inextinguishable feeling of guilt; to our personal consciousness of a
personal judge; our terror at the sense of justice; our penitence for our
own ill deserts; the deep consciousness of the load of sin as an
insupportable burden from which we cannot rescue ourselves; and to the
guilt of it which separates between us and God, as a bitter memory that we
are powerless to wipe away.(1037) When these facts are not only
established as psychological realities, but appropriated as personal
convictions, then the way is prepared for the reception of Christianity.
The heart, by realising the personality of God, is at once elevated above
naturalism or pantheism. It feels that in Christ’s incarnation it finds
God near, the infinite become finite, God linked to the heart of a man;
and in his atonement it finds God merciful. Its deep instinct leads it to
reject the theories which would pare down the marvel of that mystery. Its
consciousness of guilt tells it of an obstacle which it cannot believe to
lie merely in itself, but attributes to the mind of the infinite Spirit
which it wants a method for removing. No mere example of majestic
self-sacrifice proclaiming God’s love to man suffices to solace its
sorrows. Some mighty process, wrought out between the Son and the almighty
Father, is instinctively felt to be necessary, as the means by which God
can be just and yet the justifier of the sinful. And when philosophy has
thus prepared the heart by its appeal to the yearnings of the soul, and
brought it to long for the very remedy which Christianity supplies; then
the historic argument can be properly introduced, to afford the solid
comforting assurance that the remedy wanted has really been given; that
miracles and prophecy are divine evidences, attesting the truth of the
claim that certain teachers at a particular period received superhuman aid
to reveal certain religious truths. (49)
The work of persuasion however is not yet completed; for, ere the heart
can fully trust with adoring thankfulness, there are no less than three
questions which must still be answered, if the object be to direct doubt
instead of suppressing it, and to lead a sinner to Christ by the bands of
love.
The first will be the literary one, as to the trustworthiness of the books
of the New Testament, which are the record of this teaching.
The second, the inquiry into the fact whether the books teach, and whether
the early church taught, dogmatic Christianity as the church now presents
it.
The third, though of such a nature as in a great degree to be suppressed
by the claim of authority already conceded to the apostolic teachers, may
still rise up to harass the mind if a further answer be not supplied: it
refers to the reason that we possess for believing, that if these teachers
asserted such truths as dogmatic Christianity, and especially vicarious
atonement, these doctrines were a real verity, and not merely a passing
form under which the truth presented itself to their minds, to be
explained away by after ages into less mysterious and more self-evident
truths.
The first of these questions, which concerns the trustworthiness of the
books, has been most thoroughly tested by the historical criticism of
Germany. The data are thus presented for forming a final decision, which
in the opinion of most persons will probably be widely different from that
which has been arrived at by critics in that country. Yet, supposing we
should meet with a doubter who accepted all the views of the Tübingen
school,(1038) there are nevertheless four books of the New Testament, the
genuineness of which the most extravagant criticism fully admits; viz. the
Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the two to the
Corinthians. These four would be sufficient to establish the main articles
of dogmatic teaching as presented in the creeds of the Christian church,
and the main outline of Gospel and Jewish history as facts on the reality
of which St. Paul and his converts relied, and for which he was staking
his life. Suppose the Gospels and the Acts(1039) involved in the historic
uncertainty which these critics have attributed to them; yet we possess in
the Galatians the outline of the life of Paul, the statement of the reason
why Paul accepted a religion which he detested. The incomparable argument
of Lyttleton(1040) irrefragably proves his honesty. He cannot have been a
deceiver. Let the reader of the Galatians say if he was deceived. The two
Epistles to Corinth attest the history of the early church; the Epistle to
the Romans its dogmatic beliefs. If there is a doubting heart, thoroughly
imbued with the most destructive criticism, unable to find historical
standing-ground in scripture, he may surely find it in the study of these
four works of St. Paul.
The second question, whether the great features of the dogmatic teaching
which we receive, and especially the doctrine of vicarious atonement, are
taught in the New Testament, admits of satisfactory settlement. The
negative of this position has been asserted, in consequence of the alleged
fact that this particular doctrine is rather expressed implicitly than
explicitly in the earliest fathers; which is to be accounted for by the
tendency, while contending against Jewish monotheism, or heathen theism,
to put forward the messiahship and incarnation of Christ, in comparison
with other religions, rather than his atoning work.(1041) Careful study
will soon decide a question of this kind, if directed first to the text of
scripture; and secondly, as is most important in all questions of the
history of doctrine, to the fathers, as the historic witnesses at once to
the teaching of their day, and to the traditions of the teaching of an
older age than their own.(1042)
Supposing however that the authenticity of the books be granted, and the
existence in them of dogmatic teaching, as we now hold it, be conceded;
how are we to answer the final misgiving which might arise, that a
doctrine like the atonement was not merely truth relatively to the age in
which it was taught, to be surrendered if it conflict with the moral
sense? If indeed miraculous attestation, the authority of supernatural
assistance, be conceded, this doubt will be extinguished in most minds by
such an admission; but how is it to be fully met, consistently with our
object to point out how a doubter may be directed, who desires not to have
the natural revelation in his heart crushed, and yet who does not claim,
like the deists, that he must comprehend that which he believes, but only
that at least he must apprehend it?(1043)
We concede the authority of the moral sense to check all dogmas that are
not shown to be part of the teaching of men supernaturally inspired; and
we should feel surprised if there were a direct conflict between God’s
voice through the apostles and God’s voice through the human conscience.
Probably it could be shown that no such conflict exists; but if it did, we
should be inclined to ask whether the moral sense, infallible in what it
forbids, is equally so in what it asserts:(1044) whether it cannot
possibly admit of such improvement as would cause the difficulty not to be
felt; or, if felt, to be cancelled by one of those mental
antinomies,(1045) the existence of which is undeniable: or whether there
is not still independent and contemporary evidence, to which appeal can be
made, to corroborate the apostles’ teaching.
Let us, for example, suppose that we have come to the conclusion, that the
apostles taught the doctrine of the atonement; and that our moral sense is
puzzled with the justice of the system, of the transfer of merit implied
in those analogies under which the mysterious verity is unveiled to us,
and with its apparent incompatibility with a corrective theory of
punishment: the thought of error, or of merely relative truth, in the
apostles’ teaching in such a matter, is forbidden to the mind of any one
who admits the least divine inspiration in them, from the fact that this
is the innermost and most sacred truth of their creed. We could imagine
the early teachers left unaided in all matters irrelevant to religion;
nay, by a stretch of supposition, possibly even in some unimportant things
appertaining to religion itself: but a mistake on the work and office of
Christ,—the very point which, of all others, they were commissioned to
teach;—an ingredient of error insinuating itself here, is utterly
improbable. If even the inspired authority were denied, the improbability
would be hardly less apparent. For this was not a doctrine of the head,
but of the feelings; not a fact coldly believed, but appropriated; the
voice of the inmost consciousness. If the story of the apostles be true,
that the belief of this doctrine, and the prayers founded upon it, had
made them changed men; if too their history testifies to the reality of
their professions of extraordinary holiness; we could not, even if we did
not know from their writings that they were men who were accustomed to the
careful analysis of their own feelings, conceive a fatal falsehood to lurk
here, in a point where the mixture of inference with consciousness must
have been reduced to a minimum.
In this particular case of the atonement, there is however an independent
proof of the correctness of the apostles’ teaching, through the
corroboration of it which is offered by the Christian consciousness of the
church. We have before had occasion(1046) to explain the introduction of
this idea in the teaching of Schleiermacher, and to protest against the
use which he proposed to make of it as a source of truth, independently of
the Christian consciousness of the apostles and first teachers; as the
gradual source of doctrinal progress, the oracular utterance to this age,
as the apostolic consciousness was to the first age.
But there is a deep truth in it, if we use the Christian consciousness,
not to supersede scripture, but as the living corroboration and
interpreter of it. The Spirit of God still works on the hearts of men
morally, as upon the apostles of old; not by conferring the intellectual
gift of inspiration, but in the moral gifts of penitence, of conversion,
of pardon, of holiness. Holy men now feel the Spirit of God striving with
them as the apostles did, and appropriate the excellence of Christianity,
and feel its renovating power now as then. Therefore the attestation of
these men, such as is collected by an induction founded on their
biographies, to the fact that when they analyse their secret feelings with
the most exact care, they recognise that the pardon which they receive is
through the mercy of Christ; that their moments of most hallowed communion
with the Father-spirit are when they approach the throne of mercy through
the mediation and intercession of another, Christ Jesus; that the victory
vouchsafed to them over temptation, is by His merits; that their heart
finds no Father for one moment except through him;—this evidence, if it
can be accepted, is an independent corroboration of dogmatic truth. It may
be explained away, by denying the truth of their analysis, or by referring
their feeling to mental association; but it cannot fail to have a
persuasive force for those who have faith in the instinctive utterances of
the human soul: and the reliance upon it is not more extraordinary than
that on which we depend in cognate subjects like æsthetics, where the
taste of practical skill is trusted. Christian consciousness thus becomes
a new source of facts in theological study; the living voice of the church
for illustrating and confirming in some degree the utterance of men of
old, who spake that which was revealed to their souls by the inspiring
Spirit.
Such are the chief steps which the history of evidences, in the contest
with early heathenism, as well as in the recent struggle in Germany, seems
to point out as the most likely to lead a doubter to Christ; and such the
order in which the philosophical and historical evidences ought to be
respectively presented, if our object be to give due heed to the desire
which an inquirer evinces to appropriate the truth which he believes. Such
too, if the opinion already advanced concerning the future of modern doubt
be correct, seems to be the final answer which the church can give.
Without undue compromise, commencing with the internal evidence, we thus
lead men to the external, and make philosophy as it were the schoolmaster
to lead to Christ.
The third question of those which we enumerated as likely to press upon
us, viz. that which refers to the inspiration of the scriptures, requires
only a few words; inasmuch as the treatment of it has already, to some
extent, been implied.
This question has been elevated, since the Reformation, to an importance
which it hardly possessed before. Since the authority of the Bible has
been substituted for the authority of the church, it has been usual to
regard the scriptures as the mode of leading men to Christ, instead of
considering the knowledge of Christ received through the ministrations of
the church as the clue to interpret scripture. Logically, the scripture is
the rule of faith, the ground of the church’s teaching; but
chronologically, the teaching of the church is the means of our knowing
the scripture.(1047)
A caution hence arises, that we should not be willing to allow preliminary
difficulties, which a doubter may have in reference to the scriptures, to
deter us from leading him straight to Christ, and then allowing him by the
light of this teaching to reconsider the question of the scripture. The
difficulties will generally be found to have reference to the historical
and literary portions, rather than the doctrinal, or those portions of the
literature which contain the doctrinal. If indeed they refer to the
doctrinal, they must be answered at the outset in the manner already
shown. If however to the literary, they will be viewed in a different
light, if the doubter has been brought to appreciate the central truths of
Christianity, from that which they will bear if wrangled out on the
threshold of his approach. In the last century indeed, the comparative
importance of the doctrinal parts of scripture over the literary was so
perceived, when doubts were pressed on the attention of the clergy by the
pertinacity of the deist controversialists, that many of the eminent
writers restricted the plenary inspiration of the scripture writers to the
appropriate matter of the revelation, the supernatural communication of
the miraculous system of redemption; and conceived that it was no
derogation from the supreme religious authority of the sacred writers, but
rather compatible with the loftiest idea of the providential adaptation of
means to ends, to suppose them unassisted in literary matters, such as the
transcription of genealogies, the reference to natural phenomena, or the
literal exactitude of quotations. The jewel of divine truth did not, in
their opinion, sparkle less brilliantly because it was handed down in a
frame of antique setting. (50) In the present day there is a strong
reaction in religious minds in favour of the opposite view, identical with
the one held in the seventeenth century by the Puritans. The reaction is
only a special instance of the general movement in favour of authority,
political and ecclesiastical, which has taken a sudden advance throughout
the religious part of Europe, in opposition to the subjective tendency
already noticed in secular literature.(1048) This special view however is
dictated by a noble motive, a watchful fear lest the loss of a single atom
may weaken the whole structure. Whether it be true or not is not at
present under consideration, but merely the caution which ought to be used
in pressing it upon doubters at the outset of an approach to the subject
of religion. If the object be really to draw them to Christ, we must
become all things to all men; and, while not mutilating the heavenly
message, take heed not to repel the weak believer from coming to the
Saviour, by interposing unnecessary literary obstacles.
It is very common to hear or to read the dilemma put before the doubter,
that he must accept everything or nothing in Christianity and the
Bible.(1049) Such an alternative, though dictated by a commendable motive,
is likely to prove ineffectual. The Dilemma is a form of reasoning which
rarely persuades. Its object is rather to silence than to convince. It is
more a trick of rhetoric than an argument of logic. It may make a person
pause by showing him his apparent position; but the heart, if not the
head, can always find means to escape from an alternative which it
dislikes. And in this particular case the use of it involves the risk of
overlooking the different degrees of importance which belong to different
portions of religion, and the very different degrees or evidence on which
different portions of it rest. Though the smallest circumstances in
reference to it are of importance, yet it were less vital to doubt the
miraculous inspiration of a genealogy than the authoritative teaching of
an epistle; or to doubt the date of a book than its contents. No doubt is
unimportant; but it were merely repeating the sophistry of the Stoics, in
making all sins equal, to deny gradations of importance in doubts;
gradations which however are not here put forward to defend eclecticism,
but to enforce the lesson, that, in dealing with a doubter, the
consideration of this fact must guide us in the order in which we present
the evidence of different parts to his mind. It not unfrequently happens
that the perusal of the holy scripture is the means of drawing a soul to
Christ; the volume in its solitary majesty telling its own tale: or, to
speak more reverently, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God: but
generally, if a doubter’s heart be filled with historical and critical
doubts, he must be led through Christ to the Bible, rather than
conversely, and through the New Testament to the Old. If once he can be
brought to the perception of a Saviour for sinful man, his doubts will
assume a new aspect, and will adjust themselves into their true place, or
perhaps find their own solution.
Yet, when we have used all methods of argument which the survey of the
history has given us reason to believe may prove useful, it were
affectation to conceal our belief in the perpetual operation, secret and
unobserved, of an invisible monitor and persuader, the blessed Spirit of
God. Though we may look to philosophy to prepare the way, by exciting an
appreciation of the wants which Christianity supplies, and an apprehension
of the suitability of Christianity as the perfection of our spiritual
nature; we must confess that it is to the unseen leadings of the Spirit of
God that we trust, to make the heart feel the truth as well as perceive
it, and love as well as appreciate it. If we accept the fact of God’s
interference to effect man’s salvation, and regard it as His special will
to bring men to the knowledge of Christ, and trust His promise of
assistance to the church,(1050) it is not enthusiasm, but the most
rational faith, to expect divine assistance to attend constantly on the
efforts made to spread the truth which He has been pleased to reveal; not
to interfere indeed with the fixed laws of the rational faculties, but to
remove prejudices of the heart which might blind the apprehension, and to
hallow the soul into a temple for the enshrinement of His truth.
More especially if it be true, as we have perpetually insisted, that there
is a large region for the influence of emotional causes of doubt, in
addition to the intellectual, which have been the subject of our special
study, we may well believe that here is a field where the Holy Spirit
alone can enter, and in which He only has the power to operate. Evidence,
as evidence, is apprehended and tested by the intellectual faculties; but
whatever is the subtle influence, consciously or unconsciously exercised
by the emotions, in a matter where the evidence is probable, not
demonstrative, this offers a sphere where the help of an all-loving God
may be hoped for to dissipate the alienation of prejudice or indifference.
Paul may plant, and Apollos may water; but it is God that giveth the
increase.
We have now considered the lessons taught by the history, both as to the
moral function of free thought, the forms of it which are most likely to
meet Christians in the present day, and the means which seem most useful
for guiding a doubter into truth.
-------------------------------------
The history may teach a final lesson to us as Christian students, not so
much in reference to leading others to truth, as in relation to the means
by which we can attain it ourselves.
In all the days of peril through which the church has passed, the means
used by those who have striven to find the truth, and become a blessing to
the world, have been,—study and prayer. In the solitude of their own
hearts, by quiet meditation, they have sought to understand the utterance
of the inspired volume; and to secure by prayer the illuminating influence
of the divine Spirit, to cause them to behold wondrous things in God’s
law.(1051) And thus in an age of coldness they have kept the flame of
divine love burning with unextinguished glory on the altar of their
hearts; and in an age of questioning have been able to burst forth from
their prison-house of doubt, and gaze with the clearness of unclouded
faith on the truth once for all delivered to the saints. If, in the dark
night of doubt or sin which has spread its veil over the world, there have
been stars that have shown to the pilgrim steadier and clearer light than
the other luminaries of the heavens, the cause has been that they have
reflected some rays of the Divine glory, which had been concentrated in
the sunlike brightness of the apostolic inspiration.
If we have found that the present age offers its peculiar intellectual
trials; and if we feel ourselves set in the midst of so many and great
dangers; let us not be paralysed by the consciousness of them, so as to
deem the search for truth unimportant, or anticipate that it will be
unsuccessful; but rather be led to increased energy in striving to follow
the example of those who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony.(1052) Let us realise the solemnity of our
position as responsible and immortal beings. We are creatures of a day,
soon to pass into eternity; placed here to prepare ourselves for that
unknown world into which we shall carry the moral character that has been
stamped upon us here; and capable, whilst we are here, of doing untold
good by a godly example, or of contributing to the ruin of the souls of
our fellow men. How important, both for ourselves and others, that we
should learn and appropriate that truth which is to be the means of our
salvation! how important for ourselves, lest we be castaway! how important
for others, lest we help them to build a structure of wood, hay,
stubble,(1053) which shall be consumed in the day of the Lord!