Part 14 (1/2)

Our author professedly opposes ”Ancient Christianity” to modern scepticisround,” and no region of atmospheric phantasht History, however, is solid ground only so far as it is really explored; and the trending of the land and curving of the shore in one latitude of time no more enables us to lay down the es' es of the Hiuish the real from the fabulous sources of the sacred stream To take us into the basilicas and show us how Christians worshi+pped in the days of Alexander Severus, to introduce us to the Proconsul's court and bid us witness their refusal of divine hoe, and then ask us whether a faith like this _could have had_ any origin but ONE,--this is not _history_, but the mere _evasion_ of history We want to know, not what _must have been_ the source, but what _was_ the source, of the great moral power that rose upon the world as Rome declined Whoever wishes to shut out huencies froh the entire remains of the early Christian literature; must trace the conflict between the Hebrew and the Pauline Gospel; find a place for the peculiar version of the religion given by the Evangelist John; fix the limits of Ebionitism, of Chiliasm, of Docetism; and show that these modes and varieties of doctrine stop short of the substance of the early faith, and do not enter the canonical Scriptures with any disturbance of their historic certainty Nothing of this kind do we expect fro the logic of Christian evidence, which, however prevalent ament a mind not at all at home with the present conditions of the problem He seems to think that we can _first_ prove the historic truth of the Scriptures _in general_; and then get rid of the _difficulties in particular_; and requires us, in obedience to this pedantic law of logical etiquette, to carry into our investigation of every successive perplexity the rigid assus hich we deal are ”inspired,” and their contents of ”Divine authority”

”When a collection of historicupon a particular series of events, is brought forward, it will follow, upon the supposition that those events have, on the whole, been truly reported, that any hypothesis, the object of which is to make it seem probable that no such events did take place,But then, _after_ the truth of the history has been established, and when the trustworthiness of the id criticises, we shall undoubtedly encounter a crowd of perplexing disagreeh for all our acu our path

And yet no ae back upon a supposition which we have already discarded as incoherent and absurd”--p 110

We cannot call this a vicious canon of historical criticisether The critic's work is not a process which can go on generically, without addressing itself to any particular matters at all, and vindicate comprehensive conclusions in blindness towards the cases they coment that, on the whole, a certain book contains a true report of events, can only be a provisional assumption, founded on natural and childlike trust, and can claim no scientific character, till it coation in detail of the narrative's contents

No doubt, the bare fact of the existence of Christianity as a great social phenoh that Jesus of Nazareth was no iion, and the traditional picture of its author, may indicate the cast of his mind and the intensity of his influence; the institutions of the Church in in Palestine, and the approximate date of its birth But these conclusions, founded entirely on reasonings from human causation, can never carry us into the superhu the memorials of the life of Jesus, than that they _may be_ true, and do not forfeit, _ab initio_, their title to examination by fundaruity How far the existence of this _pri the truth of the history,” and ”the trustworthiness of the materials,” we need not point out to any one accustoreat proposition, that ”the Gospel of Christ is a supernaturally authenticated gift,” we cannot ieneral_, without research into a single miracle Is it indifferent to the fact of the Incarnation, that the only two accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus are hopelessly at variance with each other? Is the evidence of the Resurrection unaffected by the discrepancies on which harenuity? Are we as sure that, in reading the Apostles' works, we have to do with ”inspired writers,” as if they had _not_ made any false announcements about the end of the world? What does our authorthem any just influence in abateht, and his opponent another; but in neither case can they be postponed for treatment in a mere appendix to the discussion of Christian evidence: they are of the very pith of the whole question, and, so long as they lie in reserve as quantities of unknown nitude and direction of influence, render historical belief and unbelief alike irrational

Nor can we for a moment allow that the failure of ever so ive a satisfactory account of the origin of Christianity, is any good reason for contented acquiescence in the received doctrine Our author insists, that we must make our definitive choice between soelical tradition; and either take the facts as they are handed down to us, or else replace theht does he impose on us such an alternative necessity? Is the critic disqualified for detecting false history, because he cannot, at his distance, write the true? Is it a thing unknown, as a product of scholarshi+p, that fabulous elements disclose themselves aain to part with an error, though only in favor of an ignorance? If a ion arose may ”break down” by mere internal incoherence and improbability, why eable with similar imperfections, be liable to the same fate? It is surely conceivable that _all_ the finished representations we possess,--Hebrew and Alexandrine, as well as German,--furnish, more or less, an ideal and conjectural history of the infancy of Christendom; and that the reproduction of that time may not only be _now_ impossible, but have already beco of one solution implies therefore no triumph of another; and if the tradition on which we stand be insecure, our position is not is of every adventurous hypothesis on which we had thought to escape the coe the _venue_ of the great Christian cause from the first century to the third, and, on the evidence present there, give even preliion and the old which characterized that period, he paints with striking and truthful effect; and, contrasting the severe and holy veracity of anishtly refers the superiority of the Christians to their faith in a _Person_, instead of ard this as original and exclusive to the Gospel, and to set it on the forehead of the Church as the very mark of her distinctive divinity? We think not The sas, not as a peculiarity, but in common with every faith whose Only God is the apotheosis of huenuine Theis it more than the enthusiasm of poetry, the earnestness of philosophy, the inspiration of genius, and constituting it, in the deepest sense, Religion Nor is the ground of the distinction far to seek Religion, in its ultiher than ourselves Higher than ourselves, however, can none be, that have not what isour endowth, of duration; none sieness of discerning thought, but only by free and realizing preference of theWill can alone be nobler thanat my latent nature, and emancipate me into the captivity of worshi+p In other words, reverence can attach itself exclusively to a _Person_; it cannot direct itself on what is _im_personal,--on physical facts, on unconscious laws, on necessary forces, on inanih it be infinite, on duration, though it be eternal These all, even when they rule us, are _lower_ than ourselves; they ination, but never rise to be our equals, or conspire to furnish even the synition of oneness pervading her variety, the sense of an absolute ground abiding behind her transient pheno of wonder and the apprehension of ideal beauty, but not to the practical consecration of life; glorifying the universe as a te off within it no oratory of Conscience In order to extract anything like a religion of _conduct_ froed to approach as near as they can to the language of proper Theis personification to the verge of personality; uttering various warnings not to neglect the ”_intentions_ of Nature,” or insult the ”Relentless Veracities,” and inviting sundry offenders to _blush_ before ”the Eternal Powers” The whole force of such expressions is evidently due to the false seht and hich they clothe the conceptions of mere abstract relations or physical tendencies These rich tints are no self-color, but a borrowed light reflected frorander Presence studiously withdrawn froone, no positive residuum is found, but a doctrine of hope and fear, without any element of Duty It were a mockery, an inanity, to bid a man spend his affections on hypostatized laws that neither know nor answer him In his crimes, it is not the heavy irons of his prison, but the deep eye of his judge, from which he shrinks; and in his repentance he weeps, not upon the lap of Nature, but at the feet of God In his allegiance, his vow is ht, and the authority of an Infinitely Just; and his acts of trust are directed by no means to the steadiness of creation's ways, but to the faithfulness of a perfect Mind In short, all the sentiion presuppose a Personal Object, and assert their power only where Manhood is the type of Godhead This condition was imported, or rather continued, froht with it the devout loyalty of heart, the singleness of service, the incorruptible heroism of endurance, which had encountered Antiochus Epiphanes at Jerusalem, as it now anism of the Empire, on the other hand, failed entirely of this condition It was a mere nature-worshi+p, expressive of the political dynah the award of a mysterious necessity, Ro the deities whose congress was now asseenous seats, had commanded the full moral faith, and touched the true theistic devotion, of a people, that time had passed; and the conquered tribes suffered a ion, than when she crushed their liberty Removed to Ro except that its Gods were Gods no hts to a place a a pensioned hierarchy Vanquished divinities inevitably becon their sceptre to the sovereign they are compelled to own As the aderies of checked nationalities, so did its pantheon include a collection of extinguished religions While as Imperator the head of the state was the embodiment of its unity by natural force, as Divus he represented its unity by preternatural sanction; and the divine honors paid to hi majesty of Rome These honors would be freely rendered to hi charged with force enough to come up and be, as equally decreed by ”the Eternal Powers,”--equally divine Such hoe would appear to the of mysterious fates in its production; and no scruple could withhold the in theira breath of pious incense around the thing that veritably was It were absurd to expect the protest of a ion you cannot contradict; ill see a God wherever you ask hi but that, a pheno there, an occult power is behind it A faith of this sort is deficient, as an Hegelian would say, ”in the ation_”; it is all unobstructed affir to dash itself against

But let the divine element in the universe cease to be impersonal and impartially coalescent with the whole, let it live an Individual Mind, and the requisite antagonism immediately appears To the Jew, the worshi+p of Caesar would be no other than high treason to Jehovah, whose tool, whose whip of lightning, and whose cup of consolation the Pagan Eht become; but whose emblem and incarnation he could so little be, that he rather stood defiantly at the head of the opposing realan, did not cease to be the co realm_ there must be, wherever proper Theism exists Man feels that his personal attributes, his will, his character, his conscience, demand conflict for their condition, and without the possibility of ill could never be; and when he carries thee of the Highest, they bear with theive it place in the universe, as the darkness in whose absence light would want its distinction, the privative without which the beauty of holiness were nothing positive Hence, expressed or unexpressed, a dualisenuine theistic faith All is not divine for it It has a devil's province sohted rock to the shts,--hostile as the priest of falsehood to the true prophet,--there stand contrasted in this creed two doent powers, the other reserved as the nursing ground froht and truth shall be spread To the Hebrew, the Pagan world was given over to a false allegiance, and inspired with diabolical delusions For hienius of Caesar, would have been, therefore, a desertion to the enemies of God, forbidden by every claim of faithfulness and veracity

Thus we conceive that the ainst idol-worshi+ps were complete within the limits of Judaism before the mission of Christ; and that the essence of it lies, not in the exclusive characteristics of the Gospel, but in the difference between Theistic reverence for a Personal Being, and the Pantheistic acknowledgment of an impersonal divineness The peculiar function of Christianity in this respect was to become missionary to the world of this heroic fidelity transmitted from the parent faith, and hitherto bounded by its limits; and to find a place in the universal conscience of civilized nations for the duty of bearing testih with tortures and death, to the pricelessness of truth and the sanctity of conviction True it is that the Gospel was qualified for this office by directing human faith upon a _Person_; and would have exercised no such power, had it been apropositions for assent, instead of a Living Mind for trust and reverence But this condition would have been attained by the simple extension of the Jewish Theism

The Personality, which is needed as a centre of intense fealty and affection, is found in the God of Hebrew tradition, and, for its effects in kindling a ht in the historical Jesus of Nazareth He, no doubt, as thehom the Church stood in direct contact, as the presence of the Divine in the Huiance We do not in the least question this as a _fact_, but only as a _necessity_, ere we can account for theout, as one of the grandest practical results of Christianity, the recognition it has obtained for the _obligations of religious truth_, our author has rightly seized a characteristic distinction of ency of the first order in history; we do not accuse hiy And noe must add, that if we differ from him as to the source whence it comes, we differ still more as to the issues whither it conducts So inconsiderately does he allow hielical zeal, that he clai, but the exclusive right of ever practising, the duties of religious veracity None but historical believers have the least title to attach any sacredness to their convictions, or to feel any hesitation about denying them What business have the authors of the ”Phases of Faith,” and the ”Creed of Christendom,” to any better morality of belief than Gallio or Lucian? If they have not fallen back into the Pagan indifferentisht_ to have done so, and our author will continue very indignant till they do He is offended with Mr Newument and hi for saying that, in the process of changing cherished beliefs, ”the pursuit of truth is a daily”honor to those who encounter it, saddened, weeping, tre still!” And he is not ashauileless veracity which in himself would be aconceit So astonishi+ng, logically and ethically, are his statements on this subject, and so curiously do they determine his intellectual position, that we must present thee, along with our veneratedthis profession,--that we may not lie to God, nor deny before ion; we (as they did) affirm that which is consistent within itself, and which, in the whole extent of its rant us only our initial postulate, that Christianity is from heaven

”But how is it, when this same solemn averment comes from the lips of those who deny that postulate, and who scorn to recognize the voice of God in the BOOK? It is just thus; and those whom it concerns so to do, owe it to the world and to theenuous avowal

”In the first place, the style and the very ter the fact of the iaris better! A claim, in behalf of the Gospel, must be made of what is its own, and which these writers, without leave asked, have appropriated As to every word and phrase upon which the significance of this their profession turns, itthe of such phrases as would have been intelligible to PLUTARCH, to PORPHYRY, and to M AURELIUS A surrender must be made of the words CONSCIENCE, and TRUTH, and RIGHTEOUSNESS, and SIN; and, alas! ive ht NAME which they (must I not plainly say so?) have stolen out of the BOOK; when they have frankly e surrender, we may return to them the t? ?e??? of classical antiquity

”Yet this plagiarishts hich the saeable It is reasonable, and it is what a goodrather than deny a persuasion, which is such that he could not, if he would, cast it off

So it ith the early Christian martyrs; their persuasion of the truth of the Gospel had become part of themselves; it was faith absolute, in the fullest sense of the word The saree of irresistible persuasion attaches to the conclusions ofto an opinion, or to an undefined abstract belief A man may indeed choose to die rather than contradict his personal persuasion of the truth of an opinion; but in doing so he has no right to take to himself the martyr's style So to speak is to exhibit, not constancy, but opinionativeness, or an overweening confidence in his own reasoning faculty

”Polycarp could not have refused to die when the only alternative was to blaspheme CHRIST, his Lord; but Plutarch could not have been required to suffer in attestation of his opinion,--good as it was,--that the poets have done ill in attributing the passions and the perturbations of human nature to the immortal Gods; nor Seneca, in behalf of those astronoical theories hich he entertains himself and his friend Lucilius

”When those who, after rejecting Christianity, talk of suffering for the 'truth of God,' and speak as if they were conscience-bound 'toward God,'

they e which they are not entitled to avail theious belief whereon they can establish for the They may indeed profess what _opinion_ they please as to the Divine attributes; but they cannot need to be told that which the s of their own hearts so often whisper to them, that all such opinions are, at the very best, open to debate, and must always be indeterminate, and that at this time their own possession of the opinion which just now they happen to cling to, is, in the last degree, precarious How then canis upon the fleecy clouds of unde orthodox, you die at the stake, you are aheretic,--why, then you are a man burnt;--a doctrine which Robert Hall compressed within the narrowest compass, when he said, ”It is the saint which makes the martyr, not the martyr the saint” This is the very Gospel of intolerance; and whoever preaches it may feel assured that he can lend no help in any worthy ”Restoration of Belief”; for he is hi of scepticisms,--scepticisms of moral realities The rule, ”that we may not lie to God, nor deny before ion,” is, in our author's view, the gift and glory of Christianity Be it so This rule either holds for all men at all times, or it does _not_; if there be persons who, notwithstanding it, _may_ lie to God, and deny their inward conviction, then the Scriptures, in co it, have revealed no universal principle of duty, no obligation having its seat in the nature of things and the constitution of the human soul, but a mere sectional by-law, an arbitrary precept for the security and good ordering of one exclusive coly proudly, as if it were a hidden truth revealed, a latent beauty opened; it is no part of the holy legislation of the universe, but a statutory enactment under which we fall, or from which we escape, as we pass in or out at the door of a certain historical belief Need we say that this side of the alternative strips Christianity of every pretension to be a moral revelation at all? If, to take the other side, the rule in question _does_ hold for allon Mr

New to its authority and owning its sanctity, they render a hoe as devoutly true as his, only different in this, that, while they feel no disturbance fro in the sanctuary at their side, he cannot be at peace till he has sprung to his feet and hurled theiaris their duty, without knohere they learned it! O shareediness, that would turnaspiration, into a property! As if Christ were one to stand upon the copyright of revelation, and, unless his naht nor prayer to dedicate itself to God! Our author, as public prosecutor in the Supreme Court, demands that the defendants shall empty themselves out of every earnest sentiment, and surrender back the words CONSCIENCE, and TRUTH, and RIGHTEOUSNESS, and SIN, and God, ”as _stolen_ froiven for, but that it ht freely furnish these?--and how better can it fulfil its end, than by opening for thes_ are which they disclose? Let their spirit breathe where it listeth; it will not be less a Holy Spirit that we know not ”whence it coelic blessing it is, that ”he that was healed _wist not who it was_” As ”the Book”

does not, by its presence, _create_ the facts which it reveals, so neither does its absence or rejection _destroy_ them Conscience, as an eleo,--God, as reality in the universe, does not live or perish,--according as the Bible is kept in the pocket or laid upon the shelf; even if their first _witness_ were in Scripture, _they themselves_ are in the world,--as active, as near, as certain, in the transactions of to-day, as in the affairs of distant history Scientific truth, once well ascertained, can take care of itself, without being everywhere attended by the report of its first discovery; it is in the safe keeping of the objects on which it writes a new , and the phenomena amid which it introduces a fresh symmetry And moral truth, when once embodied and revealed, is not less independent of its earliest expression; it finds its response in human consciousness, its reflection from human life, and weaves itself up into the very fabric of in Thus ”revelation”--just in proportion as it is revelation, and tells us what is cognate to ourselves, and bound up with the realities around us--passes of necessity into ”natural religion”; and precisely according to the th and per into self-evidence Did it awaken in us _no_ confir experience, did it _nowhere_ link itself with the visible syste,indices of nature and Providence, it would sit apart, and become incredible That could hardly be a truth at all, which, after roahteen centuries, has found no _natural_ ground on which to rest, and round it has acquired, _that_ is surely a proper basis for its present support; it may innocently cease to be held on iarism” so vehemently denounced is rather the fulfilment than the destruction of the faith, for it is only that s which the oracle has enabled them to see for themselves

Our Christian advocate, however, is not content with reserving to his side the sole power of _discerning_ the duty of religious veracity; he further claiht to _practise_ it He teaches that it is _not binding_ on all ation is in any case conditional on the ”initial postulate, that Christianity is from heaven” He thinks, apparently, that the duty is not so much _revealed_ as _constituted_ by the Gospel, so as to have no existence beyond the pale We can collect from his words two considerations, under whose influence he seement He evidently assuent partly on the _object-ree of evidence_ If my faith is directed towards _a Person_, then, he i it; but if not, ives no one any title to complain, and I cannot be expected to die on behalf of a proposition Polycarp ht very properly recant, without at all altering, his judg passions to the Gods Is it so, indeed? Then there is no harm in a lie, unless some one is betrayed or insulted by it besides the hearers e deceive,--and we s_, provided we are true to our sentiments about _persons_? With full recollection of the questionable verdicts, on probleiven by Xenophon and Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, we doubt whether any Pagan moralist can be quoted in favor of a doctrine so unworthy as this The author seeation to speak the truth is a mere duty of personal affection; and that in the absence of this ele falsehood with detraction and ingratitude, he concludes that, since an abstract theory is insensible to what people say about it, and can have no services owing to it, it may be blamelessly repudiated by those who really believe it This is tanta of veracity froives ihts what is alone essential to it The conditions of a lie, in all its full-bloickedness, are quite complete, when there is a person to speak it, a person to hear it, and a social state to be the theatre of the deception; should there be also a person _spoken of_, that is a circuuilt, but a supple in a new ele falsehood into faithlessness The introduction of this additional person into the case rant, especially if he be one who has acknowledged clairatitude and reverence Calumny and perfidy are justly held in deeper abhorrence than equivocation unstained with nity But to be unaffected by the crilare, and not even to believe in it unless it smells sulphurous and burns red, betrays a perception too much accustomed to melodramatic contrasts of representation to appreciate the hts of the real and open day And so far frohtened by the presence of deep personal affection as its inspiration, this very circumstance renders the act a less arduous sacrifice; just as to fall in the hot blood of battle may need less heroiseon's table In proportion as the denial of Christ in the hour of trial would be the more intolerable blasphe, and theAnd those who, inno such deep affection, can yet be true,--those who, in simple clearness of conscience, can dispense, if need be, with the help of enthusias iron can open therand occasion, but just as certainly use the s that is not,--have assuredly a soul of higher prowess and more severely proved fidelity to God And it is a heartless thing to turn round upon theseno one at whose feet to lay their offering, and no popular syhtness from the imputation of conceit

There is, however, another consideration which weighs with our author in granting to ”ious veracity They have only a ”personal persuasion” resting on precarious grounds, and not the certitude attaching to ”the conclusions of mathematical and physical science”; and it would be folly to suffer on behalf of ”_unde”! Are we then to lay it down as a canon in ethics, that intensity of assurance is the ation to speak the truth,--so that we are to state our certainties correctly, but may tell lies about our doubts? If so, scrupulous fidelity is incumbent on us only within the limits of deductive science and of ireat sphere of _human_ affairs, in e, we may say and unsay,as the favor or the fear of s over us Neas bound to stand by his ”Principia”; but Locke ht have renounced his treatise on Governs! Were he indeed to refuse so easy a coreat reflection upon histhreatened with death, will not belie his own persuasion of probable truth, he is chargeable with ”overweening confidence in his own reasoning faculty”! It is happy for the world that it does not always except theto correct the twisted logic of belief

”Opinion,” a wise ”; and how little knowledge would get made, if opinion were eotism rather than a trust! If there is one fruit of intellectual culture which nifies and ennobles it, it is the scrupulous reverence it trains for the smallest reality, its watchfulness for the earliest promise of truth, its tender care of every staht, frorow To cut against this fine veracious sense with the weapons of unappreciating sarcasround as weeds with the heel of orthodox scorn, is a feat which can advance the step of Christian evidence only by betraying the Christian ethics Our author has entangled himself in the metaphor indicated by the word ”_ witness_ to so,--which is indeed quite true; and supposes that the things to which he bears witness must be _the facts or doctrines_ held by him; and _this_ is not true at all For that which we attest in the hour of persecution is simply _our own state of mind; our belief_, and not the object believed