defile a man, though
Moses declared that it " made them abominable." (Matth.
xv. 11; Mark vii. 15.) Christ even supersedes m the
same manner one of the commands of the Decalogue —
that as to the observance of the Sabbath, his views and
teaching as to which no ingenuity can reconcile with the
Mosaic law.*
Finally, we have the assertion in Paul's Second Epistle
to Timothy (iii. 16), which, though certainly translatable
two ways.f either affirms the inspiration of the Hebrew
Canon as a whole, or assumes the inspiration of certain
portions of it. On the whole, there can, 1 think, be little
doubt that Christ and his Apostles received the Jewish
Scriptures, as they then were, as sacred and authoritative.
But till their divine authority is established, it is evident
that this, the fifth, ground for believing the inspiration of
the Old Testament merges in the first, i.e., the belief of
the Jews.
So far, then, it appears that the only evidence for the
Inspiration of the Hebrew Canon is the fact that the Jews
believed in it. — But we know that they also believed in
the Inspiration of other writings ; — that their meaning of
the word " Inspiration " differed essentially from that
which now prevails ; — that their theocratic polity had so
interwoven itself with all their ideas, and modified their
whole mode of thinking, that almost every mental sugges
tion, and every act of power, was referred by them directly
to a superhuman origin, % — " If" (says Mr. Coleridge) "we
take into account the habit, universal with the Hebrew
Doctors, of referring all excellent or extraordinary things
* See this whole question most ably treated in the notes to Norton, Genu
ineness of the Gospels, ii. § 7.
+ The English, Dutch, and other versions render it, " All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching," &c. , &c. (an obviously
incorrect rendering, unless it can be shown that yptupri is always used by Paul
in reference to the Sacred Jewish Canon exclusively). The Vulgate, Luther,
Calmet, the Spanish and Arabic versions, and most of the Fathers, trans
late it thus : ' ' All divinely inspired writings are also profitable fov teaching,"
&c. This is little more than a truism. But Paul probably meant, ' ' Do not
despise the Old Testament, because you have the Spirit ; since you know it
was inspired, you ought to be able to make it profitable," &c.
; De Wette, i. 39.

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 87
to the Great First Cause, without mention of the proxi
mate and instrumental causes — a striking illustration of
which may be obtained by comparing the narratives of the
same event in the Psalms and the Historical Books ; — and
if we further reflect that the distinction of the Provi
dential and the Miraculous did not enter into their forms
of thinking — at all events not into their mode of convey
ing their thoughts ; — the language of the Jews respecting
the Hagiographa will be found to differ little, if at all, from
that of religious persons among ourselves, when speaking
of an author abounding in gifts, stirred up by the Holy
Spirit, writing under the influence of special grace, and the
like."* — We know, moreover, that the Mahometans believe
in the direct inspiration of the Koran as firmly as ever did
the Hebrews in that of their sacred books ; and that in
matters of such mighty import the belief of a special na
tion can be no safe or adequate foundation for our own. —
The result of this investigation, therefore, is, that the
popular doctrine of the inspiration, divine origin, and con
sequent unimpeachable accuracy and infallible authority
of the Old Testament Scriptures, rests on no foundation
whatever — unless it shall subsequently appear that Christ
and his Apostles affirmed it, and had means of knowing it
and judging of it, superior to and independent of those
possessed by the Jews of their time.
I have purposely abstained in this place from noticing
those considerations which directly negative the doctrine
in question ; both because many of these will be more
suitably introduced in subsequent chapters, and because,
if a doctrine is shown to be without foundation or un
proved., disproof is superfluous. — In conclusion, let us care
fully note that this inquiry has related solely to the divine
origin and infallible authority of the Sacred Writings, and
is entirely distinct from the question as to the substantial
truth of the narratives and the correctness of the doctrine
they contain — a question to be decided by a different
method of inquiry. Though wholly uninspired, they may
transmit narratives, faithful in the main, of God's dealings

Letters \on Inspiration, p, 21.

88 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
with man, and may be records of a real and authentic
revelation. — All we have yet made out is this : that the
mere fact of finding any statement or dogma in the
Hebrew Scriptures is no sufficient proof or adequate war
ranty that it came from God.
It is not easy to discover the grounds on which the
popular belief in the inspiration, or divine origin, of the
New Testament Canon, as a whole, is based. Probably,
when analysed, they will be found to be the following.
I. That the Canonical Books were selected from the un-
canonical or apocryphal, by the early Christian Fathers,
who must be supposed to have had ample means of judg
ing ; and that the inspiration of these writings is affirmed
by them.
II. That it is natural to imagine that God, in sending
into the World a Revelation intended for all times and
all lands, should provide for its faithful record and trans
mission by inspiring the transmitters and recorders.
III. That the Apostles, whose unquestioned writings
form a large portion of the Canon, distinctly affirm their
own inspiration ; and that this inspiration was distinctly
promised them by Christ.
IV. That the contents of the New Testament are their
own credentials, and by their sublime tone and character,
proclaim their superhuman origin.
V. That the inspiration of most of the writers may be
considered as attested by the miracles they wrought, or
had the power of working.
I. The writings which compose the volume called by us
the New Testament, had assumed their present collective
form, and were generally received throughout the Christian
Churches, about the end of the second century. They
were selected out of a number df others; but by whom they
were selected, or what principle guided the selection, his
tory leaves in doubt. We have reason to believe that in
several instances, writings were selected or rejected, not
from a consideration of the external or traditional evi
dence of their genuineness or antiquity, but from the sup-

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 89
posed heresy or orthodoxy of the doctrines they contained.
We find, moreover, that the early Fathers disagreed among
themselves in their estimate of the genuineness and
authority of many of the books;* that some of them re
ceived books which we exclude, and excluded others which
we admit ; — while we have good reason to believe that
some of the rejected writings, as the Gospel of the He
brews, and that for the Egyptians, and the Epistles of
Clement and Barnabas, have at least as much title to be
placed in the sacred Canon as some already there — the
Epistle to the Hebrews, the second of Peter and that of
Jude, for example.
It is true that several of the Christian Fathers who
lived about the end of the second century, Irenasus, Ter-
tullian, and Clement of Alexandria, distinctly affirm the
inspiration of the Sacred Writings, as those writings were
received, and as that word was understood, by them.f
But we find that they were in the habit of referring to
and quoting indiscriminately the Apocryphal,' as well as
the Canonical Scriptures. Instances of this kind occur in
Clement of Rome (a.d. 100), Clement of Alexandria (a.d.
200), and, according to Jerome, in Ignatius also, who lived
about A.D. 1074: Their testimony, therefore, if valid to
prove the inspiration of the Canonical Scriptures, proves
the inspiration of the rejected Scriptures likewise; and by
necessary sequence proves the error and incompetency of
the compilers of the Canon, who rejected them. No one,
however, well acquainted with the writings of the Fathers,
will be of opinion that their judgment in these matters,
or in any matters, ought to guide our own.§
II. The second argument certainly carries with it, at
first sight, an appearance of much weight ; and is, we be-
* See the celebrated account of the Canon given by Eusebius, where five
of our epistles are " disputed ; " — the Apocalypse, which we receive, is by
many considered " spurious ; " and the Gospel of the Hebrews, which we re
ject, is stated to have been bymany, especially of the Palestinian Christians,
placed among the " acknowledged writings." De Wette, i. 76.
t De Wette, i., 63-66.
X Ibid. p. 54, &c. ... ,
§ See Ancient Christianity, by Isaac Taylor, passim— for an exposition oi
what these Fathers could write and believe. [See also "Literature and
Dogma," by Mr. Arnold, p. 283, for a few curious specimens.]
G

90 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
lieve, with most minds, however unconsciously, the argu
ment which (as Paley expresses it) " does the business."
The idea of Gospel inspiration is received, not from any-
proof that it is so, but from an opinion or feeling that it
ought to be so. The doctrine arose, not because it was
provable, but because it was wanted. Divines can pro
duce no stronger reason for believing in the inspiration of
the Gospel narratives, than their own opinion that it is
not likely God should have left so important a series of
facts to the ordinary chances of history. But on a little
reflection it will be obvious that we have no ground what
ever for presuming that God will act in this or in that
manner under any given circumstances, beyond what
previous analogies may furnish ; and in this case no anal
ogy exists. We cannot even form a probable guess a
priori of His mode of operation ; but we find that gener
ally, and indeed in all cases of which we have any certain
knowledge, He leaves things to the ordinary action of
natural laws ; and if, therefore, it is " natural " to presume
anything at all in this instance, that presumption should
be that God did not inspire the New Testament writers,
but left them to convey what they saw, heard, or believed,
as their intellectual powers and moral qualities enabled
them. The Gospels, as professed records of Christ's deeds and
words, will be allowed to form the most important portion
of the New Testament collection. Now, the idea of God
having inspired four different men to write a history of
the same transactions — or rather of many different men
having undertaken to write such a history, of whom God
inspired four only to write correctly, leaving the others to
their own unaided resources, and giving us no test by
which to distinguish the inspired from the uninspired —
certainly appears self-confuting, and anything but " natu
ral." If the accounts of the same transactions agree,
where was the necessity for more than one ? If they
differ (as they notoriously do), it is certain that only one
can be inspired ; — and which is that one ? In all other
religions claiming a divine origin, this incongruity is
avoided.

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 91
Further, the Gospels nowhere affirm, or even intimate,
their own inspiration* — a claim to credence which, had
they possessed it, they assuredly would not have failed to
put forth. Luke, it is clear from his exordium, had no
notion of his own inspiration, but founds his title to take
his place among the annalists, and to be listened to as at
least equally competent with any of his competitors, on
his having been from the first cognizant of the transactions
he was about to relate. Nor do the Apostolic writings
bear any such testimony to them ; nor could they well do
so, having (with the exception of the Epistles of John)
been composed previous to them.
III. When we come to the consideration of the Apos
tolic writings the case is different. There are, scattered
through these, apparent claims to superhuman guidance
and teaching, though no direct assertion of inspiration.
It is, however, worthy of remark that none of these occur
in the writings of any of the Apostles who were contem
porary with Jesus, and who attended his ministry ; — in
whom, if in any, might inspiration be expected; to
whom, if to any, was inspiration promised. It is true
that we find in John-f- much dogmatic assertion of being
the sole teacher of truth, and much denunciation of all
who did not listen submissively to him; but neither in his
epistles, nor in those of Peter, James, nor Jude, do we
find any claim to special knowledge of truth, or guarantee
from error by direct spiritual aid. All assertions of in
spiration are, we believe, confined to the epistles of Paul,
and may be found in 1 Cor. ii. 10-16 ; Gal. i. 11, 12 ; 1
Thess. iv. 8 ; 1 Tim. ii. 7.
Now, on these passages we have to remark, first, that
" having the Holy Spirit," in the parlance of that day, by
no means implied our modern idea of inspiration, or any
thing approaching to it ; for Paul often affirms that it was

* Dr. Arnold, Christian Life, &c, p. 487,—" I must acknowledge that the
Scriptural narratives do not claim this inspiration for themselves." Cole
ridge, Confessions, &c. , p. 16,—" I cannot find any such claim made by these
writers, either explicitly or by implication."
[t 1st Epistle iv. 6. " We are of God ; he that knoweth God heareth us ;
he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth
and the spirit of error. "]

92 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
given to many, nay, to most, of the believers, and in
different degrees* Moreover, it is probable that a man
who believed he was inspired by God would have been
more dogmatic and less argumentative. He would scarcely
have run the risk of weakening his revelation by a pre
sumptuous endeavour to prove it ; still less by adducing
in its behalf arguments which are often far from being
irrefragable."!* Secondly. In two or three passages he makes a marked
distinction between what he delivers as his own opinion,
and what he speaks by authority : — " The Lord says, not
I ; " — " I, not the Lord ; " — " This J give by permission,
not commandment," &c , &c. Hence, Dr. Arnold infers,!
that we are to consider Paul as speaking from inspiration
wherever he does not warn us that he " speaks as a man."
But unfortunately for this argument the Apostle expressly
declares himself to be "speaking by the word of the
Lord," in at least one case where he is manifestly and
admittedly in error, viz., in 1 Thess. iv. 15 ;§ of which we
shall speak further in the following chapter.
Thirdly. The Apostles, all of whom are supposed to be
alike inspired, differed among themselves, contradicted,
depreciated, and " withstood " one another.||
Fourthly. As we showed before in tjie case of the Old
Testament writers, the Apostles' assertion of their own in
spiration, even were it ten times more clear and explicit
than it is, being their testimony to themselves, could have
no weight or validity as evidence.
But, it will be urged, the Gospels record that Christ
promised inspiration to his Apostles. In the first place,
Paul was not included in this promise. In the next place,
we have already seen that the divine origin of these books
is a doctrine for which no ground can be shown ; and their
correctness, as records of Christ's words, is still to be es
tablished. When, however, we shall have clearly made
* 1 Cor. xii. 8, and xiv. passim.
t Gal. iii. 16 for example [See Arnold's " Literature and Dogma," p. 140.]
J Christian Course and Character, pp. 488-9
[§ See also 1 Cor. vii. 29. Philip, iv. 5.]
|| Gal. ii. 11-14. 2 Peter iii. 16. Acts xv. 6-39. Compare Rom. iii., and
Gal. n. and m., with James ii.

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 93
out that the words promising inspiration were really ut
tered by Christ and meant what we interpret them to
mean, we shall have brought ourselves into the singular
and embarrassing position of raaintsdmngthat Christ j^orn-
ised them that which in result they did not possess ; since
there can be no degrees of inspiration, in the ordinary and
dogmatic sense of the word ; and since the Apostles clear
ly were not altogether inspired, inasmuch as they fell
into mistakes,* disputed, and disagreed among themselves.
The only one of the New Testament writings which
contains a clear affirmation of its own inspiration, is the one
which in all ages has been regarded as of the most doubt
ful authenticity — viz., the Apocalypse. It was rejected
by many of the earliest Christian authorities. It is re
jected by most of the ablest Biblical critics of to-day.
Luther, in the preface to his translation, inserted a protest
against the inspiration of the Apocalypse, which protest
he solemnly charged every one to prefix, who chose to
publish the translation. In this protest one of his chief
grounds for the rejection is, the suspicious fact that this
writer alone blazons forth his own inspiration.
IV. The common impression seems to be that the con
tents of the New Testament are their own credentials —
that their superhuman excellence attests their divine
origin. This may be perfectly true in substance without
affecting the present question ; since it is evident that the
excellence of particular passages, or even of the great
mass of passages in a book, can prove nothing for
the divine origin of the whole — unless it can be shown
that all the portions of it are indissolubly connected.
This or that portion of its contents may attest by its nature
that this or that special portion came from God, but not
that the book itself, including everything in it, had a divine
source. A truth, or a doctrine, may be divinely revealed,
but humanly recorded, or transmitted by tradition ; and
may be mixed up with other things that are erroneous ;

* The error of Paul about the approaching end of the world was shared by
all the Apostles. James v. 8. 1 Peter iv. 7. 2 Peter iii. 12. 1 John ii.
18. Jude, verse 18.

94 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
else the passages of scriptural truth contained in a modern
sermon would prove the whole sermon inspired and infal
lible. V. The argument for Inspiration, drawn from the mir
aculous gifts of alleged recipients of inspiration — a matter
to which we shall refer when treating of miracles — is thus
conclusively met by a recent author : " Shall we say that
miracles are an evidence of inspiration in the person who
performs them ? And must we accept as infallible every
combination of ideas which may exist in his mind ? If
we look at this question abstractedly, it is not easy to
perceive the necessary connection between superhuman
power and superhuman wisdom  And when
we look more closely to the fact, did not the minds of the
Apostles retain some errors, long after they had been gift
ed with supernatural power ? Did they not believe in
demons occupying the bodies of men and swine 1 Did
they not expect Christ to assume a worldly sway ? Did
not their master strongly rebuke the moral notions and
feelings of two of them, who were for calling down fire
from Heaven on an offending village ? It is often said
that where a man's asseveration of his infallibility is com
bined with the support of miracles, his inspiration is sat
isfactorily proved ; and this statement is made on the as
sumption that God would never confer supernatural power
on one who could be guilty of a falsehood. What, then, are
we to say respecting Judas and Peter, both of whom had
been furnished with the gifts of miracle, and employed
them during a mission planned by Christ, and of whom,
nevertheless, one became the traitor of the garden, and
the other uttered against his Lord three falsehoods in one
hour?"* So far, then, our inquiry has brought us to this nega
tive conclusion ; that we can discover no ground for be
hevmg that the Scriptures— i.e., either the Hebrew or the

di^ffMe^^ evefSu^l 1^ ,the-W °f Moses
shall be put to deati-and St Paul sals th t ff " miracles1 » attestation,
preaches any doctrine that conflicts wTth Ms « let iZ JT1 ^ ¥ eaven"
xiii. Galatians i. 8.] ' let mm be accursed," Deut.

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 95
Christian Canonical Writings — are inspired, taking that
word in its ordinary acceptation — viz., that they " came
from God ; " were dictated or suggested by Him ; were
supernaturally preserved from error, both as to fact and
doctrine ; and must therefore be received in all their parts
as authoritative and infallible. This conclusion is per
fectly compatible with the belief that they contain a
human record, and in substance, a faithful record, of a
divine revelation — a human history, and, in the main, a
true history, of the dealings of God with man. But they
have become to us, by this conclusion, records, not revela
tions; — histories to be investigated like other histories ; —
documents of which the date, the authorship, the genu
ineness, the accuracy of the text, are to be ascertained by
the same principles of investigation as we apply to other
documents. In a word we are to examine them and re
gard them, not as the Mahometans regard the Koran, but
as Niebuhr regarded Livy, and as Arnold regarded
Thucydides — documents out of which the good, the true,
the sound, is to be educed.

CHAPTER II.
MODERN MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRA
TION.
The question examined in the last chapter was not " Do
the sacred writings contain the words of inspired truth ?"
but, " Are the writings themselves so inspired as to con
tain nothing else ? Are they supernaturally guaranteed
from error ?" It is clear that these questions are perfectly
distinct. God may send an inspired message to man, but
it does not necessarily follow that the record or tradition
of that message is inspired also.
We must here make a remark, which, if carefully borne
in mind through the discussion, will save much misappre
hension and much misrepresentation. The word Inspira
tion is used, and may, so far as etymology is concerned,
be fairly used, in two very different senses. It may be
used to signify that elevation of all the spiritual faculties
by the action of God upon the heart, which is shared by
all devout minds, though in different degrees, and which
is consistent with infinite error. This is the sense in
which it appears to have been used by both the Jews and
Pagans of old. This is the sense in which it is now used
by those who, abandoning the doctrine of Biblical Inspi
ration as ordinarily held, are yet unwilling to renounce
the use of a word defensible in itself, and hallowed to
them by old associations. Or it may be used to signify
that direct revelation, or infusion of ideas and informa
tion into the understanding of man by the Spirit of God,
which involves and implies infallible correctness. This is
the sense in which the word is now used in the ordinary
parlance of Christians, whenever the doctrine of Biblical
Inspiration is spoken of ;— and it is clear that in this
signification only can it possess any dogmatic value ie
can form the basis of dogmas which are to be received as
authoritative, because taught in or fairly deduced from

MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE. 97
the Scriptures. It is only by establishing this sense of
the word as the correct one, that divines are entitled to
speak of the Bible, or to use it in controversy, as the
" Word of God." To establish the doctrine of " Biblical
Inspiration," by using the word in its first sense, and then
to employ that doctrine, using the word in its second
sense, is an unworthy shift, common among theologians,
as disingenuous as it is shallow.
Now we entirely subscribe to the idea involved in the
first, and what we will call the poetical, sense of the word
Inspiration ; but we object to the use of the word, because
it is sure to be understood by the world of readers in the
second and vernacular sense ; and confusion and fallacy
must be the inevitable result.
The ordinary theory of inspiration prevalent through
out Christendom — viz., that every statement of fact con
tained in the Scriptures is true ; that every view of duty,
every idea of God, therein asserted, " came from God," in
the ordinary and unequivocal sense of that expression, i.e.,
was directly and supernaturally taught by God to the
man who is said to have received the communication —
we have discovered to be groundless, and we believe to be
untenable. Though still the ostensible doctrine, and the
basis on which some of the most difficult portions of the
popular theology are reared, it has, however, been found
so indefensible by acute reasoners and honest divines,
that — unwilling to abandon it, yet unable to retain it —
they have modified and subtilized it into every shade and
variety of meaning — and no meaning. We propose, in
this chapter, to examine one or two of the most plausible
modifications which have been suggested ; to show that
they are all as untenable as the original one ; and that,
in fact, any modification of the doctrine amounts to a de
nial of it. " It is indeed," says Coleridge, " the peculiar
character of this doctrine, that you cannot diminish or
qualify, but you reverse it."
Two of the most remarkable men of our times, Coler
idge and Arnold — one the most subtle thinker, the other
the most honest theologian of the age — have, while ad
mitting the untenableness of the common theory of Inspi-

98 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ration, left us a statement of that which their own minds
substituted for it, and which, in our opinion, is equivalent
to a negation of it. The attempt, though made in the one
case with great fairness, and in the other with great acute-
ness, thus at once to affirm and deny a proposition, has
naturally communicated a vagueness and inconsistency
to their language, which makes it very difficult to grasp
their meaning with precision. We will, however, quote
their own words.
Dr. Arnold writes thus* : — " Most truly do I believe
the Scriptures to be inspired ; the proofs of their inspira
tion grow with the study of them. The Scriptural narra
tives are not only about divine things, but are themselves
divinely framed and superintended. I cannot conceive
my conviction of this truth being otherwise than sure."
(Here, surely, is as distinct an affirmation of the popular
doctrine as could be desired.) He continues : — " Consider
the Epistles of the blessed Apostle Paul, who had the
Spirit of God so abundantly that never, we may suppose,
did any merely human being enjoy a larger share of it.
Endowed with the Spirit as a Christian, and daily receiv
ing grace more largely as he became more and more ripe
for glory, .... favoured also with an abundance of
revelations disclosing to him things ineffable and incon
ceivable — are not his writings most truly to be called in
spired ? Can we doubt that in what he has told us of
things not seen, or not seen as yet, . . he spoke
what he had heard from God ; and that to refuse to be
lieve his testimony is really to disbelieve God ?" Can any
statement of the popular doctrine be more decided or un
shrinking than this ? Yet he immediately afterwards
says, in reference to one of St. Paul's most certain and
often-repeated statements (regarding the approaching end
of the world), "we may safely and reverently say that
bt Paul, in this instance, entertained and expressed a
belief which the event did not justify. "f Now put these
* Christian Course and Character, pp. 486-490
t It is particularly worthy of remark (and seems to have been most nn«o
countably and entirely overlooked by Dr. Arnold throughout his Zument?
that, m the assertion of this erroneous belief, St. Paul expressl^deXres
himself to be speaking " by the word of the Lord."— 1 Thess. iv. 15

MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE. 99
statements together, and we shall see that Dr. Arnold
affirms, as a matter not to be doubted by any reasonable
mind, that when St. Paul speaks of certain things (of
God, of Christ, and of the last day),* he is telling us what
he heard from God, and that to doubt him is to disbelieve
God : yet when he is speaking, of other things (one of
these things being that very " last great day " of which he
had " heard from God ") he may safely be admitted to be
mistaken. What is this but to say, not only that por
tions of the Scripture are from God, and other portions
are from man — that some parts are inspired, and others
are not — but that, of the very same letter by the very
same Apostle, some portions are inspired, and others are
not — and that Dr. Arnold and every man must judge for
himself which are which — must separate by his own skill
the divine from the human assertions in the Bible ? Now
a book cannot, in any decent o» intelligible sense, be said
to be inspired, or carry with it the authority of being —
scarcely even of containing — God's word, if only portions
come from Him, and there exists no plain and infallible
sign to indicate which these portions are — if the same
writer, in the same tone, may give us in one verse a reve
lation from the Most High, and in the next a blunder of
his own. How can we be certain that the very texts
upon which we most rest our views, our doctrines, our
hopes,"!" are not the human and uninspired portion ? What
can be the meaning or nature of an inspiration to teach
Truth, which does not guarantee its recipient from teach
ing error ? Yet Dr. Arnold tells us that " the Scriptures
are not only inspired, but divinely framed and superin
tended ! "
Dr. Arnold then proceeds to give his sanction to what
* His precise words are these : — " Can any reasonable mind doubt that in
what he has told us of . . . . Him who pre-existed in the form of God
before He was manifested in the form of man — of that great day when we
shall arise uncorruptible, and meet our Lord in the air — he spoke what he
had heard from God," &c, &c. Notes, p. 488.
t It is certain that many of the early Christians, readers of St. Paul's
epistles, did rest many of their hopes, and much of the courage which carried
them through martyrdom, on the erroneous notions as to the immediate
coming of Christ, conveyed in such texts as 1 Thess. iv. 15, and then gener
ally prevalent.

-100 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
we must consider as the singular fallacy contained in the
Jewish notion, about different degrees of inspiration.* "It
is an unwarrantable interpretation of the word," he thinks,
" to mean by an inspired work, a work to which God has
communicated his own perfections, so that the slightest
error or defect of any kind in it is inconceivable .
Surely many of our words and many of our actions are
spoken and done by the inspiration of God's spirit, with
out whom we can do nothing acceptable to God. Yet does
the Holy Spirit so inspire us as to communicate to us his
own perfections ? Are our best words or works utterly
free from error or from sin 1 All inspiration does not then
destroy the human and fallible part in the nature which
it inspires ; it does not change man into God. — With one
man, indeed, it was otherwise ; but He was both God
and man. To Him the Spirit was given without measure;
and as his life was without sin, so his words were with
out error. But to all others the Spirit has been given by
measure ; in almost infinitely different measure it is true :
— the difference between the inspiration of the common
and perhaps unworthy Christian who merely said that
" Jesus was the Lord," and that of Moses, or St. Paul, or
St. John, is almost to our eyes beyond measuring. Still
the position remains that the highest degree of inspiration
given to man has still suffered to exist along with it a
portion of human fallibility and corruption."' (
Now, if Dr. Arnold chooses to assume, as he appears to
do,thatevery man who acknowledges Jesus to be the Christ,
is inspired, after a fashion, and means, by the above pas
sage, simply to affirm that Paul and John were inspired,
just as all great and good minds are inspired, only in a
superior degree, proportioned to their superior greatness
and goodness — then neither we, nor any one, will think it
worth their while to differ with him. ' But then to glide,
as he does, into the ordinary and vernacular use of the
word inspiration, is a misuse of language, and involves
the deception and logical fallacy, against which we have
already warned our readers, of obtaining assent to a doc-

Notes, pp. 486, 487.

MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE. 101
trine by employing a word in its philosophical or etymo
logical sense, and then applying that assent to a doctrine
involving the use of the word in its vernacular sense. A
statement or dogma came from God, or it did not. If it
came from God it must be infallible ; — if it did not, it
must be fallible, and may be false. It cannot be both at
the same time. We cannot conceive of a statement corn
ing from God in different degrees — being a little inspired
by Him — being more or less inspired by Him. Unques
tionably He has given to men different degrees of insight
into truth, by giving them different degrees of capacity,
and placing them in circumstances favourable in different
degrees to the development of those capacities ; but by
the inspiration of a book or proposition we mean some
thing very distinct from this ; and to fritter away the
popular doctrine to this, is tantamount to a direct nega
tion of it, and should not be disguised by the subtilties
of language.
Coleridge's view of Bible Inspiration is almost as diffi
cult to comprehend as Dr. Arnold's, for though his rea
soning is more exact, his contradictions seem to us as ir
reconcilable. His denial of the doctrine of plenary in
spiration is as direct as can be expressed in language.
" The doctrine of the Jewish Cabbaksts," says he,* " will
be found to contain the only intelligible and consistent
idea of that plenary inspiration which later Divines ex
tend to all the canonical books ; as thus : — ' The Penta
teuch is but one word, even the Word of God ; and the
letters and articulate sounds by which this word is com
municated to our human apprehensions, are likewise di
vinely communicated.' Now for ' Pentateuch,' substitute
' Old and New Testament,' and then I say that this is the
doctrine which I reject as superstitious and unscriptural.
And yet as long as the conceptions of the Revealing Word
and the Inspiring Spirit are identified and confounded, I
assert that whatever says less than this, says little more
than nothing. For how can absolute infallibility be
blended with fallibility ? Where is the infallible criterion ?
* Letters on Inspiration, p. 19.

102 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
And how can infallible truth be infallibly conveyed in
defective and fallible expressions ? "
This is the very argument we have used above, and
which the writer we are quoting repeats elsewhere in that
clear and terse language which conveys irresistible con
viction :* — " The Doctrine in question requires me to be
lieve, that not only what finds me, but that all that exists
in the sacred volume, and which I am bound to find
therein, was not only inspired by, that is, composed by
men under the actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but
likewise dictated by an Infallible Intelligence ; — that the
Writers, each and all, were divinely informed as well as
inspired. Now, here all evasion, all excuse is cut off . .
In Infallibility there can be no degrees."
It is not easy to conceive under what modification, or
by what subtile misuse of language, Mr. Coleridge can
hold a doctrine which, in its broad and positive expression,
he declares to be " ensnaring, thorny, superstitious, and
unscriptural," and which, in any less broad and positive
expression, he declares, " says little more than nothing."
We shall see, however, that his notion of Biblical Inspir-
stion resolves itself into this : — that whatever in the Bible
he thinks suitable, whatever he finds congenial, what
ever coalesces and harmonizes with the inner and the
prior Light, that he conceives to be inspired — -and that
alone. In other words, his idea is, that portions of the
Bible, and portions only, are inspired, and those portions
are such as approve themselves to his reason. The test
of inspiration to Mr. Coleridge is, accordance with his
own feelings and conceptions. We do not object to this
test — further than that it is arbitrary, varying, individual,
and idiosyncratic : — We merely affirm that it involves a
use of the word " Inspiration," which to common under
standings is a deception and a mockery. His remarks
are thesej : —
" There is a Light higher than all, even the Word that
was in the beginning ;— -the Light, of which light itself is

* Letters on Inspiration, pp. 13, 18.
t Ibid., pp. 9, 10, 13.

MODIFICATIONS of the doctrine. 103
but the shechinah and cloudy tabernacle ; — the Word that
is light for every man, and life for as many as give heed
to it. . . . Need I say that, in perusing the Old
and New Testaments, I have met everywhere more or less
copious sources of truth, power, and purifying impulses ;
— that I have found words for my inmost thoughts, songs
for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs, and pleadings
for my shame and feebleness ? In short, whatever finds
me bears witness for itself that it has proceeded from a
Holy Spirit, even from the same Spirit' which, remaining
in itself, yet regenerateth all other powers, and in all ages
entering into holy souls, maketh them friends of God and
Prophets.' (Wisdom vii.) ... In the Bible there is
more that finds me than I have experienced in all other
books together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater
depths of my being ; and whatever finds me brings with
it irresistible evidence of having proceeded from the Holy
Spirit."* Need we pause to point out what a discreditable tam
pering with the truthful use of language is here ? Of
how many hundred books may the same not be said,
though in a less degree ? In Milton, in Shakespeare, in
Plato, in iEschylus, in Mad. de Stael, ay, even in Byron
and Rousseau, who is there that has not found " words
for his inmost thoughts, songs for his joy, utterance for
his griefs, and pleadings for his shame ? " Yet, would Mr.
Coleridge excuse us for calling these authors inspired ?
And if he would, does he not know that the alleged in
spiration of the Scriptures means something not only very
superior to, but totally different from, this.
It is necessary to recall to our readers, what Coleridge
seems entirely to have lost sight of — that the real, present,
practical question to be solved is, not " Are we to admit
that all which suits us, ' finds us,' ' agrees with our pre-
established convictions,' came from God, and is to be re
ceived as revealed truth ? " but, " Are we to receive all
we find in the Bible as authoritative and inspired, though
* See also, p. 61, where he says (addressing a sceptic), " Whatever you
find therein coincident with your pre-established convictions, you will, of
course, recognize as the Revealed Word " (!)

104 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
it should shock our feelings, confound our understandings,
contradict our previous convictions, and violate our moral
sense ? " This is the proposition held by the popular and
orthodox Theology. This is the only Biblical question ;
the other is commensurate with all literature, and all life.
Mr. Coleridge rests his justification for what seems to
us a slippery, if not a positively disingenuous, use of lan
guage, on a distinction which he twice lays down in his
" Confessions," between " Revelatfon by the Eternal Word,
and Actuation by the Holy Spirit." Now, if by the
" Holy Spirit," Mr. Coleridge means a Spirit teaching
tnith, or supernaturally conferring the power of perceiv
ing it, his distinction is one which no logician can for a
moment admit. If by the " Holy Spirit," he means a
moral, not an intellectual, influence ; if he uses the word
to signify godliness, piety, the elevation of the spiritual
faculties by the action of God upon the heart ; — then he
is amusing himself, and deluding his readers by " palter
ing with them in a double sense ; " — for this influence has
not the remotest reference to what the popular theology
means by " inspiration." The most devout, holy, pious
men are, as we know, constantly and grievously in error.
The question asked by inquirers, and answered affirma
tively by the current theology of Christendom, is, " Did
God so confer his Spirit upon the Biblical Writers as to
teach them truth, and save them from error ? " If He
did, theirs is the teaching of God ;— if not, it is the teach
ing ot man. There can be no medium, and no evasion.
It cannot be partly the one, and partly the other.
The conclusion of our examination, so far as conducted,
is of infinite importance. It may be stated thus :—
The Inspiration of the Scriptures appears to be a doc
trine not only untenable, but without foundation, if we
understand the term « Inspiration " in its ordinary accep
tation ; and in no other acceptation has it, when applied
to writings, any intelligible signification at all The mere
TiZt^'- therefor\°f **di*S a statement or doctrine
in the Bible, is no proof that it came from God nor anv
sufficient warrant for our implicit and obedient reception
ol it. Admitting, as a matter yet undecided, because un-

MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE. 105
investigated, that the Bible contains much that came from
God, we have still to separate the divine from the human
portions of it.
The present position of this question in the public
mind of Christendom is singularly anomalous, fluctuating,
and unsound. The doctrine of Biblical Inspiration still
obtains general credence, as part and parcel of the popular
theology ; and is retained as a sort of tacit assumption,
by the great mass of the religious world, though aban
doned as untenable by their leading thinkers and learned
men; — many of whom, however, retain it in name, while
surrendering it in substance ; and do not scruple, while
admitting it to be an error, to continue the use of lan
guage justifiable only on the supposition of its truth.
Nay, further ; — with a deplorable and mischievous incon
sistency, they abandon the doctrine, but retain the deduc
tions and corollaries which flowed from it, and from it
alone. They insist upon making the superstructure sur
vive the foundation. They refuse to give up possession
of the property, though the title by which they hold it
has been proved and is admitted to be invalid.

CHAPTER III.
AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHORITY OF THE PENTATEUCH AND
THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON GENERALLY.
The next comprehensive proposition which our Inquirer
finds at the root of the popular theology, commanding
a tacit and almost unquestioned assent, is this : — That
the Old Testament narratives contain an authentic and
faithful History of the actual dealings of God with man ;
— that the events which they relate took place as therein
related, and were recorded by well-informed and veracious
writers ; — that wherever God is represented as visiting
and speaking to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel,
and others, he did really so appear and communicate his
will to them ; — that the ark, as built by Noah, was con
structed under the detailed directions of the Architect
of all Worlds ; — that the Law, as contained in the Penta
teuch, was delivered to Moses and written down by
him under the immediate dictation of Jehovah, and
the proceedings of the Israelites minutely and specifi
cally directed by Him ; — that, in a word, the Old Testa
ment is a literal and veracious history, not merely a na
tional legend or tradition. This fundamental branch of
the popular theology also includes the belief that the
Books of Moses were written by Moses, the book of Joshua
by Joshua, and so on ; and further that the Prophetical
Books, and the predictions contained in the Historical
Books, are bona fide Prophecies — genuine oracles from
the mouth of God, uttered through the medium of His
servants, whom at various times He instructed to make
known His will and institutions to His chosen People.
That this is the popular belief in which we are all
brought up, and on the assumption of which the ordinary
language of Divines and the whole tone of current literal
ture proceeds, no one will entertain a doubt ; and that it
has not been often broadly laid down or much defended

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 107
is attributable to the circumstance, that, among Christians,
it has rarely till of late been directly questioned or openly
attacked. The proposition seems to have been assumed
on the one side, and conceded on the other, with equally
inconsiderate ease.
Now, be it observed that if the Hebrew Narratives
bore, on the face of them, an historical rather than a
legendary character, and were in themselves probable,
natural, and consistent, we might accept them as substan
tially true without much extraneous testimony, on the
ground of their antiquity alone. And if the conceptions
of the Deity therein developed were pure, worthy, and
consistent with what we learn of Him from reason and
experience, we might not feel disposed to doubt the reality
of the words and acts attributed to Him. But so far is
this from being the case, that the narratives, eminently
legendary in their tone, are full of the most astounding,
improbable, and perplexing statements ; and the repre
sentations of God which the Books contain, are often
monstrous, and utterly at variance with the teachings of
Aature and of Christianity. Under these circumstances,
we, of course, require some sufficient reason for acceding
to such difficult propositions, and receiving the Hebrew
Narratives as authentic and veracious Histories ; and the
only reason offered to us is that the Jews believed them*
But we remember that the Greeks believed the Legends
in Herodotus, and the Romans the figments in Livy —
and that the Jews were at least as credulous and as na
tionally vain as either. We need, therefore, some better
sponsors for our creed.
* Even this, however, must be taken cum grano. The Jews do not seem
to have invariably accepted the historical narratives in the same precise and
literal sense as we do. Josephus, or the traditions which were current
among his countrymen, took strange liberties with the Mosaic accounts.
There is a remarkable difference between hi3 account of Abraham's dissimu
lation with regard to his wife, and the same transaction in Genesis xx.—
Moreover, he explains the passage of the Red Sea as a natural, not a mir
aculous event ; and many similar discrepancies might be mentioned. See
De Wette, ii. 42.
Observe, also, the liberty which Ezekiel considers himself warranted in
taking with the Mosaic doctrine that God will visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children (c. xviii. passim), a liberty scarcely compatible with a belief
on his part that such doctrine was, as alleged, divinely announced.

108 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
If, indeed, we were only required to accept the authority
of the Jews for the belief that they sprung from Abra
ham, were captives in Egypt, received a complete code of
Laws and system of theocratic polity from Moses, con
quered Canaan, and committed manifold follies, frauds,
and cruelties in their national career — we might accede
to the demand without much recalcitration. But we are
called on to admit something very different from this.
We are required to believe that Jehovah, the Ruler of all
Worlds, the Pure, Spiritual, Supreme, Ineffable, Creator
of the Universe — Our. Father who is in Heaven — so
blundered in the creation of man, as to repent and grieve
and find it necessary to destroy His own work — selected
one favoured people from the rest of His children — sanc
tioned fraud — commanded cruelty — contended, and for a
while in vain, with the magic of other Gods — wrestled
bodily with one patriarch — ate cakes and veal with an
other — sympathized with and shared in human passions
• — and manifested " scarcely one untainted moral excel
lence " ; — and we are required to do this painful violence
to our feelings and our understandings, simply because
these coarse conceptions prevailed some thousand years
ago among a People whose history, as written by them
selves, is certainly not of a nature to inspire us with any
extraordinary confidence in their virtues or their intellect.
They were the conceptions prevalent among the Scribes and
Pharisees, whom Jesus denounced as dishonourers of re
ligion and corrupters of the Law, and who crucified him
for endeavouring to elevate them to a purer faith.
It is obvious, then, that we must seek for some other
ground for accepting the earlier Scriptural narratives as
genuine histories ;— and we are met in our search by the
assertion that the Books containing the statements which
have staggered us, and the theism which has shocked us
were written by the great Lawgiver of the Jews— by the
very man whom God commissioned to liberate and or
ganize His peculiar People. If indeed the Pentateuch
was written by the same Moses whose doings it records,
the case is materially altered ;-it is no longer a tradi
tional or legendary narrative, but a history by an actor

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 109
and a contemporary, that we have before us. Even this
statement, however, were it made out, would not cast its
segis over the Book of Genesis, which records events from
four to twenty-five centuries before the time of Moses.
But when we proceed to the investigation of this point,
we discover, certainly much to our surprise, not only that.
there is no independent evidence for the assertion that
Moses wrote the books which bear his name — but that
we have nearly all the proof which the case admits of,
that he did not write them,* and that they were not
composed — at all events did not attain their present form
— till some hundreds of years after his death. It is ex
tremely difficult to lay the grounds of this proposition be
fore general readers — especially English readers — in a
form at once concise and clear ; as they depend upon the
results of a species of scientific criticism, with which,
though it proceeds on established and certain- principles,
very few in this country, even of our educated classes,
are at all acquainted. In the conclusions arrived at by
this scientific process, unlearned students must acquiesce
as they do in those of Astronomy, or Philology, or
Geology ; — and all that can be done is to give them a
very brief glimpse of the mode of inquiry adopted, and
the kind of proof adduced : this we shall do as concisely
and as intelligibly as we can ; and we will endeavour to
state nothing which is not considered as established, by
men of the highest eminence in this very difficult branch
of intellectual research.
The discovery in the Temple of the Book of the Law,
in the reign of King Josiah, about B.C. 624, as related in
*" After coming to these results," says De Wette, ii. 160, "we find no
ground and no evidence to show that the books of the Pentateuch were com
posed by Moses. Some consider him their author, merely from traditionary
custom, because the Jews were of this opinion ; though it is not certain that
the more ancient Jews shared it ; for the expressions ' the Book of the Law
of Moses,' ' the Book of the Law of Jehovah by the hand of Moses,' only
designate him as the author or mediator of the Law, not as the author of the
Book. — The Law is ascribed to ' the Prophets ' in 2 Kings xvii. 13, and in
Ezra ix. 11. The opinion that Moses composed these books is not oidy op
posed by all the signs of a later date which occur in the Book itself, but
also by the entire analogy of the history of the Hebrew' literature and lan
guage."

110 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
2 Kings xxii., is the first certain trace of the existence of
the Pentateuch in its present form.* That if this, the
Book of the Law of Moses, existed before this time, it
was generally unknown, or had been quite forgotten, ap
pears from the extraordinary sensation the discovery ex
cited, and from the sudden and tremendous reformation
immediately commenced by the pious and alarmed Mon
arch, with a view of carrying into effect the ordinances
of this law. — Now we find that when the Temple was
built and consecrated by Solomon, and the Ark placed
therein (about b. c. 1000), this " Book of the Law " was
not there — for- it is said (1 Kings viii. 9), " There was
nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which
Moses put there" at Horeb."-f- Yet on turning to Deuter
onomy xxxi. 24-26, we are told that when Moses had
made an end of writing the words of the Law in a book,
he said to the Levites, " Take this book of the law, and
put in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord
your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee,"
&c, fee.
This " Book of the Law '' which was found in the Tem
ple in the reign of Josiah (b. c. 624), which was not there
in the time of Solomon (b. c. 1000), and which is stated
to have been written and placed in the Ark by Moses
(b. c. 1450), is almost certainly the one ever afterwards
referred to and received as the " Law of God," the " Law
of Moses," and quoted as such by Ezra and Nehemiah.^
And the only evidence we have that Moses was the author
of the books found by Josiah, appears to be the passage
in Deuteronomy xxxi., above cited.
But how did it happen that a book of such immeasur
able value to the Israelites, on their obedience to which
depended all their temporal blessings, which was placed
in the sanctuary by Moses, and found there by Josiah,
was not there in the time of Solomon ? — Must it not have
been found there by Solomon, if really placed there by

* De Wette, ii. 153.
t The same positive statement is repeated 2 Chron. v. 10.
X Subsequent references seem especially to refer to Deuteronomy.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. Ill
Moses ? for Solomon was as anxious as Josiah to honour
Jehovah and enforce His Law.* In a word, have we
any reason for believing that Moses really wrote the
Book of Deuteronomy, and placed it in the Ark, as stated
therein ? — Critical science answers in the Negative.
In the first place, Hebrew scholars assure us that the
style and language of the Book forbid us to entertain the
idea that it was written either by Moses, or near his
time ; as they resemble too closely those of the later
writers of the Old Testament to admit the supposition
that the former belonged to the 15th, and the latter to
the 5th century before Christ. To imagine that the
Hebrew language underwent no change, or a very slight
one, during a period of a thousand years — in which the
nation underwent vast political, social, and moral changes,
with a very great admixture of foreign blood — is an idea
antecedently improbable, and is contradicted by all
analogy. The same remark applies, though with some
what less force, to the other four books of the Penta-
teuch.-f- *
Secondly. It is certain that Moses cannot have been
the author of the whole of the Book of Deuteronomy,
because it records his own death, c. xxxiv. It is obvious
also that the last chapter must have been written not
only after the death of Moses, but a long period after,
• as appears from verse 10. " And there arose not a
prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord
knew face to face." Now, there are no critical signs of
style or language which would justify the assumption
that the last chapter was the production of a different
pen, or a later age, than the rest of the Book.
Thirdly. There are several passages scattered through
* Conclusive evidence on this point may, we think, be gathered from
Deut. xxxi. 10, where it is commanded that the Law shall be publicly read
every seventh year to the people assembled at the Feast of Tabernacles ;
and from xvii. 18, where it is ordained that each king on his accession shall
write out a copy of the Law. It is impossible to believe that this command,
had it existed, would have been neglected by all the pious and good kings
who sat on the throne of Palestine. It is clear that they had never heard of
such a command.
+ De Wette, ii. 161,

112 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
the book which speak in the past tense of events which
occurred after the Israelites obtained possession ot the
land of Canaan, and which must therefore have been
written subsequently— probably long subsequently— to
that period. For example : " The Horims also dwelt m
Seir beforetime ; but the children of Esau succeeded them,
when they had destroyed them from before them, and
dwelt in their stead ; as Israel did unto the land of his
possession, which the Lord gave unto them." Deut. ii. 12.
Many other anachronisms occur, as throughout c. iii.,
especially verse 14 ; xix. 14 ; xxiv. 1-3 ; ii. 20-23.
Finally, as we have seen, at xxxi. 26, is a command to
place the Book of the Law in the Ark, and a statement
that it was so placed. Now as it was not in the Ark at
the time when the Temple was consecrated, this passage
must have been written subsequent to that event. See
also verses 9-13.
Now either all these passages must have been subse
quent interpolations, or they decide the date of the whole
book. But they are too closely interwoven, and too har
moniously coalesce, with the rest, to justify the former
supposition. We are therefore driven to adopt the con
clusion of De Wette and other critics, that the Book of
Deuteronomy was written about the time of Josiah, shortly
before, and with a view to, the discovery of the Pentateuch
in the Temple.*
With regard to the other four books attributed to
Moses, scientific investigation has succeeded in making it
quite clear, not only that they were written long after
his time, but that they are a compilation from, or rather
an imperfect fusion of, two principal original documents,
easily distinguishable throughout by those accustomed to
this species of research, and appearing to have been a sort
of legendary or traditionary histories, current among the
earlier Hebrews. These two documents (or classes of
documents) are called the Elohistic, and Jehovistic, from
* It is worthy of remark that the Book of Joshua (x. 13) quotes the Book
of Jashar, which must have been written as late as the time of David (2
Samuel i. 18). See De Wette, ii. 187. X

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 113
the different Hebrew names they employ in speaking
of the Supreme Being ; — the one using habitually the
word Elohim, which our translation renders God, but
which, being plural in the original, would be more cor
rectly rendered The Gods ; — the other using the word
Jehovah, or Jehovah Elohim, The God of Gods — ren
dered inborn- translation The Lord God*
The existence of two such documents, or of two dis
tinct and often conflicting narratives, running side by side,
will -be obvious on a very cursory perusal of the Penta
teuch, more especially of the Book of Genesis ; and the
constant recurrence of these duplicate and discrepant state
ments renders it astonishing that the books in question
could ever have been regarded as one original history, pro
ceeding from one pen. At the very commencement we
have separate and varying accounts of the Creation: —
the Elohistic one, extending from Gen. i.-ii. 3, magnificent,
simple, and sublime, describing the formation of the ani
mate and inanimate world by the fiat of the Almighty, and
the making of man, male and female, in the image of God
— but preserving a total silence respecting the serpent,
the apple, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden ; —
the other, or Jehovistic, extending from Gen. ii. 4 to iii.
24, giving a different account for the formation of man
and woman — describing the Garden of Eden with its four
rivers, one flowing into the Persian Gulf, and another sur
rounding Ethiopiay — narrating the temptation, the sin,
and the curse, and adding a number of minute and puerile
details, bespeaking the conceptions of a rude and early
age, such as God teaching Adam and Eve to make coats of
skins in lieu of the garments of fig leaves they had con
trived for themselves. i
The next comparison of the two documents presents dis
crepancies almost equally great. The document Elohim,
Gen. v. 1-32, gives simply the Genealogy from Adam to
Noah, giving Seth as the name of Adam's firstborn son ; —

* There are, however, other distinctive marks. De Wette, ii. 77. Bauer ;
Theol. des Alt. Test. c. ii. § 1.
t Cush, or " the land of swarthy men."

114 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
whereas the document Jehovah, Gen. iv. 1-26, gives Cain
as the name of Adam's firstborn, and Seth as that ot his
last* Shortly after we have two slightly-varymg ac-
countsf of the flood; one being contained in vi. 9-22; vn.
11-16, 18-22 ; viii. 1-19 ; the other comprising vi. 1-8 ; vn.
7-10, 17, 23.
We will specify only one more instance ot the same
event twice related with obvious and irreconcilable dis
crepancies, viz. the seizure of Sarah in consequence of
Abraham's timid falsehood. The document Elohim (Gen.
xx.) places the occurrence in Gerar, and makes Abimelech
the offender — the document Jehovah (xii. 10-19) places
it in Egypt, and makes Pharaoh the offender ; whilst the
same document again (xxvi. 1-11) narrates the same oc
currence, representing Abimelech as the offender and Gerar
as the locality, but changing the persons of the deceivers
from Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebekah.
Examples of this kind might be multiplied without end;
which clearly prove the existence of at least two historical
documents blended, or rather bound together, in the Pen
tateuch. We will now proceed to point out a few of the
passages and considerations which negative the idea of
either of them having been composed in the age or by the
hand of Moses.^
* " There is," says Theodore Parker, " a striking similarity between the
names of the alleged descendants of Adam and Enos (according to the
Elohim document the grandson of Adam). It is to be remembered that both
names signify Man.
I. II.
1. Adam. 1. Enos. The reader may draw
2. Cain. 2. Cainan. his own inferences from
3. Enoch. 3. Mahalaleel. this, or see those of Butt-
4- Irad. 4. Jared. mann, inhisMythologus,
5. Mehujael. 5. Enoch. 1. c. vii. p. 171.
6. Methusael. 6. Methusaleh.
7. Lamech. (Gen. iv. 17-19.) 7. Lamech. (Gen. v. 9-25.)"
See also on this matter, Kenrick on Primeval History, p. 59.
[t One account affirms that seven specimens of clean beasts went into the
ark ; the other that only two so entered.]
J The formula "unto this day," is frequently found, under circumstances
indicating that the writer lived long subsequent to the events he relates.
(Gen. xix. 38 ; xxvi. 33 ; xxxiii. 32.) We find frequent archseological expla
nations, as Ex. xvi. 36. "Now an omer (an ancient measure) is the tenth
part of an ephah" (a modern measure).— Explanations of old names and
additions of the modern ones which had superseded them, repeatedly occur
as at Gen. xiv. 2, 7, 8, 17 ; xxiii. 2 ; xxxv. 19. • '

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 115
The Elohim document must have been written after the
expulsion of the Canaanites, and the settlement of the
Israelites in the Promised Land, as appears from the fol
lowing passages : — inter alia, —
" Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things ....
that the land vomit not you out also, as it vomited forth
the nations which were before you." (Lev xviii 24 27
28.) " For 1 was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews."
(Gen. xl. 15.) Palestine would not be called the land of
the Hebrews till after the settlement of the Hebrews
therein. " And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba ; the same is Hebron
in the land of Canaan." (Gen. xxiii. 2.) " And Rachel
died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is
Bethlehem" (xxxv. 19). "And Jacob came unto the
city of Arbah, which is Hebron." (xxxv. 27.) These
passages indicate a time subsequent to the erection of
the Israelitish cities.
The document must have been written in the time of
the Kings ; for it says, Gen. xxxvi. 31, " These are the
kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there
reigned any king over the children of Israel." Yet it
must have been written before the end of the reign of
David, since Edom, which David subdued, is represented
in ch. xxxvi. as still independent. The conclusion, there
fore, which critical Science has drawn from- these and
other points of evidence is, that the Elohim documents
were composed in the time of Saul, or about B.C. 1055,
four hundred years after Moses.
The Jehovistic documents are considered to have had
a still later origin, and to date from about the reign of
Solomon, B.C. 1000. For they were written after the ex
pulsion of the Canaanites, as is shown from Gen. xii. 6,
and xiii. 7. " The Canaanite was then in the land."
" The Canaanite and Perizzite dwelt then in the land."
They appear to have been written after the time of the
Judges, since the exploits of Jair the Gileadite, one of
the Judges (x. 4), are mentioned in Numb, xxxii. 41 ;

116 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
after Saul's victory over Agag, King of the Amalekites,
who is mentioned there—" and his king shall be higher
than Agag " (Numb. xxiv. 7) ; and if, as De Witte thinks,
the Temple of Jerusalem is signified by the two expres
sions (Exod. xxiii. 19; xv. 13), "The house of Jehovah,"
and the " habitation of thy holiness," — they must have
been composed after the erection of that edifice. This,
however, we consider as inconclusive. On the other hand,
it is thought that they must have been written before the
time of Hezekiah, because (in Numb, xxi, 6-9) they record
the wonders wrought by the Brazen Serpent, which that
King destroyed as a provocative to Idolatry. (2 Kings
xviii. 4.) We are aware that many persons endeavour to
avoid these conclusions by assuming that the passages in
question are later interpolations. But — not to comment
upon the wide door which would thus be opened to other
and less scrupulous interpreters — this assumption is en
tirely unwarranted by evidence, and proceeds on the
previous assumption — equally destitute of proof— that
the books in question were written in the time of Moses
— the very point under discussion. To prove the Books
to be written by Moses, by rejecting as interpolations all
passages which show that they could not have been
written by him — is a very clerical, but a very inadmis
sible, mode of reasoning.
It results from this inquiry that the Pentateuch as
sumed its present form about the reign of King Josiah,
b.c. 624, eight hundred years after Moses ;— that the
Book of Deuteronomy was probably composed about the
same date ;— that the other four books, or rather the
separate documents of which they consist, were written
between the time of Samuel and Solomon, or from four
to five hundred years after Moses ;— that they record the
traditions respecting the early history of the Israelites
and the Law delivered by Moses then current among the
Priesthood and the People, with such material additions
Z! SeemeJ i^PfL*0 the Pliests of that Period to intro-
t udVr^Tl v I G !1S UOt the Sli§htest reason t0 ex
clude that the historical narratives they contain were any-

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 117
thing more than a collection of the national traditions
then in vogue.*
It should be specially noted that nothing in the above
argument in the least degree invalidates the opinion either
that Moses was the great Organizer of the Hebrew Polity,
or that he framed it by divine direction, and with divine
aid ;— our reasoning merely goes to overthrow the notion
that the Pentateuch contains either the Mosaic or a con
temporary account of the origin of that Polity, or the
early history of that People.
With regard, however, to the first eleven chapters of
Genesis, which contain an account of the ante-Abrahamic
period, a new theory has recently been broached by a
scholar whose competency to pronounce on such a ques
tion cannot be doubted. Mr. Kenrick, in his Essay on
Primeval History, gives very cogent reasons for believing
that the contents of these chapters are to be considered,
not as traditions handed down from the earliest times,
concerning the primitive condition of the human race
and the immediate ancestors of the Jewish nation, but
simply as speculations, originally framed to account for
existing facts and appearances, and by the lapse of time
gradually hardened into narrative — in a word, as sup
positions converted into statements by the process of
transmission, and the authority by which they are pro
pounded. The call of Abraham he conceives to be " the
true origin of the Jewish people, and therefore the point
at which, if contemporaneous written records did not be
gin to supply the materials of history, at least a body of
historical tradition may have formed itself."^ We will
not do Mr. Kenrick the injustice of attempting to con -
* De Wette and other critics are of opinion that both the Elohistic and
Jehovistic authors of the Pentateuch had access to more ancient documents
extant in their times, and think it probable that some of these materials
may have been Mosaic. De Wette, ii. p. 159.
It seems right to state that this chapter was written before the appearance
of Mr. Newman's Hebrew Monarchy, where the whole question is discussed
much more fully, and the decision stated in the text is placed upon what
appears to us an irrefragable foundation. Mr. Newman's work, pp. 328-
338, should be studied by every one who wishes to satisfy his mind on this
important point.
T Essay on Primeval History, p. 11.

118 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
dense his train of reasoning, which he has ^^"^n
in as terse a form as is compatible with perfect clearness
He argues, and in our opinion with great success .that
the Jewish accounts of the Creation, the Deluge, the
confusion of tongues, &c, were the results of attempts,
such as we find among all nations, to explain phenomena
which could not fail to arouse attention, wonder, and
questioning in the very dawn of mental civilization : but
simple and beautiful as many of them are, they betray
unmistakable signs of the partial observation and im
perfect knowledge of the times in which they original ed.
Not only, then, can the so-called Mosaic histories claim
no higher authority than other works of equal antiquity
and reasonableness, but the whole of the earlier portion
of the narrative preceding the call of Abraham, must be
regarded as a combination of popular tradition, poetical
fiction, and crude philosophical speculation— the first ele
ment being the least developed of the three.
Now, what results from this conclusion ? It will be
seen, on slight reflection, that our gain is immense; reli
gion is safer ; science is freer ; the temptation to dishonest
.subterfuge, so strong that few could resist it, is at once
removed ; and it becomes possible for divines to retain
their faith, their knowledge, and their integrity together.
It is no longer necessary to harmonize Scripture and Sci
ence by fettering the one, or tampering with the other ;
nor for men of Science and men of Theology either to
stand in the position of antagonists, or to avoid doing so
by resorting to hollow subtleties and transparent evasions
which cannot but degrade them in their own eyes and de
grade their respective professions in the eyes of the ob
serving world. In order to judge of the sad unworthmess
from which our conclusion exempts us, let us see to what
subterfuges men of high intellect and reputation have
habitually found themselves compelled to stoop.
The divine origin and authority of the Pentateuch
having been assumed, the cosmogony, chronology,* and
*The impossibility of accepting the Biblical chronology of the ante-
Abrahamic times as authentic, arises from three considerations :— first, its

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 119
antediluvian narrative of Genesis were, of course, received
as unimpeachably accurate, and long held unquestioned
sway over the mind of Europe. The first serious suspicion
of their accuracy — for the progress of astronomical science
was rendered formidable only by the absurd decision of
the Court of Rome — was caused by the discoveries of
modern Geology, which, at first doubtful and conflicting,
gradually assumed consistency and substance, and finally
emancipated themselves from the character of mere theo
ries, and settled down into the solid form of exact and
ascertained science. They showed that the earth reached
its present condition through a series of changes prolonged
through ages which might almost be termed infinite ; each
step of the series being marked by the existence of crea
tures different from each other and from those contem
porary with man : and that the appearance of the human
race upon the scene was an event, in comparison, only of
yesterday. This was obviously and utterly at variance
with Mosaic cosmogony : and how to treat the discrepancy
became the question. Three modes of proceeding were
open : — To declare Moses to be right, and the geologists
to be in error, in spite of fact and demonstration, and thus
forbid science to exercise itself upon any subject on which
Holy Writ has delivered "its oracles — and this was the
consistent course of the Church of Rome : To bow before
the discoveries of science, and admit that the cosmogony of
Moses was the conception of an unlearned man and of a rude
age — which is our view of the case : or, To assume that the
author of the Book of Genesis must have known the truth,
and have meant to declare the truth, and that his narrative
irreconcilability with that of the most cultivated nations of primitive an
tiquity, and especially with that of the Egyptians, whose records and monu
ments carry us back nearly 700 years beyond the Deluge — (Kenrick, 57) ; —
secondly, the fact that the length of life attributed to the antediluvian Patri
archs, sometimes reaching nearly to 1000 years, precludes the idea of their
belonging to the same race as ourselves, without a violation of all analogy,
and the supposition of a constant miracle ; — thirdly, the circumstance that
the Hebrew numbers represent the East as divided into regal communities,
populous and flourishing, and Pharaoh reigning over the monarchy of Egypt,
at the time of Abraham's migration, only 427 years after the human race was
reduced to a single family, and the whole earth desolated by a flood. — Mr.
Kenrick argues all these points with great force and learning. — Essay on
Primeval History.

120 THE CRKED OF CHRISTENDOM.
must therefore, if rightly interpreted, agree with the certain
discoveries of modern science. This unhappily;, has been
the alternative most usually resorted to by our Divines and
men of science ; and in furtherance of it they adopt, or at
least counsel, a new interpretation of Holy Writ, to meet
each newdiscovery, and force upon Moses a meaning which
clearly was not in his mind, and which his words— upon
any fair and comprehensible system of interpretation —
will not bear* Instead of endeavouring to discover, by
the principles invariably applied in all analogous cases,
what Moses meant from what Moses said, they infer his
meaning, in spite of his language, from the acknowledged
facts of science, with which they gratuitously and vio
lently assume that he must be in harmony.
Instances of this irreverent and disingenuous treatment
of the Scriptures are numerous among English Divines —
to whom, indeed, they are now chiefly confined : and to
show how fairly we have stated their mode of proceed
ing, we will adduce a few passages from two men of great
eminence in the scientific world, both holding high sta
tions in the Universities and in the Church.
Professor Whewell, in his chapter on the " Relation of
Tradition to Palsetiology" (Phil. Ind. Sc. ii. c. iv.) (which
is really a discussion of the most advisable mode of
reconciling Geology and Pabeontology with Scripture),
speaks repeatedly of the necessity of bringing forward
new interpretations of Scripture, to meet the discoveries
of science. " When," he asks, " should old interpretations
* " It happens," observes Mr. Kenrick, " that the portion of Scripture
which relates to cosmogony and primeval history is remarkably free from
philological difficulties. The meaning of the writer, the only thing which
the interpreter has to discover and set forth, is everywhere sufficiently ob
vious ; there is hardly in these eleven chapters, a doubtful construction, or a
various reading of any importance, and the English reader has, in the or
dinary version, a full and fair representation of the sense of the original.
The difficulties which exist arise from endeavouring to harmonize the Writer's
information with that derived from other sources, or to refine upon his simple
language. Common speech was then, as it is now, the representative of the
common understanding. This common understanding may be confused and
perplexed by metaphysical cross-examination, respecting the action of spirit
upon matter, or of Being upon nonentity, till it ,seems at last to have no
idea what Creation means ; but these subtleties belong no more to the He
brew word than to the English." — Essay, &c, Preface, xv.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 121
be given up; what is the proper season for a religious
and enlightened commentator to make a change in the
current interpretation of sacred Scripture ? ( !) At what
period ought the established exposition of a passage to
be given up, and a new mode of understanding the pas
sage, such as is, or seems to be, required by new discoveries
respecting the laws of nature, accepted in its place ? " (!)
He elsewhere speaks of " the language of Scripture being
invested with a new meaning," quoting with approbation
the sentiment of Bellarmine, that " when demonstration
shall establish the earth's motion, it will be proper to in
terpret the Scriptures otherwise than they have hitherto
been interpreted, in those passages where mention is made
of the stability of the earth, and movement of the
Heavens." " It is difficult," says Mr. Kenrick, " to under
stand this otherwise than as sanctioning the principle
that the commentator is to bend the meaning of Scripture
into conformity with the discoveries of science. Such a
proceeding, however, would be utterly inconsistent with
all real reverence for Scripture, and calculated to bring
both it and its interpreter into suspicion and contempt."
Dr. Buckland's chapter (in his Bridgewater Treatise)
on the " Consistency of Geological Discoveries with the
Mosaic Cosmogony," is another melancholy specimen of
the low arts to which the ablest intellects find it neces
sary to condescend, when they insist upon reconciling
admitted truths with obvious and flagrant error. In this
point of view the passage is well worth reading as a
lesson at once painful and instructive. — After commencing
with the safe but irrelevant proposition, that if nature is
God's work, and the Bible God's word, there can be no
real discrepancy between them, he proceeds thus : — " I
trust it may be shown, . not only that there is no incon
sistency between our interpretation of the phenomena of
nature and of the Mosaic narrative, but that the results
of geological inquiry throw important lights on parts of
this history, which are otherwise involved in much ob
scurity. If the suggestions I shall venture to propose
require some modification of the most commonly-received
and popular interpretation of the Mosaic narrative, this

122 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
admission neither involves any impeachment , of the au
thenticity of the text, nor of the judgment of ^ose who
had formerly interpreted it otherwise m the absence of in
formation Is to facts which have been but recently brought
to light; (!) and if, in this respect, geology shall seem to
require some little concession from the literal interpreta
tion of Scripture, it may fairly be held to afford ample
compensation (!) for this demand, by the arge additions
it has made to the evidences of natural religion, in a de
partment where revelation was not designed to give in
formation."— (I. 14.) Then, although he "shrinks from
the impiety of bending the language of Gods book to
any other than its obvious meaning " (p. 25), this theo-
looical man of Science— this Pleader who has accepted a
retainer from both the litigants— proceeds to patch up a
hollow harmony between Moses on the one side, and
Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell on the other, by a series
of suppositions, artificial and strained interpretations, and
unwarranted glosses, through which we cannot follow
him. Instead of doing so, we will put into a few plain
words the real statement in Genesis which he undertakes
to show to be in harmony with our actual knowledge of
astronomy and geology.
The statement in Genesis is this : — That in six days
God made the Heavens and the Earth — (and that days,
and not any other period of time, were intended by the
writer, is made manifest by the reference to the evening
and morning, as also by the Jewish Sabbath) ; — that on
the first day of Creation — (after the general calling into
existence of the Heaven and Earth, according to Dr. Buck-
land*) — God created Light, and divided the day from the
night ; — that on the second day he created a firmament
(or strong vault) to divide the waters under the Earth
from the waters above the Earth — (a statement indicating
a conception of the nature of the Universe, which it is
* Dr. B. imagines that the first verse relates to the original creation of all
things, and that, between that verse and the second, elapsed an interval of
countlesB ages, during which all geological changes preceding the human
era must be supposed to have taken place — in confirmation of which he men
tions that some old copies of the Bible have a break or gap at the end of tht first
verse, and that Luther marked verse 3, as verse 1.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 123
difficult for us, with our clearer knowledge, even to ima
gine) ; — that on the third day, He divided the land from
the water, and called the vegetable world into existence ;
— that on the fourth day, He made the Sun, Moon, and
Stars — (in other words, that He created on the first day
the effect, but postponed till the fourth day the creation
of that which we now know to be the cause) ; — that on the
fifth day, fish and fowl, and on the sixth, terrestrial ani
mals and man, were called into being. — And this is the
singular system of Creation which Dr. Buckland adopts
as conformable to the discoveries of that Science which
he has so materially contributed to advance ; — in spite of
the facts, which he knows and fully admits, that the idea
of " waters above the firmament " could only have arisen
from a total misconception, and is to us a meaningless
delusion ; — that day and night, depending on the relation
between earth and sun, could not have preceded the crea
tion of the latter ; — that as the fossil animals existing
ages before Man — (and, as he imagines, ages before the
commencement of the " first day " of Creation) — had eyes,
light must have existed in their time — long, therefore,
before Moses tell us it was created, and still longer before
its source (our sun) was called into being ; — and, finally,
that many tribes of these fossil animals which he refers
to the vast supposititious interval between the first and
second verses of Genesis, are identical with the species con
temporaneous with Man, and not created therefore till
the 21st or 24th verse.
It will not do for Geologists and Astronomers, who wish
to retain some rags of orthodoxy, however soiled and torn,
to argue, as most do, " that the Bible was not intended as
a revelation of Physical science, but only of moral and
religious truth." This does not meet the difficulty; for
the Bible does not merely use the common language, and
so assume the common errors, on these points — it gives a
distinct account of the Creation, in the same style, in the
same narrative, in the same book, in which it narrates
the Fall of Man, the Deluge, the Revelation to Abraham,
the history of Jacob and Joseph. The writer evidently
had no conception that when he related the Creation of

124 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
the Earth, the Sea, and the Sun, he was inventing or per
petuating a monstrous error; and that when he related
the Fall, he was revealing a mighty and mysterious truth ;
and when he narrated the promise to Abraham, lie was
recording a wondrous prophecy. The Bible professes to
give information, on all these points alike : and we have
precisely the same Scriptural ground for believing that
God first made the Earth, and then the Sun for the espe
cial benefit of the Earth ; that the globe was submerged
by rain which lasted forty days, and that everything
was destroyed, except the Animals which Noah packed
into his Ark — as we have for believing that Adam and
Eve were driven out of Paradise for a transgression ; that
God promised Abraham to redeem the world through his
progeny ; and that Jacob and Moses were the subjects of
the divine communications recorded as being made to
them. All the statements are made in the same affirma
tive style, and on the same authority. The Bible equally
professes to teach us fact on all these matters. There is no
escape by any quibble from the grasp of this conclusion.
In unworthy attempts such as those which Dr. Buck-
land has perpetrated, and Dr. Whewell has advised, the
grand and sublime conception at the basis of the Biblical
Cosmogony has been obscured and forgotten, — viz. That,
contrary alike to the dreams of Pagan and of Oriental
philosophy, Heaven and Earth were not self-existent and
eternal but created — that the Sun - and Moon were not
Gods, but the works of God — Creatures, not Creators.
But another point of almost equal importance is gained
by accepting the Historical books of the Old Testament
as a collection of merely human narratives, traditions, and
speculations. We can now read them with unimpaired
pleasure and profit, instead of shrinking from them with
feelings of pain and repulsion which we cannot conquer
and yet dare not acknowledge. We need no longer do
violence to our moral sense, or our cultivated taste or our
purer conceptions of a Holy and Spiritual God by strug
gling to bend them into conformity with those of a rude
people and a barbarous age. We no longer feel ourselves

AUTHORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 125
compelled to believe that which is incredible, or to admire
that which is revolting* And when we again turn to
these Scriptures with the mental tranquillity due to our
new-born freedom, and read them by the light of our
recovered reason, it will be strange if we do not find in
them marvellous beauties which before escaped us — rich
and fertilizing truths which before lay smothered beneath
a heap of contextual rubbish — experiences which appeal
to the inmost recesses of our consciousness — holy and
magnificent conceptions, at once simple and sublime, which
hitherto could not penetrate through the mass of error
which obscured and overlaid them, but which now burst
forth and germinate into light and freedom. In the beau
tiful language of an often-quoted author (Coleridge, p. '>'.)),
" The Scriptures will from this time continue to rise
higher in our esteem and affection the better understood,
the more dear — and at every fresh meeting we shall have
to tell of some new passage, formerly viewed as a dry
stick on a rotten branch, which has budded, and, like the
rod of Aaron, brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms,
and yielded almonds."
* See in Dr. Arnold's Sermons on the Interpretation of Scripture to what
straits the orthodox doctrine reduces the best and most honest men.

CHAPTER IV
THE PROPHECIES.
A PROPHECY, in the ordinary acceptation of the term,
signifies a prediction of future events which could not
have been foreseen by human sagacity, and the knowledge
of which was supernaturally communicated to the
prophet. It is clear, therefore, that in order to establish
the claim of any anticipatory statement, promise, or de
nunciation, to the rank and title of a prophecy, four
points must be ascertained with precision — viz., what the
event was to which the alleged prediction was intended
to refer ; that the prediction was uttered in specific, not
vague, language before the event ; that the event took
place specifically, not loosely, as predicted ; and that it
could not have been foreseen by human sagacity.
Now, there is no portion of the sacred writings over
which hangs a veil of such dim obscurity, or regarding
the meaning of which such hopeless discrepancies have
prevailed among Christian divines, as the Prophetical
Books of the Hebrew Canon. The difficulties to which
the English reader is exposed by the extreme defects of
the received translation, its confused order, and erroneous
divisions, are at present nearly insuperable. No chronol
ogy is observed ; the earlier and the later, the genuine
and the spurious, are mixed together ; and sometimes the
prophecies of two individuals of different epochs are given
us under the same name. In the case of some of the
more important of them we are in doubt as to the date,
the author, and the interpretation ; and on the question
whether the predictions related exclusively to Jewish or
to general history, to Cyrus or to Jesus, to' Zerubbabel or
to Christ* to Antiochus Epiphanes, to Titus, or to Napo-
* The prophecy of Zechariah, which Archbishop Newcome, in conformity
with its obvious meaning, interprets with reference to Zerubbabel David
son unhesitatingly refers to Christ alone (Disc, on Proph. 340, 2nd ed ) 

THE PROPHECIES. 127
leon ; to events long past, or to events still in the remote
future — the most conflicting opinions have been held
with equal learning. It would carry us too far, and prove
too unprofitable an occupation, to enumerate these con
tradictory interpretations : we shall in preference content
ourselves with a brief statement of some considerations
which will show how far removed we are on this subject
from the possession of that clear certainty, or even that
moderate verisimilitude of knowledge, on which alone
any reasonings, such as have been based on Hebrew
prophecy, can securely rest. There is no department of
theology in which divines have so universally assumed
their conclusions and modified their premises to suit
them, as in this.
1. In the first place, it is not uninstructive to remind
ourselves of a few of the indications scattered throughout
the Scriptures, of what the conduct and state of mind of
the Prophets often were. They seem, like the utterers of
Pagan oracles, to have been worked up before giving*-
forth their prophecies into a species of religious phrenzy,
produced or aided by various means, especially by music
and dancing* Philo says, " The mark of true prophecy is
the rapture of its utterance : in order to attain divine
wisdom, the soul must go out of itself, and become drunk
, with divine phrenzy ."f The same word in Hebrew (and
Plato thought in Greek also) signifies " to prophecy" and
" to be mad ;"+ and even among themselves the prophets
were often regarded as madroen§ — an idea to which
their frequent habit of going about nake4,ll and the per-
The prediction of Daniel respecting the pollution of the temple, which
critics in general have no hesitation in referring to Antiochus, many mod
ern divines conceive, on the supposed authority of the Evangelists, to relate
to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. A Fellow of Oxford, in a most
ingenious work (which had reached a third edition in 1826, and may have
since gone through many more), maintains that the last chapters of Daniel
were fulfilled in the person of Napoleon, and in him alone. (The Crisis, by
Rev. E. Cooper.)
* 1 Sam. xviii. 10 ; x. 5. 2 Kings iii. 15, 16.
t Quoted in Mackay's Progress of the Intellect, ii. 192,
t Newman, Heb. Mon. p. 34. Plato derived fidprts from fiatytaBai.
§ 2 Kings ix. 11. Jeremiah xxix. 26.
II 2 Sam. vi. 16, 20 ; 1 Sam. xix. 24 ; Is. xx. 3 ; Ezek. iv. 4, 6, 8, 12, 15 ;
1 Kings xx. 35-38.

128 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
formance occasionally of still more disgusting ceremonies,
greatly contributed. That many of them were splendid
poets and noble-minded men there can be no doubt ; but
we see in conduct like this little earnest of sobriety or
divine inspiration, and far too much that reminds us of
the fanatics of eastern countries and of ancient times.
II. Many, probably most, of the so-called prophecies
were not intended as predictions in the proper meaning of
the word, but were simply promises of prosperity or
denunciations of vengeance, contingent upon certain lines
of conduct. The principle of the Hebrew theocracy was
that of temporal rewards or punishment consequent upon
obedience to or deviation from the divine ordinances ; and
in the great proportion of cases the prophetic language
seems to have been nothing more than a reminder or fresh
enunciation of the principle. This is clearly shown by
the circumstances that several of the prophecies, though
originally given, not in the contingent but in the positive
form, were rescinded or contradicted by later prophetical
enunciations, as in the case of Eli, David, Hezekiah, and
Jonah. The rescinding of prophecy in 1 Sam. ii. 30, is
very remarkable, and shows how little these enunciations
were regarded by the Israelites from our modern point of
view. Compare 2 Sam. vii. 10, where the Israelites are
promised that they shall not be moved out of Canaan nor
afflicted any more, with the subsequent denunciations of
defeat and captivity in a strange land. Compare also 2
Sam. vii. 12-16, where the permanent possession of the
throne is promised to David, and that a lineal descendant
shall not fail him to sit upon the throne of Judah, with
the curse pronounced on his last royal descendant,
Coniah : " Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man child
less, a man that shall not prosper in his days : for no man
of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David,
and ruling any more in Judah" (Jer. xxii. 30; xxxvi.
30). See, also, the curious argument as to the liability of
prophecy to be rescinded, in the same book (Jer. xxxiii.
17-26). The rescinding of the prediction or denunciation
in the case of Hezekiah, is recorded in Isaiah xxxviii. 1-5

THE PROPHECIES. 129
and that of Jonah in the Book which bears his name iii.
4-10. III. It is now clearly ascertained, and generally ad
mitted among critics, jthat several of the most remarkable
and specific prophecies were never fulfilled at all, or only
very partially and loosely fulfilled. Among these may be
specified the denunciation of Jeremiah (xxii. 18, 19 ; xxxvi.
30) against Jehoiakim, as may be seen by comparing 2
Kings xxiv. 6 ; and the denunciation of Amos against
Jeroboam II. (vii. 11), as may be seen by comparing 2
Kings xiv. 23-29. The remarkable, distinct, and positive
prophecies in Ezekiel (xxvi., xxvii.), relating to the con
quest, plunder, and destruction of Tyre by Nebuchad
nezzar, we can now state on the highest authorities,* were
not fulfilled. Indeed in ch. xxix. 18, is a confession that
he failed, at least so far as spoil went. The same maybe
b« said of the equally clear and positive prophecies of the
conquest and desolation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar
(Jer. xliii. 10-13; Ezek. xxix.; xxx. 1-19), as Dr. Arnold,
in his Sermons on Prophecy (p. 48), fully admits.f Jere
miah's prophecy of the captivity of seventy years, and the
subsequent destruction of Babylon (xxv.), have generally
been appealed to as instances of clear prophecy exactly
and indisputably fulfilled. But in the first place, at the
time this prediction was delivered, the success of Nebu
chadnezzar against Jerusalem was scarcely doubtful ; in
the second place, the captivity cannot, by any fair calcu
lation, be lengthened out to seventy years ;| and in the
third place, the desolation of Babylon (" perpetual desola
tions " is the emphatic phrase), which was to take place
at the end of the seventy years, as a punishment for the
pride of Nebuchadnezzar, did not take place till long after.
Babylon was still a flourishing city under Alexander the
* Heeren's Researches, ii. 11. Grote, iii. 439.
t Grote, ubi supra. — Hebrew Monarchy, p. 363.
X The chronologies of Kings and Chronicles do not quite tally ; but taking
that of Jeremiah himself, the desolation began in the seventh year of Nebu-
ohadnezzar, B.C. 599, was continued in B.C. 588, and concluded in B.o. 583. —
The exile ended some say 538, some 536. The longest date that can be made
out is 66 years, and the shortest only 43. To make out 70 years fairly, we
muit date from B.C. 606, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar.

130 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Great ; and, as Mr. Newman observed, " it is absurd to
present the emptiness of modern Babylon as a punishment
for the pride of Nebuchadnezzar," or as a fulfilment of
Jeremiah's prophecy. Gen. xlix. 10, must also be consid
ered to present a specimen of prophecy signally falsified
by the event, and being composed in the palmiest days of
Judah, was probably little more than a hyperbolical ex
pression of the writer's confidence in the permanence of
her grandeur. Finally, in Hosea, we have a remarkable
instance of self-contradiction, or virtual acknowledgment
of the non-fulfilment of prophecy. In viii. 13 and ix. 3,
it is affirmed, " Ephraim shall return to Egypt ;" while in
xi. 5, it is said, "Ephraim shall not return to Egypt."
Isaiah (xvii. 1) pronounces on Damascus a threat of ruin
as emphatic as any that was pronounced against Tyre,
Egypt, or Babylon. " It is taken away from being a city,
and it shall be a ruinous heap." Yet Damascus is to this
day the most flourishing city in those countries.
IV. We find from numberless passages, both in the
prophetical and the historical books, that for a consider
able period the Hebrew nation was inundated with false
prophets,* whom it was difficult and often impossible to
distinguish from the true, although we have both pro
phetical and sacerdotal tests given for this express purpose.
It even appears that some of those whom we consider as
true prophets were by their contemporaries charged with
being, and even punished for being, the contrary. In
Deut. xviii. 20-22, the decision of the prophet's character
is made to depend upon the fulfilment or non-fulfilment
of his prophecy. In Deut. xiii. 1-5, this test is rejected,
and the decision is made to rest upon the doctrine which
he teaches. If this be false he is to be stoned, whatever
miraculous proofs of his mission he may give.f From
Jer. xxix. [26,27], it appears that the High Priest assumed
the right of judging whether a man was a false or a true
prophet ; though Jeremiah himself does not seem to have
been willing to abide by this authority, but to have

* Jeremiah v. 31 ; xxiii. 16-34. Ezekiel xiv. 9-11.
t bee also the whole remarkable chapter, Jer. xxviii.

THE PROPHECIES, 131
denounced priests and the prophets who supported them
(Jer. v. 31). Pashur, tbe priest, we learn (xx. 1-7), put
Jeremiah in the stocks for his false prophecies ; and Shem-
aiah reproves the priest Jehoiada for not having repeated
the punishment, and is violently denounced by the
prophet in consequence (xxix. 24-32).
V. In the case of nearly all the prophets we have little
external or independent evidence as to the date at which
their prophesies were uttered, and none as to the period
at which they were written down;* while the internal
evidence on these points is dubious, conflicting, and, in
the opinions of the best critics, generally unfavourable to
the popular conceptions. — The Books of Kings and
Chronicles, in which many of these prophecies are men
tioned, and the events to which they are supposed to re
fer, are related, were written, or compiled in their present
form, the former near the termination of the Babylonian
Exile, or somewhere about the year B.C. 530, i.e. from 50
to 200 yearsf after the period at which the prophecies
were supposed to have been delivered ; — while the latter
appear to have been a much later compilation, some critics
dating them about 260, and others about 400 before
Christ.! It is probably not too much to affirm that we have no
instance in the prophetical Books of the Old Testament
of a prediction, in the case of which we possess, at once
and combined, clear and unsuspicious proof of the date,
the precise event predicted, the exact circumstances of
that event, and the inability of human sagacity to foresee
it. There is no case in which we can say with certainty
— even where it is reasonable to suppose that the predic
tion was uttered before the event — that the narrative has
not been tampered with to suit the prediction, or the pre
diction modified to correspond with the event.§ The fol-
* Hebrew Monarchy, p. 352 (note).
t Amos and Hosea flourished probably about 790 B. c. Jeremiah about
600. Zachariah about 520. De Wette, ii. 436.
X Such at least is the most probable result at which critical science has
yet arrived. De Wette, ii. 248, 265.
§ De Wette and other eminent theologians consider that in many cases
where the prophecy is unusually definite, this has certainly been done. ii.
357, 363.

132 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
lowing remarks will show how little certain is our know
ledge, even in the case of the principal prophets.
Isaiah, as we learn in the first and the sixth chapters of
his Book, appeared as a Prophet in the last yeax <rf the
reign of King Uzziah (b. c. 759), and prophesied till the
fourteenth year of Hezekiah (B.C. 710) We hear of
him in the 2nd Book of Kings and Chronicles, but not till
the reign of Hezekiah ; except that he is referred to in
2 Chron. xxvi. 22, as having written a history of Uzziah.
The prophecies which have come down to us bearing his
name, extend to sixty-six chapters, of the date of which
(either of their composition or compilation) we have no
certain knowledge ; but of which the last twenty-seven
are confidently decided by competent judges to be the
production of a different Writer, and a later age ; and
were doubtless composed during the Babylonish Cap
tivity, later therefore than the year B. c. 600, or about
150 years after Isaiah. The grounds of this decision are
given at length in De Wette* They are found partly in
the marked difference of style between the two portions
of the Book, but still more in the obvious and pervading
fact that the Writer of the latter portion takes his stand
in the period of the Captivity, speaks of the Captivity as
an existing circumstance or condition, and comforts his
captive countrymen with hopes of deliverance at the
hand of Cyrus. Many of the earlier chapters are also
considered spurious for similar reasons, particularly xiii.
1, xiv, 23, xxiv., xxvii., and several others. It appears as
the general summary result of critical research, that our
present collection consists of a number of promises, de
nunciations, and exhortations, actually uttered by Isaiah,
and brought together by command, probably, of Hezekiah,
greatly enlarged and interpolated by writings upwards
of a century later than his time, which the ignorance or
unfair intentions of subsequent collectors and commenta
tors have not scrupled to consecrate by affixing to them
his venerable name.
Jeremiah appears to have prophesied from about B. C

* De Wette, ii. 364-390.

THE PROPHECIES. 133
630-580, or before and at the commencement of the Cap
tivity at Babylon, and the chief portion of his writings
refer to that event, which in his time was rapidly and
manifestly approaching. The prophecies appear to have
been written down by Baruch, a scribe, from the dictation
of Jeremiah (xxxvi.), and to have been collected soon after
the return from exile,* but by whom and at what precise
time is unknown; — and commentators discover several
passages in Avhich the original text appears to have been
interpolated, or worked over again. Still the text seems
to be far more pure, and the real much nearer to the pro
fessed date, than in the case of Isaiah.
The genuineness of the Book of Ezekiel is less doubt
ful than that of any other of the Prophets. His prophe
cies relate chiefly to the destruction of Jerusalem, which
happened during his time. He appears to have been car
ried into exile by the victorious Chaldasans about eleven
years before they finally consummated the ruin of the
Jewish Nation by the destruction of their Capital. His
prophecies appear to have continued many years after the
Captivity— sixteen, according to De Wette.-f-
Of all the prophetical writings, the Book of Daniel has
been the subject of the fiercest contest. Divines have
considered it of paramount importance, both on ac
count of the definiteness and precision of its predictions,
and the supposed reference of many of them to Christ.
Critics, on the other hand, have considered the genuine
ness of the book to be peculiarly questionable ; and few
now, of any note or name, venture to defend it. In all
probability we have no remains of the real prophecies of
the actual Daniel — for that such a person, famed for his
wisdom and virtue, did exist, appears from Ezek. xiv. and
xxxviii. He must have lived about 570 years before
Christ, whereas the Book which bears his name was al
most certainly written in the time of Antiochus Epiph
anes, 110 years B. C. Some English Commentators! and
K De Wette, ii. 416 and 396.
+ De Wette, ii. 426.
+ " I have long thought that the greater part of the book of Daniel is
most certainly a very late work, of the time of the Maccabees ; and the pre-

134 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Divines have endeavoured to escape from the obvious and
manifold difficulties of the Book, by conceiving part of it
to be genuine and part spurious. But De Wette has
shown* that we have no reason for believing it not to be
the work of one hand. It is full of historical inac
curacies and fanciful legends; and the opening statement
is an obvious error, showing that the Writer was imper
fectly acquainted with the chronology or details of the
period in which he takes his stand. The first chapter be
gins by informing us that in the third year of King
Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, besieged
and took Jerusalem, and carried the King (and Daniel)
away captive. Whereas, we learn from Jeremiah that
Nebuchadnezzar was not King of Babylon till the fourth
year of Jehoiakim, and did not take Jerusalem till seven
years later j It would be out of place to adduce all the
marks which betray the late origin of this book ; they
may be seen at length in De Wette. It is here sufficient
that we have no proof whatever of its early date, and that
the most eminent critics have abandoned the opinion of
its genuineness as indefensible.
III. Thirdly, We have already had ample proof that
the Jewish Writers not only did not scruple to narrate
past events as if predicting future ones — to present His
tory in the form of Prophecy — but that they habitually
did so. The original documents from which the Books
of Moses were compiled, must have been written, as we
have seen, in the time of the earliest Kings, while the
Book of Deuteronomy was not composed, and the whole
Pentateuch did not assume its present form till, probably,
the reign of Josiah ; — yet they abound in such anticipa
tory narrative — in predictions of events long past. The

tended prophecy about the Kings of Greece and Persia, and of the North
and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and else
where. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, be
cause the events up to that date are given with historical minuteness, to
tally unlike the character of real prophecy; and beyond that date all is
imaginary."— Again, he thinks that criticism "proves the non-authenticity
of great part of Daniel : that there may be genuine fragments in it is very
likely. " — Arnold's Life and Cor. ii. 188.
* De Wette, ii. 499.
t See the whole argument in De Wette, ii. 484 (note).

THE PROPHECIES. 135
instances are far too numerous to quote ; — we will specify
only a few of the most remarkable : — Gen. xxv. 23; xxvii.
28, 29, 39, 40 ; xlix. passim ; Numb. xxiv. ; Deut. iv. 27 ;
xxviii. 25, 36, 37, 64.
We anticipate that these remarks will be met by the
reply — " Whatever may be established as to the un
certainty which hangs over the date of those prophecies
which refer to the temporal fortunes of the Hebrew Na
tion, no doubt can exist that all the prophecies relating
to the Messiah were extant in their present form long
previous to the advent of Him in whose person the
Christian world agrees to acknowledge their fulfilment."
This is true, and the argument would have all the force
which is attributed to it, were the objectors able to lay
their finger on a single Old Testament Prediction clearly
referring to Jesus Christ, intended by the utterers of it to
relate to him, prefiguring his character and career, and
manifestly fulfilled in his appearance on earth. This they
cannot do. Most of the passages usually adduced as
complying with these conditions, referred, and were clear
ly intended to refer,* to eminent individuals in Israelitish
History ; — many are not prophecies at all ;f — the Messiah,
the Anointed Deliverer, expected by the Jews, hoped for
and called for by their Poets and Prophets, was of a
character so different, and a career so opposite, to those of
the meek, lowly, long-suffering Jesus, that the passages
describing the one never could have been applied to the

* "We find throughout the New Testament," says Dr. Arnold, " refer
ences made to various passages in the Old Testament, which are alleged as
prophetic of Christ, or of some particulars of the Christian dispensation.
Now, if we turn to the context of these passages, and so endeavour to discover
their meaning, according to the only sound principles of interpretation, it
will often appear that they do not relate to the Messiah, or to Christian
times, but are either expressions of religious affections generally, such as sub
mission, love, hope, &c. , or else refer to some particular circumstances in the
life and condition of the writer, or of the Jewish nation, and do not at all
show that anything more remote, or any events of a more universal and
spiritual character, were designed to be prophesied. " — Sermons on the Inter
pretation of Prophecy. Preface, p. 1.
t [" The great prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah are, critics can now see,
not strictly predictions at all ; and predictions which are strictly meant as
such, like those in the Book of Daniel, are an embarrassment to the Bible
rather than a main element of it." — Literature and Dogma, p. 114, by
Matthew Arnold.]

136 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
other, without a perversion of ingenuity, and a disloyal
treatment of their obvious signification, which, if employed
in any other field than that of Theology, would have
met with the prompt discredit and derision they de
serve.* There are no doubt, scattered verses in the Pro-
* This disingenuousness is obvious in one point especially : the Messianic
Prophecies are interpreted literally or figuratively, as may best suit then-
adaptation to the received history of Jesus. Thus that " the wolf shall lie
down with the lamb, and the lion eat grass like an ox," is taken figuratively:
that the Messiah should ride into Jerusplem on an ass, is taken literally.
[The following passage, written five and twenty years subsequent to the text
of this volume, may be quoted in confirmation. " And what were called the
'signal predictions ' concerning the Christ of popular theology, as they stand
in our Bibles, had and have undoubtedly a look of supernatural prescience.
The employment of capital letters, and other aids, such as the constant use
of the future tense, naturally and innocently adopted by interpreters who
were profoundly convinced that Christianity needed these express predictions
and that they must be in the Bible, enhanced, certainly, this look ; but the
look, even without these aids, was sufficiently striking. That Jacob on his
death-bed should two thousand years before Christ have ' been enabled,' as the
phrase is, to foretell to his son Judah that ' the sceptre shall not depart from
Judah until Shiloh (or the Messiah) come, and to him shall the gathering of
the people be,' does seem, when the explanation is put with it that the Jewish
kingdom lasted till the Christian era and then perished, a miracle of predic
tion in favour of our current Christian theology. That Jeremiah should have
' been enabled ' to foretell, in the name of Jehovah : ' The days come when
I will raise to David a righteous Branch ; in his days Judah shall be saved,
and Israel Bhall dwell safely ; and this is the name whereby he shall be
called, the lord odr righteoosness !' — does seem a wonder of predictionin
favour of that tenet of the Godhead of the Eternal Son, for which the
Bishops of Winchester and Gloucester are so anxious to do something. For
unquestionably Jehovah is often spoken of as the saviour of Judah and Israel:
' All flesh shall know that I the Eternal am thy saviour and thy redeemer,
the mighty one of Jacob ; ' and in the prophecy given above as Jeremiah's,
the Branch of David is clearly identified with Jehovah. Again, that David
should say : ' The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until
Imake thy foes thy footstool,' — does seem a prodigy of prediction to the
same effect. That he should say : ' Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and so ye
perish,' does seem a supernaturally prescient assertion of the Eternal Son-
ship. And so long as these prophecies stand as they are here given, they no
doubt bring to Christianity all the support (and with the mass of mankind
this is by no means inconsiderable) which it can derive from the display of
supernatural prescience. But who will dispute that it more and more becomes
known that these prophecies cannot stand as we have here given them ? Mani
festly, it more and more becomes known that the passage from Genesis, with
its mysterious Shiloh and the gathering of the people to him is rightly to be
rendered as follows : ' The pre-eminence shall not depart from Judah so long
as the people resort to Shiloh (the national sanctuary before Jerusalem was
won) ; and the nations (the heathen Canaanites) shall obey him ' We here
P?50S^y,maVf °Ut °/ Sight 2Dy Such ?°™ideration as that our actual books
of the Old Testament came first together through the piety of the house of
Judah, and when the destiny of Judah was already traced • and that to sav
roundly: 'Jacob was enabled to foretell,' ' The sceptre shall not depart from
Judah,' as if we were speaking of a prophecy preached and published by Dr

THE PROPHECIES. 137
phetic and Poetical Books of the Hebrew Canon, which,
as quotations, are apt and applicable enough to particular
points in Christ's character and story; — but of what
equally voluminous collection of poems or rhetorical com
positions may the same not be said ?* Of the references
made by the Evangelists to such passages, We shall speak
hereafter. • The state of the case appears to be this : — That all the
Old Testament Prophecies have been assumed to be
genuine, inspired predictions ; and when falsified in their
obvious meaning and received interpretation by the
event, have received immediately a new interpretation,
and been supposed to refer to some other event. When
the result has disappointed expectation, the conclusion
has been, not that the prophecy was false, but that the
interpretation was erroneous. It is obvious that a mode
of reasoning like this is peculiar to Theological Inquirers.
From this habit of assuming that Prophecy was Pre-
Cumming, is wholly inadmissible. For this consideration iB of force, indeed,
but it is a consideration drawn from the rules of literary history and criticism,
and not likely to have weight with the mass of mankind. Palpable error
and mistranslation are what will have weight with them. And what, then,
will they say as they come to know (and do not and must not more and more
of them come to know it every day ?) that Jeremiah's supposed signal identi
fication of Christ with the God of Israel : ' I will raise to David a righteous
Branch, and this is the name whereby he shall be called, the lord our
RIGHTEOUSNESS,' runs really : ' I will raise to David a righteous branch ; in his
days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely ; and this is the name
whereby they shall call themselves : The Eternal is our righteousness 1 ' The
prophecy thus becomes simply one of the many promises of a successor to
David under whom the Hebrew people should trust in the Eternal and fol
low righteousness ; just as the prophecy from Genesis is one of the many
prophecies of the enduring continuance of the greatness of Judah; ' The
Lord said unto my Lord,' in like manner — will not people be startled when
they find that it ought to run instead : ' The Eternal said unto my lord the
king,'— a simple promise of victory to a prince of God's chosen people? —
and that : 'Kiss the Son,' is in reality, ' Be warned,' or ' be instructed ; '
'lay hold,' according to the Septuagint, ' on instruction?' " — Literature and
Dogma, pp. 110-113. See also pp. 91-106.]
* Perhaps none of the Old Testamentprophecies are more clearly Messianic
than the following passage from Plato : — OS-rw StaKei/twos & Alxaios
HaiTTiytioera.i,(rTpelS\<baeTai, SeSiiaerai, cKKavBiio-erai r uxp6a.Aii.tc ,re\tvrm> tomto.
'\ta\tk Traiiav avao-KH'SuAeuBljcreTai. Plato, de Republics,, 1. ii. p. 361, E.
Speaking of this Teacher of Mankind whom he expected, he says, " This
just man will scarcely be endured by them— but probably will be scourged,
racked, tormented, have his eyes burnt out, and at last, having suffered all
manner of evils, shall be impaled"— or as the original term will signify,
" crucified." J

138 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
diction, and must have its fulfilment — which was perhaps
as prevalent among the Jews as among modern Divines —
appears to have arisen the national expectation of a
Messiah. A Deliverer was hoped for, expected, proph
esied, in the time of Jewish misery (and Cyrus was
perhaps the first referred to) ; but as no one appeared
who did what the Messiah, according to Prophecy, should
do, they went on degrading each successive Conquerc*
and Hero from the Messianic dignity, and are still ex
pecting the true Deliverer. Hebrew and Christian
Divines both start from the same assumed unproven
premises, viz. : — that a Messiah having been foretold
must appear; — but there they diverge, and the Jews
show themselves to be the sounder logicians of the two :
the Christians, assuming that Jesus was the Messiah
intended (though not the one expected), wrest the obvious
meaning of the Prophecies to show that they were ful
filled in him ; — while the Jews, assuming the obvious
meaning of the Prophecies to be their real meaning,
argue that theyr were not fulfilled in Christ, and there
fore that the Messiah is yet to come.
One of the most remarkable attempts to retain the
sacredness and authority of Hebrew Prophecy, while
admitting the non-fulfilment or the inadequate fulfilment
of many of its predictions, has been made by Dr. Arnold.
The native truthfulness of his intellect led him to a fair
appreciation of the difficulties attendant on the ordinary
mode of interpreting Prophecy, while the tenacity of his
faith (or, to speak more correctly, his affection for what
he had been taught to believe and reverence) made him
unwilling to renounce views which hold so prominent a
position in the orthodox system of doctrine. His method
of meeting the perplexity was this : He conceived that
all prophecy had a double meaning— an historical and
obvious, and a spiritual or recondite signification— and
that the latter only could receive a complete and
adequate fulfilment. Nay, he went still further and '
maintained that Prophecy must, from the necessity of
the case, embody these two senses— the sense of the God
who inspired it, and the sense of the man who uttered it

THE PROPHECIES. 139
We will give this singular theory in his own words,
extracted from his Sermons on Prophecy.
"Now, first of all, it is a very misleading notion of
Prophecy, if we regard it as an anticipation of History.
... It is anticipated History, not in our common
sense of the word, but in another and far higher sense.
. . History is busied with particular nations, persons,
and events ; and from the study of these, extracts, as well
as it can, some general principles. Prophecy is busied
with general principles ; and inasmuch as particular
nations, persons, and events, represent these principles
up to a certain point, so far it is concerned also with
them . . . Prophecy, then, is God's voice speaking to
us respecting the issue in all time of that great struggle
which is the real interest of human life, the struggle
between good and evil. Beset as we are with evil,
within and without, it is the natural and earnest question
of the human mind, what shall be the' end at last ? And
the answer is given by Prophecy, that it shall be well at
last ; and there shall be a time when good shall perfectly
triumph. . . And this being so, as it is most certain
that no people on earth has ever either perfectly served
the cause of good, or utterly opposed it, so it follows that
no people can, if I may so speak, fully satisfy the mind
of Prophecy, because no people purely represents those
unmixed principles of good and evil, with which alone
Prophecy is properly concerned. And thiis it has hap
pened, that those who have attempted to trace an his
torical fulfilment of the language of Prophecy with
regard to various nations, have never done their work
satisfactorily, nor on their system was it possible to do it.
For the language of Prophecy on these subjects could not
be literally accomplished for two reasons : first, because
it was not properly applicable to any earthly nation, from
the imperfection of all human things; and, secondly,
because even that character of imperfect good or evil,
which made certain nations the representatives so to
speak, of the principles of good and evil themselves, was
not and could not be perpetual . . . Thus there may be
cases in which no historical fulfilment of national pro*

140 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
phecies is to be found at all; but in all cases the fulfilment
would fall short of the full strength of the language,
because, to say it once again, the language in its proper
scope and force was aimed at a more unmixed good and
evil than have ever been exhibited in the character ot any
earthly people . . . . Generally the language ot Proph
ecy will be found to be hyperbolical, as far as regards
its historical subjects, and only corresponding with the
truth exactly, if we substitute for the historical subject
the idea of which it is the representative*- . . But if it
be asked, why then was the language of Prophecy so
strong, if it was meant to be literally fulfilled ? I answer,
that the real subject of the Prophecy in its highest sense
is not the historical, but the spiritual Babylon ; and that
no expressions of ruin and destruction can be too strong
when applied to the world which is 'to dissolve and
utterly to perish. And it will be found, I think, a gen
eral rule in all the prophecies of Scripture, that they
contain expressions which will only be adequately
fulfilled in their last and spiritual fulfilment ; and that,
as applied to the lower fulfilments which precede this,
they are and must be hyperbolical."-]-
It is difficult to grapple with a mode of interpretation
such as this; — equally difficult to comprehend how an
earnest and practical understanding like Dr. Arnold's, could
for a moment rest satisfied with such a cloudy phantom.
Our homely conceptions can make nothing of an oracle
which says one thing, but means something very different
and more noble ; — -which in denouncing, with minute de
tails, destruction against Egypt, Babylon, and Tyre, merely
threatens final defeat to the powers of Evil ; — which in
depicting, in precisest terms, the material prosperity re
served for the Israelites, only intended to promise bless-
* Dr. Arnold conceives the different states and cities towards which are
directed the promises and denunciations of Holy Writ, to represent in the
prophetic mind certain ideal virtues and vices, &c. Thus Israel means not
the Jews, so much as " God's People " in the abstract, the virtuous of the
earth in all times : Babylon signifies the world in its wickedness ; Egypt the
world merely in its worldliness ; while the prophetic idea of Edom is the sin
of those w ho offend one of Christ's little ones.
t Sermons on the Interpretation of Prophecy. Var. loc.

THE PROPHECIES. 141
ings to the virtuous and devout of every age and clime ;
— and which in describing ancient historical personages,
did so always with an arriere pensie towards Christ. If
Dr. Arnold means to say that the Old Testament Prophe
cies signified primarily, chiefly, and most specifically, the
ultimate triumph of good over evil — of God and Virtue
over the World, the Flesh, and the Devil — (and this cer
tainly appears to be his meaning) ; — we can only reply
that, in that case, they are Poetry, and not Prediction ; —
that this was not the signification attached to them either
by the Prophets who uttered them, or by the People who
listened to them, and that it is precluded by the frequent
particularity and precision of their language. To conceive,
therefore, this to be the meaning of the God who is alleged
to have inspired them, is to imagine that He used incom
petent and deceptive instruments for his communications ;
— and it is certain that had the Prophecies been perfectly
and unquestionably fulfilled in their obvious sense, this
secondary and recondite signification would never have
been heard of. We are surprised that Dr. Arnold did not
perceive that to allow of a " double sense " is to give all
. false prophecy a guarantee against being disproved by
the event.
In justification of this idea of a double sense, he con
tinues — " The notion of a double sense in Prophecy has
been treated by some persons with contempt. Yet it majT
be said, that it is almost necessarily involved in the very
idea of Prophecy. Every prophecy has, according to the
very definition of the word, a double source ; it has, if I
may venture so to speak, two authors, the one human, the
other divine  If uttered by the tongue of man,
it must also, unless we suppose him to be a mere instru
ment (in the same sense as a flute or a harp), be coloured
by his own mind. The prophet expresses in words certain
truths conveyed to his mind ; but his mind does not fully
embrace them, nor can it ; for how can man fully compre
hend the mind of God ? Every man lives in time ; the
present must be to him clearer than the future. . . . But
with God there is no past, nor future ; every truth is pres
ent to Him in all its extent ; so that His expression of it,

142 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
•if I may so speak, differs essentially from that which can
be comprehended by the mind, or uttered by the tongue
of man. Thus every prophecy as uttered by man (that
is, by an intelligent and not a mere mechanical instru
ment), and at the same time as inspired by God, must, as
far as appears, have a double sense : one, the sense enter
tained by the human mind of the Writer; the other, the
sense infused, into it by God."*
We must confess our amazement at the obvious and ex
treme unsoundness of this whole passage. Not only does
it painfully remind us of the double meaning so often
and so justly charged upon the Pagan oracles — but it
assumes the strange and contradictory improbabilities :
first, that God was unable to convey His meaning to the
Prophet ; secondly, that He infused this meaning into the
words which were uttered, although He could not infuse it
into the mind of the man who uttered them; and, thirdly,
that we can see further into the mind and meaning of God
than those to whom He spoke; — that they, in expressing
the ideas which He had put into their minds, mistook or
imperfectly conceived those ideas — but that to us is given
to discover a thought which those words contained, but
did not express, or which, if they did express it, they were
not understood by the Writer to express. Now, either
the ideas which God wished to communicate were con
veyed to the mind of the Prophet, or they were not : — if
they were so conveyed, then the Prophet must have com
prehended them, and intended to express them correctly,
and of course did express them correctly — for it is mon
strous to suppose that God would infuse ideas into a man's
mind for the purpose of being communicated to the pub
lic, which ideas He yet did not enable him so to com
municate :— and then all the above confused subtleties fall
to the ground. If, on the other hand, these ideas were not
so conveyed to the Prophet's mind, then it must have
been the words and not the ideas which were inspired,
* Sermons on Prophecy, p. 51. A little further on he says -—"We may
even suppose the prophet to be totally ignorant of the divine meaning of his
Words, and to intend to express a meaning of his own quite unlike God's
pieaning ! "

THE PROPHECIES. 143
and God used the Prophet simply as a flute (a supposition
scouted by Dr. Arnold) ; — and we are thus driven to the
equally monstrous supposition that God used words which
did not convey His meaning, even to the very favoured
individual to whom and through whom He spoke. If
God's sense was " infused " into the Prophetic language,
how could that sense have been missed by the Prophet
and caught only by others in these latter times ? and
what was the use of language which could not be rightly
comprehended except centuries after it was spoken, and
by a different People from those to whom it was spoken ?
If God's sense was not infused into the words, through the
incompetency of the utterer, how can Dr. Arnold discover
it therein ? It may be, however, that Dr. Arnold's con
ception of the case was this, though it is not what we
should gather from his language : — that beneath the
obvious meaning of the words of the Prophecy, as uttered
by the Prophet, and understood by him and his hearers,
lay a latent signification, as it were written with invisible
ink, which could only be discovered in later ages, and by
the light which historical experience and advancing en
lightenment throw upon it. No doubt this is possible ;
but it is unproved, and requires much proof before it can
be admitted ; — and it is especially worthy of remark, that
the supposition, unquestionably a violent one, is rendered
necessary only by the assumption that the prophecies
were predictions, coupled with the fact that they have
not been fulfilled in their literal meaning ; — and it in
volves the admission, that they were in a manner decep
tive, since they were misunderstood, and, by the supposi
tion, must have been misunderstood, by the People to
whom they were addressed.
Yet all these unnatural explanations are resorted to, all
these fatal dilemmas encountered, all this appearance of
irreverence and disingenuousness incurred, simply to
avoid the conclusion that the Prophets were wise, gifted,
earnest men, deeply conversant with the Past — looking-
far into the Future — shocked with the unrighteousness
around them — sagacious to foresee impending evil — bold
to denounce spiritual wickedness in high places— imbued,

144 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
above all, with an unfailing faith, peculiarly strong among
their people, that national delinquency and national virtue
would alike meet with a temporal and inevitable retribu
tion — and gifted " with the glorious faculty of poetic hope,
exerted on human prospects, and presenting its results
with the vividness of prophecy ; " — but Prophets in no
stricter sense than this.

CHAPTER V.
THEISM OF THE JEWS IMPURE AND PROGRESSIVE.
It is an assumption of the popular theology, and an almost
universal belief in the popular mind, that the Jewish
nation was selected by the Almighty to preserve and
carryT down to later ages a knowledge of the One and
true God ; — that the Patriarchs possessed this knowledge ;
— that Moses delivered and enforced this doctrine as the
fundamental tenet of the national creed ; — and that it
was, in fact, the received and distinctive dogma of the
Hebrew People. This alleged possession of the true faith
by one only people, while all surrounding tribes were lost
in Polytheism, or something worse, has been adduced by
divines in general as a proof of the truth of the sacred
history, and of the divine origin of the Mosaic dispensa
tion, and forms, indeed, one of the standard arguments of
Theologians in the present day. Paley, the actual text
book of one of our Universities, writes of it thus : —
" Undoubtedly our Saviour assumes the divine origin of
the Mosaic Institution ; and, independently of his author
ity, I conceive it to be very difficult to assign any other
cause for the commencement or existence of that Insti
tution ;. especially for the singular circumstance of the
Jews adhering to the Unity, when every other people
slid into polytheism ; for their being men in religion,
children in everything else ; behind other nations in the
arts of peace and war, superior to the most improved in
their sentiments and doctrines relating to the Deity."*
Milman-f- speaks of the pure monotheism of the Jews
in a similar strain :
" The religious history of this people is no less singular.
In the narrow slip of land inhabited by their tribes the
worship of one Almighty Creator of the Universe subsists,
* Paley's Evidences of Christianity. t History of the Jews, i, 4.

146 - THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
as in its only sanctuary. In every stage of Society, under
the pastoral tent of Abraham, and in the sumptuous
Temple of Solomon, the same creed maintains its inviol
able simplicity. . . Nor is this merely a sublime
speculative tenet ; it is the basis of their civil constitu
tion, and of their national character. As there is but one
Almighty God, so there is but one People under his special
protection, the descendants of Abraham."
[Now the passage we have italicised is surely an extra
ordinary over-statement of the case. Without going so
far as Bauer (Theol. des Alt. Test. 1. 4.) who thinks that
the Jews as a nation scarcely became true monotheists
till after the Captivity, it seems difficult not to recognise
that they did not believe in the exclusive existence of one
sole God in the earlier times — perhaps not till a compara
tively] late period of their history; — that their early and
popular notions of the Deity were eminently coarse, low,
and unworthy ; — that .among them, as among all other
nations, the conceptions of God formed by individuals
varied according to their intellectual and spiritual capa
cities, being poor and anthropomorphic among the ignor
ant and coarse-minded, pure and lofty among the virtuous
and richly -gifted ; — and, finally, that these conceptions
gradually improved, and became purified and ennobled, as
the Hebrews advanced in civilization — being generally
speaking, lowest in the Historical Books, amended in the
Prophetical Writings, and reaching their highest eleva
tion among the Poets of the Nation.
In its progress from Fetichism to pure Theism, the
human mind generally passes through three stages — or,
to speak more correctly, man's idea of God passes through
three forms of development. We have Him represented
first as the God of the individual or family ; then as the
' God of the nation ; lastly, as the God of the human race.
Now we find all these three views of Deity in the Old
Testament — sometimes, it is true, strangely jumbled to
gether, as might lie expected in books written by differ-
i-nt persons at different times — but on the whole bearing
pretty distinct marks of the periods at which they re
spectively prevailed.

THEISM OF THE JEWS IMPURE AND PROGRESSIVE. 147
The reppsentations of God in the history of Abraham
appear to imply that the God whom he worshipped was
a family God, selected, probably, by him for some reason
unknown to us, out of a number of others who were wor
shipped by his fathers and his tribe. We are expressly
told that the father and grandfather of Abraham " wor
shipped other Gods ; " — and the representations given of
the God of Abraham, and of his proceedings during the
lives of the three Patriarchs, are so mean and material
that it is difficult to conceive how a knowledge of the One
true God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, could have been
ascribed to them. God appears to Abraham with two
angels in the form of men — (they are spoken of as " three
men") — sits at the door, of his tent — partakes of his re
past — is angry at the laughter of Sarah, and an alterca
tion takes place between them ; after which He discusses
with him the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, and informs
him that He is going down thither to see whether the re
ports which have reached him are correct.* " Your fathers
dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even
Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor :
and they served other gods." (Joshua xxiv. 2.) " The God
of Abraham, and the God of Nachor, the God of their
father, judge betwixt us." (Gen. xxxi. 53.) There are not
wanting traces of Polytheism in the earlier portions of
Hebrew History. The expression Jehovah Elohim, " The
God of Gods," may, perhaps, be taken as an indication.
Bauer thinks that "the Elohim, who were probably at
one time worshipped as equal Gous, are in Genesis recog
nised as subordinate deities, with whom Jehovah, the
highest Eloah, enters into Council." (Theol. des Alt. Test.
i. 3.) It will be remembered that Laban, a near relative
of Abraham, whose sister he had expressly selected as his
son Isaac's wife, pursued Jacob for having " stolen his
* Bauer observes that the Samaritan and Arabian translators, "from an
anxious apprehension lest a corporeal existence should be attributed to the
Deity, frequently substituted the expression angel of Ond, for the names
Jehovah and Elohim." Thus they have " Ye shall be as the angels of God,"
instead of "Ye shall be as gods" (Gen. iii. 5) ; "In the likeness of the angel
of God made he him" (Gen. v. 1) ; " The angel of God went up from Abra.
ham" (Gen, xvii. 22), and so on,

148 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Gods." (Gen. xxxi. 30.) He, therefore, worshipped fetiches.
In Gen. xxxv. 2-4, we find Jacob collecting the strange
Gods worshipped by his household, and hiding them under
an oak. It is certainly remarkable that both Abraham and
Isaac should insist upon their sons marrying into an idol
atrous family, if they had really believed their own God
to be the only one.
Jacob's ideas of God are, as might be expected from his
mean and tricky character, even lower than those of
Abraham. He makes a condition, on which he will select
Jehovah to be his God, and will give Him a tithe of all
his possessions (Gen. xxviii. 20.) ; —he represents Him as
his confidant in cheating Laban, and wrestles with Him
bodily to extort a blessing. Who, after reading such pas
sages, can for a moment accept the belief that Jacob and
Job worshipped the same God ?
In process of time the descendants of Abraham multi
plied and became a numerous people, and naturally con
tinued the worship of that God who had done so much
for their forefathers. Thus the family God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, gradually enlarged into the national
God of the Israelites, to whose worship they adhered with
greater or less tenacity, with greater or less exclusiveness,
during their residence in Egypt. As the history proceeds
the conceptions of this God seem to become purer and
loftier, till, in the mind of Moses, an intellectual and
highly-educated man, versed in all the learning of the
Egyptians, they often (as far as we can guess what came
from him) reached to a sublime simplicity of expression
rarely surpassed. Still, there is no distinct proof that
Moses disbelieved in the existence of other Gods : — the
God whom he serves is still " the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob ; " — He is not asserted to be the only God ; the
existence and power of rival Deities is not denied, but is
even admitted by implication. All that Moses claims for
Jehovah is, not that He is the Sole God, but that He is
superior to all others. " Who is like unto Thee, Jehovah,
among the gods ? " (Ex. xv, 11.*) And he represents him
* Jethro says : " Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods • for
in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them."— (Exod
xviii. 11.) ii

THEISM OF THE JEWS IMPURE AND PROGRESSIVE. 149
to Pharaoh, by Jehovah's own command, as the " God of
the Hebrews," not as the Supreme Lord of Heaven and
Earth. Even in the delivery of the Commandments, the
great foundation of the Law, it is not said, " There is no
God but Jehovah," but only " I am the Lord thy God,
which brought thee out of the House of Bondage ; Thou
shalt have no other Gods beside me (or before me)." The
whole of the xxivth chapter of Joshua confirms this
view : he there urges the Israelites to choose Jehovah,
not as the only God, whom to desert would be to become
Atheists, but as a God whose bounties to them had been
so great that it would be black ingratitude not to prefer
him to all others. The whole history of the lapses of the
Jewish Nation into idolatry also discourages the idea of
their having been really monotheists. The worship of
the golden calf and the Canaanitish Gods was quite nat
ural on the supposition of Jehovah being merely a para
mount and preferred God : — monstrous, if they had be
lieved him to be the only one. Moreover, their idolatry
is always spoken of as infidelity, not as atheism.
As civilization advanced, prophets, sages, and poets
arose among the Hebrews, to whom the limited and an
thropomorphic conceptions of the Deity, prevalent among
the people, were painfully inadequate and revolting ; —
and they endeavoured by nobler representations of the
object of their worship to convert the national religion
into a pure theism ; in which, however, it is thought by
many that they did not succeed till after the Captivity.
After this idea had once taken root, the nation never
showed any disposition to relapse into idolatry. And
even to the latest period of the Canonical writings we
find representations both of the nature and attributes of
Jehovah so utterly discrepant as to leave no doubt that
among the Jews, as among all other nations, the God of
the wise and the God of the ignorant^— the God of the
Priests and the God of the Prophets — were the embodi
ment of two very different classes of ideas. Let any one
compare the partial, unstable, revengeful, and deceitful
God of Exodus and Numbers, with the sublime and unique
Deity of Job, and the nobler Psalms, or even the God of

150

TBE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.

Isaiah with the God of Ezekiel and Daniel— and he can
scarcely fail to admit that the conception of the One living
and true God was a plant of slow and gradual growth in
the Hebrew mind, and was due far less to Moses, the
Patriarchs, or the Priests, than to the superiority of indi
vidual minds at various periods of their history. Com
pare the following representations which we have arranged
in parallel columns.

And .Jehovah spake to Moses, say
ing — Let them make mea sanctuary ;
that I may dwell among them — And
thou shalt put the mercy-seat above
upon the ark, . . and there I
will meet with thee, and I will com
mune with thee.— Exod. xxv. 8,21-22.

And it came to pass, as Moses
entered into the tabernacle, the
cloudy pillar descended, and stood
at the door of the tabernacle ; and
Jehovah talked with Moses. — And
Jehovah spake unto Moses face to
face, as a man speaketh unto his
friend. — Exod. xxxiii. 9, 11.
For they have heard that thou
Jehovah art among this People, that
thou Jehovah art seen face to face.
— Numbers xiv. 14.
And Jehovah said, Behold, there
is a place by me, and thou shall
stand upon a rock : And it shall
come to pass, while my glory pass-
eth by, that I will put thee in a clift
of the rock, and will cover thee with
my hand while I pass by : And I
will take away mine hand, and thou
shalt see my back parts : but my face
shall not be seen. — Exod.xxxiii.21-24.
And Moses returned unto the Lord,
and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou
so evil entreated this people ? Why
is it that thou hast sent me ? For
since I came to Pharaoh to speak in
thy name, he hath done evil to this
people ; neither hast thou delivered
thy people at all. — Exod. v. 22, 23.
And Jehovah said unto Moses, I
have seen this people, and, behold,
it is a stiff-necked people : Now
therefore let me alone, that my
wrath may wax hot against them,

But will God in very deed dwell
on the earth ? Behold, the Heaven,
and the Heaven of Heavens, cannot
contain Thee ; how much less this
house that I have builded ! — 1
Kings viii. 27.
Whither shall I go from thy
spirit ? or whither shall I flee from
thy presence ? — Ps. cxxxix. 7-10.
Lo, he goeth by me, and I see
him not ; he passeth on also, but I
perceive him pot — Job ix. 11.
Behold, I go forward, but he is not
there ; and backward, but I cannot
perceive him : On the left hand,
where he doth work, but I cannot
behold him : he hideth himself on
the right hand, that I cannot see him.
— Job xxiii. 8, 9.

O Jehovah my God, thou art very
great ; thou art clothed with honour
and majesty. Who coverest thyself
with light as with a garment : who
stretchest out the heavens like a
curtain: Who layeth the beams of
his chambers in the waters : who
maketh the clouds his chariot : who
walketh upon the wings of the wind.
— Psalm civ. 1-3.
Then Job answered and said, I
know it is so of a truth : but how
should man be just with God ? If he
will contend with him, he cannot
answer him one of a thousand.
For he is not a man, as I am, that
I should answer him, and we should
come together in judgment.— Job ix.
1, 2, 3, 32.
Shall mortal man be more just
than God ? Shall a man be more
pure than his maker ?— Job. iv. 17.

THEISM OF THE JEWS IMPURE AND PROGRESSIVE. 151

and that I may consume them : and
I will make of thee a great nation.
And Moses besought Jehovah his
God, and said, Lord, why doth thy
wrath wax hot against thy people,
which thou hast brought forth out of
the land of Egypt with great power,
and with a mighty hand ?
Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak, and say, For mischief did he
bring them out, to slay them in the
mountains, and to consume them from
the face of the earth ? Turn from
thy fierce wrath, and repent of this
evil against thy people. Remember
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy
servants, to whom thou swarest by
thine own self, and saidst unto them,
I will multiply your seed as the stars
of heaven, and all this land that I
have spoken of will I give unto your
seed, and they shall inherit it for
ever. And the Lord repented of the
evil which he thought to do unto his
people. — Exod. xxxii. 9-14.
And the Lord said unto Moses,
Speak now in the ears of the people,
and let every man borrow of his
neighbour, and every woman of her
neighbour, jewels of silver, and
jewels of gold. And the Lord gave
the people favour in the sight of the
Egyptians. And the children of Israel did ac
cording to the word of Moses ; and
they borrowed of the Egyptians
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold,
and raiment : And Jehovah gave
the people favour in the sight of the
Egyptians, so that they lent unto
them. And they spoiled the Egyptians.
- Exod. iii. 21, 22 ;_ xi. 1-3 ; xii. 35, 36.
And Jehovah said, Who shall per
suade Ahab, that he may go up and
fall at Ramoth-Gilead ? And one
said on this manner, and another
said on that manner. And there
came forth a spirit, and stood before
the Lord, and said, I will persuade
him. And Jehovah said*unto him,
Wherewith ? And he said, I will go
forth, and I will be a lying spirit in
the mouth of all his prophets. And
he said, Thou shalt persuade him,
and prevail also : go forth, and do
so.— 1 Kings xxii. 20-22.

The counsel of Jehovah standeth
for ever, the thoughts of his heart
unto all generations. — Psalm xxxiii.
11.

I know that, whatsoever God doeth,
it shall be for ever : nothing can be
put to it, nor anything taken from
it. — Eccles. iii. 14.
The Strength of Israel will not lie
nor repent : for he is not a man,
that he should repent. — 1 Sam. xv.
29.

Lord, who shall abide in thy tab
ernacle ? who shall dwell in thy
holy hill ? He that walketh upright
ly, and worketh righteousness, and
speaketh the truth in his heart.—
Psalm xv. 1, 2.

For the word of the Lord is right ;
and all his works are done in truth.
He loved righteousness and judg
ment.— Psalm xxxiii. 4, 5.
Lying lips are abomination to the
Lord : but they that deal truly are
his delight. — Prov. xii. 22.

152

THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.

And they went in unto Noah into
the ark, and the Lord shut him in. —
Gen. vii. 15, 16.
And Jehovah came down to see the
city and the tower, which the chil
dren of men builded. — Gen. xi. 5.
And Noah builded an altar unto the
Lord ; and offered burnt offerings on
the altar. And the Lord smelled a
sweet savour ; and the Lord said in
his heart, I will not again curse the
ground any more for man's sake. —
Gen. viii. 20, 21.

But ye shall offer the burnt~offer-
ing for a sweet savour unto the Lord.
— Num. xxviii. 27.
And ye shall offer a burnt-offering,
a sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet
savour unto the Lord; thirteen young
bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs
of the first year ; they shall be with
out blemish. — Num. xxix. 13, 36.

The eyes of the Lord are in every
place, beholding the evil and the
good. — Prov. xv. 3.
Jehovah looketh from heaven;
he beholdeth all the sons of men.—
Psalm xxxiii. 13.
I will take no bullock out of thy
house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
If I were hungry, I would not tell
thee ; for the world is mine, and the
fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh
of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ?
Offer unto God thanksgiving. -Ps.
1.9-14. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else
would I give it : thou delightest not
in burnt-offering. — Ps. li. 16.
To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the
Lord : I am full of the burnt-offer
ings of rams, and the fat of fed
beasts ; and I delight not in the
blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he -goats. — Isaiah i. 11.
Wherewith shall I eome before
Jehovah, and bow myself before the
high God ? Shall I come before him
with burnt-offerings, with calves of
a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased
with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give
my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of
my soul ? He hath showed thee, 0
man, what is good ; and what doth
Jehovah require of thee, but to do
justly, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God ?— Mieah vi.
6-8.

CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS.
The current idea respecting the nature of the Gospel
History is, that the four Evangelists were eye-witnesses
(or the amanuenses of eye-witnesses) of the events which
they relate ; and that we have, in fact, embodied in their
narratives, four independent and corroborative testimonies
to the words and deeds of Christ. Their substantial
agreement is appealed to in proof of their fidelity, and
their numerous and circumstantial discrepancies are ac
cepted as proof of their independence.* Let us examine
what foundation can be discovered for this current opinion.
Have we any reason to believe that all the Evangelists,
or that any of them, were companions of Christ — eye and
ear-witnesses of his career ? And if not, what does
critical Science teach us of the probable origin of the
four Gospels ?
The first gospel has come down to us under the title of
the gospel of, or according to, St. Matthew : and the tra
dition of the Church is that it was written (probably
about A.D. 68) by Matthew, the publican, one of the twelve
apostles, the same who was called by Jesus while " sitting
at the receipt of custom." This is distinctly stated by
several of the early fathers, as the received opinion or
* Thus Paley says, " The usual character of human testimony is sub
stantial truth under circumstantial variety. When accounts of a transac
tion come from the mouths of different witnesses, it is seldom that it is not
possible to point out apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These
inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader, but often
times with little impression upon the minds of the judges. On the contrary,
a close and minute agreement induces the suspicion of confederacy or fraud. "
- -Paley's Evidences, p. 414.
Again, Lardner says, '--I have all my days read and admired the first three
evangelists, as independent witnesses, and I know not how to forbear rank
ing the other opinion among those bold as well as groundless assertions in
which critics too often indulge without considering the consequences. "~~Pr-
Lardner, like many other divines, required to be reminded that critics have
nothing to do with consequences, but only with truths, and that (to use the
language of Algernon Sydney), "a consequence cannot destroy a truth.
K

154 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
tradition— as by Papias (a. d. 116), Irenseus (A. D. 178),
Origen (a. D. 230), Epiphanius (a. D. 368), and Jerome (a.
d. 392).* All these fathers, however, without exception,
expressly affirm that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the
Hebrew language, whereas, the Gospel which we receive
as Matthew's is written in Greek ; and uot only have we
no account of its having been translated, and no guarantee
of such translation being a faithful one, but learned men
are satisfied from internal evidence that it is not a trans
lation at all, but must have been originally written in
Greek.j Our present Gospel, therefore, cannot be the
Gospel to which the fathers above cited refer. It would
appear simply that Matthew did write a history, or rather
memorabilia, of Christ (for the expression ra \oyia says
no more), but that this was something quite different
from out- Gospel.! This notion is confirmed by the fact
that the Ebionites and Nazarenes, two Christian sects,
possessed a Hebrew Gospel, which they considered to be
the only genuine one, and which they called the Gospel
according to Matthew.§ It appears, however, to have been
so materially different from our first gospel as entirely to
negative the supposition of the latter being a translation
from it.

* Papias, whose information on this as on other matters seems to have
been derived from John, who is called " the Presbyter," an elder of the
Church at Ephesus, simply says, "Matthew wrote the divine oracles
(th Aoyia) in, tiie Hebrew tongue, and every man interpreted them as he was
able."— Irenseus says, " Matthew, then, among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in
their own language, while Peter and Paid were preaching the Gospel at
Rome."— Origen and Jerome both state that (according to the tradition come
down to them) the first Gospel was written by Matthew, the Publican, in
Hebrew. t Hug, in a most luminous and learned essay, has succeded in rendering
this, if not certain, at least in the highest degree probable ; and his views
are supported by Erasmus, Webster, Paulus, and De Wette.— The only
critic of equal eminenje who adopts the opposite opinion, is Eichhorn
Jit seems to us very probable, however, as Hennell suggests, "that
some one after Matthew wrote the Greek Gospel which has come down to
us, incorporating these Hebrew \oyia (and perhaps mainly framed out of
them) ; whence it was called the Gospel according to Matthew, and in the
second century came to be considered as the work of the Apostle "  Hen-
' nell's Origin of Christianity, p. 124.
§ Hug, Introd. part ii. §7, pp. 317, 320, 392.- Jerome allows that many
considered it to have been the genuine original Gospel of Matthew. —Thirl-
walls Introd. to schleiermacher, 48-50, and notes.
Since writing the above, I have read Norton's dissertation on this subject,

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 155
The only external testimony, then, which exists to show
that Matthew the apostle wrote a gospel, shows at the
same time that our first gospel is not the one which Mat
thew wrote. External evidence, therefore, gives us no
reason to believe that it was the production of an eye-

in the notes to his " Genuineness of the Gospels." He holds to the opinion
that our Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and was in
fact the same as the Gospel of the Hebrews current among the Ebionites and
Nazarenes, with the ex- eption of certain omissions, corruptions, and inter
polations, which he conceives to have crept into the Ebionite Gospel,
not into our Greek Gospel. I cannot think his arguments conclusive ; in
deed many of them are mere assumptions. Jerome says (see Hug, p. 323.
Norton, i, 199) that he obtained a copy of the Ebionite Gospel, and trans
lated it into Greek; that some called it the Gospel " according to the Apostles,"
some " according to Matthew ; " it could scarcely, therefore, have been
tile same as our Greek Gospel, or Jerome would not have thought it neces
sary to translate it again ;— the discrepancies between the two are a ques
tion of degree, about which we have no adequate materials for judging ;
and to assume, as Norton does, that in these discrepancies, the Greek Gospel is
right, and the Hebrew wrong, is gratuitous, to say the least. If our Gospel
is clearly an original, and not a translation, the question is of course set at
rest : it is not the Gospel of Matthew ; or if it is, the general tradition of the
early Church that Matthew wrote in Hebrew (which tradition is our only
reason for supposing that Matthew wrote at all) is erroneous. If it be a trans
lation, we are still in ignorance when it was translated, by whom, and with
what degree of fidelity.
Let us sum up briefly what is known rn th\s subject, for it is an impor
tant one.
I. The general tradition of the Church as given by Iremsus, Origen,
Epiphanius, Jerome, and Chrysostom (from 178-398 A.D.), relates that
Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew, for the benefit of the Jewish Chris
tians. The origin of this tradition appears to be solely the assertion of
Papias (A.D. 116), whose works are lost, but whose statement to this effect
is preserved by Eusebius (a.d. 315), and who is supposed to have had this
piece of information, as he affirms that he had others, from John, an elder
of the Church of Ephesus.
II. A Hebrew Gospel, called sometimes the " Gospel of the Hebrews,"
sometimes the " Gospel according to the Apostles," sometimes the " Gospel
according to Matthew," was preserved by the Jewish Christians, or Ebion
ites, and was by them maintained to be the only true G< >s] >el .
III. If therefore this Gospel agreed with our Greek Gospel, or was now
extant so that we could ascertain that the discrepancies were neither
numerous nor material, there would be very strong external testimony for
believing our Greek Gospel to have been a translation (and a sufficiently
fair and faithful one) from Matthew's Hebrew work.
IV. But these Ebionites, or Jewish Christians, were held by the early
Church to be heretics, and their Gospel to be uncanonical. (Norton, i. 199.)
Would this have been the case had it really been the same as our first
Gospel ? ,
V. Again, Jerome (about A. D. 392) obtained a copy of this Hebrew Gos
pel, and translated it into both Greek and Latin. He was therefore compe
tent to judge, but he nowhere affirms it to have been the same as our
first Gospel, but describes it as " secundum apostolos, sive, ut plerique
autumant, juxta Matthasum."— Hug (322) says, " It would appear from

156 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
witness ; and it is worthy of remark that the author no
where names himself nor claims the authority of an eye
witness. Internal evidence goes further, and we think
effectually negatives the notion.
1. In the first place, many events are recorded at which
we know from the record that Matthew was not present;
— some, indeed, at which none of the disciples were pres
ent ; and yet all these are narrated in the same tone, and
with the same particularity as the other portions of the
narrative — sometimes even with more minute circumstan
tiality. Such are the Incarnation (ci.), the story of the
Magi (ii.), the Temptation (iv.), the Transfiguration (xvii.),
the Agony and the prayer in Gethsemane (xxvi.), the de
nial of Peter (xxvi.), the dream of Pilate's wife (xxvii.),
the conversation between Judas and the Priests, and that
between Pilate and the Priests (xxvii.), and, finally, that
between the Priests and the Soldiers about the missing
body of Jesus (xxviii.).
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if the writer
the fragments which yet exist in Jerome, that it was neither very like, nor
very unlike, our first Gospel.". ..." In the remotest period in which the ex
istence of the Jewish Gospel is capable of being proved, it appears to have
been so different from our Matthew, as to afford no ground for supposing
the original identity of the two writings. The evidences of its existence in
Origen and Clement are as many proofs of its dissimilarity to our first Gos
pel. " — Norton, on the other hand (i. 203) , thinks these differences no more
than are perfectly compatible with original identity.
VI. M c ireover, we have no account of the Gospel having been translated
at all, nor when, nor by whom ; and many of the most learned critics have
decided that it is no translation, but an original.
The differences of opinion are wide enough to show how small is our ac
tual knowledge in the matter. Some, as Hug, consider our Greek Gospel
to be by Mat'.hew, to be quite different from the Hebrew Gospel, and to
have been originally written in Greek. Others, as Norton, believe our Gos
pel to be by Matthew, to be the same as the Hebrew Gospel, and to have
been originally written in Hebrew, and faithfully translated. Others again,
as several German critics, to whose opinion we incline, believe it not to be
by Matthew, but by some subsequent compiler, and to have been, originally
written in Greek : the original Gospel of Matthew, if any such existed,
being the one possessed by the Ebionites, and excluded by the orthodox as
uncanomcal. It appears pretty certain (see Hug, 341) that if the Ebionite or Nazarene
Gospel was not the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, no such original
Hebrew Gospel existed. From this Hug argues that Matthew did not
write in Hebrew;— Norton, that this Ebionite Gospel was the original He
brew of Matthew. '
[Schleiermecher (Norton, i, 76) holds that our Gospels are not those spoken
ot by Papias, as proceeding from Matthew and Mark.]

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 157
was not present at the colloquy of Pilate with the Chief
Priests about the security of the grave of Jesus, neither
was he present at the feeding of the five thousand, or the
calming of the waves.
2. Secondly, the abruptness of the transitions, the
fragmentary style of the narrative, and the entire ab
sence of all those details as to the mode and object of •
the frequent journeys indicated,* which we should expect
from a companion, and which we find in Luke's account
of Paul's travels — all point to the conclusion that the
writer was a compiler, not an eye-witness.
3. The same conclusion is drawn from the circumstance
that his frequent double narratives of the same events
indicate the confusion of a man who was compiling from
fragmentary materials, rather than the fulness and clear
ness of personal recollection.f De Wette and Credner
dwell much upon this argument.
4. If, as the great majority of critics imagine, Mark
and Luke had Matthew's Gospel before them when they
wrote their own, it is certain that they could not have
regarded him as either an eye-witness or a very accurate
authority, as they do not hesitate both to retrench, to
deviate from, and to contradict him. Moreover, the proem
to Luke's Gospel must, we think, by all unbiassed minds
be regarded as fatal to the hypothesis of the authors of
any of the gospels then in existence having been either
disciples or eye-witnesses. It is clear from that, that
although many histories of Christ were then extant, none
of them had any peculiar or paramount authority.
5. The author of the first gospel scarcely appears to
have been acquainted with any portion of Christ's Minis
try except that of which Galilee was the scene.
The second gospel, like the first, bears no author's
name ; but by Papias, and IrenasusJ and (following them)
* Hennell, p. 121.
t Ex. gr., the cure of the blind men— the feedings— the demand of a sign
— the accusation regarding Beelzebub.
X Papias, our earliest source of information on the matter, was Bishop of
Hieropolis, and must have been intimate with many contemporaries of the
Apostles, and perhaps had conversed with the Apostle John. His works

158 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
by the universal tradition of the Church, is attributed to
Mark, a friend and fellow-traveller of Peter, Barnabas,
and Paul, who is several times mentioned in the New
Testament.* Papias says expressly that he was neither
a hearer nor a follower of Christ, but compiled his gospel
from information obtained from Peter, whose " interpre
ter "f he is said to have been. Papias gives " the Pres
byter John," supposed to have been an elder of the Ephe-
sian Church, as his authority. Mark, then, it is certain,
was not an eye- witness. Nor have we any reason, beyond
the similarity of name, to believe that the writer of the
second Gospel was the same Mark who is mentioned in
are now lost, with the exception of a few fragments preserved by Eusebius.
' ' Nothing (says Dr. Middleton) more effectually demonstrates the uncer
tainty of all tradition, than what is delivered to us by antiquity concerning
this very Papias. Irenasus declares him to have been the companion of
Polycarp, and the disciple of St. John the Apostle. But Eusebius tells us
that he was not a disciple of St John the Apostle, but of John the Presby
ter, who was a companion only of the Apostle, but whom IrenEeus mistook
for the Apostle." Now from Papias, through Irenseus, came most of the
early traditions, some of them relating to the millennium, of the most mon
strous character, which Irena^us does not scruple to ascribe to our Saviour,
and which fully dispose us to credit the account of Eusebius, who says,
" Papias was a weak man, of very shallow understanding, as appears from
his writings ; and by mistaking the meaning of the Apostles, imposed
these silly traditions upon IrenEeus and the greatest part of the ecclesias
tical writers who, reflecting on the age of the man, and his near approach
to the Apostles, were drawn by him into the same opinions." In another
passage, indeed, Eusebius speaks of Papias in a much more respectful man
ner, as remarkable for eloquence and scriptural knowledge ; but this passage
is not found in the older copies, and is supposed to be spurious. It is
obvious, therefore, that little reliance can be placed on any traditions which
are traced to Papias. Irenseus, our next earliest authority, derives weight
from his antiquity alone. His extreme childishness goes far to discredit
many of his statements, aud no reliance can be placed upon such of them as
are at variance with the conclusions of critical science. His traditions of
what John had related to the elders regarding the millenium are worse than
anything in the Koran, yet he gives them as " testified by Papias." The fol
lowing passage will induce us to receive with great caution any evidence he
gives regarding the origin and authenticity of the Gospels :— " As there are
four quarters of the world in which we live, and four chief winds, and the
Church is spread over all the earth, but the pillar and support of the
Church is the Gospel and its breath of life, plainly the Church must have four
columns, and from them must come forth four blasts,"' &c. &c ¦ -Ad Bceres.
c. in. It would be melancholy to reflect that through such sources our only
surviving testimony on these matters is derived, had these matters the
supreme importance usually ascribed to them.
* Acts xii. 12, 25 ; xiif. 5-13 ; xv. 37. Col. iv. 10. Phil 24 1 Peter
v. 13.
t What tnis could mean, as applied to a man who " spoke with tonsraes "
it is for the Church to explain. 5 '

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 159
the Acts as the companion of Paul and Barnabas (not of
Peter, by the way), nor the same who is mentioned in
1 Peter v. 13, as his son. Mark was one of the common
est of Roman names ; and it is probable that the idea of
the identity of the three Marks was an imagination of
Papias merely*
Neither was the author of the third Gospel an eye
witness. His proem merely claims to set forth faithfully
that which he had heard from eye-witnesses. Irenseus
is the first person who distinctly mentions Luke as the
author of this Gospel ; but little doubt appears to exist
that he wrote both the Gospel and the Acts of the Apos
tles, and was the companion of Paul in many of his voy
ages. He is mentioned Col. iv. 14 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11 ; Phile
mon, 24 ; and is supposed to be the same as Silas.
The authorship of the fourth Gospel has been the "sub
ject of much learned and anxious controversy among
Theologians. The earliest, and only very important, ex
ternal testimony we have is that of Irenseus (a.d. 178),
who says, that after Luke wrote, " John, the disciple of
the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, likewise pub
lished a gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia." The
last chapter of the gospel contains an attestation of its
having been written by John (verse 24) ; but as this
attestation obviously does not proceed from John him-
self,f and as we do not know from whom it does proceed,
its authority can have little weight. It is generally
believed, that the gospel and the first epistle proceed from
the same pen ; but if the second and third epistles are
genuine,| i^ is very questionable whether this pen was
* Credner, indeed, decides, but we think on very insufficient grounds, that
our Gospel in its present form cannot be that of Mark. _ He notices the
opposite accounts given by Irenseus and Clemens Alexandrinus, the former
- of whom says that it was written after the death of Peter, and the latter
that it was submitted to him for his approval. This statement, however, is
evidently one of those improvements upon fact which the fathers never
scrupled to indulge in. — Credner, Einl. § 56.
t De Wette doubts the genuineness of the whole chapter, and internal
evidence is certainly against it.
+ Their genuineness, however, is doubted both by Eusebius and Origen.
—See De Wette, i. § 23, 24.

160 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
that of John the Apostle ; for, though in the first chapter
of the first epistle, the writer declares himself to have been
personally acquainted with Jesus, yet in the second and
third epistles he calls himself " the Elder." Now there
was a John at Ephesus (from whom Papias derived all
his information, and who, he says, was also a disciple of
Jesus), to whom the title of " Elder " (7rpeo-/2uTepos) was
given, to distinguish him from the Apostle John.
The balancing of the internal evidence for and against
the supposition that the Apostle John was the author of
the Gospel, is a. matter of extreme difficulty. The reasons
adduced in behalf of each opinion are very strong. Hug
entertains no doubt that the decision should be in the
affirmative ; — Bretschneider almost proves the negative ;
— De Wette finds it impossible to decide ; — while Strauss,
who in his earlier editions had expressed himself satisfied
that the gospel was not genuine, writes thus in the pref
ace to the third edition : " With De Wette and Neander
in my hand, I have recommenced the examination of the
fourth Gospel, and this renewed investigation has shaken
the doubts I had conceived against its authenticity and
credibility ; — not that I am convinced that it is authentic,
but neither am I convinced that it is not." [In his " New
Life of Jesus," however, written thirty years after his first
great book, he finally and confidently decides against its
authenticity. Renan, in the first edition of his Vie de
Jisus, accepted the fourth Gospel as genuine, and largely
maimed the completeness and beauty of his estimate of
Christ by doing so. In the thirteenth edition (1867) he
entirely discards his previous assumption, and decides
after long investigation that it was not the work of the
Apostle John. In the same year was published Mr. J. J.
Tayler's " Character of the Fourth Gospel," in which the
writer, after an exhaustive examination of the whole ques
tion, indisputably, as it seems to us, establishes the same
negative conclusion.]
One argument against the supposition of John having
been the author of the fourth Gospel has impressed my
mind very forcibly. It is this : that several of the most
remarkable events recorded by the other evangelists, at

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 161
which we are told by them that only Peter, James, and
John were present, and of which, therefore, John alone of
all the evangelists could have spoken with the distinctness
and authority of an eye-witness, are entirely omitted— we
may say, ignored — by him. Such are the raising of
Jairus's daughter, the Transfiguration, the agony in Geth
semane. Nom-, on the assumption that John was the au
thor of the fourth Gospel, — either he had not seen the
works of the other eva.ngelists, in which case he would
certainly not have omitted to record narratives of such
interest and beauty, especially that of the transfiguration ;
or he had seen them, and omitted all notice of them be
cause hecouldnot confirm thestatements;forwe cannotima-
gine that he did not record them in consequence of find
ing them already recorded, and seeing nothing to alter in
the relation ; — as an eye-witness, he would certainly, had
they been true, have given them at least a passing word
of confirmation, and we find that he does, on more than
one occasion, relate events of less moment already recorded
in the other gospels, as the feeding of the five thousand,
the anointing of Jesus's feet, &c. But all the events said
to have been witnessed by John alone, are omitted by
John alone ! This fact seems fatal either to the reality
of the events in question, or to the genuineness of the
fourth Gospel. — Thus much, however, seems certain, and
admitted ; — that, if the Gospel in question were the gen
uine composition of the Apostle John, it must have been
written when he was at least ninety years of age — when
his recollections of events and conversations which had
passed sixty years before had become faint and fluctua
ting — when ill-digested Grecian learning had overlaid the
simplicity of his fisherman's character, and his Judaic
education — and the scenes and associations of Ionia had
overpowered and obscured the recollections of Palestine.*
It therefore becomes, as we shall see hereafter, an inquiry
of only secondary moment. [An almost identical conclu
sion has been expressed many years later by two critics
* In this case, also, as in that of Matthew, we may remark that the evan
gelist relates events long past, and at which he was not present, as minutely
and dramatically as if they had occurred yesterday and in his presence.

162 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM
•incomparably more competent than I can pretend to be.
Renan says :— " L'esprit de J&us n'est pas la ; et si le tils
de Ze'be'de'e a vraiment trace" ces pages, il avait certes bien
oublie" en les eciivant le lac de GefiCsareth et les char-
mants entretiens qu'il avait entendus sur ses bords. —
Vie de Jesus, Introd. xxxi.
Mr. Tayler writes (Fourth Gospel, p. 154)— "To me
there is something far less objectionable and offensive in
the supposition that we have in this gospel the free and
genuine utterances of one who gives us his own deep per
sonal conception of the truth which he had imbibed in the
heart of the Johannine church, than in admitting— which
we must do if the Apostle John were the author — that
one who had leaned on Jesus' bosom, and caught the very
accents that fell from his lips, instead of treasuring them
up with reverent exactitude, has unscrupulously trans
formed them into his own language, and invested them
with a form and colour which did not originally belong to
them."] Of the first three (or, as they are commonly termed, the
Synoptical) Gospels, we know that two, and we believe
that all three, were not the productions of eye-witnesses.
The question then arises, in what manner, and from what
materials, were they composed ? This subject has for a
long period exercised the minds of the most acute and
learned divines of Germany, as Eichhorn, Credner, Bret-
schneider, De Wette, Hug, Schleiermacher, and Strauss ;
and the results of their investigations may be thus briefly
summed up.
The numerous and irreconcilable discrepancies obser
vable in the three Evangelists preclude the supposition of
their having all drawn their information from one and the
same source — while the still more remarkable points of simi
larity and agreement, often extending to the most minute
verbal peculiarities, entirely forbid the idea of their hav
ing derived their materials from independent, and there
fore mutually confirmatory sources.*
" Those who, to explain the harmony which we observe in these works,
refer us simply to the identity of the subject, and, for the cause of their

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 163
Three different hypotheses have been formed by com
petent judges to account for these marked characteristics
of the first three Evangelists. Eichhorn (and, following
him, Dr. Marsh) adopted the idea of an original docu
ment, now lost, written in the Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic
language (the Aramaic Gospel, as it is called by some),
from which all three Evangelists copied their accounts,
with additions and omissions peculiar to themselves.
With many divines this hypothesis is still the favourite
one ; — but, in addition to the difficulty arising from the
fact that we can nowhere find any allusion to the exis
tence of such a document, more minute criticism discovered
so many peculiarities inexplicable on this theory that
its credit was much shaken, and its principal supporter,
Eichhorn, was driven, in order to maintain it, to admit
modifications which have made it almost unintelligible .*
The hypothesis appeals to us to have been completely
demolished by the reasonings of Hug, Thirlwall, and
Schleiermacher. -f- An ingenious modification of this
theory by Giesler, who substitutes an oral for a written
original, is explained and controverted by Dr. Thirlwall,
in the admirable treatise we have already quoted (p.
cxvi.). The proem to Luke's Gospel, moreover, tacitly
but effectually, negatives the supposition that he was ac
quainted with any such original and paramountry
authoritative document.
The second hypothesis is the prevalent one — that one
discrepancies, to the peculiarities of the writers, instead of offering a solu
tion of the problem, only betray either their inattention to the phenomena
which constitute it, or their incapacity to comprehend its nature. Three
accounts of the same series of transactions, delivered by independent eye
witnesses, could never, through whatever hands they might pass, naturally
and without intentional assimilation, assume the shape exhibited by the
common sections of the three first evangelists. " — Thirlwall, Introd. to
Schleiermacher, cxxii.
* He ended by imagining four different editions or copies, in different
languages, and with many variations, of this original gospel.
t" For my part (says this latter) I find it quite enough to prevent me
from conceiving the origin of the gospel according to Eichhorn's theory, that
I am to figure to myself our good evangelists surrounded by five or six open
rolls or books, and that too in different languages, looking by turns from one
into another, and writing a compilation from them. I fancy myself in _ a
German study of the 19th century, rather than in the primitive age of Chris
tianity." — Schleiermacher, Crit. Essay on Luke, Intr. p. 6.

164 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM
of the Evangelists wrote first, and that the others copied
him, with alterations, additions, and omissions, dictated
by their own judgment or by extraneous sources of in
formation. Matthew is generally considered to have been
the earliest writer; but critics differ in the relative order
they assign to Mark and Luke — some, as Mill, Hug, and
Wetstein, conceiving that Luke copied both from Mark
and Matthew ; and others, as De Wette and Griesbach,
arguing that Mark was the latest in order of time, and
made use of both his predecessors. Mr. Kenrick, in a
masterly analysis (Prosp. Rev. xxi.), has, however, we
think, succeeded in making it more than probable that
Mark's Gospel was both first in order of time, and in
fidelity of narration.
This theory has been much and minutely examined, and
to our minds it appears unsatisfactory. It accounts for
the agreements, but not for the discrepancies, of the Gos
pels ; and Dr. Thirlwall, in his translation of Schleier
macher, has succeeded in showing that it is highly im
probable, if not wholly inadmissible.*
The third hypothesis, which was first propounded by
Lessing, and has since been revived and elaborated by
Schleiermacher (one of the highest theological authorities
of Germany), seems to us to have both critical evidence
and a 'priori likelihood in its favour. These writers pre
sume the existence of a number of fragmentary na rratives,
some oral, some written, of the actions and sayings of
Christ, such as would naturally be preserved and trans
mitted by persons who had witnessed those wonderful
words and deeds. Sometimes there would be two or more
narratives of the same event, proceeding from different
witnesses ; sometimes the same original narrative in its
transmission would receive intentional or accidental vari
ations, and thus come slightly modified into the hands of
different evangelists. Sometimes detached sayings would

* Ihose who wish to obtain a general knowledge of this interesting con
troversy, should peruse the admirable summary of it given by Bishop Thirl
wall in his introduction to Schleiermacher. We have purposely avoided en
tering into the argument for it would be unfair to copy, and impossible
to abridge or amend, his lucid statement.

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 165
be preserved without the context, and the evangelists
would locate them where they thought them most appro
priate, or provide a context for them, instance's of which
are numberless in the Gospels.* But all these materials
would be fragmentary. Each witness would retain and
transmit that portion of a discourse which had impressed
him most forcibly, and two witnesses "would retain the
same expressions with varying degrees of accuracy.^ One
witness heard one discourse, or was present at one trans
action only, and recorded that one by writing or verbally,
as he best might. Of these fragments some fell into the
hands of all the Evangelists — some only into the hands of
one, or of two :j and in some cases different narratives of
the same event, expression, or discourse, would fall into
the hands of different Evangelists, which would account
for their discrepancies — sometimes into the hands of one
Evangelist, in which case he would select that one which
his judgment (or information from other sources) prompted,
or would compile an account from them jointly. In any
case, the evangelical narratives would be compilations
from a series of fragments of varying accuracy and com
pleteness. The correctness of this theory of the origin of
the gospels seems to be not so much confirmed as distinct
ly asserted by Luke. " Forasmuch as many have taken
in band to set forth in order a declaration of those things
which' are most surely believed among us, even as they de
livered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye
witnesses, and ministers of the word."
" The first step (says Schleiermacher)§ towards a Chris
tian History was a natural and reasonable desire on the
* " The verbal agreement is generally greater in reports of the discourses
of Christ than in relations of events ; and the speeches of other persons are
often given in the same terms, though the circumstances which led to them
are differently described. " — Thirlwall, cxvi.
t The habit of retaining and transmitting discourses orally was much more
common theii than now, and the practice carried to great perfection. The
learning of the Jews was transmitted exclusively by oral tradition from one
generation to another, and we entertain little doubt that the fragments both
of narratives and discourses which formed the materials of our evangelists
were almost entirely oral. — (See Thirlwall, cxviii. Norton, i. 287.)
X Thus the materials of the first three Evangelists were evidently collected
chiefly in Galilee ; those of the fourth came principally from Judea.
§ Crit. on Essay on Luke, Introd. 12-14. r

1(56 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
part of those who had believed on Jesus, without having
a knowledge of his person . These individuals woiud un
doubtedly be glad to learn some particulars of his lite, in
order to place themselves as nearly as possible on an
equality with their elder and more fortunate breth
ren In the public assemblies of the Christians this
desire was of course only incidentally and sparingly grat
ified, when a teacher happened to refer to memorable
sayings of Christ, which could only be related together
with the occasion which had called them forth : more copi
ous and detailed accounts they could only procure in fa
miliar intercourse upon ex) iress inquiry. And in this way
many particulars were told and heard, most of them,prob-
ably, without being committed to writing; but, assuredly,
much was very soon written down, partly by the narra
tors themselves, as each of them happened to be pressed
by a multiplicity of questions on a particular occurrence,
respecting which he was peculiarly qualified to give in
formation. Still more, however, must have been commit
ted to writing by the inquirers, especially by such as did
not remain constantly in the neighbourhood of the narra
tors, and were glad to communicate the narrative again
to many others, who, perhaps, were never able to consult
an eye-witness. In this way detached incidents and dis
courses were noted down. Notes of this kind were at
first no doubt less frequently met with among the Chris
tians settled in Palestine, and passed immediately into
more distant parts, to which the pure oral tradition flowed
more scantily. They, however, appeared everywhere
more frequently, and were more anxiously sought for,
when the great body of the original companions and friends
of Christ was dispersed by persecutions, and still more
when that first generation began to die away. It would,
however, have been singular if, even before this, the in
quirers who took those notes had possessed only detached
passages ; on the contrary, they, and still more their im
mediate copiers, had undoubtedly become collectors also,
each according to his peculiar turn of mind ; and thus one,
perhaps, collected only accounts of miracles ; another only
discourses ; a third, perhaps, attached exclusive importance

ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 167
to the last days of Christ, or even to the scenes of his res
urrection. Others, without any such particular predi
lection, collected all that fell in their way from" good au
thority." The work from which the above is a quotation, is a
masterly analysis of Luke's Gospel, with a view to test
the correctness of the author's hypothesis as to the origin
of the evangelical histories ; and the success is, we think,
complete. His conclusion is as follows (p. 313) : —
" The main position is firmly established, that Luke is
neither an independent writer, nor has made a compilation
from works which extended over the whole course of the
life of Jesus. He is from beginning to end no more than
the compiler and arranger of documents, which he found
in existence, and which he allows to pass unaltered through
his hands. His merit in this capacity is twofold — that of
arrangement and of judicious selection."
The theory of Norton,* as to the origin of the Gospels,
does not materially differ from the one we have adopted
from Schleiermacher, with this exception-— that he, as we
think gratuitously, assumes the oral narratives, which
formed the foundation or materials of the evangelical his
tories, to have proceeded from the Apostles exclusively.
However, this may have been the case ; and then the un
conscious sources of error will be confined to such accre
tions and lapses of memory as might be natural in the
course of thirty years' narration, and to such discrepancies
as would be inevitable among twelve men.
* Genuineness of the Gospels, i. 284-390 — a work full of learning reso
lutely applied to the establishment of a foregone conclusion.

CHAPTER VII.
FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — NATURE AND
LIMITS.
Having in our last chapter arrived at the conclusion that
the Gospels — (the three first at least, for with regard to
the fourth we pronounce no confident opinion) — are com
pilations from a variety of fragmentary narratives, and
reports of discourses and conversations, oral or written,
which were current in Palestine from thirty to forty years
after the death of Jesus — we now come to the very inter
esting and momentous inquiry, how far these narratives
and discourses can be accepted as accurate and faithful rec
ords of what was actually said and done ? — whether
they can be regarded as thoroughly and minutely cor
rect ? — and, if not, in what respects and to what ex
tent do they deviate from that thorough and miuute cor
rectness ?
It is clear at first view that the same absolute reliance
cannot be placed upon a narrative compounded from tra
ditionary fragments, as upon a consecutive history related
by an eye witness. Conceding to both faithful intention
and good, though imperfect, powers of memory, there are
obvious elements of inaccuracy in the one case which do
not appertain to the other. To the corruptions, lapses,
and alterations inseparable from transmission, especially
when oral, is added the uncertainty arising from the num
ber of the original sources of the tradition, whose character,
capacity, and opportunities of knowledge are unknown to
us. If Luke had recbrded only what he had seen, or Mark
only what he had heard from Peter, we should have com
paratively ample means of forming a decision as to the
amount of reliance to be placed upon their narrations;
but when they record what they learned from perhaps a
dozen different narrators— some original, others only sec
ond-hand, and all wholly unknown — it becomes obvious

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HTSTORY. 169
that causes of inaccuracy are introduced, the extent of the
actual operation of which on the histories that have come
down to us, it is both extremely important and singularly
difficult to estimate.
This inquiry we consider as of paramount interest to
every other question of criticism ; for on the conclusion to
which it leads us depends the whole — not of Christianity,
which, as we view it, is unassailable, but — of textiml or
dogmatic Christianity ; i.e., the Christianity of nine-tenths
of nominal Christendom. We proceed, therefore, to ask
what evidence we possess for assuming or impugning the
minute fidelity of the Gospel history.
There are certain portions of the Synoptical Gospels,
the genuineness of which has been much disputed, viz.,
the two first chapters of Matthew — the two first of Luke
— and the last twelve verses of the 16th chapter of
Mark.* Into this discussion we cannot enter, but must
refer such of our readers as wish to know the grounds of
decision, to Norton, Hug, De Wette, Eichhorn, and Gries-
bach. The result of critical inquiry seems to be, that the
only solid ground for supposing the questioned portions
of Luke and Matthew not to be by the same hand as the
rest of their respective gospels, is the obviously insuffi
cient one of the extraordinary character of their con
tents ;"f — while the spuriousness of the last twelve verses
of Mark is established beyond question ; — the real Gospel
of Mark (all of it, at least that has come down to us) ends
with the 8th verse of the 1 6th chapter. In our subse
quent remarks we shall therefore treat the whole of the
acknowledged text of these gospels as genuine, with the
exception of the conclusion of Mark ; — and we now pro
ceed to inquire into the nature and limits of the fidelity
of Matthew's record.
In the first place, while admitting to the fullest extent
the general clearness and fulness with which the charac
ter of Jesus is depicted hi the first Gospel, it is important
* See Norton, i. 16, 17.
t Strauss, i. 117, 142. Hug, 469-479. See also Schleiermacher. Norton,
however, gives some reasons to the contrary, which deserve consideration,
i. 209.

170 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
to bear in mind, that— as Hug has clearly shewn*— it was
written with a special, we might almost say a polemical
object It was composed, less to give a continuous and
complete history of Jesus, than to prove that he was the
expected Messiah; and those passages were therefore
selected out of the author's materials which appeared
most strongly to bear upon and enforce this conclusion.
The remembrance of this object, of Matthew's will aid us
in forming our judgment as to his fidelity.
According to the universal expectation, the Messiah
was to be born of the seed of Abraham, and the lineage
and tribe of David. Accordingly, the Gospel opens with
an elaborate genealogy of Jesus, tracing him through
David to Abraham. Now, in the first place, this geneal
ogy is not correct : — secondly; if the remainder of the
chapter is to be received as true, it is in no sense the
genealogy of Jesus ; and, thirdly, it is wholly and irrec
oncilably at variance with that given by Luke.
1. In verse 17, Matthew sums up the genealogy thus: —
" So all the generations from Abraham to David are four
teen generations ; and from David until the carrying
away into Babylon are fourteen generations ; and from
the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen
generations." — IN ow (passing over as unnecessarily minute
and harsh the criticism of Strauss, that by no way of
counting can we make out fourteen generations in the
last series, without disturbing the count of the others),
we must call attention to the fact that the number four
teen in the second series is only obtained by the deliberate
omission of four generations, viz., three between Joram
andOzias,and one between Josiah and Jeconiah — as maybe
seen by referring to 1 Chron. iii. There is also (at verses
* " All Matthew's reflections are of one kind. He shows us, as to every
thing that Jesus did and taught, that it was characteristic of the Messiah.
On occasion of remarkable events, or a recital of parts of the discourses of
Jesus, he refers us to the ancient Scriptures of the Jews, in which this com
ing Saviour is delineated, and shows in detail that the great ideal which
flitted before the minds of the Prophets was realized in Jesus." — Hug, In
trod. :112. These references are twelve in Matthew, two in Mark, :md three
in Luke. _ Again, he says (p. :184), " Matthew is an historical deduction ;
Mark is history. "

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPKL HISTORY. 171
4-6) another apparent, and we think certain, error.
Only four generations are reckoned between Naason, who
lived in the time of Moses, and David, a period of four
hundred years. (Compare Num. i. 7; Ruth v. 20).
2. The genealogy here given, correct or incorrect, is the
genealogy of Joseph, who was in no sense whatever the
father (or any relation at all) of Jesus, since this last, we
are assured (verses 18 and 25), was in his Mother's womb
before she and her husband came together. The story
of the Incarnation and the genealogy are obviously at
variance ; and no ingenuity, unscrupulously as it has been
applied, can produce even the shadow of an agreement ;
— and when the flat contradiction given to each other by
the 1st and the 18th verses is considered, it is difficult
for an unprejudiced mind not to feel convinced that the
author of the genealogy (both in the first and third Gos
pels) was ignorant of the story of the Incarnation, though
the carelessness and uncritical temper of the evangelist
— a carelessness partially avoided in the case of Luke,
by an interpolation* — has united the two into one com
pilation. 3. The genealogy of Jesus given by Luke is wholly
different from that of Matthew ; and the most desperate
efforts of divines have been unable to effect even the
semblance of a reconciliation. Not only does Matthew
give 26 generations between David and Joseph where
Luke has 41, but they trace the descent through an en
tirely different line of ancestry. According to Matthew,
the father of Joseph was named Jacob — according to
Luke, Heli. In Matthew, the son of David through
whom Joseph descended is Solomon; — in Luke it is Na
than. Thence the genealogy of Matthew descends through
the known royal line — the genealogy of Luke through an
obscure collateral branch. The two lines only join in
Salathiel and Zorobabel ; and even here they differ as to
the father of Salathiel and the son of Zorobabel. Many

* Luke iii. 23 " Jesus . being, as ivas supposed (ws eVojuiCe-ru), the
son of Joseph," — a parenthesis, which renders nugatory the whole of the
following genealogy, and cannot have originally formed a part of it.— Ihe
16th verse of Matthew also bears indications of a similar emendation.

172 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ingenious hypotheses have been broached to explain and
harmonize these singular discrepancies, but wholly in
vain. One critic supposes that one evangelist gives the
pedigree of the adoptive, the other of the real father of
Joseph. Another assumes that one is the genealogy of
Joseph, and the other that of Mary — a most convenient
idea, but entirely gratuitous, and positively contradicted
by the language of the text. The circumstance that any
man could suppose that Matthew, when he said " Jacob
begat Joseph," or Luke, when he said 'Joseph was the
son of Heli," could refer to the wife of the one, or the
daughter-in-law of the other, shows to what desperate
stratagems polemical orthodoxy will resort in order to de
fend an untenable position.
The discrepancy between Matthew and Luke in their
narratives of the miraculous conception, affords no ground
for suspecting the fidelity of the former. Putting aside
the extraordinary nature of the whole transaction — a
consideration which does not at present concern us — the
relation in Matthew is simple, natural, and probable ; the
surprise of Joseph at the pregnancy . of his wife (or his
betrothed, as the words may mean) ; his anxiety to avoid
scandal and exposure; his satisfaction through the means
of a dream (for among the Jews dreams were habitually
regarded as means of communication from heaven) ; and
his abstinence from all conjugal connection with Mary
till after the birth of the miraculous infant, — present pre
cisely the line of conduct we should expect from a simple,
pious, and confiding Jew.
But when we remember the dogmatic object which,
as already mentioned, Matthew had in view, and in con
nection with that remembrance, read the 22nd and 23rd
verses, the whole story at once becomes apocryphal, and
its origin at once clear. "Now all this was done,"
says Matthew, " that it might be fulfilled which was spo
ken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin
shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son," &c, fee.
Now this is one of the many instances which we shall
have to notice, in which this evangelist quotes prophecies
as intended for Jesus, and as fulfilled in him, which have

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 173
not the slightest relation to him or his career. The ad
duced prophecy* is simply an assurance sent to the unbe
lieving Ahaz, that before the child, which the wife of
Isaiah would shortly conceive (see Isa. viii. 2-4), was old
enough to speak, or to know good from evil, the conspir
acy of Syria and Ephraim against the King of Judea
should be- dissolved ; and had manifestly no more refer
ence to Jesus than to Napoleon. The conclusion, there
fore, is unavoidable, that the events said to have occurred
in fulfilment of a prophecy, which Matthew wrongly sup
posed to have reference to them, were by him imagined,
or modified into accordance with the supposed prophecy ;
since it is certain that they did not, as he affirms, take
place, " in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled."
Pursuing this line of inquiry, we shall find many in
stances in which this tendency of Matthew to find in
Jesus the fulfilment of prophecies, which he erroneously
conceived to refer to him, has led him to narrate circum
stances respecting which the other evangelists are silent,
as well as to give, with material (but intentional) varia
tions, relations which are common to them all — a peculi
arity which throws great suspicion over several passages.
Thu". in ii. 13-15, we are told that immediately after the
visit of the Magi, Joseph took Mary and the child, and
fled into Egypt, remaining there till the death of Herod,
" that it might Vie fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my
son." The passage in question occurs in Hosea, xi. 1, and
has not the slightest reference to Christ. It is as fol
lows : — " When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and
called my son out of Egypt." Here is an event related,
* " Therefore the Lord spake unto Ahaz, saying, . . Behold, a virgin
shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. . . . Be
fore the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land
that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." Isa. vii. 10-lb.
" And I went unto the prophetess ; and she conceived, and bare a son.
Then said the Lord to me . . . before the child shall have kriowh dge
to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of
Samaria shall be taken away before the King of Assyria."- -viii. 3, 4.
No divine of character will now, we believe, maintain that this prophecy
had any reference to Jesus ; nor ever would have imagined it to have, with
out Matthew's intimation. — See Hebrew Monarchy, p. 262.

174 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.

Vt

3ry improbable in itself, flatly contradicted by Luke's
history * and which occurred, we are told, that a prophecy
might be fulfilled to which it had no reference, of which
it was no fulfilment, and which in fact, was no prophecy
at all.
A similar instance occurs immediately afterwards in
the same chapter. We are told that Herod, when he
found " that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceed
ing wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that
were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from
two years old and under ; " — an act which, whether suit
able or not to the known character of Herod (who was
cruel and tyrannical, but at the same time crafty and
politic, not silly nor insane"!') — must, if it had occurred,
have created a prodigious sensation, and made one of the
most prominent points in Herod's history j — yet of which
none of the other evangelists, nor anyr historian of the
day, nor Josephus (though he devoted a considerable por
tion of his history to the reign of Herod, and does not
spare his reputation), makes any mention. But. this also,
according to Matthew's notion, was the fulfilment of a
prophecy. " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken
by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama there, was a
voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourn
ing, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be
comforted, because they are not." — Here, again, the ad
duced prophecy was quite irrelevant, being simply a des
cription of the grief of Judea for the captivity of her
children, accompanied by a promise of their return.§
* Luke's account entirely precludes the sojourn in Egypt. He says that
eifjht days after the birth of Jesus he was circumcised, forlu days after was
presented in the temple, and that when these legal ceremonies were accom
plished, he went with his parents to Nazareth.
t Neander argues very ably that such a deed is precisely what we should
expect from Herod's character. But Sir W. Jones gives'reasnn for believ
ing that the whole story may be of Hindoo origin.— Christian Theism, p. 84,
where the passage is quoted.
X Mr. Milman (Hist. Jews, b. xii.), however, thinks differently, -and ar
gues that, among Herod's manifold barbarities, " the murder of a few chil
dren in an obscure village " would easily escape notice. The story is at
least highly improbable, for had Herod wished to secure the death of Jesus,
so cunning a prince would have sent his messengers along with the Ma»i,
not awaited their doubtful return.
§ The passage is as follows :— " A voice was heard in Iiamah, lamentation,

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 175
A still more unfortunate instance is found at the 23rd
verse, where we are told that Joseph abandoned his inten
tion of returning into Judea, and turned aside into Galilee,
and came and dwelt at Nazareth, " that it might be ful
filled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be
called a Nazarene,." Now, in the first place, the name
Nazarene was not in use till long afterwards ; secondly,
there is no such prophecy in the Old Testament. The
evangelist, perhaps, had in his mind the words that were
spoken to the mother of Samson (Judg. xiii. 5) respecting
her son : " The child shall be aNazarite (i.e., one bound by
a vow, whose hair was forbidden to be cut, which never
was the case with Jesus*) unto God from the womb."
In this place we must notice the marked discrepancy
between Matthew and Luke, as to the original residence of
the parents of Jesus. Luke speaks of them as living at
Nazareth before the birth of Jesus ; Matthew as having
left Bethlehem, the birthplace of their child, to go to Naza
reth, only after that event, and from peculiar considera
tions. Critics, however, are disposed to think Matthew
right on this occasion.
There are, however, several passages in different parts
of the Evangelists which suggest serious doubts as to
whether Jesus was really born at Bethlehem, and was
really a lineal descendant of David, and whether both
these statements were not unfounded inventions of his
followers to prove his title to the Messiahship. In the
first place, the Jews are frequently represented as urging
that Jesus could not be the Messiah because he was not
born at Bethlehem ; and neither Jesus nor his followers
ever set them right upon this point. If he were really
born at Bethlehem, the circumstance was generally un
known ; and though its being unknown presented an
obvious and valid objection to the admission of his claim
to the Messianic character, no effort was made either by
and bitter weeping ; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be com
forted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord ; Re
frain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears : for thy work
shall be rewarded, saith the Lord ; and they shall come again from the land
of the enemy." — Jer. xxxi. 15, 16.
* See Num. vi. 2 -6.

176 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Christ or his disciples to remove, this objection, which
might have been done by a single word (John vii. 41-43,
•32; i. 46). "Others said, This is the Christ. But some
said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee ? Hath not the
scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David,
and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was ?
So there was a division among the people because of him."
— Again, the Pharisees object to Nicodemus, when arguing
on Jesus' behalf — " Search, and look: for out of Galilee
ariseth no prophet."
The three Synoptical evangelists (Matt. xxii. 41 ; Mark
xii. 35 ; Luke xx. 41) all record an argument of Christ
addressed to the Pharisees, the purport of which is to show
that the Messiah need not be, and could not be, the Son
of David. " While the Pharisees were gathered together,
Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ ?
whose son is he ? They say unto him, The son of David.
He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call
him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou
on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool ?
If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?" Now —
[passing by the consideration that, as Mr. Arnold informs
us, " the translation ought to run, ' The Eternal said unto
my lord the king,' and was a simple promise of victory to
a prince of God's chosen people,"] — is it conceivable that
Jesus should have brought forward the passage as an
argument if he were really a descendant of David ? Must
not his intention have been to argue that, though not a
son of David, he might still be the Christ ?
In xxi. 2-4, 6, 7, the entry into Jerusalem is thus
described : " Then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto
them, Go into the village over against you, and straight
way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her : loose
them, and bring them to me. . And the disciples
went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the
ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and set
him thereon" (literally "upon them" eVdVco airwv). Now,
[though two animals may well have been brought, the foal
naturally accompanying its mother, yet] the description
(in ver. 7), representing Jesus as sitting upon both ani-

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 179
In the same manner, in chap. xx. 30-34, Matthew re
lates the cure of two blind men near Jericho. Mark and
Luke* narrate the same occurrence, but speak of only one
blind man. This story affords also an example of the
evangelist's carelessness as a compiler, for (in chap. ix. 27)
he has already given the same narrative, but has assigned
to it a different locality.
A still more remarkable instance of Matthew's ten
dency to amplification, or rather to multiplication and rep
etition, is found in xiv. 16, et seq., and xv. 32, et seq.,-f
where the two miraculous feedings of the multitude are
described. The feeding of the five thousand is related by
all four evangelists ; but the repetition of the miracle,
with a slight variation in the number of the multitude
and of the loaves and fragments, is peculiar to Matthew
and to Mark.J Now, that both these narratives are merely
varying accounts of the same event (the variation arising
from the mode in which the materials of the gospel history
were collected, as explained in our preceding chapter),
and that only one feeding was originally recorded, is now
admitted by all competent critics,§ and appears clearly
from several considerations. — First, Luke and John relate
only one feeding ; in the next place, the two narratives in
Matthew are given with the same accompaniments, in a
similar, probably in the very same, locality ; thirdly, the
particulars of the occurrence and the remarks of the par
ties, are almost identically the same on each occasion ;
and, finally (what- is perfectly conclusive), in the second
narration, the language and conduct both of Jesus and his
disciples, show a perfect unconsciousness of any previous
occurrence of the same nature. Is it credible, that if the
disciples had, a few days before, witnessed the miraculous
feeding of the " five thousand " with " five loaves and

* Mark, x. 40 : Luke xviii, 35.
t The parallel passages are Mark vi. 35 ; Luke ix. 12 ; John vi. 5.
J See Mark viii. 1, et seq. The language of the two evangelists is here so
precisely similar, as to leave no doubt that one copied the other, or both a
common document. The word baskets is ic6<pivoi in the first case, and tmvldpes
in the second, in both evangelists.
§ See also Schleiermacher, p. 144, who does not hesitate to express his
full disbelief in the second feeding.

178 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
To pass from this ground of want of confidence in
Matthew's fidelity, we may specify two others -.—first,
we find several discrepancies between him and the other
evangelists, in which there is reason to believe that he
was wrong ; and secondly, we find words and parts of dis
courses put by him into Jesus' mouth, which there is
ample reason to believe that Jesus never uttered.
I. The second chapter opens with an account (peculiar
to Matthew) of the visit of the wise men of the East to
Bethlehem, whither they were guided by a star which
went before them, and stood over the house in which the
infant Jesus lay. The general legendary character of the
narrative — its similarity in style with those contained in
the apocryphal gospels — and more especially its conform
ity with those astrological notions which, though
prevalent in the time of Matthew, have been exploded
by the sounder scientific knowledge of our days — all
unite to stamp upon the story the impress of poetic or
mythic fiction ; and its admission into his history is not
creditable to Matthew's judgment, though it may not
impugn his fidelity; as it may have been among his
materials, and he had no critical acumen which should
lead him to reject it.
In Matt. viii. 28-34, we have an account of the healing
of two demoniacs, whose diseases (or whose devils, ac
cording to the evangelist) were communicated to an
adjacent herd of swine. Now, putting aside the great
improbability of two madmen, as fierce as these are
described to be, living together, Mark and Luke,* who
both relate the same occurrence, state that there was one
demoniac, obviously a much preferable version of the
narrative.in some lost book of Jeremiah. " And I said unto them, If ye think good,
give me my price ; and if not, forbear . So they weighed for my price thirty
pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter : a
goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of
silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." The word
" potter " is a translation made to accommodate Matthew. The LXX. has
" treasury " or " foundry," as it were our " mint."
* Mark v. 1 ; Luke viii. 26. There are other discrepancies between the
three narratives, both in this and the following case, but they are beside
our present purpose.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 179
In the same manner, in chap. xx. 30-34, Matthew re
lates the cure of two blind men near Jericho. Mark and
Luke* narrate the same occurrence, but speak of only one
blind man. This story affords also an example of the
evangelist's carelessness as a compiler, for (in chap. ix. 27)
he has already given the same narrative, but has assigned
to it a different locality.
A still more remarkable instance of Matthew's ten
dency to amplification, or rather to multiplication and rep
etition, is found in xiv. 16, et seq., and xv. 32, et seq.,f
where the two miraculous feedings of the multitude are
described. The feeding of the five thousand is related by
all four evangelists ; but the repetition of the miracle,
with a slight variation in the number of the multitude
and of the loaves and fragments, is peculiar to Matthew
and to Mark.j: Now, that both these narratives are merely
varying accounts of the same event (the variation arising
from the mode in which the materials of the gospel history
were collected, as explained in our preceding chapter),
and that only one feeding was originally recorded, is now
admitted by all competent critics,§ and appeals clearly
from several considerations. — First, Luke and John relate
only one feeding ; in the next place, the two narratives in
Matthew are given with the same accompaniments, in a
similar, probably in the very same, locality ; thirdly, the
particulars of the occurrence and the remarks of the par
ties, are almost identically the same on each occasion ;
and, finally (what is perfectly conclusive), in the second
narration, the language and conduct both of Jesus and his
disciples, show a perfect unconsciousness of any previous
occurrence of the same nature. Is it credible, that if the
disciples had, a few days before, witnessed the miraculous
feeding of the " five thousand " with " five loaves and

* Mark, x. 46 : Luke xviii, 35.
t The parallel passages are Mark vi. 35 ; Luke ix. 12 ; John vi. 5.
X See Mark viii. 1, et seq. The language of the two evangelists is here so
precisely similar, as to leave no doubt that one copied the other, or both a
common document. The word baskets is k6(j>ii>oi in the first case, and a-nvtdpes
in the second, in both evangelists. .
§ See also Schleiermacher, p., 144, who does not hesitate to express his
full disbelief in the second feeding.

180 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
two fislics," they should on the second occasion, when
they had " seven loaves and a few small fishes," have re
plied to the suggestion of Jesus that the fasting multitude
should again be fed, " whence should we have so much
bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude ? "
It is certain that the idea of two feedings having really
taken place, could only have found acceptance in minds
preoccupied with the doctrine of the plenary inspiration
and infallibility of Scripture. It is now entirely aban
doned by all divines except the English, and by the few
thinkers even among them. A confirmatory argument,
were any needed, might be drawn from observing that
the narrative of the fourth evangelist agrees in some
points with Matthew's first, and in some with his second
account. The story contained in xvii. 27, of Jesus command
ing Peter to catch a fish in whose mouth he should
find the tribute money, has a most pagan and unworthy
character about it, harmonizes admirably with the puerile
narratives which abound in the apocryphal gospels, and
is ignored by all the other evangelists.
In xxvii. 24, we find this narrative : " When Pilate saw
that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult
was made, he took water, and washed his hands before
the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blopd of this
just person ; see ye to it." Now, in the first place, this
symbolic action was a Jewish, not a Roman ceremony,*
and as such most unsuitable and improbable in a Roman
governor, one of a nation noted for their contempt of the
habits and opinions of their subject nations. In the
second place, is it inconceivable that Pilate should so em
phatically have pronounced his own condemnation, by
declaring Jesus to be a "just man," at the very moment
when he was about to scourge him, and deliver him over
to the most cruel tortures ?
In Matthew's account of the last moments of Jesus, we
* It appears from Deut. xxi. 1-9, that the washing of the hands was a
specially-appointed Mosaic rite, by which the authorities of any city in
which murder had been committed were to avow their innocence of the
crime, and ignorance of the criminal.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 181
have the following remarkable statements (xxvii. 50-53*):
— " Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice
yielded up tho ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple
was rent in twain from the top to the bottom ; and the
earth did quake, and the rocks rent ; and the graves were
opened ; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and
went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." Now,
first, this extraordinary fact, if it be a fact (and it is said
to have been a public one — "they appeared unto many"),
is ignored by the other evangelists ; nor do we find any
reference to it in the Acts or the Epistles, nor any reason
to believe that any of the apostles were aware of the oc
currence — one, certainly, to excite the deepest interest and
wonder. Secondly, the statement is a confused, if not a
self-contradictory, one. The assertion in ver. 52, clearly
is, that the opening of the graves, and the rising of the
bodies of saints, formed a portion of that series of con
vulsions of nature which is said to have occurred at the
moment when Jesus expired ; whereas the following verse
speaks of it as occurring " after his resurrection." To
suppose, as believers in verbal accuracy do, and must do,
that the bodies were re-animated on the Friday, and not
allowed to come out of their graves till the Sunday, is
clearly too monstrous to be seriously entertained. If, to
avoid this difficulty, we adopt Griesbach's reading, and
translate the passage thus : " And coming out of their
graves, went into the holy city after the resurrection," —
the question still recurs, " Where did they remain between
Friday and Sunday ? And did they, after three days'
emancipation, resume their sepulchral habiliments, and
return to their narrow prison-house, and their former state
of dust ? " Again, when we refer to the original, we find
that it was the bodies (o-w^ara) which " arose ; " but, if we
suppose that the evangelist wrote grammatically, it
* Norton (i. 214) thinks this passage an interpolation, as he does many
others, on the obviously unfair ground that the statement it contains is im
probable. It may be improbable that it should have happened, yet not im
probable that Matthew should have recorded it if he found it among his
traditional materials.

182 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
could not have been the bodies which " came out of the
graves," or he would have written e£<='A(9ovTa., not i&XBovre;.
Whence Bush* assumes that the bodies arose (or were
raised, vycpOv) at the time of the crucifixion, but lay down
again/f and that it was the souls which came out of the
graves after the resurrection of Christ and appeared unto
many ! We cannot, however, admit that souls inhabit
graves. There can, we think, remain little doubt in unprepos
sessed minds, that the whole legend ( it is greatly aug
mented in the apocryphal gospels)| was one of those in
tended to magnify and honour Christ,§ which were cur
rent in great numbers at the time when Matthew wrote,
and which he, with the usual want of discrimination and
somewhat omnivorous,,, tendency which distinguished him
as a compiler, admitted into his gospel ; — and that the
confusing phrase, " after his resurrection," was added
either by him, or by some previous transmitter, or later
copier, to prevent the apparent want of deference and de
corum involved in a resurrection which should have pre
ceded that of Jesus.
In chap, xxvii. 62-66, and xxviii. 11-15, we find a rec
ord of two conversations most minutely given — one
between the chief priests and Pilate, and the other be
tween the priests and the guards of the sepulchre — at
which it is impossible the evangelist, and most improbable
* See a very elaborate work of Professor Bush, entitled " Anastasis, or
the Resurrection of the Body " (p. 210), the object of which is to prove that
the resurrection of the body is neither a rational nor a scriptural doctrine.
t The Professor's notion appears to be that the rising of the bodies on the
Friday was a mere mechanical effect of the earthquake, and that re-anima
tion did not take place till the Sunday, and that even then it was not the
bodies which arose.
X The Gospel of the Hebrews says that a portion of the temple was thrown
down. See also the Gospel of Nicodemus.
§ Similar prodigies were said, or supposed, to accompany the deaths of
many great men in former days, as in the case of Cassar (Virgil, Georg. i.
463, et seq.). Shakespeare has embalmed some traditions of the kind,
exactly analogous to the present case. Sec Julius Cfesar, Act ii. Sc. 2.
Again he says : Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1.
" In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 183
that any informant of his, could have been present ; — and
which, to our minds, bear evident marks of being subse
quent fictions supposed in order to complete and render
more invulnerable the history of Jesus' resurrection. It
is extremely unlikely that the chief priests and Pharisees
should have thought of taking precautions beforehand
against a fraudulent resurrection. We have no reason to
believe that they had ever heard of the prophecy to which
they allude,* for it had been uttered only to his own dis
ciples, the twelve, and to them generally with more or
less secrecy ;j and we know that by them it was so en
tirely disregarded,^ or had been so completely forgotten
that the resurrection of their Lord Was not only not ex
pected, but took them completely by surprise. Were the
enemies of Christ more attentive to, and believing on, his
predictions than his own followers ?
The improbability of the sequel of the story is equally
striking. That the guard placed by the Sanhedrim at the
tomb should, all trembling with affright from the appari
tion (xxviii. 4), have been at once, and so easily, persua
ded to deny the vision, and propagate a lie ; — that the
Sanhedrim, instead of angrily and contemptuously scout
ing the story of the soldiers, charging them with having
slept, and threatening them with punishment, should have
believed their statement, and, aj the same time, in full
conclave, resolved to bribe them to silence and falsehood ;
— that Roman soldiers, as it is generally assumed they
were, who could scarcely commit a more heinous offence
against discipline than to sleep upon their post, should so
willingly have accepted money to accuse themselves of
such a breach of duty ; — are all too improbable supposi
tions to be readily allowed; especially when the 13th
*It is true that John (ii. 19) relates that Jesus said publicly in answer to
the Jews' demand for a sign, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
build it up." This John considers to have reference to his resurrection,
but we know that the Jews attached no such meaning to it, from ver. 20,
and also from Matt. xxvi. 61.
t Matt. xvi. 21, xx. 19 ; Mark viii. 31, x. 32 ; Luke ix. 22, xviii. 33.
J This is distinctly stated, John xx. 9 : " For as yet they knew not the
scripture, that he must rise again from the dead, ' and indeed it is clear from
all the evangelical narratives.

184 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
verse indicates a subsequent Jewish rumour as the foun
dation of the story, and when the utter silence of all other
evangelists and apostles respecting a narrative which, if
true, would be so essential a feature in their preaching of
the resurrection, is duly borne in mind.
Many minor instances in which Matthew has retrenched
or added to the accounts of Mark, according as retrench
ment or omission would, in his view, most exalt the
character of Jesus, are specified in the article already
referred to (Prosp. Rev. xxi.), which we recommend to the
perusal of all our readers as a perfect pattern of critical

CHAPTER VIII.
FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY CONTINUED. 
MATTHEW.
In pursuing our inquiry as to the degree of reliance to be
placed on Matthew's narrative, we now come to the con
sideration of those passages in which there is reason to
believe that the conversations and discourses of Christ
have been incorrectly reported ; and that words have been
attributed to him which he did not utter, or at least did
not utter in the form and context in which they have
been transmitted to us. That this should be so, is no
more than we ought to expect a priori; for, of all things,
discourses and remarks are the most likely to be imper
fectly heard, inaccurately reported, and materially altered
and corrupted in the course of transmission from mouth
to mouth. Indeed, as we do not know, and have no
reason to believe, that the disco urses of Christ were written
down by those who heard them immediately after their
delivery, or indeed much before they reached the hands
of the evangelists, nothing less than a miracle perpetually
renewed for many years could have preserved these tra
ditions perfectly pure and genuine. In admitting the
belief, therefore, that they are in several points imperfect
and inaccurate, we are throwing no discredit upon the
sincerity or capacity, either of the evangelists or their
informants, or the original reporters of the sayings of
Christ ; — we are simply acquiescing in the alleged opera
tion of natural causes.* In some cases, it is true, we
* This seems to be admitted even by orthodox writers. Thus Mr. Trench
says : — "The most earnest oral tradition will in a little while lose its dis
tinctness, undergo essential though insensible modifications. Apart from
all desire to vitiate the committed word, yet, little by little, the subjective
condition of those to whom it is entrusted, through whom it passes, will in
fallibly make itself felt ; and in such treacherous keeping is all which remains
merely in the memories of men, that, after a very little while, rival schools
M

186 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
shall find reason to believe that the published discourses
of Christ have been intentionally altered and artificially
elaborated by some of the parties through whose hands
they passed; but in those days, when the very idea of his
torical criticism was yet unborn, this might have been
done without any unfairness of purpose. We know that at
that period, historians of far loftier pretensions and more
scientific character, writing in countries of far greater'
literary advancement, seldom scrupled to fill up and round
off the harangues of their orators and statesmen with
whatever they thought appropriate for them to have said
— nay, even to elaborate for them long orations out of the
most meagre hearsay fragments.*
A general view of Matthew, and still more a comparison
of his narrative with that of the other three "gospels,
brings into clear light his entire indifference to chronolog
ical or contextual arrangement in his record of the dis
courses of Christ. Thus in ch. v., vi., vii., we have crowd
ed into one sermon the teachings and aphorisms which in
the other evangelists are spread over the whole of Christ's
ministry. In ch. xiii. we find collected together no less
than six parables of similitudes for the kingdom of heaven.
In ch. x. Matthew compresses into one occasion (the send
ing of the twelve, where many of them are strikingly out
of place) a variety of instructions and reflections which
must have belonged to a subsequent part of the career of
Jesus, where indeed they are placed by the other evan
gelists. In ch. xxiv., in the same manner, all the prophe
cies relating to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end
of the world are grouped together ; while, in many in
stances, remarks of Jesus are introduced in the midst of
of disciples will begin to contend not merely how their Master's words were
to be accepted, but what those very words were." — Trench's Hulsean Lectures,
p. 15.
* This in fact was the custom of antiquity — the rule, not the exception r—
See Thucydides, Livy, Sallust, &c. passim. We find also (see Acts v. 34-39),
that Luke himself did not scruple to adopt this common practice, for he
gives us a verbatim speech of Gamaliel delivered in the Sanhedrim, after
the apostles had been expressly excluded, and which therefore he could have
known only by hearsay report. Moreover, it is certain that this speech
must have been Luke's, and not Gamaliel's, since it represents Gamaliel in
the year A. D. 34 or 35, as speaking in the past tense of an agitator, Theudas,
who did not appear, as we learn from Josephus, till after the year A. D. 44.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.— MATTHEW. 187
others with which they have no connection, and where
they are obviously out of place ; as xi. 28-30, and xiii.
12, which evidently belongs to xxv. 29.
In c. xi. 12 is the following expression : " And from
the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force." Now, though the meaning of the passage is diffi
cult to ascertain with precision, yet the expression "from
the days of John the Baptist until now," clearly implies
that the speaker lived at a considerable distance of time
from John ; and though appropriate enough in a man who
wrote in the year A. D. 65, or thirty years after John,
could not have been used by one who spoke in the year
A.D. 30 or 33, while John was yet alive. This passage,
therefore, must be regarded as coming from Matthew, not
from Jesus.
In c. xvi. 9, 10, is an»ther remark which we may say
with perfect certainty was put unwarrantably into the
mouth of Christ either by the evangelist, or the source
from which he copied. We have already seen that there
could not have been more than one miraculous feeding
of the multitude ; yet Jesus is here made to refer to two.
The simple and obvious explanation at once forces itself
upon our minds, that the evangelist, or his authority,
having, in his uncritical and confused conceptions, related
two feedings, and finding among his materials a discourse
of Jesus having reference to a miraculous occurrence of
that nature, perceived the inconsistency of narrating- two
such events, and yet making Jesus refer to only one, and
therefore added verse 10, by way of correcting the in
congruity. The same remark will apply to Mark also.
The passage at c. xvi. 18, 19, bears obvious marks of
being either an addition to the words of Christ, or a- cor
ruption of them. " He saith unto them, But whom say
ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it
unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I
say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this

188 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the
keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and what
soever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
The confession by Simon Peter of his belief in the
Messiahship of Jesus is given by all the four evangelists,
and there is no reason to question the accuracy of this
part of the narrative. Mark and John, as well as
Matthew, relate that Jesus bestowed on Simon the
surname of Peter, and this part, therefore, may also be
admitted. The remainder of the narrative corresponds
almost exactly with the equivalent passages in the other
evangelists ; but the 18th verse has no parallel in any of
them. Moreover, the word " church " betrays its later
origin. The word ex^o-ia was used by the disciples to
signify those assemblies and organizations into which
they formed themselves after the death of Jesus, and is
met with frequently in the epistles, but nowhere in the
Gospels, except in the passage under consideration, and
one other, which is equally, or even more contestable.*
It was in use when the gospel was written, but not when
the discourse of Jesus was delivered. It must be taken
as belonging, therefore, to Matthew, not to Jesus.
The following verse, conferring spiritual authority, or,
as it is commonly called, " the power of the keys," upon
Peter, is repeated by Matthew in connection with another
discourse (in c. xviii. 18) ; and a similar passage is found
in John (c. xx. 23), who, however, places the promise
after the resurrection, and represents it as made to the
apostles generally, subsequent to the descent of the Holy
Spirit. But there are considerations which effectually
forbid our receiving this promise, at least as given by
Matthew, as having really emanated from Christ. In the
first place, in both passages it occurs in connection with
the suspicious word " church," and indicates an ecclesias-
* C. xviii, 17. " If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church :
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man
and a publican. " The whole passage, with its context, betokens an ecclesias
tical, not a Christian spirit.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — MATTHEW. ISO
tical as opposed to a Christian origin. Secondly, Mark,
who narrates the previous conversation, omits this
promise so honourable and distinguishing to Peter, which
it is impossible for those who consider him as Peter's
mouthpiece, or amanuensis, to believe he would have
done, had any such promise been actually made* Luke,
the companion and intimate of Paul and other apostles,
equally omits all mention of this singular conversation.
Thirdly, not only do we know Peter's utter unfitness to
be the depositary of such a fearful power, from his
impetuosity and instability of character, and Christ's
thorough perception of this unfitness, but we find that
immediately after it is said to have been conferred upon
him, his Lord addresses him indignantly by the epithet
of Satan, and rebukes him for his presumption and un-
spirituality ; and shortly afterwards this very man thrice
denied his master. Can any one maintain it to be
conceivable that Jesus should have conferred the awful
power of deciding the salvation or damnation of his
fellow-men upon one so frail, so faulty, and so fallible 1
Does any one believe that he did ? We cannot, there
fore, regard the 19th verse otherwise- than as an
unwarranted addition to the words of Jesus, and painfully
indicative of the growing pretensions of the Church at
the time the gospel was compiled.
In xxiii. 35, we have the following passage purporting
to be uttered by Jesus in the course of his denunciations
against, the Scibes and Pharisees : " That upon you may
come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from
the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias
son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and
the altar." Now, two Zachariases are recorded in history
as having been thus slain : Zacharias, son of Jehoiada,
850 years before Christ (2 Chron. xxiv. 20), and Zacharias,
son of Baruch, 35 years after Christ (Joseph., Bell. Jud,
iv. 4).-f- But when we reflect that Jesus could scarcely

* See Thirlwall, cvii. , Introd. to Schleiermacher.
+ It is true that there was a third Zacharias, the Prophet, also son of a,
Barachias, who lived about 500 years before Christ ; but this man could
not have been the one intended by Matthew, for no record exists, or appears

190 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
have intended to refer to a murder committed 850 years
before his time as terminating- the long series of Jewish
crimes ; and, moreover, that at the period the evangelist
wrote, the assassination of the son of Baruch was a recent
event, and one likely to have made a deep impression,
and that the circumstances of the murder (between the
Temple and the Altar) apply much more closely to the
second than to the first Zacharias, we cannot hesitate to
admit the conclusion of Hug, Eichhorn, and other critics,*
that the Zacharias mentioned by Josephus was the one
intended by Matthew. Hug says : —
" There cannot be a doubt, if we attend to the name,
the fact and its circumstances, and the object of Jesus in
citing it, that it was the same Zctxapias Bapooxov, who, ac
cording to Josephus, a short time before the destruction
of Jerusalem, was unjustly slain in the temple. The
name is the same, the murder, and the remarkable
circumstances which distinguished it, correspond, as well
as the character of the man. Moreover, when Jesus says
that all the innocent blood which had been shed, from
Abel to Zacharias, should be avenged upon ' this genera
tion,' the o.Trb and «os denote the beginning and the end
of a period. This period ends with Zacharias ; he was to
be the last before the vengeance should be executed. The
threatened vengeance, however, was the ruin of Jeru
salem, which immediately followed his death. Must it
not, then, have been the same Zacharias whose death is
distinguished in history, among so many murdered, as
the only righteous man between Ananias and the
destruction of the Holy City ? The Zacharias mentioned
in the Chronicles is not the one here intended. He was
a son of Jehoiada, and was put to death, not between the
temple and the altar, or iv yueVoi tu>~ vdw, but in the court ;
nor was he the last of those unjustly slain, or one with
whom an epoch in the Jewish annals terminates."
Here, then, we have an anachronism strikingly illus
trative of that confusion of mind which characterises

to have existed, of the manlier of his death, and in his time the Temple
was in ruins. — See Hennell, p. 81, note.
* Hug, p. 314. Thirlwall, p. xcix., note.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — MATTHEW. 191
this evangelist, and which betrays at the same time
that an unwarrantable liberty has been taken by some
one with the language of Jesus. He is here represented
as speaking in the past tense of an event which did not
occur till 35 years after his death, and which, consequently,
though fresh and present to the mind of the writer, could
not have been in the mind of the speaker, unless pro
phetically ; in which case it would have been expressed
in the future, not in the past tense * ; and would, more
over, have been wholly unintelligible to his hearers. If,
therefore, as there seems no reason to doubt, the evangelist
intended to specify the Zacharias mentioned by Josephus,
he was guilty of putting into the mouth of Jesus words
which Jesus never uttered.
In ch. xxviii. 19, is another passage which we may say
with almost certainty never came from the mouth of
Christ : " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost." That this definite form of baptism
proceeded from Jesus, is opposed by the fact that such an
allocation of the Father, Son, and Spirit, does not else
where appear, except as a form of salutation in the epistles ;
while as a definite Form of baptism it is nowhere met with
throughout the New Testament. Moreover, it was not
the form used, and could scarcely therefore have been the
form commanded ; for in the apostolic epistles, and even
in the Acts, the form always is " baptizing into Christ
Jesus," or, " into the name of the Lord Jesus ; "•f while
the threefold reference to God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost,
is only found in ecclesiastical writers, as Justin. Indeed
the formula in Matthew sounds so exactly as if it had
been borrowed from the ecclesiastical ritual, that it is
difficult to avoid the supposition that it was transferred
thence into the mouth of Jesus. Many critics, in conse
quence, regard it as a subsequent interpolation. .
* " Hug imagines," says Bishop Thirlwall, lou. cit., " that Christ predicted
the death of this Zacharias, son of Barachias, but that St. Matthew, who
saw the prediction accomplished, expressed his knowledge of the fact by
using the past tense." But should this tlien have been the aorist 4<poveio-are ?
f Rom. vi. 3 ; Gal. iii. 27 ; Acts ii. 38, viii. 16, x. 48, xix. 5.

192 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
There are two other classes of discourses attributed to
Jesus both in this and in the other gospels, over the
character of which much obscurity hangs — those in which
he is said to have foretold his own death and resurrec
tion ; and those in which he is represented as speaking
of his second advent. The instances of the first are, in
Matthew, five in number, in Mark four, in Luke four
and in John three*
Now, we will at once concede/that it is extremely prob
able that Christ might easily have foreseen that a career
and conduct like his could, in such a time and country,
terminate only in a violent and cruel death ; and that in
dications of such an impending fate thickened fast around
him as his ministry drew nearer to a close. It is even
possible, though in the highest degree unlikely,f that his
study of the prophets might have led him to the conclu
sion that the expected Messiah, whose functions he be
lieved himself sent to fulfil, was to be a suffering and
dying Prince. We will not even dispute that he might
have been so amply endowed with the spirit of prophecy
as distinctly to foresee his approaching crucifixion and
resurrection. But we find in the evangelists themselves
insuperable difficulties in the way of admitting the belief
that he actually did predict these events, in the language,
or with anything of the precision, which is there ascribed
to him.
In the fourth gospel, these predictions are three in
number,| and in all the language is doubtful, mysterious,
and obscure, and the interpretation commonly put upon
them is not that suggested by the words themselves, nor
that which suggested itself to those who heard them ; but

t Matth. xii. 40 ; xvi. 21 ; xvii. 9, 22, 23 ; xx. 17-19 ; xxvi. 2, 3. Mark viii.
31 ; ix. 9, 10, 31 ; x. 33 ; xiv. 28. Luke ix. 22, 44 ; xviii. 32, 33 ; xxii. 15.
John ii. 20-22 ; iii. 14 ; xii. 32, 33 ; all very questionable.
+ It was fti the highest degree unlikely, because this was neither the in
terpretation put upon the prophecies among the Jews of that time, nor their
natural signification, but it was an interpretation of the disciples cx eventu.
X We pass over those touching intimations of approaching separation con
tained in the parting discourses of Jesus during and immediately preceding
the last supper, as there can be little doubt that at that time his'fate was so
imminent as to have become evident to any acute observer, without the sup
position of supernatural information.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.  MATTHEW. 193
is one affixed to them by the evangelist after the event
supposed to be referred to ; it is an interpretatio ex avntu*
In the three synoptical gospels, however, the predictions
are numerous, precise, and conveyed in language which
it was impossible to mistake. Thus (in Matt. xx. 18, 19,
and parallel passages), " Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ;
and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief
priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him
to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and
to scourge, and to crucify him : and the third day he shall
rise again." Language such as this, definite, positive,
explicit, and circumstantial, if really uttered, could not
have been misunderstood, but must have made a deep and
ineradicable impression on all who heard it, especially
when repeated, as it is stated to have been, on several
distinct occasions. Yet we find ample proof that no such
impression was made ; — that the disciples had no con
ception of their Lord's approaching death — still less of
his resurrection ; — and that so far from their expecting
either of these events, both, when they occurred, took
them entirely by surprise ; — they were utterly confounded
by the one, and could not believe the other.
We find them shortly after (nay, in one instance in
stantly after) these predictions were uttered, disputing-
which among them should be greatest in their coming
dominion (Matt. xx. 21-24; Mark ix. 35 ; Luke xxii. 25) ;
— glorying in the idea of thrones, and asking for seats on
his right hand and on his left, in his Messianic kingdom
(Matt. .xix. 28, xx. 21; Mark x. 37; Luke xxii. 30);
which, when he approached Jerusalem, they thought
" should immediately appear" (Luke xix. 11, xxiv. 21).
* In the case of the first of these predictions — " Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up," — we can scarcely admit that these words were
used by Jesus (if uttered by him at all) in the sense ascribed to them by John ;
since the words were spoken in the temple, and in answer to the demand for a
sign, and could therefore only have conveyed, and have been intended tocon-
vey, the meaning which we know they actually did convey to the inquiring
Jews. In the two other cases (or three, if we reckon viii. 28 as one), thelanguage
of Jesus is too indefinite for us to know what meaning he intended it to con
vey. The expression " to be lifted up," is thrice used, and may m*-™ ex
altation, glorification (its natural signification), or, artificially and figura
tively, might be intended to refer to his crucifixion.

194 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
When Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane,
they first attempted resistance, and then " forsook him
and fled ; " and so completely were they scattered, that it
was left for one of the Sanhedrim, Joseph of Arimathea,
to provide even for his decent burial ; — while the women
who " watched afar off," and were still faithful to his
memory, brought spices to embalm the body — a sure sign,
were any needed, that the idea of his resurrection had
never entered into their minds. Further, when the wo
men reported his resurrection to the disciples, " their
words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed
them not " (Luke xxiv. 11). The conversation, moreover,
of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is sufficient
jjroof that the resurrection of their Lord was a conception
which had never crossed their thoughts ; — and, finally,
according to John, when Mary found the body gone, her
only notion was that it must have been removed by the
gardener (xx. 15).
Ail this shows, beyond, we think, the possibility of
question, that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus
were wholly unexpected by his disciples. If further
proof were wanted, we find it in the words of the evan
gelists, who repeatedly intimate (as if struck by the in
congruity we have pointed out) that they " knew not,"
or " understood not," these sayings. (Mark ix. 31, 32 ;
Luke ix. 45, xviii. 34 ; John xx. 9).
Here, then, we have two distinct statements, which
mutually exclude and contradict each other. If Jesus
really foretold his death and resurrection in the terms
recorded in the Gospels, it is inconceivable that the dis
ciples should have misunderstood him ; for no words
could be more positive, precise, or intelligible, than those
which he is said to have repeatedly addressed to them.
Neither could they have forgotten what had been so
strongly urged upon their memory by their Master, as
completely as it is evident from their subsequent conduct
they actually did* They might, indeed, have disbelieved

* Moreover, if they had so completely forgotten these predictions, whence
did the evangelists derive them '!

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.  MATTHEW. 195
his prediction (as Peter appears in the first instance to
have done), but in that case, his crucifixion would have
led them to expect his resurrection, or, at all events, to
think of it : — which it did not. The fulfilment of one
prophecy would necessarily have recalled the other to
their minds.
The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable — that the pre
dictions were ascribed to Jesus after the event, not really
uttered by him. It is, indeed, very probable that, as
gloomy anticipations of his own death pressed upon his
mind, and became stronger and more confirmed as the
danger came nearer, he endeavoured to communicate
these apprehensions to his followers, in order to prepare
them for an event so fatal to their worldly hopes. That
he did so, we think the conversations during, and pre
vious to, the last supper afford ample proof. - These vague
intimations of coming evil — intermingled and relieved,
doubtless, by strongly expressed convictions of a future
existence of reunion and reward, disbelieved or disre
garded by the disciples at the time — recurred to their
minds after all was over ; and gathering strength, and
expanding in definiteness and fulness during constant rep
etition for nearly forty years, had, at the period when '
the evangelists wrote, become consolidated into the fixed
prophetic form in which they have been transmitted to
us. Another argument may be adduced, strongly confirma
tory of this view. Jesus is repeatedly represented as
affirming that his expected sufferings and their glorious
termination must take place, in order that the prophecies
might be fulfilled. (Matt. xxvi. 24, 54 ; Mark ix. 12, xiv.
49 ; Luke xiii. 33, xviii. 31, xxii. 37, xxiv. 27). Now,
the passion of the disciples for representing everything
connected with Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy, ex
plains why they should have sought, after his death, for
passages which might be supposed to prefigure it,* — and

* " There were sufficient motives for the Christian legend thus to put into
the month of Jesus, after the event, a prediction of the particular features
of his passion, especially of the ignominious crucifixion. The more a Christ
crucified became ' unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks fool-

196 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
why these accommodations of prophecy should, in process
of time, and of transmission, have been attributed to
Jesus himself. But if we assume, as is commonly done,
that these references to prophecy really proceeded from
Christ in the first instance, we are landed in the inadmis
sible, or at least the embarrassing and unorthodox con
clusion, that he interpreted the prophets erroneously. To
confine ourselves to the principal passages only, a pro
found grammatical and historical exposition has convin
cingly? shown, to all who are in a condition to liberate
themselves from dogmatic presuppositions, that in none
of these is there any allusion to the sufferings of Christ. *
One of these references to prophecy in Matthew has
evident marks of being an addition to the traditional
words of Christ by the evangelist himself. In Matt. xvi.
4, we have the following : " A wicked and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall no sign
be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas." The
same expression precisely is recorded by Luke (xi. 29),
with this addition, showing what the reference to Jonas
really meant : "For as Jonas was a sign u nto th e Ninevites,
so also shall the Son of man be to this generation. The
men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it : for they repented at the
preaching of Jonas ; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is
here." But when Matthew repeats the same answer of
Jesus in answer to the same demand for a sign (xii. 40),
he adds the explanation of the reference, " For as. Jonas
was three days and three nights in the whale's belly ; so
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights [which
Jesus was not, but only? one day and two nightsf] in the
heart of the" earth ; " — and he then proceeds with the same
context as Luke.
The prophecies of the second coming of Christ (Matt,
ishness " (1 Cor. i. 23), the more need was there to remove the offence by every
possible means ; and as among the subsequent events, the resurrection es
pecially served as a retrospect: re cancelling of that shameful death, so it must
have been earnestly desired to take the sting from that offensive catastrophe
beforehand also ; and this could not lie done more effectually than by such a
minute prediction."— Strauss, iii. 54, where this idea is fully developed.
* Even Dr. Arnold admitted this fully. (Sermons on Interpretations of
Prophecy, Preface).
f [Nay ; possibly only a few hours.]

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — MATTHEW. 197
xxiv ; Mark xiii ; Luke xvii. 22-37, xxi. 5-36) are mixed
up with those of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in
a manner which has long been the perplexity and despair
of orthodox commentators. The obvious meaning of the
passages which contain these predictions — the sense in
which they were evidently understood by the evangelists
who wrote them down — the sense which we know from
many sources* they conveyed to the minds of the early
Christians — clearly is, that the coming of Christ to judge
the world should follow immediately^ ("immediately," "in
those days") the destruction of the Holy City, and should
take place during the lifetime of the then existing gener
ation. " Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not
pass away, till all these things be fulfilled" (Matt. xxiv.
34 ; Mark xiii. 30 ; Luke xxi. 32). " There be some stand
ing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son
of man coming in his kingdom " (Matt. xvi. 28). " Verily
I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of
Israel, till the Son of man be come " (Matt. x. 23). " If
I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? "
(John xxi. 23).
Now, if these predictions really proceeded from Jesus, he
was entirely in error on the subject, and the prophetic
spirit was not in him ; for not only did his advent not
follow close on the destruction of Jerusalem, but 1800
years have since elapsed, and neither he nor the prelim
inary signs which were to announce him, have yet appeared.
If these predictions did not proceed from him, then the
evangelist has taken the liberty of putting into the
mouth of Christ words and announcements which Christ
never uttered.
Much desperate ingenuity has been exerted to separate
the predictions relating to Jerusalem from those relating
to the Advent ; but these exertions have been neither
creditable nor successful; and they have already been
examined and refuted at great length. Moreover, they
* See 1 Cor. x. 11, xv. 51 ; Phil. iv. 5 ; 1 Thess. iv. 15 ; James v. 8 ; I
Peter iv. 7 ; 1 John ii. 18 ; Rev. i. 1, 3, xxii. 7, 10, 12, 20.
t An apparent contradiction to this is presented by Matt. xxiv. 14 ;
Mark xiii. 10, where we are told that " the gospel must be first preached to
all nations." It appears, however, from Col. i. 5, 6, 23 (see also Romans x. 18),
that St. Paul considered this to have been already accomplished in his time.

198 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
are rendered necessary only by two previous assumptions:
first, that Jesus cannot have been mistaken as to the
future ; and, secondly, that he really uttered these pre
dictions. Now, neither of these assumptions is capable of
proof. The first we shall not dispute, because we have
no adequate means of coming to a conclusion on the sub
ject. But as to the second assumption, we think there
are several indications that, though the predictions in
question were current among the Christians when the
Gospels were composed, yet that they did not, at least as
handed down to us, proceed from the lips of Christ ; but
were, as far as related to the second advent, the unau
thorized anticipations of the disciples; and, as far as related
to the destruction of the city, partly gathered from the
denunciations of Old Testament prophecy, and partly from
actual knowledge of the events which passed under their
eyes. In the first place, it is not admissible that Jesus could
have been so true a prophet as to one part of the predic
tion, and so entirely in error as to the other, both parts
referring equally to future events. Secondly, the three
gospels in which these predictions occur, are allowed to
have been written between the years 65 and 72 A. D., or
during the war which ended in the destruction of Jeru
salem*; that is, they were written during and after the.
events which they predict. They may, therefore, either
have been entirely drawn from the events, or have been
vaguely in existence before, but have derived their
definiteness and precision from the events. And we have
already seen in the case of the first evangelist, that he, at
least, did not scruple to eke out and modify the predic
tions he recorded, from his own experience of their fulfil
ment. Thirdly, the parallel passages, both in Matthew
and Mark, contain an expression twice repeated — " the
elect " — which we can say almost with certainty was un
known in the time of Christ, though frequently found in
the epistles, and used, at the time the Gospels were com
posed, to designate the members of the Christian Church.
* The war began by Vespasian's entering Galilee in the beginning of the
year a.d. 07, and the city was taken in the autumn of A.D. 70.

CHAPTER IX.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED — MARK AND LUKE.
Many of the criticisms contained in the two last chap
ters — tending to prove that Matthew's Gospel contains
several statements not strictly accurate, and attributes
to Jesus several expressions and discourses which were
not really uttered by him — are equally applicable both
to Mark and Luke. The similarity — not to say identity
— of the greater portion of Mark's narrative with that of
Matthew, leaves no room for doubt either that one evan
gelist copied from the other, or that both employed the
same documents, or oral narratives, in the compilation of
their histories. Our own clear conviction is, that Mark
was the earliest in time, and far the most correct in fact.
As we have already stated, we attach little weight to
the tradition of the second century, that the second Gos
pel was written by Mark, the companion of Peter. It
originated with Papias, whose works are now lost, but
who was stated to be a " weak man " by Eusebius, who
records a few fragments of his writings. But if the
tradition be correct, the omissions in this Gospel, as com
pared with the first, are significant enough. It omits en
tirely the genealogies, the miraculous conception, several
matters relating to Peter (especially his walking on the
water, and the commission of the keys),* and everything
miraculous or improbable relating to the resurrection -J- —
everything, in fact, but the simple statement that the
body was missing, and that a " young man " assured the
visitors that Christ was risen.
Tn addition to these, there are two or three peculiari
ties in the discourses of Jesus, as recorded by Mark,
* See Thirlwall's remarks on this subject. Introd. cvii.
+ We must not forget that the real genuine Gospel of Mark terminates
with the 8th verse of the 16th chapter.

200 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
which indicate that the evangelist thought it necessary
and allowable slightly to modify the language of them,
in order to suit them to the ideas or the feelings of the
Gentile converts ; if, as is commonly supposed, it was
principally designed for them. We copy a few instances
of these, though resting little upon them.
Matthew, who wrote for the Jews, has the following
passage, in the injunctions pronounced by Jesus on the
sending forth of the twelve apostles : " Go not into the
way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not : But go rather to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel " (x. 5). Mark, who wrote for the Gen
tiles, omits entirely this unpalatable cliarge" (vi. 7-13).
Matthew (xv. 24), in the story of the Canaanitish
woman, makes Jesus say, " I am not sent but unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel." Mark (vii. 26) omits
this expression entirely, and modifies the subsequent re
mark. In Matthew it is thus :---" It is not meet to take
the children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs." In Mark
it is softened by the preliminary, " Let the children first
befitted,"- &c.
Matthew (xxiv. 20), "But pray ye that your flight be
not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day." Mark
omits the last clause, which would have had no meaning
for any but the Jews, whose Sabbath day's journey was
by law restricted to a small distance.
In the promise given to the disciples, in answer to
Peter's question, " Behold, we have forsaken all, and fol
lowed thee ; what shall we have therefore V The follow
ing- verse, given by Matthew (xix. 28), is omitted by
Mark (x. 28) : — " Verily I say unto you, That ye which
have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of
man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." *
The Gospel of Luke, which is a work in some respects
of more pretension, and unquestionably of more literary
* [It is, however, almost impossible to resist the inference that we have
here one of the evangelist's unwarranted ascriptions to Jesus of words which
he never uttered, when we compare the subsequent contradiction — xx. 21-
26.]

FIDELITY OF GOSPEL HISTORY.— MARK AND LUKE. 201
merit, than the two first, will require a few additional
observations. The remarks we have made on the proph
ecies of his own sufferings and resurrection, alleged by
Matthew and Mark to have been uttered by Jesus, apply
equally to Luke's narrative, in which similar passages
occur ; and in these, therefore, we must admit that the
third evangelist, like the other two, ascribed to Jesus
discourses which never really proceeded from him* But
besides these, there are several passages in Luke which
bear an equally apochryphal character, some of which it
will be interesting to notice.
The first chapter, from verse 5-80, contains the account
of the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, with
all the marvellous circumstances attending it, and also
the annunciation to Mary, and the miraculous conception
of Jesus — an account exhibiting many remarkable dis
crepancies with the corresponding narrative in Matthew.
We are spared the necessity of a detailed investigation of
this chapter by the agreement of the most learned critics,
both of the orthodox and sceptical schools, in considering
the narrative as poetical and legendary. It is examined
at great length by Strauss, who is at the head of the most
daring class of the Biblical Commentators of Germany,
and by Schleiermacher, who ranks first among the learned
divines of that country. The latter (in the work trans
lated by one of our most erudite and liberal Prelates, and
already often referred to) writes thus, pp. 25-7 : —
" Thus, then, we begin by detaching the first chapter
as an originally independent composition. If we consider
it in this light somewhat more closely, we cannot resist
the impression that it was originally rather a little poet
ical work than a properly-historical narrative. The lat
ter supposition, in its strictest sense at all events, no one
will adopt, or contend that the angel Gabriel announced
the advent of the Messiah in figures so purely Jewish, and
* The remark will perhaps occur to some, that the circumstance of Sftreeevan-
geb'sts ascribing the same language to Jesus, is a strong proof that he really
uttered it. But the fallacy of this argument will be apparent when we re
member that there is ample evidence that they all drew from the same
sources, namely, the extant current tradition.
N

202 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
in expressions taken mostly from the Old Testament ; or
that the alternate song between Elizabeth and Mary ac
tually took place in the manner described ; or that Zacha
rias, at the instant of recovering his speech, made use of
it to utter the hymn, without being disturbed by the joy
and surprise of the company, by which the narrator him
self allows his description to be interrupted. At all
events we should then be obliged to suppose that the
author made additions of his own, and enriched the his
torical narrative by the lyrical effusions of his own genius."
"If we consider the whole grouping of the narra
tive, there naturally presents itself to us a pleasing little
composition, completely in the style and manner of sev
eral Jewish poems, still extant among our apocryphal
writings, written in all probability originally in Aramaic
by a Christian of the more liberal Judaising school." . .
" There are many other statements which I should not
venture to pronounce historical, but would rather explain
by the occasion the poet had for them. To these belongs,
in the first place, John's being a late-born child, which is
evidently only imagined for the sake of analogy with
several heroes of Hebrew antiquity ; and, in the next place,
the relation between the ages of John and Christ, and
likewise the consanguity of Mary and Elizabeth, which
besides, it is difficult to reconcile with the assertion of
John (John i. 33), that he did not know Christ before his
baptism." Strauss's analysis of the chapter is in the highest degree
masterly and convincing, and we think cannot fail to sat
isfy all whose minds have been trained in habits of logic
al investigation. After showing at great length the un-
satisfactoriness and inadmissibility of both the supernat
ural and rationalistic interpretations, he shows, by a com
parison of similar legends in the Old Testament — the
birth of Ishmael, Isaac, Samuel, and Samson, in particular
— how exactly the narrative in Luke is framed in accord
ance with the established ideas and rules of Hebrew
poetry* * We cannot agree with one of Strauss's critics (see Prospective Review,
Nov. 1846), that the evident poetical character of the first chapters of Mat-.

FIDELITY OF GOSPEL HISTORY.  MARK AND LUKE. 203
" The scattered traits," said he* " respecting the late
birth of different distinguished men, as recorded in the
Old Testament, blended themselves into a compound image
in the mind of the author, whence he selected the fea
tures most appropriate to his present subject. Of the
children born of aged parents, Isaac is the most ancient
prototype. As it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, 'they
were both advanced in days,' so Abraham and Sarah
' were advanced in days,'"f" when they were promised a
son. It is likewise from this history that the incredulity
of the father on account of the advanced age of both
parents, and the demand of a sign, are borrowed. As
Abraham, when Jehovah promised him a numerous pos
terity through Isaac, who should inherit the land of Ca
naan, doubtingly inquires, ' Whereby shall I know that I
shall inherit it 1 ' — so Zacharias, ' Whereby shall I know
this 1 ' The incident of the angel announcing the birth of
the Baptist is taken from the history^ of another late-born
son, Samson. The command which before his birth pre
destined the Baptist — whose later ascetic mode of life
was known — to be a Nazarite, is taken from the same
source. Both were to be consecrated to God from the
womb, and the same diet was prescribed for both.! . .
The lyrical effusions in Luke are from the history of Sam
uel. As Samuel's mother, when consigning him to the
care of the High Priest, breaks forth into a hymn, so
does the father of John at the circumcision ; though the
particular expressions in the canticle uttered by Mary, in
the same chapter, have a closer resemblance to Hannah's
song of praise, than that of Zacharias. The only super
natural incident of the narrative, of which the Old Testa-
thew and Luke, their similarity with parts of the apocryphal gospels and
early Christian writings, and their dissimilarity in tone with the rest of the
gospels with which they are incorporated, are sufficient to decide the question
against their genuineness. If this argument were valid, we must pronounce
against the genuineness of other passages of our gospels en the same ground
— e. g. the miracle of Cana— the miraculous draught of fishes— and the piece
of money in the fish's mouth— and others. The genuineness of these initial
chapters has often been denied, but without sufficient warrant from external
evidence. * Leben Jesu, i. 118, et seq.
+ The original words are the same in both instances. .
X Compare Luke i. 15, with Judges xiii. 4, 5, and Numbers vi. A.

204 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ment offers no precise analogy, is the dumbness. But if it
be borne in mind that the asking and receiving a sign
from heaven in confirmation of a promise or prophecy was
common among the Hebrews (Isaiah vii. 11) ; that the
temporary loss of one of the senses was the peculiar pun
ishment inflicted after a heavenly vision (Acts ix. 8, 17) ;
that Daniel became dumb while the angel was speaking
with him, and did not recover his speech till the angel
had touched his lips and opened his mouth (Dan. x. 15) ;
the origin of this incident also will be found in legend,
and not in historical fact. So that here we stand upon
purely mythico-poetical ground ; the only historical real
ity which we can hold fast as positive matter of fact being
this : — the impression made by John the Baptist, in virtue
of his niiiiistry, and his relation to Jesus, was so powerful
as to lead to the subsequent glorification of his birth in
connection with the Christian legend of the birth of the
Messiah." In the second chapter we have the account of the birth
of Jesus, and the accompanying apparition of a multitude
of angels to shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem — as
to the historical foundation of which Strauss and Schleier
macher are at variance ; the former regarding it as wholly
mythical, and the latter as based upon an actual occurrence,
imperfectly remembered in after times, when the celebrity
of Jesus caused every contribution to the history of his
birth and infancy to be eagerly sought for. All that we
can say on the subject with any certainty is, that the tone
of the narrative is legendary. The poetical rhapsody of
Simeon when Jesus was presented in the temple may be
passed over with the same remark ; — but the 33rd verse,
where we are told that " Joseph and his mother marvelled
at those things which were spoken of him," proves clearly
one of two things : — either the unhistoiical character of
the Song of Simeon, and of the consequent astonishment
of the parents of Jesus — or the unreality of the miracu
lous annunciation and conception. It is impossible, if an
angel had actually announced to Mary the birth of the
divine child in the language, or anything resembling the
language, in Luke i. 31-35 ; and if, in accordance with

FIDELITY OF GOSPEL HISTORY. — MARK AND LUKE. 205
that announcement, Mary had found herself with child
before she had any natural possibility of being so — that
she should have felt any astonishment whatever at the
prophetic announcement of Simeon, so consonant with
the angelic promise, especially' when occurring after the
miraculous vision of the Shepherds, which, we are told,
"she pondered in her heart." Schleiermacher has felt
this difficulty, and endeavours to evade it by considering
the first and second chapters to be two monographs orig
inally by different hands, which Luke incorporated into
his Gospel. This was very probably the case ; but it does
not avoid the difficulty, as it involves giving up ii. 33 as
an unauthorized and incorrect statement.
The genealogy of Jesus, as given in the third chapter,
may be in the main correct, though there are some per
plexities in one portion of it ; but if the previous narra
tive be correct, it is not the genealogy of Jesus at all, but
only of Joseph, who was no relation to him whatever,
but simply his guardian. On the other hand, if the pre
parer of the genealogyr, or the evangelist who records it,
knew or believed the story of the miraculous conception,
we can conceive no reason for his admitting a pedigree
which is either wholly meaningless, or destructive of his
previous statements. The insertion in verse 23, " as was
supposed," whether by the evangelist or a subsequent
copyist, merely shows that whoever made it perceived
the incongruity, but preferred neutralizing the genealogy
to omitting it.*
The account given by Luke (iii. 21) of the visible and
audible signs from heaven at the Baptism of Jesus, has
been very generally felt and allowed to be incompatible
with the inquiry subsequently made by John the Baptist
(vii. 19) as to whether- Jesus were the Messiah or not ;
and the incongruity is considered to indicate inaccuracy
or interpolation in one of the two narratives. Tt is justly
held impossible that if John had seen the Holy Spirit
descending upon Jesus, and had heard a heavenly voice
* The whole story of the Incarnation, however, is effectually discredited
by the fact that none of the Apostles or sacred Historians make any subse
quent reference to it, or indicate any knowledge of it.

206 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
declaring Him to be the beloved Son of God, he could
ever have entertained a doubt that he was the Messiah,
whose coming he himself had just announced* (iii. 16).
According to Luke, as he now stands, John expected the
Messiah — described himself as his forerunner — saw at the
moment of the Baptism a supernatural shape, and heard
a supernatural voice announcing Jesus to be that Mes
siah; — and yet, shortly after — on hearing, too, of miracles
which should have confirmed his belief, had it ever wa
vered — he sends a message implying doubt (or rather
ignorance), and asking the question which Heaven itself
had already answered in his hearing. Some commenta
tors have endeavoured to escape from the difficulty by
pleading that the appearances at Baptism might have
been perceptible to Jesus alone ; and they have adduced
the use of the second person by the divine voice (" Thou
art my beloved Son ") in Mark and Luke, and the pecu
liar language of Matthew, in confirmation of this view.
But (not to urge that, if the vision and the voice were
imperceptible to the spectators, they could not have given
that public and conclusive attestation to the Messiahship
of Jesus which was their obvious object and intention) a
comparison of the four accounts clearly shows that the
evangelists meant to state that the dove was visible and
the voice audible to John and to all the spectators, who,
according to Luke, must have been numerous. In Mat
thew the grammatical construction of iii. 16, would inti
mate that it was Jesus who saw the heavens open and
the dove descend, but that the expression "lighting
upon him," epx°V-e,/ov *7r' o^rro^, should in this case have
been €<£' avrov, " upon himself." However, it is very pos
sible that Matthew may have written inaccurate, as he
certainly wrote unclassical, Greek. But the voice in the
* Neander conceives that doubt may have assailed the mind of John in his
dismal prison, and led to a transient questioning of his earlier conviction,
and that it was in this state of feeling that he sent his disciples to Jesus.
But, in the first place, the language of the message is less that of doubt than
of inquiry, and would appear to intimate that the idea of Jesus' character
and mission had been then first suggested to him by the miracles of which
reports had reached him in his prison. And, in the next place, doubt as
sails men who have formed _ an opinion from observation or induction, not
men who have received positive and divine communication of a fact.

FIDELITY OF GOSPEL HISTORY. — MARK AND LUKE. 207
next verse, speaking in the third person, " This is my
beloved Son," must have been addressed to the spectators,
not to Jesus. Mark has the same unharmonizing expres
sion, lir'avrov. Luke describes the scene as passing before
numbers, " when all the people were baptized, it came to
pass, that Jesus also being baptized ; " — and then adds to
the account of the other evangelists that the dove descen
ded " in a bodily shape," iv o-wpmtlk<S ctSti, as if to contra
dict the idea that it was a subjective, not an objective
fact, — a vision, not a phenomenon ; he can only mean
that it was an appearance visible to all present. The
version given in the fourth evangelist shows still more
clearly that such was the meaning generally attached to
the tradition current among the Christians at the time it
was embodied in the Gospels. The Baptist is there
represented as affirming that he himself saw the Spirit
descending like a dove upon Jesus, and that it was this
appearance which convinced him of the Messiahship of
Jesus. Considering all this, then, we must admit that, while
the naturalness of John's message to Christ, and the ex
act accordance of the two accounts given of it, render the
historical accuracy of that relation highly probable, the
discrepancies in the four narratives of the baptism strong
ly indicate, either that the original tradition came from
different sources, or that it has undergone considerable
modification in the course of transmission ; and also that
the narratives themselves are discredited by the subse
quent message. We think with Schleiermacher, the great
defender and eulogist of Luke, that the words iv o-iafuwriKw
ctSei are an interpolation which our evangelist thought
himself at liberty to make by way of rendering the pic
ture more graphic, without perceiving their inconsistency
with a subsequent portion of his narrative.
In all the synoptical gospels we find instances of the
cure of demoniacs by Jesus early in his career, in which
the demons, promptly, spontaneously, and loudly, bear
testimony to his Messiahship. These statements occur
once in Matthew (viii. 29) ; four times in Mark (i. 24,
34; iii. 11 ; v. 7) ; and three times in Luke (iv. 33, 41 ;

208 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
viii. 28).* Now, two points are evident to common
sense, and are fully admitted by honest criticism -.—first,
that these demoniacs were lunatic and epileptic patients;
and, secondly, that Jesus (or the narrators who framed
the language of Jesus throughout the synoptical gospels)
shared the common belief that these maladies were caused
by evil spirits inhabiting the bodies of the sufferers. We
are then landed in this conclusion — certainly not a prob
able one, nor the one intended to be conveyed by the
narrators — that the idea of Jesus being the Messiah was
adopted by madmen before it had found entrance into
the public mind, apparently even before it was received
by his immediate disciples — was in fact first suggested by
madmen ; in other words, that it was an idea which orig
inated within insane brains — which presented itself to,
and found acceptance with, insane brains more readily
than sane ones. The conception of the evangelists clearly
was that Jesus derived honour (and his mission confirma
tion) from this early recognition of his Messianic char
acter by hostile spirits of a superior order of Intelligen
ces ; but to us, who know that these supposed superior
Intelligences were really unhappy men whose natural in
tellect had been perverted or impaired, the effect of the
narratives becomes absolutely reversed ; — and if they are
to be accepted as historical, they lead inevitably to the
conclusion that the idea of the Messiahship of Jesus was
originally formed in disordered brains, and spread thence
among the mass of the disciples. The only rescue from
this conclusion lies in the admission, that these narratives
are not historical, but mythic, and belong to that class of
additions which early grew up in the Christian Church,
out of the desire to honour and aggrandise the memory
¦of its Founder, and which our uncritical evangelists em-
oodied as they found them.
Passing over a few minor passages of doubtful authen-
* It is worthy of remark that no narrative of the healing of demoniacs,
stated as such, occurs in the fourth Gospel. This would intimate it to he
the work of a man who had outgrown, or had never entertained, the idea of
maladies arising from possession. It is one of many indications in this
evangelist of a Greek rather than a Jewish mind.

FIDELITY OF GOSPEL HISTORY. — MARK AND LUKE. 209
ticity or accuracy,* we come to one near the close of the
Gospel, which we have no scruple in pronouncing to be an
unwarranted interpolation. In xxii. 36-38, Jesus is re
ported, after the last Supper, to have said to his disciples,
" He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy
one. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords.
And he said unto them, It is enough." Christ never could
have uttered such a command, nor, Ave should imagine,
anything which could have been mistaken for it. The
very idea is contradicted by his whole character, and
utterly precluded by the narratives of the other evan
gelists ; — for when Peter did use the sword, he met with
a severe rebuke from his Master : — " Put up thy sword
into the sheath : the cup which my Father hath given me
shall I not drink it," — according to John. " Put up again
thy sword into its place ; for all they that take the sword
shall perish by the sword," — according to Matthew. The
passage we conceive to be a clumsy invention of some
early narrator, to account for the remarkable fact of
Peter having a sword at the time of Christ's apprehen
sion ; and it is inconceivable to us how a sensible compiler
like Luke could have admitted into his history such an
apocryphal and unharmonizing fragment.
In conclusion, then, it appears certain that in all the
synoptical gospels we have events related which did not
really occur, and words ascribed to Jesus which Jesus did
not utter ; and that many of these words and events are
of great significence. In the great majority of these in
stances, however, this incorrectness does not imply any
want of honesty on the part of the evangelists, but merely
indicates that they adopted and embodied, without much
scrutiny or critical acumen, whatever probable and hon
ourable narratives they found current in the Christian
community. * Compare Luke ix. 50 with xi. 23, where we probably have the same
original expression differently reported. Schleiermacher, with all his rev
erence for Luke, decides (p. 94) that Luke vi. 24-26 is an addition to Christ's
words by the evangelist himself — an " innocent interpolation " he calls it.
For the anachronism in xi. 51, see our remarks on the correspon ding passage
in Matthew.

CHAPTER X.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED  GOSPEL OF JOHN.
In the examination of the fourth Gospel a different mode
of criticism from that hitherto pursued is required Here
we do not find, so frequently as in the other evangelists,
particular passages which pronounce their own condem
nation, by anachronisms, peculiarity of language, or in
compatibility with others more obviously historical ; but
the whole tone of the delineations, the tenour of the dis
courses, and the general course of the narrative, are utter
ly different from those contained in the synoptical gospels,
and also from what we should expect from a Jew speak
ing to Jews, writing of Jews, imbued with the spirit, and
living in the land, of Judaism.
By the common admission of all recent critics,this Gos
pel is rather to be regarded as a polemic, than an historic
composition.* It was written less with the intention of
giving a complete and continuous view of Christ's char
acter and career, than to meet and confute certain heresies
which had sprung up in the Christian church near the
close of the first century, by selecting, from the memory
of the author, or the traditions then current among
believers, such narratives and discourses as were conceived
to be most opposed to the heresies in question. Now
these heresies related almost exclusively to the person
and nature of Jesus ; on which points we have many in
dications that great difference of opinion existed, even
during the apostolic period. The obnoxious doctrines
especially pointed at in the Gospel appear, both from in
ternal evidence and external testimony ,-f- to be those held
by Cerinthus and the Nicolaitans, which, according to
* See Hug, Strauss, Hennell, De Wette. Also Dr. Tait's " Suggestions.''
t Irenseus, Jerome, Epiphanius. See Hug, § 51. See also a very detailed
account of the Gnostics in Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels, ii. c. 1, 2.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — JOHN. 211
Hug, were as follows : — The one Eternal God is too pure,
perfect, and pervading an essence to be able to operate on
matter ; but from him emanated a number of inferior and
gradually degenerating spiritual natures, one of whom
was the Creator of the world, hence its imperfections.
Jesus was simply and truly a man, though an eminently
great and virtuous one ; but one of the above spiritual
natures — the Christ, the Son of God — united itself to
Jesus at his baptism, and thus conferred upon him super
human power. " This Christ, as an immaterial Being of
exalted origin, one of the purer kinds of spirits, was from
his nature unsusceptible of material affections of suffering
and pain. He, therefore, at the commencement of the
passion, resumed his separate existence, abandoned Jesus
to pain and death, and soared upwards to his native heaven.
Cerinthus distinguished Jesus and Christ, Jesus and the
Son of God, as beings of different nature and dignity.*
The Nicolaitans held similar doctrines in regard to the
Supreme Deity and his relation to mankind, and an in
ferior spirit who was the Creator of the world. Among
the subaltern orders of spirits they considered the most
distinguished to be the only-begotten, the /iovoyevijs (whose
existence, however, had a beginning), and the Ao'yos, the
Word, who was an immediate descendant of the only-
begotten."f These, then, were the opinions which the author of the
fourth Gospel wrote to controvert ; in confirmation of
which being his object we have his own statement (xx.
31) : " These are written " (not that ye may know the
life and understand the character of our great Teacher,
but that ye may believe his nature to be what I affirm),
" that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God ; and that believing ye might have life through
his name." Now, a narrative written with a controver
sial aim — a narrative, more especially, consisting of recol
lected or selected circumstances and discourses — carries
* Several critics contend that the original reading of 1 John iv. 3, was
" Every spirit that separateth Jesus (from the Christ) is not of God." — See
Hug,p. 423.

JiP. 4
Hag,

t Hug, § 51.

212 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
within it, as everyone will admit, from the very nature of
fallible humanity, an obvious element of inaccuracy. A
man who writes a history to prove a doctrine must be
something more than a man, if he writes that history with
a scrupulous fidelity of fact and colouring. Accordingly,
we find that the public discourses of Jesus in this Gospel
turn almost exclusively upon the dignity of his own per
son, which topic is brought forward in a manner and with
a frequency which it is impossible to regard as historical.
The prominent feature in the character of Jesus, as here
depicted, is an overweening tendency to self-glorification.
We see no longer, as in the other Gospels, a prophet eager
to bring men to God, and to instruct them in righteous
ness, but one whose whole mind seems occupied with the
grandeur of his own nature and mission. In the three
first Gospels we have the message ; in the fourth we have
comparatively little but the messenger. If any of our
readers will peruse the Gospel with this observation in
their minds, we are persuaded the result will be a very
strong and probably painful impression that they cannot
here be dealing with the genuine language of Jesus, but
simply with a composition arising out of deep conviction
of his superior nature, left in the mind of the writer by
the contemplation of his splendid genius and his noble and
lovely character.
The difference of style and subject between the dis
courses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel and in the synoptical
ones, has b^en much dwelt upon, and we think by no
means too much, as proving the greater or less unauthen-
ticity of the former. This objection has been met by the
supposition that the finer intellect and more spiritual
character of John induced him to select, and enabled him
to record, the more subtle and speculative discourses of
his Master, which were unacceptable or unintelligible to
the more practical and homely minds of the other disciples ;
and reference is made to the parallel case of Xenophon
and Plato, whose reports of the conversations of Socrates
are so different in tone and matter as to render it very
difficult to believe that both sat at the feet of the same
master, and listened to the same teaching. But the cita-

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.  JOHN. 213

tion is an unfortunate one ; for in this case, also, it is more
than suspected that the more simple recorder was the more
correct one, and that the sublimer and subtler peculiari
ties in the discourses reported by Plato, belong rather to
the disciple than to the teacher. Had John merely super
added some more refined and mystical discourses omitted
by his predecessors, the supposition in question might
have been admitted ; but it is impossible not to perceive
that here the ivhole tone of the mind delineated is new
and discrepant, though often eminently beautiful.
Another argument, which may be considered as conclu
sive against the historical fidelity of the discourses of
Jesus, in the fourth Gospel is, that not only they, but the
discourses of John the Baptist likewise, are entirely in the
style of the evangelist himself, where he introduces his
own remarks, both in the Gospel and in the first epistle.
He makes both Jesus and the Baptist speak exactly as he
himself speaks. Compare the following passages : —

John iii. 31-36. (Baptist loquitur).
He that Cometh from above is above
all : he that is of the earth is earthly,
and speaketh of the earth : he that
cometh from heaven is above all.
And what he hath seen and heard,
that he testifieth ; and no man re-
ceiveth his testimony.
He that receiveth his testimony
hath set to his seal that God is true.
For he whom God hath sent speak
eth the words of God ; for God giv-
eth not the spirit by measure.
The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hand.

He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life : and he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life ; but
the wrath of God abideth on him.

John viii. 23. (Jesus loq. ). Ye are
from beneath ; I am from above :
ye are of this world ; I am not of
this world.
iii. 11. (Jesus loq.). We speak
that we do know, and testify that we
have seen ; and ye receive not our
testimony.

viii. 26. (Jesus loq.). I speak to
the world those things which I have
heard of him. — (See also vii. 16-1S ;
xiv. 24.)
v, 20. (Jesus loq.). The Father
loveth the Son, and showeth him all
things that himself doeth.
xiii. 3. (Evangelist loq.). Jesus
knowing that the Father had given
all things into his hands.
vi. 47 (Jesus loq.). He that be
lieveth on me hath everlasting life.
— (See also 1 Epistle v. 10-13, and
Gospel iii. 18, where the evangelist or
Jesus speaks).
vi. 40 (Jesus loq.). And this is
the will of him that sent me, that
every one which seeth the Son, and
believeth on him, may have everlast
ing life.

214 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
1 Epistle iii. 14. We know that v. 24 (Jesus loq.). He that hear-
we have passed from death unto life. eth my word . . is passed from
death unto life.
1 Epistle iv. 6. We are of God : viii. 47 (Jesus loq.). He that is of
he that knoweth God heareth us ; he G' id heareth God's words : ye there-
that is not of God heareth not us . fore hear them not, because ye are
not of God.
1 Epistle v. 9. If we receive the v. 34 etc. (Jesus loq.). I receive
witness of men, the witness < if God is not testimony from man. ... I have
greater ; for this is the witness of greater witness than that of John . . .
God which he hath witnessed of his . the Father himself which hath sent
Son. me, hath borne witness of me.
xix. 35 (John loq.). And his rec- v. 32. There is another that heareth
ord is true : and he knoweth that witness of me ; and I know that the
he saith true. witness which he witnesseth of me is
xxi. 24. This is the disciple which true.
testifieth of these things ; . . . and
we know that his witness is true.
Another indication that in a great part of the fourth
Gospel we have not the genuine discourses of Jesus, is
found in the mystical and enigmatical nature of the
language. This peculiarity, of which we have scarcely
a trace in the other evangelists, beyond the few parables
which they did not at first understand, but which Jesus
immediately explained to them, pervades the fourth Gos
pel. The great Teacher is here represented as absolutely
labouring to be unintelligible, to soar out of the reach of
his hearers, and at once perplex and disgust them. " It
is the constant method of this evangelist, in detailing the
conversations of Jesus, to form the knot and progress of
the discussions, by making the interlocutors understand
literally what Jesus intended figuratively. The type of
the dialogue is that in which language intended spiritual
ly is understood carnally." The instances of this are in
conceivably frequent and unnatural. We have the con
versation with the Jews about " the temple of his body "
(ii. 21) ; the mystification of Nicodemus on the subject of
regeneration (iii. 3-10) ; the conversation with the
Samaritan woman (iv. 10-15) ; with his disciples about
" the food which ye know not of " (iv. 32) ; with the peo
ple about the " bread from heaven " (vi. 31-35) ; with the
Jews about giving them his flesh to eat (vi. 48-66) ; with
the Pharisees about his disappearance (vii. 33-39, and viii.
21, 22) ; again about his heavenly origin and pre-exist-

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — JOHN. 215
ence (viii. 37, 43, and 56-58) ; and with his disciples
about the sleep of Lazarus (xi. 11-14). Now, in the first
place, it is very improbable that Jesus, who came to preach
the gospel to the poor, should so constantly have spoken
in a style which his hearers could not understand ; and in
the next place, it is equally improbable that an Oriental
people, so accustomed to figurative language,* and whose
literature was so eminently metaphorical, should have
misapprehended the words of Jesus so stupidly and so in
cessantly as the evangelist represents them to have done.
But perhaps the most conclusive argument against the
historical character of the discourses in the fourth Gospel
is to be found in the fact that, whether dialogues or mono
logues, they are complete and continuous, resembling com
positions rather than recollections, and of a length which
it is next to impossible could have been accurately re
tained — even if we adopt Bertholdt's improbable hypo
thesis, that the apostle took notes of Jesus' discourses at
the time of their delivery. Notwithstanding all that has
been said as to the possible extent to which the powers of
memory may go, it is difficult for an unprepossessed mind
to believe that discourses such as that contained in the
14th, 15th, and 16th chapters, could have been accurately
retained and reported unless by a shorthand writer, or by
one favoured with supernatural assistance. " We hold it
therefore to be established " (says Strauss,! and in the
main we agree with him), " that the discourses of Jesus
in the fourth gospel are mainly free compositions of the
evangelist ; but we have admitted that he has culled sev
eral sayings of Jesus from an authentic tradition, and
hence we do not extend this proposition to those passages
which are countenanced by parallels in the synoptical gos
pels. In these latter compilations we have an example of
the vicissitudes which befall discourses that are preserved
only in the memory of a second party. Severed fi urn their
* See the remarks of Strauss on the conversation with Nicodemns, from
which it appears that the image of a new birth was a current one among the
Jews, and could not have been so misunderstood by a master in Israel, and
in fact that the whole conversation is almost certainly fictitious. — ii. 153.
t Leben Jesu, ii. 187.

216 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
original connection, and broken up into smaller and
smaller fragments, they present, when reassembled, the
appearance of a mosaic, in which the connection of the
parts is a purely external one, and every transition an
artificial juncture. The discourses in t John present just
the opposite appearance. Their gradual transitions, only
occasionally rendered obscure by the mystical depths of
meaning in which they lie — transitions in which one
thought develops itself out of another, and a succeeding
proposition is frequently but an explanatory amplification
of the preceding one — are indicative of a pliable, unresist
ing mass, such as is never presented to a writer by the
traditional sayings of another, but by such only as pro
ceeds from the stores of his own thought, which he moulds
according to his will. For this reason the contributions
of tradition to these stores of thought were not so likely
to have been particular independent sayings of Jesus,
as rather certain ideas which formed the basis of m,any of
his discourses, and which were modified and developed
according to the bent of a mind of Greek or Alexandrian
culture."* Another peculiarity of this Gospel — arising, probably,
out of its controversial origin — is its exaltation of dogma
over morality — of belief over spiritual affection. In the
other Gospels, piety, charity, forgiveness of injuries, purity
of life, are preached by Christ as the titles to his kingdom
and his Father's favour. Whereas, in John's Gospel as
in his ej ustles, belief in Jesus as the Son of God, the Mes
siah, the Logos — belief, in fact, in the evangelist's view of
his nature — is constantly represented as the one thing
needful. The whole tone of the history bears token of
a time when the message was beginning to be forgotten
in the Messenger ; when metaphysical and fruitless dis
cussions as to the nature of Christ had superseded devo
tion to 1 1 is spirit, and attention to the sublime piety and
* See also Hennel, p. 200. " The picture of Jesus bequeathing his part
ing benedictions to the disciples, seems fully to warrant the idea that the
author was one whose imagination and affections had received an impress
from real scenes and real attachments. The few relics of the words, looks,
and acts of Jesus, which friendship itself could at that time preserve unmixed,
he expands into a complete record of his own and the disciples' sentiments ;
what they felt, he makes Jesus speak."

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. — JOHN. 217
simple self-sacrificing holiness which formed the essence
of his own teaching. The discourses are often touchingly
eloquent and tender ; the narrative is full of beauty,
pathos, and nature ; but we miss the simple and intelli
gible truth, the noble, yet practical, morality of the other
histories ; we find in it more of Christ than of Christian
ity, and more of John than of Jesus. If the work of an
apostle at all, it was of an apostle who had caught but a
fragment of his Master's mantle, or in whom the good
original seed had been choked by the long bad habit of
subtle and scholastic controversies. We cannot but regard
this Gospel as decidedly inferior in moral sublimity and
purity to the other representations of Christ's teaching
which have come down to us ; its religion is more of a
dogmatic creed, and its very philanthropy has a narrower
and more restricted character. We will give a few paral
lels to make our meaning clearer.
John xiii.l. Now when Jesus Matth. v. 43. Ye have heard that
knew that his hour was come, that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
he should depart out of this world thy neighbour, and hate thine
unto the Father, having loved his enemy. But I say unto yon, Love
own which were in the world, he your enemies, bless them that curse
loved them unto the end. you, do good to them that hate you,
John xiii. 35. By this shall all pray for them which despitefully use
men know that ye are my disciples, you, and persecute you ; . . For if ye
if ye have love one to another. love tliem which love you, what reward
John xv. 12. This is my command- have ye ? do not even the publicans
ment, That ye love one another, as I the same ?
have loved you. Luke x. 27. Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. — (Definition of
a neighbour, as any one whom we
can serve. )
John xvii. 9. I pray for them : i" Luke vi. 28. Pray for them which
pray not for the world, bat for them despitefully use 3'ou ; bless them
which thou hast given me out of the which persecute you.
world, (v. 20). Neither pray If orthese Luke xxiii. 34. Father, forgive
alone, but for them also which shall them ; for they know not what they
believe on me through their word.* do.
* I venture here to insert a note written by a friend to whom the MS. ut
this work was submitted for correction. "These passages are the growth
of an age in which Christians were already suffering persecution. In such
times a special and peculiar love to ' the brethren ' is natural and desirable ;
without it they could not be animated to risk all that is needed for one an
other. I could not call it, at that time, a ' narrow philanthropy,' but it
certainly does not belong to the same moral state, nor come forth from the
same heart, at the same time, as that of the other Gospels. In the present
day, however, the results are intensely evil : for this Gospel defines those
Who are to love another by an inteHectual creed ; and however this be en-
larged or contracted, we have here the essence of Bigotry. q

218

THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.

John iii. 14. And as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of man be
lifted up ; That whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have
eternal life.
John vi. 40. And this is the will
of him that sent me, that every one
which seeth the Son, and believeth on
him, may have everlasting life.
John xvii. 3. And this is life eter
nal, that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent.

John vi. 29. This is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent.

John iii. 36. He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life : and he
that believeth not the Son shall not
see life ; but the wrath of God abideth
on him.

Matth. v. 3, 8. Blessed are the
poor in spirit : for theirs is the king
dom of heaven. Blessed are the pure
in heart : for they shall see God.
Matth. vii. 21. Not every one that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven ; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which
is in heaven. Many will say to me
in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in thy name ? and in thy
name have cast out devils ? and in thy
name done many wonderful works ?
And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you : depart from me, ye
that work iniquity.
Matth. xix. 16, et seq. And, be
hold, one came and said unto him,
Good Master, what good thing shall I
do, that I may have eternal life? And
he said unto him, Why callest thou me
good ? &c. , &c. ; but if thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments, &c.
Matth. xxv. 31-46.— (Definition of
Christ's reception of the wicked and
the righteous. ) — And these shall go
away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous into life eternal.
Mark xii. 28-34. And the Scribe
said unto him, Well, Master,thou hast
said the truth : for there is one God ;
and there is none other but he : &c,
&c. . . . And when Jesus saw that
he answered discreetly, he said unto
him, Thou art not far from the king
dom of God.
Luke ix. 51-56. And when James
and John saw this (that the Samari
tans would not receive Jesus), they
said, Lord, wilt thou that we com
mand fire to come down from heaven,
and consume them, even as Elias
did ? But he turned, and rebuked
them, and said, Ye know not what
manner of spirit ye are of, &c.
Luke x. 25-28. And, behold, a
certain lawyer stood up, and tempted
him, saying, Master, what shall I do
to inherit eternal life? He said unto
him, What is written in the law?
How readest thou ? And he answer
ing said, Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind ; and thy
neighbour as thyself. And Jesus
said unto him, Thou hast answered
rightly : this do, and thou shalt live.

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 219
There are several minor peculiarities which distinguish
this Gospel from the preceding ones, which we can do no
more than indicate. We find here little about the King
dom of Heaven — nothing about Christ's mission being-
confined to the Israelites — nothing about the casting out
of devils — nothing about the destruction of Jerusalem —
nothing about the struggle between the law and gospel —
topics which occupy so large a space in the picture of
Christ's ministry given in the synoptical Gospels ; and the
omission of which seems to refer the composition of this
narrative to a later period, when the Gentiles were ad
mitted into the Church — when the idea of demoniacal
possession had given way before a higher culture — when
Jerusalem had been long destroyed — and when Judaism
had quite retired before Christianity, at least within the
pale of the Church.*
* Modern criticism has detected several slight errors and inaccuracies
in the fourth Gospel, such as Sychar for Sichem, Siloam erroneously inter
preted sent, &c. , &c. , from which it has been argued that the writer could
not have been a native of Palestine, and by consequence not the Apostle
John. [These, however, are insignificant in comparison with the discrepancy as
to the date of the Last Supper in the different Evangelists, the Synoptists
fixing it on the Feast of the Passover, and the fourth Gospel on the previous
day. This discrepancy gave rise to the famous " Quarto-deciman Contro
versy " as it is called, which so long agitated the early Church, and was at
last only quelled by an authoritative decree of the Emperor Constantine.
Those who wish to understand the question, and the light which its details
throw upon the probable authorship of the fourth Gospel, will find an ex
haustive account in Section ix. of Mr. Tayler's learned inquiry already re
ferred to.— The remarkable points are that the early controversialists, who
took the view and held to the practice of the Synoptists, appealed to the.
Apostle John as their strongest authority on their side ; — while it was not
till very late in the discussion that their adversaries seem to have thought
of quoting the fourth Gospel in their favour ;— that this Gospel entirely ig
nores the institution of the Eucharist in its account of the last days of
Jesus, though apparently alluding to it in some earlier chapters ;— and that
the object of the Author appears to have been to represent, by implication
at least, Christ as being himself the Paschal Lamb, not as partaking of it.
If the fourth Gospel were really the work of the Apostle John, it would
seem impossible to avoid the inference that the institution of " the Sacra
ment '" of bread and wine as recorded by the other Evangelists is entirely
unhistorical, and then all the stupendous ecclesiastical corollaries flowing
from it- fall to the ground. It is impossible that John could have < forgotten
such commands or assertions as are supposed to be involved in the words,
"Take eat; this is my body," &c.-It is equally impossible that.it they
were ever spoken, and signified what Christians m general believe to be tften
significance, the disciple who leaned on the bosom of Jesus while they an ere
uttered, coiild have so undervalued their meaning as to have on, ottecl to r«
cord them. The dilemma, then, seems to be inescapable -.—Either J ohn did

220 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Though we have seen ample reason to conclude that
nearly all the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel
are mainly the composition of the evangelist from memory
or tradition, rather than the genuine utterances of our
great Teacher, it may be satisfactory, as further confirma
tion, to select a few single passages and expressions, as to
the unauthentic character of which there can be no ques
tion. Thus at ch. iii. 11, Jesus is represented as saying
to Nicodemus, in the midst of his discourse about regen
eration, " We speak that we do know, and testify that
we have seen ; and ye receive not our witness," — ex
pressions wholly unmeaning and out of place in the
mouth of Jesus on an occasion where he is testifying
nothing at all, but merely propounding a mystical dogma
to an auditor dull of comprehension — but expressions
which are the evangelist's habitual form of asseveration
and complaint.
It is not clear whether the writer intended verses 16-21
to form part of the discourse of Jesus, or merely a com
mentary of his own. If the former, they are clearly un
warrantable ; their point of view is that of a period when
the teachings of Christ had been known and rejected,
and they could not have been uttered with any justice
or appropriateness at the very commencement of his min
istry. Ch. xi. 8. " His disciples say unto him, Master, the
Jews of late sought to stone thee ; and goest thou thither
again ? " The Jews is an expression which would be nat
ural to Ephesians or other foreigners when speaking of
the inhabitants of Palestine, but could not have been used
by Jews speaking of their own countrymen. They would
have said, the People, or, the Pharisees. The same ob
servation applies to xiii. 33, and also probably to xviii. 36.
Ch. xvii. 3. " And this is life eternal, that they might
know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
not write the fourth Gospel — in which case we have the direct testimony of
no eye-witness to the facts and sayings of Christ's ministry ; — Or, the Sacra
ment of the Lord's Supper, as deduced from the Synoptical accounts, with
the special doctrines of Sacramental grace to partakers of it, and of the
Atonement (as far as it is warranted or originally was suggested by those
^words of Christ), becomes " the baseless fabric of a vision. "J

FIDELITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 221
thou hast sent." This would be a natural expression for
the evangelist, but scarcely for his Master.
As before observed, great doubt hangs over the whole
story of the testimony borne by the Baptist to Jesus at
his baptism. In the fourth evangelist, this testimony is
represented as most emphatic, public, and repeated — so
that it could have left no doubt in the minds of any of
his followers, either as to the grandeur of the mission of
Jesus, or as to his own subordinate character and position
(i. 29-36 ; iii. 26-36). Yet we find, from Acts xviii. 25,
and again xix. 3, circles of John the Baptist's disciples,
who appear never even to have heard of Jesus — astatement
which we think is justly held irreconcilable with the state
ments above referred to in the fourth Gospel.
The question of miracles will be considered in a future
chapter, [and several of those related in this Gospel — sig
nificantly seven in number, and in culminating order —
have special characteristics of their own;] but there is one
miracle, peculiar to John, of so singular and apocryphal
a character as to call for notice here. The turning of
water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee
has long formed the opprobrium and perplexity of theo
logians, and must continue to do so as long as they per
sist in regarding it as an accurate historical relation.
None of the numberless attempts to give anything like
a probable explanation of the narrative has been attended
with the least success. They are for the most part mel
ancholy specimens of ingenuity misapplied, and plain
honesty perverted by an originally false assumption. No
portion of the gospel history, scarcely any portion of Old
Testament, or even of apocryphal, narratives, bears such
unmistakable marks of fiction. It is a story which, if found
in any other volume, would at once have been dismissed
as a clumsy and manifest invention. In the first place,
it is a miracle wrought to supply more wine to men who
had already drunk much — a deed which has no suitability
to the character of Jesus, and no analogy to any other of
his miracles. Secondly, though it was, as we are told, the
first of his miracles, his mother is represented as expect
ing him to work a miracle, and to commence his public

222 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
career with so unfit and improbable a one. Thirdly, Jesus
is said to have spoken harshly* to his mother, asking her
what they had in common, and telling her that " his hour
(for working miracles) was not yet come," when he knew
that it was come. Fourthly, in spite of this rebuff, Mary is
represented as still expecting a miracle, and this particular
one, and as making preparation for it : " She saith to the
servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it ; " and ac
cordingly Jesus immediately began to give orders to them.
Fifthly, the superior quality of the wine, and the enor
mous quantity produced (135 gallons, or in our language,
above 43 dozen-f) are obviously fabulous. And those who
are familiar with the apocryphal gospels will have no dif
ficulty in recognizing the close consanguinity between
the whole narrative and the stories of miracles with
which they abound. It is perfectly hopeless, as well as
mischievous, to endeavour to retain it as a portion of
authentic history.
* All attempts at explanation have failed to remove this character from
the expression— y&vai rl 'efiol Kai aoi.
t See the calculation in Hennell, and in Strauss, ii. 432. The /j-erpnTiis
is sumiosed to correspond to the Hebrew bath, which was equal to 14 Roman
amphora, or 8 '7 gallons ; the whole quantity would therefore be from 104
to 156 gallons.

CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM.
The conclusion at which we have arrived in the foregoing
chapters is of vital moment, and deserves to be fully de
veloped. When duly wrought out, it will be found the
means of extracting Religion from Orthodoxy — of rescu
ing Christianity from Calvinism. We have seen that the
Gospels, while they give a fair and faithful outline of
Christ's character and teaching (the synoptical Gospels at
least), fill up that outline with much that is not authentic ;
that many of the statements therein related are not his
torical, but mystical or legendary ; and that portions at
least of the language ascribed to Jesus were never uttered
by him, but originated either with the evangelists them
selves, or more frequently in the traditional stories from
which they drew their materials. We cannot, indeed, say
in all cases, nor even in most cases, with certainty — in
many we cannot even pronounce with any very strong
probability— that such and such particular expressions or
discourses are, or are not, the genuine utterances of Christ.
With respect to some, we can say with confidence, that
they are not from him ; with respect to others, we can say
with almost equal confidence, that they are his actual
words ; but with regard to the majority of passages, this
certainly is not attainable. But as we know that much
did not proceed from Jesus — that much is unhistorical and
ungenuine — we are entitled to conclude — we are even
forced, by the very instinct of our reasoning faculty, to
conclude — that the unhistorical and ungenuinepassages are
those in which Jesus is represented as speaking and acting
in a manner unconformable to his character as otherwise
delineated, irreconcilable with the tenour of his teaching as
elsewhere described, and at variance with those grand
moral and spiritual truths which have commanded the

224 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
assent of all disciplined and comprehensive minds, and
which could scarcely have escaped an intellect so just,
wide, penetrating, and profound, as that of our great
Teacher. Most reflecting minds rise from a perusal of the gospel
history with a clear, broad, vivid conception of the char
acter and mission of Christ, notwithstanding the many
passages at which they .have stumbled, and which they
have felt — perhaps with needless alarm and self-reproach
— to be incongruous and unharmonizing with the great
whole. The question naturally arises, Did these incon
gruities and inconsistencies really exist in Christ himself ?
or, are they the result of the imperfect and unhistorical
condition in which his biography has been transmitted to
us ? The answer, it seems to us, ought to be this : — We
cannot prove, it is true, that some of these unsuitabilities
did not exist in Christ himself, but we have shown that
many of them belong to the history, not to the subject of
the history, and it is only fair, therefore, in the absence of
contrary evidence, to conclude that the others also are due
to the same origin.
Now the peculiar, startling, perplexing, revolting, and
contradictory doctrines of modern orthodoxy — so far as
they have originated from or are justified by tbe Gospels
at all — have originated from, or are justified by, not the
general tenour of Christ's character and preaching, but
those single, unharmonizing, discrepant texts of which we
have been speaking. Doctrines, which unsophisticated men
feel to be inadmissible and repellant, and which those who
hold them most devotedly, secretly admit to be fearful and
perplexing, are founded on particular passages which con
tradict the generality of Christ's teaching, but which, being
attributed to him by the evangelists, have been regarded
as endowed with an authority which it would be profane
and dangerous to resist. In showing, therefore, that sev
eral of these passages did not emanate from Christ, and
that in all probability none of them did, we conceive that we
shall have rendered a vast service to the cause of true
religion, and to those numerous individuals in whose tor
tured minds sense and conscience have long struggled for

RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM. 225

the mastery. We will elucidate this matter by a few
specifications* One of the most untenable, unphilosophical, uncharit
able doctrines of the orthodox creed — one most peculiarly
stamped with the impress of the bad passions of humanity
— is, that belief (by which is generally signified belief in
Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah, a Teacher
sent down from heaven on a special mission to redeem
mankind) is essential, and the one thing essential, to Sal
vation. The source of this doctrine must doubtless be
sought for in that intolerance of opposition unhappily so
common among men, and in that tendency to ascribe bad
motives to those who arrive at different conclusions from
themselves, which prevails so generally among unchastened
minds. But it cannot be denied that the Gospels con
tain many texts which clearly affirm or fully imply a doc
trine so untenable and harsh. Let us turn to a few of
these, and inquire into the degree of authenticity to which
they are probably entitled.
The most specific assertion of the tenet in question,
couched in that positive, terse, sententious, damnatory
language so dear to orthodox divines, is found in the spuri
ous portion of the Gospel of Mark (c. xvi. 16),f and is there
by the writer, whoever he was, unscrupulously put into
the mouth of Jesus after his resurrection. In the synop
tical Gospels may be found a few texts which may be
wrested to support the doctrine, but there are none which
teach it. But when we come to the fourth Gospel we find
several passages similar to that in Mark,} proclaiming
Salvation to believers, but all in the peculiar style and
spirit of the Author of the first Epistle of John, which
abounds in denunciations precisely similar§ (but directed,,
* It is true that many of the doctrines in question had not a scriptural ori
gin at all, but an ecclesiastical one ; and, when originated, were defended by
texts from the epistles, rather than the gospels. The authority of the epistles
we shall consider in a subsequent chapter, but if in the meantime we can
show that those doctrines have no foundation in the language of Christ, the
chief obstacle to the renunciation of them is removed.
+ " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth
not shall be damned," a passage which, were it not happily spurious, would
suffice to " damn " the book which contains it.
+ John iii. 16, 18, 36 ; v. 24 ; vi. 29, 40, 47 ; xi. 25, 26 ; xx. 31.
§ I John ii. 19, 22, 23 ; iv. 2, 3, 6, 15 ; v. 1, 5, 10, 12, 13.

226 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
it is remarkable, apparently against heretics, not against
infidels, against those who believe amiss, not against those
who do not believe at all) — all, too, redolent of the temper
of that apostle who wished to call down fire from heaven
on an unbelieving village, and who was rebuked by Jesus
for the savage and presumptuous suggestion.
In the last chapter we have shown that the style of
these passages is of a nature to point to John, and not to
Jesus, as their author, and that the spirit of them is en
tirely hostile and incompatible with the language of
Jesus in other parts more obviously faithful. It appears,
therefore, that the passages confirmatory of the doctrine
in question are found exclusively in a portion of the syn
optists which is certainly spurious, and in portions of the
fourth Gospel which are almost certainly unhistorical ;
and that they are contradicted by other passages in all the
Gospels. It only remains to show that as the doctrine is
at variance with the spirit of the mild and benevolent
Jesus, so it is too obviously unsound not to have been rec- '
ognised as such by one whose clear and grand intelligence
was informed and enlightened by so pure a heart.
In the first place, Christ must have known that the
same doctrine will be presented in a very different man
ner, and with very different degrees of evidence for its
truth, by different preachers ; so much so that to resist
the arguments of one preacher would imply either dulness
of comprehension or obstinate and wilful blindness, while
to yield to the arguments of his colleague would imply
weakness of understanding or instability of purpose. The
same doctrine may be presented and defended by one
preacher so clearly, rationally, and forcibly that all sensi
ble men (idiosyncracies apart) must accept it, and by
another preacher so feebly, corruptly, and confusedly, that
all sensible men must reject it. The rejection of the
Christianity preached by Luther, and of the Christianity
preached by Tetzel, of the Christianity preached by
Loyola and Dunstan, and of the Christianity preached by
Oberlin and Pascal, cannot be worthy of the same con
demnation. Few Protestants, and no Catholics, will deny
that Christianity has been so presented to men as to make

RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM. 227
it a simple affair both of sense and virtue to reject it. To
represent, therefore, the reception of a doctrine as a mat
ter of merit, or its rejection as a matter of blame, without
reference to the consideration how and by whom it is
preached, is to leave out the main element of judgment —
an error which could not have been committed by the just
and wise Jesus.
Further. The doctrine and the passages in question
ascribe to " belief " the highest degree of merit, and the
sublimest conceivable reward — " eternal life ; " and to
" disbelief " the deepest wickedness, and the most fearful
penalty — "damnation," and "the wrath of God." Now,
here we have a logical error, betraying a confusion of in
tellect which we may well scruple to ascribe to Jesus.
Belief is an effect produced by a cause. It is a condition
of the mind induced by the operation of evidence present
ed. Being, therefore, an effect, and not an -act, it cannot
be, or have, a merit. The moment it becomes a distinctly
voluntary act (and therefore a thing of which merit can be
predicated) it ceases to be genuine — it is then broughtabout
(if it be not an abuse of language to name this state "be
lief") by the will of the individual, not by the bond fide
operation of evidence upon his mind — which brings us to
the redvxstio ad absurdum, that belief can only become
meritorious by ceasing to be honest.
In sane and competent minds, if the evidence presented
is sufficient, belief will follow as a necessary consequence
— if it does not follow, this can only arise from the evi
dence adduced being insufficient — and in such case to pre
tend belief, or to attempt belief, would be a forfeiture of
mental integrity ; and cannot therefore be meritorious,
but the reverse. To disbelieve in spite of adequate proof
is impossible — to believe without adequate proof, is weak
or dishonest. Belief, therefore, can only become merito
rious by becoming sinful — can only become a fit subject
for reward by becoming a fit subject for punishment.
Such is the sophism involved in the dogma which theo
logians have dared to put into Christ's mouth, and to an
nounce on his authority.
But, it will be urged, the disbelief which Christ blamed

228 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
and menaced with punishment was ( as appears from John
iii. 19) the disbelief implied in a wilful rejection of his
claims, or a refusal to examine them — a love of darkness
in preference to light. If so, the language employed is
incorrect and deceptive, and the blame is predicated of an
effect instead of a cause — it is meant of a voluntary
action, but it is predicated of a specified and denounced
consequence which is no natural or logical indication of
that voluntary action, but may arise from independent
causes. The moralist who should denounce gout as a sin,
meaning the sinfulness to apply to the excesses of which
gout is often, but by no means always, a consequence and
an indication, would be held to be a very confused teacher
and inaccurate logician. Moreover, this is not the sense
attached to the doctrine by orthodox divines in common
parlance. And the fact still remains that Christ is repre
sented as rewarding by eternal felicity a state of mind
which, if honestly attained, is inevitable, involuntary, and
therefore in no way a fitting subject for reward, and
which, if not honestly attained, is hollow, fallacious, and
deserving of punishment rather than of recompense.
We are aware that the orthodox seek to escape from
the dilemma, by asserting that belief results from the
state of the heart, and that if this be right, belief will
inevitably follow. This is simply false in fact. How
many excellent, virtuous, and humble minds, in all ages,
have been anxious, but unable to believe — have prayed
earnestly for belief, and suffered bitterly for disbelief—

The dogma of the Divinity, or, as it is called in the
technical language of polemics, the proper Deity, of Christ,
though historically provable to have had an ecclesiasti
cal, not an evangelical, origin* — though clearly negatived
by the whole tenour of the synoptical Gospels, and even
by some passages in the fourth Gospel [and though it is
difficult to read the narrative of his career with an un-

[* " The Unscriptural Origin and Ecclesiastical History of the Doctrine of
the Trinity," by the Bev. J. Hamilton Thorn.]

RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM. 229
forestalled mind without being clear that Jesus had no
notion of such a belief himself, and would have repudia
ted it with horror] — can yet appeal to several isolated
portions and texts, as suggesting and confirming, if not
asserting it. On close examination, however, it will be
seen that all these passages are to be found either in the
fourth Gospel — which we have already shown reason to
conclude is throughout an unscrupulous and most inexact
paraphrase of Christ's teaching — or in those portions of
the three first Gospels which, on other accounts and from
independent trains of argument, have been selected as at
least of questionable authenticity. It is true that the
doctrine in question is now chiefly defended by reference
to the Epistles ; but at the same time it would scarcely
•be held so tenaciously by the orthodox if it were found
to be wholly destitute of evangelical support. Now, the
passages which appear most confirmatory of Christ's De
ity, or Divine Nature, are, in the first place, the narra
tives of the Incarnation, of the miraculous Conception,
as given by Matthew and Luke. We have already en
tered pretty fully into the consideration of the authenti
city of these portions of Scripture, and have seen that we
may almost with certainty pronounce them to be fabulous,
or mythical. The two narratives do not harmonize with
each other ; they neutralize and negative the genealogies
on which depended so large a portion of the proof of Je
sus being the Messiah ;* — the marvellous statement they
contain is not referred to in any subsequent portion of
the two Gospels, and is tacitly but positively negatived
by several passages — it is never mentioned in the Acts
or in the Epistles, and was evidently unknown to all the
apostles— and, finally, the tone of the narrative, espe
cially in Luke, is poetical and legendary, and bears a
marked similarity to the stories contained in the apocry
phal gospels.
* The Messiah must, according to Jewish prophecy, be a lineal descendant
of David : this Christ was, according to the genealogies : this he was not, if
the miraculous conception be a fact. If, therefore, Jesus came into being
as Matthew and Luke affirm, we do not see how he could have been the

230 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
The only other expressions in the three first Gospels
which lend the slightest countenance to the doctrine in
question, are the acknowledgments of the disciples, the
centurion, and the demoniacs, that Jesus was the Son of
God,* — some of which we have already shown to be of
very questionable genuineness, — and the voice from hea
ven said to have been heard at the baptism and the trans
figuration, saying, " This is my beloved Son," &c. But,
besides that, as shown in chapter vii., considerable doubt
rests on the accuracy of the first of these relations : the
testimony borne by the heavenly voice to Jesus can in no
sense mean that he was physically the Son of God, or a
partaker of the divine nature, inasmuch as the very same
expression was frequently applied to others, and as indeed
a " Son of God " was, in the common parlance of the Jews,
simply a prophet, a man whom God had sent, or to whom
He had spoken.-f
But when we come to the fourth Gospel, especially to
those portions of it whose peculiar style betrays that they
came from John, and not from Jesus, the case is very dif
ferent. We find here many passages evidently intended
to convey the impression that Jesus was endowed with a
superhuman nature, but nearly all expressed in language
savouring less of Christian simplicity than of Alexandrian
philosophy. The evangelist commences his Gospel with a
confused statement of the Platonic doctrine as modified
in Alexandria, and that the Logos was a partaker of the
Divine Nature, and was the Creator of the world ; on
which he proceeds to engraft his own notion, that Jesus
was this Logos — that the Logos or the divine wisdom,
* An expression here merely signifying a Prophet or the Messiah.
t "The Lord hath said unto me (David), Thou art my Son; this day
have I begotten thee." — (Ps. ii. 7). Jehovah says of Solomon, " I will be
his father, and he shall be my son." — (2 Sam. vii. 14). The same expres
sion is applied to_ Israel (Exod. iv. 22 ; Hos. xi. 1), and to David (Ps. Ixxxix.
27). " I have said, Ye are gods ; and all of you are children of the most
High." — (Ps. lxxxii. 6). " If he called them gods, unto whom the word of
God came," &c. — ( John x. 35). "Behold what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the Sons of God 
Beloved, now are we the Sons of God." — (1 John iii. 1, 2). (See also Gal.
iii. 26 ; iv. 5, 6). "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God." — (Rom. viii. 14). " But to as many as received him, he gave
power to become the sons of God. " — (John i. 12).

RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM. 231
the second person in Plato's Trinity, became flesh in the
person of the prophet of Nazareth. Now, can any one
read the epistles, or the three first Gospels — or even the
whole of the fourth — and not at once repudiate the no
tion that Jesus was, and knew himself to be, the Creator
of the World ? — which John affirms him to have been.
Throughout this Gospel we find constant repetitions of
the same endeavour to make out a superhuman nature
for Christ ; but the ungenuineness of these passages has
already been fully considered.
[Take, again, the doctrine of the Eternity of future
punishments — the most impossible of the tenets included
in the popular creed. It rests upon and is affirmed by
one single Gospel text, Matt. xxv. 46 ; — for, though "hell
fire," " everlasting fire" — i.e.,the fire that was kept per
petually burning in the adjacent valley of Gehenna for
the consumption of the city refuse — is often spoken of as
typifying the fate of the wicked, yet the expression
distinctly implies, not everlasting life in fire, but the
precise opposite — namely death, annihilation, total de
struction, in a fire ever at hand and never extinguished.
The doctrine is not only in diametric antagonism to all
that we can conceive or accept of the attributes of the
God of Jesus, but to the whole spirit and teaching of our
Great Master. It is at variance with other texts and
with the general view* gathered from the authentic
Scripture, which teaches the " perishing," the " death," of
the wicked, not their everlasting life in torment. And
finally, the isolated text in question occurs in one only
of the Gospels, — and occurs there (as will be seen by
comparing Matth. xxv. 31, with xxiv. 30) in immediate
connection with the prophecy as to the coming of the
end of the world within the lifetime of the then existing
generation, — a prophecy, the erroneousness of which is
now demonstrated, and which there is (to say the least)
no need for believing ever to have come out of the

* [See countless arguments from the pens, not of unbelievers, but of quali
fied divines — among later ones, "Harmony of Scripture on future
Punishments," by the Rev. S. Minton, and a paper by " Anglicanus," in
the Contemporary Review, for May, 1872. ]

232 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
mouth of Christ. What are called the " eschatological "
discourses are notoriously among the passages in the
Gospels of most questionable genuineness.
Yet it is on the authority of a single verse so sus
piciously located, so repeatedly contradicted elsewhere
either distinctly or by implication, and so flagrantly outof
harmony with the spirit both of Theism and of Christian
ity, that we are summoned to accept a dogma revolting
alike to our purer instincts and our saner reason !]
Once more : the doctrine of the Atonement, of Christ's
death having been a sacrifice in expiation of the sins of
mankind, is the keystone of the common form of modern
orthodoxy. It takes its origin from the epistles, and we
believe can only appeal to three texts in the evangelists,
for even partial confirmation. In Matt. xx. 28, it is
said, " The Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many ;"
an expression which may countenance the doctrine, but
assuredly does not contain it. Again in Matth. xxvi. i!8,
we find, " This is my blood of the new testament, which
is shed for many for the remission of sims." Mark (xiv.
24) and Luke (xxii. 20), however, who give the same
sentence, both omit the significant expression ; while
John omits, not only the expression, but the entire
narrative of the institution of the Eucharist, which is
said elsewhere to have been the occasion of it. In the
fourth Gospel, John the Baptist is represented as saying
of Jesus (i. 29), " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world," an expression which may
possibly be intended to convey the doctrine, but which
occurs in what we' have already shown to be about the
most apocryphal portion of the whole Gospel.
In fine, then, we arrive at this irresistible conclusion ;
that — knowing several passages in the evangelists to be
unauthentic, and having reason to suspect the authenti
city of many others, and scarcely being able with absolute
certainty to point to any which are perfectly and indubi
tably authentic— the probability in favour of the fidelity

RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING CRITICISM. 233
of any of the texts relied on to prove the peculiar and
perplexing doctrines of modern orthodoxy, is far inferior
to the probability against the truth of those doctrines.
A doctrine perplexing to our reason and painful to our
feelings may be from God ; but in this case the proof of
its being from God must be proportionally clear and ir
refragable ; the assertion of it in a narrative which does
not scruple to attribute to God's Messenger words which
he never uttered, is not only no proof, but scarcely even
amounts to a presumption. There is no text in the evan
gelists, the divine (or Christian) origin of which is suf
ficiently unquestionable to enable it to serve as the foun
dation of doctrines repugnant to natural feeling or to com
mon sense.
But, it will be objected, if these conclusions are sound,
absolute uncertainty is thrown over the whole gospel his
tory, and over all Christ's teaching. To this we reply, in
limine, in the language of Algernon Sidney, " No conse-
sequence can destroy any truth ; " the sole matter for con
sideration is, Are our arguments correct ? not, Do they
lead to a result which is embarrasing and unwelcome ?
But the inference is excessive ; the premises do not
reach so far. The uncertainty thrown is not over the
main points of Christ's history, which, after all its re
trenchments, still stands out an intelligible though a skele
ton account— not over the grand features, the pervading
tone, of his doctrines or his character, which still present
to us a clear, consistent, and splendid delineation ; but
over those individual statements, passages, and discourses,
which mar this delineation, which break its unity, which
destroy its consistency, which cloud its clearness, which
tarnish its beauty. The gain to us seems immense. It
is true> we have no longer absolute certainty with regard
to any one especial text or scene : such is neither neces
sary nor attainable ; it is true that, instead of passively
accepting the whole heterogeneous and indigestible mass,
we must, by the careful and conscientious exercise of
those faculties with which we are endowed, by ratioci
nation and moral tact, separate what Christ did, from
what he did not teach, as best we may. But the task
p

234 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
will be difficult to those only who look in the Gospels for
a minute, dogmatic, and sententious creed — not to those
who seek only to learn Christ's spirit, that they may im
bibe it, and to comprehend his views of virtue and of
God, that they may draw strength and consolation from
those fountains of living water.*
* "The character of the record is such that I see not how any great
stress can be laid on particular actions attributed to Jesus. That he lived
a divine life, suffered a violent death, taught and lived a most beautiful re
ligion—this seems the great fact about which a mass of truth and error has
been collected. " — Theodore Parker, Discourse, p. 188.

CHAPTER XII.
THE LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY.
We now come to the very important question — as to the
amount of authority which belongs to the teaching of the
apostles. Are they to be implicitly relied on as having
fully imbibed Christ's spirit ? and as faithful, competent,
jnfallible expounders of his doctrine ? May we, in a
word, regard their teaching as the teaching of Jesus him
self? What their teaching was we know with perfect cer
tainty, though not with all the fulness that might be de
sired. We have the teaching itself in the epistles, and a
record of it in the Acts.
The latter work is not perfectly to be relied on. It
conveys a vivid, and on the whole, in all probability, a
faithful picture of the formation of the early Christian
churches, their sufferings, their struggles, their proceed
ings, and the spirit which animated them ; and, being-
written by a participator in those events, and a compan
ion of Paul* through a portion of his missionary wander
ings, must be regarded as mainly historical ; and we shall,
therefore, make use of the narrative with considerable
confidence. But, as a source for discovering the special
doctrines preached by the apostles, it is of questionable
safety, inasmuch as the writer evidently allowed himself
the freedom indulged in by all historians of antiquity
— of composing speeches in the names of his actors ; and
thus the discourses, both of Paul and Peter, can only be re
garded as proceeding from Luke himself, containing, prob-
* Luke is generally considered to be the same as Silas It is remarked
that when Silas is represented in the narrative as being with Paul, the
narrator speaks in the first person plural. " We came to Samothracia,"
&c. &c., xvi. 11 ; Rom. xvi. 21 ; Col. iv. 14 ; 2 Thes. i. 1 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11 ;
Philem. 24.

236 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ably, much that was said, but much also, that was only
fitting to have been said, on such occasions.
We have already adduced one unmistakable instance
of this practice in a previous chapter, where Luke not
only gives the speech of Gamaliel in a secret council of
the Sanhedrim, from which the apostles were expressly
excluded* but makes him refer, in the past tense, to an
event which did not take place till some years after the
speech was delivered. In the same way we have long
discourses delivered by Stephen, Peter, and Paul, at some
of which Luke may have been present, but which it is
impossible he should have remembered verbatim; we
have the same invalid argument and erroneous reference^
to prophecy regarding the resurrection of Christ put into
the mouths of two such opposite characters as Peter and
Paul (ii. 27, xiii. 35) ; we have another account of a con
versation in a secret council of the Jews (iv. 15-17) ; we
have the beautiful oration of Paul at Athens, when we
know that he was quite alone (xvii. 14, 15) ; we have the
private conversation of the Ephesian craftsmen, when
conspiring against the apostles (xix. 25-27) ; we have
the private letter of the Chief Captain Lysias to Felix
(xxiii. 26) ; we have two private conversations between
Festus and Agrippa about Paul (xxv. 14-22, and xxvi.
31, 32) ; and all these are given in precisely the style and
manner of an ear-witness. We cannot, therefore, feel
certain that any particular discourses or expressions at
tributed by Luke to the apostles were really, genuinely,
and unalteredly, theirs. In the epistles, however, they
speak for themselves, and so far there can be no mistake
as to the doctrines they believed and taught.
Before proceeding further, we wish to premise one re
mark. The epistles contained in our canon are twenty-
one in number, viz., fourteen of Paul (including the He
brews), three of John, two of Peter, one of James, and
one of Jude. But the authorship of the Epistle to the
Hebrews is more than doubtful ; the second of Peter,
the second and third of John, and even those of James
* Acts v. 34.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 237
and Jude, were at a very early period reckoned among
the spurious or doubtful writings.* The epistles of cer
tain or acknowledged genuineness are thus reduced to
fifteen, viz., thirteen of Paul, one of John, and one of
Peter. Thus, of fifteen epistles, of which we can pronounce
with, tolerable certainty that they are of apostolic origin,
two onty proceeded from the companions of Jesus, and
the remaining thirteen from a man who had never seen
him, save in a vision, nor heard his teaching, nor learnt
from his disciples ; — a converted persecutor, who boasted
that he received his instructions from direct supernatural
communications, -f
We will now proceed to establish the following prop
ositions : —
I. That the apostles differed from each other in opinion,
and disagreed among themselves.
II. That they held and taught some opinions which
we know to have been erroneous.
III. That both in their general tone, and in some im
portant particulars, their teaching differed materially from
that of Christ as depicted in the synopticnl Gospels
I. Infallible expounders of a system of Religion or
Philosophy cannot disagree among themselves as to the
doctrines which compose that system, nor as to the spirit
which should pervade it. Now, the apostles did disagree
among themselves in their exposition of the nature and
constituents of their Master's system — and this, too, in
matters of no small significance ; theyr are not, therefore,
infallible or certain guides.
Putting aside personal and angry contentions, such as
those recorded in Acts xv. 39, which, however undigni
fied, are, we fear, natural even to bohy men ; the first re
corded dispute among the apostles we find to have related
to a matter of the most essential importance to the char-

* De Wette, i. 69-83. See also Hug, 583-650. The Epistle of James we
are still disposed to consider genuine ; that of Jude is unimportant ; the
second of Peter, and the third of John, are almost certainly spurious.
t Galatians i. 11-19. '

238 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
acter of Christianity — viz., whether or not the Gospel
should be preached to any but Jews — whether the Gen
tiles were to be admitted into the fold of Christ ? We
find (c. xi.j that when the apostles and brethren in Judea
heard that Peter had ventured to visit Gentiles, to eat
with them, to preach to them, and even to baptize them,
they- were astonished and scandalized by the innovation
and " contended with him." The account of the discus
sion which ensued throws light upon two very interesting
questions : upon the views entertained by Jesus himself
(or at least as to those conveyed by him to his disciples),
as to the range and limit of his mission ; and upon the
manner in which, and the grounds on which, controversies
were decided in the early Church.
We have been taught to regard Jesus as a prophet who
announced himself as sent from God on a mission to
preach repentance, and to teach the way of life to all
mankind, and who left behind him the apostles to com
plete the work which he was compelled to leave un
finished. The mission of Moses was to separate and edu
cate a peculiar people, apart from the rest of the world,
for the knowledge and worship of the one true God : —
The mission of Christ was to bring all nations to that
knowledge and worship — to extend to all mankind that
salvation which, in his time, was considered to belong to
the Jews alone, as well as to point to a better and wider
way of life. Such is the popular and established notion.
But when we look into the New Testament we find little
to confirm this view, and much to negative it. Putting
aside our own prepossessions, and inferences drawn from
the character of Christ, and the comprehensive grandeur
of his doctrine, nothing can well be clearer from the evi
dence presented to us in the Scriptures, than that Jesus
considered himself sent, not so much to the world at large
as to the Jews exclusively, to bring back his countrymen
to the true essence and spirit of that religion whose purity
had in his days been so grievously corrupted ; and to ele
vate and to enlarge their views from the stores of his
own rich and comprehensive mind.
It will be allowed by all that the apostles, at the com-

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 239
mencement of their ministry after the crucifixion of their
Lord, had not the least idea that their mission extended
to any but the Jews, or that their Master was anything
but a Jewish Messiah and Deliverer. Their first impa
tient question to him when assembled together after the
resurrection, is said to have been, " Lord, wilt thou at
this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? "* The whole
of the account we are now considering, brings out in
strong relief their notions as to the narrow limits of their
ministry. When Peter is sent for by Cornelius, and hears
the relation of his vision, he exclaims, as if a perfectly
new idea had struck him, " Of a truth I perceive that
God is no respecter of persons : but in, every nation he
that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted
with him" (Acts x. 34) ; and he goes on to expound " the
word which God sent unto the children of Israel" (v. 36),
and which the apostles were commanded to " preach unto
the people" (v. 42), — "the people," as the context (v. 41)
shows, meaning simply the Jews. The Jewish believers,
we are told (v. 45), "as many as came with Peter were
astonished, because that on the Gentiles also was poured
out the gift of the Holy Ghost." When Peter was called
to account by the other apostles for having preached to
and baptized Gentiles (xi. 1) — a proceeding which evi
dently (xi. 2, 3) shocked and surprised them all — he jus
tified himself, not by reference to any commands of Jesus,
not by quoting precept or example of his Master, but
simply by relating a vision or dream which he supposed
to proceed from a divine suggestion. The defence ap
peared valid to the brethren, and they inferred from it,
in a manner which shows what a new and unexpected
light had broken in upon them, — " Then hath God also to
the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (xi. 18). Now,
could this have been the case, had Christ given his dis
ciples any commission to preach the gospel to the Gen
tiles, or given them the slightest reason to suppose that
other nations besides the Jews were included in that com
mission ? (See also for confirmation xi. 19, and xiii. 46.)
* Acts, i. 6.

240 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
It is to be observed also that throughout the elaborate
arguments contained in the Epistle to the Romans, to
show that the gospel ought to be preached to the Gentiles
— that there is no difference between Greek and Jew, &c.
— Paul, though he quotes largely from the Hebrew Proph
ets, never appeals to any sayings of Jesus, in confir
mation of his view ; and in the Acts, in two instances, his
mission to the Gentiles is represented as arising out of a
direct subsequent revelation (in a vision) to himself.
(Acts xxii. 21 ; xxvi. 17 ; ix. 15.)
As, therefore, none of the apostles, either in their
writings or in . their discussions, appeal to the sayings or
deeds of Christ during his lifetime as their warrant for
preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, but on the contrary,
one and all manifest a total ignorance of any such deeds
or sayings — we think it must be concluded that the va
rious texts extant, conveying his commands to " preach
the gospel to all nations," could never have proceeded from
him, but are to be. ranked among the many ascribed say
ings, embodying the ideas of a later period, which we
find both in the Acts and the evangelists.* None of these
are quoted or referred to by the apostles in their justifi
cation, and therefore could not have been known to them,
and, since unknown, could not be authentic.
On the other hand, there are several passages in the
Gospels which, if genuine, clearly indicate that it was not
from any neglect or misunderstanding of the instructions
• These texts are the following (Matth. viii. 11, 12) : " Many shall come
from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall
be east out into outer darkness." This, however, as well as the parable of the
vineyard (xxi. 43), and that of the supper (Luke xiv. 16), might be merely
an indignant denunciation called forth by the obstinacy of the Jews in re
fusing to listen to his claims. Matth. xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 15,
we have already shown reason to believe spurious ; and Luke xxiv. 47,
with Acts i. 8, bear equal marks of unauthenticity. It is true that Jesus
talked with a Samaritan woman, and healed a Samaritan leper ; but the
Samaritans were not Gentiles, only heretical Jews. We find from Acts
viii. 5, 14, that the apostles early and without scruple preached to and bap
tized Samaritans. Jesus also healed a Gentile centurion's servant : but in
the first place, the servant might have been a Jew, though his master was
not ; and, secondly, a temporal blessing, a simple act of charity, Jesus could
not grudge even to strangers.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 241
of their Lord, that the Apostles regarded their mission as
confined to the Jews. " Go not into the way of the Gen
tiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not :
but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel "
(Matth. x. 5, 6). " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel " (Matth. xv. 24). " Verily I say unto
you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration
when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel" (Matth. xix. 28).* " It is easier for heaven
and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail" (Luke
xvi. 17). " Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil "
(Matth. v. 17). " This day is salvation come to this house,
forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham" (Luke xix. 9).
" Salvation is of the Jews" (John iv. 22).
It would appear, then, that neither the historical nor
the epistolary Scriptures give us any reason for surmising
that Jesus directed, or contemplated, the spread of his
gospel beyond the pale of the Jewish nation ; that the
apostles at least had no cognizance of any such views on
his part ; that when the question of the admission of the
Gentiles to the knowledge of the gospel, came before
them in the natural progress of events, it created con
siderable difference of opinion among them, and at first
the majority were decidedly hostile to any such liberality
of view, or such extension of their missionary labours.
The mode in which the controversy was conducted, and
the grounds on which it was decided, are strongly charac
teristic of the moral and intellectual condition of the
struggling church at that early period. The objectors
bring no argument to show why the Gentiles should not
be admitted to the gospel light, but they put Peter at
once on his defence, as having, in preaching to others
than to Jews, done a thing which, prima facie, was out
of rule, and required justification. And Peter replies to
them, not by appeals to the paramount authority of

* [It is, however, nearly impossible to consider this verse as genuine, es
pecially when read in connection with ch. xx. 20-28].

242 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Christ, — not by reference to the tenour of his life and
teaching, — not by citing the case of the Centurion's ser
vant, the Canaanitish woman, or the parables of the vine
yard and the supper, — not by showing from the nature
and fitness of things that so splendid a plan of moral
elevation, of instruction — such a comprehensive scheme
of redemption, according to the orthodox view — ought
to be as widely preached as possible, — not by arguing
that Christ had come into the world to spread the heal
ing knowledge of Jehovah, of our God and Father, to all
nations, to save all sinners and all believers ; — but simply
by relating a vision, or rather a dream — the most natural
one possible to a man as hungry as Peter is represented
to have been — the interpretation of which — at first a
puzzle to him — is suggested by the simultaneous appear
ance of the messengers of Cornelius, who also pleads a
heavenly vision as a reason for the summons. This
justification would scarcely by itself have been sufficient,
for the dream might have meant nothing at all, or
Peter's interpretation of it — evidently a doubtful and
tentative one — might have been erroneous; so he goes on
to argue that the event showed him to have been right,
inasmuch as, after his preaching, the Holy Ghost fell
upon all the household of Cornelius ; " And as I began to
speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as onus at the begin-
ing ;  Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift
as unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what
was I, that I could withstand God?" (Acts xi. 15, 17.)
This argument clenched the matter, satisfied the brethren,
and settled, once for all, the question as to the admission
of the gentiles into the Church of Christ.
It becomes necessary, therefore, to inquire more closely
into the nature of this argument which appeared to the
apostles so conclusive and irrefragable. What was
this Holy Spirit ? and in what way did it manifest
its presence ? so that the apostles recognised it at
once as the special and most peculiar gift vouchsafed
to believers.
The case, as far as the Acts and the Epistles enable us
to learn it, appears clearly to have been this : — The indi-

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 243
cation — or at least the most common, specific, and
indubitable indication — of the Holy Spirit having fallen
upon any one, was his beginning to " speak with tongues,"
to utter strange exclamations, unknown words, or words
in an unknown tongue. Thus, in the case of the apostles
on the day of Pentecost, we are told, "They were all
filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance " (Acts
ii. 4). Again, in tbe case of the household of Cornelius,
" And they . . were astonished .... because that
on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and
magnify God " (x. 45, 46). The same indication appeared
also in the case of the disciples of the Baptist, whom Paul
found at Ephesus : " And when Paul had laid his hands
upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them ; and tliey
spake with tongues, and prophesied " (xix. 6). The
" speaking with tongues " (to which in the last instance
is added "prophesying," or preaching) is the only specified
external manifestation, cognisable by the senses, by
which it was known that such and such individuals had
received the Holy Ghost. What, then, was this " speak
ing with tongues ? " *
The popular idea is, that it was the power of speaking
foreign languages without having learned them — super
naturally, in fact. This interpretation derives countenance,
and probably its foundation, from the statement of Luke
(Acts ii. 2-8), which is considered to intimate that the
apostles preached to each man of their vast and motley
audience in his own native language. But there are
many difficulties in the way of this interpretation, and
much reason to suspect in the whole narrative a large
admixture of the mythic element.
1. We have already seen that Luke is not to be im
plicitly trusted as an historian ; and some remarkable
* See also the passage in the spurious addition to Mark's Gospel (xvi. 17):
"And these signs shall follow them that believe ; In my name shall they
cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues," <fcc. The date at which
this interpolation was written is unknown, but it serves to show that, at that
period, speaking with new tongues was one of the established signs of
belief.

244 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
discrepancies between the accounts of the Gospels and the
Acts will be noted in a subsequent chapter, when we
treat of the Resurrection and Ascension*
2. It appears from Matthew (x. 1, 8, 20), that the Holy
Spirit had been already imparted to the apostles during
the lifetime of Jesus, and a second outpouring therefore
could not be required. John, however, tells us (xx. 22),
that Jesus expressly and personally conferred this gift
after his resurrection, but before his ascension: "And
when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith
unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" But in the Acts
the " breathing " had become " a rushing mighty wind,"
and the outpouring of the Spirit is placed some days after
the ascension, and the personal interposition is dispensed
with. These discrepant accounts cannot all be faithful,
and that of Luke is apparently the least authentic.
3. We have no evidence anywhere that the apostles
knew, or employed, any- language except Hebrew (or Ara
maic) and Greek — Greek being (as Hug has clearly
proved")") the common language in use throughout the
eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Nay, we have
some reason to believe that they were not acquainted with
other languages ; for by the general tradition of the early
churchy Mark is called the " interpreter " of Peter. Now,
if Peter had been gifted as we imagine on the day of
Pentecost, he would have needed no interpreter.
4. The language in which the occurrence is related
would seem to imply that the miracle was wrought upon
the hearers, rather than on the speakers — that whatever
* [See also similar differences between the Acts and the Epistles of Paul
in narrating the same events.]
t Hug. ii. 1, § 10, p 326.
X Papias, Irenaaus, and Jerome all call him so. See Eusebius. Another
consideration which renders the story still more doubtful is, that it appears
very probable that Greek, though not always the native, was the current
language, or a current language, among all those nations enumerated (Acts ii.
9-11). Media, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Arabia, and Egypt were full of
Greek cities, and Greek was generally spoken there. (See the dissertation
of Hug, above referred to.) If therefore the apostles had addressed the
audience in Greek, as it was probably their habit to do, they would natu
rally have been intelligible even to that miscellaneous audience. Acts xxii.
2, shows that even in Jerusalem addressing the people in Hebrew was an
unusual thing.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 245
the language in which the apostles spoke, the audience
heard them each man in his own. " When the multitude
came together they were confounded, because that every
man heard them speak in his own language." ....
" Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans ? And
how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we
were born ? " The supposition that the different apostles
addressed different audiences in different languages, suc
cessively, is inconsistent with the text, which clearly in-*
dicates that the whole was one transaction, and took place
at one time. " Peter standing, up . . . said . . . These
are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is bid the third
hour of the day."
5. The people, we are told, " were in doubt " at the
strange and incomprehensible phenomenon, and said,
" What meaneth this ? " while others thought the apostles
must be drunk — a natural perplexity and surmise,
if the utterances were incoherent and unintelligible eja
culations — but not so, if they were discourses addressed
to each set of foreigners in their respective languages.
Moreover, Peter's defence is not what it would have been
in the latter case. He does not say, " We have been en
dowed from on high with the power of speaking foreign
languages which we have never learned : we are, as you
say, ignorant Galileans, but God has given us this faculty
that we might tell you of his Son ; " but he assures them
that those utterances which led them to suppose him and
his fellow-disciples to be drunk were the consequences of
that outpouring of spiritual emotion which had been
prophesied as one of the concomitants of the millennium.
" This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel :
and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith Jehovah,
I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young
men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams." 6. Luke indicates in several passages, that in the other
cases mentioned the Holy Spirit fell upon the recipients
in the same manner, and with the same results, as on the
apostles on the day of Pentecost (Acts x. 47 ; xi. 15-17 ;

246 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
xv. 8, 9*). Now, in these cases there is no reason what
ever to believe that the "gift of tongues" meant the
power of speaking foreign languages. In the first case
(that of Cornelius) it could not have been this ; for as all
the recipients began to " speak with tongues," and yet
were members of one household, such an unnecessary
display of newly-acquired knowledge of power would
have been in the highest degree impertinent and osten
tatious. There can, we think, be no doubt — indeed we are not
aware that any doubt has ever been expressed — that the
remarks of Paul in the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters of
the first epistle to the Corinthians, respecting the " speak
ing with tongues," — the " gift of tongues," — " the un
known tongue," &c, — refer to the same faculty, or
supposed spiritual endowment, spoken of in the Acts ;
which fell on the apostles at the day of Pentecost,
and on the household of Cornelius, and the disciples
of Apollos, as already cited. The identity of the gift
referred to in all the cases is, we believe, unquestioned.
Now the language of Paul clearly shows, that this
" speaking with tongues " was not preaching in a foreign
language, but in an unknown language ; — that it con
sisted of unintelligible, and probably incoherent, utter-
ances."f He repeatedly distinguishes the gift of tongues
from that of preaching (or, as it is there called, prophecy),
and the gift of speaking the unknown tongues from the
gift of interpreting the same. " To one is given by the
Spirit. . . . the working of miracles ; to an
other prophesy ; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to an
other the interpretation of tongues." ..." Have all
the gifts of healing ? do all speak with tongues ? do all
* Peter says "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be bap
tized, which have receievd the Holy Ghost as well as we '!" . . " The
Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. " . . . " Forasmuch,
then, as God gave them the like gift as unto us." . . . "And God gave
them the Holy Ghost, even as unto us, and put no difference between us and
them. "
t We are glad to corroborate our opinion by a reference to that of Nean-
der, who, in his "History of the Planting of the Early Church," comes to
fhe same conclusion, chap. i.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 247
interpret ? " (1 Cor. xii. 10-30. See also xiii. 1, 2, 8.)
" Let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray
that he may interpret " (xiv. 13). Again, he classes this"
power of tongues (so invaluable to missionaries, had it
been really a capacity of speaking foreign languages)
very low among spiritual endowments. " First apostles,
secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of
tongues " (xii. 28.) " Greater is he that prophesieth than
he that speaketh with tongues " (xiv. 5). He further ex
pressly explains this gift to consist in unintelligible ut
terances, which were useless to, and lost upon the audience.
" He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not
unto man, but unto God: for no man understandeth him "
(xiv. 2). (See also ver. 6-9, 16.) Finally, he intimates
pretty plainly that the practice of speaking these un
known tongues was becoming vexatious, and bringing
discredit on the Church ; and he labours hard to discour
age it. " I thank my God, I speak with tongues more
than ye all : yet in the church I had rather speak five
words with my understanding, that I might teach others
also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue "
(xiv. 18, 19). " If the whole church be come together
into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come
in unlearned men or unbelievers, will they not say ye are
mad ? " (ver. 23). " If any man speak in an unknown
tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that
by course ; and let one interpret  For God is
not the author of confusion, but of peace " (ver. 27-33).
(See also ver. 39, 40).
It is, we think, almost impossible to read the whole of
the three chapters from which the above citations are
made, without coming to the conclusion that in the early
Christian Church there were a number of weak, mobile,
imaginative minds, who, over-excited by the sublimity of
the new doctrine expounded to them, and by the stirring
eloquence of its preachers, passed the faint and undefina-
hle line which separates enthusiasm from delirium, and
gave vent to their exaltation in incoherent or inarticulate
utterances, which the compassionate sympathy, or the

248 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
consanguineous fancies, of those around them, dignified
with the description of speaking, or prophesying, in an
unknown tongue. No one familiar with physiology, or
medical or religious history* can be ignorant how con
tagious delusions of this nature always prove, and when
once these incoherences became the recognised sign of the
descent of the Spirit, every one would, of course, be
anxious to experience, and to propagate them. We have
seen the same thing precisely in our own day among the
Irvingites. How is it, then, that the same phenomena of
mental weakness and excitability which in the one case
Somewhat similar phenomena have manifested themselves on several
occasions in the course of the last eight hundred years, and even in our own
day, when religious excitement has proved too strong for weak minds or
sensitive frames to bear without giving way. We find them recorded in the
case of the ecstatics of Cevennes, who underwent severe persecution in
France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and among the con-
rulsionvairesoi St. Medard near the close of last century. Both these cases
are examined in considerable detail in a very curious and valuable work by
Bertrand, a French physician, "Sur les Variete's de l'Extase" (pp.323,
359). But our own country has presented us within a few years with a re
production of precisely the same results arising from similar causes. There
is extant a very remarkable and painfully-interesting pamphlet by a Mr.
Baxter, who was at one time a shining light in Mr. Irving's congregation,
and a great " speaker with tongues," in which he gives a detailed account
of all the accompanying phenomena. It was written after he had recovered ;
though he never relinquished his belief in the supernatural nature of these
utterances, but finally concluded them to be from Satan, on the ground of
some of the speakers uttering what he thought false doctrine. The descrip
tion he gives of his own state and that of others during the visitations in
dicates in a manner that no physiologist can mistake, a condition of cerebral
excitement implying hysteria, and verging on madness, and by no means
uncommon. Sometimes, when praying, his shrieks were so loud that be was
compelled to ' ' thrust his handkerchief into his mouth that he might not
alarm the house. " Others fell down ' ' convulsed and foaming like demo
niacs. " "My whole body was violently agitated ; for the space of ten
minutes I was paralyzed under a shaking of my limbs, and no expression
except a convulsive sigh." His friends "remarked on his excited state of
mind. " A servant was taken out of his house deranged, and pronounced
by the tongues to be possessed by a devil. Another ' ' speaker with tongues "
did nothing but mutter inarticulate nonsense with a " most revolting expres
sion of countenance. " Mr. Baxter says the utterances which were urged
upon him by "the power," were sometimes intelligible, sometimes not;
sometimes French, sometimes Latin, and sometimes in languages which he
did not know,_ but which his wife thought to be Spanish. He says at last,
" My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue is that it is no language
whatever, but a mere collection of words and sentences, often a mere jargon
of sounds." One man seldom began to speak without the contagion seizing
upon others, so that numbers spoke at once, as in Paul's time. It is clear
to any one who reads Mr. Baxter's candid and unpretending narrative, that
a skilful physician would at once have terminated the whole delusion by a
liberal exhibition of phlebotomy and anodynes.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 249
aroused only pity and contempt, should in the other be
regarded with a mysterious reverence and awe ?
The language of Paul in reference to the " unknown
tongues " appears to us clearly that of an honest and a
puzzled man, whose life in an age of miracles, and whose
belief in so many grand religious marvels, has prepared
him to have faith in more ; — whose religious humility
will not allow him to prescribe in what manner the Spirit
of God may, or may not, operate : — but, at the same time,
whose strong good sense makes him feel that these in
comprehensible utterances must be useless, and were
most probably nonsensical, morbid, and grotesque. He
seems to have been anxious to repress the unknown
tongue, yet unwilling harshly to condemn it as a vain
delusion. That there was a vast amount of delusion and unsound
enthusiasm in the Christian Church at the time of the
apostles, not only seems certain, but it could not possibly
have been otherwise, without such an interference with
the ordinary operations of natural causes as would have
amounted to an incessant miracle. Wonders, real or sup
posed, were of daily occurrence. The subjects habitually
brought before the contemplation of Believers were of
such exciting and sublime magnificance that even the
strongest minds cannot too long dwell upon them without
some degree of perilous emotion. The recent events
which closed the life of the Founder of their Faith, and
above all the glorious truth, or the splendid fiction, of his
resurrection and ascension, were depicted with all the
stirring grandeur of oriental imagination. The expecta
tion of an almost immediate end of the world, and the
reception into glory and power of the living believer, —
the hope which each one entertained, of being " caught
up " to meet his Redeemer in the clouds, — was of itself
sufficient to overthrow all but the coldest tempers ; while
the constant state of mental tension in which they were
kept by the antagonism and persecution of the world
without, could not fail to maintain a degree of exaltation
very unfavourable to sobriety either of thought or feeling.
All these influences, too, were brought to bear upon minds

250 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
the most ignorant and unprepared, upon the poor and the
oppressed, upon women and children ; and to crown the
whole, the most prominent doctrine of their faith was
that of the immediate, special, and hourly influence of the
Holy Spirit — a doctrine of all others the most liable to
utter and gross misconception, and the most apt to lead
to perilous mental excitement. Hence they were con
stantly on the look-out for miracles. Their creed did not
supply, and indeed scarcely admitted, any criterion of
what was or was not of divine origin — for who could
venture to pronounce or define how the Spirit might or
should manifest itself ? — and thus ignorance and folly too
often become the arbiters of wisdom — and the ravings of
delirium were listened to as the words of inspiration, and
of God. If Jesus could have returned to earth thirty
years after his death, and sat in the midst of an assembly
of his followers, who were listening in hushed and won
dering prostration of mind to a speaker in the " unknown
tongue," how would he have wept over the humiliating
and disappointing spectacle ! how would he have grieved
to think that the incoherent jargon of delirium or hys
teria should be mistaken for the promptings of his Fa
ther's spirit !
We are driven, then to the painful, but unavoidable,
conclusion, that those mysterious and untelligible utter
ances which the apostles and the early Christians gener
ally looked upon as the effects of the Holy Spirit — the
manifestation of its presence, the signs of its operation,
the special indication and criterion of its having fallen
upon any one — were in fact simply the physiologically
natural results of morbid and perilous cerebral exaltation,
induced by strong religious excitement acting on uncul
tivated and susceptible minds ; — results which in all ages
and nations have followed in similar circumstances and
from similar stimulants ; — and that these " signs," to
which Peter appealed, and to which the other brethren
succumbed, as proving that God intended the gospel to
be preached to Gentiles as well as to Jews, showed only
that Gentiles were susceptible to the same excitements,
and manifested that susceptibility in the same manner as
the Jews.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 251
Shortly after the question as to the admission of the
Gentiles into the Christian Church had been decided in
the singular and inconclusive manner above related, a
second subject of dispute arose among the brethren — a
corollary almost of the first — the nature of which strongly
confirms some of the views we have just put forth. The
dispute-'was this: — whether it was necessary for those
Gentiles who had been baptized and admitted into the
Christian Community, to observe the ritual portion of the
Jewish law ? — whether, in fact, by becoming Christians,
they had, ipso facto, become Jews, and liable to Judaic
observances ? The mere broaching of such a question,
and the serious schism it threatened in the infant sect,
show how little the idea had yet taken root among the
disciples, of the distinctness of the essence, the superiority
of the spirit, the newness of the dispensation, taught by
Jesus, and how commonly Christianity was regarded as
simply a purification and renewal of Judaism.
It appears from the 15th chapter of the Acts, that
when Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, teaching and
baptizing the Gentiles, certain Jewish Christians (Phari
sees we are told in verse 5) caused considerable trouble
and dissension by asserting that it was necessary for the
new converts " to be circumcised, and to keep the law of
Moses " — a doctrine which Paul and Barnabas vehemently
opposed. The question was so important, and the dissen
sion became so serious, that a council of the apostles and
elders was summoned at Jerusalem to discuss and decide
the matter. From the brief account given by Luke of
the proceedings of this conclave it does not appear that
there was any material difference among those assembled
— the speakers among them, at least Peter, Paul, and
James, all arguing on the same side ; but from the
account of the same* transaction, given by Paul in the
second chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, it is clear
that Peter (covertly or subsequently) took the Jewish
side of the discussion, " When Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

* The same, or a similar one.

&

252 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
For before that certain came from James, he did eat with
the Gentiles : but when they were come, he withdrew and
separated himself, fearing them which were of the cir
cumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with
him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away
with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they
walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a
Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as
do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews ? " This speech, directed against Peter, is
so like that which Luke (Acts xv. 10, 11) puts into the
mouth of Peter, that we cannot but suppose some mistake
on the historian's part* It is certain, however, both
from the narrative in the Acts and from the whole tenour
of the Pauline Epistles, that the case was argued without
any reference to the intentions of Christ, or to instructions
left by him — but, instead, by inconclusive quotations from
prophecy, and by considerations of practical good sense.
The decision at which they arrived, on the suggestion of
James, seems on the whole to have " been both wise and
sound ; viz., that the Gentile converts should not be bur
dened with the observances of the ritual law, but should
abstain from everything which could be considered as
countenancing or tolerating idolatry, from fornication,
and from food which, probably from its unwholesomeness,
was considered unlawful in most oriental countries.
The discussion and decision of this Council on a ques
tion of such vital import, both to the success and to the
character of Christianity — a question involving its spirit
ual nature and essence as apart from ceremony — shew
strongly and clearly the two points essential to our pres
ent argument ; first, that difference of opinion on matters
of vital significance existed among the apostles ; and,
secondly, that these matters were discussed in their
Councils on argumentative grounds, without the least
* Unless, as has been suggested, Peter, afterwards overpowered by the
unanimity of the Judaizers, flinched from his principles, and so incurred
Paul's indignation.

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 253
pretension on the part of any of them to infallibility,
supernatural wisdom, or exclusive or peculiar knowledge
of the mind of Christ.
That very different views as to the essentials and most
important elements of Christianity were taken by the
several apostles, or rather, perhaps, that the same ele
ments underwent very material modifications in passing
through such different minds — that to some its essence
seemed to consist in the ethical and spiritual, and to
others in the speculative and scholastic, ideas which it
contained or suggested — can scarcely be doubted by any
one who will read simultaneously, and for the purpose of
comparison, Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, the Epistle
of James, and the first of John and Peter. But the dis
crepancy is of a kind that will be perceptible on an atten
tive perusal, rather than one which can be pointed out
by a citation of particular passages. It is a discrepancy
of tone and spirit. No one, we think, can fail to perceive
that the views of Christ's object, character, and mission,
entertained by Paul and by James, were radically differ
ent.* There is some evidence also that the Apostles not only
differed from each other, but that their own respective
views varied materially on important subjects in the
course of their ministry. This will appear, more especially,
in contrasting the exhortations of Paul on the subject of
marriage, for example, contained in 1 Cor. vii., with those
given in 1 Timothy iv. 3, v. 14.
II. Our second position was, that the Apostles held
some opinions which we know to be erroneous. It is
essential not to overstate the case. They held several
opinions which we believe to be erroneous, but only one
which, as it is related to a matter of fact, we know to
have been erroneous. They unanimously and unques-
* Hug (p. 613) says, " In this epistle (that of James) the Apostle Paul is
(if I may be allowed to use so harsh an expression for a while) contradicted
so flatly, that it would seem to have been written in opposition to some ot
his doctrines and positions. AD that Paul has taught respecting faith, its
efficacy in justification, and the inutility of works, is here directly con
travened."

254 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
tioningly believed and taught that the end of the world
was at hand, and would arrive in the lifetime of the then
existing generation. On this point there appears to have
been no hesitation in their individual minds, nor any dif
ference of opinion among them.
The following are the passages of the apostolic
writings which most strongly express, or most clearly
imply this conviction.
Paul (1 Thess. iv. 15, 16, 17). " This we say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive
and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not pre
vent them which are asleep. For .... the dead in
Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and re
main shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever
be with the Lord." (1 Cor vii. 29.) " But this I say,
brethren, the time- is short : it remaineth, that both they
that have wives be as though they had none ; and they
that weep, as though they wept not ; and they that
rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy,
as though they possessed not ; and they that use this
world, as not abusing it ; for the fashion of this world
passeth away." (1 Cor. xv. 51.) " Behold, I shew you a
mystery ; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed." (See also 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1.)
Peter. (1 Ep. i. 5, 20.) "An inheritance incorruptible,
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in
heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time." " Christ .... who verily was foreordained
before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in
these last times for you." (iv. 7.) " The end of all things
is at hand."
John. (1 Ep. ii. 18.) " Little children, it is the last time:
and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even
now are there many antichrists ; whereby we know that
it is the last time."
James, (v. 8.) " Be ye also patient ; . . for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh." *
* See also Acts i. 11 ; and 2 Peter iii.

LIMTTS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 255
We may well conceive that this strong conviction must,
in men like the apostles, have been something far beyond
a mere abstract or speculative opinion. In fact, it modi
fied their whole tone of thought and feeling ; and could
not fail to do so.* The firm and living faith that a few
years would bring the second coming of their Lord in his
glory, and the fearful termination of all earthly things —
when "the heavens should be gathered together as a
scroll, and the elements should melt with fervent heat "
—and that many among them should be still alive, and
should witness these awful occurrences with human eyes,
and should join their glorified Master without passing
through the portals of the grave — could not exist in their
minds without producing not only a profound contempt
for all the pomps and distinctions of the world, but an
utter carelessness for the future interests of mankind,
for posterity, even for kindred— without indeed distorting
all the just proportions of those scenes of nature and
society, in the midst of which their lot was cast."f" If the
world, and all its mighty and far-stretching interests — if
the earth, and its infinite and ever- varying beauties — if
the sky, and its myraids of midnight glories — were
indeed to be finally swept away in the time and the
presence of the existing actors in the busy scene of life,
where was the use of forming any new ties of kindred
or affection, which must terminate so suddenly and so
soon ? Why give a moment's thought to the arts which
embellish life, the amenities which adorn it, the sciences
which smooth it or prolong it, or the knowledge which
enriches and dignifies its course \ Marriage, children,
wealth, power, astronomy, philosophy, poetry, — what
were they to men who knew that ten or twenty years
would transplant not only themselves but the whole race
of man, to a world where all would be forgotten, and
would leave the earth — the scene of these things — a
* [How indisputably this conviction was the current one in the apostolic
age may be perceived from finding that Matthew makes no scruple of
putting the announcement into the mouth of Christ himself, " Verily I say
unto you, this generation shall not pass, till ye shall see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven," &c, &c— Matthew xxiv. 30-34.]
t See Natural History of Enthusiasm, § v., pp. 100, 101,

256 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
destroyed and blackened chaos \ To this conviction may
be traced St. Paul's confused and fluctuating notions on
the subject of marriage. And this conviction, teeming
with such immense and dangerous consequences, and held
by all the apostles, was, we now know, wholly incorrect
and unfounded. Next to the resurrection of Christ, there
was probably no doctrine which they held so undoubt-
ingly, or preached so dogmatically as this, with regard to
which they were totally in error.
If, then, they were so misinformed, or mistaken, on a
point having so immediate and powerful a bearing upon
practical life, how is it possible to place absolute con
fidence in them when they deal with matters of deeper
speculation, or enforce obscure and startling dogmas, or
lay down conditions of salvation apparently at least at
variance with those announced by Christ ?
III. Our third position is, that the teaching of the
apostles in some important particulars, but still more in
its general tone, differed from that of their Master, as the
latter is recorded in the synoptical Gospels.
We know that the apostles, during the lifetime of
their Lord, were very far indeed from imbibing his
spirit, or fully apprehending his doctrine. Their miscon
ceptions of his mission and his teaching are represented
as constant and obstinate, almost to stupidity. They are
narrow, where he was liberal and comprehensive ; they
were exclusively Jewish, where he was comparatively
. cosmopolitan ; they were violent, where he was gentle ;
impetuous, where he was patient ; vindictive, where he
was forgiving ; worldly, where he was spiritual. They
had their thoughts too much fixed on " the restoration
of the Kingdom to Israel," and the " twelve thrones " on
which they hoped to sit ; they could not embrace or
endure the sublime conception of a suffering Teacher and
Eedeemer ; of a victory to be achieved by death ; they
were dismayed and confounded by their Master's cruci
fixion ; they had no expectation of his resurrection ; and
when his hour of calamity arrived, "they all forsook him
and fled,"

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 257
Disciples who so little resembled and so imperfectly
understood their Lord during his life, could not be adequate
representatives or expounders of his religion after his death,
unless some new and strange influence had come upon
them, of energy sufficient to rectify their notions and to
change their characters. The Supernaturalists, who com
prise the great body of the Christian World, conceive this
influence to have consisted in that Holy Spirit which, ac
cording to John, was promised, and, according to Luke, was
given, after the Ascension of Christ, and which was to "teach
them all things," and to " bring all things to their remem
brance" which their Lord had taught them. According
to the Rationalists, this metamorphosing influence must
be traced to the death of Jesus, which spiritualized the
views of the disciples by extinguishing their worldly and
ambitious hopes.* The first is a possible, the second is a
reasonable and probable explanation. The death and res
urrection of Christ must have worked, and evidently did
work, a very great modification in many of the notions of
the twelve apostles, and materially changed their point of
view of their Lord's mission. But there are many indi
cations that this change was not a radical one ; it affected
rather the accessories than the essence of their Messianic
notions; for, though they relinquished their expectation
* "The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, introduced a neces
sary change into the conceptions of the Apostles ; these drove out of their
Messianic idea the spirit of the world, and introduced into it the spirit of
God. They could not retain their Jewish ideas of the reign of the Messiah,
in connection with the crucified Jesus. . . . His death struck down a
principal part of their errors, and his exaltation forced upon them a new idea
of his Kingdom. . . . Christ returns to earth to show that God was
with him : and he ascends into heaven to repel the imagination which other
wise might possibly arise, nay, which actually had arisen, that even yet he
might raise his standard upon earth, and realize the gigantic illusion of the
Jew."— (Sermon on the Comforter, by the Rev. J. H. Thom, Liverpool, p.
28.) There is much reason in these remarks, but they must^ be taken with
large deductions. It is astonishing how much of the " Jewish conceptions
of the Messiah" the apostles did contrive to retain "in connection with a
crucified and ascended Christ." They still looked for his victorious earthly
reappearance in Judea, in their own times ; an expectation to which the
words attributed by Euke (Acts i. 11) to the angels, bear ample testimony,
and, if genuine, would have gone far to justify. " Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into
heaven."— See also the view of Paulus on this subject, quoted by Hare (Mis
sion of the Comforter, ii. 480. )

258 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
of an immediate restoration of the kingdom, they still, as
we have seen, retained the conviction that that restoration
would take place, in their own day, in a far more signal
and glorious manner. Their views were spiritualized up
to a certain point, but no further, even as to this great
subject ; and on other points the change seems to have
been less complete. The Epistle of James, indeed, is a
worthy relic of one who had drunk in the spirit, and ap
preciated the lessons of the meek, practical, and spiritual
Jesus. But in the case of the other two apostles, Peter
is Peter still, and John is the John of the Gospel. Peter is
the same fine, simple, affectionate, impetuous, daring, ener
getic, impulsive character, who asked to walk on the water,
and was over-confident in his attachment to his Master,
but who has now derived new strength and dignity from
his new position, and, from the sad experience of the past,
has learned to look with a steady eye on suffering and
death. And "John, in the Epistles, is precisely the same
mixture of warm affcctionateness to his friends, and un-
charitableness to his enemies, which the few glimpses we
have of him in the Gospels would lead us to specify as his
characteristics. We meet with several passages in his
writings which indicate that the gentle, forbearing, and
forgiving spirit of the Master had not yet thoroughly pene
trated and chastened the mind of the disciple — several
passages which Jesus, had he read them, would have re
buked as before, by reminding his zealous follower that
he knew not what manner of spirit he was of.*
The case of Paul is peculiar, and must be considered by
itself. His writings are more voluminous than those of
the other apostles, in a tenfold proportion, and have a
* "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is
antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. "— (1 Ep. ii. 22. ) " We are- of
God : be that knoweth God heareth us ; he that is not of God heareth not
us."— (iv. 6.) "There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for
_ it." — (v. 16. ) " We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in
wickedness." — (v. 19.) "If there come any unto you, and bring not this
doctrine, receive him not into your house ; neither bid hi'm God speed."— (2
Ep. verse 10.) "I wrote unto the church : but Diotrephes, who loveth to
have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come,
I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious .
words."— (3 Ep. ver. 9, 10.)

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 259
distinctive character of their own; yet he never saw Christ
in the flesh, and was a bitter persecutor of his followers
till suddenly coil verted by a vision. What, then, were his
means of becoming acquainted with the spirit and doctrines
of his Lord ?
And, first, as to the vision which converted him. We
have four narratives of this remarkable occurrence — one
given by Luke, as an historian, in the 9th chapter of the
Acts ; a second, reported by Luke (c. xxii.), as having been
given by Paul himself in his speech to the people at Jeru
salem ; a third, reported also by Luke (c. xxvi.). as having
been given by Paul to King Agrippa; and a fourth, more
cursory, from Paul himself , in the first chapter of his Epistle
to the Galatians, which omits entirely the external and
marvellous part of the conversion, and speaks only of an
internal* revelation.
Now there are certain discrepancies in these accounts,
which, while they seem to show that the occurrence —
either from carelessness, confusion, or defect of memory —
has not been related with perfect accuracy, leave us also
in doubt as to the precise nature of this vision ; as to
whether, in fact, it was mental or external. Luke, in
his narrative, omits to state whether the supernatural
light was visible to the companions of Paul as well as to
himself. Paul, in his speech to the Jews, declares that it
was. Paul is said to have heard a voice speaking to him,
saying, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" Luke
affirms that Paul's companions heard this voice as well
as himself; but this assertion Paul afterwards, in his
speech at Jerusalem (Acts xxii. 9), expressly contradicts ;
and we are, therefore, left with the impression that the
supernatural voice fell rather upon Paul's mental, than
on his outward ear — was, in fact, a spiritual suggestion,
not an objective fact. Again, in his speech at Jerusalem,
Paul represents the heavenly voice as referring him to
future conferences, at Damascus (xxii. 10), for particulars
of his commission ; in his address to Agrippa (xxvi. 16-
* "But when it pleased God ... to reveal his Son in me, that I might
preach him among the heathen," &c. — Gal. i, 16.

260 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
18), he represents the same voice as giving him his com
mission on the spot.
Thus, in the three versions of the story which come,
entirely or proximately, from the pen of Luke, we have
positive and not reconcilable contradictions ; while in
that reference to it, which alone we are certain - pro
ceeded direct from Paul, the supernatural and external is
wholly ignored.
But the important practical question for our considera
tion is this: — In what manner, and from what source,
did Paul receive instruction in the doctrines of Christi
anity ? Was it from the other apostles, like an ordinary
convert ? or by special and private revelation from heaven ?
Here, again, we find a discrepancy between the state
ments of Luke and Paul. In Acts ix. 19, 20; xxii. 10;
and xxvi. 20, it is expressly stated that immediately
after his conversion, and during his abode with the dis
ciples at Damascus, he was instructed in the peculiar
doctrines of his new faith, and commenced his mission
ary career accordingly, there a,nd then. If this state
ment be correct, his teaching will have the authority
due to that of an intelligent and able man, well in
structed at second Jiand, but no more. Taul, however,
entirely contradicts this supposition, and on several oc
casions distinctly and emphatically declares that he did
not receive his religious teaching from any of the dis
ciples or apostles (whom he rather avoided than other
wise), but by direct supernatural communications from
the Lord Jesus Christ.*
*For example: — "Paul, an apostle, not of men,neitherby man, but by Jesus
Christ." "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was
preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither
was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." " But whenit pleased
God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen ;
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood : neither went I up to Jeru
salem to them which were apostles before me ; but I went into Arabia and
returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jeru
salem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of tiie apos
tles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." — (Galatians i. 1, 11, 15-19.)
" By revelation he made known unto me the mystery . . . whereby ye may
understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ."- -(Eph. iii. 3.) "I
will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ
about fourteen years ago (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot
tell ; God knoweth) ; such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I

LIMITS OF APOSTOLIC WISDOM AND AUTHORITY. 261
Of course Paul's own account of the mode in which he
received his knowledge of Christianity must be taken, in
preference to that of a narrator like Luke, whose infor
mation could only have been second-hand, though probably
derived from Paul himself. Paul intimates, as we have
seen, that he rather slighted and avoided all ordinary
channels of instruction, and prides himself on the orio-i-
nality, exclusiveness, and directness, of the sources of his
knowledge. The decision, therefore, of his fidelity and
competence as a representative and teacher of the doc
trines of Christ, depends entirely on the conclusion we
may form as to the genuineness and reality of the visions
and revelations with which he claims to have been fa
voured. If these were actual and positive communications
from his risen and glorified Master, the question admits
of no further discussion; Paul was the greatest of the
apostles, and his writings of paramount authority to any
other. If, on the other hand, these visions were merely
the workings of a powerful and fiery mind in the soli
tude and seclusion of an Arabian hermitage, such as an
ardent and excited temperament, like that of Paul, might
easily come to regard as the suggestions of the Divine
Spirit, and, perhaps, even could with difficulty distin
guish from them ; then all his numerous epistles are the
teachings, not of Jesus, but of Paul.
Now, not only have we no evidence (perhaps we
could have nonej — beyond the bare assertion of Paul
himself, that these alleged communications had any other
than a subjective existence — were in fact anything be
yond a mere mental process ; but among all the passages
which refer to this subject, there are none which do not
more readily bear this interpretation than any other,
with one exception.* That exception is the statement
knew such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell :
God knoweth) ; How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard
unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. . . . And
lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revela
tions," &e.— (2 Cor. xii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7.)
* Perhaps the assertion of Paul that he had seen Jesus, " and last of all
he was seen of me also " (1 Cor. xv. 8), may be considered as another excep
tion. The sight of Jesus, however, probably refers to the vision at the
moment of his conversion.

262 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
of Luke, that the heavenly voice at mid-day was heard
by Paul's companions as well as by himself — a statement
which, being afterwards contradicted by Paul (or by
Luke for him), may at once be put aside as incorrect.
Paul " immediately," as he says, upon his miraculous con
version, went into seclusion to meditate and commune
with his own heart upon the marvellous change which
had taken place in all his feelings ; and the state into which
he more than once describes himself as having fallen,
is that of trance, a condition of the cerebral system — as
suredly not a sound one — which solitude, fasting, and
religious excitement combined, produce in all ages and
countries, and nowhere so readily as in the East. (Acts
xxii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 4.) We cannot, of course, and
do not wish, to take upon us to affirm that, while in
this state, Paul was not favoured with divine com
munications; we merely wish to make it clear that
we have no reason to believe that he was so favoured,
beyond his own assertion — an assertion which has been
made with equal sincerity and conviction by hundreds
of ecstatics whom similar causes have brought into a
similar physiological condition.
There is much in the tone of the doctrinal writings of
Paul which we believe and feel to be at variance, or at
least little in harmony, with the views and spirit of
Jesus, but nothing perhaps which we can prove to be so.
We must therefore conclude with the ungracious task of
pointing out a few passages of which the moral tone
shows that the writer was not adequately imbued with
the temper of him who said, " Do good to those that
hate you : Pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you." (2 Thess. i. 6-8, ii. 11, 12; 1 Tim. i. 20;
2 Tim. iv. 14; Gal. i. 8, 9.)

CHAPTER XIII.
MIRACLES.
The position which the miracles of the New Testament
are made to hold in the Christian economy is of the first
importance. In the popular theory they lie at the very
foundation of the system. The current and, till recently,
scarcely questioned opinion of Protestant Christendom
respecting them was this : — " The miracles which Jesus
wrought constitute the proof of his divine commission,
and the guarantee for the truth of the doctrines which
he preached. His declarations and his precepts are to be
received with unquestioning submission and belief
because he wrought miracles in proof of his authority to
teach and to command."* According to this view (still
the prevalent one, though of late largely modified by the
more thinking among the orthodox) the truth of Christ's
doctrines is made to rest upon the reality of his miracles ;
we should not know the doctrines to be divine, had it not
been for the attesting wonders wrought by the teacher ;
and whatever doctrines are preached by a worker of mir
acles, are, ipso facto, proved to be of divine authority, and
must therefore be received without question.
Now this popular notion appears to us to contain much
confusion, and at least two fatal fallacies ; for the more
clear disentanglement and exposure of which we shall
proceed to show,
I. That miracles wrought by any individual are not,
nor can be, a pooof of the truth of the doctrines which
he preaches ; and,
II. That miracles are not the real basis of Christianity,
and cannot be a safe foundation on which to rest its claims,
inasmuch as miracles can never be proved by documen-
* See Paley, Evid.

264 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
tary evidence — least of all, by such documentary evidence
as we possess.
Before proceeding further, we will define the precise
theological meaning affixed to the word miracle in the
popular mind (as far as the popular mind can be said to
attach a precise meaning to any word). This is the more
necessary, as a writer of great eminence and ability, in
his attempt to show that miracles may be not a violation
but a fulfilment, of the order of nature, appears to us to
have confounded a miracle with a prodigy.
In common parlance— which alone we profess to use —
a miracle is a suspension or violation of the ordinary
course of nature, at the will of an individual — indica
ting, therefore, the possession by that individual of super
human power. A similar suspension or violation, uncon
nected with the command or prediction of any indivi
dual, is simply a prodigy, not a miracle. A prodigy is
merely a marvellous and abnormal occurrence, of the
cause and meaning of which we are wholly ignorant ; a
miracle is a marvellous and supernatural occurrence, the
cause of which lies open to us in the expressed volition
of an agent. Lazarus rising out of a four days' grave,
without any discoverable cause or antecedent, would
merely present to us a prodigy ; Lazarus coming forth at
the command of Christ was a manifest miracle.
Mr. Babbage, in that ingenious chapter, in his " Ninth
Bridge water Treatise," wherein he endeavours to show
that miracles may be merely natural, but exceptional
occurrences — the exceptional expressions of a natural
law expressly provided for beforehand — seems to have al
together lost sight of this distinction. We might not
have deemed it necessary to controvert this theory, had
it not been recently adopted and promulgated in a popu
lar work of fiction (" Alton Locke "), by a clergyman of
the Church of England. But when so sanctioned it be
comes incumbent upon us to unmask the fallaey. " The
object of the present chapter (says Mr. Babbage) is to
show that miracles are not deviations from the laws as
signed by the Almighty for the government of matter
and of mind ; but that they are the exact fulfilment of

MIRACLES. 265
much more extensive laws than those we suppose to exist."
His conception is that, in the final arrangement of all
things, the Deity provided for the occurrence of those de
viations from the established course of nature which we
call miracles, at certain periods, and under certain circum
stances ; and he contends that such an arrangement
suggests grander views of creative power and foresight
than either casual interpositions or a uniform and undis
turbed order of proceeding would do. We may concede
both points ; we merely contend that such pre-arranged
occurrences would not be miracles in the ordinary sense
of the word, on which ordinary sense all theological
arguments are based. If Lazarus rose from the dead
in obedience to, and in consequence of, " an exceptional
law " impressed upon matter in primeval times (which
is Mr. Babbage's conception of the case, and which
may be a correct one), then he was not raised from the
dead by an action upon the laws of nature, emanating
from the will of Christ ; and all arguments based upon
this (the prevalent) view of the event fall to the ground.
On Mr. Babbage's supposition, the connection between
the command of Christ, " Lazarus, come forth ! " and the
resurrection of the dead man, was not that of cause and
effect, but merely that of coincidence or simultaneity ; or,
at the utmost, the command was uttered, because Jesus,
of his superhuman knowledge, knew that the moment was
arrived when one of these " exceptional laws " was about
to operate ; in fact the command was a prediction, — a sup
position contradicted by the whole language of the narra
tive, and unavailing for the popular argument ; which is,
that Christ had the power of countermanding nature —
not merely that of foreseeing events hidden from ordinary
knowledge. Mr. Babbage's conception, therefore, though it may
make miracles more admissible by scientific minds, does
so by depriving them of their theological utility. It makes
the fact credible by annulling the argument drawn from
it ; or, to speak more correctly, it renders prodigies cred
ible, by making them cease to be miracles*
* If Mr. Babbage means, as an expression at page 97 seems to intimate,
R

266 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
I. We now proceed to illustrate the first of our two
positions. A miracle, we say, cannot authenticate a doc
trine. A miracle, if genuine, proves the possession, by
him who works it, of superhuman power — but it is a
strained and illogical inference to assume that" it proves
anything beyond this. This inference, so long and so
universally made — and allowed — arises from a confusion
in the popular mind between power and wisdom — be
tween the divine nature as a whole, and one of the di
vine attributes. It involves the immense and inadmis
sible assumption that the possession of superhuman power
necessarily implies the possession of superhuman know
ledge also, and the will truly to impart that knowledge ;
that the power to heal diseases, or to still the waves, im
plies and includes a knowledge of the mind of God. The
thoughts of ordinary men, undistinguishing and crude,
jump rapidly to a conclusion in such matters ; and on rec
ognising (or conceiving that they recognise) supernatu
ral power in any individual, at once and without ratioci
nation endow him with all other divine attributes, and
bow before him in trembling and supine prostration.
Yet at other times, and in most countries, men have,
by happy inconsistency, admitted the falseness of this
logic. Wherever there is found a belief in one evil angel,
or in many (and such is the current nominal belief of
Christendom), the distinction between the attributes of
Deity is made, and power is divorced from wisdom, truth,
and goodness, and in a great degree from knowledge also.
If there be such existences as Satan, Arimanes, or inferior
agencies of evil — (and who can say that there are not ?
What orthodox Christian but believes there are ?) — then
superhuman power exists apart from divine wisdom, and
in antagonism to it ; — then -the power to work miracles
involves no knowledge of divine truth, or at least no mis
sion to teach it — nay, may imply the very opposite, and
can therefore authenticate no doctrine enunciated by the
worker. hat the Creator had provided for these exceptional occurrences taking place
whenever Christ performed a certain operation which He gave him power to
perform, and told him when to perform— then we are at a loss to discover
jn what way the conception varies from, or is superior to, the vulgar view.

MIRACLES. 267
The common feeling no doubt is, that as all super
natural power is the special gift of God, He would not
have bestowed it upon any but the good, nor for any pur
pose but that of conferring blessings and spreading truth.
But this inference is wholly at variance with the analo
gies of the divine economy. A 11 power is the gift of God,
—the power of intellect, the power of rank, the power of
wealth, as well as the power of working physical marvels,
— yet are these given to the good alone, or chiefly ? — are
these bestowed on those who employ them exclusively, or
mainly, in the service of mercy and truth ? Would not
the reverse of the statement be nearer to the fact ?
So strongly has the force of our position been felt by
reasoners, — so plain does it appear that it is the doctrine
which must authenticate the miracle, not the miracle which
can authenticate the doctrine, — that few could be found
at the present day who would not admit that no miracle
worked by a preacher would induce them to receive from
him a doctrine manifestly dishonouring to God. Many of
our modern divines — Dr. Arnold, Archdeacon Hare, Mr.
Locke, Mr. Trench, and others — express this feeling in
the strongest language. Dr. Arnold says (" Christian
Course and Character," notes, pp. 462-3) : —
"Faith, without reason, is not properly faith, but mere
power- worship ; and power- worship may be devil-wor
ship ; for it is reason which entertains the idea of God —
an idea essentially made up of truth and goodness, no less
than of power. A sign of power, exhibited to the senses,
might, through them, dispose the whole man to acknow
ledge it as divine; yet power in itself is not divine, it may
be devilish  How can we distinguish God's voice
from the voice of evil ? . . . . We distinguish it (and can
distinguish it no otherwise) by comparing it with that
idea of God which reason intuitively enjoys, the gift of
reason being God's original revelation of himself to man.
Now, if the voice which comes to us from the unseen
world agree not with this idea, we have no choice but to
pronounce it not to be God's voice : for no signs of power,
in confirmation of it, cam alone prove it to be from
God."

268 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Locke says : — " I do not deny in the least that God can
do, or hath done, miracles for the confirmation of truth ;
I only say that we cannot think He should do them to
enforce doctrines or notions of himself, or any worship of
Him, not conformable to reason, or that we can receive
such as truth for the miracles' sake ; and even in those
books which have the greatest proof of revelation from
God, and the attestation of miracles to confirm their being
so, the miracles are to be judged by the doctrine, and not
the doctrine by the miracles."*
Further. The idea that a miracle can authenticate a
doctrine, or is needed to do so, involves an additional fal
lacy. It implies that our understanding is competent to
decide whether an act be divine, but not whether a doc
trine be divine ; — that the power displayed in a prodigy
may be sufficient to justify us in confidently assuming it
to be from God, — but that the beautyr, the sublimity, the
innate light of a doctrine or a precept cannot be sufficient
to warrant us in pronouncing it to be from Him ; — that
God can impress His stamp unmistakably on His physical,
but not on His moral emanations ; — that His handwriting
is legible on the sea, or the sky, on the flower, or on the
insect, but not on the soul and intellect of man. It in
volves the coarse and monstrous conception that God's
presence in His chosen temple can only be made manifest
by a loud appeal to those external senses which perish
with the flesh ; — that He pervades the earthquake and
the whirlwind, but not " the still small voice ; " — that, in
fine, the eye or the ear is a truer and quicker percipient
of Diety than the Spirit which came forth from Him ; —
that God is more cognizable by the senses than by the soul, —
* See also Lord King's Life of Locke, i. 231 et seq. Trench's Hulsean
Lectures for 1845, pp. 8, 9.—" After all is done, men will feel in the deep
est centre of their being, that it is the moral which must prove the historic,
not the historic which can ever prove the moral ; that evidences drawn from
without may be accepted as the welcome buttresses, but that we can know
no other foundations, of our Faith, than those which itself supplies. Reve
lation, like the sun, must be seen by its own light." Hare's Mission of the
Comfortor, ii. p. 553. — "The notion that miracles have an augmentative and
demonstrative efficacy, and that the faith of Christians is to be grounded
upon them, belongs to a much later age, and is in fact the theological paral
lel to the materialist hypothesis, that all our knowledge is derived from the

MIRACLES. 2-69
by the material philosopher than by the pure-hearted but
unlearned worshipper.
The power to work miracles, then, does not, in the eye
of reason, imply any other supernatural endowment.
Neither does it in the eye of the Scripture. We have
many indications, in both the Old and the New Testa
ment, that neither miracles, nor the cognate gift of proph
ecy, were considered to qualify a Teacher, or to au
thenticate his teaching. The possession of miraculous
and prophetic power is distinctly recognised in individu
als who not only were not divinely authorised agents or
teachers, but were enemies of God and of His people.
Passing over the remarkable but inconclusive narratives
relative to the Egyptian magicians, and to Balaam, — we
find in Deut. xiii. 1-5, an express warning to the children
of Israel against being led astray by those who shall em
ploy real miraculous or prophetic gifts to entice them
away from the worship of Jehovah, a warning couched in
language which distinctly expresses that the miracle must
be judged of by the doctrine of the thaumaturgist, — not
be considered to authenticate it. " If there arise among
you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a
sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass,
whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other
gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them ;
thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or
that dreamer of dreams : and that prophet, or that dreamer
of dreams, shall be put to death."
The same proposition is affirmed with almost equal dis
tinctness in Matth. vii. 22, 23. " Many will say to me in
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ?
and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name
done many wonderful works ? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that
work iniquity." Again, Matth. xxiv. 24, " For there shall
arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great
signs and, wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect." In Matth. xii. 27, and
Mark ix. 38, Christ clearly admits the power to work
miracles in both his enemies and his ignorers.

270 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
If anything further were wanted to show the view
taken by Jesus of this matter, we should find it in his
steady refusal to authenticate his mission by a miracle,
when, in strict conformity to Jewish ideas (and to divine
prescription, if the Mosaic books may be at all trusted),
the rulers of the symagogue, in the plain performance of
their official duty, called upon him to work one. (See
Matth. xii. 39 ; xvi. 4, and the parallel passages, as Mark
viii. 11.) He reproaches the deputation for their demand,
— grieves over it, according to Mark, — and says positively,
" There shall no sign be given unto this generation." In an
other conversation with the Pharisees, the same idea is
still more clearly enunciated. He there (John vi. 30-33)
distinctly tells them that though Moses may have been
accredited by miracles, he will be judged of by his doctrine
only. " They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest
thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? whatdost thou
work ? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert ; as it is
written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say iinto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven ; but my
Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. . . I am
the bread of life," &c. The low estimation in which
miracles were held by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. xii. 28),
clearly shows that he did not regard them as the creden
tials of his mission ; and several passages in the Acts seem
to intimate that, by the early Christians, the possession
of the miraculous or prophetic gift was not considered in
consistent both with false doctrine and enmity to Christ's
Church. (Acts viii. 9-11 ; xiii. 6-10 ; xvi. 16 ; 2 Cor. xi.
13.) Finally, we have the conclusive fact that, according
to the gospel narrative, the power to work miracles had
been expressly conferred upon all the apostles, who " for
sook Jesus and fled " in his day of trial, — upon Judas who
betrayed him, — upon Peter, who thrice denied him.
It is said, however, by some, that miraculous power is
bestowed upon Prophets, as their credentials ; not as
proving their doctrines, but as proving them to be sent
from God. But, is it not clear, that these credentials, if
they mean anything at all, must mean that men are to

MIRACLES. 271
listen to the Prophets who present them, as God's mouth
pieces ? What is the object of proving them to be sent
from God, except for the sake of the inference that there
fore what they teach must be God's truth ?
II. Having now proved our first position, — that mir
acles cannot authenticate either the doctrines or the divine
commission of the thaumaturgist, — we proceed to the
establishment of our second thesis, viz., — that miracles
cannot be the basis of Christianity, or of any historical or
transmitted religion.
We fully admit at the outset of our argument that a
miracle, as well as any other occurrence, is capable of proof
by testimony — provided only the testimony be adequate
in kind and in quantity. The testimony must be of
the same kind as that on which we should accept any of
the more rare and marvellous among natural phenomena,
and must be clear, direct, and ample, in proportion to the
marvellousness, anomalousness, and rarity of the occur
rence. This, it appears to us, is all that philosophy
authorizes us to demand for the authentication of the
fact-part of a miracle.
Miracles, we say, are not, and never can be, a sure foun
dation for a revealed religion — an historic creed. A true
Revelation, addressed to all mankind, and destined for all
ages, must be attested by evidence adequate and accessible
to all men and to all ages. It must carry with it its own
permanent and unfading credentials. Now, miracles are
evidence only to those who see them, or can sift the testi
mony which affirms them. Occurrences so anomalous and
rare, which violate the known and regular course of na
ture, can, at the utmost, only be admitted on the evidence
of our own senses, or on the carefully-sifted testimony of
eye-witnesses. Therefore, a revelation, whose credentials
are miracles, can be a revelation only to the age in which
it appears. The superhuman powers of its Preacher can
authenticate it only to those who witness the exertion of
them, and — more faintly and feebly — to those who have
received and scrutinized their direct testimony : — the
superhuman excellence of its doctrines may authenticate

272 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
it through all time, and must constitute, therefore, its only
adequate and abiding proof.
Now, the essence of the whole question lies in this: — That
we have not the apostles and evangelists to cross-examine;
we do not know that they were ever cross-examined ; we
do not know what was the nature of the evidence or tes
timony which satisfied their minds ; and we have ample
indications that they, like most imperfectly-educated men,
were satisfied with a nature and amount of proof which
would never satisfy us.
We have stated that we are far from denying the ade
quacy of positive and direct testimony to prove a miracle,
if its amount and quality be suitable. What would be the
amount and quality required ? It will be allowed on all
hands that the testimony of one witness, however com
petent and honest, would not suffice. We must have the
concurring testimony of several competent and inde
pendent witnesses. Mr. Babbage has made a calculation
(which many will think puerile, but which assuredly does
not overstate the case), that, to prove some of the chief
miracles, such as the raising of the dead, the concurring
testimony of six independent, competent, veracious wit
nesses will suffice, but not less.
Now, let us ask, Have we, for any of the gospel mir
acles, evidence — we do not say as strong as this, but —
approaching to it ? in the slightest degree similar to it ?
Have we the concurring testimony of six independent and
competent witnesses ? or pf five ? or of three ? or of two ?
Do we know that we have the testimony even of one wit
ness ? Do we know anything at all about the competency
or the independence of any of the witnesses ? Have we
any reason to believe that the evangelists sifted the testi
mony they received ? Have we, in fine, the distinct state
ment of any one individual that he saw or wrought such
or such a specific miracle ? No ; but what we have in
stead is this : — We have four documents, written we have
to guess when — proceeding from we know not whom —
transmitted to us we know not how purely ; three of them
evidently compositions from oral testimony or tradition,
and clearly not from independent testimony ; and all four.

MIRACLES. 273
not concurring, but often singularly discrepant ; — which
documents relate that such miracles were wrought by a
certain individual in a certain place and time. It is ob
vious that we have not here even an approach to personal
testimony* We do not know with the least certainty
who any of those four narrators were ; not one of them
says, " /witnessed this miracle;" — we do not, therefore,
know that they were witnesses at all ; — and we do know
that their testimony was not independent nor always
concurring. At the best, therefore, we have only docu
ments of unknown date and uncertain authorship, stating,
with many discrepancies and contradictions, that certain
miraculous occurrences were witnessed by others, at least
thirty years before the record was composed ; — evidence
which, in an honest court of justice, would not suffice to
affect person or property to the slightest possible extent ;
— evidence, nevertheless, on which we are peremptorily
summoned to accept the most astounding dogmas, and to
bow to the heaviest yoke.
Since then, for the miracles recorded in the synoptical
Gospels we have not even that degree of evidence which
would be required to establish any remarkable or ques
tionable occurrence ; and since the only superior authority
for those of the fourth Gospel rests on the supposition of
its being the production of the Apostle John — a supposi
tion doubtful and unproven, to say no more ; we might
be' dispensed from entering into any more close examina
tion of the narratives themselves — as in a court of jus
tice the jury frequently decide against the plaintiff on
his own showing — pronounce that the appellant has no
case, without requiring to hear the objections of the
respondent. But it is important to call attention to a few
considerations which should long since have warned
divines of the perilous position they had taken up, when
they resolved to base Christianity upon the miraculous
narratives of the Gospel.
1. The whole tenour of the Old Testament, and many
* We assume here, not that the fourth Gospel was not written by the
Apostle John, but simply that we do not know that it was.

274 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
passages of the New, plainly indicate either that the power
of working miracles was so common in those days as to
argue nothing very remarkable in its possessor, or that a
belief in miracles was so general and so easily yielded as
to render the testimony of such facile believers inadequate
to prove them. On the first supposition they will not
warrant the inference drawn from them ; on the second
they are themselves questionable.
Now, it is certain that the miracles recorded in the New
Testament do not appear to have produced on the be
holders or the hearers the same effect as they would do
at the present day, nor to have been regarded in the
same light even by the workers of them. When Jesus
was told by his disciples (Mark ix. 38) that they had
found some unauthorized person casting out devils in his
name, he expresses no amazement — intimates no doubt
as to the genuineness of the miracle — but rebukes his
disciples for interfering with the thaumaturgist, saying,
" Forbid him not : for there is no man which shall do a
miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me."
The casting out of devils — i.e., the healing of the more
furious epileptic and maniacal disorders — was the
most frequent and among the most striking and the
oftenest appealed to of the miracles of Jesus; yet in the
conversation already referred to between himself and the
Pharisees (Matth. xii. 24-27) he speaks of it as one that
was constantly and habitually performed by their own
exorcists ; and, so far from insinuating any difference be
tween the two cases, expressly puts them on a level*
Paul, though himself gifted with miraculous power, and
claiming (Rom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 11) to be equally so
gifted with any of the other apostles (2 Cor. xi. 5), yet
places this power very low in the rank of spiritual
endowments (1 Cor. xii. 8, 9, 10, 28)y — distinguishing
* Matth. vii. 22 ; xxiv. 24 ; Gal. iii. 5, and many other passages, show how
common miracles then were, or were esteemed.
t " For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the
word of knowledge ; to another faith ; to another the gifts of healing ; to
another the working of miracles; to another prophecy," &c. "And God hath
set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of
tongues."

MIRACLES. 275
in both passages miracles or thaumaturgic signs from
gifts of healing ; and speaks of them in a somewhat
shghting tone, which is wholly irreconcilable with the
supposition that the miracles of which he speaks were
real and indisputable ones after the modern signification
of the word, i.e. unquestionable deviations from the ob
served order of nature at the command of man.
2. Though the miracles of Christ are frequentlyreferred
to in the Gospels as his credentials, as proofs of his divine
mission; yet there are not wanting many significant
indications that they were wrought rather as a conse
quence and reward of belief than as means to produce it.
For example, we have the repeated refusal of Jesus to
satisfy the Jewish chiefs by a display of his miraculous
gifts, though we can perceive nothing unreasonable or
unsuitable to pure Judaism in the demand (John vi. 30).
We have the remarkable fact that Jesus here not only
declines to work a new miracle in attestation of his mis
sion, but does not even refer his questioners to his former
miracles. We have the reproach of Jesus to the people
of Galilee — " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will
not believe " (John iv. 48), clearly intimating that these
were not the criterions by which he intended his mission
to be judged. On several occasions, before working a
miracle, he ascertains the faith of the applicant, and
speaks of the miracle as if it were to be tbe reward, not
the provocative, of their faith (Matthew ix. 27, 29 ; ix. 2 ;
viii. 10 ; ix. 22 ; xv. 28 ; Mark i. 40). And, finally, the
evangelists twice assign the want of faith of the people
'—the very reason, according to the orthodox view, why
miracles should be worked before them — as the reason
why Jesus would not work them. " And he did not many
mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matt.
xiii. 58). " And he could there do no mighty work, save
that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed
them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief"
(Mark vi. 5, 6).
3. Neither did his miracles produce general conviction
— nor the conclusion which would have followed from
conviction — in those who witnessed them, whether

276 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
friends, enemies, or indifferent spectators. Had they ap
peared to the witnesses in that age in the same form
which they assume in the documents in which they are
handed down to us, conviction must have been inevitable.
Yet this was far from being the case. We read, indeed,
frequently that the people " marvelled " and " glorified
God " — and that " the fame of his wonderful works went
throughout all the land ;" — but we also find several pas
sages which point to a very opposite conclusion. " Then
began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty
works were done, because they repented not : Woe unto
thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the
mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in
Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in
sackcloth and ashes." (Matt. xi. 20, 21.) " But though
he had done so many miracles before them (the people),
yet they believed not on him." (John xii. 37.) Even
his friends and disciples were not always convinced. The
miracle of the loaves, even, seems to have produced little
effect on their minds, for we are told (as a reason for
their surprise at a subsequent marvel), " For they consid
ered not the miracle of the loaves : for their heart was
hardened" (Mark vi. 52), an expression which a com
parison with xvi. 14, shows to have signified incredulity,
A still more significant statement is found in John vii. 5,
" For neither did his brethren believe in him." A refer
ence to John xi. 45, 46, shows that even so signal and un
questionable a miracle as is the raising of Lazarus, in the
form in which it has come down to us, did not produce
universal conviction. " Then many^ of the Jews whieh
came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did,
believed on him. But some of them went their ways to
the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had
done." It is worthy of especial note, that to the last, in de
fiance of the numerous, astonishing, and public miracles
recorded in the Gospels — of many of which, as the rais
ing of Lazarus, the cure of the blind man (John ix.), the
Pharisees and chief men among the Jews are said to have
been witnesses — the incredulity of these Rulers and of

MIRACLES. 277
the Sanhedrim remained unshaken. It is evident, too,
that it was genuine and sincere disbelief — not merely a
refusal to accept the inference of the divine mission of
Christ on the ground of his miraculous power, but
a disbelief in the miraculous power itself — or at least
of its being miraculous in our full modern accep
tation of the term; they were exasperated, but no way
intimidated, by the wonders which he wrought before
them. Had they really supposed that he could cure the
blind, heal the lame, command spirits, still the waves,
raise the dead (in a different manner, and with a different
degree or kind of power from their own thaumaturgists) —
still more, had they seen any one of these awful evidences
of supernatural power — then, however hostile selfishness
and ambition [or class prejudices] might have made them
to his pretensions, they would have dreaded to provoke
his enmity, or to practise against his safetjT, satisfied, as
they must have been, that he could not only foresee and
baffle their machinations, but could inflict a fearful re
taliation. But we see nothing of all this ; we see just
the reverse ; — they feared, not him, but the people who
were friendly to him ; — they more than once openly at
tacked him, and tempted him, even by taunts, to a dis
play of his superhuman gifts ; — in a word, their whole
conduct shows that his miracles, whatever they were,
had not gone any way towards producing in their minds
a conviction (or even a fear) of his supernatural power.
4. The minuter objections to the individual miraculous
narratives in the Gospel, we need not dwell on. The
discrepancies in the accounts, where given by more than
one evangelist ; — the entirely distinct set of miracles re
corded in the fourth, from those in the first three Gos
pels; the remarkable circumstance that, of the three
cases of the dead being restored to life, one is mentioned
by John only, one by Luke only, and the third case, men
tioned by three of the evangelists, was no resurrection
from the dead at all (for all accounts concur in represent
ing Jesus to have said expressly, " The damsel is not dead,
but sleepeth ; ") — all these topics have been dwelt upon
in detail by other critics, and need not be considered here.

278 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
The conclusion suggested by all these combined con
siderations seems to be this : — that the miracles spoken
of in the New Testament had not the effect of real mira
cles upon the bystanders ; — that they were, probably,
either remarkable occurrences elevated into supernatural
ones by the general supernaturalistic tendencies of the
age, or examples of wonderful healing powers, the original
accounts of which have become strangely intermingled
and overlaid with fiction in the process of* transmission.
The Gospels (we must bear constantly in mind) are not
contemporaneous annals ; they merely narrate the occur
rence of certain events, which, at the time when the tra
dition was congealed into a record, had assumed such
and such a form and consistency in the public mind.
They show us not the facts that occurred in the year
a.d. 30, but the form those facts had assumed in popular
belief in the year a.d. 70.
There is yet another objection to the plan of propound
ing miracles as the basis for a Revelation, which is all
but insuperable. The assertion of a miracle having been
performed, is not a simple statement ; it involves three
elements — a fact and two inferences. It predicates, first,
that such an occurrence took place ; second, that it was
brought about by the act and will of the individual to
whom it is attributed ; third, that it implied supernatu
ral power in the agent — i.e., that it could not have been
produced by mere human means. Now, the fact may
have been accurately observed, and yet one or both of
•the inferences may be unwarranted. Or, either infer
ence may be rendered unsound by the slightest omission
or deviation from accuracy in the observation or state
ment of the fact.* Nay, any new discovery in science — -
any advance in physiological knowledge — may show that
the inference, which has always hitherto appeared quite
irrefragable, was, in fact, wholly unwarranted and incor
rect. In the process of time, and the triumphant career
of scientific inquiry, any miracle may be — as so many
* Bentham observes that the report of a man going up with a balloon
would become a miracle, if a spectator told all the rest of the story truly,
but omitted to tell of the balloon.

MIRACLES. 279
thousand prodigies have been — reduced to a natural oc
currence. No miracle can, therefore, be a safe foundation
for so vast and weighty a superstructure as a Revelation.
A miracle is an argument in some measure ab ignorant ia
— based upon [scanty knowledge,] and, therefore, defea
sible by advancing knowledge. A miraculous revelation
— a creed whose foundation is miracle — must always be
at the mercy of Science, and must always dread it.
It should, then, be clearly understood that, when we
decline to receive a miracle as evidence of a divine com
mission, we are not refusing simple testimony — we are
demurring to a proposition composed of one observation
and two inferences — -a proposition, each of the three
constituents of which contains the elements of possible in
accuracy ; — we are demurring, in fact, to a process of
reasoning, which assumes as its basis that the limits of hu
man power and knowledge are indisputably known to us*
[" Roman Catholics fancy that Bible miracles and the
miracles of their Church form a class by themselves:
Protestants fancy that Bible miracles, alone, form a class
by themselves. This was eminently the posture of mind
of the late Archbishop Whately :¦— to hold that all other
miracles would turn out to be impostures, or capable of
a natural explanation, but that Bible miracles would
stand sifting by a London special jury or by a committee
of scientific men. No acuteness can save such notions,
as our knowledge widens, from being seen to be mere ex
travagances ; and the Protestant notion is doomed to an
earlier ruin than the Catholic. For the Catholic notion
admits miracles in the masjs ; the Protestant notion in
vites to a criticism by which it must finally itself perish.
When Stephen was martyred, he looked up into heaven
and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God. That, says the Protestant, is
solid fact. At the martyrdom of St. Fructuosus, Baby-
las and Mygdone, the Christian servants of the Roman
* " The miracle is of a most fluctuating character. The miracle worker of
to-day is a matter-of-fact juggler to-morrow. Science each year adds new
wonders to our store. The master of a locomotive steam-engine would have
been thought greater than Jupiter Tonans, or the Elohim thirty centuries
ago."— Parker, p. 202.

280 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
governor, saw the heavens open, and the saint and his
deacon Eulogius carried up on high with crowns on their
heads. That, says the Protestant, is imposture or else
illusion. St. Paul hears on his way to Damascus the
voice of Jesus say to him : ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me ? ' That, again, is solid fact. The companion of
St. Thomas Aquinas hears a voice from the crucifix say
to the praying saint : ' Thou hast written well of me,
Thomas ; what recompense dost thou desire ? ' That,
again, is imposture or else illusion. Why ? It is im
possible to find any criterion by which one of these
incidents may establish its claim to a solidity which we
refuse to the others.
" One of two things must be made out in order to place
either the Bible miracles alone, or the Bible miracles and
the miracles of the Catholic Church with them, in a class
by themselves. Either they must be shown to have
arisen in a time eminently unfavourable to such a process
as Shakespeare describes, to amplification and the pro
duction of legend ; or they must be shown to be recorded
in documents of an eminently historical mode of birth
and publication. But surely it is manifest that the Bible
miracles fulfil neither of these conditions. It was said
that the waters of the Pamphylian Sea miraculously
opened a passage for the army of Alexander the Great.
Admiral Beaufort, however, tells us that, ' though there
are no tides in this part of the Mediterranean, a consider
able depression of the sea is caused by long-continued
north winds ; and Alexander, taking advantage of such a
moment, may have dashed on without impediment ;' and
we accept the explanation as a matter of course. But
the waters of the Red Sea are said to have miraculously
opened a passage for the children of Israel ; and we insist
on the literal truth of this story, and reject natural ex
planations as. monstrous. Yet the time and circumstances
of the flight from Egypt were a thousand times more
favourable to the rise of some natural incident into a
miracle, than the age of Alexander. They were a time
and circumstances of less broad daylight."]*
* Arnold's Literature and Dogma, p. 130.

CHAPTER XIV.
RESURRECTION OF JESUS.
We are now arrived at the most vitally important, and
the most intensely interesting, portion of the Christian
records — the resurrection of Jesus. This is the great fact
to which the affections of Christians turn with the most
cherished eagerness, the grand foundation on which their
hopes depend, on which their faith is fixed. If, in con
sequence of our enquiries, the ordinary doctrine of Scrip
tural Inspiration be relinquished, we have reason to
rejoice that Religion is relieved from a burden often too
great for it to bear. If the complete verbal accuracy of
the gospel narratives is disproved, orthodoxy and not
Christianity is a sufferer by the change, since it is only the
more minute and embarrassing tenets of our creed that
find their foundation swept away. If investigation shows
the miracles of the Bible to be untenable, or at least un-
obligatory upon our belief, theologians are comforted by
feeling that they have one weak and vulnerable outpost
the less to defend. But if the resurrection of our Lord
should prove, on closer scrutiny, to rest on no adequate
evidence, and mental integrity should compel us to ex
punge it from our creed, the generality of Christians will
feel that the whole basis of their faith and hope is gone,
and their Christianity will vanish with the foundation on
which, perhaps halfunconsciously, they rested it. Whether
this ought to be so is a point for future consideration.
All that we have now to do is to remember that truth
must be investigated without any side-glance to the con
sequences which that investigation may have upon our
hopes. Our faith is sure to fail us in the hour of trial if
we have based it on consciously or suspectedly fallacious
grounds, and maintained it by wilfully closing our eyes
to the flaws in its foundations.

282 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
The belief in the resurrection of our Lord, when based
upon reflection at all, and not a mere mental habit, will
be found to rest on two grounds : — -first, the direct testi
mony of the Scripture narratives ; and secondly, the
evidence derivable from the subsequent conduct of the
apostles. I. The narratives of the resurrection contained in the
four Gospels present many remarkable discrepancies.
But discrepancies in the accounts of an event given by
different narrators, whether themselves witnesses, or
merely historians, byr no means necessarily impugn the
reality of the event narrated, but simply those accessaries
of the event to which the discrepancies relate. Thus,
when one evangelist tells us that the two malefactors, who
were crucified along with Jesus, reviled him, and another
evangelist relates that only one of them reviled him, and
was rebuked by the other for so doing, though the contra
diction is direct and positive, no one feels that the least
doubt is thereby thrown upon the fact of two malefactors
having been crucified with Jesus, nor of some reviling
having passed on the occasion. Therefore the variations
in the narratives of the resurrection given by the four
evangelists do not, of themselves, impugn the fact of the
resurrection. Even were they (which they are not) the
first-hand accounts of eye-witnesses, instead of merely de ¦
rived from such, still it is characteristic of the honest tes
timony of eye-witnesses to be discrepant in collateral
minutife. But, on a closer examination of these accounts,
several peculiarities present themselves for more detailed
consideration. 1. We have already seen reason for concluding that, of
the four Gospels, three at least were certainly not the pro
duction of eye-witnesses, but were compilations from oral
or documentary narratives current among the Christian
community at the time of their composition, and derived
doubtless for the most part from very high authority.
With regard to the fourth Gospel the opinions of the best
critics are so much divided, that all we can pronounce
upon the subject with any certainty is, that if it were the

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 283
production of the Apostle John, it was written at a time
when, either from defect of memory, redundancy of ima
gination, or laxity in his notions of an historian's duty, he
allowed himself to take strange liberties with fact.* All,
therefore, that the Gospels now present to us is the narra
tive of the Resurrection, not as it actually occurred, but in
the form it had assumed among the disciples thirty years
or more after the death of Jesus.
Now, the discrepancies which we notice in the various
accounts are not greater than might have been expected
in historians recording an event, or rather traditions of an
event, which occurred from thirty to sixty years before
they wrote. These records, therefore, discrepant as they
are, are, we think, quite sufficient to prove that something
of the kind occurred, i. e., that some occurrence took place
which gave rise to the belief and the traditions ; — but no
more. The agreement of the several accounts show that
something of the kind occurred : — their discrepancies show
that this occurrence was not exactly such as it is related to
have been.
Something of the kind occurred which formed the
groundwork for the belief and the narrative. What,
then, was this something — this basis — this nucleus of
fact ? The Gospel of Mark appears to contain this nu
cleus, and this alone.f It contains nothing but what all
the other accounts contain, and nothing that is not simple,
credible, and natural, but it contains enough to have
formed a foundation for the whole subsequent superstruc
ture. Mark informs us that when the women went early
to the Sepulchre, they found it open, the body of Jesus
gone, and some one in white garments who assured them
that he was risen. This all the four narratives agree in :
— and they agree in nothing else. The disappearance of
the body, then, was certain ; — the information that Jesus
was risen came from the women alone, who believed it
because they were told it, and who were also the first to

* See chap. x. .
t We must bear in mind that the genuine Gospel of Mark ends with the
8th verse of chapter xvi. ; and that there is good reason to believe that
Mark's Gospel was, if not the original one, at least the earliest.

284 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
affirm that they had seen their Lord. In the excited state
of mind in which all the disciples must have been at this
time, were not these three unquestioned circumstances —
that the body was gone ; — that a figure dressed in white
told the women that their Lord was risen ; — and that the
same women saw some one whom they believed to be him ;
— amply sufficient to make a belief in his resurrection
spread with the force and rapidity of a contagion 'i
2. It is clear that to prove such a miracle as the reap
pearance in life of a man who had been publicly slain, the
direct and concurrent testimony of eye-witnesses would
be necessary : — that two or more should state that they
saw him at such a time and place, and knew him; — and
that this clear testimony should be recorded and handed
down to us in an authentic document. This degree of
evidence we might have bad : — this we have not. We
have epistles from Peter, James, John, and Jude — all of
whom are said by the evangelists to have seen Jesus after
he rose from the dead, in none of which epistles is the fact
of the resurrection even stated, much less that Jesus was
seen by the writer after his resurrection. This point de
serves weighty consideration. We have ample evidence
that the belief in Christ's resurrection* was very early
and veiy general among the disciples, but we have not the
direct testimony of any one of the twelve, nor of any eye
witness at all, that they saw him on earth after his death.
Many writers say, " he was seen ; " — no one says, " I saw
him alive in the flesh."
There are three apparent exceptions to this, which, how
ever, when examined, will prove rather confirmatory of
our statement than otherwise. If the last chapter of the
fourth Gospel were written by the Apostle John, it would
contain the direct testimony of an eye-witness to the ap
pearance of Jesus upon earth after his crucifixion. But
its genuineness has long been a matter of question among
* The belief in a general resurrection was, we know, prevalent among the
Jews in general, and the disciples of Christ especially ; and it appears from
several passages that the opinion was that the resurrection would be imme
diate upon death (Luke xx. 38 ; xxiii. 43). In this case the belief that
Christ was risen would follow immediately on the knowledge of his death.

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 285
learned men,* and few can read it critically and retain
the belief that it is a real relic of the beloved apostle, or
even that it originally formed part of the Gospel to which
it is appended. In the first place, the closing verse of the
preceding chapter unmistakably indicates the termination
of a history. Then, the general tone of the twenty-first
chapter — its particularity as to the distance of the bark
from shore, and the exact number of fishes taken — the
fire ready rgade when the disciples came to land — the con
tradiction between the fourth verse and the seventh and
twelfth, as to the recognition of Jesus — all partake strongly
of the legendary character, as does likewise the conversa
tion between Jesus and Peter. Again, the miraculous
draught of fishes which is here placed after the resurrec
tion of Christ, is by Luke related as happening at the
very commencement of his ministry. And finally, the
last two verses, it is clear, cannot be from the pen of John,
and we have no grounds for supposing them to be less
genuine than the rest of the chapter. On a review of the
whole question we entertain no doubt that the whole
chapter was an addition of later date, perhaps by some
elder of the Ephesian Church.
In the first epistle of Peter (iii. 21, 22), the resurrection
and existence in heaven of Jesus are distinctly affirmed ;
but when we remember that the Jews at that time be
lieved in a future life, and apparently in an immediate
transference of the spirit from this world to the next,
and that this belief had been especially enforced on the
disciples of Jesus (Matt. xvii. 1-4 ; xxii. 32 ; Luke xvi.
23-31 ; xxiii. 43), this will appear very different from an
assertion that Jesus had actually risen to an earthly life,
and that Peter had seen him. Indeed the peculiar ex
pression that is made use of at ver. 18, in affirming the
doctrine (" being slain in flesh, but made alive again in
spirit,"t) indicates, in the true meaning of tbe original,
not a fleshly, but a spiritual revivification.
* See Hug, 484.
+ &amraeSs piv aapKl fcuoironjdels Se irveiiuart. (Griesbach.) Our com
mon translation alters the preposition, gratuitously and without warrant,
and thus entirely loses the writer's antithesis.

286 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
There remains the statement of Paul (1 Cor. xv. 8),
' And last of all he was seen of me also." This assertion,
taken with the context, negatives rather than affirms the
reappearance of Christ upon the earth to the bodily eye
of his disciples. The whole statement is a somewhat
rambling one, and not altogether consistent with the
Gospel narratives ; but the chief point to be attended to
here is, that Paul places the appearance of Jesus to the
other disciples on the same footing as his appearance to
himself. Now, we know that his appearance to Paul was
in a vision — a vision visible to Paul alone of all the by
standers, and, therefore, subjective or mental merely.
[Moreover, strictly speaking, there was no vision at all ; —
no one was seen ; there was a bright light, and a voice
was heard. In this all the accounts agree. In a subse
quent verse, indeed (Acts xxii. 18), Paul says that, when
" in a trance in the temple at Jerusalem," he " saw him (the
Lord) saying to him," &c. But this expression, again,
seems to imply hearing, not sight.] The conclusion to be
drawn from the language of Paul would, therefore, be
that the appearance of Jesus to the other disciples was
visionary likewise.* Our original statement, therefore,
remains unqualified : — We might have h«,d, and should
have expected to have, the direct assertion of four apos
tles, that they had seen Jesus on earth and in the flesh
after his death : — we have not this assertion from any one
of them.
3. The statements which have come down to us as to
when, where, by whom, and how often, Jesus was seen
after his death, present such serious and irreconcilable
variations as to prove beyond question that they are not
the original statements of eye-witnesses, but merely the
form which the original statements had assumed, after
much transmission, thirty or forty years after the event
to which they relate. Let us examine them more partic
ularly. It will be seen that they agree in everything that
is natural and probable, and disagree in everything that
is supernatural and difficult of credence. All the accounts

Bush's Anastasis, p. 164.

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 287
agree that the women, on their matutinal visit to the
Sepulchre, found the body gone, and saw some one in
white raiment who spoke to them. They agree in nothing
else. (1.) They differ as to the number of the women. John
mentions only one, Mary Magdalene ; — Matthew two, Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary ;— Mark three, the two
Marys and Salome ; — Luke several, the two Marys, Joanna,
and " certain others with them."
(2.) They differ as to the number of persons in white
raiment who appeared to the women. Mark speaks of
one " young man " ; — Matthew of one " angel " ; — Luke of
two " men " ; — John of two " angels." According to John,
also, the appearance of the two angels was not till Mary's
second visit to the tomb, after Peter and John had been
there. _ (3.) They differ as to the words spoken by the appari
tions. According to Matthew and Mark they asserted
the resurrection of Jesus, and his departure into Galilee,
and sent a message to his disciples enjoining them to
follow him thither. According to Luke they simply
stated that he was risen, and referred to a former predic
tion of his to this effect* According to John they only
asked Mary, " Woman ! why weepest thou ?"
(4.) They differ in another point. According to Mat
thew, Luke, and John, the women carried the informa
tion as to what they had seen at once to the disciples.
According to Mark " they said nothing to any man."
(5.) They differ as to the parties to whom Jesus ap
peared. — According to Mark it was no one. According
to Matthew it was first to the two women, then to the
eleven. According to John it was first to one woman
then twice to the assembled apostles.-f- According to
Luke it was first to no woman, but to Cleopas and his
If, as we have reason to believe (chap. viii. ), no such prediction was
ever uttered, it follows that this reference to it must be purely fictitious.
t The text says simply " the disciples," but as they met in a room and
with closed doors, and the absence of one of the apostles on the first oc
casion is mentioned, it evidently means " the eleven."

288 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
companion, then to Peter*, and then to the assembled
eleven. (6.) They differ as to the locality. According to Mark
it was nowhere. According to Matthew it was first at
Jerusalem and then in Galilee, whither the disciples went
in obedience to the angelic command. According to
Luke it was in Jerusalem and its vicinity, and there alone,
where the disciples remained in obedience to the reiter
ated command of Jesus himself.f According to the
genuine part of John, also, the appearances were confined
to Jerusalem.
The account of Paul differs slightly from all the others ;
it must have been second-hand ; and is valuable only as
showing the accounts which were current in the Chris
tian Church at the time at which he wrote, and how
much these varied from the evangelic documents, which
were, in fact, a selection out of these current accounts.
The epistle of Paul was written, probably, about the
year a.d. 57 ; the first three Gospels between the years
a.d. 60 and 70. The appearance to James, which Paul
mentions, was taken from the Gospel to the Hebrews,
now lost.}
Now, we put it to any candid man whether the dis
crepancies in these accounts are not of a nature, and to
an extent, entirely to disqualify them from being received
as evidence of anything, except the currency and credit
of such stories among Christians thirty years after the
death of Christ ?
4. A marked and most significant peculiarity in these
* This appearance to Peter is also mentioned by Paul (1 Cor. xv. 5),
from whom probably Luke received it. We have nowhere else any trace
of it.
+ Luke xxiv. 49, 53 ; Acts i. 4. Luke and Matthew thus contradict each
other past all possibility of reconciliation. Matthew tells us that J esus
commanded them to go into Galilee, and that they went thither ; — Luke
tells us that he positively commanded them " not to depart from Jerusalem,"
and that they remained there (xxiv. 53). But Luke contradicts himself
quite as flatly on another point. In the Gospel he represents the ascension
as taking place on the evening of the third day after the crucifixion : such
is the clear meaning of the text (as may be seen from verses 21, 33, 36, 50) :
— in the Acts i. 3 he placeB the ascension forty days after the resurrection,
and says that Jesus was seen by his disciples during the whole interval.
+ The passage, however, is preserved by Jerome. (See Hennell, p. 227).

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 289
accounts, which has not received the attention it deserves,
is, that scarcely any of those who are said to have seen
Jesus after his resurrection, recognised him, though long
and intimately acquainted with his person. According
to Matthew (xxviii 17), when Jesus appeared to the eleven
in Galilee by his own appointment, some, even of them,
" doubted ;" which could not have been the case had his
identity been clearly recognisable. According to Luke,
the two disciples, with whom he held a long conversation,
and who passed many hours in his company, did not
recognise him. "Their eyes were holden that they
should not know him."* And even after the disciples
had been informed, both of this reappearance and of that
to Peter (xxiv. 34-37), yet when Jesus appeared to them,
they were affrighted, and supposed that they saw a spirit.
According to John, even Mary Magdalene, after Jesus
had spoken to her, and she had turned to look at him,
still did not recognise him, but supposed him to be the
gardener."f" In the spurious part of John (xxi. 4-6) tbe
same want of recognition is observable. In the spurious
part of Mark we see traces of a belief that Jesus assumed
various forms after his resurrection, to account, doubtless,
for the non-recognition of some and the disbelief of
others (xvi. 11, 12, 13): "After that he appeared in
another form unto two of them." Now, if it really were
* Here another interesting point comes in for consideration. The con
versation between Jesus and his two companions turned upon the Messianic
prophecies, which the disciples held to have been disappointed by the death
of Jesus, but which Jesus assured them related to and were fulfilled in him.
Now, if the conclusion at which we arrived in a previous chapter (iv. ) be
correct, viz. , that the Old Testament prophecies contain no real reference
to a suffering Messiah, or to Jesus at all, it follows, that at least half the
story of Cleopas must be fabulous, unless, indeed, we adopt the supposition
that Jesus held the same erroneous views respecting these prophecies as
his disciples.
t Furness (" On the Four Gospels ") dwells much on the fact that it was
"dark" when Mary visited the sepulchre (John xx. 1), and that this was
the reason why she did not recognise Jesus. But, in the first place, it was
not so dark but that she could see that the sepulchre was open and the body
gone. In the second place, her sight of Jesus was on the occasion of her
second visit to the sepulchre, and the " darkness " of early dawn was during
her /revisit, and in the interval she had gone to the city to find Peter and
John and had returned, by which time it must have been broad day. In
the third place, Mark tells us that the visit of Mary was at sunrise—
ivtrrelKcuiTos tov t}\Iov—" the sun being risen."

290 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
Jesus who appeared to these various parties, would this
want of recognition have been possible ? If it were
Jesus, he was so changed that his most intimate friends
did not know him. How then can we know that it was
himself ?
We will not attempt to construct, as several have en
deavoured to do, out of these conflicting traditions, a
narative of the real original occurrence which gave rise
to them, and of the process by which they attained the
form and consistency at which they have arrived in the
evangelical documents. Three different suppositions may
be adopted, each of which has found favour in the eyes
of some writers. We may either imagine that Jesus was
not really and entirely dead when taken down from the
cross, a supposition which Paulus and others show to be
far from destitute of probability ;* or we may imagine
that the apparition of Jesus to his disciples belongs to
that class- of appearances of departed spirits for which so
S much staggering and bewildering evidence is on record ;f
or, lastly, we may believe that the minds of the disciples,
excited by the disappearance of the body, and the an
nouncement by the women of his resurrection, mistook
some passing individual for their crucified Lord, and that
from such an origin multiplied rumours of his reappear
ance arose and spread. We do not, ourselves, definitively
adopt any of these hypotheses : we wish simply to call
attention to the circumstance that we have no clear, con
sistent, credible account of the resurrection; that the
only elements of the narrative which are retained and
remain uniform in all its forms, — viz., the disappearance
of the body, and the appearance of some one in white at
the tomb — are simple and probable, and in no way neces
sitate, or clearly point to, the surmise of a bodily resur
rection at all. Christ may have risen from the dead and
appeared to his disciples; but it is certain that if he did,
the Gospels do not contain a correct account of such resur
rection and reappearance.
* Strauss, iii. 288.
t See Bush's Anastasis, 156.

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 291
II, The conduct of the apostles subsequent to the
death of Jesus, — the marked change in their character
from timidity to boldness, and in their feelings from deep
depression and dismay to satisfaction and triumph, — as
depicted in the Acts, affords far stronger evidence in
favour of the bodily resurrection of their Lord, than any
of the narratives which have recorded the event. It
seems to us certain that the apostles believed in the re
surrection of Jesus [with absolute conviction.] Nothing
short of such a belief could have sustained them through
what they had to endure, or given them enthusiasm for
what they had to do ; the question, therefore, which re
mains for our decision is, whether the apostles could
have believed it, had it not been fact ; whether their re
ception of the doctrine of a general resurrection, [or rather
of a future life,*] coupled with the disappearance of the
body of Jesus from the sepulchre in which he had been
laid, and the report of the women regarding the state
ment of the angelic vision, be sufficient to account for so
vivid and actuating a faith, without the supposition of his
actual appearance to themselves ; whether, in fact, the
apostles, excited by the report that he was risen, could
have believed that they had seen him if they had not
really done so. This question will be differently answered
by different minds ; nor do we know that any arguments
will weigh more on either side than the simple state
ment of the problem to be resolved.")" Certainly, the bold
faith of the apostles, if sufficient, is the only sufficient
evidence for the occurrence ; the narrative testimony
would be inadequate to prove a far more credible event.
* [The current belief in those days appears to have been not in an im
mediate liberation of the soul to a spiritual existence, but in an ultimate
resurrection of all at the great day of account. John xi. 24 ; Luke xx. 33 ;
Mark xii. 23. See infra, note, p. 362].
+ It is certain that we, in these days, could not believe in the resurrec
tion of an individual to an earthly life unless we had ascertained his death,
and ourselves seen him afterwards alive. But we cannot justly apply this
reasoning to the early followers of Christ ; they were not men of critical, in
quiring, or doubting minds, nor accustomed to sift or scrutinize testimony,
but, on the contrary, inured to marvels, and trained to regard the supernat
ural as almost an ordinary part of the natural, given moreover to see vis
ions, and unhesitatingly to accept them as divine communications.

292 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
All we can say is this: that a belief in the resurrection
and bodily reappearance of Jesus early prevailed and
rapidly obtained currency in the Christian community ;
that the apostles shared the belief in the resurrection,
and did not discourage that in the bodily reappearance ;
that, however, none of them (the fourth Gospel not hav
ing been written by John) has left us his own testimony
to having himself seen Jesus alive after his death ; and
that some of the disciples doubted, and others long after
disbelieved the fact*
In order to mitigate our pain at finding that the fact
of Christ's resurrection has been handed down to us on
such inadequate testimony as to render it at best a doubt
ful inference, it is desirable to inquire whether, in reality,
it has the doctrinal value which it has been the habit of
theologians to attribute to it. We have been taught to
regard it not only as the chief and crowning proof of the
divinity of our Saviour's mission, but as the type, earnest,
and assurance of our own translation to a life beyond the
grave. It is very questionable, however, whether either
of these views of it is fully justified by reason.
There can be no doubt that the fact of an individual
having been miraculously restored to life, is a signal proof
of divine interposition in his behalf. Such restoration
may be viewed in three lights — either as a reward for a
life of extraordinary virtue ; or as an intimation that his
mission upon earth had been prematurely cut short, and
that his reanimation was necessary for its fulfilment ; or
as an announcement to the world that he was in a pecu
liar manner the object of divine regard and the subject of
divine influence. The first point of view is evidently ir
rational, and the offspring of unregenerate and unculti
vated thought. It is prompted either by the inconsiderate
instincts of the natural man, or by disbelief in a future
* See 1 Cor. xv. 12. The whole argument of Paul respecting the resurrec
tion is remarkable — it is simply this, there must be a resurrection from the
dead because Christ " is preached" to have risen; and that if there were no
resurrection, then Christ could not be risen. It would seem as if he con
sidered the truth of the resurrection of Christ to depend upon the correct
ness of the doctrine of the general resurrection (verse 13).

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 293
life. It implies either that there is no future world, or
that this world is preferable to it, since no man, believ
ing in another and a better state of existence, would re
gard it as an appropriate reward for distinguished excel
lence to be reduced to this. The second point of view
is, if possible, still more unreasonable, since it assumes
that God had permitted such an interference with and
defeat of his plans, that he was obliged to interpose for
their renewal. The third aspect in which such a fact is
to be regarded alone remains, and is in effect the one in
which it is commonly viewed throughout Christendom,
viz., as a public announcement from the Most High, " This
is my beloved Son, hear ye him." But this point of view
is attendSd with many difficulties
In the first place, if the Gospel narratives are to be
taken as our standing-ground (and they are as valid for the
one case as for the other), the restoration of the dead to life
did not necessarily imply any such peculiar favour, or
contain any such high announcement. The evangelists
record three instances of such miraculous resuscitation,
in none of which have we any reason for believing the
subject of the miracle to be peculiarly an object of divine
love or approbation, in all of which the miracle was simply
one of mercy to mourning friends. The resuscitated parties
were all obscure individuals, and only one of them ap
pears to have been a follower of Christ. Secondly, this
point of view was not the one taken by the apostles. To
them the value of Christ's resurrection consisted in its
enabling them still to retain, or rather to resume, that
belief in the Messiahship of Jesus which his death had
shaken.* If restored to life, he might yet be, and prob
ably was, that Great Deliverer whom, as Jews, they
watched and waited and prayed for ; if he were dead,
then that cherished notion was struck dead with him.
Now, if we are right in the conclusion at which we arrived
in an earlier chapter,"f viz., that Jesus had nothing in
common with that liberating and triumphant conqueror
* This is especially manifest from the conversation on the journey to Em-
maus. f See chap. iv.

294 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
predicted by the Jewish prophets and expected by the
Jewish nation ; it follows that the especial effect which
the resurrection of Christ produced upon the minds of
his disciples, was to confirm them in an error. This, to
them, was its dogmatic value, the ground on which they
hailed the announcement and cherished the belief. Thirdly,
it will admit of question whether, in the eye of pure
reason, the resurrection of Christ, considered as an attes
tation to. the celestial origin of his religion, be not super
fluous — whether it be not human weakness, rather than
human reason, which needs external miracle as a sanction
and buttress of a system which may well rely upon its
own innate strength — whether the internal does not sur
pass and supersede the external testimony to its character
— whether the divine truths which Christ taught, should
not be to us the all-sufficient attestation of his divine
mission. We have seen in the preceding chapter that
miraculous power in any individ ual is no guarantee for
the correctness of his teaching. We have seen that if
the doctrines which Jesus taught approve themselves to
the enlightened understanding and the uncorrupted heart,
they are equally binding on our allegiance whether he
wrought miracles in the course of his career or not. And
if the truth that God is a loving Father, and the precept,
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," derive no
corroboration from the resurrection of Lazarus or the
Youth of Nain, neither can they from that of Christ him
self. Doubtless we should sit with more prostrate sub
mission and a deeper reverence at the feet of a Teacher
who came to us from the grave, but it is probably only
the infirmity of our faith and reason which would cause
us to do so* Rationally considered, Christ's resurrection
cannot prove doctrines true that would else be false, nor
certain that would else be doubtful. Therefore, considered
as a reward, it is contradictory and absurd ; considered as
the renewal of an interrupted mission, it involves an un
worthy and monstrous conception of God's providence ;
* Jesus seems to intimate as much when he says, " If they hear not Moses
and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the
dead."

RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 295
considered as an attestation to the Messiahship of Jesus,
it is an attestation to an error ; considered as a sanction
and corroboration of his doctrines, it is, or ought to be,
superfluous. Is the other view which we have been accustomed to
take of Christ's resurrection, — viz., as the type, pledge,
and foretelling of our own, — more consonant to sound
reason ? We believe the reverse will prove nearer to the
truth. That it was regarded in this view by the apostles,
is here no argument for us. For they looked for the
coming of their Lord, and the end of the world, if not in
their own lifetime, at least in that of the existing genera
tion, — when they who were alive would be caught up
into the clouds, and those who were dead would come
forth out of their graves, and join together the glorious
company of the redeemed. They looked for a bodily
resurrection for themselves — which on their supposition
of the date might appear possible, — a resurrection, there
fore, of which that of Jesus was a prototype — a pattern — a
cognate occurrence. But in our position the case is not
only altered, but reversed. Christ's resurrection was [be
lieved, and is affirmed to have been,] areanimationof the
body which he wore in life ; it could, therefore, be an
earnest of the resurrection of those only whose bodies
still remained to be reanimated : it was an exceptional
case ; it refers not to us ; it conveys no hope to us ; — we
are not of those whose resurrection it could typify or as
sure ; for our bodies, like those of the countless genera
tions who have lived and passed away since Christ trod
our earth, will have crumbled into dust, and passed into
other combinations, and become in turn the bodies of
myriads of other animated beings, before the great ex
pected day of the resurrection of the just. To us a bodily
resurrection is impossible. If, therefore, Christ's resur
rection were spiritual — independent of his buried body
— it might be a type and foreshadowing of our own ; —
if, on the other hand, as the evangelists relate, it was cor
poreal — if his body left the grave undecayed, and appeared
on earth, and ascended into glory, — then its value as a
pledge belonged to the men of that time alone, — we have

296 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
neither part nor lot in its signification ; — it is rather an
extinguisher than a confirmation of our hopes.
It will be seen that we make no scruple in negativing
a doctrine held verbally by the Church, viz., " the resur
rection of the body ; " since, whatever was intended by
the authors of this phrase* — the meaning of which is by
no means clear to us, and was probably no clearer to
themselves, — thus much is certain, that our " resurrection
of the body " can bear no similarity to Christ's resurrec
tion of the body ; — for his body remained only a few
hours in the grave, and, we are expressly told, " did not
see corruption," and ours, we know, remains there for un
told years, and moulders away into the original elements
of its marvellous chemistry.
We conclude, then, as before : — that as we cannot hope
to rise, as Christ is said to have done, with our own pres
ent uncorrupted body, his resurrection, if it were a reani-
mation of his earthly frame, can be no argument, proof,
pledge, pattern, or foreshadowing of our own. If, on the
contrary, his resurrection were spiritual, and his appear
ances to his disciples mental and apparitionary only, they
would, pro tanto, countenance the idea of a future state.
Our interest, therefore, as waiters and hopers for an im
mortality, would appear to lie in disbelieving the letter
of the Scripture narratives.
* " We can," says Pearson, ' ' no otherwise expound this article teaching
the resurrection of the body, than by asserting that the same bodies which
have lived and died shall live again ; that the same flesh which is corrupted
shall be restored." Again, "That the same body, not any other, shall be
raised to life which died, thai; the same flesh which was separated from the
soul at the day of death shall be united to the soul at the last day," &c. —
Pearson on the Creed, art. xi.

CHAPTER XV.
IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ?
Having now arrived at this point of our inquiry, let us
pause and cast a summary glance on the ground over
which we have travelled, and the conclusions at which we
have arrived. We have found that the popular doctrine
of Scriptural Inspiration rests on no foundation whatever,
but is a gratuitous as well as an untenable assumption.
We have seen that neither the books of Moses nor the
laws of Moses, as we have them, were (at least as a whole)
the production of the great Leader and Lawgiver whose
name they bear. We have seen ample reason for conclu
ding that a belief in One only Supreme God was not the
primary religion either of the Hebrew nation or the
Hebrew priests ; but that their Theism — originally limited
and impure — was gradually elevated and purified into
perfect and exclusive monotheism, by the influence of
their Poets and Sages, and the progressive advance of the
people in intelligence and civilization. We have discov
ered that their Prophets were Poets and Statesmen, not
Predictors — and that none of their writings contain a
single prediction which was originally designed by them,
or can be honestly interpreted by us, to foretell the ap
pearance and career of Jesus of Nazareth. What have
been commonly regarded as such, are happy and applic
able quotations : but no more. We have seen further
that none of the four histories of Christ which have come
down to us are completely genuine and faithful ; — that
while they are ample and adequate for showing us what
Christ was, and what was the essence and spirit of his
teaching, we yet do notpossess sufficient certainty that they
record, in any special instance, the precise words or actions
of Christ, to warrant us in building upon those words
or actions doctrines revolting to our uncorrupted instincts
T

298 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
and our cultivated sense. We have found, moreover, that
the apostles — zealous and devout men as they were —
were yet most imperfect and fallible expounders of the
mind of their departed Lord. We have seen that miracles
— even where the record of them is adequate and above
suspicion, if any such case there be — are no sufficient
guarantee of the truth of the doctrines preached by the
worker of those wonders. And finally, we have been
compelled to conclude that not only is the resurrection of
our Lord, as narrated in the Gospels, encumbered with too
many difficulties and contradictions to be received as un
questionable, but that it is far from having the dogmatic
value usually attached to it, as a pledge and foreshadow
ing oi our own.
But however imperfect may be the records we possess
of Christ's ministry, this imperfection does not affect the
nature or authority of his mission. Another great ques
tion, therefore, here opens before us : — '-' Was Christ a
divinely-commissioned Teacher of Truth ? " In other
words, "Is Christianity to be regarded as a Religion
revealed by God to man through Christ ? "
What is the meaning which, in ordinary theological
parlance, we attach to the words " Divine Revelation ? "
What do we intend to signify when we say that " God
spoke " to this Prophet, or to that saint ?
We are all of us conscious of thoughts which come to us
— which are not, properly speaking our own — which we
do not create, do not elaborate ; — flashes of light, glimpses
of truth, or of what seems to us such, brighter and sub-
limer than commonly dwell in our minds, which we are
not conscious of having wrought out by any process of
inquiry or meditation. These are frequent and brilliant
in proportion to the intellectual gifts and spiritual eleva
tion of the individual : they may well be termed inspira
tions — revelations ; but it is not such as these that we
mean when we speak of the Revelation by Christ.
Those who look upon God as a Moral Governor, as well
as an original Creator, — a God at hand, not a God afar
off in the distance of infinite space, and in the remoteness
of past or future eternity, — who conceive of him as ta-

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 299
king a watchful and presiding interest in the affairs of the
world, and as influencing the hearts and actions of men,
— believe that through the workings of the Spirit He has
spoken to many, has whispered His will to them, has
breathed great and true thoughts into their minds, has
" wrought mightily " within them, has in fheir secret
communings and the deep visions of the night, caused
His Spirit to move over the troubled waters of their
souls, and educed light and order from the mental chaos.
These are the views of many religious minds ; — but these
are not what we mean when we speak of the Revelation
made by God to Christ.
Those, again, who look upon God as the great artificer
of the world of life and matter, and upon man, with his
wonderful corporeal and mental frame, as his direct work,
conceive the same idea in a somewhat modified and more
material form. They believe that He has made men with
different intellectual capacities ; and has endowed some
with brains so much larger and finer than those of ordi
nary men, as to enable them to see and originate truths
which are hidden from the mass ; and that when it is His
will that mankind should make some great step forward,
should achieve some pregnant discovery, He calls into
being some cerebral organization of more than ordinary
magnitude and power, as that of David, Isaiah, Plato,
Shakespeare, Bacon, ISlewton, Luther, Pascal, which gives
birth to new ideas and grander conceptions of the truths
vital to humanity. But we mean something essentially
distinct from this when we speak of Christ as the
Teacher of a Religion revealed to him by his Father.
When a Christian affirms Christianity to be a " re
vealed religion," he intends simply and without artifice
to declare his belief that the doctrines and precepts which
Christ taught were not the production of his own (hu
man) mind, either in its ordinary operations, or in its flights
of sublimest contemplation ; but were directly and super
naturally communicated to him from on high.* He means
* Those who believe that Christ was God — if any such really exist —
must of course hold everything he taught was, ipso facto, a divine revela
tion. With such all argument and inquiry is necessarily superseded.

300 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
this, or he means nothing definable and distinctive. What
grounds have we, then, for adopting such an opinion ?
It is evident that if the conclusions to which our pre
vious investigations have led us be correct, our only argu
ments for believing Christianity to be a divine revelation
in contradistinction to a human conception, must be
drawn from the super humanity of its nature and con
tents. What human intellect could ascertain, it would
be superfluous for God to reveal. The belief of Christ
himself, that his teaching " was not his, but his Father's,"
— even if we were certain that he used these precise
words, and intended them to convey precisely the mean
ing we attach to them, — could not suffice us, for the rea
sons assigned in the first chapter of this work. The be
lief in communications with the Diety has in all ages
been common to the most exalted and poetical order of
religious minds. The fact that Christ held a conviction
which he shared with the great and good of other times,
can be no argument for ascribing to him divine communi
cations distinct from those granted to the great and good
of other times. It remains, therefore, a simple question
for our consideration, whether the doctrines and precepts
taught by Jesus are so new, so profound, so perfect, so
distinctive, so above and beyond parallel, that they could
not have emanated naturally from a clear, simple, un-
soiled, unwarped, powerful, meditative mind, — living
four hundred years after Socrates and Plato — brought up
among the pure Essenes, nourished on the wisdom of Solo
mon, the piety of David, the poetry of Isaiah — elevated
by the knowledge, and illuminated by the love, of the
one true God.
Now, on this subject we hope our confession of faith
will be acceptable to all save the narrowly orthodox. It
is difficult, without exhausting superlatives, even to
unexpressive and wearisome satiety, to do justice to our
intense love, reverence, and admiration, for the character
and teaching of Jesus. We regard him not as the per
fection of the intellectual or philosophic mind, but as the
perfection of thespiritualcharacter, — as surpassing allmen
of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? SOI
with the^ Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we
are holding converse with the wisest, purest, noblest
Being that ever clothed thought in the poor language of
humanity. In studying his life we feel that we are fol
lowing the footsteps of the highest ideal yet presented to
us upon earth. " Blessed be God, that so much manliness
has been lived out, and stands there yet, a lasting monu
ment to mark how high the tides of divine life have risen
in the world of man ! "
But these convictions — strong, deep-seated, and well-
grounded as they are — do not bring us to the conclusion
that either the rare moral or mental superiorities of Jesus
were supernatural endowments, in the common accepta
tion of the word. The Old Testament contained his
teaching ; it was reserved for him to elicit, publish, and
enforce it. A thoughtful perusal of Job, the Psalms,
Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah will show beyond question the
germs of those views which in the purer and sublimer
genius of Christ rose to so high an elevation * The doc
trine of a future world though not enforced, perhaps prob
ably not found, in the Old Testament, was, we know,
currently believed among the Jews before the time of
Jesus, and must have been familiar to him from his infancy.
We have no hesitation in concluding that a pure and
powerful mind, filled with warm affections end devotional
feelings, and studying the Hebrew Scriptures discrimi-
natively, appropriating and assimilating what was good
and noble, and rejecting what was mean and low, could
and might naturally arrive at the conclusion which Jesus
reached, as to the duties of man, the attributes of God,
and the relation of man to God. Christianity is distin
guished from Judaism rather by what it excluded than
by what it added. It is an eclecticism and an expansion
* A quotation of texts is scarcely the right mode of proving this. See
Hennell for an exposition of how much of Christianity was already extant
in .Jewish teaching ; also Mackay's Progress of the Intellect, ii. 376. [Em.
Deutsch's paper on the Talmud, Quart. Review, No. 246, and Renan, Vie de
Jisus, ch. 5.] But it must not be forgotten that though many of the Chris
tian precepts were extant before the time of Jesus, yet it is to him that we
owe them ; to the energy, the beauty, the power of his teaching,_and still
more to the sublime life he led, which was a daily and hourly exposition and
enforcement of his teaching.

302 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM
of the best elements of its predecessor. It selects the
grand, the beautiful, the tender, the true, and ignores or
suppresses the exclusive, the narrow, the corrupt, the
coarse, and the vindictive. It is Moses, David, Solomon,
Isaiah purified, sublimated, and developed. If this be
so, then the supposition that Christianity was super
naturally communicated, falls to the ground as need
less, and therefore inadmissible. What man could dis
cover naturally, God would not communicate supernatu
rally. But we may go further. Not only is there no necessity
for supposing that Christ's views as to God and duty were
supernaturally revealed to him, but there is almost a ne
cessity for adopting an opposite conclusion. If they were
the elaboration of his own mind, we may well imagine
that they may contain some admixture of error and imper
fection. If they were revealed to him by God, this could
not be the case. If, therefore, we find that Jesus was in
error in any point, either of his practical or his specula
tive teaching, our conclusion, hitherto a probability, be
comes a certainty. It is evident that we could treat of
this point with far more satisfaction if we were in a posi
tion to pronounce with perfect precision what Christ did,
and what he did not, teach. But as we have seen that
many words are put into his mouth which he never uttered,
we cannot ascertain this as undoubtedly as is desirable.
There must still remain some degree of doubt as to whether
the errors and imperfections which we detect, originated
with or were shared by Christ, or whether they were
wholly attributable to his followers and historians.
There are, however, some matters on which the general
concurrence of the evangelical histories, and their unde
signed and incidental intimations, lead us to conclude
that Jesus did share the mistakes which prevailed among
his disciples, though, in even going so far as this, we speak
with great diffidence. He appears to have held erroneous
views respecting demoniacal possession, the interpretation
of Scripture,* his own Messiahship, his second coming,
* See on this subject chap. viii. Perhaps the most singular instance of
this misinterpretation of Scripture is the sophistical argument ascribed to

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 303
and the approaching end of the world. At least, if he
held the views ascribed to him (and the preponderance of
evidence is in favour of the assumption that he did), we
know that on these topics he was mistaken. Now, if he
was so in error, his teaching could not have been an infalli
ble revelation from the God of truth, in the sense in which
Christendom employs that phrase.
But we now come upon another question which if an
swered in the negative, at once closes the inquiry to which
this chapter is devoted. " Is the revelation of an undis-
coverable truth possible ? " That is, " Can any doctrine
be taught by God to man — be supernaturally infused,
that is, into his mind, which he might not by the employ
ment of his own faculties have discerned or elicited ? " In
other words, " Can the human mind receive an idea which
it could not originate ? " We think it plain that it can
not ; though the subject is one which maybe better illumi
nated by reflection than by discussion. At least it is diffi
cult to conceive the nature and formation of that intellect
which can comprehend and grasp a truth when presented
to it, and perceive that it is a truth, and which yet could
not, in the course of time and under favourable conditions,
work out that truth by the ordinary operation of its own
powers. It appears to us that, by the very nature of the
statement, the faculties necessary for the one mental pro
cess must be competent to the other.* If an idea (and a
truth is only an idea, or a combination of ideas, which
approves itself to us) can find entrance into the mind
and take up its abode there, does not this very fact show
a fitness for the residence of that idea 1 — a fitness, there-
Christ, concerning the supposed address of David to the Messiah. "The
Lord said unto my Lord," &c. (Matth. xxii. 44, and parallel passage. ) It
appears clear that this Psalm was not composed by David, but was addressed
to David by Nathan, or some Court Prophet, on the occasion of some of his
signal victories. — See " Hebrew Monarchy," p. 92. David did not call the
Messiah " Lord ; " it was the Poet that called David " Lord."
* It may be objected that external facts may be revealed which could not
be discovered. We may be assured by revelation that the inhabitants of
Saturn have wings or have no heads, but then we do not recognize the truth
of the assurance. We may be assured by revelation of the existence of a
future world ; but could we receive the assurance unless our minds were
already so prepared for it, or so constituted, that it would naturally have
occurred to them ?

304 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
fore, which would have insured admittance to the idea if
suggested in any of those mental processes which we call
thought, or by any of those combinations of occurrences
which we call accident — a fitness, therefore, which, as the
course of time and the occurrence of a thousand such possi
ble suggesting accidents must almost necessarily have en
sured the presentation of the idea,would also have ensured
its reception ? If, on the other hand, the idea, from its
strangeness, its immensity, its want of harmony with the
nature and existing furniture of the mind, could never have
presented itself naturally, would not the same strangeness,
the same vastness, the same incompatibility of essence
incapacitate the mind from receiving it if presented super
naturally ?
'' Revealed religion," says one of our acutest writers, "is
an assumption of some truths, and an anticipation or
confirmation of others. ... It is obvious that a truth
which is announced from heaven in one age, may be dis
covered by man in another. A truth is a real and actual re
lation of things subsisting somewhere, — either in the ideas
within us, or the objects without us, — and capable there
fore of making itself clear to us by evidence either demon
strative or moral. We may not yet have advanced to the
point of view from which it opens upon us ; but a pro
gressive knowledge must bring us to it ; and we shall
then see that which hitherto was sustained by authority,
resting on its natural support ; we shall behold it, indeed,
in the same light in which it has all along appeared to
the superior Intelligence who tendered it to our belief.
Thus revelation is an anticipation only of Science; a fore
cast of future intellectual and moral achievements ; a
provisional authority for governing the human mind, till
the regularly-constituted powers can be organized." In
this case it is evident that the question whether a truth
were discovered or revealed, depends upon a previous
enquiry ; viz, whether the truth were too far before the
age to have been discovered by that age \ and if so,
whether the teacher of it were not far enough before his
age to make the truth which was hidden from his con
temporaries visible to him ? It thus becomes a mere

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 305
question of time and degree ; and what is justly called a
revelation now, would be justly called a discovery a cen
tury hence. It is obvious that this is too narrow and
shifting a ground to form a safe foundation for a theory
of revelation.
Further, we are at a loss to imagine how a man can
distinguish between an idea revealed to him and an idea
conceived by him. In what manner and by what sure
token, can it be made clear to him that a thought came
to him from without, not arose within 1 He may per
ceive that it is resplendently bright, unquestionably new;
he may be quite unconscious of any process of ratiocina
tion or meditation by which it can have been originated ;
but this is no more than may be said of half the ideas of pro
found and contemplative genius. Shall we say that it
was breathed into him "in a dream, in a vision of the
night, when deep sleep falleth upon man ; " and that,
therefore, he assumes that it is not his, but God's 1 Yet
what is this but to declare that God chooses for his com
munications with the mind of man the period of its most
unquestionable imperfection, when the phantasy is
ascendant and the judgment is torpid and in abeyance 1
Shall we say that the thought was spoken to him aloud,
in the ordinary language of humanity, and that, therefore,
he knows it to have been a divine communication, not a
human conception ? But what singular logic is this ! Is
the voice of God, then only, or then most, recognisable
when it borrows the language of man ? Is that unprecise
and feeble instrument of thought and utterance, invented
by man's faulty faculties, God's best and surest mode of
communication with the spirit he has created ? Nay, is
not imperfect language an impossible medium for the con
veyance of absolute and infinite truth ? And do we
really mean that we feel certain it is God's voice which we
hear from the clouds, and doubtful that it is His which
speaks to us silently, and in the deep and sacred musings of
tne Soul ? We cannot intend to maintain this monstrous
thesis. Our reflections, then, bring us to this conclusion : — that
the only certain proof we can have of a revelation must

306 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
lie in the truths it teaches being such as are inaccessible
to, and therefore incomprehensible by, the mind of man ;
that if they are such as he can conceive and grasp and ac
cept, they are such as he might have discovered, and he
has no means of knowing that he has not discovered them ;
if they are such as he could not have discovered, they are
such as he cannot receive, such as he could not recognise
or ascertain to be truth.
Since, then, we can find no adequate reason for be
lieving Jesus to be the Son of God, nor his doc
trines to be a direct and special revelation to him from
the Most High — using these phrases in their ordinary
signification — in what light do we regard Christ and
Christianity ?
We do not believe that Christianity contains anything
which a genius like Christ's, brought up and nourished as
his had been, might not have disentangled for itself. We
hold that God has so arranged matters in this beautiful
and well-ordered, but mysteriously-governed universe,
that one great mind after another will arise from time to
time, as such are needed, to discover and flash forth before
the eyes of men the truths that are wanted, and the
amount of truth that can be borne. We conceive that
this is effected by endowing them, or (for we pretend to
no scholastic nicety of expression) by having arranged
that Nature and the course of events shall send them
into the world endowed, with that superior mental and
moral organization, in which grand truths, sublime gleams
of spiritual light, will spontaneously and inevitably arise.
Such a one we believe was Jesus of Nazareth, the most
exalted religious genius whom God ever sent upon the earth ;
in himself an embodied revelation ; humanity in its di-
vinest phase, " God manifest in the flesh," according to
Eastern hyperbole ; an exemplar vouchsafed, in an early
age of the World, of what man may and should become,
in the course of ages, in his progress towards the realisa
tion of his destiny ; an individual gifted with a grand
clear intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, marvel
lous moral intuitions, and a perfectly balanced moral

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 307
being ; and who, by virtue of these endowments, saw
further than all other men —
" Beyond, the verge of that blue sky-
Where God's sublimest secrets lie ; "
an earnest, not only of what humanity may be, but of
what it will be, when the most perfected races shall bear
the same relation to the finest minds of existing times,
as these now bear to the Bushmen or the Esquimaux.
He was, as Parker beautifully expresses it, " the possibil
ity of tbe race made real." He was a sublime poet, proph
et, moralist, and hero ; and had the usual fate of such
— misrepresented by his enemies — misconstrued by his
friends ; unhappy in this, that his nearest intimates and
followers were not of a calibre to understand him ; happy
in this, that his words contained such undying seeds of
truth as could survive even the media through which
they passed. Like the wheat found in the Egyptian Cat
acombs, they retain the power of germinating undimin
ished, whenever their appropriate soil is found. They
have been preserved essentially almost pure, notwith
standing the Judaic narrowness of Peter, the orthodox
passions of John, and metaphysical subtleties of Paul.
Everything seems to us to confirm the conclusion that we
have in the Christianity of Scripture, [not a code of law,
still less a system of dogma, but a mass] of beautiful, sim
ple, sublime, profound, not perfect, truths, obscured by
having come down to us through the intervention of
minds far inferior to that of its Author — narrowed by
their uncultivation — marred by their misapprehensions —
and tarnished by their foreign admixtures. It is a col
lection of grand truths, transmitted to us by men who
only half comprehended their grandeur, and imperfectly
grasped their truth.*
* "The character of the record is such that I see not how any stress can
be laid on particular actions attributed to Jesus. That he lived a divine
life, suffered a violent death, taught and lived a most beautiful religion —
this seems the great fact about which a mass of truth and error has been
collected. That he should gather disciples, be opposed by the Priests and
Pharisees, have controversies with them — this lay in the nature of things.
His loftiest sayings seem to me the most likely to be genuine. The great

308 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
The question whether Christ had a special mission-
were specially inspired by the Spirit of God — will be de
cided by each man according to the views he may enter
tain of Providence, and to the meaning which he attaches
to words which, in the lips of too many, have no definite
meaning at all. We are not careful to answer in this
matter. We believe that God has arranged this glorious
but perplexing world with a purpose, and on a plan. We
hold that every man of superior capacity (if not every
man sent upon the earth) has a duty to perform — a mis
sion to fulfil — a baptism to be baptised with — " and how
is he straightened till it be accomplished ' " We feel a
deep inward conviction that every great and good man
possesses some portion of God's truth, to proclaim to the
world, and to fructify in his own bosom. In a true and
simple, but not the orthodox sense, we believe all the
pure, wise, and mighty in soul, to be inspired, and to be
inspired for the instruction, advancement, and elevation
of mankind. . " Inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is
not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Chris
tians, or Mahometans, but is co-extensive with the race.
. . . The degree of inspiration must depend upon two
things : — first, on the natural ability, the particular intel
lectual, moral, and religious endowment or genius where
with each man is furnished by God ; and next, on the
use each man makes of this endowment. In one word,
stress laid on the person of Jesus by his followers, shows what the person
must have been ; they put the person before the thing, the fact above the
idea. But it is not about common men that such mythical stories are told. "
— Theodore Parker, Discourse, p. 188.
[" Les eVangelistes eux-memes, qui nous ont le'gue' l'image de Je'sus, sont
si fort au-dessous de celui dont ils parlent que sans cesse ils le deHgurent,
fante d'atteindre a sa hauteur. Leurs Merits sont pleins d'erreurs et de con-
tre-sens. On entrevoit a chacque ligne un original d'une beaute" divine trahi
par des redacteurs qui ne le comprennent pas, et qui substituent leurs pro-
pres idee"s a celles qu'ils ne saisissent qu'a demi." — Renan, Vie de Jesus, p.
466. "The more we conceive of Jesus as almost as much over the heads of his
disciples and reporters as he is over the heads of so-called Christians now,
the more we see his^ disciples to have been, as they were, men raised by a
truer moral susceptiveness above their countrymen, but in intellectual con
ceptions and habits much on a level with them,- -all the more do we make
room, so to speak, for Jesus to be inconceivably great and wonderful ; as
wonderful as his reporters imagined him to be, though in a different man
ner." — Literature and Dogma, p. 153.]

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION*? 309
it depends on the man's Quantity of Being and his Quan
tity of Obedience. Now, as men differ widely in their
natural endowments, and much more widely in their use
and development thereof, there must of course be various
degrees of inspiration, from the lowest sinner up to tbe
loftiest saint. All men are not by birth capable of the
same degree of inspiration, and by culture and acquired
character they are still less capable of it. A man of no
ble intellect, of deep, rich, benevolent affections, is by bis
endowments capable of more than erne less gifted. He
that perfectly keeps the Soul's law, thus fulfilling the
conditions of inspiration, has more than he who keeps it
imperfectly ; the former must receive all his soul can con
tain at that stage of its growth. . . . Inspiration, then,
is the consequence of a faithful use of our faculties.
Each man is its subject — God its source— truth its only
test. . . . Men may call it miraculous, but nothing is
more natural. It is co-extensive with the faithful use of
man's natural powers. . . . Now, this inspiration is lim
ited to no sect, age, or nation. It is wide as the world,
and common as God. It is not given to a few men, in
the infancy of mankind, to monopolize inspiration, and
bar God out of the Soul. You and I are not born in the
dotage and decay of the world. The stars are beautiful
as in their prime ; ' the most ancient Heavens are fresh
and strong.' God is still everywhere in nature. Where-
ever a heart beats with love — where Faith and Reason
utter their oracles — there also is God, as formerly in the
hearts of seers and prophets. Neither Gerizim, nor Jer
usalem, nor the soil that Jesus blessed, is so holy as the
good man's heart ; nothing so full of God. This inspira
tion is not given to the learned alone, not only to the
great and wise, but to every faithful child of God. Cer
tain as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure in
heart see God ; and he that lives truly feels Him as a
presence not to be put by."*
This, however, to minds nourished on the positive and
sententious creeds of orthodox Christendom, is not

* Theodore Parker, p. 161, et seq.

310 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
enough. Truths that are written by tbe finger of God
upon the heart of man, are not definite enough for them.
Views of religion and duty wrought out by the meditations
of the studious, confirmed by the allegiance of the good
and wise, stamped as sterling by the response they find
in every uncorrupted mind — are not sure enough for
them. " They cannot trust God unless they have his
bond in black and ivhite, given under oath, and attested
by witnesses." They cling to dogmatic certainties, and
vainly imagine such certainty to be attainable. It is
this feeling which lies at the root of the distaste so gener
ally evinced by orthodox Christians for natural religion
and for free and daring theological research ; and the
mental defect in which it has its origin is not difficult to
discover. It belongs to understandings at once dependent,
indolent, and timid, in which the practical predominates
over the spiritual, to which external testimony is more
intelligible than internal evidence — which prefer the ease
derived from reposing on authority to the labour insepar
able from patient and original reflection. Such men are
unwilling to rest the hopes which animate them, and
the principles which guide them, either on the deductions
of fallible reason, or the convictions of corruptible
instincts. This feeling is natural, and is shared by even
the prof oundest thinkers at some period or other of their
progress towards that serenity of faith which is the last
and highest attainment of the devout searcher after
truth. But the mistake is, to conceive it possible to
attain certainty by some change in the process of
elaborating knowledge; — to imagine that any surer
foundation can be discovered for religious belief than
the deductions of the intellect and the convictions of the
heart. If reason proves the existence and attributes of
God — if those spiritual instincts, which we believe to
be the voice of God in the soul, infuse into the mind a
sense of our relation to Him, and. a hope of future exis
tence — if reason and conscience alike irresistibly point to
virtue as the highest good and the destined end and aim
of man, — we doubt, we hesitate, we tremble at the possi
bility of a mistake ; we cry out that this is not certainty,

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 311
and that on anything short of certainty our souls cannot
rest in peace. But if we are told, on the authority of
certain ancient documents, and venerable but still modi
fied and metamorphosed traditions, that some centuries
ago a saint and sage came into the world, and assured
his hearers that they had one God and Father who com
manded virtue as a law, and promised futurity as a
reward ; and that this sage, to prove that he was divinely
authorized to preach such doctrines, wrought miracles,
which fallible disciples witnessed, and which fallible
narrators have transmitted — then we bow our heads in
satisfied acquiescence, and feel that we have attained the
unmistakable, unquestionable, infallible certainty we
sought ! What is this but the very spirit of Hindoo
Mythology, which is not contented till it has found a
resting-place for the Universe, yet is content to rest it on
an elephant, and on a tortoise ?
The same fallible human reason is the foundation of
our whole superstructure in the one case equally as in
the other. The whole difference is, that in the one case
we apply that reason to the evidence for the doctrine
itself ; in the other case we apply it to the credentials of
the individual who is said to have taught, that doctrine.
But is it possible we can so blind ourselves as to believe
that reason can ever give us half the assurance that
Matthew is correct when he tells us that Christ preached
the Sermon on the Mount and fed 5000 men with five
loaves and two fishes — as it gives us that a mighty and
benevolent Maker formed the Universe and its inhabi
tants, and made man " the living to praise him ?" What
should we think of the soundness of that man's under
standing, who should say, " I have studied the wonders
of the Heavens, the framework of the Earth, the
mysterious beauties and adaptations of animal existence,
the moral and material constitution of the human
creature, who is so fearfully and wonderfully made ; and
I have risen from the contemplation unsatisfied and
uncertain whether God is, and what He is. But I have
carefully examined the four Gospels, weighed their dis
crepancies, collated their reports, and the result is a

312 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
perfect certainty that Christ was the miraculous Son of
God, commissioned to make known His existence, to
reveal His will, to traverse or suspend His laws. It is
doubtful whether a wise and good Being be the Author
of the starry heavens above me, and the moral world
within me ; but it is unquestionable that Jesus walked
upon the water, and raised the Widow's Son at INain. I
may be mistaken in the one deduction — I cannot be
mistaken in the other." Strange conformation of mind !
which can find no adequate foundation for its hopes, its
worship, it principles of action, in the far-stretching
universe, in the glorious firmament, in the deep, full soul,
bursting with unutterable thoughts, in the vast and
rich store-house of the material and moral world — yet
can rest all with a trusting simplicity approaching the
sublime, on what a book relates of the sayings and doings
of a man who lived eighteen centuries ago !
If the change which resulted from our inquiries were
indeed a descent from certainty to probability, it would
involve a loss beyond all power of compensation. But it
is not so. It is merely an exchange of conclusions founded
on one chain of reasoning for conclusions founded on an
other. The plain truth, if we dared but look it in the
face, is this, — that absolute certainty on these subjects is
not attainable, and was not intended. We have already
seen that no miraculous revelation could make doctrines
credible which are revolting to our reason ; nor can any
revelation give to doctrines greater certainty than that
which attaches to its own origin and history. Now, we
cannot conceive the proofs of any miraculous revelation
to be so perfect, flawless, and cogent, as are the proofs of
the great doctrines of our faith, independent of miracle
or revelation. Both sets of proofs must, philosophically
speaking, be imperfect ; but the proof that any particular
individual was supernaturally inspired by God, must al
ways be more imperfect than the proof that Man and the
Universe are the production of His fiat ; that goodness
is His profoundest essence ; that doing good is the noblest
worship we can pay Him. To seek that more cogent and
compelling certainty of these truths which orthodoxy

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION % 313
yearns after, is to strive for a shadow ; — to fancy that we
have attained it, is to be satisfied with having affixed
man's indorsement to " the true sayings of God."*
[In truth, however, it is not for the sake of these grand
foundation-stones of all religion which are so much more
certain than the authority or inspiration of any ancient
documents or traditions possibly can be, that positive,
unquestioning, dogmatic, absolute conviction of the genu
ineness and infallibility of the letter of the Bible is so
urgently insisted upon by the orthodox. This conviction,
this proposition, is essential to their entire system of doc
trine, for the simple reason (which can never be too
plainly realised or kept in mind, and which was discussed
in chapter xi.) that this doctrinal system is founded, not
on the New Testament narratives as a whole, nor even
on the Scriptures as a whole, but on special texts, often
isolated, often unharmonizing, often absolutely incon
gruous. Only if the whole Bible is unassailable in its
absolute and omnipresent accuracy and authority, can
the more difficult and startling doctrines of the popular
creed hold their ground.]
In grasping after this certainty, which can be but a
shadow, ordinary Christianity has lost the substance — it
has sacrificed in practical more than it has gained in dog
matic value. In making Christ the miraculous Son of
God, it has destroyed Jesus as a human exemplar. If he
were in a peculiar manner " the only begotten of the
Father," a partaker in his essential nature, then he is im
measurably removed from us ; we may revere, we cannot
imitate him. We listen to his precepts with submission,
perhaps even greater than before. We dwell upon the
* " Having removed the offence we took in fancying God speaking with
a human voice, and saying, ' This is my beloved Son : hear ye him,' — we
certainly do not incline to call that a loss. But we do not lose anything
else ; for considering the godliness and purity of the life of Jesus, and then
thinkin" of God and his holiness on the one side, and of our destination on
the other we know, without a positive declaration, that God must have bt en
pleased with a life like that of Jesus, and that we cannot do better than
adhere to him. We do not lose, therefore, with those voices from heaven,
more than is lost by a beautiful picture from which a ticket is taken away
that was fastened to it, containing the superfluous assurance of its being, a
beautiful picture."— Strauss's Letter to Professor Orelli, p. 20.
U

314 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
excellence of his character, no longer for imitation, but
for worship. We read with the deepest love and admira
tion of his genius, his gentleness, his mercy, his unweary
ing activity in doing good, his patience with the stupid,
his compassion for the afflicted, his courage in facing tor
ture, his meekness in enduring wrong ; and then we turn
away and say, " Ah ! he was a God ; such virtue is not
for humanity, nor for us." It is useless by honeyed words
to disguise the truth. If Christ were a man, he is our
pattern ; " the possibility of our race made real." If he
were God — a partaker of God's nature, as the orthodox
maintain — then they are guilty of a cruel mockery in
speaking of him as a type and model of human excel
lence. How can one endowed with the perfections of a
God be an example to beings encumbered with the weak
nesses of humanity ? Adieu, then, to Jesus as anything
but a Propounder of doctrines, an Utterer of precepts !
The vital portion of Christianity is swept away. His
Character — that from which so many in all ages have
drawn their moral life and strength — that which so irre
sistibly enlists our deepest sympathies, and rouses our
highest aspirations — it becomes an irreverence to speak
of. The character, the conduct, the virtues of a God ! —
these are felt to be indecent expressions. Verily, ortho
doxy has slain the life of Christianity. In the presump
tuous endeavour to exalt Jesus, it has shut him up in
the Holy of Holies, and hid him from the gaze of human
ity. It has displaced him from an object of imitation
into an object of worship. It has made his life barren,
that his essence might be called divine.
" But we have no fear that we should lose Christ by
being obliged to give up a considerable part of what was
hitherto called Christian creed ! He will remain to all of
us the more surely, the less anxiously we cling to doc
trines and opinions that might tempt our reason to
forsake him. But if Christ remains to us, and if he
remains to us as the highest we know and are capable
of imagining within the sphere of religion, as the per
son without whose presence in the mind no perfect
piety is possible ; we may fairly say that in Him do

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 315
we still possess the sum and substance of the Christian
faith."* "But," it will be objected, "what, on this system,
becomes of the religion of the poor and ignorant, the
uneducated, and the busy? If Christianity is not a
divine revelation, and therefore entirely and infallibly
true, — if the Gospels are not perfectly faithful and ac
curate expositors of Christ's teaching and of God's will,
— what a fearful loss to those who have neither the
leisure, the learning, nor the logical habits of thought
requisite to construct out of the relics that remain to
them and the nature that lies before them a faith for
themselves ! "
To this objection we reply that the more religion can
be shown to consist in the realisation of great moral and
spiritual truths, rather than in the reception of distinct
dogmas, the more the position of these classes is altered
for the better. In no respect is it altered for the worse.
Their creeds, i. e., their collection of dogmas, those who do
not or cannot think for themselves must always take on
the authority of others. They do so now : they have
always done so. They have hitherto believed certain
doctrines because wise and good men assure them that
these doctrines were revealed by Christ, and that Christ
was a teacher sent from God. They will in future be
lieve them because wise and good men assure them of
their truth, and their own hearts ' confirm the assurance.
The only difference lies in this, — that, in the one case,
the authority on which they lean vouches for the truth ;
in the other, for the Teacher who proclaimed it.
Moreover, the Bible still remains ; though no longer
as an inspired and infallible record. Though not the word
of God, it contains the words of the wisest, the most ex
cellent, the most devout men, who have ever held com
munion with Him. The poor, the ignorant, the busy,
need not, do not, will not, read it critically. To each
of them, it will still, through all time, present the Gos
pels and the Psalms, — the glorious purity of Jesus, the

* Strauss's Soliloquies, p. 67.

316 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
sublime piety of David and of Job. Those who read it
for its spirit, not for its dogmas, — as the poor, the igno
rant, the busy, if unperverted, will do, — will still find in
it all that is necessary for their guidance in life, their
support in death, their consolation in sorrow, their rule
of duty, and their trust in God.
A more genuine and important objection to the con
sequences of our views is felt by indolent minds on their
own account. They shrink from the toil of working out
truth for themselves, out of the materials which Provi
dence has placed before them. They long for the pre
cious metal, but loathe the rude ore out of which it has
to be extricated by the laborious alchemy of thought.
A ready-made creed is the Paradise of their lazy dreams.
A string of authoritative dogmatic propositions comprises
the whole mental wealth which they desire. The volume
of nature, the volume of history, the volume of life, appal
and terrify them. Such men are the materials out of
whom good Catholics — of all sects — are made. They
form the uninquiring and submissive flocks which rejoice
the hearts of all Priesthoods. Let such cling to the faith
of their forefathers — if they can. But men whose minds
are cast in a nobler mould and are instinct with a diviner
life, who love truth more than the rest, and the peace of
Heaven rather than the peace of Eden, to whom " a loftier
being brings severer cares," —
" Who know, Man does not live by joy alone,
But by the presence of the power of God,"—
such must cast behind them the hope of any repose or
tranquillity save that which is the last reward of long
agonies of thought ;* they must relinquish all prospect of
¦* " o Thou ! to whom the wearisome disease
Of Past and Present is an alien thing,
Thou pure Existence ! whose severe decrees
Forbid a living man his soul to bring
Into a timeless Eden of sweet ease,
Clear-eyed, clear-hearted — lay thy loving wing
In death upon me — if that way alone
Thy great Creation-thought thou wilt to me make known."
R. M. Milnes.

IS CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION ? 317
any Heaven save that of which tribulation is the avenue
and portal ; they must gird up their loins and trim their
lamp for a work which cannot be put by, and which must
not be negligently done. " He," says Zschokke, " who
does not like living in the furnished lodgings of tradition,
must build his own house, his own system of thought and
faith, for himself."*

* Zschokke's Autobiography, p. 29. The whole section is most deeply
interesting.

CHAPTER XVI.
CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM.
Christianity, then, not being a revelation, but a concep
tion — the Gospels not being either inspired or accurate,
but fallible and imperfect human records — the practical
conclusion from such premises must be obvious to all.
Every doctrine and every proposition which the Scriptures
contain, whether or not we believe it to have come to us
unmutilated and unmarred from the mouth of Christ, is
open, and must be subjected, to the scrutiny of reason.
Some tenets we shall at once accept as the most perfect
truth that can be received by the human intellect and
heart ; — others we shall reject as contradicting our in
stincts and offending our understandings ; — others, again,
of a more mixed nature, we must analyze, that so we may
extricate the seed of truth from the husk of error, and
elicit " the divine idea that lies at the bottom of appear
ance."* I. I value the Religion of Jesus, not as being absolute
and perfect truth, but as containing more truth,purer truth,
higher truth, stronger truth, than has ever yet been given
to man. Much of his teaching I unhesitatingly receive
as, to the best of my judgmant, unimprovable and unsur
passable — fitted, if obeyed, to make earth all that a finite
and material scene can be, and man only a little lower
than the angels. The worlhlessness of ceremonial obser
vances, and the necessity of essential righteousness — "Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord! Lord! but he that
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven ;" " By
their fruits ye shall know them;" " I will have mercy,
and not sacrifice ; " " Be not a slothful hearer only, but a
doer of the word ;" " Woe unto ye, Scribes and Pharisees,
* Fiche,

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 319
for ye pay tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and neg
lect the weightier matters of the Law, justice, mercy, and
temperance : " — The enforcement of purity of heart as the
security for purity of life, and of the government of the
thoughts, as the originators and forerunners of action —
" He that looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath com
mitted adultery with her already in his heart ; " " Out of
the heart proceed murders, adulteries ,thefts, false witness,
blasphemies : these are the things which defile a man : " —
Universal good-will towards men — "Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself ;" " Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, that do ye also unto them, for this is
the Law and the Prophets : " — Forgiveness of injuries —
" Love your enemies ; do good to them that hate you; pray
for them which despitefully use you and persecute you ; "
" Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that tres
pass against us ;" " I say not unto thee, until seven times, but
until seventy times seven;" "If ye love them only that love
you, what reward have ye ? do not even publicans the
same ? " — The necessity of self-sacrifice in the cause of duty
— " Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous
ness' sake ; " " If any man will be my disciple, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me ;" " If
thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee;"
" No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God:" — Humility — " Blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ;" " He
that humbleth himself shall be exalted ;" " He that is great
est ampng you, let him be your servant : " — Genuine sin
cerity ; being, not seeming — " Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them ;" " When thou
prayest, enter into thy closet and shut thy door ;" " When
thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that
thou appear not unto men to fast:" — all these sublime
precepts need no miracle, no voice from the clouds, to rec
ommend them to our allegiance, or to assure us of
their divinity ; they command obedience by virtue of
their inherent rectitude and beauty, and vindicate their
author as himself the one towering perpetual miracle of
history.

320 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
II. Next in perfection come the views which Christian
ity unfolds to us of God in his relation to man, which were
probably as near the truth as the minds of men could in
that age receive. God is represented as Our Father in
Heaven — to be whose especial children is the best reward
of the peace-makers — to see whose face is the highest hope
of the pure in heart — who is ever at hand to strengthen
His true worshippers — to whom is due our heartiest love,
our humblest submission — whose most acceptable worship
is righteous conduct and a holy heart — in whose constant
presence our life is passed — to whose merciful disposal we
are resigned by death. It is remarkable that, throughout
the Gospels, with the exception, I believe, of a single pass
age,* nothing is said as to the nature of the Diety : — his
relation to us is alone insisted on : — all that is needed for
our consolation, our strength, our guidance, is assured to
us : — the purely speculative is passed over and ignored.
Thus, in the two great points essential to our practical
life — viz., our feelings towards God, and our conduct to
wards man — the Gospels, [relieved of their unauthentic
portions, and read in an understanding spirit, not with a
slavish and unintelligent adherence to the naked letter,]
contain little about which men can differ — little from
which they can dissent. He is our Father, we are all
brethren. This much lies open to the most ignorant and
busy, as fully as to the most leisurely and learned. This
needs no Priest to teach it — no authority to endorse it.
The rest is Speculation — intensely interesting, indeed, but
of no practical necessity.
III. There are, however, other tenets taught in Scrip
ture and professed by Christians, in which reflective
minds of all ages have found it difficult to acquiesce.
Thus : — however far we may stretch the plea for a liberal
interpretation of Oriental speech, it is impossible to dis
guise from ourselves that the New Testament teaches, in
the most unreserved manner, and in the strongest lan
guage, the doctrine of the efficacy of Prayer in modifying
the divine purposes, and in obtaining the boons asked for

* God is a spirit.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 321
at the throne of grace. It is true that one passage (John
xi. 42) would seem to indicate that prayer was a form
which Jesus adopted for the sake of others ; it is also re
markable that the model of prayer, which he taught to
his disciples, contains only one simple and modest request
for personal and temporal good ;* yet not only are we
told that he prayed earnestly and for specific mercies
(though with a most submissive will), on occasions of
peculiar suffering and trial, but few of his exhortations
to his disciples occur more frequently than that to con
stant prayer, and no promises are more distinct or re
iterated than that their prayers shall be heard and an
swered. " Watch and pray ; " " This kind goeth not out
but by prayer and fasting ; " " What things soever ye de
sire, when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive them,
and ye shall have them ; " " Verily, verily, I say unto you,
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he
will give it you ; " " Ask, and it shall be given you ; "
" Thinkest thou that I cannot now prayr to my Father,
and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions
of angels \ " The parable of the unjust Judge was de
livered to enforce the same conclusion, and the writings
of the apostles are at least equally explicit on this point.
" Be constant in prayer ; " " Pray without ceasing ;" " Let
him ask in faith, nothing wavering ; " " The fervent ef
fectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
No one can read such passages, and the numberless
others of a similar character with which both Testaments
abound, and doubt that the opinion held both by Christ
and his disciples was that " Jehovah is a God that heareth
and answereth prayer ; " — that favours are to be obtained
from Him by earnest and reiterated entreaty ; that what
ever good thing His sincere worshippers petition for, with
instance and with faith, shall be granted to them, if
consonant to his purposes, and shall be granted in con
sequence of their petition ; that, in fact and truth, apart

* " It is a curious fact that the Lord's prayer may be reconstructed," says
Wetstein " almost verbatim out of the Talmud, which also contains a pro
phetic intimation that all prayer will one day cease, except the Prayer of
Thanksgiving." (Mackay's Progress of the Intellect u. 379.)

322 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM
from all metaphysical subtleties and subterfuges, the de
signs of God can be modified and swayed, like those of
an earthly father, by the entreaties of His children. This
doctrine is set forth throughout the Jewish Scriptures in
its coarsest and nakedest form, and it reappears in the
Christian Scriptures in a form only slightly modified and
refined. Now, this doctrine has in all ages been a stumbling-
block to the thoughtful. It is obviously irreconcilable
with all that reason and revelation teach us of the di
vine nature ; and the inconsistency has been felt by the
ablest of the Scripture writers themselves.* Various and
desperate have been the expedients and suppositions re
sorted to, in order to reconcile the conception of an im
mutable, all-wise, all-foreseeing God, with that of a father
who is turned from his course by the prayers of his
creatures. But all such efforts are, and are felt to be,
hopeless failures. They involve the assertion and nega
tion of the same proposition in one breath. The problem
remains still insoluble ; and we must either be content to
leave it so, or we must abandon one or other of the hos
tile premises.
The religious man, who believes that all events, mental
as well as physical, are pre-ordered and arranged accord
ing to the decrees of infinite wisdom, and the philosopher,
who knows that, by the wise and eternal laws of the uni
verse, cause and effect are indissolubly chained together,
and that one follows the other in inevitable succession, —
equally feel that this ordination — this chain — cannot be
changeable at the cry of man. To suppose that it can
is to place the whole harmonious system of nature at the
mercy of the weak reason and the selfish wishes of hu
manity. If the purposes of God were not wise, they
would not be formed : — if wise, they cannot be changed,
for then they would become unwise. To suppose that
an all-wise Being would alter his designs and modes of
proceeding at the entreaty of an unknowing creature, is
to believe that compassion would change his wisdom into
* " God is not a man that he 'should lie, nor the son of a man, that he
should repent."

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 323
foolishness. It has been urged that prayer may render
a favour wise, which would else be unwise ; but this is
to imagine that events are not foreseen and pre-ordered,
but are arranged and decided pro re natd ; it is also to
ignore utterly the unquestionable fact, that no event in
life or in nature is isolated, and that none can be changed
without entailing endless and universal alterations.* If
the universe is governed by fixed laws, or (which is the
same proposition in different language) if all events are
pre-ordained by the foreseeing wisdom of an infinite God,
then the prayers of thousands of years and generations
of martyrs and saints cannot change or modify one iota
of our destiny. The proposition is unassailable by the
subtlest logic.y The weak, fond affections of humanity
struggle in vain against the unwelcome conclusion.
It is a conclusion from which the feelings of almost all
of us shrink and revolt. The strongest sentiment of our
nature, perhaps, is that of our helplessness in the hands of
fate, and against this helplessness we seek for a resource
in the belief of our dependence on a Higher Power,
which can control and will interfere with fate. And

* " Immediate proof of that system of interminable connection which
binds together the whole human family, may be obtained by every one who
will examine the several ingredients of his physical, intellectual, and social
condition ; for he will not find one of these circumstances of his lot that is
not directly an effect or consequence of the conduct, or character, or con
stitution of his progenitors, and of all with whom he has had to do ; if they
had been other than what th*y were, he also must have been other than he
is. And then our predecessors must in like manner trace the qualities of
their being to theirs ; thus the linking ascends to the common parents of all ;
and thus must it descend — still spreading as it goes — from the present to the
last generation of the children of .Adam." —Nat. Hist, of Enthusiasm, p. 149.
+ The author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm has a singular theory
on this point. He is not very clear, because clearness would make his in
consistency and the strangeness of his position too manifest ; but as far as we
can decipher his notion, it is this : He divides all events into tw< > classes — the
certain and fortuitous. He conceives, as we do, that the great mass of events
occur according to established laws, and in the regular process of causation :
and these her-egards as settled and immutable : but in addition to these he
considers that there are many others which are mere fortuities, at the com
mand of God's will and of man's prayers ; and that these fortuitiesare the
special province and means of the divine government (chap. vi.). Yet this
writer allows that all events and all men's lots are inextricably woven to
gether (pp 132 149) ; how then can one thing be more fortuitous or alterable
than another? Moreover, fortuity, as he elsewhere intimates, is merely an
expression denoting our ignorance of causation: that which seems a chanoe.
to us is among the most settled and certain of God sordainments.

324 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
though our reason tells us that it is inconceivable that the
entreaties of creatures as erring and as blind as we are, can
influence the all- wise purposes of God, yet we feel an in
ternal voice, more potent and persuasive than reason,
which assures us that to pray to Him in trouble is an ir
repressible instinct of our nature — an instinct which pre
cedes teaching — which survives experience — which defies
philosophy. " For sorrow oft the cry of faith
In bitter Heed will borrow."
It would be an unspeakable consolation to our human
infirmity, could we, in this case, believe our reason to be
erroneous, and our instinct true ; but we greatly fear that
the latter is the result, partly of that anthropomorphism
which pervades all our religious conceptions, which our
limited faculties suggest, and which education and
habit have rooted so fixedly in our mental constitu
tion, — and partly of that fond weakness which recoils
from five idea of irreversible and inescapable decree.
The conception of subjection to a law without ex
ception, without remission, without appeal, crushing,
absolute, and universal, is truly an appalling one ;
and, most mercifully, can rarely be perceived in all its
overwhelming force, except by minds which, through stern
and lofty intellectual training, have in some degree become
qualified to bear it.
Communion with God, we must ever bear in mind, is
something very different from prayer for specific blessings,
and often confers the submissive strength of soul for which
we pray ; and we believe it will be found that the higher
our souls rise in their spiritual progress, the more does
entreaty merge into thanksgiving, the more does petition
become absorbed in communion with the " Father of the
spirits of all flesh." That the piety of Christ was fast
tending to this end is, we think, indicated by his instruc
tions to his disciples (Matt. vi. 7-9) : " When ye pray, use
not vain repetitions : for your Father knoweth what things
ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner,
therefore, pray ye," &c. ; and by that last sublime sentence

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 325
J-ethsemane, uttered when the agonizing struggle of the
it with the flesh had terminated in the complete and
1 victory of the first, " Father, if this cup may not pass
a me except I drink it, thy will be done."
rayer may be regarded as the form which devotion
xrally takes in ordinary minds, and even in the most
ghtened minds in their less spiritual moods. The
lest intellectual efforts, the loftiest religious contem-
ions, dispose to devotion, but check the impulses of
yer. The devout philosopher, trained to the investi-
lon of universal system, — the serene astronomer, fresh
n the study of the changeless laws which govern in-
tierable worlds, — shrink from the monstrous irration-
y of asking the great Architect and Governor of all to
•k a miracle in his behalf — to interfere, for the sake of
convenience, or his plans, with the sublime order coi -
red by the Ancient of Days in the far Eternity of the
t; for what is a special providence but an interference
h established laws ? And what is such interference
a miracle ? There is much truth and beauty in the
owing remarks of Isaac Taylor, but much also of the
jnsistency, irreverence, and insolence of orthodoxy.
The very idea of addressing petitions to Him who
rketh all things according to the counsel of his own
mal and unalterable will, and the enjoined practice of
thing sentiments of piety in articulate forms of lan-
bge, though these sentiments, before they are invested
ivords, are perfectly known to the Searcher of hearts,
)ly that, in the terms and mode of intercourse with
I and man, no attempt is made to lift the latter
ive his sphere of limited notions and imperfect know-
sje. The terms of devotional communion rest even on
nuch lower ground than that which man, by efforts
reason and imagination, might attain to* Prayer,
its very conditions, supposes not only a condescension
;he divine nature to meet the human, but a humbling
he human nature to a lower range than it might
[s it not a clear deduction from this, that prayer is a form of devotion
eded only to our imperfect spiritual capacities, and to be outgrown as
e capacities are raised and strengthened 1

326 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
easily reach. The region of abstract conceptions, of lofty
reasonings, of magnificent images, has an atmosphere
too subtle to support the health of true piety ; and in order
that the warmth and vigour of life may be maintained
in the heart, the common level of the natural affections
is chosen as the scene of intercourse between heaven and
earth. . The utmost distances of the material universe
are finite ; but the disparity of nature which separates
man from his Maker is infinite ; nor can the interval be
filled up or brought under any process of measurement. . . .
Were it indeed permitted to man to gaze upward from
step to step and from range to range of the vast
edifice of rational existences, and could his eye attain
its summit, and then perceive, at an infinite height
beyond that highest platform of created beings, the
lowest beams of the Eternal Throne — what liberty
of heart would afterwards be left to him in drawing
near to the Father of Spirits ? How, after such a
revelation of the upper world, could the affectionate
cheerfulness of earthly worship again take place ? Or
how, while contemplating the measured vastness of the
interval between heaven and earth, could the dwellers
thereon come familiarly as before to the Hearer of
Prayer ; bringing with them the small requests of their
petty interests of the present life. . . . These spec
tacles of greatness, if laid open to perception, would pre
sent such an interminable perspective of glory, and so
set out the immeasurable distance between ourselves and
the Supreme Being with a long gradation of splendours,
and we should henceforth feel as if thrust down to an
extreme remoteness from the divine notice ; and it would
be hard or impossible to retain, with any comfortable
conviction, the belief in the nearness of Him who is re
vealed as a 'very present help in every time of trouble.'
. . . Every ambitious attempt to break through the
humbling conditions on which man may hold communion
with God, must then fail of success ; since the Supreme
has fixed the scene of worship and converse, not in the
skies, but on the earth. The Scripture models of devo
tion, far from encouraging vague and inarticulate con-

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 327
templations, consist of such utterances of desire, hope, and
love, as seem to suppose the existence of correlative
feelings, and of every human sympathy, in Him to whom
they are addressed.* And though reason and Scripture
assure us that He neither needs to be informed of our
wants, nor waits to be moved by our supplications, yet
will He be approached with the eloquence of importunate
desire, and He demands, not only a sincere feeling of
indigence and dependence, but an undissembled zeal and
diligence in seeking the desired boons by persevering re
quest. He is to be supplicated with arguments as one
who needs to be swayed and moved, to be wrought upon
and influenced ; nor is any alternative offered to those
who would present themselves at the throne of heavenly
grace, or any exception made in favour of superior spirits,
whose more elevated notions of the divine perfections may
render this accommodated style distasteful. As the Hearer
of prayer stoops to listen, so also must the suppliant
stoop from heights of philosophical or meditative abstrac
tions, and either come in genuine simplicity of petition, as a
son to a father, or be utterly excluded from the friendship
of his Maker." -f-
The expressions in this last paragraph — those par
ticularly which we have italicised — appear to us, we con
fess, monstrous, and little, if at all, short of blasphemy,
i. e., speaking evil of God. What ! He, who " both by
reason and Scripture " has taught us that He is not
moved by our supplications, requires us — " on pain of being
utterly excluded from his favour " — to act as if He were !
He, who has given us the understanding to conceive His
entire exemption from all human weaknesses, requires us
to proceed as if we " thought that He was altogether
such a one as ourselves ! " He, who has made us to know
that all things are ordered by Him from the beginning —
" that with Him is no variableness, neither shadow of
* That is, they are based on erroneous premises, supported by a natural
feeling, the very feeling which, pushed a little further, has originated
prayers to Christ in the English Church, and to Saints and to the Virgin
Mary in the Roman Communion.
t Nat. Hist, of Enthusiasm, pp. 27-32.

328 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
turning" — requires' us to supplicate, " argue," importune,
as if we believed that supplication, argument, and im
portunity couly sway and turn Him from His purposes, —
commands us, in a word, to enact in His august presence
a comedy, which He knows, and we know, to be a mock
ery and a pretence ! He, who has given us, as His divi-
nest gift, to elevate, to perfect, and to purify, an intellect
bearing some faint analogy to His own, — punishes with
" exclusion from His friendship," those nobler conceptions
of His nature which are the finest achievements of this in
tellect, unless we consent to abnegate and disavow them,
or pretend that ive do so ! — for this appears to be the sig
nification of the last sentence we have quoted. Such are
the bewildering positions into which Orthodoxy drives
its more intellectual disciples !
Tbe following remarks are thrown out rather as sug
gestions for thought than as digested reflections, but thev
may contain a clue to some truth.
The inadmissibility of the idea of the bond fide efficacy
of prayer, would appear to be enforced rather by our con
viction that all things in life are arranged by law, than
by a belief in the foreknowledge (which in a supreme
Being is equivalent to foreordainment) of the Deity. This
latter doctrine, however metaphysically true and probable,
we cannot hold, so as to follow it out fairly to its conse
quences. It negatives the free-will of man at least as
peremptorily as the efficacy of prayer : — yet in the free
will of man we do believe, and must believe, however
strict logic may struggle against it. Why, then, should
we not also hold the efficacy of prayer ? — a doctrine, so
far, certainly not more illogical ? Because if, as we can
not doubt, the immutable relation of cause and effect
governs everything, in all time, through all space — then
prayer — except in those caseswhere it operates as a natural
cause — cannot affect the sequence of events. If bodily
pain and disease be the legitimate and traceable conse
quence of imprudence and excess — if pleurisy or consump
tion follow, by natural law, exposure to inclement weather
in weak frames — if neuralgia be the legal progeny of or
ganic decay or shattered nerves — if storms follow laws as

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 329
certain as the law of gravitation — how can prayer bring
about the cessation of pain, or the lulling of the storm,
for the relief of the suffering, or the rescue of the imper
illed, man ? Is not the prayer for such cessation clearly
a prayer for a miracle ?
Prayer may be itself a natural cause : —it may, by its
mental intensity, suspend bodily pain ; — it may, by the
moral elevation it excites, confer strength to dare and to
endure. Prayer, to a fellow-creature of superior power
and science, may induce such to apply a lenitive or a cure,
which, however, is simply a natural cause, placed by our
ignorance beyond our reach. If, therefore, there be around
us, as many think, superior spiritual beings, our prayers,
if heard by them, may induce them to aid us by means
unknown to our inferior powers. But such aid would then
be the natural result of natural though obscure causes.
" If, however," it may be asked, " superior beings may be
moved by prayer to aid us by their knowledge of natural
agencies unknown to us, why not God V The answer is:
that for Prayer to be a bond fide effective agent in ob
taining any boon, it must operate on an impressible and
mutable will: — therefore, if there be superior intermediate
beings, sharing human sympathies and imperfections, but
possessing more than human powers and knowledge —
prayer may secure their aid; but not that of a supreme God.
Still, the question remains much one of fact : — are our
prayers — are the most earnest prayers of the wisest, the
best, the most suffering — generally answered ? Does
toothache or sciatica last a shorter time with those who
pray, than with those who only bear ?
On the whole, however, we are content that man should
rest in the Christian practice, though not in the Christian
theory, of Prayer — -just as we are obliged to rest satisfied
with a conception of Deity, which, though utterly errone
ous in the sight of God, and consciously imperfect even in
our own, is yet the nearest approach to truth our minds
can frame, and practically adequate to our necessities.
The common doctrine we cannot but regard as one of
those fictions which imperfect and unchastened man is
fain to gather round him, to equalize his strength with
V

330 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
the requirements of his lot, but which a stronger nature
might dispense with ; — one of those fictions which may be
considered as the imperfect expression — the approxima
tive formula — of mighty and eternal verities.
IV. Remotely connected with the doctrine of an inter
posing and influencible Providence, is the fallacy, or rather
the imperfection, which lies at the root of the ordinary
Christian view of Resignation as a duty and a virtue.
Submission, cheerful acquiescence in the dispensation of
Providence, is enjoined upon us, not because these dis
pensations are just and wise — not because they are the
ordinances of His will who cannot err, — but because they
are ordained for our benefit, and because He has promised
that " all things shall work together for good to them that
love Him." We are assured that every trial and afflic
tion is designed solely for our good, for our discipline, and
will issue in a blessing, though we see not how ; and that
therefore we must bow to it with unmurmuring resigna
tion. These grounds, it is obvious, are purely self -regard
ing ; and resignation, thus represented and thus motived,
is no virtue, but a simple calculation of self-interest. This
narrow view results from that incorrigible egotism of the
human heart which makes each man prone to regard him
self as the special object of divine consideration, and the
centre round which the universe revolves. Yet it is un
questionably the view most prominently and frequently
presented in the New Testament,* and by all modern
divines.-f- It may be, that the prospect of "an exceeding,
even an eternal weight of glory," may be needed to sup
port our frail purposes under tbe crushing afflictions of
our mortal lot ; it may be, that, by the perfect arrange-
* See especially Matt. v. 11, 12 ; xvi. 25-27 ; Romans viii. 18, 28 ; 2 Cor.
iv. 17 ; Gal. vi. 9. There is one sublime exception, from the mouth of
Christ : — "The cup that my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"
t The sublimest and purest genius among modern divines goes so far as to
maintain that, apart from the hope of future recompense, ' ' a deviation from
rectitude would become the part of wisdom, and should the path of virtue be
obstructed by disgrace, torment, or death, to persevere would be madness
and folly." (Modern Infidelity, p. 20, by Robert Hall.) It is sad to reflect
how mercenary a thing duty has become in the hands of theologians. Were
their belief in a future retribution once shaken, they would become, on their
own showing, the lowest of sensualists, the worst of sinners.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 331
ments of omnipotence, the sufferings of all may be made to
work out the ultimate and supreme good of each ; but
this is not, cannot be, the reason why we should submit
with resignation to whatever God ordains. .His will must
be wise, righteous, and we believe beneficent, whether it
allot to us happiness or misery : it is His will ; we need
inquire no further. Job, who had no vision of a future
compensatory world, had in this attained a sublimer point
of religion than St. Paul : — "Though he slay me, yet will
I trust in him." "What ? shall we receive good at the
hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ?" (Job xiii.
15 ; ii. 10).
To the orthodox Christian, who fully believes all he
professes, cheerful resignation to the divine will is com
paratively a natural, an easy, a simple thing. To the re
ligious philosopher, it is the highest exercise of intellect
and virtue. The man who has realized the faith that his
own lot, in all its minutest particulars, is not only directly
regulated by God, — but is so regulated by God as unerringly
to work for his highest good, — with an express view to
his highest good, — with such a man, resignation, patience,
nay, cheerful acquiescence in all suffering and sorrow, ap
pears to be in fact only the simple and practical expres
sion of his belief. If, believing all this, he still murmurs
and rebels at the trials and contrarieties of his lot, he is
guilty of the childishness of the infant which quarrels
with the medicine that is to lead it back to health and
ease. But the religious Philosopher, — who, sincerely hold
ing that a Supreme God created and governs this world,
holds also that He governs it by laws which, though wise,
just, and beneficent, are yet steady, unwavering, inexor
able ; — who believes that his agonies and sorrows are not
specially ordained for his chastening, his strengthening,
his elaboration and development, — but are incidental
and necessary results of the operation of laws the best
that could be devised for the happiness and purification
of the species, — or perhaps not even that, but the best
adapted to work out the vast, awful, glorious, eternal de
signs of the Great Spirit of the universe ; — who believes
that the ordained operations of Nature, which have

332 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
brought misery to him, have, from the very unswerving
tranquillity of their career, showered blessing and sunshine
upon every other path, — that the unrelenting chariot of
Time, which has crushed or maimed him in its allotted
course, is pressing onward to the accomplishment of those
serene and mighty purposes, to have contributed to which
— even as a victim — is an honour and a recompense : —
he who takes this view of Time, and Nature, and God,
and yet bears his lot without murmur or distrust, because
it is a portion of a system, the best possible, because or
dained by God, — has achieved a point of virtue, the high
est, amid passive excellence, which humanity can reach ; —
and his reward and support must be found in- the reflec
tion that he is an unreluctant and self-sacrificing co-op
erator with the Creator of the universe, and in the noble
consciousness of being worthy, and capable, of so sublime
a conception, yet so sad a destiny.*
In a comparison of the two resignations, there is no
measure of their respective grandeurs. The orthodox
sufferer fights the battle only on condition of surviving
to reap the fruits of victory : — the other fights on, know
ing that he must fall early in the battle, but content that
his body should form a stepping-stone for the future con
quests of humanity .7
* " ' Pain is in itself an evil. It cannot be that God, who, as we know, is
perfectly good, can choose us to suffer pain, unless either we are ourselves to
receive from it an antidote to what is evil in ourselves, or else as such pain is
a necessary part in the scheme of the universe, which as a whole is good. In
either case I can take it thankfully. ... I should not be taken away
without it was ordered so. . . . Whatever creed we hold, if we believe
that God is, and that he cares for his creatures, one cannot doubt that. And
it would not have been ordered so without it was better either for ourselves,
or for some other persons, or some things. To feel sorrow is a kind of mur
muring against God's will, which is worse than unbelief.'
" ' But think of the grief of those you leave.'
" ' They should not allow themselves to feel it. It is a symptom of an
unformed mind.' " — Sliadows of the Clouds, pp. 146, 148.
This is a somewhat harshly-expressed philosophy, but full of truth.
t "Is selfishness —
For time, a sin — spun out to eternity
Celestial prudence ? Shame ! oh, thrust me forth,
Forth, Lord, from self, until I toil and die
No more for Heaven or bliss, but duty, Lord —
Duty to Thee— although my meed should be
The Hell which I deserve." Saint's Tragedy.

CHRISTIAN • ECLECTICISM. 333
Somewhat similar remarks may be made with reference
to the virtues of action as to those of endurance. It is
a matter suggestive of much reflection, that, throughout
the New Testament, the loftiest and purest motive to ac
tion — love of duty as duty, obedience to the will of God
because it is His will — is rarely appealed to ; one or two
expressions of Christ, and the 14th chapter of John, form
ing the only exceptions. The almost invariable language
— pitched to the level of ordinary humanity — is, " Do
your duty at all hazards, for your Father which seeth in
secret shall reward you openly." " Verily, I say unto you,
ye shall in no wise lose your reward."*
Yet this is scarcely the right view of things. The hope
of success, not the hope of reward, should be our stimula
ting and sustaining might. Our object, not ourselves,
should be our inspiring thought. The labours of philan
thropy are comparatively easy, when the effect of them,
and their recoil upon ourselves, is immediate and appar
ent. But this it can rarely be, unless where the field of
our exertions is narrow, and ourselves the only or the chief
labourers. In the more frequent cases where we have to
join our efforts to those of thousands of others to contribute
to the carrying forward of a great cause, merely to till the
ground or sow the seed for a very distant harvest, or to
prepare the way for the future advent of some great
amendment ; the amount which each man has contributed
to the achievement of ultimate success, the portion of the
prize which justice should assign to each as his especial
production, can never be accurately ascertained. Per
haps few of those who have laboured, in the patience of
secrecy and silence, to bring about some political or social
* "When thou art bidden, take the lowest room, that when be that bade
thee cometh, he may say'' Friend, go up higher ; ' so shalt thou have honour
in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee." " Every one that hum-
bleth himself shall be exalted." "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven,
. . . . and all these things shall be added unto you." " Lord, we have left
all and followed thee, what shall we have therefore ? Verily I say unto you,
that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man
shall ait in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judg
ing the twelve tribes of Israel." "No man that hath left father or mother
for my sake but shall receive a hundredfold more in this present life, and in
the world to come life everlasting.

334 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
change which they felt convinced would ultimately
prove of vast service to humanity, may live to see the
change effected, or the anticipated good flow from it.
Fewer still of them will be able to pronounce what appre
ciable weight their several efforts contributed to the
achievement of the change desired. And discouraging
doubts will therefore often creep in upon minds in which
egotism is not wholly swallowed up by earnestness, as to
whether, in truth, their exertions had any influence what
ever — whether in sad and sober fact they have not been
the mere fly upon the wheel. With many men these
doubts are fatal to active effort. To counteract them we
must labour to elevate and purify our motives, as well as
sedulously cherish the conviction— assuredly a true one
— that in this world there is no such thing as effort
thrown away — that " in all labour there is profit " — that
all sincere exertion in a righteous and unselfish cause 4s
necessarily followed, in spite of all appearance to the
contrary, by an appropriate and proportiate success — that
no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly lost — that
no good seed planted in the ground can fail to fructify in
due time and measure ; and that, however we may in mo
ments of despondency be apt to doubt, not only whether
our cause will triumph, but whether we shall have con
tributed to its triumph, — there is One who has not only
seen every exertion we have made, but who can assign
the exact degree in which each soldier has assisted to
gain the great victory over social evil* The Augsean
stables of the world — the accumulated uncleanness and
misery of centuries — require a mighty river to cleanse
them thoroughly away : every drop we contribute aids to
swell that river and augment its force, into a degree appre
ciable by God, though not by man ; — and he whose zeal is
* " Yet are there some to whom a strength is given,
A Will, a self-constraining Energy,
A Faith which feeds upon no earthly hope,
Which never thinks of victory, but content
In its own consummation, combating
Because it ought to combat, ....
Rejoicing fights, and still rejoicing falls."
The Combat of Life. — R. M. Milnes.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 335
deep and earnest, will not be over-anxious that his indi
vidual drop should be distinguishable amid tbe mighty
mass of cleansing and fertilizing waters, far less that, for
the sake of distinction, it should flow in ineffective single
ness away. He will not be careful that his name should
be inscribed upon the mite which he casts into the trea
sury of God. It should suffice each of us to know that,
if we have laboured, with purity of purpose, in any good
cause, we 'must have contributed to its success ; that the
degree in which we have contributed is a matter of infi
nitely small concern ; and still more, that the conscious
ness of having so contributed, however obscurely and
unnoticed, should be our sufficient, if our sole, reward.
Let us cherish this faith ; it is a duty. He who sows and
reaps is a good labourer, and worthy of his hire. But he
who sows what shall be reaped by others who know not
and reck not of the sower, is a labourer of a nobler order,
and worthy of a loftier guerdon.
V. The common Christian conception of the pardon of
sin upon repentance and conversion seems to us to embody
a very transparent and pernicious fallacy. " Who can
forgive sins but God only ? " asked the Pharisees. There
is great confusion and contradiction in our ideas on this
subject. God is the only being who can not forgive sins.
" Forgiveness of sins " means one of two things : — it either
means saving a man from the consequences of his sins,
that is, interposing between cause and effect, in which
case it is working a miracle (which God no doubt can do,
but which we have no right to expect that He will do, or
ask that He shall do) ; or it means an engagement to for
bear retaliation, a suppression of the natural anger felt
against the offender by the offended party, a foregoing of
vengeance on the part of the injured — in which meaning
it is obviously quite inapplicable to a Being exempt and
aloof from human passions. When we entreat a fellow-
creature to forgive the offences we have committed against
him, we mean to entreat that he will not, by any act of
his, punish us for them, that he will not revenge nor re
pay them, that he will retain no rancour in his breast
against us on account of them ; and such a prayer ad-

336 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
dressed to a being of like passions to ourselves is rational
and intelligible, because we know that it is natural for
him to feel anger at our injuries, and that, unless moved
to the contrary, he will probably retaliate. But when we
pray to our Heavenly Father to " forgive us our trespas
ses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," we over
look the want of parallelism of the two cases, and show
that our notions on the subject are altogether misty and
confused ; for God cannot be injured by our sins, and He
is inaccessible to the passions of anger and revenge. Yet
the plain expression of the Book of Common Prayer —
" Neither take Thou vengeance of our sins " — embodies
the real signification attached to the prayer for forgive
ness, by all who attach any definite signification to their
prayers. Now, this expression is an Old Testament or a
Pagan expression, and can only be consistently and in
telligibly used by those who entertain the same low ideas
of God as the ancient Greeks and Hebrews entertained —
that is, who think of Him as an irritable, jealous, and
avenging Potentate.
If, from this inconsistency, we take refuge in the other
meaning of the Prayer for forgiveness, and assume that it
is a prayer to God that he will exempt us from the nat
ural and appointed consequences of our misdeeds, it is
important that we should clearly define to our minds what
it is that we are asking for. In our view of the matter,
punishment for sins by the divine law is a wholly differ
ent thing and process from punishment for violations of
human laws. It is not an infliction for crime imposed by
an external authority and artificially executed by external
force, but a natural and inevitable result of the offence —
a child generated by a parent — a sequence following an
antecedent — a consequence arising out of a cause.
" The Lord is just : He made the chain
Which binds together guilt and pain."
The punishment of sin consists in the consequences of
sin. These form a penalty most adequately heavy. A
sin without its punishment is as impossible, as complete
a contradiction in terms, as a cause without an effect.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 337
To pray that God will forgive our sins, therefore,
appears, in all logical accuracy, to involve either a most
unworthy conception of His character, or an entreaty of
incredible audacity — viz., that He will work daily mir
acles in our behalf. It is either beseeching Him to
renounce feelings and intentions which it is impossible
that a Nature like His should entertain : or it is asking
Him to violate the eternal and harmonious order of the
universe, for the comfort of one out of the infinite myri
ads of its inhabitants.
It may, perhaps, be objected, that Punishment of sins
may be viewed, not as a vengeance taken for injury or
insult committed, nor yet as the simple and necessary
sequence of a cause — but as chastisement, inflicted to
work repentence and amendment. But, even when con
sidered in this light, prayer for forgiveness remains still
a marvellous inconsistency. It then becomes the entreaty
of the sick man to his Physician not to heal him. " For
give us our sins," then means, " Let us continue in our
iniquity." It is clear, however, that the first meaning we
have mentioned, as attached to the prayer for forgiveness
of sins, is both the original and the prevailing one ; and
that it arises from an entire misconception of the character
of the Deity, and of the feelings with which He may be
supposed to regard sin — a misconception inherited from
our Pagan and Jewish predecessors ; it is a prayer to
deprecate the just resentment of a Potentate whom we
have offended — a petition which would be more suitably
addressed to an earthly foe or master than to a Heavenly
Father. The misconception is natural to a rude state of
civilization and of theology. It is the same notion from
which arose sacrifices (i.e., offerings to appease wrath),
and which caused their universality in early ages and
among barbarous nations. It is a relic of anthropomor
phism ; — a belief that God, like man, is enraged by
neglect or disobedience, and can be pacified by submis
sion and entreaty ; a belief consistent and intelligible
among the Greeks, inconsistent and irrational among
Christians, appropriate at applied to Jupiter, unmeaning
or blasphemous as applied to Jehovah.

338 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
We have, in fact, come to regard sin, not as an injury
done to our own nature, an offence against our own souls,
a disfiguring of the image of the Beautiful and Good, but
as a personal affront offered to a powerful and avenging
Being, which, unless apologized for, will be chastised as
such. We have come to regard it as an injury to another
party, for which atonement and reparation can be made
and satisfaction can be given ; not as a deed which can
not be undone, eternal in its consequences ; an act which,
once committed, is numbered with the irrevocable Past. In
a word, Sin contains its own retributive penalty as surely,
and as naturally, as the acorn contains the oak. Its con
sequence is its punishment, it needs no other, and can
have no heavier ; and its consequence is involved in its
commission, and cannot be separated from it. Punish
ment (let us fix this in our minds) is not the execution of
a, sentence, but the occurrence of an effect. It is ordained
to follow guilt by God, not as a Judge, but as the Crea
tor and Legislator of the Universe. This conviction, once
settled in our understandings, will wonderfully clear up
our views on the subject of pardon and redemption. Re
demption becomes then, of necessity, not a saving but a
regenerating process. We can be saved from the punish
ment of sin only by being saved from its commission.
Neither can there be any such thing as vicarious atone
ment or punishment (which, again, is a relic of heathen
conceptions of an angered Deity, to be propitiated by
offerings and sacrifices). Punishment, being not the
penalty, but the result of sin, being not an arbitrary and
artificial annexation, but an ordinary and logical conse
quence, cannot be borne by other than the sinner.
It is curious that the votaries of the doctrine of the
Atonement admit the correctness of much of the above
reasoning, saying (see " Guesses at Truth," by J. and A.
Hare), that Christ had to suffer for the sins of men, be
cause God could not forgive sin ; He must punish it in
some way. Thus holding the strangely inconsistent doc
trine that God is so just that He could not let sin go un
punished, yet so unjust that He could punish it in the
person of the innocent. It is for orthodox dialectics to

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 339
explain how Divine Justice can be impugned by pardon
ing the guilty, and yet vindicated by punishing the
innocent !
If the foregoing reflections are sound, the awful, yet
wholesome, conviction presses upon our minds, that there
can be no forgiveness of sins ; that is, no interference with,
or remittance of, or protection from their natural effects;
that God will not interpose between the cause and its'
consequence;* — that "whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap." An awful consideration this ; yet all
reflection, all experience, confirm its truth. The sin which
has debased our soul may be repented of, may be turned
from, but the injury is done : the debasement may be re
deemed by after efforts, the stain may be obliterated by
bitterer struggles and severer sufferings, by faith in God's
love and communion with His Spirit ; but the efforts and
theendurance which might have raised the soul to the
loftiest heights, are now exhausted in merely regaining
what it has lost. " There must always be a wide difference
(as one of our divines has said) between him who only
ceases to do evil, and him who has always done well ; be
tween the man who began to serve his God as soon as he
knew that he had a God to serve, and the man who only
turns to Heaven after he has exhausted all the indul
gences of Earth."
Again, in the case of sin of which you have induced
another to partake. You may repent— you may, after
agonizing struggles, regain the path of virtue — your spirit
may re-achieve its purity through much anguish, and
after many stripes ; but the weaker fellow-creature whom
you led astray, whom you made a sharer in your guilt,
but whom you cannot make a sharer in your repentance
and amendment, whose downward course (the first step of
which you taught) you cannot check, but are compelled
to witness, what " forgiveness " of sins can avail you
* Refer to Matt. ix. 2-6. " Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be for
given thee; or to say, Arise, take up thy bed and walk?" Jesus seems
here clearly to intimate that the view taken above (of forgiveness of sins,
namely, involving an. interference with the natural order of sequence,
and being therefore a miracle) is correct. He places the two side by
side, as equally difficult.

340 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
there ? There is your perpetual, your inevitable punish
ment, which no repentance can alleviate, and no mercy
can remit.
This doctrine, that sins can be forgiven, and the conse
quences of them averted, has in all ages been a fertile
source of mischief. Perhaps few of our intellectual errors
have fructified iu a vaster harvest of evil, or operated
more powerfully to impede the moral progress of- our race.
While it has been a source of unspeakable comfort to the
penitent, a healing balm to the wounded spirit, while it
has saved many from hopelessness, and enabled those to
recover themselves who would otherwise have flung away
the remnant of their virtue in despair ; yet, on the other
hand, it has encouraged millions, feeling what a safety
was in store for them in ultimate resort, to persevere in
their career of folly or crime, to ignore or despise those
natural laws which God has laid down to be the guides
and beacons of our conduct, to continue to do " that which
was pleasant in their own eyes," convinced that nothing
was irrevocable, that however dearly they might have to
pay for re-integration, repentance could at any time re
deem their punishment, and undo the past. The doctrine
has been noxious in exact ratio to the baldness and naked
ness with which it has been propounded. In the Catho
lic Church of the middle ages we see it perhaps in its
grossest form, when pardon was sold, bargained for, rated
at a fixed price ; when one hoary sinner, on the bed of
sickness, refused to repent, because he was not certain
that death was close at hand, and he did not wish for the
trouble of going through the process twice, and was loth,
by a premature amendment, to lose a chance of any of
the indulgences of sin. Men would have been far more
scrupulous watchers over conduct, far more careful of
their deeds, had they believed that those deeds would in
evitably bear their natural consequences, exempt from
after intervention, than when they held that penitence
and pardon could at any time unlink the chain of
sequences ; just as now they are little scrupulous of in
dulging in hurtful excess, when medical aid is at hand to
remedy the mischief they have voluntarily encountered.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 341
But were they on a desert island, apart from the remotest
hope of a doctor or a drug, how far more closely would
they consider the consequences of each indulgence, how
earnestly would they study the laws of Nature, how com
paratively unswerving would be their endeavours to steer
their course by those laws, obedience to which brings
health, peace, and safety in its train !
Let any one look back upon his past career — look in
ward on his daily life — and then say what effect would be
produced upon him, were the conviction once fixedly im
bedded in his soul, that everything done is done irrevoc
ably — that even the Omnipotence of God cannot uncom-
mit a deed — cannot make that undone which has been
done ; that every act must bear its allotted fruit according
to the everlasting laws — must remain for ever ineffaceably
inscribed on the tablets of universal Nature. And then
let him consider what would have been the result upon
the moral condition of our race, had all men ever held this
conviction. Perhaps you have led a youth of dissipation and excess
which has undermined and enfeebled your constitution,
and you have transmitted this injured and enfeebled con
stitution to your children. They suffer, in consequence,
through life ; suffering, perhaps even sin, is entailed upon
them ; your repentance, were it sackcloth and ashes, can
not help you or them. Your punishment is tremendous,
but it is legitimate, and inevitable. You have broken
Nature's laws, or you have ignored them ; and no one
violates or neglects them with impunity. What a lesson
for timely reflection and obedience is here !
Again, — You have broken the seventh commandment.
You grieve, you repent, you resolutely determine against
any such weakness in future. It is well. But " you
know that God is merciful, you feel that he will forgive
you." You are comforted. But no — there is no forgive
ness of sins : the injured party may forgive you, your ac
complice or victim may forgive you, according to the mean
ing of human language ; but the deed is done, and all the
powers of Nature, were they to conspire in your behalf,
could not make it undone : the consequences to the body,

342 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
the consequences to the soul, though no man may perceive
them, are there, are written in the annals of the Past, and
must reverberate through all time.*
But all this, let it be understood, in no degree militates
against the value or the necessity of repentance. Repent
ance, contrition of soul, bears, like every other act, its
own fruit, the fruit of purifying the heart, of amending
the future, not, as man has hitherto conceived, of effacing
the Past. The commission of sin is an irrevocable act,
but it does not incapacitate the soul for virtue. Its con
sequences cannot be expunged, but its course need not be
pursued. Sin, though it is ineffaceable, calls for no des
pair, but for efforts more energetic than before. Repent
ance is still as valid as ever ; but it is valid to secure the
future, not to obliterate the past.
The moral to be drawn from these reflections is this : —
God has placed the lot of man — not, perhaps, altogether
of the Individual, but certainly of the Race — in his own
hands, by surrounding him with fixed laws, on knowledge
of which, and on conformity to which, his well-being de
pends. The study of these, and the principle of obedience
to them, form, therefore, the great aim of education, both
of men and nations. They must be taught —
1. The physical laws, on which God has made health to
depend. 2. The moral laws, on which He has made happiness
to depend.-f
3. The intellectual laws, on which He has made know
ledge to depend.
4. The social and political laws, on which He has made
national prosperity and advancement to depend.
5. The economic laws, on which He has made wealth to
depend. * [I have left this whole argument just as it was written five-and-twenty
years ago ; because, though I recognise its painful harshness, I am unable to
detect any flaw in the substance of its logic. ]
t " There is nothing which more clearly marks the Divine Government
than the difficulty of distinguishing between the natural and the superna
tural; between ihe. penalty attached to the breach of the written law, and
the consequence, which we call natural, though it is in fact the penalty at
tached to the breach of the unwritten law. . - . . . In the divine law,
the penalty always grows_ out of the offence." — State of Man before the
Promulgation of Christianity, p. 108.

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 343
A true comprehension of all these, and of their unex
ceptional and unalterable nature, would ultimately rescue
mankind from all their vice and nearly all their suffering
— save casualties and sorrows.
VI. The ascetic and depreciating view of life, inculca
ted by ordinary Christianity, appear to us erroneous, both
in its form and in its foundation. How much of it belongs
to Christ, how much to the apostles, and how much was
the accretion of a subsequent age, is not easy to deter
mine. It appears in the Epistles as well as in the, Gos
pels ; and in the hands of preachers of the present day it
has reached a point at which it is unquestionably un
sound, noxious, and insincere. In Christ this asceticism
assumes a mild and moderate form ; being simply the
doctrine of the Essenes, modified by his own exquisite
judgment and general sympathies, and dignified by the
conviction that to men, who had so arduous and perilous
a work before them as that to which he and his disciples
were pledged, the interests, the affections, the enjoyments
of this life must needs be of very secondary moment.
With him it is confined almost entirely to urging his
hearers not to sacrifice their duties (and by consequence
their rewards) to earthly and passing pleasures, and to
teaching them to seek consolation under present priva
tions in the prospect of future blessedness. " Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."
" What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole
world and lose his own soul 1 or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul ? " Luke xiv. 26, 33, appears at
first sight to go further than this ; but even these verses
are only a hyperbolical expression of 'a universal truth ,
viz., that a man cannot cast himself with effect into any
great or dangerous achievement, unless he is prepared to
subdue and set at nought all interfering interest-, and
feelings. That the apostles, called to fight against principalities
and powers, obliged to hold life and all its affections
cheap, because the course of action in which they were
engaged perilled these at every step, finding the great ob-

344 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
stacle to their success in the tenacity with which their
hearers clung to those old associations, occupations, and
enjoyments, which embracing the new faith would oblige
them to forswear, — impressed, moreover, with the solemn
and tremendous conviction that the world was falling to
pieces, and that their own days and their own vision
would witness the final catastrophe of nature ; — that the
apostles should regard with unloving eyes that world of
which their hold was so precarious and their tenure so
short, and should look with amazement and indignation
upon men who would cling to a doomed and perishing
habitation, instead of gladly sacrificing everything to ob
tain a footing in the new Kingdom was natural, and,
granting the premises, rational and wise.
But for Divines in this day, when the profession of
Christianity is attended with no peril, when its practice
even demands no sacrifice, save that preference of duty
to enjoyment which is the first law of cultivated hu
manity, to repeat the language, profess the feelings, incul
cate the notions of men who lived in daily dread of such
awful martyrdom, and under the excitement of such a
mighty misconception ; to cry down this world, with its
profound beauty, its thrilling interests, its glorious works,
its noble and holy affections ; to exhort their hearers,
Sunday after Sunday, to detach their hearts from the
earthly life as inane, fleeting, and unworthy, and fix it
upon Heaven, as the only sphere deserving the love of
the loving or the meditation of the wise, — appears to us,
we confess, frightful insincerity, the enactment of a wicked
and gigantic lie. The exhortation is delivered and
listened to as a thing of course ; and an hour afterwards
the preacher, who has thus usurped and profaned the
language of an apostle who wrote with the faggot and
the cross full in view, is sitting comfortably with his
hearer over his claret ; they are fondling their children,
discussing public affairs or private plans in life with pas
sionate interest, and yet can look at each other without
a smile or a blush for the sad and meaningless farce they
have been acting !
Yet the closing of our connection with this earthly

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 345
scene is as certain and probably as near to us as it was
to the apostles. Death is as close to us as the end of the
world was to them. It is not, therefore, their misconcep
tion on this point which makes their view of life unsound
and insincere when adopted by us. We believe it to be
erroneous in itself, and to proceed upon false conceptions
of our relation to time and to futurity. The doctrine, as
ordinarily set forth, that this world is merely one of pro
bation and preparation, we entirely disbelieve. The idea
of regarding it as merely a portal to another is simply an
attempt to solve the enigma of life ; a theory to explain
the sufferings of man, and to facilitate the endurance of
them ; to supply the support and consolation which man's
weakness cannot dispense with, but which he has not yet
learned to draw from deeper and serener fountains. We,
on the contrary, think that everything tends to prove
that this life is, not perhaps, not probably, our only
sphere, but still an integral one, and the one with which
we are meant to be concerned. The present is our scene
of action — the future is for speculation, and for trust. We
firmly believe that man was sent upon the earth to live
in it, to enjoy it, to study it, to love it, to embellish it—
to make the most of it, in short. It is his country, on
which he should lavish his affections and his efforts.
Spartam nactus es — hanc exorna. It should be to him
a house, not a tent — a home, not only a school. If, when
this house and this home are taken from him, Providence
in its wisdom and its bounty provides him with another,
let him be deeply grateful for the gift — let him transfer
to that future, when it has become his present, his exer
tions, his researches, and his love. But let him rest as
sured that he is sent into this world, not to be constantly
hankering after, dreaming- of, preparing for, another
which may, or may not, be in store for him — but to do
his duty and fulfil his destiny on earth — to do all that
lies in his power to improve it, to render it a scene of
elevated happiness to himself, to those around him, to
those who are to come after him. So will he avoid those
tormenting contests with Nature — those struggles to sup
press affections which God has ¦ implanted, sanctioned,
W

346 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
and endowed with irresistible supremacy — those agonies
of remorse when he finds that God is too strong for him
— which now embitter the lives of so many earnest and
sincere souls : so will he best prepare for that future
which we hope for — if it come ; — so will he best have
occupied the present, if the present be his all. To de
mand, that we shall love Heaven more than Earth— that
the Unseen shall hold a higher place in our affections
than tbe Seen and the Familiar — is to ask that which
cannot be obtained without subduing Nature, and
inducing a morbid condition of the Soul. The very law
of our being is love of fife and all its interests and adorn
ments. This love of the world in which our lot is cast, this
engrossment with the interests and affections of Earth,
has in it nothing necessarily low or sensual. It is wholly
apart from love of wealth, of fame, of ease, of splendour,
of power, of what is commonly called worldliness. It is
the love of Earth as the garden on which the Creator
has lavished such miracles of beauty, as the habitation
of humanity, the arena of its conflicts, the scene of its
illimitable progress, the dwelling-place of the wise, the
good, the active, the loving, and the dear.
" It is not the purpose and end of this discourse, to
raise such seraphical notions of the vanity and pleasures
of this world, as if they were not worthy to be considered,
or could have no relish with virtuous and pious men.
They take very unprofitable pains who endeavour to per
suade men that they are obliged wholly to despise this
world and all that is in it, even whilst they themselves
live here : God hath not taken all that pains in forming,
and framing, and furnishing, and adorning the world,
that they who were made by Him to live in it should de
spise it ; it will be enough if they do not love it so im
moderately as to prefer it before Him who made it : nor
shall we endeavour to extend the notions of the Stoic
Philosophers, and stretch them further by the help of
Christian precepts, to the extinguishing all those affec
tions and passions which are and will always be insepar
able from human nature. As long as the world lasts, and

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 347
honour, and virtue, and industry have reputation in the
world, there will be ambition and emulation and appetite
in the best and most accomplished men in it ; if there
should not be, more barbarity and vice and wickedness
would cover every nation of the world, thanjt yet suffers
under."* *
It is difficult to decide whether exhortations to ascetic
undervaluing of this life, as an insignificant and unworthy
portion of existence, have done most injury to our virtue,
by demanding feelings which are unnatural, and which,
therefore, if attained, must be morbid, if merely professed,
must be insincere — or to the cause of social progress, by
teaching us to look rather to a future life for the com
pensation of social evils, than to this life for their cure.
It is only those who feel a deep interest in and affection
for this world, who will work resolutely for its ameliora
tion ; — those whose affections are transferred to Heaven
acquiesce easily in the miseries of earth ; give them up
as hopeless, as befitting, as ordained ; and console them
selves with the idea of the amends which are one day to
be theirs.")" If we had looked upon this earth as our only
scene, it is doubtful if we should so Ions: have tolerated
its more monstrous anomalies and more curable evils.
But it is easier to look to a future paradise than to strive
to make one upon earth ; and the depreciating and hol
low language of preachers has played into the hands both
of the insincerity and the indolence of man.
I question whether the whole systeni of professing
Christians is not based in a mistake, whether it be not
an error to strive after spirituality — after a frame of
mind, that is, which is attainable only by incessant con
flict with the instincts of our unsophisticated nature, by
macerating the body into weakness and disorder ; by dis
paraging what we see to be beautiful, know to be won-
* Lord Clarendon's Essay on Happiness.
+ " I sorrowfully admit, that when I count up among my personal ac
quaintances all whom I think to be the most decidedly given to spiritual
contemplation, and to make religion rule in their hearts, at least three out
of four appear to have been apathetic towards all improvement of this
world's systems, and a majority have been virtual conservatives of evil, and
hostile to political and social reform as diverting men's energies from
Eternity. "--Note by a Friend.

348 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
derful, feel to be unspeakably dear and fascinating ; by (in
a word) putting down the nature which God has given us,
to struggle after one which He has not bestowed. Man is
sent into the world, not a spiritual, but a composite being,
a being mad^aip of body and mind — the body having, as
is fit and needful in a material world, its full, rightful,
and allotted share. Life should be guided by a full rec
ognition of this fact ; not denying it as we do in bold
words, and admitting it in weaknesses and inevitable fail
ings. Man's spirituality will come in the next stage of
his being, when he is endowed with the o-oi/m irveu/xartKov.
Each in its order : " first, that which is natural ; after
wards, that which is spiritual." The body will be dropped
at death : — till then God meant it to be commanded, but
never to be neglected, despised, or ignored, under pain of
heavy consequences.
The two classes of believers in future progress — those
who believe in the future perfection of the individual, and
those who believe in the future perfection of the race —
are moved to different modes of action. Perhaps they
ought not to be ; but from the defects of our reason, and
from personal feelings, they generally are. It is a ques
tion, however, whether the world, i.e., the human race,
will not be more benefited by the labours of those who
look upon Heaven as a state to be attained on earth by
future generations, than by those who regard it as the
state to be attained by themselves after death, in another
world. The latter will look only, or mainly, to the im
provement of their own character and capacities ; — the
former will devote their exertions to the amelioration of
their kind and their habitation. The latter are too easily
induced to give up earth as hopeless and incorrigible ; —
the former, looking upon it as the scene of blessed exist
ence to others hereafter, toil for its amendment and em
bellishment. There is a vast fund of hidden selfishness,
or what, at least, has often the practical effect of such, in
the idea of Heaven as ordinarily conceived ; and much of
the tolerated misery of earth may be traced to it.*
* See some very interesting reflections on this subject (with which, how
ever, I do not at all agree), by Sir James Mackintosh (Life, 120-122). See

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 349
Do we then mean that our future prospects have no
claim on our attention here ? Far from it. The fate of
the Soul after it leaves those conditions under which
alone we have any cognizance of its existence, the possi
bility of continued and eternal being, and the character
of the scenes in which that being will be developo'i, must
always form topics of the profoundest interest, and the
most ennobling and refining contemplation. These great
matters will of necessity, from their attractions, and
ought, from their purifying tendencies, to occupy much
of the leisure of all thinking and aspiring minds. Those
whose affections are ambitious, whose conceptions are
lofty, whose imagination is vivid, eloquent, and daring —
those to whom this life has been a scene of incessant fail
ure — those " Whom Life hath wearied in its race of hours,"
who, harassed and toil-worn, sink under the burden of
their three-score years — those who, having seen friend,
parent, child, wife, successively removed from the homes
they beautified and hallowed, find the balance of attrac
tion gradually inclining in favour of another life, — all
such will cling to these lofty speculations with a tenacity
of interest which needs no injunction, and will listen to
no prohibition. All we wish to suggest is, that they should
be regarded rather as the consoling privilege of the aspi
ring, the way-worn, the weary, the bereaved, than as the
inculcated duty of youth in its vigour, or beauty in its
prime. Yet, having said thus much by way of combating an
erroneous view of life which appears to lead to a perilous
and demoralizing insincerity, I would not be thought in
capable of appreciating the light which the contemplation
of the future may let in upon thepresent.nor the effect which
that contemplation is fitted to produce on the development
of th e higher portions of our nature. One of the most diffi
cult, and at the . same time the gravest, of the practical
problems of life, is the right adjustment of the respective
also some curious speculations by a Communistic Frenchman, Pierre Leroux,
in his work De 1' Humanity,

350 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
claims of heaven and earth upon the time and thought of
man : — how much should be given to performing the du
ties and entering into the interests of the world, and how
much to preparation for a better ; — how much to action,
and how much to meditation ; — how much to the culti
vation and purification of our own character, and how
much to the public service of our fellow-men. Nor is this
nice problem adaquately solved by saying that Heaven is
most worthily served, and most surely won, by a scrupu
lous discharge of the duties of our earthly station ; and
that constant labour for the good of others will af
ford the best development for the purer portions of our
own character. There is much truth in this ; but there is
not complete truth. The man whose whole life is spent
in discharging with diligence and fidelity the toils of his
allotted position in society, or whose every hour is devoted
to the details of philanthropic exertions, is in a rare de
gree " a good and faithful servant ; " yet it is impossible
not to perceive that he may pass through life with many
depths of his being altogether unsounded, with the rich
est secrets of the soul undiscovered and unguessed, with
many of the loftiest portions of his character still latent
and unimproved ; and that when he passes through the
portals of the grave, and reaches the new Existence, he
will entei- it a wholly unprepared and astonished stranger.
Much quiet meditation, much solitary introspection, which
the man involved in the vortex of active and public life
has rarely leisure to bestow, seem requisite to gain a clear
conception of the true objects and meaning of existence —
of the relation which our individual entities hold with
the Universe around us and the Great Spirit which per
vades it. Without this deep and solitary communing
with our inner Nature, the most energetic and untiring
Philanthropist or Duty-doer among us appears little more
than an instrument in the hands of the Creator — a -
useful and noble one, certainly, yet still an instrument —
for the production of certain results, but scarcely to have
attained to the dignity of a distinct and individual Intelli
gence — an agent who comprehends himself and the nature

CHRISTIAN ECLECTICISM. 351
of the work in which he is engaged, as well as the mere
routine of its performance.
Again, notwithstanding all that has been said as to the
admirable effect of action on the character, it is certain
that there are many points of personal morality from
which a life of busy and even meritorious activity almost
unavoidably diverts our attention. The temper, the appe
tites, the passions, require a ceaseless and guarded watchful
ness, to which incessant exertion is, to say the least, certainly
not favourable.
On the other hand, too frequent a reflection, too deep
an insight — too vivid a realization of the great mysteries
of Being, would be apt to shrivel up into microscopic in
significance all the cares, toils, and interests of this life,
as entirely to paralyze our zeal and^energy concerning them.
If we were literally to " live as seeing Him who is invis
ible," the common works of earth could no longer be per
formed, save as a duty, and in a dream. It is well for us
that we " walk by faith, and not by sight." If we could
realize both the nearness and fulness of Eternity, we
should be unfitted for the requirements of this earthly
state.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE GREAT ENIGMA.
We are accustomed to say that Christ brought life and
immortality to light by his Gospel ; by which we mean, —
not that he first taught the doctrine of a future life,
scarcely even that he threw any new light on the nature
of that life ; for the doctrine was held, long before
he lived, by many uncivilized tribes ; it was the received
opinion of most, if not all, among the Oriental nations ;
and it was an established tenet of the most popular and
powerful sect among the Jews ; — but that he gave to the
doctrine, for the first time, an authoritative sanction ; he
announced it as a direct revelation from the Deity ; and
as it were, exemplified and embodied it in its own resurrec
tion. But, as we have already come to the conclusion
that Christianity was not a Revelation in the ordinary
sense of the word, Christ's inculcation of the doctrine
becomes simply the added attestation of the most pious
and holy man who ever lived, to a faith which has been
cherished by the pious and the holy of all times and of
all lands.
In this view of Christianity, a future life becomes to
us no longer a matter of positive knowledge — a revealed
fact — but simply a matter of faith, of hope, of earnest
desire ; a sublime possibility, round which meditation and
inquiry will collect all the probabilities they can.
Christianity adds nothing certain to our convictions or to
our knowledge on the subject, however rich it may be in
suggestions of the truth. Let us, therefore, by a short
statement of its views of futurity, see how far they are
such as can be accepted by a cultivated and inquiring
age. It may seem to many a strange observation, but we
greatly question whether the views of Christ regarding
the future world (so far as we can gather them from the

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 353
imperfect and uncertain records of his sayings, which
alone we have to go by) were not less in advance of those
current in his age and country, than his views upon any
other topic. The popular opinion — that he made that a
matter of certainty which before was only a matter of
speculation — has blinded our perceptions on this point.
When we put aside this common misconception, and
come to examine what the notions inculcated by the
gospel concerning the nature of this futurity really
were, we shall be surprised and pained to find how little
they added, and how little they rose superior, to those
current among the Pharisees and the Essenes at the date
of its promulgation ; and perhaps even how far they fell
short of those attained by some pious Pagans of an
earlier date.
The scriptural idea of Heaven, so far as we can collect
it from the Gospels, seems to have been : —
1 . That it was a scene hallowed and embellished by the
more immediate, or at least more perceptible, presence of
God, who is constantly spoken of as " Our Father who is
in Heaven." It is the local dwelling-place of the Creator,
lying exterior to and above the Earth, and into which
Christ visibly ascended. Indeed, notwithstanding the dis
tinct and repeated assertions of the perpetual superintend
ence of God, He is depicted much more as a local and limit
ed, and much less as a pervading and spiritual Being, in
the New Testament than in many of the Psalms and in
Job. The delineations of the former are far more simple,
affectionate, and human — far more tinged with anthro
pomorphism, in the tone at least ; those of the latter more
vague, more sublime, more spiritual. In this point, the
gospel idea of one of the attributes of Heaven, though
eminently beautiful, natural, and attractive, will scarcely
bear scrutiny. That in a future state we shall be more
conscious of God's presence, is not only probable, but is a
necessary consequence of the extension and purification of
our faculties : — that He dwells there more than here is an
obviously untenable conception. The notion may be said
to be subjectively true, but objectively false.
2, That Heaven would be a scene of retribution for the

354 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
deeds and characters of earth has been the view of: its
essential nature taken by nearly all nations which have
believed in its existence : to this idea the gospel has added
nothing new. That it would also be a state of compensa
tion, to rectify the inequalities and atone for the sufferings
of our sublunary life, has long been the consolatory notion
of the disappointed and the sorrow-stricken. This idea
Christianity especially encourages ; nay, unless we are to
allow an unusually free deduction for the hyperbolical
language which the New Testament habitually employs,
it would appear to carry it to an extent scarcely reconcil
able with sober reason or pure justice; almost countenan
cing the notion — so seducing to the less worthy feelings of
the discontented and the wretched — not only that their
troubles will be compensated by proportionate excess of
future joy, but that earthly prosperity will, per se, and
apart from any motion of moral retribution, constitute a
title to proportionate suffering hereafter — that, in truth,
Heaven will be the especial and exclusive patrimony of
the poor and the afflicted. " Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted." " Blessed be ye poor, for
yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger
now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh. But woe unto ye that are rich, for ye
have received your consolation. Woe unto ye that are
full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto ye that laugh now,
for ye shall weep." The parable of Dives and Lazarus
inculcates the same notion. " Son, remember that thou in
thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Laz
arus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tor
mented." It is very difficult to discover on what worthy
conception of Divine Providence the ideas inculcated in
these last quotations can be justified, or how they can be
reconciled with the doctrine of a just moral retribution ;
and it is equally difficult to shut our eyes to the encour
agement they may give and have given to the envious
and malignantfeelingsof grovelling and uncultured minds*
* See Eugene Aram, chap. viii. , for an illustration. A Calvinist peasant
considered that the choicest bliss of Heaven would be "to look down into
the other place, and see the folk grill." Tertullian has a passage, part of

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 355
3. The eternal duration of the future existence has,
we believe, with all nations formed a constituent element
of the doctrine ; though it is so far from being a neces
sary one, that it is not easy to discover whence its uni
versal adoption is to be traced. To this idea Scripture
has added another, which presents a stumbling-block to
our moral and our metaphysical philosophy alike — viz.,
the unchanging character of both its pains and pleasures.
We attempt in vain to trace in the gospel the least evi
dence that the future state is to be regarded as one of
progress — that its sufferings are to be probationary and
purifying, and therefore terminable ; or its joys elevating
and improving, and therefore ever advancing. If any
doctrine be distinctly taught by Scripture on this point,
it clearly is, that the lot of each individual is fixed for
ever at the judgment day. In this it stands below some
both Pagan and Oriental conceptions. The .gospel view
of the eternity of the future life, which fully approves
itself to our reason, is one which it shares with all the
ories : its conception of the eternity of future punish
ments, in which probably it stands almost alone, is one,
the revolting character of which has been so strongly
felt, that the utmost ingenuity both of criticism and logic,
has been strained for centuries — the first, to prove that
the doctrine is not taught, the second, to prove that it
ought to be received. Neither have quite succeeded. It
is difficult to maintain that the doctrine is not taught in
Scripture, if the clear language of special texts is to be
taken as our guide ; and it was probably held by the
apostles and the first Christians ; and all the attempts
yet made to reconcile the doctrine with divine justice
and mercy are calculated to make us blush alike for the
human heart that can strive to justify such a creed, and
for the human intellect which can delude itself into a
belief that it has succeeded in such justification.
That would be* a great book, and he would be a great
man that should detect and eliminate the latent and dis-

whieh Gibbon quotes (c. xv.), expressing the same idea in language quite
as horrible. We believe there is a similar passage in Baxter's Saints'

Rest.

356 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
figured truth that lies at the root of every falsehood ever
yet believed among men. In Scripture we meet with
several doctrines which may be considered as the approxi
mate formula, the imperfect, partial, and inaccurate ex
pression, of certain mighty and eternal verities. Thus,
the spirituality of Christ's character and the superhuman
excellence of his life, lie at the bottom of the dogma of
the Incarnation ; which was simply " a mistake of the
morally for the physically divine," an idea carnalized
into a fact. In the same manner, the doctrine of the
eternity of future punishments, false as it must be in its
ordinary signification, contains a glimpse of one of the
most awful and indisputable truths ever presented to the
human understanding — viz., the eternal and ineffaceable
consequences of our every action, the fact that every
word and every deed produces effects which must, by7 the
very nature of things, reverberate through all time, so
that the whole of futurity would be different had that
word never been spoken, or that deed enacted.*
* " The pulsations of the air, once set in motion by the human voice,
cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Strong and au
dible as they may be in the immediate neighbourhood of the speaker, and at
the immediate moment of utterance, their quickly-attenuated force soon
becomes inaudible to human ears. But the waves of air thus raised peram
bulate the earth's and ocean's surface, and in less than twenty hours every
atom of its atmosphere takes up the altered movement due to that infini
tesimal portion of primitive motion which has been conveyed to it through
countless channels, and which must continue to influence its path through
out its future existence.
" But these aerial pulses, unseen by the keenest eye, unheard by the
acutest ear, unperceived by human senses, are yet demonstrated to exist by hu
man reason ; and in some few and limited instances, by calling to our aid the
most refined and comprehensive instrument of human thought (mathemati
cal analysis), their courses are traced, and their intensities measured. . . .
Thus considered, what a strange chaos is this wide atmosphere we breathe !
Every atom impressed with good and with ill, retains at once the motions
which philosophers and sages have imparted to it, mixed and combined in
ten thousand ways with all that is worthless and base, The air itself is one
vast library, on whose pages is forever written all that man has ever said or
even whispered. There, in their mutable, but unerring characters, mixed
with the earliest as well as the latest sighs of mortality, stand for ever
recorded, vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetuating, in the
united movements of each particle, the testimony of man's changeful
wiU. " But if the air we breathe is the never-f ailing historian-of the sentiments
we have uttered, earth, air, and ocean, are in like manner the eternal wit
nesses of the acts we have done  No motion impressed by natu
ral causes or by human agency is ever obliterated. The track oi every

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 357
There is therefore a sense in which the eternity of fu
ture punishment may be irrefragably and terribly true 
if that very enhancement of our faculties in a future life
which enables us to perceive and trace the ineffaceable
consequences of our idle words and our evil deeds, should
render our remorse and grief as eternal as those conse
quences themselves. No more fearful punishment to a
superior Intelligence can be conceived than to see still in
action — with the consciousness that it must continue in
action for ever — a cause of wrong put in motion by it
self ages before. Let us trust either that our capacities
will be too limited for this awful retribution, or that the
resources of Omnipotence may be adequate to cancel or to
veil the Past.
4. It is remarkable that while in the New Testament
the delights of Heaven are always depicted as consisting
in the exercise and development of the spiritual affec
tions, the pains of Hell are as constantly delineated as
phy steal. The joys of the one state are those of the in
tellect and the Soul ; the sufferings of the other those of
the body only. In the gospel pictures, Heaven is "to
sit at the right hand of the Father ; " Hell is " to burn in
unquenchable fire." Unless there be some deep meaning
canoe which has yet disturbed the surface of the ocean, remains for ever
registered in the future movements of all succeeding particles which may oc
cupy its place.
" Whilst the atmosphere we breathe is the ever-living witness of the sen
timents we have uttered, the waters and the more solid materials of the
globe, bear equally enduring testimony of the acts we have committed. If
the Almighty stamped on the brow of the earliest murderer the visible and
indelible mark of his guilt, he has also established laws by which every
succeeding criminal is not less irrevocably chained to the testimony of his
crime ; for every atom of his mortal frame, through whatever changes its
severed particles may migrate, will still retain, adhering to it through
every combination, some movement derived from that very muscular effort
by which the crime itself was perpetrated. " — Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater
Treatise, c. ix.
" If we imagine the soul in an after stage of existence, connected with an
organ of hearing so sensitive as to vibrate with motions of the air, even of
infinitesimal force and if it be still within the precincts of its ancient abode,
all the accumulated words pronounced from the creation of mankind will
fall at once on that ear ; . . • • and the punished offender may hear
still vibrating on his ear the very words uttered perhaps thousands of cen
turies before, which at once caused and registered his own condemnation,"
— Ibid. c. xii.

358 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
hidden under this apparent inconsistency ; unless it be
intended to intimate to us that the blessed will be made
purely spiritual, and that the damned will be wholly ab
sorbed in their corporeality — an idea which it is difficult
to admit ; it seems strange that the description of Hea
ven as consisting in communion with God and with the
Jus't made perfect, should not have suggested the correl
ative idea that Hell must consist in " living with the
Devil and his angels ; " in fact, what more horrible con
ception of it could be formed ?
5. But perhaps the most imperfect and inadmissible
point in the Scriptural conception of the Future World
is that which represents it as divided into two distinct
states, separated by an impassable barrier, decidedly on
one or other side of which the eternal destiny of every
one is cast. Such an arrangement, it is obvious, is in
compatible with any but the rudest idea of righteous re
tribution, and could only be the resource of imperfect
justice and imperfect power. For as in this world there
is every possible gradation of virtue and of vice, which
run into each other by the most imperceptible degrees,
and are often only distinguishable by the minutest shade
— so in the next world there must be every possible gra
dation of reward and punishment. A trenchant line of
demarcation, which from its nature must be arbitrary,
and which every one who overpasses by a hair's-breadth
must overpass by a great gulf, could only be the inven
tion of a judge of finite and imperfect capacity, for the
more convenient dispatch of judgment. That, of two in
dividuals whose degree of virtue is so similar that the
question of precedence can neither be decided by the
keenest human insight, nor expressed by the finest min
utiae of human language, one should be rewarded with
eternal joy, and the other condemned to everlasting tor
ment, is assuredly among the rudest of religious concep
tions. Yet, to all appearance, such is the notion of future
retribution held by the New Testament writers.
The doctrine of a future life has been firmly held in
all ages and by every order of minds. The reasonings

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 3v59
ordinarily adduced in proof of this doctrine have always
appeared to me deplorably weak and inconclusive ; so
much so as clearly to indicate that they do not form the
grounds on which it has been believed, but are merely
subsequent attempts to justify that belief. The creed be
ing there, human reason, in the endeavour to account for
it, has surrounded it with props and crutches of every
conceivable degree of weakness ; and these post-dated
supports have been mistaken for the foundation. But
they are not so ; and we must at once distinguish be
tween the conviction and the arguments by which the
mind (erroneously supposing it to be based on argument,
and to need argument for its justification) has sought to
build it up. Logic never originated it, logic can never
establish it. All that can properly be called reasoning,
i.e., inference deduced from observation, appears to point
the other way. It is remarkable, too, that while the doc
trine is announced with the utmost clearness and posi-
tiveness in the New Testament, all the attempts there
made to bring arguments in its favour, to prove it logi
cally, or even to establish a reasonable probability for it,
are futile in the extreme.* Nature throws no light upon
the subject ; the phenomena we observe could never have
suggested the idea of a renewed existence beyond the
grave ; physiological science, as far as it speaks at all,
* The reasoning ascribed to Jesus (Luke xx. 37) — " Now that the dead
are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is
not a God of the dead, but of the living " — it is scarcely possible to regard
as anything but a verbal ingenuity. Paul's logic (Romans viii. 16,17 ; and
1 Thess. iv. 14) is, to say the least of it, feeble and far-fetched. While the
well-known passage in 1 Cor. xy. 12-16, is one of the most marvellous speci
mens extant of reasoning in a -circle. On this, see Newman on the Soul, p.
185 ; Bush's Anastasis, p. 170.
In one point of the view of a future existence there would appear to be a
remarkable coincidence between the notions of the Pagan philosophers and
those of the more enlightened among the_ Jews and some of the early Chris
tians. The Ancients seem to have imagined that only the Great would live
again ; that the mass of souls, the ol iroWoi, were not worth resuscitating.
Thus Tacitus ( Vit. Agr.), " Si quis piorum manibus Iocub, si, ut sapientibus
placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magna: animal," &c. Cicero de Se-
nect. - - " O prseclaram diem, cum ad illud divinum animorum concilium cce-
tumque proficiscar," &c. See the above passages in the Epistles. Also
Anastasis 169, 252 ; in Luke xx. 35 ; remarkable expression, " They which
shall be accounted worthy," Sec.

360 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
distinctly negatives it. Appearances all testify to the
reality and permanence of death ; a fearful onus of proof
lies upon those who contend that these appearances are
deceptive. When we interrogate the vast universe of or
ganization, we see, not simply life and death, but grad
ually growing life, and gradually approaching death.
After death, all that we have ever- known of a man is
gone;* all we have ever seen of him is dissolved into its
component elements; it does not disappear, so as to
leave us at liberty to imagine that it may have gone to
exist elsewhere, but is actually used up as materials for
other purposes. So completely is this the case that, as
Sir James Mackintosh observes, " the doctrine of a resur
rection could scarcely have arisen among a people who
buried their dead." Moreover, the growth, decay, and
dissolution we observe, are, to all appearance, those of
the mind as well as the body. We see the mind, the
affections, the Soul (if you will), gradually arising, form
ing (for no other expression adequately describes the
phenomenon), as the body waxes, sympathizing in all the
permanent changes and temporary variations of the body,
diseased with its diseases, enfeebled by its weakness, dis
ordered by dyspepsia or suppressed gout, utterly meta
morphosed past recognition by cerebral affection, hope-
* [A modification of this phrase would seem to be necessary. "There is
one indication of immortality which must not be left out of consideration,
though, of course, its value will be very differently estimated by different
minds. I refer to that spontaneous, irresistible, and perhaps nearly univer
sal feeling we experience on watching, just after death, the body of one we
have intimately known ; the conviction, I mean (a sense, a consciousness,
an impression which you have to fight against if you wish to shake it off), that
the form lying there is somehow not the ego you have loved. It does not
produce the effect of that person's personality. You miss the Ego, though
you have the frame. The visible Presence only makes more vivid the sense
of actual absence. Every feature, every substance, every phenomenon is
there — and is unchanged. You have teen the eyes as firmly closed, the
limbs as motionless, the breath almost as imperceptible, the face as fixed
and expressionless, before, in sleep or in trance— without the same peculiar
sensation. The impression made is indefinable, and is not the result of any
conscious process of thought, that that body, quite unchanged to the eye, IS
'not, and never was, your friend — the Being you were conversant with — that
his or her individuality was not the garment before you plus a galvanic cur
rent ; that, in fact, the EGO you knew once, and seek still, was not that — is
not there. And if not there, it must be elsewhere or nowhere, and ' nowhere,'
I believe modern science will not suffer us to predicate of either force or
substance that once has been. " — Enigmas of Life, Preface vii.]

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 361
lessly deranged by a spicula of bone penetrating the brain,
actually suppressed by a vascular effusion or a cranial de
pression, wearied as the body ages, and gradually sinking
into imbecility as the body dies away in helplessness.
The sudden destruction of the corporeal frame by an ac
cident, at a moment when the mind was in its fullest
vigour, might possibly 'suggest the idea of a transference
to other scenes of so manifest an Entity, so undeniable a
Power — the slow and synchronous extinction of the bodily
and mental faculties never could. Look, again, at an
infant three years old — two years old — one year old:
we say it has a Soul. But take a new-born babe, an
hour or a minute old : has it a soul, an immortal part or
inmate ? If so, when does it come to it ? at the time of its
separation from the Mother's life ? or a moment before, or a
moment after ? Does the awful decision whether it is to
be a mere perishable animal or a spiritual being depend
upon whether it dies an instant before or an instant after
it first sees the light ? Can the question of its immor
tality — of its being an embryo angel, or a senseless clod
— hang upon such an accident as a maternal movement,
or a clumsy accoucheur ? Inquiries these, our answers
to which can only display either hopeless acquiescence in
a gloomy conclusion, or equally" hopeless struggles to
escape from it.
" Admitting all this," urges one reasoner, " the phe
nomena of life and death, nay, even the doctrine of ma
terialism in all its nakedness, need present no insuperable
difficulty; for the same power which bestowed life is
surely competent to restore it under another form and in
another scene." Unquestionably ; but if we are material
merely — if our inferences from observation are correct—
a renewed existence must be a new creation ; where then
is our identity ? We are not continued, but succeeded*
" But," says another speculator, " how can you tell that
there is not some unascertained portion of the human
frame, infinitesimal, indeed, and evanescent to our senses,
which does not perish with the rest of the corporeal fabric,

Life of Sir James Mackintosh, ii. 120, 121.
X

362 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
but forms the germ which is expanded into the new ex
istence?"* It may be that there is such; but no
shadow of a probability can be adduced for such an as
sumption. It is at best only a mode of conceiving the
possibility of that which, on other grounds, or without
grounds, we have decided to believe. It offers no escape
from the overwhelming weight of inference drawn from
natural appearances.
The philosophical value of the arguments ordinarily
adduced to demonstrate the reality, or at least the high
probability, of an existence after death, will be variously
estimated by different minds. That they possess, accu
rately speaking, no logical cogency, will be admitted by
all candid and competent reasoners ; to us, we confess,
they appear lamentably feeble and inadequate.
By some we are told that the soul is immaterial, and
that by reason of its immateriality it cannot die. How
can human beings, professing to have cultivated their un
derstandings, be content to repeat, and rest in, such
wretched inanities as these ? — at best but the convulsive
flounderings of an intellect out of its depth, deluding itself
into the belief that it has grasped an idea, when it has only
got hold of a word. That the immaterial must of neces-
sity be immortal seems to us an unmeaning assertion on
a matter of which we know absolutely nothing. Of the
nature of the Soul, science has taught us, indeed, little —
far too little to allow us to decide and dogmatize ; but
honesty must admit that the little it has taught us all
points to an opposite conclusion. Alas ! for the Spirit's
immortal trust, if it rested on such scholastic trivialities
as these !
* The ancient Jews held the existence of such a nucleus. ' ' They con
tended that there was an immortal bone in the human body (called by them
ossiculum Luz) which is the germ of the iesurrection-body. This bone, they
held, one might burn, boil, bake, pound, bruise, or attempt to bruise, by
putting it on the anvil and submitting it to the strokes of the sledge-hammer ;
but all in vain. No effect would be produced upon it. It was indestructible
— incorruptible — immortal. " — Bush's Anastasis, p. 177. The author of the
' ' Physical Theory " seems to imagine that the body contains some imperisha
ble nucleus, or particle, or element, in which soul or life resides ; something
as imponderable as light, as imperceptible as electricity, which does not
perish with the coarser elements of our frame, but assumes a higher life,
and collects about it, or evolves, a nobler and subtler organization.

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 363
Again. Much stress is laid on the inference to be
drawn from the general belief of mankind. But this
consideration will lose nearly all its force when we reflect
how easily, in the fond, tender, self-deceptive weakness
of humanity, a belief can grow out of a wish. Regarded
from this point of view, the universal belief in a future
state is only the natural result of universal love of life.
Man, for his preservation, is endowed with an instinctive
love of life, an instinctive horror of destruction — an in
stinct which is strengthened every hour by the mainifold
joys and interests of existence. The prolongation of this
existence becomes a natural desire, which soon ripens
into a passion ; in earlier times, the possibility of a death
less existence upon earth was, we know, the dream, the
hope, the pursuit of many ; but as accumulated experience
speedily dissipated .this form of the longings of nature,
and compelled men to transfer their aspirations to the
other side of the grave, the notion of an invisible futurity
arose. The first natural desire was for an earthly immor
tality ; out of the reluctantly acknowledged impossibility
of realizing this, may have sprung the glorious conception
of a Heavenly existence. If this view of the genesis of
the Universal Creed be correct, the argument drawn from
it falls to the ground ; since the fact of our desire for
any blessing, even when that desire has grown into a
conviction, can offer no proof that it will be bestowed.
It is true that now, thousands who have no wish for a
prolonged existence upon earth, yet long for and believe
in a future life elsewhere. But this is the result partly
of a conviction that the weariness and decay of both
physical and moral powers would make continued life
here a penalty and not a blessing, and partly of a desire
for those higher capacities and nobler pursuits which
they anticipate hereafter. The origin of the aspiration
still remains the same : it is the desire for a happy exis
tence after their conceptions of happiness ; and they
transfer the scene of it to heaven, because they do not see
how these conceptions could be realized on earth, i.e.,
under the ordinary conditions of humanity.
It will be urged that the belief is strongest in the most

364 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
spiritual and religious minds, that is, in those which
dwell most constantly on unseen and superhuman reali
ties. This is true : and we cannot venture to say that to
such minds, raised and purified by heavenly contempla
tions, may not be given a deeper insight into divine
truths than can be attained by those occupied with the
things of earth and time. Still, the fact will admit of
another and more simple explanation ; since it is a well-
known law of our intellectual constitution that topics
and scenes on which the mind habitually and intently
dwells, acquire, ipso facto, an increasing degree of reality
and permanence in our mental vision, out of 'all propor
tion to their certainty or actuality. There is no fancy,
however baseless — no picture, however shadowy and un
real — to which constant and exclusive contemplation will
not impart a consistence, substance, and tenacity, sufficient
to render it unassailable by reason, by experience, and
almost by the information of the senses. And it cannot
be doubted that, however inadequate were the original
grounds for the belief in a future state, yet when once it
was assumed as an article of faith, daily meditation would
soon inevitably confer upon it a firmness and solidity with
which the most demonstrable truths of exact science
would compete in vain.
Much, and as it appears to us undeserved, stress is laid
on the argument derived from the unequal, and appar
ently unjust, apportionment of human lots.
A future life, it is said, is needed to redress the inequal
ities of this. But it is evident that this argument
proceeds upon two assumptions, one of which is clearly
untenable, and the other at least questionable. It assumes
that the Presiding Deity is bound to allot an equal
portion of good to all his creatures ; that to permit the
condition of one human being to be happier than that of
another, is to perpetrate an injustice, — a position for
which it is difficult to imagine any rational defence, and
which must probably be assigned to the unconscious
operation of one of the least worthy passions of our
nature — envy. What possible law can that be which
shall make it the duty of Him who confers his unpur-

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 365
chased gifts " with a mysterious and uncontrollable
sovereignty " to mete out to every being an equal propor
tion of his boons ? The very statement of the proposition
confutes it. All that the creature can demand from the
justice and the love of his Creator, is, that he shall not be
created for wretchedness — that, on the average of his
career, happiness shall predominate over misery — that
existence shall, on the whole, have been a blessing — or,
what perhaps is the same thing, that it shall be fairly
attributable to the voluntary fault — the option — of the
individual, if it be not so. Now, without going so far as
to assert that there are not, and never have been, excep
tions to the general fact that life presents to all a pre
ponderating average of enjoyment, we may well question
whether there are such ; we are sure they must be incal
culably few ; and it is to these exceptional cases only that
the argument can have any application.
But are human lots as unequal in the amount of hap
piness they confer as at first sight would appear ? It is
generally acknowledged that they are not. Without
wishing to maintain even an apparent paradox ; without
arguing that the aggregate balance of enjoyment may
not at the end of life be widely different with the culti
vated and the brutish — the intellectual and the sensual
— the obtuse and the sensitive — the man who has never
known a day's sickness, and the man who has never
known a day's health — the savage who lives beset with
perils and privations, and the noble who lives embosomed
in peace and luxury — the wretched pauper, and the
wealthy millionaire — the man on whom fortune always
smiles, and the man on whom she always frowns — the
man whose children are a glory and a blessing, and him
to whom they are a plague and a reproach — the man
who is hated, and the man who is loved — the man whose
life is a ceaseless struggle, and the man whose life is an
unbroken sleep ; — it is not to be denied that every fresh
insight we obtain into the secrets of each man's lot, equal
izes them more and more ; discovers undreamed-of com
pensations for good and for evil; discloses a vigorous
spirit of enjoyment among the most obviously unfortun-

366 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
ate, and a dark cloud of care brooding over the prosper
ous, which go far to rectify our first hasty judgment of
the inequality of their condition. The inner life of every
man is hidden from his fellows by a thick veil : whenever
accident draws this partly aside, are we not invariably
amazed at the unexpected incongruities it lays bare ? Are
we not on such occasions made aware that we are habitu
ally forming the most egregiously mistaken estimates of
the essential condition of those around us ? For myself I
can truly say that whenever circumstance has made me
intimately acquainted with the deeper secrets of my
fellow-men, I have been utterly confounded at the un
looked-for nature of the revelations. Among the low
est I have found " seeds of almost impossible good ; "
among the most virtuous in appearance (and in some res
pects in reality), guilt or frailty that scarcely any evidence
could make credible ; among the most wretched in out
ward condition, either strange insensibility to suffering,
or an inextinguishable spirit of delight ; among the most
favoured of the children of fortune, some inchoate, or
acted, tragedy hanging like a black thunder-cloud over
their path.
Compensation is the great law everywhere inscribed on
the procedures of Nature. It prevails likewise over hu
man destinies in this life, not perhaps — not probably —
altogether to the extent of equalization, but to an extent
that certainly approaches nearer and nearer to this point,
the wider our knowledge and the deeper our meditation.*
Still, I do not wish to push this argument too far : I merely
* The class whose destiny is by far the most perplexing to the thinker, is
that whose element, whose atmosphere, whose almost necessary condition, we
may say, is that of vice ; the classes dangcrcuses of large towns, who are born
and bred in squalor and iniquity, and never have a chance afforded them to
rise out of it. Their intellect and moral sense are seldom sufficiently devel
oped to afford them the compensation these bring to others. The apparently
hopeless, objectless, noxious existence of these beings, and theii- fearful
power of mischief and of multiplication, have always been, and still remain
tome, "God's most disturbing mystery. " Still we do not know that, on
the whole, even they are miserable. If, however, they are, it would rather
drire us to the startling conclusion that those hare most claim un a future life
irht) lire least fit for it— that the least intellectual, the least moral, the least
spiritual uf the species, are the surest denizens of Heaven \

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 367
wish to show how invalid a foundation it must be for
such a superstructure as we build upon it.
" But the ideal of moral retribution (we are told) neces
sitates a future state. God is a righteous Judge, who will
recompense virtue and punish sin. In this life virtue, we
know, often goes without its reward, and vice without its
punishment : — there must therefore be a future life in
which these respectively await them." Such is the syl
logism on which reason most relies for the establishment
of the Great Tenet. I do not dispute the conclusion : — I
question the soundness of the premisses.
It is evident that the whole cogency of the above syl
logism depends upon the correctness of the assumption
that virtue and vice are not equitably recompensed in this
life. It assumes, first, that we can read the heart and the
circumstances, and see where virtue and vice — merit and
demerit — really lie ; — and, secondly, that we can look into
the lot, and discern where there is, or is not, retribution ;
— that efuilt and innocence are what we deem such, and
that Nemesis executes no sentences but such as meet our
eye. Alas ! for the argument that rests on two postulates
so disputable as these.
What do we know — what can we predicate — of the sin
fulness of any fellow-creature ? Can we say, " this man
is more guilty than that ; " or even, " this man is
very wicked?" We may, indeed, be abie to say, "this
man has lied, has pilfered, has forged ; and that man has
apparently gone through life with clean hands." But can
we say that the first has not struggled long, though un
successfully, against temptations under which the second
would have succumbed without an effort'? We cansay which
has the cleanest hands before man ; — can we say which
has the cleanest soul before God ? We may be able to say,
" this man has committed adultery, and that man has
neve/ been guilty of unchastity ;" — but can we tell that
the innocence of the one may not have been due to the
coldness of his heart — to the absence of a motive — to the
presence of a fear ? And that the fall of the other may
not have been preceded by the most vehement self-con
test — caused by the most over-mastering phrenzy— and

368 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
atoned for by the most hallowing repentance ? We know
that one man is generous and open-handed, and another
close, niggardly, and stern ; but we do not know that the
generosity of the one as well as the niggardliness of the
other may not be a mere yielding to native temperament.
In the eye of Heaven, a long life of beneficence in the one
may have cost less exertion, and may indicate less virtue,
than a few rare hidden acts of kindness wrung by duty
out of the reluctant and unsympathizing nature of the
other. There may be more real merit — more self-sacrific
ing effort — more of the noblest struggles of moral grandeur
in a life of failure, sin, and shame, than in a career, to our
eyes, of stainless integrity. " God seeth not as man seeth."
Let this be a consoling thought to the sinner who, black
as he may be before the world, has yet contrived to keep
some little light burning in his own soul ; — a humbling
and a warning thought to many who now walk proudly
in the sunshine of immaculate fame.
But do we know even the outside life of men ? Are we
competent to pronounce even on their deeds ? Do we know
half the acts of wickedness or of virtue even of our most
immediate fellows ? Can we say with any certainty, even
of our nearest friend, " this man has, or has not, committed
such a sin — broken such a commandment " ? Let each
man ask his own heart. Of how many of our best and of
our worst acts and qualities are our most intimate asso
ciates utterly unconscious ? How many virtues does the
world give us credit for that we do not possess ? How
small a portion of our evil deeds and thoughts ever come
to light ? Even of our few redeeming goodnesses, how
large a portion is known to God only ! Truly, we walk
in a vain show ! *
¦:s " Or what if Heaven for once its searching light
Sent to some partial eye, disclosing all
The rude, bad thoughts, that in our bosom's night
Wander at large, nor heed Love's gentle thrall ;
" Who would not shun the dreary uncouth place ?
As if, fond leaning where her infant slept,
A mother's arm a serpent should embrace ;
So might we friendless live, and die unwept.
" Then keep the softening veil in mercy drawn,
Thou who canst love us, though Thou read us true."
Rebel's Christian Year.

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 369
When we see one whom we know only as a good man
overtaken by a strange calamity, we call it a perplexing
dispensation. But in the secret recesses of that man's
heart, perhaps, how well does he feel to have deserved it,
nay, often, how precisely can he trace back the open
suffering to the secret sin ! Sorrow and darkness come
upon us ; and the World pities us and says, " Poor man !
he has little deserved such a fate." But we know that
if the world knew us as we know ourselves, it would
deem such fate far too light a chastisement for our
iniquities. If it be so with ourselves, may it not be so
with others ? Men accustomed to self-study, and honest
with themselves, often think their prosperity un
merited ; rarely indeed do they think their calamities
heavier than their demerits ; — though they may be often
at a loss — though it may often be impossible — to trace
the connection between them.
We are wholly in the dark, then, as to what retribu
tion is deserved : — we are equally in the dark as to what
retribution is awarded. We could not tell, if it were left
to us, where to reward and where to punish : — neither
can we tell where reward and punishment now actually
fall, nor in what proportion. The retribution may be in
a man's heart or in his lot. In the one case we see it not
at all — in the other we see it very imperfectly. But it is
probable that could we see even half the retribution
that takes place in life, the argument we are considering
would never have arisen. In the weary satiety of the
idle — in the healthy energy of honest labour ; — in the
irritable temper of the selfish — in the serene peace of the
benevolent ; — in the startling tortures of the Soul where
the passions have the mastery — in the calm Elysium
which succeeds their subjugation; — may be traced materials
of retribution sufficient to satisfy the severest justice.
Deeds and states of mind are their own avengers. The
consequence of an act is its reward or punishment. Our
actions in the long run carry their own retribution along
with them. If it were not so, the arrangements of nature
would be at fault. *

1 Men call the circumstance the retribution. The causal retribution is.

370 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
" What did the preacher mean by assuming that
judgment is not executed in this world ; by saying that
the wicked are successful, and the good are miserable, in
the present life ? Was it that houses and lands, offices,
wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men,
whilst the saints are poor and despised ; and that a com
pensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving
them the like gratifications another day — bank stock and
doubloons, venison and champagne ? This must be the
compensation intended, for what else ? Is it that they
are to have leave to pray and praise ? to love and serve
men ? why, they can do these now. The legitimate
inference the disciple would draw, was, ' We are to have
such a good time as the sinners have now ; ' — or, to push
it to its extreme import, ' You sin now ; we shall sin
by-and-by ; we would sin now if we could ; — not being
successful, we expect our revenge to-morrow.'
" The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the
bad are successful, that justice is not done now. The
blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the
base estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly
success, instead of confronting and convicting the world
from the truth ; announcing the presence of the Soul ; the
omnipotence of the will, and so establishing the standard
of good and ill, of success and falsehood, and summoning
the dead to its present tribunal." *
Our false view of the whole subject arises from the
hold still possessed over our minds by the old Jewish
notion, that the good things of this life are the fitting and
the promised recompense of virtue, — that virtue and
prosperity, vice and poverty, are linked together by the
decrees of divine justice. This unacknowledged fallacy
lies at the root of much of our disappointment, and much
in the thing, and is seen by the Soul. The retribution in the circumstance
is seen by the understanding ; it is inseparable from the thing, but is
often spread over a long time, and so does not become distinct for many
years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they
follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of
one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens within the
flower of the pleasure that concealed it. — Emerson, Essay iii.
* Emerson's Essay on Compensation.

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 371
of our surprise and perplexity at the dispensations of
Providence. There is much sound wisdom on this subject
in Mrs. Barbauld's Essay on "Inconsistency in our
Expectations;" still more perhaps in Pope's "Essay on
Man."* Much reliance is placed upon the assertion that Man
possesses faculties which can find no fitting aliment, and
can attain no adequate development, on earth ; and which,
therefore, are supposed to indicate the necessity of a fu
ture scene for their perfection. Many of our powers, we
are told, do not ripen till the close of life ; and reach their
acme just as the approach of death renders them, if this
life be all, of no further use to us. It is contradictory to
all the analogies of nature, it is said, to imagine that Prov
idence has bestowed any capacities or desires for which
an appropriate scope and object have not been appointed.
I confess I do not appreciate the force of this argument ;
it appears to me as if its setters-forth had satisfied them
selves too easily with mere words. It is not true that our
powers — our active powers at least — whether physical or
intellectual, reach their highest development as life draws
to a close. On the contrary, they commonly attain their
height in middle fife, and gradually weaken and decay as
age creeps over the frame. Wisdom, indeed, may be said
in well-constituted minds to increase to the end of life ;
but wisdom is but the accumulated inference from our
experience and our reflection, and will naturally augment
with the perpetual increase of its materials. But memory,
* " But is it not some reproach on the economy of Providence that such a
one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy
half a nation? Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow,
for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it ;
and will you envy him his bargain '.'"— Barbauld, i. 187.
" But sometimes Virtue starves, while "Vice is fed :
What then ? Is the reward of Virtue bread I
That, "Vice may merit ; 'tis the price of toil ;
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil.
The good man may be weak, be indolent ;
Nor fs his claim to plenty, but content.
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The Soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy,
Is Virtue's prize." Pope, Essay iv,

372 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
imagination, the power of acquisition, the power of intel
lectual creation, unquestionably do not continue to ripen
and strengthen after maturity is passed. Nor is it easy
to discover what those faculties are, for which this earth
may not afford a fitting field and ample occupation. Love,
Hope, Fancy, are probably the noblest endowments of
man's moral Being. Cannot Love— even in its richest
profusion and its tenderest refinements — find adequate
exercise amid the varied relations of our mortal existence,
in soothing sorrow, in conferring good, in brightening all
the dark passages of life, and turning earth into an anti
cipated Paradise ? Will any one who has once loved a
fellow-creature with all the passionate energy of an earn
est soul, or who has once melted into rapture with genuine
gratitude to the God who has bestowed such happiness,
dare to say that Love finds no ample development, and
reaps no teeming harvest here ? And Hope ; — is not hope
the spring of all exertion — the origin of all progress — the
conferrer of all strength — along the toilsome and dusty
pathways of the world ? And can it find no worthy ob
ject in the dream of what Humanity, through the efforts
which it stimulates and rewards, may yet become ? And
is Imagination entitled to complain of the narrow field in
which it is permitted to expatiate, because Time and
Space are the allotted limits of its range, so long as it has
the mighty possibilities of human destiny before it, and
Suns and Systems and Firmaments — countless, infinite,
inscrutable — above it ?
" But (it is said) the character, at least, continues grow
ing till the end of life, and many of our best virtues are
the fruit only of the discipline of Life, especially humili
ty, forbearance, resignation, and contentment. Shall then
existence terminate just when the human being is most
fitted to appreciate it, to understand it, to fulfil its aims ?
Is its success to be the signal for its extinction ? Is su
preme excellence to be achieved only to be eclipsed, for
ever ? Is our goal to be our grave ? " I feel the weight
of these considerations, and have nothing to uro-e against
them. But, in truth, all these arguments we have been con-

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 373
sidering are to be taken, not so much as proofs of the
doctrine of a future life, as proofs of man's resolution to
hold that doctrine. They are inadequate to demonstrate
its soundness ; but amply sufficient to show that the be
lief being in man's mind, he knows not how nor whence,
he is determined to maintain it, curious to account for it,
anxious to justify it. Erroneously conceiving that it must
be a product of reason, he. diligently looks about to dis
cover the logical processes which have generated it ; and
clings to the shallowest crudities rather than surrender
(as he conceives) the title-deeds of his faith.
The truth we believe to be, that a future existence is,
and must be, a matter of information or intuition not of
inference. The intellect may imagine it, but could never
have discovered it, and can never prove it — the Soul must
have revealed it ; must, and does, perpetually reveal it.
It is a matter which comes properly within the cognizance
of the Soul* — of that spiritual sense, to which on such
topics we must look for information, as we look to our
bodily senses for information touching the things of earth
— things that lie within their province. We never dream
of doubting what they tell us of the external world, though
a Berkeley should show us that their teaching is at vari
ance with, or indefensible by logic. We therefore at once
cut the Gordion knot by conceding to the Soul the privi
lege of instructing us as to the things of itself ; — we apply
to the spiritual sense for information on spiritual things.
We believe that there is no other solution of the question.
To the man who disbelieves the Soul's existence, this will
* " That a purely historical is as unsatisfactory as a metaphysical basis
for a spiritual doctrine is obvious ; indeed Paul gives us clearly to under
stand that the future hopes of the soul were to be discerned by the soul it
self, for itself ; and did not depend upon man's wisdom, as a question of his
tory does and must. . . Paul may have had more of direct insight into
this deepest of subjects than the passages quoted denote : God forbid that
I should presumptuously limit the insight enjoyed by his most favoured ser
vants. Yet his light does us little or no good, while it is a light outside of
us ; so long we are depending on the soundness of Paul's faculties. If he m
any way confused the conclusions of his logic (which is often extremely in
consequent and mistaken) with the perceptions of his divmely-illuminated
soul, our belief might prove baseless. Faith by proxy is really no faith at
all, and certainly is not what Paul would have ever recommended. —New
man on the Soul, pp. 187-9.

374. THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
of course appear an unwarrantable and illogical admission.
To him the Soul has not spoken. My sources of informa
tion are unavailable to him. My soul can tell him nothing.
Providence has denied to him a sense which has been
granted to me ; and all the knowledge which comes to
me through the avenues of that sense must seem foolish
ness to him.
The only occasions on which a shade of doubt has
passed over my conviction of a future existence, have
been when Ihave rashly endeavoured to make out a case, to
give a reason for the faith that is in me, to assign osten
sible and logical grounds for my belief. At such times,
and still more when I have heard others attempting to
prove the existence of a future world by arguments which
could satisfy no one by whom arguments were neeeded, I
confess that a chill dismay has often struck into my heart,
and a fluctuating darkness has lowered down upon my
creed, to be dissipated only when I had again left inference
and induction far behind, and once more suffered the Soul
to take counsel with itself.
This appears to me the only foundation on which the
belief in a future life can legitimately rest, to those who
do not accept a miraculous external revelation. Et tibi
magna, satis. It is a belief anterior to reasoning, inde
pendent of reasoning, unprovable by reasoning ; and
yet as no logic can demonstrate its unsoundness, or can
bring more than negative evidence to oppose to it — I can
hold it with a simplicity, a tenacity, an undoubting faith,
which is never granted to the conclusions of the under
standing. " La, on finit le raisonnement, commence la
veritable certitude." It is a kind provision in man's
moral nature that he is not made dependent on the tardy,
imperfect, fallible, and halting processes of logic, for any
convictions necessary either to happiness or action.*
* " There are instances of common convictions — firm ones too — which you
cannot put to proof in a logical form. There is our reliance on permanency of
the laws of Mature. One of the ablest reasoners, and with no bias towards
Christianity, or any particular form of religion, in his mind, has found him
self unable to account for this reliance but by terming it a human instinct,
something analogous to the instincts of animals. That the Sun rose to-day
is no logical proof that he will rise to-morrow. That the grain grew last

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 375
These are all instinctive, primary, intuitive. Reason
examines them, combines them, confirms them, questions
them ; but there they remain, heedless alike of her hos
tility ; — " asking no leave to shine of our terrestrial
star." It is an immense advantage gained, when we have dis
covered and decided that it is not from the logical faculty
that our knowledge on spiritual topics is to be gained.
We can then afford to be honest — to give reason and
analysis fair play — to shrink from no conclusion, how
ever unwelcome to our speculations, which they may force
upon us ; for after they have done all they can to correct,
to negative, to ascertain, we feel that their function is
critical merely — that our light comes to us from elsewhere.
There are three points especially of religious belief,
regarding which, intuition (or instinct) and logic are at
variance — the efficacy of prayer, man's free will, and a
future existence. If believed, they must be believed, the
last without the countenance, the two former in spite of
the hostility, of logic. Hence the belief in them is more
resolute and undoubting the nearer men and nations
approach to the instinctive condition* Savages never
doubt them ; sufferers never doubt them ; men in the
year does not argue, by a syllogistic deduction, that it will grow next year.
Yet where is there a confidence stronger than this ? — where a belief more
firm? Our conviction of the reality of external nature is another instance
of the same description. That, too, baffles the logician. You cannot show
that there is matter, or existence at aft, beyond yourself ; and yet you
believe it, rely upon it, act upon it. It may all be only impression on our
consciousness. The Berkeleian can dispose of the whole material universe
in this way with the greatest ease. There may be no stars shining in hea
ven, no trees growing in the forest — all may be but sensation, thought, in us :
still, who does not rest upon, who does not act upon, the reality of something
which is out of us, with an assurance as strong as that of our belief in our
own existence ? Those who require direct agencies of demonstration in
such matters as these — who contend that belief and the logical form of
proof have an inseparable union — must find their way out of this dilemma
as well as they can."— Fox, on the Religious Ideas, p. 20.
* This is the idea which lies at the root of Wordsworth's sublimest poem
— The Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.
" Heaven lies about us in our Infancy !
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy ;

376 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
excitement of vehement action never doubt them. It is
the quiet, even tenour of comfortable and refined exis
tence — it is the fireside, the library, the arm-chair that
doubt, that question, that speak of darkness, that ask for
proofs. We have already intimated that we think it question
able whether the doctrine of a future life has been of
that practical service to mankind, either in kind or degree
which is commonly assumed. Of its inestimable value,
as a consolation to the sorrowing, as a hope to the aspir
ing, as a rest to the weary and heavy-laden, it is not
easy to speak in language strong enough for the occasion.
But we incline to doubt whether it exercises much in
fluence on the actual morals of mankind at large —
whether, except in isolated instances, the expectation of
future retribution operates strongly to deter from crime
or to stimulate to virtue.* And, as we said in the last
section, it is more than doubtful whether the happiness
and social progress of mankind has not rather been
retarded than promoted by the doctrine.
The youth who daily further from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest*
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day. "
****** " Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest !
On whom those trirths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ;
Thou, over whom thine immortality
Broods like the day, a Master o'er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by ;
Thou little child!"
* "Such remarks, I fear, may be felt as exceedingly painful by those
who are accustomed to regard a fixed logical dogma on this subject to be of
first-rate importance, and even of necessity ; but a little reflection as to the
high tone of spiritual elevation maintained by the Hebrew bards ought to
suffice to show that that ' necessity ' is extremely exaggerated. But this is
not all. Need we ask what sort of influence the current views exert over the
irreligious ? Are they less profane for the dreadful doctrine of an eternal
Hell? .... That a firm belief of immortality, arising out of insight, must
have very energetic force, I regard as an axiom ; but as an external dogma, I
cannot but think that its efficacy is prodigiously over-rated." — Newman on
the Soul.

THE GREAT ENIGMA. 377
But as to the deep paramount interest of the doctrine
to every believer, there can be no difference of opinion.
Speculation as to the nature of that strange and new ex
istence, and as to the influence which our proceedings
here may exert upon our position there, cannot fail to
engross much of the thoughts of the serious mind. On
this latter point the philosophical Theist and the mere
Biblical Christian differ less than either is willing to as
sume. Both believe that actually, and by some operation,
the condition of the Soul on earth must determine at least
the outset of its future destiny. The Christian conceives
that, by a formal decree of the Most High, the virtuous
Soul will be assigned to happiness, and the vicious Soul
to misery. The Theist conceives that this precise allot
ment will result from the very nature of the Soul itself.
The Christian believes that, as each Soul appears before
its Maker, it will receive from His lips the dread sentence
which will fix it for ever on one side or other of that
o-reat gulf which separates the space where He is from
the space where He is not. The Theist believes that the
quickened perceptions, the intensified faculties, the un
clouded vision, which we imagine as proper to the disem
bodied spirit, will constitute its sure Heaven or its inevit
able Hell. The one creed is, that the pure, the loving,
the aspiring Soul, must be happy ; and that the grovelling,
the tarnished, the malignant Soul, cannot be so. The
other creed is, that God will pronounce to them this irre
versible fiat at the last great day.
We cannot agree with those who say that Earth can
o-ive us no conception, no foretaste, of the felicities of
Heaven. How then can we affect honestly to desire it ?
If we could not conceive of it, how could we long for it 1
And how can we conceive of it, but from the basis of ex
perienced feelinos 1 " What can we reason but from what
we know \ " Why should we regard this life as so wretched
and unworthy that the happiness of Heaven must
necessarily be composed of distinct ingredients from the
happiness of Earth ? God made it too.
That something will yet remain to be superadded—
something entirely new— in that future existence, I can
Y

378 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM.
well believe. Though God will be — can be — no nearer to
us there than here — yet as our perceptions of His presence
will be clearer, and our insight into His nature incalcu
lably deeper, it may be that at length— when the course
of those endless gradations of progress through which our
spiritual faculties will attain their full development, we
shall have begun to know Him with something of the
same cognizance with which we know our fellow-creatures
here — we shall learn so to love Him, that that love will
absorb into itself all the other constituents of the Beatific
Life. But I can conceive of this only as the result of the
most ultimate and Seraphic knowledge : to expect it soon,
or to affect it here, seems to me equally irrational and
insincere. It is unreasonable to expect so entire a change in the
character of the Soul, by the mere event of death, as
would entitle it, or enable it to enter at once on the en
joyment of supreme felicity. With the shuffling off this
mortal coil, we may indeed hope to lay down at once and
for ever all those temptations with which in this life the
senses beset the soul, all that physical weakness which
has clogged and bounded the exertions of the intellect, all
that obscurity with which our material nature has too often
clouded our moral vision. But that the Spirit which has
been angry, narrow, or infirm here, should suddenly be
come large, strong, and placid there, is a miracle which
the analogies of God's workings give us no ground to an
ticipate. We believe that according to the goal which
each soul has reached on earth, will be his starting-point in
Heaven — that, through long ages of self -elaborating effort,
it must win its way up nearer and nearer to the Throne of
God — -and that occupation can never fail, nor interest
ever flag, even through everlasting being ; for, infinite as
may be its duration, will it not be surpassed by the infi
nitude of the created universe ? When we reflect that
during a life of seventy years, the wisest of the sons of
men, though aided by all the knowledge that preceding
generations have bequeathed to them, can penetrate only
an insignificant portion of the wonders of this little earth,
we need not fear that Eternity will exhaust the contem-

THE GREAT EMIGMA. 379
plations of him to whom will lie open, not only the sys
tems and firmaments we read of and can dimly see, but
that larger, remoter, more illimitable universe which we
cannot even dream of here.
" But the punishments of the next World ? " we hear it
asked. Well ! is our imagination so poor and barren that
we can conceive of no adequate and ample ones, without
having recourse to the figures of the worm that dieth not,
and the fire that is not quenched ? Must not a future
world in itself — the condition of " spiritual corporeity "
alone — bring with it dreadful retribution to the wicked,
the selfish, and the weak ? In the mere fact of their
cleared perceptions, in the realization of their low posi
tion, in seeing themselves at length as they really are, in
feeling that all their work is yet to do, in beholding all
those they loved and venerated far before them, away
from them, fading in the bright distance, may lie, must
lie, a torture, a purifying fire, in comparison with which
the representations of Dante and Milton shrivel into
tameness and inadequacy. To the base, the sensual, tbe
hard, who have no notion of a mental torment, translate
these, if you will, by the image of a quenchless flame and
a sulphurous lake ; but seek not to embody such coarse
and earthly conceptions in the theology of better natures.

THK END.

INDEX.

ABARBANET, on degrees of in
spiration, 79 n.
Aberglaube, Matthew Arnold on, 19-
Abraham, his monotheism, 140 ; his
deity a family god, 147-8; late-
born child of, 203.
Acts of the Apostles, the baptismal
formula in, 191 ; Incarnation not
mentioned, 229 ; faithful, but not
wholly reliable, 235 ; written by a
companion of Paul, probably Luke,
235 ; its discourses manufactured,
235-8 ; as to preaching gospel to
Gentiles, 239-40 ; as to Judaic ob
servances by Gentiles, 251-2 ; on
conversion of Paul, 259-262.
Adam, genealogy from, 113-14.
Adultery, punished with death by
Mosaic Law, 85.
^Eschylus, how far inspired, 103.
Agnosticism, 59-60, 05-70, 303-6, 312 ;
Fichte on, 66-7.
Agrippa, Paul's address to, 259-00.
Alexander, Babylon a flourishing city
in his time, 129-30 ; passage of
Pamphylian Sea by, 280.
Alexandrian ideas, influence of, on
F.urth Gospel, 216, 230.
Allegory, in Old Testament, 80-1 n. !
Alms-giving. 43-6 ; noxious, 55. j
Altruism, enjoined by Christianity, |
319. i
Amos, prophecy against Jeroboam II. \
not fulfilled, 129 ; his date, 131 n.
Amphora, a Roman measure, 222 n. |
Anachronism, in Gospels, 209 n.
Ananias, story of, 53.
Angels, appearance of, at birth of
Jesus, 204.
Anglicanus, on Future Punishment,
231 n- . n i t - *
Annihilation, scriptural doctrine ot,
231. ,
Annunciation, Lukes account ot,
201-204. , 1U .
Antediluvian patriarchs, their great
Anthropomorphism, 60, 69-70 ; of
Jews, 146-53, 337 ; in New Testa
ment, 353.

Antioch, Paul and Barnabas at, 251.
Antiochus Epiphanes, 127 n, 133.
Apocalypse, its doubtful canonicity,
89 n, 93 ; Luther pronounced it
spurious, 93.
Apocryphal Scriptures, quoted by
Fathers as canonical, 89 ; legends
as to crucifixion and resurrection,
182 ; tone of, 202-3 n, 229 ; miracles
therein, 221, 222.
Apollos, disciples of, gifted with
tongues, 246.
Apostles, on inspiration of Old Tes
tament, 77, 84-6 ; and New, SS,
91-3 ; their errors, 93, 94, 237-62 ;
their disputes, 92, 237-53 ; promise
of thrones to, 200 ; ignorant of In
carnation, 205 n, 229 ; looked on
Christ as Messiah, 238-9, 257 n ;
spoke Hebrew or Greek, 244 ;
speaking with tongues by, 242-50 ;
their morbid religious enthusiasm,
247-50; tone of teaching Judaic
and different from Christ's, 256-02 ;
not adequate expounders of his
doctrines, 34, 50, 257, 298, 307-8 n ;
power to work miracles, 270 ; silent
as to seeing Christ after resurrec
tion, 22, 284-6 ; belief in resurrec
tion, 23, 284 n, 291-2; their cre
dulity, 291 n ; and fallibility, 29K; in
error as to second coining, 93 n, 254.
Apostles' Creed, Matthew Arnold on,
21 ; Strauss on, 32 ; is it a faithful
embodiment of Christianity? 33,
34 n.
Apostolic writings. See Epistles.
Apparitions, strong evidence in proof
of, 290.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, and miraculous
voice from crucifix, 280.
Arabia, Greek cities in, 244 n ; Paul's
sojourn in, 200 n.
Arabian version of Pentateuch, more
spiritual than the Hebrew, 147 n.
Aramaic, Christ spoke in, 56 ; Jew
ish poems in, 202 ; apostles spoke
in, 244.
Aramaic Gospel, supposed, 163.
I Arimanes, his power to work mira
cles, 266.

382

INDEX.

Arnold, Dr., on inspiration of New
Testament, 91 n ; of Paul, 92, 98-
9 ; of Bible, 99 ; on Thucydides, 95 ;
his theory of inspiration, 97-101 ;
on degrees of inspiration, 99-100 ;
on Biblical interpretation, 125 n ;
on spuriousness of Daniel, 133-4 n ;
on supposed prophecies as to Christ,
135 n, 196 n ; on prophecy, 138-44 ;
on miracles as evidence of doctrine,
267.
Arnold, Matthew, his "Literature
and Dogma," 10, 18-22 ; on Colenso,
20-1 ; on resurrection of Jesus, 24 ;
his ' ' stream of tendency that makes
for righteousness," 60 ; on credulity
of Fathers, 89 n ; on inspiration,
92 n ; on prophecies, 135 n ; on dis
ingenuous interpretion of, 136-7 n ;
on mistranslations of Scripture, 19,
136-7 n, 176 ; on Roman Catholic
and Bible miracles, 279-80 ; on
character of Jesus, 308 n.
Ascension, of Christ, 25 ; was bodily,
27 ; discrepancy as to time of,
288 n ; effects of belief in, 249-50,
257 n ; of St. Fructuosus and Eulo-
gius, 279-80.
Asceticism, 50-3, 343-51 ; its profess
ion now an insincerity, 344 ; Claren
don on, 346-7 ; evil effects of, 347 n.
Asia Minor, Greek cities in, 244 n.
Astronomy, its conflict with ^ cripture,
119, 123-4.
Athanasian Creed, Matthew Arnold
. on, 21-2 ; its scholasticism, 30.
Atheism, charges of, 59.
Atonement, slight foundation of doc
trine, 232; its immoral nature, 33-
4 n, 338-9.
Augustine, St. , on searching fortruth,
72.
Authority, its office in religion, 315.
BABBAGE, on miracles, 264-5 ; on
quantity of evidence required to
prove, 272 ; on eternal consequences
of our actions, 356-7 n.
Babylas, 279.
Babylon, prophecy against not fulfill
ed, 129-30.
Bacon, Lord, how far inspired, 299.
Balaam, 269.
Baptism, of Jesus, 205-7.
Baptismal formula, in Matthew spur
ious, 191 ; in Acts and Epistles, 191.
Barbauld, Mrs., essay on "Inconsis
tency in our Expectations," 371 ; on
amassing wealth, 371 n.

Barnabas, on Mosaic law and Gen
tiles, 251.
Barnabas, Epistle of, its canonicity,
89.
Baruch, scribe to Jeremiah, 133.
Bath, a Hebrew liquid measure, 222 n.
Bauer, on Pentateuch, 113 n ; on
polytheism of Jews, 146, 147 ; on
Samaritan and Arabian versions of
Pentateuch, 147 n.
Baxter, Mr. , on the Irvingite delu
sion, 248 n.
Baxter, Richard, on the joys of
heaven, 355 n,
Beaufort, Admiral, on passage of
Pamphylian Sea by Alexander,
280.
Belief. See Faith.
Bellarmine, on Biblical interpreta
tion, 121.
Bentham, on miracle, 278 n.
Berkeley, Bishop, on the reality of the
external world, 373, 375 n.
Bertholdt, on discourses of .Tesus in
the Fourth Gospel, 215.
Bertrand, on religious enthusiasm,
248 n.
Bethlehem, was it the birthplace of
Jesus? 175-6, 204.
Bethsaida, 276.
Bible, The, inspiration of, 75-95 ; a
record not a revelation, 95, 104-5;
modern views of inspiration of, 96-
105; Dr. Arnold's views, 97-101,
Coleridge's, 101^4 ; as a teacher of
science, 123-4 ; its hidden beauties
125; its true character and use, 315-6.
Bible, Contradictions in the, Colenso
on, 1 0-12 ; between Synoptists and
Fourth Gospel, 13-14 ; as to resur
rection of Jesus, 24-8, 243-4, 282-4,
286-90 ; teachings of Moses and
Jesus, 85-6 ; among the apostles, 92;
as to Bookof Law, 110 ;the creation,
113 ; the genealogy from Adam, 11 3-
4 ; the Flood, 114 ; the seizure of
Sarah, 114 ; the prophecy as to
Judah, 128 ; in chronology of Kings
and Chronicles, 129 n ; in Hosea as
to Ephraim, 130 ; as to the test of a
prophet, 130 ; between Daniel and
Jeremiah as to Nebuchadnezzar,
134 ; as to the nature of God, 149-
52 ; sacrifices, 152 ; the genealogy of
Jesus, 170-3 ; his Incarnation, 171-
3, 229; his birthplace, 175; his
riding on one or two asses, 176-7 ;
Judas and the price of blood, 177 n ;
the healing of demoniacs and blind

INDEX.

383

men, 178-9 ; the miraculous feeding,
179-80 ; the second coming, 197 n ;
judging the twelve tribes, 200 n ;
in the early chapters of Matthew
and Luke, 201 ; as to the Baptist's
knowledge of Jesus, 202 ; the annun
ciation and Mary's wonder at Sim
eon's song, 204-5; Luke's account
of the baptism of Jesus and the
Baptist's subsequent enquiry, 205 ;
the LastSupper,219n;intheFourth
Gospel and Acts as to the Baptist's
testimony to Jesus, 221 ; as to the
gift of the Holy Spirit to the apos
tles, 244 ; between the Acts and
Paul's Epistles, 244 n ; as to Judaic
observances by the Gentiles, 251-2 ;
in the apostles' views of Christ's
character and mission, 253; as to
marriage, 253; justification byfaith,
253 n ; the conduct of the crucified
thieves, 282 ; the resurrection, 24-
8, 282-4, 286-80 ; the ascension,
288 n.
Bibliolatry, evils of, 63-4.
Bigotry, defined as exemplified in the
Fourth Gospel, 217 n.
Blind, discrepant accounts of healing
of, 179.
Bone, the immortal, Jewish belief in,
362 n.
Book of Law. See Pentateuch.
Brazen serpent, 116.
Bretschneider, on authorship of
Fourth Gospel, 160.
Buekland, Dr., on the relations of
Geology and Scripture, 120, 121-4.
Buddhism, spread of, 30.
Bulwer, Lytton, ideas of heaven in
" Eugene Aram," 354 n.
Bush, Prof., on Christ's mode of
teaching, 70 n ; on resurrection of
body, 182 n ; on Paul's vision, 286
n ; on apparitions, 290 n ; on a future
life, 359 n ; on the soul-germ and
immortal bone, 362 n.
Buttmann, on genealogies of Adam
and Enos, 114 n.
Byron, how far inspired, 103.
CABBALISTS, their views of inspir
ation, 101.
Csesar, Julius, prodigies at his death,
182 n.
Calvinists, their distortion of Christi
anity, 33-5, 61, 223; on joys of
heaven, 354-5 n.
Cana, in Galilee, miracle at apocry
phal, 221-2.

Canaanitish woman, story of, 200, 242.
Canon, New Testament, formation
and date of, 88-9.
Canon, Old Testament, 77-80 ; De
Wette on, 78-9 ; its three divisions,
79. See Old Testament.
Captivity, its duration, 129.
Carlyle, his ' 'Immensities" and ' 'Eter
nities," 60.
Causation, prayer and, 322, 323 n,
328-9 ; sin and its consequences,
336, 340-2.
Cerebral exaltation, in religion, 127-
8, 245-50; in case of Paul, 35, 261-2.
Ceremonialism, discountenanced by
Christ, 61 ; its worthlessness, 318-9.
Cerinthus, his views of God and
.Christ, 210-1. _
Cevennes, ecstatics of the, 248 n.
Chaldseans, destruction of Jewish na
tion and capital by, 133.
Chorazin, 276.
Christ. See Jesus.
Christian Life, is it feasible ? 37-58.
Christianity, causes of its spread, 29- ¦
31, 71 ; of Christ, not dogmatic,
33-7, 60-2, 223-34, 307 ; its various
phases, 226 ; not a revealed religion,
297-317, 318 ; before Christ, 301 n,
321 n ; how distinguished from
Judaism, 301 ; a purified Judaism,
302 ; the supernatural theory super
fluous, 301-2; not perfect, 65-71,
307, 378-9 ; narrowness of orthodox,
309-11 ; its fundamental nature,
318-20 ; its moral code, 37-58, 318-
9 ; its views of God, 320 ; some of
its teachings mercenary, 330-5 ; its
doctrine of pardon for sin, 335-43 ;
its tendency to asceticism and de
preciation of this life, 343-51.
Christians, are we yet ? 31-7.
Christians, Early, had all things in
common,' 53 ; weak and imagina
tive, 247-50, 291 n.
Christs, False, 269.
Chronicles, Book of; its chronology
disagrees with Kings, 129 n ; its
date, 131.
Chronology, Biblical, 11, 118-9 n ; of
Kings and Chronicles discrepant,
129 n.
Chrysostom, on authorship of First
Gospel, 155 n.
Church, use of word betrays a late
origin, 188 ; occurs only twice in
Gospels, 188 and note.
Church of Jerusalem, had all things
in common, 53.

384,

INDEX.

Cicero, on a future life, 359 n.
Circumcision, of Gentiles, disputes as
to, 251-2.
Clarendon, Lord, on asceticism, 340-7.
Clement, Epistle of, its canonicity,
89.
Clement of Alexandria, on inspira
tion of New Testament, 89 ; quotes
apocryphal scriptures as canonical,
89 ; on authorship of Second Gos
pel, 159.
Clement of Rome, quotes apocryphal
scriptures as canonical, 89.
Cleopas, appearance of Jesus to, after
resurrection, 27, 287, 289 n.
Colenso, Bishop, on the Pentateuch,
10-12 ; Matthew Arnold's attack on,
20-1.
Coleridge, a Trinitarian, 80 n ; on
inspiration of the Old Testament,
80, 81-2, 86-7 ; of New Testament,
91 n ; his theory of inspiration, 97,
101-4 ; on moral value of Scrip
tures, 125.
Commentary, the Speaker's, 11, 21,
32.
Communion with God, is not prayer,
324-5.
Communism, Christ's teaching as to
and practice of early Christians,
53-5, 57, 58 ; impracticable and
noxious, 55.
Compensation, the law of nature,
365-7 ; Emerson on, 370.
Comte, Auguste, his "Humanity,"
60.
Conception. See Miraculous.
Confusion of tongues, Mr. Kenrick
on, 118.
Coniah, curse against, 128.
Constantine, quells Quarto-deciman
Controversy, 219 n.
Conversion, 214, of Paul, 259-62.
Convulsionuairts, of St. Me'dard,
248 n.
Cooper, Rev. E. on fulfilment of pro
phecy of Daniel, 127 n.
Corinthians, Epistles to the, date of,
22 n, 288; on gifts and miracles,
246-7.
Cornelius, his vision, 239, 242-3, 240.
Cosmogony, Mosaic, its relation to
science, 118-24.
Creation, accounts of, in Genesis,
Speaker's Commentary on, 11; alle
gorical, 81 n ; and discrepant, 113 ;
Mr. Kenrick on, 118 ; summary of
the Biblical account, 122-3 ; its re
lation to science, 118-24.

Creator, Gnostic views as to, 211,
230 ; Jesus not the, 231.
Credner, on authorship of First Gos
pel, 157 ; of Second, 159 n.
Creeds of Christendom, a marvellous
outgrowth from life and teachings
of Jesus, 33-7, 60-2 ; accepted on
authoritv, 315-6 ; the Apostles',
21, 32, 33, 34 n; the Nicene, 21,
33; the Athanasian, 21-2; 30.
Criticism, Biblical, 109.
Crucifixion, theories as to, 25-6, 290;
miracles during, 181-2 ; Christ's
predictions of, 192-6 ; not expected
by disciples, ' 193-5 ; conduct of the
two thieves at, 282.
Cumming, Dr., Matthew Arnold on,
136-7 n.
Cush, 113 n.
Cyrus, 132, 138.

DAMASCUS, prophecy against, not
fulfilled, 130; Paul at, 259, 260 n.
Damnation. See Hell.
Daniel, referred to by Ezekiel, 133 ;
his miraculous dumbness, 204.
Daniel, Book of, its authorship and
date, 79, 133-4 ; of late origin, 134 ;
Matthew Arnold on prophecies in,
135 n.
David, prophecies as to, 128 ; how far
he was inspired, 299 ;his piety, 316.
Davidson, on a prophecy of Zecha
riah, 126 n.
Day, meaning of word, in Bible, 122.
Decalogue, two discrepant versions
of, 11 ; quoted by Christ as from
God, 85 ; one of its commands su
perseded by Christ, 86.
Deity. See God.
Deluge, two accounts of, in Genesis,
11, 114 ; Dr. Kenrick on, 118 ; the
Biblical account of, 124.
Demoniacal possession, 248 n, 269,
274.
Demoniacs, discrepant accounts of
cure of, 178 ; confession of Messiah
by, 207-8 ; no mention of, in the
Eourth Gospel, 208 n.
De Stael, Madame, how far inspired,
103.
Deuteronomy, Book of, authorship
of, 111 ; date of, 112, 116; on false
prophets, 130.
Deutsch, Emmanuel, on the Talmud
and on Christianity before Christ,
301 n.
Devil, The, said to be the source of
the Irvingite delusion, 248 n ; his

INDEX.

385

power to work miracles, 266, 269-
70.
De Wette, on Hebrew Canon, 78-9 ;
on inspiration of the Old Testa
ment, 86 n; and New, 89; on the
authority of the Mosaic writings,
107 n ; on their authorship, 109 n,
110 n, 113 n, 117 n ; on changes in
the Hebrew language, llln; on
Book of Jasher, 112 n ; on date of
Deuteronomy, 112 ; on meaning of
phrase " the house of Jehovah,"
116 ; on the prophecies, 131 n ; on
date and authorship of Isaiah, 132 ;
Jeremiah, 133; Ezekiel, 133 ; Daniel,
133-4 ; on language of First Gospel,
154 n ; on its authorship, 157 ; on
last chapter of Fourth Gospel,
159 n ; on Second and Third Epis
tles of John, 159 n ; on authorship
of Fourth Gospel, 160 ; on date of
Second Gospel, 164 ; on Fourth
Gospel, 210 n ; on the Epistles,
237 n.
Diotrephes, 258 n.
Disciples, sometimes misunderstood
Christ, 34, 56, 256-7, 298, 307-8 n.
Dives, parable of Lazarus and, 50,
354.
Doctrine, not provable by miracles,
263, 266-71, 271-80.
Dogmatic Christianity, an amazing
outgrowth from the words and life
of Jesus. 33-7, 60-2; Scholten on,
34-5 n ; founded on isolated texts,
224-234 ; destructive of true Chris
tianity, 309-316.
Dunstan, 226.
Duty, Christian view of, sometimes
mercenary, 330 n, 333-5; towards
this life, 345-51.
EARLY Christians, practised com
munism, 53 ; their morbid religious
enthusiasm, 247-50 ; and credulity,
291n.
East, The, almsgiving in, 44.
Ebionites, possessed a Hebrew Gos
pel, 154-155 n ; an heretical sect,
155 n ; as to identity of their Gos
pel with Matthew's 154-6 n.
" Ecce Homo," 10, 15-18.
Ecclesiastes, date of, 79 ; its Christ
ian tone, 301.
Eclecticism, Christian, 318-51.
Ecstasy, religious, 35, 127-8, 245-50,
261-2.
Ecstatics of Cevennes, 248 n.
Eden, Garden of, 113.

Edict of Nantes, 248 n.
Edinburgh Review, on allegory in Old
Testament, 80-1 n.
Egypt, antiquity of its records, 118-9
n ; prophecies against, not fulfilled,
129 ; Christ's supposed sojourn in,
173-4 ; numerous Greek cities in,
244 n ; magicians of, 269.
Egyptians, Gospel for the, its canon
icity, 89.
Eichhorn, on language of First Gos
pel, 154 n ; on the origin of the
Synoptic Gospels, 163 ; as to the
Zacharias of Josephus, i90.
Elect, The, a phrase unknown in
Christ's time, 198 ; their liability
to be deceived by false miracles,
269.
Eli, prophecy as to, 128.
Elizabeth, her song in Luke, 202 ;
consanguineous with Mary, 202 ;
advanced in years, 203.
Elohim, meaning of the word, 113 ;
as a miracle worker, 279 n.
Elohistic portions of Pentateuch,
112-6, 117 n.
Emerson, on compensation, sin, and
punishment, 369-70 n.
Emmaus, appearance of Jesus at, 25,
27, 194, 289.
England, alms-giving in, 44.
Enigma, The great, 352-79.
Enthusiasm, morbid religious, 35,
127-8, 245-50, 261-2.
Ephraim, Hosea's prophecy as to, not
fulfilled, 130.
Epiphanius, on First Gospel, 154,
155 n ; on Fourth Gospel, -210 n.
Epistles, date of, 22, 91, 288 ; their
claims to inspiration, 91 ; baptismal
formula in, 191 ; chief foundation of
dogma of Christ's divinity, 229 ;
Incarnation not referred to in, 205,
229 ; their number and authorship,
236-7.
Erasmus, on language of First Gospel,
154 n.
Eschatology, erroneous views of apos
tles as to, 93 n, 253-6 ; in Gospels,
231-2.
Essenes, Jesus brought up amongst,
300 ; their asceticism, 343 ; their
views of a future life, 353.
Essential Inspiration, 75.
Ethiopia, 113.
Eucharist. See Last Supper.
" Eugene Aram," ideas of Heaven in,
354 n.
Eulogius, his ascension, 280.

386

INDEX.

Eusebius, on New Testament Canon,
89 n ; on authorship of First Gospel,
155 n ; his account of Papias, 158 n,
199 ; on Second and Third Epistles
of John, 159 n ; on relation of Mark
to Peter, 244 n.
Evangelists, did not always compre
hend Christ's sayings, 34, 56, 256-7,
298, 307-8 n.
Evidence, miracles as, 266-80 ; quan
tity requisite to prove miracles,
272-3, 284, 291 n ; the characteris
tics of honest, 153 n, 282.
Exorcists, their, power to work mira
cles, 274, 277.
Ezekiel, takes liberties with Mosaic
doctrine, 107 n; non-fulfilment of
prophecies by, 129 ; on false pro
phets, 130 n ; carried into exile, 133.
Ezekiel, Book of, date and authorship
of, 133 ; refers to Daniel, 133.
Ezra, legends as to formation of Old
Testament Canon under his author
ity, 78.
FAITH, signs of, 243 n ; Dr. Arnold
on faith without reason, 267 ; its
instinctive nature, 373-5 ; salvation
by, slight scriptural foundation for
the doctrine, 225-6 ; an immoral
doctrine, 334 n, 227-8 ; discrepant
views of Paul and James as to jus
tification by, 253 n.
False prophets, put to death under
Mosaic Law, 94 n, 269 ; Hebrew
nation inundated with, 130-1.
Fanaticism, 127-8, 247-50, 261-2.
Fathers, Christian, on the inspiration
of the New Testament, 88-9 ; their
credulity 89 ; on authorship of First
Gospel, 153-6.
Feeding, the miraculous, 179-80;
theorv of two abandoned by most
divines. 180, 187.
Fetichism, progress to theism in three
stages, 146 ; of Laban, 147-8.
Eichte, on the limits of human intel
ligence, 66-7.
Firmament, Jewish meaning of, 122.
Flood. See Deluge.
Fore-knowledge of God, 322-3, 325-7,
328.
Fore-ordination, and prayer, 322-c, 328.
Forgivenness. See Sin.
Fortnightly Review, on " Are we
Christians ? " 32.
Fourth Gospel. See Gospel, Fourth.
Fox, on beliefs beyond logical proof,
374-5 n.

Free-will, and fore-ordainment, 328 ;
belief in, 375.
French, peasantry, frugality of, 47.
Furness, on the resurrection of Jesus,
289 n.
Future Life, Jewish ideas as to, 291 n,
301, 359n, 362 n ; Pearson on, 296 n;
selfishness of ordinary view, 347 n,
348, 354 ; its claims, 349-51 ; argu
ments for and against, 352-79 ; a
pre-Christian doctrine, 352 ; scrip
tural ideas of, 353-8, 359 n, 377 ; its
unchanging character, 355 ; cannot
be proved by logic, 359 ; Pagan
ideas of, 359 n ; logical arguments
for, 358-61 ; philosophical argu
ments for, 361-2 ; general belief of
mankind in, 363-4 ; inequalities of
this life, 364-71 ; man's faculties no
fitting aliment in this life, 371-2 ;
weakness of all arguments for,
372-3 ; belief in, a matter of infor
mation or intuition, not inference,
373-5 ; Wordsworth on, 375-6 n ; is
a belief in, valuable? 347 n, 348,
351, 376 ; F. W. Newman on, 376 n;
as to change of character on death,
378. See Heaven, Hell.
Future Punishment. See Hell.
GABRIEL, annunciation by the an
gel, 201.
Galilee, materials for Synoptic Gos
pels collected in, 157, 165 n ; no
prophet out of, 176 ; apostles came
from, 245.
Gamaliel, his speech in Acts manu
factured, 186 n, 236.
Gehenna, meaning of, 231.
Genealogies, from Adam, discrepan
cies in, 113-4 n ; of Christ, discrep
ancies in, 170-3, 229 ; not men
tioned in Mark, 199 ; Luke's prob
ably correct though perplexed, 205.
Genesis, Book of, records events long
prior to Moses, 109 ; Mr. Kenrick
on, 117-8 ; its authority, 119 ; its
language clear, 120 n ; non-fulfil
ment of prophecy in, 130. See
Pentateuch.
Gentiles, as to preaching the gospel
to, 200, 237-42_, 246 n, 250 ; as to
observing Judaic law, 251-2.
Geology, its conflict with Scripture,
119-24.
Gethsemane, arrest of Jesus in, 194.
Ghost, Holy. See Holy Spirit.
Ghosts, strong evidence for appear
ances of, 290.

INDEX.

387

Gibbon, cites TertuUian on the joys
of heaven, 354-5 n.
Giesler, on origin of Synoptic Gos
pels, 163.
Gnosticism, 210-11, 230-1.
God, dogmatism as to his nature, 59-
60 ; personality of, 60 ; conceptions
of, necessarily vary, 68-9, 70 ; popu
lar ideas as to his dealings with the
Jews, 106 ; representations of, in
Old Testament, 107-8; ideas of
Jews as to, 145-52, 336, 337 ; three
stages in their ideas of, 146 ; ap
pearances of, to patriarchs, 147;
discrepant views of, in Bible, 149-
52 ; Gnostic views of, 211 ; as a
moral governor, 298-9 ; Parker on
universality of his influence, 308-9 ;
the Christian view of, 320 ; cannot
forgive sins, 335 ; governs by fixed
laws, 322-5, 328-9, 331-2, 336, 342-3 ;
New Testament views of, less spirit
ual than those of Job and Psalms,
353 ; as to his duty towards his crea
tures, 364-5 ; a righteous judge,367.
Gospel, Fourth, on resurrection of
Jesus, 25, 27, 284-5 ; Renan on
the authenticity of, 13, 14, 160 ; on
inspiration of High-Priest, 79 ; on
witnessing to self, 81 n ; authorship
and date of, 159-162, 219 and note,
273 n, 282-3 ; last chapter doubtful,
159n, 284-5, 289'; materials collected
in Judea, 1 65 n ; as to bestowal of
name " Peter " and power of keys,
188 ; Christ's prediction of his
death, 192-3 ; no mention of de
moniacs, 208 n, 219 ; its claims ex
amined, 210-222 ; its tone non-
Judaic, 161-2, 210, 219-20 ; and dif
ferent from that of the Synoptics,
208 n, 212, 214, 217 n, 219, 277 ; a
polemic, not a history, 210, 211,
212 ; directed against Cerinthus
and Nicolaitans, 210 ; its character
of Jesus, 212-4 ; its mystical and
enigmatic language, 192-3 n, 214 ;
its discourses of Jesus, 213-6, 229;
evidences of Greek or Alexandrian
culture in, 161, 208 n, 216 ; exalts
dogma over morality, 216-8 ; minor
peculiarities, 219-22 ; miracle at
Cana apocryphal, 221-2 ; proclaims
salvation to believers, 225-6; on
divinity of Jesus, 228-9, 230-1 ; no
narrative of Eucharist, 219-20 n,
232
Gospels, The, date of, 22 n, 56, 153
164, 198, 288 ; how they assumed

their present shape, 56-7 ; authors
of, did not always understand
Christ, 34, 56, 307-8 n ; not per
fectly faithful records, 65, 90 ;
make no claim to inspiration, 91 ;
written after the Epistles, 91 ; ori
gin of, 153-67 ; Schleiarmacher on,
156 n ; composition of, 162-7 ; dis
crepancies in, 162 ; discussion as
to their fidelity, 168-234 ; are corn-
compilations, 168, 282-3 : spurious
and doubtful passages in, 169 ; con
tain much not authentic, 223-4,
297-8 ; not contemporaneous annals,
278 ; their discrepancies as to re
surrection, 24-5, 26-9, 282-4, 286-
90. -SceSynoptic Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke.
Gospels, the Apocryphal, quoted by
Fathers as canonical, 89 ; as to
miracles at crucifixion, 182 ; tone
of, 202-3 n, 229; miracles in,221,222.
Greek cities, numerous throughout
the East, 244 n.
Greek language, in common use
throughout the East, 244.
Greek thought, influence of, on Fourth
Gospel, 161, 208 n, 216.
Greeks, their credulity, 107 ; their
low ideas of God, 336.
Griesbach, on date of Second Gos
pel, 164 ; on rising of bodies of
saints at Christ's resurrection, 181 ;
on Peter's language as to Christ's
resurrection, 285 n.
Grote, on Tyre, 129 n.
Guardian, The, its definition of Chris
tianity, 33 n.
HAGIOGRAPHA, completed in age
of Maccabees, 78.
Hall, Robert, on the reward of vir
tue, 330 n.
Hannah, her song of praise, 203.
Hanson, Sir R. D., his "Jesus of
History," 10 ; on the resurrection
of Jesus, 24.
Hare, Archdeacon, on the second
coming, 257 n ; on miracles as evi
dence of doctrine, 267, 268 n.
Hare, J. and A,, on the Atonement,
338.
Heaven, a reward of belief, 227-8 ;
selfishness of the ordinary view of,
347 n, 348, 354 ; and its tendency
to unfit men for this life, 351 ;
scriptural idea of, 353-4, 357-8 ;
its pleasures unchanging, 355 ; the
I Theist's idea of, 377.

388

INDEX.

Hebrew language, not unchangeable,
111 ; spoken by apostles, 244 ; not
so common as Greek even in Jeru
salem, 244 n.
Hebrew poetry, Schleiermacher and
Strauss on, 201-4.
Hebrew polity, rested on temporal
rewards and punishments, 128.
Hebrews. Sec Jews.
Hebrews, Epistle to the, its doubtful
character, 89, 236.
Hebrews, Gospel of the, its canoni
city, 89, 155 n ; its existence, 154,
155 n, 163 ; on miracles at cruci
fixion and resurrection, 182 n ; on
Christ's appearance to James after
resurrection, 288.
Heeren, on Tyre, 129 n.
Hell, horrible nature of the doctrine,
61-2, 355 ; as to threatening it for un
belief, 225-8 ; scriptural foundation
for, 231-2 ; scriptural idea of, 355-
8 ; its pains unchanging, 355 ; and
physical, 357-8 ; E. W. Newman
on the inefficacy of a belief in,
376 n ; its punishment, 377, 379.
Hennel, C. C. , on the First Gospel,
154 n, 157 n ; on the death of Zach
arias, 189-90 n; on Fourth Gospel,
210 n, 216 n ; on the miracle at
Cana, 222 n ; on Christ's appearance
to James after his resurrection,
288 n.
Herod, slaughter of innocents by,
mythical, 174-5 n ; his character,
174 n.
Herodotus, Greeks believed his le
gends, 107.
Hezekiah, prophecies as to, 128.
High-Priest, as to his inspiration, 79 ;
to judge whether prophet true or
false, 130.
Hindoo myths, slaughter of innocents,
174 n.
Holy Spirit, descent of on Jesus, 205-
6 ; on household of Cornelius, 242 ;
on apostles, 243-5, 257 ; nature of
its manifestation, 242-50.
Hosea, non-fulfilment of prophecy
by, 130; date of, 131 n; his supposed
prophecy as to Jesus, 173-4.
Houghton, Lord, quoted, 59 n, 316 n,
334 n.
Hug, holds First Gospel not a trans
lation, 154 n ; on the Hebrew Gos
pel, 155-6 n ; on authorship of
Fourth Gospel, 160 ; on composi
tion of Synoptic Gospels, 163, 104 ;
on polemical character of First Gos

pel, 170 n ; as to the Zacharias of
Josephus, 190, 191 n ; on the po
lemical character of the Fourth
Gospel, 210 n ; on Gnosticism, 210-
1 ; on the Epistles, 237 n ; on the
use of the Greek language, 244 ;
on the discrepant teachings of Paul
and James as to justification by
faith, 253 n ; on the last chapter of
the Fourth Gospel, 285 n.
Human Race, the solidarity of, Tay
lor on, 323 n.
Humility, enjoined by Christianity,
57, 319.
Hysteria, in religion, 127-8, 247-50,
261-2.
IDOLATRY, of Jews, 147-8; was
infidelity, not atheism, 149.
Ignatius, quotes apocryphal scrip
tures as canonical, 89.
Immortal bone, Jewish belief in, 362 n.
Immortality See Future 1 jif e.
Improvidence, christian doctrine as
to, 46-50 ; noxious, 55.
Incarnation, the story of, examined,
171-3, 201-4 ; no mention of, in
Mark, 199 ; if true, Jesus was not
of the seed of David, 171, 229 n ;
discredited, 205 n, 229 ; the latent
truth in the doctrine, 350.
Infallibility, Coleridge on, 80, 101-2 ;
cannot be self-contradictory, 237 ;
not attainable on religious subjects,
65-7, 312.
Innocents, slaughter of, by Herod, a
myth, 174.
Inspiration, plenary, 75 ; essential,
75 ; views of Jews on, 77-80, 96 ;
of Scriptures, 75-95 ; of Old Testa
ment, 77-88 ; of New, S8-95 ; de
grees of, 79-80, 91-2, 99-100 ; sup
posed proof of, from miracles and
prophecies, 83-4, 94 ; testimony of
Christ and his apostles as to, 84-
7 ; of Paul, 86 ; internal evidence-
of, 77, 82-3, 88, 93-4 ; modern modi
fications of the doctrine, 96-105, 299;
Pagan views of, 96 ; Dr. Arnold on,
97-101 ; Coleridge on, 101-4 ; popu
lar doctrine rests on no foundation,
297 ; Parker on the universality of,
308-9.
Instinct, belief by, 373-5.
Interpretation, Biblical, allegorical,
80-1 n ; methods of, 119-25 ; Mat
thew Arnold on disingenuous me
thods of, 136-7 n ; erroneous views
of Jesus on, 302-3 n.

INDEX.

389

Intolerance, is irrational, 67 ; exem
plified in Fourth Gospel, 217 n.
Intuition, belief by, 373-5.
Irenseus, on inspiration of New Tes
tament, 89 ; on authorship of First
Gospel, 154 n, 155 n ; of Second,
157-8 ; of Third, 159 ; of Fourth,
210 n ; on relation of Mark to
Peter, 244 n.
Irvingites, their morbid religious en
thusiasm, 248 and note.
Isaac, Strauss as to his being a late-
born child, 202, 203.
Isaiah, referred to in Chronicles as
an historian, 132.
Isaiah, Book of, date and authorship,
132 ; by two writers, 132 ; prophecy
against Damascus not fulfilled, 130 ;
Matthew Arnold on prophecies of,
135 n; its comparatively low con
ceptions of God, 149-50 ; as to its
supposed prediction of the miracu
lous conception, 172-3 ; how far in
spired, 299 ; its Christian tone, 301.
Iscariot. See Judas.
Ishmael, Strauss on his birth, 202.
Islamism, spread of, 30.
Israel, Christ sent to the lost sheep
of, 200 ; apostles to judge the twelve
tribes of, 200.
Italy, alms-giving in, 44.
JACOB, stole Laban's gods, 147-8;
his low ideas of God, 148.
Jairus, daughter of, her raising, 277.
James, Epistle of, in error as to second
coming 93 n, 254 ; of doubtful char
acter, 236-7 ; though probably genu
ine, 237 n ; its Christlike tone, 258.
James, the Apostle, on Judaic ob
servances by Gentiles, 251 ; appear
ance of Jesus to, after resurrection,
288.
Jasher, Book of, its date, 112 n.
Jehoiada, 131.
Jehoiakim, non-fulfilment of Jere
miah's prophecy against, 129.
Jehovah, translated ' ' the Eternal "
by Matthew Arnold, 19, 136-7 n,
176 ; meaning of word, 113, 147.
Jehovah Elohim, meaning of, 113;
indicates polytheism, 147.
Jehovistic portions of Pentateuch,
112-6, 117 n.
Jeremiah, his date, 131 n; put m
stocks for false prophecies, 131.
Jeremiah, Book of, date and author
ship 132-3;non-fulfilmentofhispro-
phecies against Jehoiakim, Egypt,

and Babylon, 129-30 ; on true and
false prophets, 130; Matthew Ar
nold on prophecies in, 135 n; its
supposed prophecy as to slaughter
of the innocents, 174-5 n.
Jeroboam II. , Amos's prophecy
against, not fulfilled, 129.
Jerome, on the authorship of the First
Gospel, 154 n, 155-6 n ; on Fourth
Gospel, 210 n ; on relation of Mark
to Peter, 244 n ; on appearance of
Jesus to James after his resurrec
tion, 288 n.
Jerusalem, Daniel's supposed pro
phecy of its destruction by Titus,
127 n ; destroyed by Chaldreans,
133 ; Christ's prophecies of its de
struction, 180, 197-8; date of its
destruction by Titus, 198 n ; lan
guage spoken in, 244 n.
Jerusalem, Church of, practised com-
nTunism, 53.
Jesus Christ, his resurrection, 22-9,
281-96 ; theories as to it, 25-6, 290 ;
his life and character, 34, 60 ; his
teachings as to non-resistance to
violence, 38-43 ; as to alms-giving,
43-6 ; improvidence, 46-50 ; riches,
50-3 ; communism, 53-8 ; spoke in
Aramaic, 56 ; sayings often misun-
stood by disciples, 36, 56, 256-7,
298, 307-8 n ; spiritual nature of his
teaching, 61, 318-9; on inspiration
of Old Testament, 84-7 ; abrogates
Mosaic law as to adultery, unclean
meats, and the Sabbath, 85-6 ; in
spires the apostles, 92 ; as to pro
phecies of him, 126 n, 135-8, 140-1,
172-7, 195-6, 297 ; not the ex
pected Messiah, 135-8, 175-6, 192,
293-4 ; birthplace doubtful, 175-6,;
flight into Egypt mythical, 173-4,
174 n ; lineage doubtful, 175, 229 n ;
discrepancies in genealogies of,
170-2 ; Matthew's account of cru
cifixion and resurrection doubtful,
181-4 ; his acknowledgment of
Peter, and power of keys, 187-9 ;
baptismal formula, 191 ; his pro
phecies of his death, 192-6 ; and
second coming, 196-8 ; his arrest
and burial, 194 ; length of time in
grave or " hell," 25, 196 n ; mirac
ulous conception of, 171-2, 201^,
229 ; relation to Baptist as to age,
202 ; his birth, 204 ; Luke's gen
ealogy, 205 ; Luke on baptism of,
205-7 ; Gnostic views of his na
ture, 211, 230-1 ; tone of his dis-

390

INDEX.

courses in Fourth Gospel, 212-6 ;
view of his nature therein, 216 ; his
harsh speech to his mother at Cana,
222 ; the dogma of his divinity not of
scriptural origin, 228-31 ; identifica
tion of, with Logos, 230-1 ; did not
believe himself to be God, 229, 231;
his mission to Jews only, not Gen
tiles, 238-42 ; his prophecy as to the
end of the world, 255 ; effect of his
resurrection on views of apostles, 23,
249-50, 257 n ; his appearance to
Paul, 25, 259-62; refuses to authenti
cate hismissionbymiracles, 270, 275;
his character, 234 n, 300-1 ; his ideas
the natural product of his educa
tion and surroundings, 301-2 ; his
erroneous views, 302-3 ; his char
acter sublime but not necessarily
divine, 306-7 and note ; his mission,
308 ; if Son of God, not a human
exemplar, 313—4 ; his sublime mcfral
code, 318-9 ; his views as to prayer,
324-5; as to resignation, 330 n;
duty, 333 n; forgiveness of sins,
339 n ; his asceticism of a mild type,
343 ; his views of a future life,
352-3 ; weakness of his argument
as to, 359 n.
Jethro, his monotheism doubtful,
148 n.
Jewish Scriptures. See Canon, Old
Testament, Bible.
Jews, their ideas on inspiration, 77,
- 79, 80, 96, 101, 107 ; their credulity,
107 ; their ideas of the structure of
the universe, 122-3, 124 ; their views
of prophecy, 127-8 ; their polity
rests on temporal rewards and pun
ishments, 128 ; false prophets
among them, 130-1 ; destruction of
by Chaldaeans, 1 33 ; their notions of
the expected Messiah, 135-8, 192,
239, 289 n, 293-4; their theism
impure and progressive, 145-52, 297,
336, 337 ; their polytheism, 146,
147-9 ; signs from God common
among, 204, 270; accustomed to
figurative language, 214; expres
sion " the Jews " in the Fourth
Gospel, 220 ; their ideas of a future
life, 291 n, 301, 359 n, 362 n ; on
nucleus of the soul, or immortal
bone, 362 n.
Job, his theism, 148, 149-50, 353;
his Christianity, 301 ; his sublime
piety-, 316 ; and resignation, 331.
Joel, his prophecy as to Holy Spirit,
245.

John, Epistles of, written after the
Gospels, 91 ; their claim to inspira
tion, 91 ; in error as to second com
ing, 93 n, 254 ; First Epistle prob
ably by author of Gospel, 159 ;
Second and Third of doubtful au
thorship, 109-60, 236-7 ; Third al-
mostcertainly spurious, 237n; their
denunciations for unbelief, 225 n ;
their intolerant tone, 258.
John, Gospel according to. See Gos
pel Fourth.
John, the Apostle, his intolerant
temper, 225-6, 307 ; as exemplified
in Epistles, 258.
John, the Baptist, Luke on his an
nunciation and birth, 201 ; a late-
born child, 202 ; his relation to
Christ as to age, 202 ; commanded
to be a Nazarite, 203 ; his testi
mony to the Messiahship of Jesus,
and his subsequent enquiry of him
as to, 205-7, 221, 232 ; tone of his
discourses in the Fourth Gospel,
213-4 ; Holy Spirit conferred on
his disciples, 243.
John, the Presbyter, on Matthew's
" oracles," 154 n, 155 n ; on the
Second Gospel, 158 ; as to his
being the author of the Second and
Third Epistles of John, 160 ; dis
tinguished from the apostle, 160.
Jonah, rescinding prophecy by, 128,
129 ; as to his being a prefigure-
ment of Christ, 196.
Jones, Sir W., on the slaughter of
the innocents, 174 n.
Joseph, his conduct at miraculous
conception, 172 ; his supposed flight
into Egypt mythical, 173-4, 174 n ;
his removal to Nazareth, 175.
Joseph of Arimathea, buries Jesus,
194.
Josephus, on degrees of inspiration,
79 ; takes liberties with Mosaic
writings, 107 n ; on the passage of
the Red Sea, 107 n ; makes no al
lusion to slaughter of the innocents,
174 ; his reference to Zacharias,
189, 190, 191.
Joshua, Book of, its date, 112 n.
Josiah, discovery of the Book of the
Law in reign of, 109-11.
Judah, prophecies regarding, 128,
136-7 n.
Judaic observances, as to enforcement
on Gentiles, 251-2.
Judaism, how distinguished from
Christianity, 301-2.

INDEX.

391

Judaizers, 252 n.
Judas Iscariot, gifted with miracu
lous powers, 94, 270 ; supposed pro
phecy as to him and the price of
bloody 177, 178 n.
Jude, Epistle of, its doubtful char
acter, 89, 236-7 ; does not claim
inspiration, 91 ; in error regarding
the second coming, 93 n.
Judea, materials for Fourth Gospel
came from, 165 n.
Jupiter Tonans, as a miracle worker,
279 n.
Justification. See Faith.
Justin, baptismal formula in, 191.
KEBLE, Christian year, quoted,
368 n.
Kenrick, Mr. , on genealogies of Adam
and Enos, 114 n ; on Genesis, 117-8 ;
and its clearness of language, 120 n;
on Biblical chronology, 118-9 n; on
Biblical interpretation, 121 ; on
priority of Mark's Gospel, 164.
Keys, Power of_, 188-9, 199.
King, Lord, his "Life of Locke"
quoted, 268 n.
Kingdom of God, ideas of, 158 n,
245, 257 n.
Kings, Book of, its chronology disa
grees with Chronicles, 129 n ; date
of, 131.
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, on miracles,
in " Alton Locke," 264 ; on selfish
ness for eternity, in " Saint's
Tragedy," 332 n.
Koran, as to inspiration of, 87, 95.
LABAN, worshipped fetiches, 147-8.
Lardner, Dr., on the credibility of
the Gospels, 153 n.
Last Supper, 192 n, discrepant dates
of in Gospels, 219-20 n ; institution
of ignored in Fourth Gospel, 219-
220 n, 232.
Late-born children, Jewish legends
as to, 202, 203.
Law, Mosaic, public reading of, 111
n ; its divine origin assumed by
Jesus, 85, 145 ; but abrogated by
him, 85-6 ; as to observance of by
Gentile converts, 251-2.
Law, Natural, prayer and, 322-5,
328-9 ; resignation and, 331-2 ; sin
and its consequences, 335-43 ; Fox
on our belief in its permanency,
374-5 n.
Lazarus, Christ's discourse as to
sleep of, 215 ; raising of, 264-5 ; did

not produce universal conviction,
276 ; parable of Dives and, 50, 354.
Leroux, Pierre, on selfishness of ordi
nary idea of heaven, 349 n.
Lessing, on composition of Gospels,
164.
Life, This, its claims, 345-51 ; in
equalities of, as an argument for a
future life, 364-71; whether adequate
to employ man's faculties, 371-2.
Livy, Niebuhr on, 95 ; the Romans
believed his figments, 107 ; ora
tions in manufactured, 186 n.
Locke, on miracles as evidence of doc
trine, 267, 208.
Logos, Gnostic views of, 211 ; teach
ing of the Fourth Gospel as to,
216, 230-1.
Lord's Prayer, contained in the Tal
mud, 321 n.
Loyola, 226.
Luke, Gospel according to, on the
resurrection of Jesus, 26-8 ; does
not claim to be inspired, 91 ; au
thorship of, 159; proem to, 159,103,
165 ; composition of, 163-5, 167 ;
doubtful portions, 169, 171 n, 201-
9 ; genealogy of Christ differs from
Matthew's, 170, 171-2 ; its tone
non- Judaic, 170 n ; on the Incarna
tion, 171-2 ; precludes flight into
Egypt, 174 ; its account of Judas's
death, 177 n ; accounts of cure of
demoniacs and blind, and of the
miraculous feeding, 178-80 ; no
mention of power of keys, 189 ;
Christ's predictions of his death,
192-6 ; its fidelity examined, 200-9 ;
first chapter legendary, 201-4 ; also
second, 204-5 ; genealogy of Jesus,
205 ; his baptism, 205-7 ; confession
of his Messiahship by demoniacs,
207-8 ; interpolations in, 207, 209 ;
not altogether trustworthy, 243-4.
Luke, the Evangelist, acquainted
with Matthew's Gospel, 157 ; not
an eye-witness, 159 ; supposed to
be Silas, 159, 235 n ; author of Third
Gospel and Acts, 159 ; on gift of
Holy Spirit, 245-6.
Luther, pronounced the Apocalypse
spurious, 93 ; his numbering of
verses in Genesis i. , 112 n ; Chris
tianity as taught by him, 226 ; how
far inspired, 299.
Lutheranism, not Christianity, 33.
Luz, ossiculum, 362 n.
Lytton, Lord, ideas of heaven in
" Eugene Aram," 354 n.

392

INDEX.

M ACKA Y, R. W. , as to Philo on pro
phecy, 127 n ; ou Christianity before
Christ, 301 n, 321 n.
Mackintosh, Sir James, on selfishness
of ordinary view of heaven, 348 n ;
on a future life, 360, 361.
Magi, story of, doubtful, 156, 173-4,
178.
Magicians, Egyptian, 269 ; Hebrew,
274, 277.
Maimonides, distinguished eleven
degrees of inspiration, 79 n.
Mark, Gospel according to, on resur
rection of Jesus, 26-8 ; authorship
of, 157-9, 199; composition and
date, 162-7, 283 n; last twelve
verses spurious, 26, 169, 199 n, 225,
243 n, 283 n ; its tone non-Judaic,
170 n, 200 ; accounts of cures of
demoniac and blind, and miraculous
feeding, 178-80; inaccuracy in, as
to the feeding, 187 ; on acknow
ledgment of Christ by Peter, 188 ;
no mention of power of keys, 189,
199 ; Christ's predictions of his
death, 192-6; its fidelity examined,
199-200 ; tradition of authorship
doubtful, 199 ; probably the earliest
of the Gospels, 28, 164, 199, 283 n ;
its significant omissions, 199 ; pecu
liarities in Christ's discourses, ] 99-
200 ; its account of the resur
rection the most trustworthy, 20,
283.
Mark, the Evangelist, possibly ac
quainted with Matthew's Gospel,
157 ; a fellow-traveller of Peter,
Barnabas, and Paul, 158 ; not an
eye-witness, 158; "interpreter" of
Peter, 158, 244 ; his identity doubt
ful, 158-9.
Marriage, discrepant scriptural views
as to, 253, 256.
Marsh, Dr., on the Synoptic Gospels,
163.
Martineau, Rev. James, on miracles
as proofs of inspiration, 94.
Mary Magdalene, at resurrection, 27,
194, 287, 289.
Mary, mother of Jesus, supposed
genealogy of, 172 ; annunciation to,
201 ; her song in Luke, 202 ; con
sanguineous with Elizabeth, 202 ;
her wonder at song of Simeon,
204-5 ; prayers to, 327 n.
Materialism, 360-1.
Matter, Berkeley's doctrine as to
reality of, 373, 375 n ; Fox on our
belief in, 375 n.

Matthew, Gospel according to, on
resurrection of Jesus, 26-8 ; date of,
153 ; authorship, 153-7 ; not a trans
lation from Hebrew, 154, 155-6 n ;
materials collected in Galilee, 157,
165 n ; doubtful portions, 156-7,
109-98 ; its fidelity examined, 169-
98 ; character of Jesus clearly de
picted, 169 ; its tone Judaic, 170-7 ;
genealogy of Jesus wrong, 170-1 ;
its account of the Incarnation,
171-3 ; flight into Egypt mythical,
173-4 ; slaughter of innocents myth
ical, 174-5 n ; as to birthplace of
Jesus, 175 ; as to his riding on two
asses, 176-7 ; its account of Judas's
death differs from Luke's, 177 n ;
attributes to Jeremiah a prophecy
of Zechariah, 177-8 n ; story of star
in the East mythical, 178 ; account
of cure of two demoniacs and blind
men, and two miraculous feedings,
incorrect, 178-80 ; story of Peter
and tribute money mythical, 180 ;
washing of hands by Pilate myth
ical, 180 ; account of crucifixion,
resurrection, and attendant mira
cles doubtful, 181-2; private con
versations reported in, 182-3 ; re-
portsChrist's discourses incorrectly,
185-98 ; indifference to chronology,
186.
Matthew, the Ajjostle, wrote memora
bilia in Hebrew, 154-6 ; which were
not our First Gospel, 154-7 & notes.
Meats, Mosaic law regarding, set aside
by Jesus, 85-6.
Meaard, St., convulsionnaires of,
248 n.
Media, many Greek cities in, 244 n.
Mediterranean sea, tideless, 280.
Mesopotamia, many Greek cities in,
244n.
Messiah, the doctrine of, the cause of
the spread of Christianity among
the Jews, 31, 71 ; character of, as
prophecied, 135, 138, 192, 239, 289
n, 293—4 ; prophecy of Plato, 137 n ;
references to, in Gospels, 170 n,
195-6 ; of the seed of Abraham and
David, 170, 229 n ; character of,
not fulfilled in Jesus, 31, 71, 135-7,
175-6, 293-4 ; annunciation of, by
angel Gabriel, 201 ; and at baptism
of Jesus, 205-7 ; claim of Jesus,
first acknowledged by demoniacs,
207-8 ; the Fourth Gospel on Mes
siahship of Jesus, 216; apostolic
views of, 257 n.

Index.

393

Messianic kingdom, 193, 257-8.
Metretes, a Greek measure, 222 n.
Middleton, Dr., on uncertainty of
tradition, 158 n.
Mill, J. S. , on communism, 54.
Mill, Mr., on composition of Luke,
164.
Millenium, traditions as to, 158 n ;
expectations of, 93 n, 98, 193, 249,
253-6, 257-8; spiritual concomit
ants of, 245.
Milman, Dean, on the monotheism of
the Jews, 145-6.
Milnes, R. M. See Houghton.
Milton, how far inspired, 103.
Mind, influence of body on, 360-1.
Minton, Rev. S., on future punish
ment, 231 n.
Miracles, Renan on the growth of,
13 ; as proofs of inspiration, 83, 94 ;
discrepant accounts of, in Gospels,
178-80, 277; miraculous loss of
senses common among Jews, 204 ;
seven miracles reported in Fourth
Gospel, 221 ; at Cana, 221-2; Paul
on, 246-7 ; his low estimate of, 270 ;
the^question of, examined, 263-80;
definition of, 264-5 ; cannot authen
ticate doctrine, 266-71, 294-5 ; dia
bolic miracles, 266, 269-70 ; worker
of, put to death, 94 n, 269 ; Jesus re
fuses to perform, as signs, 270,
275 ; power to work given to apos
tles, including Judas and Peter,
94, 270; worthless as credentials,
270-1 ; cannot be a basis of religion,
271-80, 294-5 ; are evidence only to
the age which witnesses them,
271-2 ; quantity of proof requisite,
272-3, 284, 291 n ; extremely com
mon in early ages, 273-5 ; faith a
condition precedent, 275 ; those of
Jesus did not produce conviction,
275-8 ; or even fear, 277 ; minor ob
jections to gospel miracles, 277-8 ;
a miracle involves one fact and two
inferences, 278-9 ; Matthew Ar
nold on, 279-80; unnecessary to
attest moral precepts, 268, 294,319.
Miraculous Conception, of Jesus, 171-
3, 201-4 ; no mention of in ™-aj*>
199 • if true, Jesus was not of the
seed of David, 171, 229 n j the
story of, discredited, 205 n 229;
the latent truth in the doctrine,
Mohammedanism spread of 30
Mohammedans, their behef in the in
spiration of the Koran, 87, 94.
Z

Money-getting. See Improvidence
Riches.
Monotheism. See Theism.
Morality, Christian, 31-58, 318-9;
needs no miraculous support, 268.
294, 319, 320.
Morbid religious enthusiasm, amon g
Hebrew prophets, 127-8 ; among
early Christians, 245-50 ; of St.
Paul, 35, 261-2 ; among modern
sects, 248 n.
Mortification, of the flesh. See As
ceticism.
Mosaic books. See Pentateuch.
Mosaic cosmogony, its relation to
science, 118-24.
Mosaic Law. See Law of Moses.
Moses, his authority affirmed by Je
sus, 84-5, 145 ; and set aside never
theless, 85-6 ; the organiser of the
Hebrew polity, 117; his monothe
ism doubtful, 148-9 ; nature of his
mission, 238 ; not the author of tha
Pentateuch, 106-18, 297.
Mygdone, 279.
Myths, growth of, in early Church,208.
NANTES, Edict of, effect of its re
vocation on ecstatics of Cevennes,
248 n.
Napoleon, supposed to be referred to
by Daniel, 127 n.
Natural Law, prayer and, 322-5, 328-
9; resignation and, 331-2 ; sin and
its consequences, 335-43 ; Fox on
our belief in its permanency, 374-5n.
Natural Theology, contrasted with
supernaturalism, 309-16.
Nature, external, Berkeley on our
belief in, 373, 375 n ; Fox on our
belief in, 375 n.
Nazarenes, possessed a Hebrew gos
pel, 154 ; as to its being the same
as Matthew's, 156 n ; prophecy as
to Jesus being called a Nazarene,
175.
Nazareth, Jesus returns to, after pre
sentation in Temple, 174 n ; as to
its being the residence of Christ's
parents, 175.
Nazarite, what constituted a, 175 ;
command of the Baptist to be one,
203.
Neander, on authorship of the Fourth
Gospel, 160 ; on the slaughter of
the innocents, 174 n ; on the Bap
tist's inquiry as to the Messiahship
of Jesus, 206 n ; on speaking witn
longues, 246 n.

394

INDEX.

Nebuchadnezzar, prophecies as to,
129-30; date of his reign, 129 n, 134.
Nehemiah, legend as to formation of
Hebrew canon by, 78.
Newcome, Archbishop, on a prophecy
of Zechariah, 126 n.
Newman, F. W. , on the gospel nar
ratives and Christ's character, 16 ;
his " Phases of Faith," 64 ; on the
composition of the Pentateuch,
117 n ; on meaning of the word
" prophecy," 127 n ; on prophecy
against Egypt, 129 n ; and Babylon,
130 ; as to wlien prophecies written,
131 n ; on prophecy of miraculous
conception, 173 n ; his " Hebrew
Monarchy" on Messianic prophecy,
303 n ; on Paul's argument for a fu
ture life, 359 n, 373 n ; on the in
fluence of the belief in hell or a
future life, 376 n.
New Testament, formation of canon,
88-9 ; inspiration of, 88-95 ; inter
nal evidence of, 93-4.
Newton, Sir Isaac, how far inspired,
299.
Nicene Creed, Matthew Arnold on,
21 ; not a faithful embodiment of
Christianity, 33.
Nicodemus, Christ's discourse with,
214, 215 n, 220.
Nicodemus, Gospel of, on miracles at
crucifixion and resurrection, 182 n.
Nicolaitans, their views of God and
Jesus, 210-1.
Niebuhr, on Livy, 95.
Non-resistance to violence, 38-43 ;
noxious, 55.
Norton, on the abrogation of the Mosa
ic law by Jesus, 86 n ; on the com
position of the First Gospel, 154-5 n,
156 n ; on the Ebionites and their
gospel, 155 n, 156n; on oral tradition.
165 n ; on the composition of the
Gospels, 167 ; on doubtful portions
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 169
n ; on the miracles at the crucifixion
and resurrection, 181 n; on the
Gnostics, 210 n.
OBERLIN, 226.
Old Testament, formation of canon,
77-80; inspiration of, 77-88, 106-25 ;
internal evidence as to, 81-4 ; tes
timony of Christ, the apostles, and
the evangelists as to, 84-7, 145 ;
authorship of, 106-25; popular views
as to its authority, 106-7 ; its gen
eral character, 107.

Oracles, pagan, their ambiguity, 142.
Oral tradition, influence of, on gospel
history, 56, 163, 164-7, 168 ; Mid
dleton on, 158 n ; Thirwall and
Norton on, 165 n ; Schleiermacher
on, 166 ; Trench on, 185-6 n.
Origen, on the authorship of the First
Gospel, 154 n, 155 n ; on the Second
and Third Epistles of John, 159 n.
Orthodoxy, its narrowness, 309-17.
Ossiculum Luz, 362 n.
PAGAN ORACLES, their ambig
uity, 142.
Pagans, their views of inspiration,
96 ; of a future life 352, 353, 359 n.
Palseontology, and Scripture, Whe-
well on, 120-1.
Palsetiology, Whewell on, 120.
Palestinian Christians, Schleiermach
er on traditions of Jesus kept by,
166.
Paley, on the inspiration of the New
Testament, 90 ; on the theism of the
Jews, 145 ; on testimony, 153 n ; on
miracles as evidence of doctrine,
263.
Pamphylian sea, passage of, by Alex
ander, 280.
Papias, on the authorship of the First
Gospel, 154 n, 155 n ; his sources
of information, 157-8 n ; his creduli
ty, 158 n, 199 ; on the Second Gos
pel, 157-8 ; on the relation of Mark
to Peter, 158, 244 n.
Parker, Theodore, on date of Old
Testament writings, 78 n ; on gene
alogies of Adam and Enos, 114 n ;
as to faithfulness of gospel record,
234 n ; on miracles, 279 n ; on the
character of Jesus, 234 n, 307-8 n ;
on the universality of inspiration,
308-9.
Pascal, 226 ; how far inspired, 299.
Paschal Controversy, 219-20 n.
Pashur, puts Jeremiah in stocks for
false prophecies, 131.
Patriarchs, antediluvian, their great
age, 119 n.
Paul, the Apostle, date of his writings,
22 n, 288 ; on the resurrection of
Jesus 22-4, 25, 28, 29, 288 ; respon
sible for the dogmatic character of
Christianity, 34-5 ; on inspiration
of the Hebrew canon, 86 ; on de
grees of inspiration, 91-2 ; claims
inspiration, 91 ; of a special nature,
260-2 ; in error as to second coming,
93 n, 98, 254 ; anathematises false

INDEX.

395

teachers, 94 n ; Dr. Arnold on his
mspjration, 9S-9 ; on preaching the
gospel to the Gentiles, 240; his
miraculous powers, 243, 274; on
unknown tongues, 246-7, 249 ; as to
Judaic observances by Gentiles,
251-2 ; his teaching differs from that
of the other apostles, 251-3; his
views on marriage, 253, 256; his
conversion, 258-62, 286; Matthew
Arnold on, 280 ; his vision of Jesus,
23, 25, 261 n, 286 ; unchristian tone
of passages in his writings, 262 ;
his low estimate of miracles, 270,
274 ; his argument as to a future
life, 292 n, 359 n, 373 n ; his meta
physical subtleties, 307 ; his view
of resignation, 331.
Paulus, on the language of the First
Gospel, 154 n ; on the second com
ing, 257 n ; his theory of the re
surrection of Jesus, 290.
Pearson, on the resurrection of the
body, 296 n.
Pentateuch, completed about the
time of Josiah, 78 ; authorship of,
85 n, 106.-18 ; Cabbalists on the in
spiration of, 101 ; date of, 106, 109,
111-2, 114-6 ; discovery of, by
Josian, 109-10 ; made up of two
or more documents, 112-16 ; ana
chronisms in, 112, 115-6 ; discrep
ancies in, 113-4.
Pentecost, 243, 244, 245, 246.
Peter, First Epistle of, on the resur
rection of J esus, 22, 285 ; does
not claim inspiration, 91 ; in error
as to the end of the world, 93 n, 254.
Peter, Second Epistle of, its doubt
ful character, 89, 236 ; almost cer
tainly spurious, 237 n.
Peter, the Apostle, gifted with mi
raculous powers, 94, 270 ; story of
the fish and tribute money mythical,
180 ; his acknowledgment of Jesus,
187-8; bestowal of his name by
Jesus, 188 ; his unfitness as deposi
tary of the power of the keys, 189 ;
he disbelieves Christ's prophecy of
his resurrection, 194-5 ; promise of
thrones to, 2C0 ; his baptizing Gen
tiles, 238, 239, 241-2, 246 n, 250 ;
his interpretion of Cornelius's
vision 239 ; as to his speaking with
tongues, 244 ; Mark his "inter
preter " 158, 244 ; as to Gentile
converts obeying Mosaic law, 251-
2; his character, 258; his Judaie
narrowness, 307.

Pharisees, their conceptions of God,
108 ; Christ's discourse with, in the
Fourth Gospel, 214; and in the
I irst; 274 ; on the circumcision of
Gentiles, 251 ; their exorcists work
miracles, 274, 277; as to the for
giveness of sins, 335 ; their views of
a future life, 353.
Phpanthropy, as a duty, 347-51.
Philo, on degrees of inspiration, 79 ;
on prophecy, 127.
Physiology, and religious enthusiasm,
247-50, 262.
Pilate, story of washing hands by,
mythical, 180.
Plato, how far inspired, 103, 299 ; on
the meaning of the word " pro
phecy," 127; his Messianic pro
phecy, 137 n ; his view of Socrates,
212-3 ; influence of his philosophy
on the Fourth Gospel, 230 ; his
Trinity, 230-1.
Plenary inspiration, 75.
Polycarp, Papias a companion of,
158 n. '
Polytheism, of the Jews, 146, 147-9.
Poor rates, levied on savings of prov
ident, 47.
Pope, his "Essay on Man," 371 ; on
the reward of virtue, 371 h.
Potter, the word a mistranslation in
Zechariah, 178 n.
Potter's field, purchase of, with price
of blood, 177.
Prayer, enjoined by Scripture, 320-2 ;
but see 322 n ; the Lord's Prayer
may be reconstructed from the
Talmud, 321 n ; the question of
the efficacy of prayer examined,
320-30 ; difficulty of believing in
its efficacy, 322-4, 325, 328-30, 375 ;
is not merely communion, 324-5 ;
Christ's views as to, 324-5 ; prayers
to Jesus, the saints, and the Virgin,
327 n ; it may operate as a natural
cause, 32a-9.
Pre-ordination, and prayer, 322-3,
328.
Probation, this world not merely a
scene of, 345.
Prodigy, not a miracle, 264-5.
Progress, of humanity, 41, 348 ; none
in the future state, according to
Scripture, 355.
Prophecies, as evidence of inspiration,
83-4 ; examination of the, 126-144 ;
marks of a genuine, 126 ; Philo on,
127 ; meaning of the word, 127 ;
often not intended as predictions,

396

INDEX.

128, 135 n ; non-fulfilment of, 129-
30, 172-7 ; false, 130-1 ; when ut
tered or written down, 131-4 ; after
the event, 134-5 ; reference of, to
Jesus, 126 n, 135-8, 140-1, 172-7,
195, 297, 302-3 n ; disingenuous in
terpretations of, 136-7 n, 137-8 ; Dr.
Arnold on the interpretation of,
138-44; Christ's prophecies of his
death and resurrection, 192-6 ; and
second coming, 196-8 ; in the Old
Testament do not allude to Christ's
sufferings, 196 ; Joel's as to the
Holy Spririt, 245.
Prophetical Books, completed soon
after Nehemiah, 78 ; their obscuri
ties, 126.
Prophets, their absurd and disgusting
practices, 127-8 ; the Hebrew na
tion inundated with false, 130-1 ;
who were put to death under the
Mosaic Law, 94 n, 269.
Protestants, their notion of miracleB,
279-80.
Psalms, their conceptions of God,
149-52; their Christianity, 301.
Punishment, is by natural conse
quence, 336, 338, 339,42, 369-70 n ;
eternal, 355-8, 377, 379 ; ignorance
of its nature and amount in this
life, 369. See Hell.
Purity, inward, enjoined by Chris
tianity, 319.
QUAKERS, 39, 40 ; pursuitof wealth
by, 51.
Quarto-deciman Controversy, 219-
20 n.
RABBINS, regard much of the Old
Testament as allegorical, 80-1 n.
Rationalism, Dr. Arnold on, 267.
Reason, the foundation of religion,
311-12.
Red Sea, the passage of ,by the Israel
ites, 280 ; Josephus explains as a
natural event, 107 n.
Regeneration, Christ's discourse on,
214, 215 n, 220.
Religion, necessarily imperfect, 65-
71 ; cannot be authenticated by
miracles, 271-80, 294-5; founded
on reason, 311-2.
Religious ccBtasy or enthusiasm, 245-
50, 261-2; of Hebrew prophets,
127-8.
Renan, his "Vie de Jesus," 10,12-
14 ; on the growth of miracle, 13 ;
ob the authorship of the Fourth

Gospel, 13-14, 160, 101-2; on the
resurrection of Jesus, 24, 25 ; on
the character of Jc«us, 12-14, 16,
160 ; on life of a Galilean fisherman,
48n ; on Christianity befoie Christ,
301 n ; on imperfect understanding
of Jesus by the apostles, 162, 308 n.
Repentance, 335, 340-2.
Resignation, the Christian view of,
330-2 ; Paul's idea of, 330-1 ; Job's,
331 ; the philosophic view superior
to the Christian, 331-2.
Resurrection from the dead, records of,
in the Gospels, 181-2 n, 264-5, 277,
293 ; Jewish ideas as to, 291 n, 301,
359 n, 362 n ; evidence required to
prove, 272, 284, 291"n ; not proved
by Christ's resurrection, 295-6 ; no
proof of peculiar favour, 293. See
Future Life.
Resurrection of Jesus, 22-9, 281-96 ;
how long Jesus was in the grave or
"hell," 25, 196 n; miracles at, 181-
2 ; not expected by the disciples,
183 n, 193-5 ; prophecies of Jesus as
to, 192-6 ; not believed at first, 194 ;
effect of belief in, on early Chris
tians, 249-50 ; and on the teaching
of the apostles, 257 n ; the central
fact of orthodoxy, 281 ; grounds of
belief in, 282 ; discrepancies in ac
counts of, 24-8, 282-4, 286-90;
founded on a nucleus of fact, 283 ;
no testimony of eye-witnesses, 284-
6 ; belief in general, 23, 284 n, 291-
2 ; non-recognition of Jesus after,
26-7, 288-90 ; theories as to, 25-6,
290; subsequent conduct of apos
tles, 291-2 ; of no doctrinal value,
292-5 ; and no pledge of our resur
rection, 295-6 ; unless spiritual,
295 ; it was bodily, 25, 27, 295-6.
Resurrection of the body, Prof. Bush
on, 182 n ; Pearson on, 296 n ;
Mackintosh on, 360.
Revelation, how far possible, 66 ; ii
priori probability of, 88, 89-90 ; of
unreasonable or immoral doctrines,
233, 267-8; to the soul not the
senses, 268-9 ; cannot be proved by
miracles, 271-80, 294-5 ; if based on,
always at mercy of science, 279 ;
examination of claims of Christi
anity to be a, 29-31, 297-317 ; is it
possible of an undiscoverable truth ?
303-6 ; merely temporary and pro
visional, 304 ; how known to be
real, 305-6; of moral truths, not ne
cessary, 268n, 294, 319, 320.

INDEX.

397

Revelation of St. John. See Apoca
lypse.
Riches, Christ's teachings as to, 50-3 ;
Mrs. Barbauld on the pursuit of,
371 n.
Ritualism, discountenanced by Christ,
61 ; worthlessness of, 318-9.
Romans, credulity of„107.
Roman soldiers, their discipline, 183.
Rome, Church of, its attitude to
wards science, 119 ; Matthew Ar
nold on the miracles of, 279-80.
Rousseau, how far, inspired, 103.
SABBATH, Mosaic law of, super
seded by Jesus, 86 ; its bearing on
the meaning of the word "day,"
122 ; a day's journey on, 200.
Sacrifices, discrepant views in the Bi
ble regarding, 152.
Saint Fructuosus, MatthewArnoldon
miracles at martyrdom of, 279-80.
Saint Me'dard, convulsionnaires of,
248 n.
Saints, rising of, at Christ's resur
rection mythical, 181-2; prayers
to, 327 n.
Sallust, orations in, manufactured,
186 n.
Salvation, scheme of, 33-4 n; by
faith, its slight scriptural founda
tion, 225-6 ; an immoral doctrine,
33-4, 227-8.
Samaritan leper, healing of, by Jesus,
240 n.
Samaritan Version, of the Pentateuch
more spiritual than the Hebrew,
147 n.
Samaritan woman, Christ's discourse
with, 214, 240 n.
Samaritans, as to preaching the gos
pel to, 200, 240 n, 241 ; not Gentiles,
but heretical Jews, 240 n.
Samothracia, 235 n.
Samson, a Nazarite, 175 ; Strauss on
his being a late-born child, 202, 203.
Samuel, Strauss as to his being a late-
born child, 202,203.
Sapphira, story of, 63.
Sarah, late-born child of, 203.
Satan, said to have been the source of
thelrvingite delusion, 248 n; his
power to work miracles, 2bb, <a>y-
70.
Saul. See Paul.
Schleiermacher, on the Gospels,
156 n ; on the composition of the
Synoptic Gospels, 163, 164, 165-7j;
on the composition of Lukes

Gospel, 107 ; on the miraculous
feeding, 179 n ; on the first chapter
of Luke, 201-2 ; on the second, 204-
5 ; on Luke's account of Christ's
baptism, 207 ; on interpolations in
Luke, 207, 209 n.
Scholten, on the Apostles' Creed,
34 n ; on dogmatic Christianity,
34-5 n.
Science, its conflict or harmony with
Scripture, 118-24.
Scotch, pursuit of wealth by, 51 ;
former frugality of peasantry, 47.
Scribes, their conceptions of God, i08.
Scriptures. See Bible, Canon, New
Testament, Old Testament.
Second coming, Christ's prophecies
of his, 196-8; expectation of, by
apostles, 93 n, 98, 249-50, 253-6,
257 n.
Self-sacrifice, enjoined by Christian
ity, 319.
Septuagint, translation of word ' ' pot- .
ter" in, 178 n.
Shakespeare, how far inspired, 103,
299 ; as to prodigies on Cssar's
death, 182 n ; as to growth of mira
cles, 280.
Shemaial i , reproves Jehoiada for not
punishing Jeremiah, 131,
Shiloh, meaning of word, 136 n.
Sichem, 219 n.
Sidney, Algernon, on consequences,
153 n, 233.
Signs, common among the Jews, 204,
270 ; of belief, 243 n, 250.
Silas, supposed to be Luke, 159, 235 n.
Siloam, its erroneous interpretation
in the Fourth Gospel, 219 n.
Simeon, his song, 204.
Simon Bar-jona. See Peter.
Sin, forgiveness of, the Christian doc
trine of, irrational and immoral,
335-43 ; is punished by its natural
consequences, 336, 338, 339-42,
369-70 n ; cannot be forgiven, 335,
339-43, 356-7 ; Christ's _ view of,
339 n ; belief in forgiveness a
cause of sin, 340-1 ; consequences
of sin eternal, 356-7 n ; propaga
tion of, 366 n ; future punishment
of, 355-8, 377, 379.
Sincerity, enjoined by Christianity,
319.
Socrates, Xenophon and Plato's di
verse views of his discourses, 212-3.
Solidarity of mankind, 17-8, 320,
323 n.
Solomon's Song, when written, 79.

398

INDEX.

Son of God, meaning of phrase, 230
and notes.
Soul, influence of body on, 360-1 ;
doctrine of a germ or nucleus of,
361-2 n ; immateriality of, 362 ; as
to its change on death, 378. See
Future Life.
Spain, almsgiving in, 44.
Speaker's Commentary, 11, 21, 32.
Spirituality, striving after, a mistake,
347-8.
Stael, De, how far inspired, 103.
Star of the East, story of, mythical,
156,178.
Stephen, Matthew Arnold on the
martyrdom of, 279.
Strauss, his "Leben Jesu," 10; on
the resurrection of Jesus, 24, 25 ; his
"Old Faith and the New," 32;
"Are we yet Christians ? " 31-2 ; his
" Universuni," 60; on the author
ship of the Fourth Gospel, 160;
on Matthew's genealogy of Jesus,
170 ; on Christ's prophecies of his-
death and resurrection, 195-6 n ;
on the first chapter of Luke's Gos
pel, 201-4; on the second, 204;
on the Fourth Gospel, 210 n ; on
the discourses of Jesus therein, 215-
6; on the miracle at Cana, 222 ; his
theory as to the resurrection of
Jesus, 24, 25, 290 ; on the gain to
religion by eliminating dogma, 313
n, 314-5.
Supernaturalism, contrasted with
naturalism, 309-16.
Swiss peasantry, their former frugal
ity, 47.
Syehar, 219 n.
Sydney, Algernon, on consequences,
153 n, 233.
Synagogue, the Great, legend as to
the formation of the Hebrew canon
by, 78.
Synoptic Gospels, composition of,
162-7 ; materials collectedin Galilee,
165 n, doubtful portions of, 169 ;
date of, 22 n, 56, 153, 164, 198, 288 ;
their accounts of the demoniac's
testimony to the Messiah, 207-8 ;
their errors, 209 ; contrasted with
the Fourth Gospel, 208 n, 212, 214,
216-20 n, 277 ; faithful in the main,
but containing much not authentic,
223 ; negative the dogma of Christ's
divinity, 228 ; their difference of
tone from the Epistles, 256-62.
Syro-Chaldaic Gospel, supposed, 163.

TACITUS, on a future life, 359 n.
Tait, Dr., on the Fourth Gospel,
210 n.
Talmud, theEdinburgh Reriewon, 80 n;
Deutsch on, 301 n ; the Lord's
Prayer contained in, 321 n.
Talmudists, The, on degrees of inspir
ation, 79.
Tayler, Rev. J. J., on the authorship
of the Fourth Gospel, 160, 162 ; on
the Paschal Controversy, 219 n.
Taylor, Isaac, on the credulity of the
Fathers, 89 n ; as to the end of the
world, 255 n; on the duty and
efficacy of prayer, 323 n, 325-7 ; on
the solidarity of mankind, 323 n ;
nucleus or germ of the soul, 302 n.
Temple of Jerusalem, 116 ; Christ's
prophecy as to, 183 n.
Tennyson, quoted, 67 n.
TertuUian, on the inspiration of the
New Testament, 89 ; on the joys of
heaven, 354-5 n.
Testament. See Bible, New Testa
ment, Old Testament.
Testimony. See Evidence.
Tetzel, Christianity as taught by,
226.
Theism of the Jews, 145-52 ; Paley
on, 145 ; Milman on, 145-6 ; Bauer
on, 146, 147 ; three stages of, 146,
148; not pure till after Captivity,
146, 149, 297.
Theology, Natural,- contrasted with
supernaturalism, 309-16.
Theudas, the reference to, in Acts, an
anachronism, 186 n.
Thirlwall, Bishop, on the authorship
of the First Gospel, 154 n ; on the
peculiar similarities in the Gospels,
162-3 n, 165 n,; on the composition
of the Synoptic Gospels, 163, 164,
165 n ; on oral tradition, 165 n ;
on the omission by Mark of the
power of the keys, 189 n ; as tojthe
Zacharias of Josephus, 190 n, 191 n.
Thorn, Rev. J. H., on the Trinity,
228 n ; on the effect of the death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus
on the teaching of the apostles,
257 n.
Thucydides, Dr. Arnold on, 95 ; ora
tions in, manufactured, 186 n.
Titus, prophecies as to the destruc
tion of Jerusalem by, 127 n, 197.
Tongues, confusion of, Kenrick on,
118.
Tongues, speaking with, 243-50,

INDEX.

399

Iradition, oral, influence of, on gospel
history, 56, 163, 164-7, 168; Mid
dleton on, 158 n ; Norton on, 165 n ;
Ihirlwall on,165n; Schlei.rmacher
^ on, 106 ; Trench on, 185-6 n.
Trench, Archbishop, on the weakness
of oral tradition, 185-6 n; on mira
cles as evidence of doctrine, 267,
268n.
Trinity, as to baptism in the name of,
191 ; an ecclesiastical not an evan
gelical doctrine, 228-31; Plato's,
, 231.
Truth, difficulty and pain of the search
after, 71-3, 316-7 ; latent in false
hood, 355-6.
Tyre, prophecies against, not fulfilled,
129.
UNITY of the human race, 17-8,
320, 323 n.
Unknown tongues, 243-50.
VESPASIAN, 198 n.
Virgil, as to prodigies on Cesar's
death, 182 n.
Virgin Mary. See Mary.
Virtue, the Christian idea of, some
times mercenary, 330 n, 333-5 ;
Pope on the reward of, 371 n.
WASHING HANDS, a Jewish
ceremony, 180 ; a Mosaic rite, 180 n.
Wealth, Christ's teachings as to, 50-
3 ; Mrs. Barbauld on the pursuit of,
371 n.
Webster, on the language of the First
Gospel, 154 n.
Westminster Confession, not a faith

ful embodiment of Christianity,
Wetstein, on the composition of
Luke, 164 ; on the Lord's Prayer
and the Talmud, 321 n.
Wette. See De Wette.
Whateley, Archbishop, on miracles,
279.
Whewell, on the relations of Scrip
ture and Geology, 120-1, 124.
Wisdom, Book of, quoted, 103.
Word, the. See Logos.
Wordsworth, his ode on Immortality
quoted, 375-6 n.
World, This, its true value, 345-51.
See Second Coming.
XENOPHON, his view of Socrates
contrasted with Plato's, 212-3.
ZACHARIAS, father of the Baptist,
his hymn in Luke, 202, 203 ; ad
vanced in years, 203.
Zacharias, son of Barachias, Mat
thew's account of his murder apoc
ryphal, 189-91.
Zacharias, son of Baruch, 189.
Zacharias, son of Jehoiada, 189.
Zechariah, Book of, Newcome and
Davidson on a prophecy in, 126 n ;
date of, 131 n; its supposed prophecy
as to Jesus, 177 n ; as to the pas
sage in, which Matthew attributes
to Jeremiah, 177-8 n ; manner of
the prophet's death unknown, 189-
90 n.
Zerubbabel, Zechariah's prophecy as
to, 126 n.
Zschokke, quoted, 317.

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