Courses of lectures on doctrinal and devotional themes had been
fashionable with the Puritans. Robert Boyle, looking at the spread of
infidelity, provided, by his will, for the appointment of a lecturer,
to preach eight sermons in a year upon the Evidences of Christianity;
and thus set an example which has been followed by Bampton, Hulse, and
others. The trustees--Tenison, then Bishop of Lincoln, and John Evelyn
being two of them--selected for the first performance of the duty a
rising clergyman, already known in University circles by his vast
attainments, and afterwards famous throughout the world of letters.
Evelyn records the appointment in his _Diary_, by saying “he
made choice of one Mr. Bentley, chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester;”
and the comparatively obscure student, so described, regarded it in
after-life as the greatest honour with which he was ever invested. He
determined to follow Cudworth and Cumberland without imitating them,
to go down to the basis of all theology, and to confute the opinions
of Hobbes and Spinoza. Bentley’s Lectures, entitled, _A Confutation
of Atheism_, after exposing the folly of a godless belief, aimed at
demonstrating the Divine existence from an inquiry into the faculties
of the human soul, the structure of the body, and the frame of the
world. It was a movement along the line of rational thought. The
Revolution had appealed to reason in matters of government. Without
throwing aside traditions--even while appealing to constitutional
forms--Englishmen were seeking after fundamental political principles;
and reason came now to be earnestly invoked in the service of religion.
Philosophy had been employed in attacking Christian beliefs; philosophy
now came to the rescue. Faith in an infinite cause, shaken by the human
intellect, was to be reinforced by a more vigorous exercise of the same
faculty.
Boyle, the founder of the Lecture, had collected scientific facts
available for the lecturer’s purpose. Locke, by illustrating the
essential difference between matter and mind, had become a pioneer
in the path along which Bentley pushed parts of his argument; and
Newton, by his _Principia_, had prepared for him methods by which
to demonstrate the Creator’s providence and goodness. Thus assisted,
Bentley showed himself possessed of original genius; and having at
command satire as well as logic, with a style adapted to give effect
to his thoughts, he produced a deep impression by his discourses. The
first he delivered at St. Martin’s--the second at Bow Church; when
Evelyn, ensconced in a tall-backed pew, listened with delight to the
preacher, and immediately admitted him to his friendship. Before he
published his work he wrote to the great philosopher, then resident in
Trinity College, Cambridge. Newton corrected and modified Bentley’s
opinions upon some points, but he confirmed his views respecting most,
and supplied him with additional arguments.[439]
[Sidenote: BOYLE LECTURE.]
Bentley soon afterwards obtained a stall in Worcester Cathedral,
probably through the influence of Stillingfleet, his patron. If we are
to believe his words, he had what was a better reward, for he says:
“The Atheists were silent since that time, and sheltered themselves
under Deism.” It is a pity that historical justice requires it to be
said that this advocate of natural theology did not possess the primary
virtue of religion, and the chief ornament of all learning. A nobleman
happening one day to sit near Stillingfleet at dinner, observed to him,
“My Lord, that chaplain of yours is certainly a very extraordinary
man.” “Yes,” he replied; “had he but the gift of humility, he would be
the most extraordinary man in Europe.”[440]
According to the terms of Boyle’s will, which authorized the
appointment of the same lecturer for three years, Bentley might have
delivered another course of sermons; but owing, as it is said, to the
favouritism of one of the trustees, and in opposition to Evelyn’s
wishes, Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells, delivered the second
series, entitled, _A Demonstration of the Messias_. Williams,
afterwards made a Bishop, exhibited in his lectures _A General Idea
of Revealed Religion_. Gastrell, subsequently Bishop of Chester,
a friend to Atterbury, and one who pleaded for him in Parliament,
insisted upon _The Certainty and Necessity of Divine Religion_.
Dr. Harris refuted the objections of Atheists to the existence and
attributes of God; a superfluous task, it would seem, if we are to
admit what has been said of the effect of Bentley’s dissertations.
Bradford, “the little ebony doctor,” as he was called--an enemy
of Atterbury’s--discoursed upon the credibility of the Christian
Religion. Blackall, afterwards a Bishop, established and illustrated
the sufficiency and perfection of the Old and New Testaments; and Dr.
Stanhope defended the truth and excellence of the Christian Religion
against Jews, Infidels, and Heretics.[441]
In 1695, Locke anonymously published his _Reasonableness of
Christianity_. Again the appeal was made, not to authority,
tradition, or history, but to reason. The main object was to present
the simplest and most rational form of religion. He concluded, from
his study of the Gospels, that the primary requirement is, that men
should believe Jesus to be the Messiah, the anointed and sent of God;
that such a belief makes everyone a Christian; and that upon it the
superstructure of Christian piety must ever rest. Every reader of this
work must see how hardly he labours to establish his point, how he
repeats over and over again his fundamental principle. He objects to
the enforcement of particular creeds, and he is opposed to all Church
authority in reference to religion; though he speaks in general terms
of salvation through Christ, he enters into no definition whatever of
evangelical doctrines, indeed such definitions he regards as foreign to
his purpose.
Whilst teaching of this kind, with a continuous appeal to reason,
runs through the larger part of the book, towards the close he
enters upon the supernatural evidences of Christianity. Locke was an
apostle of human reason as opposed to human authority, but he was
no rationalist in the sense of opposing revelation. Revelation he
recognized as a form of supernatural wisdom, and in advocating it he
appealed to supernatural wonders. He dwelt upon the miracles of Christ
as conclusive proofs of His Messianic office--a topic which he also
largely treated in a distinct essay, which will be noticed hereafter.
[Sidenote: WORKS ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.]
The book was attacked not by infidels but by believers, not by those
who objected to Christianity but by those who, attaching importance
to certain truths passed over by Locke, thought that he presented
an objectionable view of the Gospel. He appeared to them to be a
rationalist. Dr. Edwards, a clergyman of the Church of England, son
of the famous Presbyterian who wrote the _Gangræna_, assailed
the treatise with bitterness; and so great was its unpopularity in
some quarters, that a Prelate, who thought of it favourably, candidly
confessed: “If I should be known to think so, I should have my lawn
sleeves torn from my shoulders.” Foreign divines, however, hailed it
with applause, especially Dutch friends of the Remonstrant school, Le
Clerc and Limborch. It found numerous readers abroad, and a Dorsetshire
rector, named Samuel Bold, though thoroughly orthodox on the subject of
the Trinity--respecting which Locke laboured under some suspicion--took
up his pen in defence of the lay theologian. Locke’s idea of faith, as
a simple belief that Jesus is the Messiah, will be regarded by most
theologians as very defective; nor is the account which he gives of
Christianity one likely to afford satisfaction to any reader who has
mastered the contents of the New Testament, whether he believes them
or not. Absorbed in the effort to enforce his own view of the Gospel,
Locke merely ignores, without disproving, certain doctrines, which by
evangelical teachers of Christianity are identified with the system
itself. I plainly see that with his habits of close philosophical
thinking, he could not but be repelled by the manner in which those
doctrines were urged by some warm-hearted divines. Yet however
objectionably or offensively presented, they require to be noticed
and disposed of in some way. They are true or false--if true, they
must be taken into full account before any conclusion can be drawn
respecting the reasonableness of revelation; if false, they need to be
refuted, ere such a notion of Christian faith as is propounded by our
philosopher can be placed upon a sufficient basis. But Locke’s defects
or mistakes relative to the extent of faith do not invalidate his main
reasoning. His proofs of the truth and divinity of the Gospel, drawn
from the miracles of Jesus, and from the necessity of an authoritative
revelation of truth and morals, remain the same; and I would add, that
of the devout faith of the author there can be no doubt, when we are
assured that “he admired the wisdom and goodness of God in the method
found out for the salvation of mankind, and when he thought upon it,
he could not forbear crying out, ‘O the depth of the riches of the
goodness and knowledge of God.’”[442]
[Sidenote: WORKS ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.]
Locke, in his _Essay on the Human Understanding_, enters
at large upon the question of the boundaries between reason and
revelation--a question involved in what he says on the Reasonableness
of Christianity. He asserts most plainly the principle, that revelation
cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of reason, but then,
immediately afterwards, he adopts the distinction between things
contrary to reason and things above reason--citing, as examples of the
latter, the fall of angels and the resurrection of the dead. Anything
not contrary to reason, he contends, is to be believed if taught by
revelation; “whatever proposition,” he says, “is revealed, of whose
truth our mind, by its natural faculties and notions, cannot judge,
that is purely matter of faith, and above reason.” Revelation in
such matters “ought to be hearkened unto.” Indeed, Locke goes so far
as to say, that in those things concerning which the mind “has but
an uncertain evidence, and so is persuaded of their truth only upon
probable grounds, which still admit a possibility of the contrary
to be true, without doing violence to the certain evidence of its
own knowledge and overturning the principles of all reason: in such
probable propositions, I say, an evident revelation ought to determine
our assent, even against probability.” Afterwards dwelling upon the
evils of enthusiasm, of which he had a great horror, he goes on to
remark: “Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything;” which,
strictly taken, would mean that no revelation can be a final authority;
but he proceeds in the next sentence to tell us: “I do not mean that
we must consult reason, and examine whether a proposition revealed
from God can be made out by natural principles, and if it cannot,
that then we may reject it, but consult it we must, and by it examine
whether it be a revelation from God, or no. And if reason finds it to
be revealed from God, reason then declares for it, as much as for any
other truth, and makes it one of her dictates.”[443] This explanation
restricts the office of reason to an inquiry into evidence, as to
whether what is thought to be revealed is really such, and leaves faith
to rest ultimately, not in the apparent truth of a doctrine, but on the
revelation making it known. To some, Locke in all this will not appear
to have diverged from an orthodox treatment of evidences; to others, he
will seem to have vacillated a little, leaning now in a rationalistic,
and then in an opposite direction; by none, I think, can he be fairly
regarded as holding the modern doctrine of a verifying faculty--a
doctrine based on a philosophy different from his, and leading to
conclusions at variance with his belief. Whatever might be Locke’s
abstract opinions, it is quite clear that he had no sympathy with
the Socinian party, of whom he speaks as “positive and eager in their
disputes;” “forward to have their interpretations of Scripture received
for authentic, though to others in several places they seem very much
strained;” impatient of contradiction, treating their opponents with
“disrespect and roughness.” “May it not be suspected,” he asks, “that
this so visible a warmth in their present circumstances, and zeal for
their orthodoxy, would (had they the power) work in them as it does in
others? They, in their turn, would, I fear, be ready with their set of
fundamentals, which they would be as forward to impose on others, as
others have been to impose contrary fundamentals on them.”[444]
[Sidenote: WORKS ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.]
Bentley and Locke added what was of the highest value to the literature
of the Evidences. On a far lower intellectual level appeared Leslie,
the Nonjuror, who, eschewing paths of reason, prepared to enter the
path of history, and addressed himself to those of his countrymen who
have little time for study and less capacity for reflection. In 1696
he published _A Short and Easy Method with the Deists_, in which
are laid down certain rules as to the truth of historical statements;
and he contends that when they all meet, statements cannot be false.
The rules are: “That the matter of fact be such, as that men’s outward
senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it; that it be done
publicly, in the face of the world; that not only public monuments be
kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions to be performed; that
such monuments and such actions or observances be instituted and do
commence from the time that the matter of fact was done.” These rules,
Leslie insists, could be successfully applied to the facts connected
with the origin of the religion of Moses and the religion of Christ,
pointing to the institution and observance of Baptism and of the Lord’s
Supper as memorials of the latter. Mohammedanism, he said, lacks such
evidence, and he challenged Deists to show any action that is fabulous,
in support of which all the four marks can be alleged. The work is of
a very slight description, and is composed in a loose and inaccurate
style. It could not meet the case of any who have adopted the
principles of historical inquiry laid down by Voltaire and developed by
Niebuhr, and by them applied to classical annals; nor could the method
be applied by any critical student without great modification, and at
the expense of an amount of learning, which would render the argument
useless for popular purposes.
Charles Blount, after a side thrust at Christianity in his _Notes
on Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius Tyanæus_, left behind him
papers, which were published in a book, entitled, _The Oracles of
Reason_, containing desultory attacks on revelation, chiefly in a
covert form. Indeed, Blount quaintly observes: “Undoubtedly, in our
travels to the other world, the common road is the safest; and though
Deism is a good manuring of a man’s conscience, yet certainly, if sowed
with Christianity, it will produce the most plentiful crop.” It is a
curious fact that the editor and publishers of these posthumous essays
afterwards became convinced of their true character, and, with a view
to counteracting their effect, issued the _Deist’s Manual_.
John Toland--who, after being educated a Roman Catholic, whilst still
a boy rushed out of gross superstition into what was to him the more
congenial region of scepticism--began his career as an author by
writing his _Christianity not Mysterious_, a discourse showing
that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason nor above it,
and that no Christian doctrine can be properly called a mystery. In
this work he does not appear as an antagonist of Christianity; perhaps
he had not yet begun to regard himself otherwise than as a Christian;
yet the tendency of his opinions is to undermine the authority of
revelation. His book, which attracted wide attention, and was, as we
have seen, condemned by the Lower House of Convocation, engaged the pen
of the Bemerton Rector, John Norris, whose extraordinary metaphysical
genius found scope for its exercise in examining Toland’s lucubrations.
His _Account of Reason and Faith, in Relation to the Mysteries
of Christianity_, is one of the ablest books of the period, and
displays a power of analysis, and a determination to reduce the powers
of the human mind to their simplest form, such as reminds one of the
subtle originality of Dr. Thomas Browne.
[Sidenote: WORKS ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.]
Metaphysics are made to do duty in the service of orthodoxy. Norris
dwells upon the distinction of things contrary to reason and above
it, showing that there is a valid ground for the distinction, that
human reason is not the measure of truth; that, therefore, a thing
being incomprehensible by reason, is of itself no conclusive argument
of its being untrue; that if the incomprehensibility of a thing were
an argument against it, human reason would become the measure of
truth; and, therefore, he concludes that incomprehensibility should
not militate against faith. Of course the terms of a proposition must
be intelligible and not contradictory, for no man can accept what is
plainly nonsensical or obviously false; but the mysterious nature of a
fact asserted in a proposition, Norris proves to be no valid objection
to the veracity of the proposition. His mode of handling this subject,
though extremely skilful and effective, is not always such as to bear a
very close scrutiny; and some modification of his argument is required,
in order to a safe entrenchment against inimical attacks. But he
successfully establishes this point--the fundamental one throughout the
controversy--that it is perfectly reasonable and perfectly consonant
with the laws and constitution of the human mind, to believe upon
the authority of revelation, in other words, upon the authority of
infinite wisdom. Norris does not treat Toland’s doctrine as a form of
Deism; his particular application of the principles laid down in this
account of reason and faith is to the Socinian system, but much of the
reasoning is strictly applicable to a form of Deism very prevalent in
the present day. A great deal of what he says goes to the heart of
certain modern theories, and several pages upon the nature and degrees
of mental assent deserve careful study in connection with existing
controversies.[445]
It will be sufficient to complete this sketch if I observe that Toland
made a decided attack on the New Testament Canon in his _Amyntor_,
published in 1698; and that the formidable controversialist, Samuel
Clark, the next year commenced his polemical career by a successful
encounter in defence of the canonicity of the Gospels.
In the course of this work I have had repeated occasions for noticing
the theological literature of the period--dogmatical, practical, and
polemical. It will not be impertinent, as we wind up the subject, to
remark respecting its form and style.
The Renaissance had been at work in art and poetry, and had gradually
supplanted the old romantic school. Gothic churches disappeared
in the fire of London; those built on their ruins were classical
reproductions. A new St. Paul’s arose on Ludgate Hill, in contrast with
old St. Peter’s on Thorney Island. Multiplicity of parts, angularity
of form, picturesqueness of detail, brilliancy of hue, gave place
to regularity of outline, a mathematical exactness of proportion,
smoothness of ornament, and absence of colour. No more pointed arches,
no more niches, no more finials and crockets, no more richly-stained
windows;--all became round, uniform, pale, cold.
[Sidenote: LITERARY STYLE.]
A similar change came over poetry. It were an indignity to the
great bard of the seventeenth century to compare him with any other
than the great bard of the sixteenth. Milton’s name is linked with
Shakespeare’s, but in the way of contrast, just as St. Paul’s Cathedral
is associated with Westminster Abbey. The poet of the Renaissance
succeeds the poet of romance. The architectural character of the two
buildings symbolize the characteristic differences of the two masters
of English song. And this same Renaissance spirit worked its way into
theological literature. Taylor and Bunyan, indeed, all the great
religious writers of the Commonwealth and the Restoration, appear
more or less romancists in the style of their thoughts, regarded from
a literary point of view. Divisions, pointedness, quaint expression,
warmth of sentiment, such as arrests us in mediæval buildings, are
reproduced in the books of that picturesque age. The two authors just
mentioned belong to the class of romancist prose poets. But all is
changed when we turn to the theological literature of King William’s
days--Tillotson, Burnet, Bentley, Locke. We miss Anglican and Puritan
sweep of thought, minuteness of detail, intensity of utterance, and
glow of passion. There is no depth of colour, all is pale; no flash of
fire, all is cold. We meet with regularity, order, smoothness. It is
the age of Renaissance in Divinity.