attacks on its moral character parried, the question became in a great
degree historical, and resolved itself into an examination either of the
external evidence arising from early testimonies, which could be gathered,
to corroborate the facts, and to vindicate the honesty of the writers, or
of the internal critical evidence of undesigned coincidences in their
writings. (See Note 48.) The first of these occupied the attention of
Lardner (1684-1768). His _Credibility_ was published 1727-57. The
_Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies_ (1764-7.) The
second and third branches occupied the attention of Paley; the one in the
Evidences, the other in the Horæ Paulinæ.(1079)
Before the close of the century the real danger from deism had passed, and
the natural demand for evidences had therefore in a great degree ceased.
Consequently the works which appeared were generally a recapitulation or
summary of the whole arguments, often neat and judicious, (as is seen at a
later time in Van Mildert’s _Boyle Lectures_, vol. ii. 1805; and in a
grander manner in Chalmers’s works, vol. i-iv.); or in developments of
particular subjects, as in Bishop Watson’s replies to Gibbon and to Paine;
(See p. 198, 199, note); or in Dean Graves’s work on the Pentateuch, 1807.
It is only in recent years that a new phase of unbelief, a species of
eclecticism rather than positive unbelief, has arisen in England, which is
not the legitimate successor of the old deism, but of the speculative
thought of the Continent; and only within recent years that writers on
evidences have directed their attention to it. In the line of the Bampton
Lectures, for example, which, as one of the classes of annually recurring
volumes of evidences, is supposed to keep pace with contemporary forms of
doubt, and may therefore be taken as one means of measuring dates in the
corresponding history of unbelief; it is not until about 1852 that the
writers showed an acquaintance with these forms of doubt derived from
foreign literature. The first course(1080) which touched upon them was
that of Mr. Riddle, 1852, on the _Natural History of Infidelity_; and the
first especially directed to them was that in 1858 by Dr. Thomson, on the
_Atoning Work of Christ_; since which time only two courses, those of Mr.
Mansel, 1858, on _The Limits of Religious Thought_; and of Mr. Rawlinson,
in 1859,(1081) on _The Historical Evidences of the Truth of Scripture_,
have been directed to the subject, the one to the philosophy of religion
studied on its psychological side, the other to the historical evidences.
Among isolated works on evidences not forming parts of a general series,
it is hard to make a selection without unfairness. We can only cite a few,
premising that silence in reference to the rest is not to be considered to
be censure, nor to mark the want of a cordial and grateful acknowledgment
of the utility of many smaller works of evidences in the present day,
dictated by deep love for Christ; whose authors, though omitted in this
humble record, have their reward in being instruments of religious
usefulness by means of their works, and are doubtless not unnoticed by a
merciful Saviour, who looks down with love on all who strive to spread his
truth.
The following seem to merit notice. First, the arguments in favour of
natural religion, drawn from physical science, stated in the Bridgewater
Treatises, analogous to the earlier works of Derham and Paley; the
connection of science with revelation, in Cardinal Wiseman’s Lectures
delivered in Rome, 2d ed. 1842, (which are a little obsolete, but very
masterly;) several works by Dr. M’Cosh, _Divine Government,—Typical
Forms_, &c. in which the author takes a large view of the world, and of
the province of revealed religion in the scheme of general truth, founded
mainly on Butler; also a work of Dr. Buchanan, _Modern Atheism_, valuable
for its literary materials as much as for its argument; and of T. Erskine
on the Internal Evidences, 1821. The Bampton Lectures of Mr. Miller in
1817 also deserve to be singled out as a thoughtful and original
exhibition of the argument in one branch of the internal evidence; _The
Divine Authority of Scripture asserted from its adaptation to the real
state of human nature_; also Mr. Davison’s _Warburton Lectures on
Prophecy_, 1825. Among works directed to special subjects, we ought to
specify, _The Restoration of Belief_, by Mr. Isaac Taylor, intended
indirectly against speculations such as those of the Tübingen school; and
an able and thoughtful work on the subject of the superhuman character of
Christ, _The Christ of History_, by Mr. Young; also E. Miall’s _Bases of
Belief_; with the two Burnett Prize Essays by Thompson and Tullock; and a
reply to Mr. Newman’s Phases of Faith, viz. _The Eclipse of Faith_, and
_Letters of E. H. Greyson_, by H. Rogers, constructed however partly on
the argument of the dilemma.(1082) The replies written to _Essays and
Reviews_, especially _Aids to Faith_, ought to be added.
We have reserved for separate mention one work, which ascends to the
philosophy of the religious question, Mr. Mansel’s Bampton Lectures, 1858,
_The Limits of Religious Thought_, because it is a work which is valuable
for its method, even if the reader differs (as the author of these
lectures does in some respects) from the philosophical principles
maintained, or occasionally even from the results attained.(1083) It is an
attempt to reconstruct the argument of Butler from the subjective side. As
Butler showed that the difficulties which are in revealed religion are
equally applicable to natural; so Mr. Mansel wishes to show that the
difficulties which the mind feels in reference to religion are parallel to
those which are felt by it in reference to philosophy. Since the time of
Kant a subjective tone has passed over philosophy. The phenomena are now
studied in the mind, not in nature; in our mode of viewing, not in the
object viewed. And hence Butler’s argument needed reconstructing on its
psychological side. Mr. Mansel has attempted to effect this; and the book
must always in this respect have a value, even to the minds of those who
are diametrically opposed to its principles and results. Even if the
details were wrong, the method would be correct, of studying psychology
before ontology; of finding the philosophy of religion, not, as Leibnitz
attempted, objectively in a theodicée, but subjectively, by the analysis
of the religious faculties; learning the length of the sounding-line
before attempting to fathom the ocean.
These remarks must suffice in reference to the history of Evidences in
England. We shall now give an account of those which existed in France;
which will be still more brief, because the works are considered to be of
small general value, at least they have not a general reputation.
2. THE FRENCH WORKS OF EVIDENCE.—In the middle of the seventeenth century
we meet with Pascal and Huet; both of them, metaphysically speaking,
sceptics, who disbelieved in the possibility of finding truth apart from
revelation;(1084) and with whom therefore the object of evidences was to
silence doubt rather than to remove it. (On Pascal, see Rogers’s _Essays_,
Essay reprinted from the _Edinburgh Review_, January 1847; and on Huet, an
article in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 194, September 1855, and the
reference given p. 19. Also see Houtteville, introduction to _La Religion
Chrétienne prouvée par des Faits_, 1722.)
Among the Roman catholics, at the close of the same century, were the
following: Le Vassor([+]1718); the two Lamy [+] 1710 and 15, and Denyse;
and in the eighteenth century, Houtteville, whose preface to his own work,
an historical view of evidences and attacks to his own time, has been just
named; Bonnet; D’Aguesseau, [+] 1751; and Bergier [+] 1790: and among the
Protestants,—Abbadie, [+] 1727; and Jacquelot, [+] 1708; nearly all of
whom are treated of by Tholuck (_Verm. Schr._ i. p. 28) and Walch (_Bibl.
Theol. Sel._ ch. v. sect. 6). Several more will be found in the
_Demonstrations Evangeliques_; among which are Choiseul du Plessis,
Praslin, Polignac, De Bernis, Buffier, Tournemine, and Gerdil; the Lives
of several of whom are in the _Biographie Universelle_.
Though some of these were men whose works were of ordinary respectability,
they were by no means a match in greatness for the intellectual giants who
prostituted their powers on behalf of unbelief; and on one occasion, when
a prize essay had been offered for a work in behalf of Christianity, no
work was deemed worthy of it. (Alison, _History of Europe_, i. 180.) Since
the beginning of the present century, however, there has been a change.
Whatever may be thought of the line of argument adopted, the skill with
which it has been put forward, and the ability of the minds that have
given expression to it, is undoubted. Chateaubriand may be considered as
the first who, with a full appreciation of the tastes and wants of modern
society, tried to show not only the compatibility of Christianity with
them, but that the perfection of society was only realized in it. The work
of the Christian labourers who had to bring back France to Christianity
was hard. It was not the apologist, acting, as in England, from the
vantage ground of a powerful church against the Deist, who was making an
attack on it; but it was a weak and feeble minority acting against a
powerful mass of educated intellect. The apologists were indirectly aided
by philosophy. The philosophers did not aim primarily at religious truth,
and we have had reason to take exception to many of their views; yet they
rekindled in France the elements of natural religion, on which the
Christians then proceeded to base revealed. The works of Jules Simon are
the highest expression of it. (See Note 44.)
The school of evidences that has existed, has been the church school of De
Maistre, already described. (See Note 45, and the references given there.)
With somewhat of the spirit of the writers of the fifteenth age, they have
directed their efforts to reestablish the catholic church as the condition
of re-establishing the Christian religion. To this we have already taken
exception, Lecture VII. p. 300; and the remarks there given may suffice in
reference to the movement. Yet the literary appreciation of the line of
argument used by the older apologists, is perceptible in the large
publication of Migne, already named.
The other attempt in France to re-establish Christianity by Protestant
apologists, noticed in Lecture VII. p. 304, of which the ablest was Vinet,
is rather directed against rationalism than against full unbelief; and
aims to turn the flank of the rationalist argument, and, while accepting
its premises, deny its conclusions. (On Vinet, see Note 46.) The problem
which is now before the apologists is, not to show that Christianity is
not imposture, but rather that it is not merely philosophy. (Compare the
remarks of Strauss, at the close of his work on Reimarus, alluded to in
Note 29. p. 427).
There now only remains the history of Apologetic in Germany.
3. THE GERMAN WORKS OF EVIDENCE.—As early as the end of the seventeenth
century, we find the attention of Kortholt directed to Spinoza; and in the
early part of the eighteenth we see, in the grand attempt of Leibnitz to
find a philosophy of religion; in Haller, 1705-77; in Euler, 1747, (for
which see Tholuck, _V. Schr._ ii. 311-362, together with a list of others
there given,) a proof of the attention which the Evidences received. The
existence of works like J. A. Fabricius’s _Delectus Argumentorum_, 1725;
Reimannus, _Historia Atheismi_, 1725; Buddeus, _De Atheismo_, 1737;
Stapfer, _Inst. Theol. Polem._ 1752; as well as the attention shown by the
bibliographers, Pfaff, Walch, Fabricius, to the literature of Evidences,
is a proof of the same fact.
The replies were still directed against Deism, as in England or France. It
is not till later in the century that rationalism appears. When however it
arose, writers were not wanting who opposed it. The history of the German
theology has been treated so largely in Lectures VI. and VII. that it is
only necessary to indicate the steps. The early deistic rationalism of
Reimarus and Lessing met its opponents in contemporary writers named in
the notes to Lecture VI. The critical rationalism of Eichhorn and Paulus
was really answered by the later critics, as was shown when we noticed
that criticism gradually abandoned their view, and rescued itself from
their extravagant opinions (p. 257 seq.), while the dogmatic rationalism
which was connected with it was dispersed by the discussion on the
province of the supernatural already described (p. 418). In the present
century the aspect of the attack and of the defence has changed. The
question had been as to the existence of the supernatural.
In the present the question has been, If the supernatural be admitted,
what is the capacity of man to discover it by the light of feeling or
reason respectively, without revelation? Therefore, while in the last
century it was important to show that the supernatural exists, and that
the religion that taught it was not deception; in the present the
endeavour has been, to bring men from the supernatural to the biblical,
and to make them feel that the Christian religion is not a mere mistake.
Thus they have been led from the natural to the supernatural; from the
supernatural to the revealed; from the ideal to the historic.(1085) The
steps of this process in the present century have been twofold:—the
philosophical Christianity of Schleiermacher, and the revival of biblical
religion. Neander has been already adduced (p. 364) as the type of the
Christian movement which sought to unite the two: wishing to appropriate
that which he believed, he strove to present Christianity as the highest
form of the religious life; as a life based on a doctrine; the doctrine
itself being based on a revealed history. It must suffice thus to have
indicated, without tracing into detail, the apologetic literature which
has been partly named in the Notes of the lectures, and may be found by
consulting the references there given.
-------------------------------------
In all ages the purpose of Evidences has been conviction; to offer the
means of proof either by philosophy or by fact. In arguing with the
heathen in the first age, the former plan was adopted; the school of
Alexandria trying to lead men to Christianity as the highest philosophy:
in the middle ages the same method was adopted under the garb of
philosophy, but with the alteration that the philosophy was one of form,
not matter. In the later middle ages the appeal was to the Church: in the
early contests with the Deists to the authority of reason, and to the
Bible reached by means of this process; in the later, to the Bible reached
through history and fact: in opposing the French infidelity the appeal was
chiefly to authority; in the early German the appeal was the same as in
England; in the later German it has been a return in spirit to that of the
early fathers, or of the English apologists of the eighteenth century, but
based on a deeper philosophy; an appeal to feeling or intuition, and not
to reflective reason; and through these ultimately to the Bible.
Note 50. p. 373. On The History Of The Doctrine Of Inspiration.
The subject of the history of inspiration has been named both in Lect.
III. and VIII. It may be useful therefore to point out the sources for the
study of it.
The history of it is briefly sketched in Hagenbach’s _Dogmengeschichte_, §
32, 121, 161, 243, 292. A valuable catena of passages relative to the
primitive doctrine of inspiration is given in Mr. Westcott’s _Introduction
to the Gospels_, Appendix B. second edition, 1860; and a continuation of
the history to more recent periods in Dr. Lee’s important work on
Inspiration, especially in Appendices C and G; and in Tholuck’s Doctrine
of Inspiration, translated in the _Journal of Sacred Literature_, July
1854.
It appears that the theories held respecting inspiration in different ages
may be arranged under three classes:
1. The belief in a full inspiration was held from the earliest times, with
the few exceptions observable in occasional remarks of Origen, Jerome,
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Euthymius Zigabenus (in the twelfth century).
2. Traces after a time begin to appear of a disposition, (α) to admit that
the inspiration ought to be regarded as appertaining to the proper
material of the revelation, viz. religion; but at the same time to
maintain firmly the full inspiration of the religious elements of
scripture. This view occurs in the allusions of the writers just named,
and existed in the seventeenth century in the Helmstadt school of Calixt
in Germany, and the Saumur school of Amyrault, Cameron, and Placæus, in
France; and is stated decidedly by a series of writers in the English
church. Some of the latter go so far as to avow, (β) that the value of the
religious element in the revelation would not be lessened if errors were
admitted in the scientific and miscellaneous matter which accompanies it.
This admission increased after the speculations of Spinoza and the
pressure of the Deist objections.
3. A third theory was suggested by Maimonides, which was revived by
Spinoza, and has been held among many of the rationalists in Germany, and
has lately appeared in English literature: this theory is, that the book
does not, even in its religious element, differ in kind from other books,
but only in degree. It will be observed that a wide chasm separates this
view from either of those named under the second head; the only point in
common being, that in all alike the writers agree that the nature of
inspiration must be learned from experience, and not be determined
antecedently by our own notions of optimism, without examining the real
contents of revelation. Coleridge would by many be considered to give
expression to this third theory in his _Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit_. Perhaps however he hovered between it and the one previously
named; being anxious rather to identify inspiration psychologically with
one form of the Νοῦς or “Reason,” than theologically to confound the
material of revelation with truth acquired by natural means.
It is not the purpose of this note to discuss the true view of
inspiration; but merely to state the historic facts. The writer may
however be allowed to repeat what has been already implied in the preface,
that he dissents entirely from the third of these views. To him there
seems evidence for believing that the dogmatic teaching implied on
religious subjects in holy scripture is a communication of supernatural
truth, miraculously revealed from the world invisible. Cfr. p. 29.
On the subject of inspiration, in addition to the works above named,
instruction will be derived from the sources indicated in the Essay on
Inspiration in Bp. Watson’s Tracts, 1785, vol. iv. pp. 5 and 469; and from
Dean Harvey Goodwin’s Hulsean Lectures, first course, lectures vii. and
viii. The first of the above-named views is stated in Gaussen’s work on
_Theopneustie_, and on the Canon; the third in Morell’s [_Philosophy of
Religion_], c. iv; and in the first three essays of Scherer’s _Mélanges de
Crit. Religieuse_.
A list of those theologians who have held the second class of views above
named, together with the extracts from their writings, is given by Dr. S.
Davidson in his _Facts, Statements, &c. concerning_ vol. ii. of ed. x. _of
Horne’s Introduction_, 1857; and Mr. Stephen, in his defence of Dr. R.
Williams, 1862, has quoted some of the same passages, and added a few more
(_Def._ pp. 127-160.(1086)) As the reader was referred hither from Lecture
III. p. 114. for the proof of the assertion there made, that this theory
had been largely held in the last century in England, it seems fair here
to add the references. At the same time this list is not given with the
view of endorsing the views of these writers, but merely to prove the
accuracy of the assertion in the text of Lectures III. and VIII.
Among English divines, those who have asserted the form of the theory
named above as No. 2 _a_, are, Howe (_Div. Author. of Scripture_, lecture
viii. and ix.); Bishop Williams (_Boyle Lect._ serm. iv. pp. 133, 4);
Burnet (Article vi. p. 157. Oxford ed. 1814); Lowth (_Vind. of Dir. Auth.
and Inspir. of Old and New Testament_, p. 45 seq.); Hey (_Theol. Lect._ i.
90); Watson (_Tracts_, iv. 446); Bishop Law (_Theory of Religion_);
Tomline (_Theology_, i. 21); Dr. J. Barrow (_Dissertations_, 1819, fourth
Diss.); Dean Conybeare (_Theolog. Lect._ p. 186); Bishop Hinds (_Inspir.
of Script._ pp. 151, 2); Bishop Daniel Wilson (lect. xiii. on _Evidences_,
i. 509); Parry (_Inq. into Nat. of Insp. of Apost._ pp. 26, 27); Bishop
Blomfield (_Lect. on Acts_ v. 88-90).
Among those who have gone so far as to hold the form of the theory above
given as No. 2 b, are, Baxter (_Method. Theol. Chr._ part iii. ch. xii. 9.
4.); Tillotson (_Works_, fol. iii. p. 449. serm. 168); Doddridge (_on
Inspir._); Warburton (_Doctr. of Grace_, book i. ch. vii); Bishop Horsley
(serm. 39 on Ecc. xii. 7. vol. iii. p. 175); Bishop Randolph (_Rem. on
Michaelis Introd._ pp. 15, 16); Paley (_Evidences of Christianity_, part
iii. ch. ii); Whately (_Ess. on Diff. in St. Paul_, Ess. i. and ix;
Sermons on Festivals, p. 90; _Pecul. of Christianity_, p. 233); Hampden
(_Bampton Lect._ pp. 301, 2); Thirlwall (Schleiermacher’s _Luke_, Introd.
p. 15); Bishop Heber (_Bampt. Lect._ viii. p. 577); Thomas Scott (_Essay
on Inspir._ p. 3); Dr. Pye Smith (_Script. and Geol._ 276, 237. third
ed.); Dean Alford (_Proleg. to Gosp._ ed. 1859) vol. i. ch. i. § 22.(1087)
It will be observed however, that both these classes of writers are
separated by a chasm from those which belong to the third class above
named; inasmuch as they hold inspiration to be not only miraculous in
origin, but different in kind from even the highest forms of unassisted
human intelligence.
INDEX.
_The figures refer to the pages, without distinction of text from
foot-notes._
Abbé Paris, miracles of, 150.
Abélard; a nominalist, 9;
character of, 81;
works of, 81;
_Sic et Non_, 82-84;
different opinions concerning his scepticism, 84;
a Biblical critic, 85.
Accommodation, principle of, 222;
used by English divines, 223.
Acts, book of, controversy in Germany concerning, 367.
Ahmed Ibn Zain Elebedin, a Mahometan writer against Christianity, 389.
Alexander Hales (Alesius), a scholastic, 90.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Pantheism at Padua derived from, 101.
Alexander of Pontus, named by Lucian, 47, 51.
Alexander VII. pope, prohibits Lucian’s Peregrinus, 50.
Alexandrian school of Fathers, 59;
opinions held concerning the relation of Christianity to other
religions, 386.
Allegory, distinguished from myth and parable, 269.
Allen’s _Modern Judaism_, 387.
Alphonso de Spina, treatise against Mahometans, 388.
_Amyntor_ of Toland, 129.
Angelo Mai, edition by, of Fronto, 48;
of Porphyry’s letter to Marcella, 71.
Annet Paul, a Deist writer, 143.
Anselm, view of the Atonement, 69;
works of, 461.
Apollinaris, 455, 456.
Apollonius of Tyana, 47, 62 seq. 408.
Apologetic, office of, 159.
Apologetic Lectures. See _Lectures_.
Apologies of early fathers, 453;
Pressensé’s mode of classifying, 453;
sources for studying, 454, 460;
table of, 455;
African school of, 457;
Alexandrian school of, 457;
peculiarity of and inferiority to modern, 460.
_Apprehend_, how distinguished from _comprehend_, 369.
Aquinas, his dogmatic position defensive, 9, 462.
Argens. See _D’Argens_.
Arian tendency in English church, 392.
Ariosto, sceptical jests in, 95.
Aristotle, criticism on Plato by, 42.
Arminius, 392; Arminians, Ib.
Arndt, J. a Pietist, 424.
Arnobius’s Apology, 458.
Arnold of Brescia, 85.
Arnold, German church historian, pref. xvii.
Ass, worship of, imputed to Christians, 405.
Association mental, works on, 355.
Astroc, first to distinguish documents in Genesis, 254.
Atheism, causes of in modern times, 358;
history of the uses of the term, 413.
Athenagoras, apology of, 456.
Atonement, 335, 360, 366, 369, 386;
literary history of, 368.
_Aufklürung-zeit_, 227.
Augustin on Porphyry, 62;
_De Civ. Dei_, 459;
comparison with Aquinas, 460.
Aurellus, Marcus, views of, 45.
Averroes, influence of, 90;
altered tone of Christians towards, ib.;
pantheism derived from, 100;
threefold influence of, 101.
Avesta Zend, 382.
Bacon, influence of, 10;
works respecting, 105;
his philosophy of method, 117.
Bahrdt, disciple of Semler, 227.