,,phases ,,of ,,faith - or - ,,passages ,,from ,,the ,,history ,,of ,,my ,,creed4 ,francis ,william ,newman1 #ahgd ,,preface ,,to ,,first ,,edition4 ,this is perhaps an egotistical book2 egotistical certainly in its form1 yet not in its purport and essence4 ,personal reasons the writer cannot wholly disown1 for desiring to explain himself to more than a few1 who on religious grounds are unjustly alienated from him4 ,if by any motive of curiosity or lingering remembrances they may be led to read his straightforward account1 he trusts to be able to show them that he has had no choice but to adopt the intellectual conclusions which offend them2--that the difference between them and him turns on questions of ,learning1 ,history1 ,criticism and ,abstract ,thought2--and that to make their results 7if indeed they have ever deeply and honestly investigated the matter7 the tests of his spiritual state1 is to employ unjust weights and a false balance1 which are an abomination to the ,lord4 ,to defraud one's neighbour of any tithe of mint and cummin1 would seem to them a sin3 is it less to withhold affection1 trust and free intercourse1 and build up unpassable barriers of coldness and alarm1 against one whose sole offence is to differ from them intellectually8 ,but the argument before the writer is something immensely greater than a personal one4 ,so it happens1 that to vindicate himself is to establish a mighty truth2 a truth which can in no other way so well enter the heart1 as when it comes embodied in an individual case4 ,if he can show1 that to have shrunk from his successive convictions would have been infidelity to ,god and ,truth and ,righteousness2 but that he has been faithful to the highest and most urgent duty2--it will be made clear that ,belief is one thing and ,faith another2 that to believe is intellectual1 nay possibly earthly1 devilish2 and that to set up any fixed creed as a test of spiritual character is a most unjust1 oppressive and mischievous superstition4 ,the historical form has been deliberately selected1 as easier and more interesting to the reader2 but it must not be imagined that the author has given his mental history in general1 much less an autobiography4 ,the progress of his creed is his sole subject2 and other topics are introduced either to illustrate this or as digressions suggested by it4 ,march #bbnd1 #ahej4 ,,preface ,,to ,,sixth ,,edition ,i had long thought that the elaborate reply made for me in the ,prospective ,review 7#ahed7 to ,mr4 ,henry ,rogers's ,defence of the ,eclipse of ,faith1 superseded anything more from my pen4 ,but in the course of six years a review is forgotten and buried away1 while ,mr4 ,rogers is circulating the ninth edition of his misrepresentations4 ,as my publisher announces to me the opportunity1 ,i at length consent to reply myself to the ,defence1 cancelling what was previously my last chapter1 written against the ,eclipse4 ,all that follows p4 #age in this edition is new4 ,june1 #ahfj4 ,,contents4 ,i4 ,,my ,,youthful ,,creed ,,ii4 ,,strivings ,,after ,a ,,more ,,primitive ,,christianity ,,iii4 ,,calvinism ,,abandoned ,,iv4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,the ,,letter ,,renounced ,v4 ,,faith ,,at ,,second ,,hand ,,found ,,to ,,be ,,vain ,,vi4 ,,history ,,discovered ,,to ,,be ,,no ,,part ,,of ,,religion ,,vii4 ,,on ,,the ,,moral ,,perfection ,,of ,,jesus ,,viii4 ,,on ,,bigotry ,,and ,,progress ,,ix4 ,,reply ,,to ,,the ,,defence ,,of ,,the ,,eclipse ,,of ,,faith ,,appendix ,i ,,appendix ,,ii ,,phases ,,of ,,faith4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,my ,,youthful ,,creed4 ,i first began to read religious books at school1 and especially the ,bible1 when ,i was eleven years old2 and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer4 ,but it was not until ,i was fourteen that ,i gained any definite idea of a scheme of doctrine1 or could have been called a converted person by one of the ,evangelical ,school4 ,my religion then certainly exerted a great general influence over my conduct2 for ,i soon underwent various persecution from my schoolfellows on account of it3 the worst kind consisted in their deliberate attempts to corrupt me4 ,an ,evangelical clergyman at the school gained my affections1 and from him ,i imbibed more and more distinctly the full creed which distinguishes that body of men2 a body whose bright side ,i shall ever appreciate1 in spite of my present perception that they have a dark side also4 ,i well remember1 that one day when ,i said to this friend of mine1 that ,i could not understand how the doctrine of ,election was reconcilable to ,god's ,justice1 but supposed that ,i should know this in due time1 if ,i waited and believed ,his word2--he replied with emphatic commendation1 that this was the spirit which ,god always blessed4 ,such was the beginning and foundation of my faith1--an unhesitating unconditional acceptance of whatever was found in the ,bible4 ,while ,i am far from saying that my whole moral conduct was subjugated by my creed1 ,i must insist that it was no mere fancy resting in my intellect3 it was really operative on my temper1 tastes1 pursuits and conduct4 ,when ,i was sixteen1 in #ahba1 ,i was confirmed by ,dr4 ,howley1 then ,bishop of ,london1 and endeavoured to take on myself with greater decision and more conscientious consistency the whole yoke of ,christ4 ,every thing in the ,service was solemn to me1 except the bishop3 he seemed to me a made-up man and a mere pageant4 ,i also remember that when ,i was examined by the clergyman for confirmation1 it troubled me much that he only put questions which tested my memory concerning the ,catechism and other formulas1 instead of trying to find out whether ,i had any actual faith in that about which ,i was to be called to profess faith3 ,i was not then aware that his sole duty was to try my knowledge4 ,but ,i already felt keenly the chasm that separated the ,high from the ,low ,church2 and that it was impossible for me to sympathize with those who imagined that ,forms could command the ,spirit4 ,yet so entirely was ,i enslaved to one ,form1--that of observing the ,sunday1 or1 as ,i had learned falsely to call it1 the ,sabbath1--that ,i fell into painful and injurious conflict with a superior kinsman1 by refusing to obey his orders on the ,sunday4 ,he attempted to deal with me by mere authority1 not by instruction2 and to yield my conscience to authority would have been to yield up all spiritual life4 ,i erred1 but ,i was faithful to ,god4 ,when ,i was rather more than seventeen1 ,i subscribed the #ci ,articles at ,oxford in order to be admitted to the ,university4 ,subscription was no bondage1 but pleasure2 for ,i well knew and loved the ,articles1 and looked on them as a great bulwark of the truth2 a bulwark1 however1 not by being imposed1 but by the spiritual and classical beauty which to me shone in them4 ,but it was certain to me before ,i went to ,oxford1 and manifest in my first acquaintance with it1 that very few academicians could be said to believe them4 ,of the young men1 not one in five seemed to have any religious convictions at all3 the elder residents seldom or never showed sympathy with the doctrines that pervade that formula4 ,i felt from my first day there1 that the system of compulsory subscription was hollow1 false1 and wholly evil4 ,oxford is a pleasant place for making friends1--friends of all sorts that young men wish4 ,one who is above envy and scorns servility1--who can praise and delight in all the good qualities of his equals in age1 and does not desire to set himself above them1 or to vie with his superiors in rank1--may have more than enough of friends1 for pleasure and for profit4 ,so certainly had ,i2 yet no one of my equals gained any ascendancy over me1 nor perhaps could ,i have looked up to any for advice4 ,in some the intellect1 in others the religious qualities1 were as yet insufficiently developed3 in part also ,i wanted discrimination1 and did not well pick out the profounder minds of my acquaintance4 ,however1 on my very first residence in ,college1 ,i received a useful lesson from another freshman1--a grave and thoughtful person1 older 7,i imagine7 than most youths in their first term4 ,some readers may be amused1 as well as surprized1 when ,i name the delicate question on which ,i got into discussion with my fellow freshman4 ,i had learned from ,evangelical books1 that there is a twofold imputation to every saint1--not of the sufferings only1 but also of the righteousness of ,christ4 ,they alleged that1 while the sufferings of ,jesus are a compensation for the guilt of the believer and make him innocent1 yet this suffices not to give him a title to heavenly glory2 for which he must over and above be invested in active righteousness1 by all ,christ's good works being made over to him4 ,my new friend contested the latter part of the doctrine4 ,admitting fully that guilt is atoned for by the sufferings of the ,saviour1 he yet maintained1 there was no farther imputation of ,christ's active service as if it had been our service4 ,after a rather sharp controversy1 ,i was sent back to study the matter for myself1 especially in the third and fourth chapters of the ,epistle to the ,romans2 and some weeks after1 freely avowed to him that ,i was convinced4 ,such was my first effort at independent thought against the teaching of my spiritual fathers1 and ,i suppose it had much value for me4 ,this friend might probably have been of service to me1 though he was rather cold and lawyerlike2 but he was abruptly withdrawn from ,oxford to be employed in active life4 ,i first received a temporary discomfort about the #ci ,articles from an irreligious young man1 who had been my schoolfellow2 who one day attacked the article which asserts that ,christ carried his flesh and bones with him into heaven4 ,i was not moved by the physical absurdity which this youth mercilessly derided2 and ,i repelled his objections as on impiety4 ,but ,i afterwards remembered the text1 ,flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of ,god2 and it seemed to me as if the compiler had really gone a little too far4 ,if ,i had immediately then been called on to subscribe1 ,i suppose it would have somewhat discomposed me2 but as time went on1 ,i forgot this small point1 which was swallowed up by others more important4 ,yet ,i believe that henceforth a greater disposition to criticize the ,articles grew upon me4 ,the first novel opinion of any great importance that ,i actually embraced1 so as to give roughness to my course1 was that which many then called the ,oriel heresy about ,sunday4 ,oriel ,college at this time contained many active and several original minds2 and it was rumoured that one of the ,fellows rejoiced in seeing his parishioners play at cricket on ,sunday3 ,i do not know whether that was true1 but so it was said4 ,another of them preached an excellent sermon before the ,university1 clearly showing that ,sunday had nothing to do with the ,sabbath1 nor the ,sabbath with us1 and inculcating on its own ground a wise and devout use of the ,sunday hours4 ,the evidently pious and sincere tone of this discourse impressed me1 and ,i felt that ,i had no right to reject as profane and undeserving of examination the doctrine which it enforced4 ,accordingly ,i entered into a thorough searching of the ,scripture without bias1 and was amazed to find how baseless was the tenet for which in fact ,i had endured a sort of martyrdom4 ,this1 ,i believe1 had a great effect in showing me how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions as final truth1 however necessary they may just then be felt to our spiritual life4 ,i was also scandalized to find how little candour or discernment some ,evangelical friends1 with whom ,i communicated1 displayed in discussing the subject4 ,in fact1 this opened to me a large sphere of new thought4 ,in the investigation1 ,i had learned1 more distinctly than before1 that the preceptive code of the ,law was an essentially imperfect and temporary system1 given for the hardness of men's hearts4 ,i was thus prepared to enter into the ,lectures on ,prophecy1 by another ,oriel ,fellow1--,mr4 ,davison1--in which he traces the successive improvements and developments of religious doctrine1 from the patriarchal system onward4 ,i in consequence enjoyed with new zest the epistles of ,st4 ,paul1 which ,i read as with fresh eyes2 and now understood somewhat better his whole doctrine of the ,spirit1 the coming of which had brought the church out of her childish into a mature condition1 and by establishing a higher law had abolished that of the letter4 ,into this view ,i entered with so eager an interest1 that ,i felt no bondage of the letter in ,paul's own words3 his wisdom was too much above me to allow free criticism of his weak points4 ,at the same time1 the systematic use of the ,old ,testament by the ,puritans1 as if it were the rule of life to ,christians1 ,i saw to be a glaring mistake1 intensely opposed to the ,pauline doctrine4 ,this discovery1 moreover1 soon became important to me1 as furnishing a ready evasion of objections against the meagre or puerile views of the ,pentateuch2 for without very minute inquiry how far ,i must go to make the defence adequate1 ,i gave a general reply1 that the ,new ,testament confessed the imperfections of the older dispensation4 ,i still presumed the ,old to have been perfect for its own objects and in its own place2 and had not defined to myself how far it was correct or absurd1 to imagine morality to change with time and circumstances4 ,before long1 ground was broken in my mind on a still more critical question1 by another ,fellow of a ,college2 who maintained that nothing but unbelief could arise out of the attempt to understand in what way and by what moral right the blood of ,christ atoned for sins4 ,he said1 that he bowed before the doctrine as one of ,revelation1 and accepted it reverentially by an act of faith2 but that he certainly felt unable to understand why the sacrifice of ,christ1 any more than the ,mosaic sacrifices1 should compensate for the punishment of our sins4 ,could carnal reason discern that human or divine blood1 any more than that of beasts1 had efficacy to make the sinner as it were sinless8 ,it appeared to him a necessarily inscrutable mystery1 into which we ought not to look4--,the matter being thus forced on my attention1 ,i certainly saw that to establish the abstract moral right and justice of vicarious punishment was not easy1 and that to make out the fact of any compensation--7i4e4 that ,jesus really endured on the cross a true equivalent for the eternal sufferings due to the whole human race17--was harder still4 ,nevertheless ,i had difficulty in adopting the conclusions of this gentleman2 ,,first1 because1 in a passage of the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 the sacred writer1 in arguing--,for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats can take away sins1 c41 c4444--seems to expect his readers to see an inherent impropriety in the sacrifices of the ,law1 and an inherent moral fitness in the sacrifice of ,christ4 ,,secondly3 ,i had always been accustomed to hear that it was by seeing the moral fitness of the doctrine of the ,atonement1 that converts to ,christianity were chiefly made3 so said the ,moravians among the ,greenlanders1 so ,brainerd among the ,north ,american ,indians1 so ,english missionaries among the negroes at ,sierra ,leone3--and ,i could not at all renounce this idea4 ,indeed ,i seemed to myself to see this fitness most emphatically2 and as for the forensic difficulties1 ,i passed them over with a certain conscious reverence4 ,i was not as yet ripe for deeper inquiry3 yet ,i1 about this time1 decidedly modified my boyish creed on the subject1 on which more will be said below4 ,of more immediate practical importance to me was the controversy concerning ,infant ,baptism4 ,for several years together ,i had been more or less conversant with the arguments adduced for the practice2 and at this time ,i read ,wall's defence of it1 which was the book specially recommended at ,oxford4 ,the perusal brought to a head the doubts which had at an earlier period flitted over my mind4 ,wall's historical attempt to trace ,infant ,baptism up to the apostles seemed to me a clear failure3#a and if he failed1 then who was likely to succeed8 ,the arguments from ,scripture had never recommended themselves to me4 ,even allowing that they might confirm1 they certainly could not suggest and establish the practice4 ,it now appeared that there was no basis at all2 indeed1 several of the arguments struck me as cutting the other way4 ,suffer little children to come unto me1 urged as decisive3 but it occurred to me that the disciples would not have scolded the little children away1 if they had ever been accustomed to baptize them4 ,wall also1 if ,i remember aright1 declares that the children of proselytes were baptized by the ,jews2 and deduces1 that unless the contrary were stated1 we must assume that also ,christ's disciples baptized children3 but ,i reflected that the baptism of ,john was one of repentance1 and therefore could not have been administered to infants2 which 7if precedent is to guide us7 afforded the truer presumption concerning ,christian baptism4 ,prepossessions being thus overthrown1 when ,i read the apostolic epistles with a view to this special question1 the proof so multiplied against the ,church doctrine1 that ,i did not see what was left to be said for it4 ,i talked much and freely of this1 as of most other topics1 with equals in age1 who took interest in religious questions2 but the more the matters were discussed1 the more decidedly impossible it seemed to maintain that the popular ,church views were apostolic4 ,here also1 as before1 the ,evangelical clergy whom ,i consulted were found by me a broken reed4 ,the clerical friend whom ,i had known at school wrote kindly to me1 but quite declined attempting to solve my doubts2 and in other quarters ,i soon saw that no fresh light was to be got4 ,one person there was at ,oxford1 who might have seemed my natural adviser2 his name1 character1 and religious peculiarities have been so made public property1 that ,i need not shrink to name him3--,i mean my elder brother1 the ,rev4 ,john ,henry ,newman4 ,as a warm-hearted and generous brother1 who exercised towards me paternal cares1 ,i esteemed him and felt a deep gratitude2 as a man of various culture1 and peculiar genius1 ,i admired and was proud of him2 but my doctrinal religion impeded my loving him as much as he deserved1 and even justified my feeling some distrust of him4 ,he never showed any strong attraction towards those whom ,i regarded as spiritual persons3 on the contrary1 ,i thought him stiff and cold towards them4 ,moreover1 soon after his ordination1 he had startled and distressed me by adopting the doctrine of ,baptismal ,regeneration2 and in rapid succession worked out views which ,i regarded as full-blown ,popery4 ,i speak of the years #ahbc-f3 it is strange to think that twenty years more had to pass before he learnt the place to which his doctrines belonged4 ,in the earliest period of my ,oxford residence ,i fell into uneasy collision with him concerning ,episcopal powers4 ,i had on one occasion dropt something disrespectful against bishops or a bishop1--something which1 if it had been said about a clergyman1 would have passed unnoticed3 but my brother checked and reproved me1--as ,i thought1 very uninstructively--for wanting reverence towards ,bishops4 ,i knew not then1 and ,i know not now1 why ,bishops1 as such1 should be more reverenced than common clergymen2 or ,clergymen1 as such1 more than common men4 ,in the ,world ,i expected pomp and vain show and formality and counterfeits3 but of the ,church1 as ,christ's own kingdom1 ,i demanded reality and could not digest legal fictions4 ,i saw round me what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen3 ,i knew the attractions of family livings and fellowships1 and of a respectable position and undefinable hopes of preferment4 ,i farther knew1 that when youths had become clergymen through a great variety of mixed motives1 bishops were selected out of these clergy on avowedly political grounds2 it therefore amazed me how a man of good sense should be able to set up a duty of religious veneration towards bishops4 ,i was willing to honour a ,lord ,bishop as a peer of ,parliament2 but his office was to me no guarantee of spiritual eminence4--,to find my brother thus stop my mouth1 was a puzzle2 and impeded all free speech towards him4 ,in fact1 ,i very soon left off the attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him1 or asking counsel as of one who could sympathize4 ,we talked1 indeed1 a great deal on the surface of religious matters2 and on some questions ,i was overpowered and received a temporary bias from his superior knowledge2 but as time went on1 and my own intellect ripened1 ,i distinctly felt that his arguments were too fine-drawn and subtle1 often elaborately missing the moral points and the main points1 to rest on some ecclesiastical fiction2 and his conclusions were to me so marvellous and painful1 that ,i constantly thought ,i had mistaken him4 ,in short1 he was my senior by a very few years3 nor was there any elder resident at ,oxford1 accessible to me1 who united all the qualities which ,i wanted in an adviser4 ,nothing was left for me but to cast myself on ,him who is named the ,father of ,lights1 and resolve to follow the light which ,he might give1 however opposed to my own prejudices1 and however ,i might be condemned by men4 ,this solemn engagement ,i made in early youth1 and neither the frowns nor the grief of my brethren can make me ashamed of it in my manhood4 ,among the religious authors whom ,i read familiarly was the ,rev4 ,t4 ,scott1 of ,aston ,sandford1 a rather dull1 very unoriginal1 half-educated1 but honest1 worthy1 sensible1 strong-minded man1 whose works were then much in vogue among the ,evangelicals4 ,one day my attention was arrested by a sentence in his defence of the doctrine of the ,trinity4 ,he complained that ,anti-,trinitarians unjustly charged ,trinitarians with self-contradiction4 ,if indeed we said 7argued he7 that ,god is three in the same sense as that in which ,he is one1 that would be self-refuting2 but we hold ,him to be three in one sense1 and one in another4 ,it crossed my mind very forcibly1 that1 if that was all1 the ,athanasian ,creed had gratuitously invented an enigma4 ,i exchanged thoughts on this with an undergraduate friend1 and got no fresh light3 in fact1 ,i feared to be profane1 if ,i attempted to understand the subject4 ,yet it came distinctly home to me1 that1 whatever the depth of the mystery1 if we lay down anything about it at all1 we ought to understand our own words2 and ,i presently augured that ,tillotson had been right in wishing our ,church well rid of the ,athanasian ,creed2 which seemed a mere offensive blurting out of intellectual difficulties4 ,i had1 however1 no doubts1 even of a passing kind1 for years to come1 concerning the substantial truth and certainty of the ecclesiastical ,trinity4 ,when the period arrived for taking my ,bachelors degree1 it was requisite again to sign the #ci ,articles1 and ,i now found myself embarrassed by the question of ,infant ,baptism4 ,one of the articles contains the following words1 ,the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained1 as most agreeable to the institution of ,christ4 ,i was unable to conceal from myself that ,i did not believe this sentence2 and ,i was on the point of refusing to take my degree4 ,i overcame my scruples by considering1 #a4 ,that concerning this doctrine ,i had no active dis-belief1 on which ,i would take any practical step1 as ,i felt myself too young to make any counterdeclaration3 #b4 ,that it had no possible practical meaning to me1 since ,i could not be called on to baptize1 nor to give a child for baptism4 ,thus ,i persuaded myself4 ,yet ,i had not an easy conscience1 nor can ,i now defend my compromise2 for ,i believe that my repugnance to ,infant ,baptism was really intense1 and my conviction that it is unapostolic as strong then as now4 ,the topic of my youth was irrelevant2 for1 if ,i was not too young to subscribe1 ,i was not too young to refuse subscription4 ,the argument that the article was unpractical to me1 goes to prove1 that if ,i were ordered by a despot to qualify myself for a place in the ,church by solemnly renouncing the first book of ,euclid as false1 ,i might do so without any loss of moral dignity4 ,altogether1 this humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the conscience these subscriptions are3 how comfortably they are passed while the intellect is torpid or immature1 or where the conscience is callous1 but how they undermine truthfulness in the active thinker1 and torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded4 ,as long as they are maintained1 in ,church or ,university1 these institutions exert a positive influence to deprave or eject those who ought to be their most useful and honoured members4 ,it was already breaking upon me1 that ,i could not fulfil the dreams of my boyhood as a minister in the ,church of ,england4 ,for1 supposing that with increased knowledge ,i might arrive at the conclusion that ,infant ,baptism was a fore-arranged development1--not indeed practised in the first generation1 but expedient1 justifiable1 and intended for the second1 and probably then sanctioned by one still living apostle1--even so1 ,i foresaw the still greater difficulty of ,baptismal ,regeneration behind4 ,for any one to avow that ,regeneration took place in ,baptism1 seemed to me little short of a confession that he had never himself experienced what ,regeneration is4 ,if ,i could then have been convinced that the apostles taught no other regeneration1 ,i almost think that even their authority would have snapt under the strain3 but this is idle theory2 for it was as clear as daylight to me that they held a totally different doctrine1 and that the ,high ,church and ,popish fancy is a superstitious perversion1 based upon carnal inability to understand a strong spiritual metaphor4 ,on the other hand1 my brother's arguments that the ,baptismal ,service of the ,church taught spiritual regeneration during the ordinance1 were short1 simple1 and overwhelming4 ,to imagine a twofold spiritual regeneration was evidently a hypothesis to serve a turn1 nor in any of the ,church formulas was such an idea broached4 ,nor could ,i hope for relief by searching through the ,homilies or by drawing deductions from the ,articles3 for if ,i there elicited a truer doctrine1 it would never show the ,baptismal ,service not to teach the ,popish tenet2 it would merely prove the ,church-system to contain contradictions1 and not to deserve that absolute declaration of its truth1 which is demanded of ,church ministers4 ,with little hope of advantage1 ,i yet felt it a duty to consult many of the ,evangelical clergymen whom ,i knew1 and to ask how they reconciled the ,baptismal ,service to their consciences4 ,i found 7if ,i remember7 three separate theories among them1--all evidently mere shifts invented to avoid the disagreeable necessity of resigning their functions4 ,not one of these good people seemed to have the most remote idea that it was their duty to investigate the meaning of the formulary with the same unbiassed simplicity as if it belonged to the ,gallican ,church4 ,they did not seek to know what it was written to mean1 nor what sense it must carry to every simpleminded hearer2 but they solely asked1 how they could manage to assign to it a sense not wholly irreconcilable with their own doctrines and preaching4 ,this was too obviously hollow4 ,the last gentleman whom ,i consulted1 was the rector of a parish1 who from week to week baptized children with the prescribed formula3 but to my amazement1 he told me that he did not like the ,service1 and did not approve of ,infant ,baptism2 to both of which things he submitted1 solely because1 as an inferior minister of the ,church1 it was his duty to obey established authority6 ,the case was desperate4 ,but ,i may here add1 that this clergyman1 within a few years from that time1 redeemed his freedom and his conscience by the painful ordeal of abandoning his position and his flock1 against the remonstrances of his wife1 to the annoyance of his friends1 and with a young family about him4 ,let no reader accept the preceding paragraph as my testimony that the ,evangelical clergy are less simpleminded and less honourable in their subscriptions than the ,high ,church4 ,i do not say1 and ,i do not believe this4 ,all who subscribe1 labour under a common difficulty1 in having to give an absolute assent to formulas that were made by a compromise and are not homogeneous in character4 ,to the ,high ,churchman1 the ,articles are a difficulty2 to the ,low ,churchman1 various parts of the ,liturgy4 ,all have to do violence to some portion of the system2 and considering at how early an age they are entrapped into subscription1 they all deserve our sincere sympathy and very ample allowance1 as long as they are pleading for the rights of conscience3 only when they become overbearing1 dictatorial1 proud of their chains1 and desirous of ejecting others1 does it seem right to press them with the topic of inconsistency4 ,there in1 besides1 in the ministry of the ,established ,church a sprinkling of original minds1 who cannot be included in either of the two great divisions2 and from these priori one might have hoped much good to the ,church4 ,but such persons no sooner speak out1 than the two hostile parties hush their strife1 in order the more effectually to overwhelm with just and unjust imputations those who dare to utter truth that has not yet been consecrated by ,act of ,parliament or by ,church ,councils4 ,among those who have subscribed1 to attack others is easy1 to defend oneself most arduous4 ,recrimination is the only powerful weapon2 and noble minds are ashamed to use this4 ,no hope1 therefore1 shows itself of ,reform from within4--,for myself1 ,i feel that nothing saved me from the infinite distresses which ,i should have encountered1 had ,i become a minister of the ,episcopal ,church1 but the very unusual prematureness of my religious development4 ,besides the great subject of ,baptismal ,regeneration1 the entire ,episcopal theory and practice offended me4 ,how little favourably ,i was impressed1 when a boy1 by the lawn sleeves1 wig1 artificial voice and manner of the ,bishop of ,london1 ,i have already said3 but in six years more1 reading and observation had intensely confirmed my first auguries4 ,it was clear beyond denial1 that for a century after the death of ,edward ,,vi4 the bishops were the tools of court-bigotry1 and often owed their highest promotions to base subservience4 ,after the ,revolution1 the ,episcopal order 7on a rough and general view7 might be described as a body of supine persons1 known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the ,government4 ,in the last century and a half1 the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty1 bloody wars1 venal statesmen1 corrupt constituencies1 bribery and violence at elections1 flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks1 and insinuating itself into ,colleges and ,rectories4 ,the prisons of the country had been in a most disgraceful state2 the fairs and waits were scenes of rude debauchery1 and the theatres were--still1 in this nineteenth century--whispered to be haunts of the most debasing immorality4 ,i could not learn that any bishop had ever taken the lead in denouncing these iniquities2 nor that when any man or class of men rose to denounce them1 the ,episcopal ,order failed to throw itself into the breach to defend corruption by at least passive resistance4 ,neither ,howard1 ,wesley and ,whitfield1 nor yet ,clarkson1 ,wilberforce1 or ,romilly1 could boast of the episcopal bench as an ally against inhuman or immoral practices4 ,our oppressions in ,india1 and our sanction to the most cruel superstitions of the natives1 led to no outcry from the ,bishops4 ,under their patronage the two old ,societies of the ,church had gone to sleep until aroused by the ,church ,missionary and ,bible ,societies1 which were opposed by the ,bishops4 ,their policy seemed to be1 to do nothing1 until somebody else was likely to do it2 upon which they at last joined the movement in order to damp its energy1 and get some credit from it4 ,now what were ,bishops for1 but to be the originators and energetic organs of all pious and good works8 and what were they in the ,house of ,lords for1 if not to set a higher tone of purity1 justice1 and truth8 and if they never did this1 but weighed down those who attempted it1 was not that a condemnation 7not1 perhaps1 of all possible ,episcopacy1 but7 of ,episcopacy as it exists in ,england8 ,if such a thing as a moral argument for ,christianity was admitted as valid1 surely the above was a moral argument against ,english ,prelacy4 ,it was1 moreover1 evident at a glance1 that this system of ours neither was1 nor could have been1 apostolic3 for as long as the civil power was hostile to the ,church1 a ,lord bishop nominated by the civil ruler was an impossibility3 and this it is1 which determines the moral and spiritual character of the ,english institution1 not indeed exclusively1 but preeminently4 ,i still feel amazement at the only defence which 7as far as ,i know7 the pretended followers of ,antiquity make for the nomination of bishops by the ,crown4 ,in the third and fourth centuries1 it is well known that every new bishop was elected by the universal suffrage of the laity of the church2 and it is to these centuries that the ,high ,episcopalians love to appeal1 because they can quote thence out of ,cyprian#b and others in favour of ,episcopal authority4 ,when ,i alleged the dissimilarity in the mode of election1 as fatal to this argument in the mouth of an ,english ,high ,churchman1 ,i was told that the ,crown now represents the ,laity6 ,such a fiction may be satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer1 but as the basis of a spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible4 ,with these considerations on my mind1--while quite aware that some of the bishops were good and valuable men1--,i could not help feeling that it would be a perfect misery to me to have to address one of them taken at random as my ,right ,reverend ,father in ,god1 which seemed like a foul hypocrisy2 and when ,i remembered who had said1 ,call no man ,father on earth2 for one is your ,father1 who is in heaven3--words1 which not merely in the letter1 but still more distinctly in the spirit1 forbid the state of feeling which suggested this episcopal appellation1--it did appear to me1 as if ,prelacy had been rightly coupled by the ,scotch ,puritans with ,popery as antichristian4 ,connected inseparably with this1 was the form of ,ordination1 which1 the more ,i thought of it1 seemed the more offensively and outrageously ,popish1 and quite opposed to the ,article on the same subject4 ,in the ,article ,i read1 that we were to regard such to be legitimate ministers of the word1 as had been duly appointed to this work by those who have public authority for the same4 ,it was evident to me that this very wide phrase was adapted and intended to comprehend the public authorities of all the ,reformed ,churches1 and could never have been selected by one who wished to narrow the idea of a legitimate minister to ,episcopalian ,orders2 besides that we know ,lutheran and ,calvinistic ministers to have been actually admitted in the early times of the ,reformed ,english ,church1 by the force of that very ,article4 ,to this1 the only genuine ,protestant view of a ,church1 ,i gave my most cordial adherence3 but when ,i turned to the ,ordination ,service1 ,i found the ,bishop there1 by his authoritative voice1 absolutely to bestow on the candidate for ,priesthood the power to forgive or retain sins6--,receive ye the ,holy ,ghost6 ,whose sins ye forgive1 they are forgiven3 whose sins ye retain1 they are retained4 ,if the ,bishop really had this power1 he of course had it only as ,bishop1 that is1 by his consecration2 thus it was formally transmitted4 ,to allow this1 vested in all the ,romish bishops a spiritual power of the highest order1 and denied the legitimate priesthood in nearly all the ,continental ,protestant ,churches--a doctrine irreconcilable with the article just referred to and intrinsically to me incredible4 ,that an unspiritual--and it may be1 a wicked--man1 who can have no pure insight into devout and penitent hearts1 and no communion with the ,source of holy discernment1 could never receive by an outward form the divine power to forgive or retain sins1 or the power of bestowing this power1 was to me then1 as now1 as clear and certain as any possible first axiom4 ,yet if the ,bishop had not this power1 how profane was the pretension6 ,thus again ,i came into rude collision with ,english ,prelacy4 ,the year after taking my degree1 ,i made myself fully master of ,paley's acute and original treatise1 the ,hor ,paulin1 and realized the whole life of ,paul as never before4 ,this book greatly enlarged my mind as to the resources of historical criticism4 ,previously1 my sole idea of criticism was that of the direct discernment of style2 but ,i now began to understand what powerful argument rose out of combinations3 and the very complete establishment which this work gives to the narrative concerning ,paul in the latter half of the ,acts1 appeared to me to reflect critical honour#c on the whole ,new ,testament4 ,in the epistles of this great apostle1 notwithstanding their argumentative difficulties1 ,i found a moral reality and a depth of wisdom perpetually growing upon me with acquaintance3 in contrast to which ,i was conscious that ,i made no progress in understanding the four gospels4 ,their first impression had been their strongest3 and their difficulties remained as fixed blocks in my way4 ,was this possibly because ,paul is a reasoner1 7,i asked78 hence1 with the cultivation of my understanding1 ,i have entered more easily into the heart of his views3--while ,christ enunciates divine truth dogmatically2 consequently insight is needed to understand him8 ,on the contrary1 however1 it seemed to me1 that the doctrinal difficulties of the gospels depend chiefly either on obscure metaphor or on apparent incoherence3 and ,i timidly asked a friend1 whether the dislocation of the discourses of ,christ by the narrators may not be one reason why they are often obscure3 for on comparing ,luke with ,matthew1 it appears that we cannot deny occasional dislocation4 ,if at this period a ,german divinity professor had been lecturing at ,oxford1 or ,german books had been accessible to me1 it might have saved me long peregrinations of body and mind4 ,about this time ,i had also begun to think that the old writers called ,fathers deserved but a small fraction of the reverence which is awarded to them4 ,i had been strongly urged to read ,chrysostom's work on the ,priesthood1 by one who regarded it as a suitable preparation for ,holy ,orders2 and ,i did read it4 ,but ,i not only thought it inflated1 and without moral depth1 but what was far worse1 ,i encountered in it an elaborate defence of falsehood in the cause of the ,church1 and generally of deceit in any good cause4#d ,i rose from the treatise in disgust1 and for the first time sympathized with ,gibbon2 and augured that if he had spoken with moral indignation1 instead of pompous sarcasm1 against the frauds of the ancient ,fathers1 his blows would have fallen far more heavily on ,christianity itself4 ,i also1 with much effort and no profit1 read the ,apostolic ,fathers4 ,of these1 ,clement alone seemed to me respectable1 and even he to write only what ,i could myself have written1 with ,paul and ,peter to serve as a model4 ,but for ,barnabas and ,hermas ,i felt a contempt so profound1 that ,i could hardly believe them genuine4 ,on the whole1 this reading greatly exalted my sense of the unapproachable greatness#e of the ,new ,testament4 ,the moral chasm between it and the very earliest ,christian writers seemed to me so vast1 as only to be accounted for by the doctrine in which all spiritual men 7as ,i thought7 unhesitatingly agreed1--that the ,new ,testament was dictated by the immediate action of the ,holy ,spirit4 ,the infatuation of those1 who1 after this1 rested on the ,councils1 was to me unintelligible4 ,thus the ,bible in its simplicity became only the more all-ruling to my judgment1 because ,i could find no ,articles1 no ,church ,decrees1 and no apostolic individual1 whose rule over my understanding or conscience ,i could bear4 ,such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my ,creed4 ,footnote #a3 ,it was not until many years later that ,i became aware1 that unbiased ecclesiastical historians1 as ,neander and others1 while approving of the practice of ,infant ,baptism1 freely concede that it is not apostolic4 ,let this fact be my defence against critics1 who snarl at me for having dared1 at that age1 to come to any conclusion on such a subject4 ,but1 in fact1 the subscriptions compel young men to it4 ,footnote #b3 ,i remember reading about that time a sentence in one of his ,epistles1 in which this same ,cyprian1 the earliest mouthpiece of proud prelacy1 claims for the populace supreme right of deposing an unworthy bishop4 ,i quote the words from memory1 and do not know the reference4 ,pleba summam habet potentatem episcopos seu dignos eligendi seu indignos detrudendi4 ,footnote #c3 ,a critic absurdly complains that ,i do not account for this4 ,account for what8 ,i still hold the authenticity of nearly all the ,pauline epistles1 and that the ,pauline ,acts are compiled from some valuable source1 from chap4 xiii4 onward2 but it was gratuitous to infer that this could accredit the four gospels4 ,footnote #d3 ,he argues from the ,bible1 that a victory gained by deceit is more to be esteemed than one obtained by force2 and that1 provided the end aimed at be good1 we ought not to call it deceit1 but a sort of admirable management4 ,a learned friend informs me that in his #deth ,homily on ,genesis1 this father1 in his zeal to vindicate ,scriptural characters at any cost1 goes further still in immorality4 ,my friend adds1 ,it is really frightful to reflect to what guidance the moral sentiment of mankind was committed for many ages3 ,chrysostom is usually considered one of the best of the fathers4 ,footnote #e3 ,i thought that the latter part of this book would sufficiently show how and why ,i now need to modify this sentiment4 ,i now see the doctrine of the ,atonement1 especially as expounded in the ,epistle of the ,hebrews1 to deserve no honour4 ,i see false interpretations of the ,old ,testament to be dogmatically proposed in the ,new4 ,i see the moral teaching concerning ,patriotism1 ,property1 ,slavery1 ,marriage1 ,science1 and indirectly ,fine ,art1 to be essentially defective1 and the threats against unbelief to be a pernicious immorality4 ,see also p4 #hj4 ,why will critics use my frankly-stated juvenile opinions as a stone to pelt me with8 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,strivings ,,after ,a ,,more ,,primitive ,,christianity4 ,my second period is characterized1 partly by the great ascendancy exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more powerful will1 partly by the vehement effort which throughout its duration urged me to long after the establishment of ,christian ,fellowship in a purely ,biblical ,church as the first great want of ,christendom and of the world4 ,i was already uneasy in the sense that ,i could not enter the ministry of the ,church of ,england1 and knew not what course of life to choose4 ,i longed to become a missionary for ,christ among the heathen1--a notion ,i had often fostered while reading the lives of missionaries3 but again1 ,i saw not how that was to be effected4 ,after taking my degree1 ,i became a ,fellow of ,balliol ,college2 and the next year ,i accepted an invitation to ,ireland1 and there became private tutor for fifteen months in the house of one now deceased1 whose name ,i would gladly mention for honour and affection2--but ,i withhold my pen4 ,while he repaid me munificently for my services1 he behaved towards me as a father1 or indeed as an elder brother1 and instantly made me feel as a member of his family4 ,his great talents1 high professional standing1 nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety1 would have made him a most valuable counsellor to me3 but he was too gentle1 too unassuming1 too modest2 he looked to be taught by his juniors1 and sat at the feet of one whom ,i proceed to describe4 ,this was a young relative of his1--a most remarkable man1--who rapidly gained an immense sway over me4 ,i shall henceforth call him the ,irish clergyman4 ,his bodily presence was indeed weak6 ,a fallen cheek1 a bloodshot eye1 crippled limbs resting on crutches1 a seldom shaven beard1 a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person1 drew at first pity1 with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room4 ,it was currently reported that a person in ,limerick offered him a halfpenny1 mistaking him for a beggar2 and if not true1 the story was yet well invented4 ,this young man had taken high honours in ,dublin ,university and had studied for the bar1 where under the auspices of his eminent kinsman he had excellent prospects2 but his conscience would not allow him to take a brief1 lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice4 ,with keen logical powers1 he had warm sympathies1 solid judgment of character1 thoughtful tenderness1 and total self-abandonment4 ,he before long took ,holy ,orders1 and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of ,wicklow4 ,every evening he sallied forth to teach in the cabins1 and roving far and wide over mountain and amid bogs1 was seldom home before midnight4 ,by such exertions his strength was undermined1 and he so suffered in his limbs that not lameness only1 but yet more serious results were feared4 ,he did not fast on purpose1 but his long walks through wild country and indigent people inflicted on him much severe deprivation3 moreover1 as he ate whatever food offered itself1--food unpalatable and often indigestible to him1 his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk of ,la ,trappe4 ,such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor ,romanists1 who looked on him as a genuine saint of the ancient breed4 ,the stamp of heaven seemed to them clear in a frame so wasted by austerity1 so superior to worldly pomp1 and so partaking in all their indigence4 ,that a dozen such men would have done more to convert all ,ireland to ,protestantism1 than the whole apparatus of the ,church ,establishment1 was ere long my conviction2 though ,i was at first offended by his apparent affectation of a mean exterior4 ,but ,i soon understood1 that in no other way could he gain equal access to the lower and lowest orders1 and that he was moved not by asceticism1 nor by ostentation1 but by a self-abandonment fruitful of consequences4 ,he had practically given up all reading except that of the ,bible2 and no small part of his movement towards me soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study4 ,in fact1 ,i had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading on this one book3 still1 ,i could not help feeling the value of a cultivated mind4 ,against this1 my new eccentric friend1 7himself having enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation17 directed his keenest attacks4 ,i remember once saying to him1 in defence of worldly station1--,to desire to be rich is unchristian and absurd2 but if ,i were the father of children1 ,i should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education4 ,he replied3 ,if ,i had children1 ,i would as soon see them break stones on the road1 as do any thing else1 if only ,i could secure to them the ,gospel and the grace of ,god4 ,i was unable to say ,amen1 but ,i admired his unflinching consistency2--for now1 as always1 all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced4 ,he more and more made me ashamed of ,political ,economy and ,moral ,philosophy1 and all ,science2 all of which ought to be counted dross for the excellency of the knowledge of ,christ ,jesus our ,lord4 ,for the first time in my life ,i saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others confessed with their lips only4 ,that the words of the ,new ,testament contained the highest truth accessible to man1--truth not to be taken from nor added to1--all good men 7as ,i thought7 confessed3 never before had ,i seen a man so resolved that no word of it should be a dead letter to him4 ,i once said3 ,but do you really think that no part of the ,new ,testament may have been temporary in its object8 for instance1 what should we have lost1 if ,st4 ,paul had never written the verse1 ',the cloak which ,i have left at ,troas1 bring with thee1 and the books1 but especially the parchments4' ,he answered with the greatest promptitude3 ,i should certainly have lost something2 for that is exactly the verse which alone saved me from selling my little library4 ,no6 every word1 depend upon it1 is from the ,spirit1 and is for eternal service4 ,a political question was just then exceedingly agitating ,ireland1 in which nearly everybody took a great interest2--it was1 the propriety of admitting ,romanist members of ,parliament4 ,those who were favourable to the measure1 generally advocated it by trying to undervalue the chasm that separates ,romish from ,protestant doctrine4 ,by such arguments they exceedingly exasperated the real ,protestants1 and1 in common with all around me1 ,i totally repudiated that ground of comprehension4 ,but ,i could not understand why a broader1 more generous and every way safer argument was not dwelt on2 viz4 the unearthliness of the claims of ,christianity4 ,when ,paul was preaching the kingdom of ,god in the ,roman empire1 if a malicious enemy had declared to a ,roman proconsul that the ,christians were conspiring to eject all ,pagans out of the senate and out of the public administration2 who can doubt what ,paul would have replied8--,the kingdom of ,god is not of this world3 it is within the heart1 and consists in righteousness1 peace and joy in the ,holy ,ghost4 ,these are our honours from ,god3 we ask not the honours of empire and title4 ,our ,king is in heaven2 and will in time return to bring to an end these earthly kingdoms3 but until then1 we claim no superiority over you on earth4 ,as the riches of this world1 so the powers of this world belong to another king3 we dare not try to appropriate them in the name of our heavenly ,king2 may1 we should hold it as great a sin to clutch empire for our churches1 as to clutch wealth3 ,god forbid that we covet either6--,but what then if the enemy had had foresight to reply1 ,o proconsul1 this ,paul talks finely1 and perhaps sincerely3 but if so1 yet cheat not yourself to think that his followers will tie themselves to his mild equity and disinterestedness4 ,now indeed they are weak3 now they profess unworldliness and unambition3 they wish only to be recognised as peaceable subjects1 as citizens and as equals3 but if once they grow strong enough1 they will discover that their spears and swords are the symbol of their ,lord's return from heaven2 that he now at length commissions them to eject you1 as vile infidels1 from all seats of power1--to slay you with the sword1 if you dare to offer sacrifice to the immortal gods1--to degrade you so1 that you shall only not enter the senate1 or the privy council of the prince1 or the judgment seat1 but not even the jury-box1 or a municipal corporation1 or the pettiest edileship of ,italy2 nay1 you shall not be lieutenants of armies1 or tribunes1 or anything above the lowest centurion4 ,you shall become a plebeian class1--cheap bodies to be exposed in battle or to toil in the field1 and pay rent to the lordly ,christian4 ,such shall be the fate of you1 the worshippers of ,quirinus and of ,jupiter ,best and ,greatest1 if you neglect to crush and extirpate1 during the weakness of its infancy1 this ambitious and unscrupulous portent of a religion4--,oh1 how would ,paul have groaned in spirit1 at accusations such as these1 hateful to his soul1 aspersing to his churches1 but impossible to refute6 ,either ,paul's doctrine was a fond dream1 7felt ,i17 or it is certain1 that he would have protested with all the force of his heart against the principle that ,christians as such have any claim to earthly power and place2 or that they could1 when they gained a numerical majority1 without sin enact laws to punish1 stigmatize1 exclude1 or otherwise treat with political inferiority the ,pagan remnant4 ,to uphold such exclusion1 is to lay the axe to the root of the spiritual ,church1 to stultify the apostolic preaching1 and at this moment justify ,mohammedans in persecuting ,christians4 ,for the ,sultan might fairly say1--,i give ,christians the choice of exile or death3 ,i will not allow that sect to grow up here2 for it has fully warned me1 that it will proscribe my religion in my own land1 as soon as it has power4 ,on such grounds ,i looked with amazement and sorrow at spiritual ,christians who desired to exclude the ,romanists from full equality2 and ,i was happy to enjoy as to this the passive assent of the ,irish clergyman2 who1 though ,orange in his connexions1 and opposed to all political action1 yet only so much the more deprecated what he called political ,protestantism4 ,in spite of the strong revulsion which ,i felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man1 ,i for the first time in my life found myself under the dominion of a superior4 ,when ,i remember1 how even those bowed down before him1 who had been to him in the place of parents1--accomplished and experienced minds1--,i cease to wonder in the retrospect1 that he riveted me in such a bondage4 ,henceforth ,i began to ask3 what will he say to this and that8 ,in his reply ,i always expected to find a higher portion of ,god's ,spirit1 than in any ,i could frame for myself4 ,in order to learn divine truth1 it became to me a surer process to consult him1 than to search for myself and wait upon ,god3 and gradually1 7as ,i afterwards discerned17 my religious thought had merged into the mere process of developing fearlessly into results all his principles1 without any deeper examining of my foundations4 ,indeed1 but for a few weaknesses which warned me that he might err1 ,i could have accepted him as an apostle commissioned to reveal the mind of ,god4 ,in his after-course 7which ,i may not indicate7 this gentleman has every where displayed a wonderful power of bending other minds to his own1 and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation4 ,over the general results of his action ,i have long deeply mourned1 as blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom to the ,letter1 dwarfing men's understandings1 contracting their hearts1 crushing their moral sensibilities1 and setting those at variance who ought to love3 yet oh6 how specious was it in the beginning6 he only wanted men to submit their understandings to ,god that is1 to the ,bible1 that is1 to his interpretation6 ,from seeing his action and influence ,i have learnt1 that if it be dangerous to a young man 7as it assuredly is7 to have no superior mind to which he may look up with confiding reverence1 it may be even more dangerous to think that he has found such a mind3 for he who is most logically consistent1 though to a one-sided theory1 and most ready to sacrifice self to that theory1 seems to ardent youth the most assuredly trustworthy guide4 ,such was ,ignatius ,loyola in his day4 ,my study of the ,new ,testament at this time had made it impossible for me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a duty of all disciples to expect a near and sudden destruction of the earth by fire1 and constantly to be expecting the return of the ,lord from heaven4 ,it was easy to reply1 that experience disproved this expectation2 but to this an answer was ready provided in ,peter's #bnd ,epistle1 which forewarns us that we shall be taunted by the unbelieving with thin objection1 but bids us1 nevertheless1 continue to look out for the speedy fulfilment of this great event4 ,in short1 the case stood thus3--,if it was not too soon #ahjj years ago to stand in daily expectation of it1 it is not too soon now3 to say that it is too late1 is not merely to impute error to the apostles1 on a matter which they made of first-rate moral importance1 but is to say1 that those whom ,peter calls ungodly scoffers1 walking after their own lusts--were right1 and he was wrong1 on the very point for which he thus vituperated them4 ,the importance of this doctrine is1 that it totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time3 and here the ,irish clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his character4 ,for instance2 if a youth had a natural aptitude for mathematics1 and he asked1 ought he to give himself to the study1 in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it1 or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the science8 my friend would have replied1 that such a purpose was very proper1 if entertained by a worldly man4 ,let the dead bury their dead2 and let the world study the things of the world3 they know no better1 and they are of use to the ,church1 who may borrow and use the jewels of the ,egyptians4 ,but such studies cannot be eagerly followed by the ,christian1 except when he yields to unbelief4 ,in fact1 what would it avail even to become a second ,la ,place after thirty years' study1 if in five and thirty years the ,lord descended from heaven1 snatched up all his saints to meet him1 and burned to ashes all the works of the earth8 ,then all the mathematician's work would have perished1 and he would grieve over his unwisdom1 in laying up store which could not stand the fire of the ,lord4 ,clearly2 if we are bound to act as though the end of all earthly concerns may come1 at cockcrowing or at midday1 then to work for distant earthly objects is the part of a fool or of an unbeliever4 ,i found a wonderful dulness in many persons on this important subject4 ,wholly careless to ask what was the true apostolic doctrine1 they insisted that ,death is to us practically the coming of the ,lord1 and were amazed at my seeing so much emphasis in the other view4 ,this comes of the abominable selfishness preached as religion4 ,if ,i were to labour at some useful work for ten years1--say1 at clearing forest land1 laying out a farm1 and building a house1--and were then to die1 ,i should leave my work to my successors1 and it would not be lost4 ,some men work for higher1 some for lower1 earthly ends2 7in a great house there are many vessels1 c427 but all the results are valuable1 if there is a chance of transmitting them to those who follow us4 ,but if all is to be very shortly burnt up1 it is then folly to exert ourselves for such objects4 ,to the dead man1 7it is said17 the cases are but one4 ,this is to the purpose1 if self absorbs all our heart2 away from the purpose1 if we are to work for unselfish ends4 ,nothing can be clearer1 than that the ,new ,testament is entirely pervaded by the doctrine1--sometimes explicitly stated1 sometimes unceremoniously assumed1--that earthly things are very speedily to come to an end1 and therefore are not worthy of our high affections and deep interest4 ,hence1 when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion1 ,i looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on any distant aim of this earth4 ,for a statesman to talk about providing for future generations1 sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of unbelief4 ,to devote good talents to write history or investigate nature1 was simple waste3 for at the ,lord's coming1 history and science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours4 ,thus an inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles1 was1 that we must work for speedy results only4 ,vit summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam4 ,i then accepted the doctrine1 in profound obedience to the absolutely infallible system of precepts4 ,i now see that the falsity and mischief of the doctrine is one of the very many disproofs of the assumed1 but unverified infallibility4 ,however1 the hold which the apostolic belief then took of me1 subjected my conscience to the exhortations of the ,irish clergyman1 whenever he inculcated that the highest ,christian must necessarily decline the pursuit of science1 knowledge1 art1 history1--except so far as any of these things might be made useful tools for immediate spiritual results4 ,under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gentleman's character1 the desire1 which from a boy ,i had more or less nourished1 of becoming a teacher of ,christianity to the heathen1 took stronger and stronger hold of me4 ,i saw that ,i was shut out from the ministry of the ,church of ,england1 and knew not how to seek connexion with ,dissenters4 ,i had met one eminent ,quaker1 but was offended by the violent and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to get rid of the two ,sacraments2 and ,i thought there was affectation involved in the forms which the doctrine of the ,spirit took with him4 ,besides1 ,i had not been prepossessed by those ,dissenters whom ,i had heard speak at the ,bible ,society4 ,i remember that one of them talked in pompous measured tones of voice1 and with much stereotyped phraseology1 about the ,bible only1 the religion of ,protestants3 altogether1 it did not seem to me that there was at all so much of nature and simple truth in them as in ,church clergymen4 ,i also had a vague1 but strong idea1 that all ,dissenting churches assumed some special1 narrow1 and sectarian basis4 ,the question indeed arose3 ,was ,i at liberty to preach to the heathen without ordination8 but ,i with extreme ease answered in the affirmative4 ,to teach a ,church1 of course needs the sanction of the church3 no man can assume pastoral rights without assent from other parties3 but to speak to those without1 is obviously a natural right1 with which the ,church can have nothing to do4 ,and herewith all the precedents of the ,new ,testament so obviously agreed1 that ,i had not a moment's disquiet on this head4 ,at the same time1 when asked by one to whom ,i communicated my feelings1 whether ,i felt that ,i had a call to preach to the heathen1 ,i replied3 ,i had not the least consciousness of it1 and knew not what was meant by such language4 ,all that ,i knew was1 that ,i was willing and anxious to do anything in my power either to teach1 or to help others in teaching1 if only ,i could find out the way4 ,that after eighteen hundred years no farther progress should have been made towards the universal spread of ,christianity1 appeared a scandalous reproach on ,christendom4 ,is it not1 perhaps1 because those who are in ,church office cannot go1 and the mass of the laity think it no business of theirs8 ,if a persecution fell on ,england1 and thousands were driven into exile1 and1 like those who were scattered in ,stephen's persecution1 went everywhere preaching the word1--might not this be the conversion of the world1 as indeed that began the conversion of the ,gentiles8 ,but the laity leave all to the clergy1 and the clergy have more than enough to do4 ,about this time ,i heard of another remarkable man1 whose name was already before the public1--,mr4 ,groves1--who had written a tract called ,christian ,devotedness1 on the duty of devoting all worldly property for the cause of ,christ1 and utterly renouncing the attempt to amass money4 ,in pursuance of this1 he was going to ,persia as a teacher of ,christianity4 ,i read his tract1 and was inflamed with the greatest admiration2 judging immediately that this was the man whom ,i should rejoice to aid or serve4 ,for a scheme of this nature alone appeared to combine with the views which ,i had been gradually consolidating concerning the practical relation of a ,christian ,church to ,christian ,evidences4 ,on this very important subject it is requisite to speak in detail4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,christian ,evidences are an essential part of the course of religious study prescribed at ,oxford1 and they had engaged from an early period a large share of my attention4 ,each treatise on the subject1 taken by itself1 appeared to me to have great argumentative force2 but when ,i tried to grasp them all together in a higher act of thought1 ,i was sensible of a certain confusion1 and inability to reconcile their fundamental assumptions4 ,one either formally stated1 or virtually assumed1 that the deepest basis of all religious knowledge was the testimony of sense to some fact1 which is ascertained to be miraculous when examined by the light of ,physics or ,physiology2 and that we must1 at least in a great degree1 distrust and abandon our moral convictions or auguries1 at the bidding of sensible miracle4 ,another treatise assumed that men's moral feelings and beliefs are1 on the whole1 the most trustworthy thing to be found2 and starting from them as from a known and ascertained foundation1 proceeded to glorify ,christianity because of its expanding1 strengthening1 and beautifying all that we know by conscience to be morally right4 ,that the former argument1 if ever so valid1 was still too learned and scholastic1 not for the vulgar only1 but for every man in his times of moral trial1 ,i felt instinctively persuaded3 yet my intellect could not wholly dispense with it1 and my belief in the depravity of the moral understanding of men inclined me to go some way in defending it4 ,to endeavour to combine the two arguments by saying that they were adapted to different states of mind1 was plausible2 yet it conceded1 that neither of the two went to the bottom of human thought1 or showed what were the real fixed points of man's knowledge2 without knowing which1 we are in perpetual danger of mere argumentum ad hominem1 or1 in fact1 arguing in a circle2--as to prove miracles from doctrine1 and doctrine from miracles4 ,i however conceived that the most logical minds among ,christians would contend that there was another solution2 which1 in #ahbg1 ,i committed to paper in nearly the following words3 ,may it not be doubted whether ,leland sees the real circumstance that makes a revelation necessary8 ,no revelation is needed to inform us1--of the invisible power and deity of ,god2 that we are bound to worship ,him2 that we are capable of sinning against ,him and liable to his just ,judgment2 nay1 that we have sinned1 and that we find in nature marks of his displeasure against sin2 and yet1 that ,he is merciful4 ,st4 ,paul and our ,lord show us that these things are knowable by reason4 ,the ignorance of the heathens is judicial blindness1 to punish their obstinate rejection of the true ,god4 ,but a revelation is needed to convey a ,,special message1 such as this3 that ,god has provided an ,atonement for our sins1 has deputed his own ,son to become ,head of the redeemed human family1 and intends to raise those who believe in ,him to a future and eternal life of bliss4 ,these are external truths1 7for 'who can believe1 unless one be sent to preach them8'7 and are not knowable by any reasonings drawn from nature4 ,they transcend natural analogies and moral or spiritual experience4 ,to reveal them1 a specific communication must be accorded to us3 and on this the necessity for miracle turns4 ,thus1 in my view1 at that time1 the materials of the ,bible were in theory divisible into two portions3 concerning the one1 7which ,i called ,natural ,religion17 it not only was not presumptuous1 but it was absolutely essential1 to form an independent judgment2 for this was the real basis of all faith3 concerning the other1 7which ,i called ,revealed ,religion17 our business was1 not to criticize the message1 but to examine the credentials#a of the messenger2 and1--after the most unbiassed possible examination of these1--then1 if they proved sound1 to receive his communication reverently and unquestioningly4 ,such was the theory with which ,i came from ,oxford to ,ireland2 but ,i was hindered from working out its legitimate results by the overpowering influence of the ,irish clergyman2 who1 while pressing the authority of every letter of the ,scripture with an unshrinking vehemence that ,i never saw surpassed1 yet1 with a common inconsistency1 showed more than indifference towards learned historical and critical evidence on the side of ,christianity2 and indeed1 unmercifully exposed erudition to scorn1 both by caustic reasoning1 and by irrefragable quotation of texts4 ,i constantly had occasion to admire the power with which be laid hold of the moral side of every controversy2 whether he was reasoning against ,romanism1 against the ,high ,church1 against learned religion or philosophic scepticism3 and in this matter his practical axiom was1 that the advocate of truth had to address himself to the conscience of the other party1 and if possible1 make him feel that there was a moral and spiritual superiority against him4 ,such doctrine1 when joined with an inculcation of man's natural blindness and total depravity1 was anything but clearing to my intellectual perceptions3 in fact1 ,i believe that for some years ,i did not recover from the dimness and confusion which he spread over them4 ,but in my entire inability to explain away the texts which spoke with scorn of worldly wisdom1 philosophy1 and learning1 on the one hand2 and the obvious certainty1 on the other1 that no historical evidence for miracle was possible except by the aid of learning2 ,i for the time abandoned this side of ,christian ,evidence1--not as invalid1 but as too unwieldy a weapon for use1--and looked to direct moral evidence alone4 ,and now rose the question1 ,how could such moral evidence become appreciable to heathens and ,mohammedans8 ,i felt distinctly enough1 that mere talk could bring no conviction1 and would be interpreted by the actions and character of the speaker4 ,while nations called ,christian are only known to heathens as great conquerors1 powerful avengers1 sharp traders1--often lax in morals1 and apparently without religion1--the fine theories of a ,christian teacher would be as vain to convert a ,mohammedan or ,hindoo to ,christianity1 to the soundness of ,seneca's moral treatises to convert me to ,roman ,paganism4 ,christendom has to earn a new reputation before ,christian precepts will be thought to stand in any essential or close relation with the mystical doctrines of ,christianity4 ,i could see no other way to this1 but by an entire church being formed of new elements on a heathen soil3--a church1 in which by no means all should be preachers1 but all should be willing to do for all whatever occasion required4 ,such a church had ,i read of among the ,moravians in ,greenland and in ,south ,africa4 ,i imagined a little colony1 so animated by primitive faith1 love1 and disinterestedness1 that the collective moral influence of all might interpret and enforce the words of the few who preached4 ,only in this way did it appear to me that preaching to the heathen could be attended with success4 ,in fact1 whatever success had been attained1 seemed to come only after many years1 when the natives had gained experience in the characters of the ,christian family around them4 ,when ,i had returned to ,oxford1 ,i induced the ,irish clergyman to visit the ,university1 and introduced him to many of my equals in age1 and juniors4 ,most striking was it to see how instantaneously he assumed the place of universal father-confessor1 as if he had been a known and long-trusted friend4 ,his insight into character1 and tenderness pervading his austerity1 so opened young men's hearts1 that day after day there was no end of secret closetings with him4 ,i began to see the prospect of so considerable a movement of mind1 as might lead many in the same direction as myself2 and if it was by a collective ,church that ,mohammedans were to be taught1 the only way was for each separately to be led to the same place by the same spiritual influence4 ,as ,groves was a magnet to draw me1 so might ,i draw others4 ,in no other way could a pure and efficient ,church be formed4 ,if we waited1 as with worldly policy1 to make up a complete colony before leaving ,england1 we should fail of getting the right men3 we should pack them together by a mechanical process1 instead of leaving them to be united by vital affinities4 ,thus actuated1 and other circumstances conducing1 in ,september #ahcj1 with some ,irish friends1 ,i set out to join ,mr4 ,groves at ,bagdad4 ,what ,i might do there1 ,i knew not4 ,i did not go as a minister of religion1 and ,i everywhere pointedly disowned the assumption of this character1 even down to the colour of my dress4 ,but ,i thought ,i knew many ways in which ,i might be of service1 and ,i was prepared to act recording to circumstances4 99 99 99 99 99 ,perhaps the strain of practical life must in any case1 before long1 have broken the chain by which the ,irish clergyman unintentionally held me2 but all possible influence from him was now cut off by separation4 ,the dear companions of my travels no more aimed to guide my thoughts1 than ,i theirs3 neither ambition nor suspicion found place in our hearts2 and my mind was thus able again without disturbance to develop its own tendencies4 ,i had become distinctly aware1 that the modern ,churches in general by no means hold the truth as conceived of by the apostles4 ,in the matter of the ,sabbath and of the ,mosaic ,law1 of ,infant ,baptism1 of ,episcopacy1 of the doctrine of the ,lord's return1 ,i had successively found the prevalent ,protestantism to be unapostolic4 ,hence arose in me a conscious and continuous effort to read the ,new ,testament with fresh eyes and without bias1 and so to take up the real doctrines of the heavenly and everlasting ,gospel4 ,in studying the narrative of ,john ,i was strongly impressed by the fact1 that the glory and greatness of the ,son of ,god is constantly ascribed to the will and pleasure of the ,father4 ,i had been accustomed to hear this explained of his mediatorial greatness only1 but this now looked to me like a make-shift1 and to want the simplicity of truth--an impression which grew deeper with closer examination4 ,the emphatic declaration of ,christ1 ,my ,father is greater than ,i1 especially arrested my attention4 ,could ,i really expound this as meaning1 ,my ,father1 the ,supreme ,god1 in greater than ,i am1 if you look solely to my human nature8 ,such a truism can scarcely have deserved such emphasis4 ,did the disciples need to be taught that ,god was greater than man8 ,surely1 on the contrary1 the ,saviour must have meant to say3 ,divine as ,i am1 yet my heavenly ,father is greater than ,i1 even when you take cognizance of my divine nature4 ,i did not then know1 that my comment was exactly that of the most orthodox ,fathers2 ,i rather thought they were against me1 but for them ,i did not care much4 ,i reverenced the doctrine of the ,trinity as something vital to the soul2 but felt that to love the ,fathers or the ,athanasian ,creed more than the ,gospel of ,john would be a supremely miserable superstition4 ,however1 that ,creed states that there is no inequality between the ,three ,persons3 in ,john it became increasingly clear to me that the divine ,son is unequal to the ,father4 ,to say that the ,son of ,god meant ,jesus as man1 was a preposterous evasion3 for there is no higher title for the ,second ,person of the ,trinity than this very one--,son of ,god4 ,now1 in the #eth chapter1 when the ,jews accused ,jesus of making himself equal to ,god1 by calling himself ,son of ,god ,jesus even hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation --beginning with3 ,the ,son can do nothing of himself3 and proceeds elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the ,father's will4 ,in fact1 the ,son is emphatically he who is sent1 and the ,father is he who sent him3 and all would feel the deep impropriety of trying to exchange these phrases4 ,the ,son who is sent1--sent1 not after he was humbled to become man1 but in order to be so humbled1--was ,,not ,,equal ,,to1 but ,,less ,,than1 the ,father who sent him4 ,to this ,i found the whole ,gospel of ,john to bear witness2 and with this conviction1 the truth and honour of the ,athanasian ,creed fell to the ground4 ,one of its main tenets was proved false2 and yet it dared to utter anathemas on all who rejected it6 ,i afterwards remembered my old thought1 that we must surely understand our own words1 when we venture to speak at all about divine mysteries4 ,having gained boldness to gaze steadily on the topic1 ,i at length saw that the compiler of the ,athanasian ,creed did not understand his own words4 ,if any one speaks of three men1 all that he means is1 three objects of thought1 of whom each separately may be called ,man4 ,so also1 all that could possibly be meant by three gods1 is1 three objects of thought1 of whom each separately may be called ,god4 ,to avow the last statement1 as the ,creed does1 and yet repudiate ,three ,gods1 is to object to the phrase1 yet confess to the only meaning which the phrase can convey4 ,thus the ,creed really teaches polytheism1 but saves orthodoxy by forbidding any one to call it by its true name4 ,or to put the matter otherwise3 it teaches three ,divine ,persons1 and denies three ,gods2 and leaves us to guess what else is a ,divine ,person but a ,god1 or a ,god but a ,divine ,person4 ,who1 then1 can deny that this intolerant creed is a malignant riddle8 ,that there is nothing in the ,scripture about ,trinity in ,unity and ,unity in ,trinity ,i had long observed2 and the total absence of such phraseology had left on me a general persuasion that the ,church had systematized too much4 ,but in my study of ,john ,i was now arrested by a text1 which showed me how exceedingly far from a ,tri-unity was the ,trinity of that ,gospel1--if trinity it be4 ,namely1 in his last prayer1 ,jesus addresses to his ,father the words3 ,this is life eternal1 that they may know ,thee1 the only ,true ,god1 and ,jesus ,christ1 whom thou hast sent ,i became amazed1 as ,i considered these words more and more attentively1 and without prejudice2 and ,i began to understand how prejudice1 when embalmed with reverence1 blinds the mind4 ,why had ,i never before seen what is here so plain1 that the ,one ,god of ,jesus was not a ,trinity1 but was the ,first ,person1 of the ecclesiastical ,trinity8 ,but on a fuller search1 ,i found this to be ,paul's doctrine also3 for in #a ,corinth1 viii41 when discussing the subject of ,polytheism1 he says that though there be to the heathen many that are called ,gods1 yet to us there is but ,one ,god1 the ,father1 of whom are all things2 and ,one ,lord1 ,jesus ,christ1 by whom are all things4 ,thus he defines ,monotheism to consist in holding the person of the ,father to be the ,one ,god2 although this1 if any1 should have been the place for a ,trinity in ,unity4 ,but did ,i proceed to deny the ,divinity of the ,son8 ,by no means3 ,i conceived of him as in the highest and fullest sense divine1 short of being ,father and not ,son4 ,i now believed that by the phrase only begotten ,son1 ,john1 and indeed ,christ himself1 meant to teach us that there was an unpassable chasm between him and all creatures1 in that he had a true1 though a derived divine nature2 an indeed the ,nicene ,creed puts the contrast1 he was begotten1 not made4 ,thus all ,divine glory dwells in the ,son1 but it is because the ,father has willed it4 ,a year or more afterward1 when ,i had again the means of access to books1 and consulted that very common ,oxford book1 ,pearson on the ,creed1 7for which ,i had felt so great a distaste that ,i never before read it7--,i found this to be the undoubted doctrine of the great ,nicene and ,post ,nicene ,fathers1 who laid much emphasis on two statements1 which with the modern ,church are idle and dead--viz4 that the ,son was begotten of his ,father before all worlds1 and that the ,holy ,spirit proceedeth from the ,father and the ,son4 ,in the view of the old ,church1 the ,father alone was the ,fountain of ,deity1--7and therefore fitly called1 ,the ,one ,god1--and1 the ,only ,true ,god7--while the ,deity of the other two persons was real1 yet derived and subordinate4 ,moreover1 ,i found in ,gregory ,nazianzen and others1 that to confess this derivation of the ,son and ,spirit and the underivedness of the ,father alone1 was in their view quite essential to save ,monotheism2 the ,one ,god being the underived ,father4 ,although in my own mind all doubt as to the doctrine of ,john and ,paul on the main question seemed to be quite cleared away from the time that ,i dwelt on their explanation of ,monotheism1 this in no respect agitated me1 or even engaged me in any farther search4 ,there was nothing to force me into controversy1 or make this one point of truth unduly preponderant4 ,i concealed none of my thoughts from my companions2 and concerning them ,i will only say1 that whether they did or did not feel acquiescence1 they behaved towards me with all the affection and all the equality which ,i would have wished myself to maintain1 had the case been inverted4 ,i was1 however1 sometimes uneasy1 when the thought crossed my mind1--,what if we1 like ,henry ,martyn1 were charged with ,polytheism by ,mohammedans1 and were forced to defend ourselves by explaining in detail our doctrine of the ,trinity8 ,perhaps no two of us would explain it alike1 and this would expose ,christian doctrine to contempt4 ,then farther it came across me2 ,how very remarkable it is1 that the ,jews1 those strict ,monotheists1 never seem to have attacked the apostles for polytheism6 ,it would have been so plausible an imputation1 one that the instinct of party would so readily suggest1 if there had been any external form of doctrine to countenance it4 ,surely it is transparent that the ,apostles did not teach as ,dr4 ,waterland4 ,i had always felt a great repugnance to the argumentations concerning the ,personality of the ,holy ,spirit2 no doubt from an inward sense1 however dimly confessed1 that they were all words without meaning4 ,for the disputant who maintains this dogma1 tells us in the very next breath that ,person has not in this connexion its common signification2 so that he is elaborately enforcing upon us we know not what4 ,that the ,spirit of ,god meant in the ,new ,testament ,god in the heart1 had long been to me a sufficient explanation3 and who by logic or metaphysics will carry us beyond this8 ,while we were at ,aleppo1 ,i one day got into religious discourse with a ,mohammedan carpenter1 which left on me a lasting impression4 ,among other matters1 ,i was peculiarly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people1 that our gospels are spurious narratives of late date4 ,i found great difficulty of expression2 but the man listened to me with much attention1 and ,i was encouraged to exert myself4 ,he waited patiently till ,i had done1 and then spoke to the following effect3 ,i will tell you1 sir1 how the case stands4 ,god has given to you ,english a great many good gifts4 ,you make fine ships1 and sharp penknives1 and good cloth and cottons2 and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers2 and you write and print many learned books3 7dictionaries and grammars37 all this is of ,god4 ,but there is one thing that ,god has withheld from you1 and has revealed to us2 and that is1 the knowledge of the true religion1 by which one may be saved4 ,when he thus ignored my argument1 7which was probably quite unintelligible to him17 and delivered his simple protest1 ,i was silenced1 and at the same time amused4 ,but the more ,i thought it over1 the more instruction ,i saw in the case4 ,his position towards me was exactly that of a humble ,christian towards an unbelieving philosopher2 nay1 that of the early ,apostles or ,jewish prophets towards the proud1 cultivated1 worldly wise and powerful heathen4 ,this not only showed the vanity of any argument to him1 except one purely addressed to his moral and spiritual faculties2 but it also indicated to me that ,ignorance has its spiritual self-sufficiency as well as ,erudition2 and that if there is a ,pride of ,reason1 so is there a ,pride of ,unreason4 ,but though this rested in my memory1 it was long before ,i worked out all the results of that thought4 ,another matter brought me some disquiet4 ,an ,englishman of rather low tastes who came to ,aleppo at this time1 called upon us2 and as he was civilly received1 repeated his visit more than once4 ,being unencumbered with fastidiousness1 this person before long made various rude attacks on the truth and authority of the ,christian religion1 and drew me on to defend it4 ,what ,i had heard of the moral life of the speaker made me feel that his was not the mind to have insight into divine truth2 and ,i desired to divert the argument from external topics1 and bring it to a point in which there might be a chance of touching his conscience4 ,but ,i found this to be impossible4 ,he returned actively to the assault against ,christianity1 and ,i could not bear to hear him vent historical falsehoods and misrepresentations damaging to the ,christian cause1 without contradicting them4 ,he was a half-educated man1 and ,i easily confuted him to my own entire satisfaction3 but he was not either abashed or convinced2 and at length withdrew as one victorious4--,on reflecting over this1 ,i felt painfully1 that if a ,moslem had been present and had understood all that had been said1 he would have remained in total uncertainty which of the two disputants was in the right3 for the controversy had turned on points wholly remote from the sphere of his knowledge or thought4 ,yet to have declined the battle would have seemed like conscious weakness on my part4 ,thus the historical side of my religion1 though essential to it1 and though resting on valid evidence1 7as ,i unhesitatingly believed17 exposed me to attacks in which ,i might incur virtual defeat or disgrace1 but in which1 from the nature of the case1 ,i could never win an available victory4 ,this was to me very disagreeable1 yet ,i saw not my way out of the entanglement4 ,two years after ,i left ,england1 a hope was conceived that more friends might be induced to join us2 and ,i returned home from ,bagdad with the commission to bring this about1 if there were suitable persons disposed for it4 ,on my return1 and while yet in quarantine on the coast of ,england1 ,i received an uncomfortable letter from a most intimate spiritual friend1 to the effect1 that painful reports had been every where spread abroad against my soundness in the faith4 ,the channel by which they had come was indicated to me2 but my friend expressed a firm hope1 that when ,i had explained myself1 it would all prove to be nothing4 ,now began a time of deep and critical trial to me and to my ,creed2 a time hard to speak of to the public2 yet without a pretty full notice of it1 the rest of the account would be quite unintelligible4 ,the ,tractarian movement was just commencing in #ahcc4 ,my brother was taking a position1 in which he was bound to show that he could sacrifice private love to ecclesiastical dogma2 and upon learning that ,i had spoken at some small meetings of religious people1 7which he interpreted1 ,i believe1 to be an assuming of the ,priest's office17 he separated himself entirely from my private friendship and acquaintance4 ,to the public this may have some interest1 as indicating the disturbing excitement which animated that cause3 but my reason for naming the fact here is solely to exhibit the practical positions into which ,i myself was thrown4 ,in my brother's conduct there was not a shade of unkindness1 and ,i have not a thought of complaining of it4 ,my distress was naturally great1 until ,i had fully ascertained from him that ,i had given no personal offence4 ,but the mischief of it went deeper4 ,it practically cut me off from other members of my family1 who were living in his house1 and whose state of feeling towards me1 through separation and my own agitations of mind1 ,i for some time totally mistook4 ,i had1 however1 myself slighted relationship in comparison with ,christian brotherhood2--sectarian brotherhood1 some may call it2--,i perhaps had none but myself to blame3 but in the far more painful occurrences which were to succeed one another for many months together1 ,i was blameless4 ,each successive friend who asked explanations of my alleged heresy1 was satisfied1--or at least left me with that impression1--after hearing me3 not one who met me face to face had a word to reply to the plain ,scriptures which ,i quoted4 ,yet when ,i was gone away1 one after another was turned against me by somebody else whom ,i had not yet met or did not know3 for in every theological conclave which deliberates on joint action1 the most bigoted scorns always to prevail4 ,i will trust my pen to only one specimen of details4 ,the ,irish clergyman was not able to meet me4 ,he wrote a very desultory letter of grave alarm and inquiry1 stating that he had heard that ,i was endeavouring to sound the divine nature by the miserable plummet of human philosophy1--with much beside that ,i felt to be mere commonplace which every body might address to every body who differed from him4 ,i however replied in the frankest1 most cordial and trusting tone1 assuring him that ,i was infinitely far from imagining that ,i could by searching understand ,god2 on the contrary1 concerning his higher mysteries1 ,i felt ,i knew absolutely nothing but what he revealed to me in his word2 but in studying this word1 ,i found ,john and ,paul to declare the ,father1 and not the ,trinity1 to be the ,one ,god4 ,referring him to ,john xvii1 #c1 #a ,corinth4 viii1 #e1 #f1 ,i fondly believed that one so subject to the word and so resolutely renouncing man's authority in order that he might serve ,god1 would immediately see as ,i saw4 ,but ,i assured him1 in all the depth of affection1 that ,i felt how much fuller insight he had than ,i into all divine truth2 and not he only1 but others to whom ,i alluded2 and that if ,i was in error1 ,i only desired to be taught more truly2 and either with him1 or at his feet1 to learn of ,god4 ,he replied1 to my amazement and distress1 in a letter of much tenderness1 but which was to the effect1--that if ,i allowed the ,spirit of ,god to be with him rather than with me1 it was wonderful that ,i set my single judgment against the mind of the ,spirit and of the whole ,church of ,god2 and that as for admitting into ,christian communion one who held my doctrine1 it had this absurdity1 that while ,i was in such a state of belief1 it was my duty to anathematize them as idolaters4--,severe as was the shock given me by this letter1 ,i wrote again most lovingly1 humbly1 and imploringly3 for ,i still adored him1 and could have given him my right hand or my right eye1--anything but my conscience4 ,i showed him that if it was a matter of action1 ,i would submit2 for ,i unfeignedly believed that he had more of the ,spirit of ,god than ,i3 but over my secret convictions ,i had no power4 ,i was shut up to obey and believe ,god rather than man1 and from the nature of the case1 the profoundest respect for my brother's judgment could not in itself alter mine4 ,as to the whole ,church being against me1 ,i did not know what that meant3 ,i was willing to accept the ,nicene ,creed1 and this ,i thought ought to be a sufficient defensive argument against the ,church4 ,his answer was decisive2--he was exceedingly surprized at my recurring to mere ecclesiastical creeds1 as though they could have the slightest weight2 and he must insist on my acknowledging1 that1 in the two texts quoted1 the word ,father meant the ,trinity1 if ,i desired to be in any way recognized as holding the truth4 ,the ,father meant the ,trinity66 ,for the first time ,i perceived1 that so vehement a champion of the sufficiency of the ,scripture1 so staunch an opposer of ,creeds and ,churches1 was wedded to an extra-,scriptural creed of his own1 by which he tested the spiritual state of his brethren4 ,i was in despair1 and like a man thunderstruck4 ,i had nothing more to say4 ,two more letters from the same hand ,i saw1 the latter of which was1 to threaten some new acquaintances who were kind to me1 7persons wholly unknown to him17 that if they did not desist from sheltering me and break off intercourse1 they should1 as far as his influence went1 themselves everywhere be cut off from ,christian communion and recognition4 ,this will suffice to indicate the sort of social persecution1 through which1 after a succession of struggles1 ,i found myself separated from persons whom ,i had trustingly admired1 and on whom ,i had most counted for union3 with whom ,i fondly believed myself bound up for eternity2 of whom some were my previously intimate friends1 while for others1 even on slight acquaintance1 ,i would have performed menial offices and thought myself honoured2 whom ,i still looked upon as the blessed and excellent of the earth1 and the special favourites of heaven2 whose company 7though oftentimes they were considerably my inferiors either in rank or in knowledge and cultivation7 ,i would have chosen in preference to that of nobles2 whom ,i loved solely because ,i thought them to love ,god1 and of whom ,i asked nothing1 but that they would admit me as the meanest and most frail of disciples4 ,my heart was ready to break3 ,i wished for a woman's soul1 that ,i might weep in floods4 ,oh1 ,dogma6 ,dogma6 how dost them trample under foot love1 truth1 conscience1 justice6 ,was ever a ,moloch worse than thou8 ,burn me at the stake2 then ,christ will receive me1 and saints beyond the grave will love me1 though the saints here know me not ,but now ,i am alone in the world3 ,i can trust no one4 ,the new acquaintances who barely tolerate me1 and old friends whom reports have not reached1 7if such there be17 may turn against me with animosity to-morrow1 as those have done from whom ,i could least have imagined it4 ,where is union8 where is the ,church1 which was to convert the heathen8 ,this was not my only reason1 yet it was soon a sufficient and at last an overwhelming reason1 against returning to the ,east4 ,the pertinacity of the attacks made on me1 and on all who dared to hold by me in a certain connexion1 showed that ,i could no longer be anything but a thorn in the side of my friends abroad2 nay1 ,i was unable to predict how they themselves might change towards me4 ,the idea of a ,christian ,church propagating ,christianity while divided against itself was ridiculous4 ,never indeed had ,i had the most remote idea1 that my dear friends there had been united to me by agreement in intellectual propositions2 nor could ,i yet believe it4 ,i remembered a saying of the noble-hearted ,groves3 ,talk of loving me while ,i agree with them6 ,give me men that will love me when ,i differ from them and contradict them3 those will be the men to build up a true ,church4 ,i asked myself1--was ,i then possibly different from all8 ,with me1--and1 as ,i had thought1 with all my ,spiritual friends1--intellectual dogma was not the test of spirituality4 ,a hundred times over had ,i heard the ,irish clergyman emphatically enunciate the contrary4 ,nothing was clearer in his preaching1 talking and writing1 than that salvation was a present real experienced fact2 a saving of the soul from the dominion of baser desires1 and an inward union of it in love and homage to ,christ1 who1 as the centre of all perfection1 glory1 and beauty1 was the revelation of ,god to the heart4 ,he who was thus saved1 could not help knowing that he was reconciled1 pardoned1 beloved2 and therefore he rejoiced in ,god his ,saviour3 indeed1 to imagine joy without this personal assurance and direct knowledge1 was quite preposterous4 ,but on the other hand1 the soul thus spiritually minded has a keen sense of like qualities in others4 ,it cannot but discern when another is tender in conscience1 disinterested1 forbearing1 scornful of untruth and baseness1 and esteeming nothing so much as the fruits of the ,spirit3 accordingly1 ,john did not hesitate to say3 ,we know that we have passed from death unto life1 because we love the brethren4 ,our doctrine certainly had been1 that the ,church was the assembly of the saved1 gathered by the vital attractions of ,god's ,spirit2 that in it no one was ,lord or ,teacher1 but one was our ,teacher1 even ,christ3 that as long as we had no earthly bribes to tempt men to join us1 there was not much cause to fear false brethren2 for if we were heavenly minded1 and these were earthly1 they would soon dislike and shun us4 ,why should we need to sit in judgment and excommunicate them1 except in the case of publicly scandalous conduct8 ,it is true1 that ,i fully believed certain intellectual convictions to be essential to genuine spirituality3 for instance1 if ,i had heard that a person unknown to me did not believe in the ,atonement of ,christ1 ,i should have inferred that he had no spiritual life4 ,but if the person had come under my direct knowledge1 my theory was1 on no account to reject him on a question of ,creed1 but in any case to receive all those whom ,christ had received1 all on whom the ,spirit of ,god had come down1 just as the ,church at ,jerusalem did in regard to admitting the ,gentiles1 ,acts xi4 #ah4 ,nevertheless1 was not this perhaps a theory pleasant to talk of1 but too good for practice8 ,i could not tell2 for it had never been so severely tried4 ,i remembered1 however1 that when ,i had thought it right to be baptized as an adult1 7regarding my baptism as an infant to have been a mischievous fraud17 the sole confession of faith which ,i made1 or would endure1 at a time when my orthodoxy was unimpeached1 was3 ,i believe that ,jesus ,christ is the ,son of ,god3#b to deny which1 and claim to be acknowledged as within the pale of the ,christian ,church1 seemed to be an absurdity4 ,on the whole1 therefore1 it did not appear to me that this ,church-theory had been hollow-hearted with me nor unscriptural1 nor in any way unpractical2 but that others were still infected with the leaven of creeds and formal tests1 with which they reproached the old ,church4 ,were there1 then1 no other hearts than mine1 aching under miserable bigotry1 and refreshed only when they tasted in others the true fruits of the ,spirit1--love1 joy1 peace1 long-suffering1 gentleness1 goodness1 fidelity1 meekness1 self-control8--,to imagine this was to suppose myself a man supernaturally favoured1 an angel upon earth4 ,i knew there must be thousands in this very point more true-hearted than ,i3 nay1 such still might some be1 whose names ,i went over with myself3 but ,i had no heart for more experiments4 ,when such a man as he1 the only mortal to whom ,i had looked up as to an apostle1 had unhesitatingly1 unrelentingly1 and without one mark that his conscience was not on his side1 flung away all his own precepts1 his own theories1 his own magnificent rebukes of ,formalism and human ,authority1 and had made himself the slave and me the victim of those old and ever-living tyrants1--whom henceforth could ,i trust8 ,the resolution then rose in me1 to love all good men from a distance1 but never again to count on permanent friendship with any one who was not himself cast out as a heretic4 ,nor1 in fact1 did the storm of distress which these events inflicted on me1 subside until ,i willingly received the task of withstanding it1 as ,god's trial whether ,i was faithful4 ,as soon as ,i gained strength to say1 ,o my ,lord1 ,i will bear not this only1 but more also1#c for thy sake1 for conscience1 and for truth1--my sorrows vanished1 until the next blow and the next inevitable pang4 ,at last my heart had died within me2 the bitterness of death was past2 ,i was satisfied to be hated by the saints1 and to reckon that those who had not yet turned against me would not bear me much longer4--,then ,i conceived the belief1 that if we may not make a heaven on earth for ourselves out of the love of saints1 it is in order that we may find a truer heaven in ,god's love4 ,the question about this time much vexed me1 what to do about receiving the ,holy ,supper of the ,lord1 the great emblem of brotherhood1 communion1 and church connexion4 ,at one time ,i argued with myself1 that it became an unmeaning form1 when not partaken of in mutual love2 that ,i could never again have free intercourse of heart with any one2--why then use the rite of communion1 where there is no communion8 ,but1 on the other hand1 ,i thought it a mode of confessing ,christ1 and that permanently to disuse it1 was an unfaithfulness4 ,in the ,church of ,england ,i could have been easy as far as the communion formulary was concerned2 but to the entire system ,i had contracted an incurable repugnance1 as worldly1 hypocritical1 and an evil counterfeit4 ,i desired1 therefore1 to creep into some obscure congregation1 and there wait till my mind had ripened as to the right path in circumstances so perplexing4 ,i will only briefly say1 that ,i at last settled among some who had previously been total strangers to me4 ,to their good will and simple kindness ,i feel myself indebted3 peace be to them6 ,thus ,i gained time1 and repose of mind1 which ,i greatly needed4 ,from the day that ,i had mentally decided on total inaction as to all ecclesiastical questions1 ,i count the termination of my ,second ,period4 ,my ideal of a spiritual ,church had blown up in the most sudden and heartbreaking way2 overpowering me with shame1 when the violence of sorrow was past4 ,there was no change whatever in my own judgment1 yet a total change of action was inevitable3 that ,i was on the eve of a great transition of mind ,i did not at all suspect4 ,hitherto my reverence for the authority of the whole and indivisible ,bible was overruling and complete4 ,i never really had dared to criticize it2 ,i did not even exact from it self-consistency4 ,if two passages appeared to be opposed1 and ,i could not evade the difficulty by the doctrine of ,development and ,progress1 ,i inferred that there was some mode of conciliation unknown to me2 and that perhaps the depth of truth in divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language4 ,but from the man who dared to interpose a human comment on the ,scripture1 ,i most rigidly demanded a clear1 single1 self-consistent sense4 ,if he did not know what he meant1 why did he not hold his peace8 ,if he did know1 why did he so speak as to puzzle us8 ,it was for this uniform refusal to allow of self-contradiction1 that it was more than once sadly predicted of me at ,oxford that ,i should become a ,socinian2 yet ,i did not apply this logical measure to any compositions but those which were avowedly uninspired and human4 ,as to moral criticism1 my mind was practically prostrate before the ,bible4 ,by the end of this period ,i had persuaded myself that morality so changes with the commands of ,god1 that we can scarcely attach any idea of immutability to it4 ,i am1 moreover1 ashamed to tell any one how ,i spoke and acted against my own common sense under this influence1 and when ,i was thought a fool1 prayed that ,i might think it an honour to become a fool for ,christ's sake4 ,against no doctrine did ,i dare to bring moral objections1 except that of ,reprobation4 ,to ,election1 to ,preventing ,grace1 to the ,fall and ,original ,sin of man1 to the ,atonement1 to ,eternal ,punishment1 ,i reverently submitted my understanding2 though as to the last1 new inquiries had just at this crisis been opening on me4 ,reprobation1 indeed1 ,i always repudiated with great vigour1 of which ,i shall presently speak4 ,that was the full amount of my original thought2 and in it ,i preserved entire reverence for the sacred writers4 ,as to miracles1 scarcely anything staggered me4 ,i received the strangest and the meanest prodigies of ,scripture1 with the same unhesitating faith1 as if ,i had never understood a proposition of physical philosophy1 nor a chapter of ,hume and ,gibbon4 ,footnote #a3 ,very unintelligent criticism of my words induces me to add1 that the credentials of ,revelation1 as distinguished from the contents of ,revelation1 are here intended4 ,whether such a distinction can be preserved is quite another question4 ,the view here exhibited is essentially that of ,paley1 and was in my day the prevalent one at ,oxford4 ,i do not think that the present ,archbishop of ,canterbury will disown it1 any more than ,lloyd1 and ,burton1 and ,hampden1--bishops and ,regius ,professors of ,divinity4 ,footnote #b3 ,borrowed from ,acts viii4 #cg4 ,footnote #c3 ,virgil 7neid vi47 gives the ,stoical side of the same thought3 ,tu ne cede malis1 sed contra audentior ito4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,calvinism ,,abandoned4 ,after the excitement was past1 ,i learned many things from the events which have been named4 ,first1 ,i had found that the class of ,christians with whom ,i had been joined had exploded the old ,creeds in favour of another of their own1 which was never given me upon authority1 and yet was constantly slipping out1 in the words1 ,jesus is ,jehovah4 ,it appeared to me certain that this would have been denounced as the ,sabellian heresy by ,athanasias and his contemporaries4 ,i did not wish to run down ,sabellians1 much less to excommunicate them1 if they would give me equality2 but ,i felt it intensely unjust when my adherence to the ,nicene ,creed was my real offence1 that ,i should be treated as setting up some novel wickedness against all ,christendom1 and slandered by vague imputations which reached far and far beyond my power of answering or explaining4 ,mysterious aspersions were made even against my moral#a character1 and were alleged to me as additional reasons for refusing communion with me2 and when ,i demanded a tribunal1 and that my accuser would meet me face to face1 all inquiry was refused1 on the plea that it was needless and undesirable4 ,i had much reason to believe that a very small number of persons had constituted themselves my judges1 and used against me all the airs of the ,universal ,church2 the many lending themselves easily to swell the cry of heresy1 when they have little personal acquaintance with the party attacked4 ,moreover1 when ,i was being condemned as in error1 ,i in vain asked to be told what was the truth4 ,i accept the ,scripture3 that is not enough4 ,i accept the ,nicene ,creed3 that is not enough4 ,give me then your formula3 where1 what is it8 ,but no6 those who thought it their duty to condemn me1 disclaimed the pretensions of making a ,creed when ,i asked for one4 ,they reprobated my interpretation of ,scripture as against that of the whole ,church1 but would not undertake to expound that of the ,church4 ,i felt convinced1 that they could not have agreed themselves as to what was right3 all that they could agree upon was1 that ,i was wrong4 ,could ,i have borne to recriminate1 ,i believed that ,i could have forced one of them to condemn another2 but1 oh6 was divine truth sent us for discord and for condemnation8 ,i sickened at the idea of a ,church ,tribunal1 where none has any authority to judge1 and yet to my extreme embarrassment ,i saw that no ,church can safely dispense with judicial forms and other worldly apparatus for defending the reputation of individuals4 ,at least1 none of the national and less spiritual institutions would have been so very unequitable towards me4 ,this idea enlarged itself into another1--that spirituality is no adequate security for sound moral discernment4 ,these alienated friends did not know they were acting unjustly1 cruelly1 crookedly1 or they would have hated themselves for it3 they thought they were doing ,god service4 ,the fervour of their love towards him was probably greater than mine2 yet this did not make them superior to prejudice1 or sharpen their logical faculties to see that they were idolizing words to which they attached no ideas4 ,on several occasions ,i had distinctly perceived how serious alarm ,i gave by resolutely refusing to admit any shiftings and shufflings of language4 ,i felt convinced1 that if ,i would but have contradicted myself two or three times1 and then have added1 ,that is the mystery of it1 ,i could have passed as orthodox with many4 ,i had been charged with a proud and vain determination to pry into divine mysteries1 barely because ,i would not confess to propositions the meaning of which was to me doubtful1--or say and unsay in consecutive breaths4 ,it was too clear1 that a doctrine which muddles the understanding perverts also the power of moral discernment4 ,if ,i had committed some flagrant sin1 they would have given me a fair and honourable trial2 but where they could not give me a public hearing1 nor yet leave me unimpeached1 without danger of 7what they called7 my infecting the ,church1 there was nothing left but to hunt me out unscrupulously4 ,unscrupulously6 did not this one word characterize all religious persecution8 and then my mind wandered back over the whole melancholy tale of what is called ,christian history4 ,when ,archbishop ,cranmer overpowered the reluctance of young ,edward ,,vi4 to burn to death the pious and innocent ,joan of ,kent1 who moreover was as mystical and illogical as heart could wish1 was ,cranmer not actuated by deep religious convictions8 ,none question his piety1 yet it was an awfully wicked deed4 ,what shall ,i say of ,calvin1 who burned ,servetus8 ,why have ,i been so slow to learn1 that religion is an impulse which animates us to execute our moral judgments1 but an impulse which may be half blind8 ,these brethren believe that ,i may cause the eternal ruin of others3 how hard then is it for them to abide faithfully by the laws of morality and respect my rights6 ,my rights6 ,they are of course trampled down for the public good1 just as a house is blown up to stop a conflagration4 ,such is evidently the theory of all persecution2--which is essentially founded on ,hatred4 ,as ,aristotle says1 ,he who is angry1 desires to punish somebody2 but he who hates1 desires the hated person not even to exist4 ,hence they cannot endure to see me face to face4 ,that ,i may not infect the rest1 they desire my non-existence2 by fair means1 if fair will succeed2 if not1 then by foul4 ,and whence comes this monstrosity into such bosoms8 ,weakness of common sense1 dread of the common understanding1 an insufficient faith in common morality1 are surely the disease3 and evidently1 nothing so exasperates this disease as consecrating religious tenets which forbid the exercise of common sense4 ,i now began to understand why it was peculiarly for unintelligible doctrines like ,transubstantiation and the ,tri-unity that ,christians had committed such execrable wickednesses4 ,now also for the first time ,i understood what had seemed not frightful only1 but preternatural1--the sensualities and cruelties enacted as a part of religion in many of the old ,paganisms4 ,religion and fanaticism are in the embryo but one and the same2 to purify and elevate them we want a cultivation of the understanding1 without which our moral code may be indefinitely depraved4 ,natural kindness and strong sense are aids and guides1 which the most spiritual man cannot afford to despise4 ,i became conscious that ,i had despised mere moral men1 as they were called in the phraseology of my school4 ,they were merged in the vague appellation of the world1 with sinners of every class2 and it was habitually assumed1 if not asserted1 that they were necessarily ,pharisaic1 because they had not been born again4 ,for some time after ,i had misgivings as to my fairness of judgment towards them1 ,i could not disentangle myself from great bewilderment concerning their state in the sight of ,god3 for it was an essential part of my ,calvinistic ,creed1 that 7as one of the #ci ,articles states it7 the very good works of the unregenerate undoubtedly have the nature of sin1 as indeed the very nature with which they were born deserveth ,god's wrath and damnation4 ,i began to mourn over the unlovely conduct into which ,i had been betrayed by this creed1 long before ,i could thoroughly get rid of the creed that justified it3 and a considerable time had to elapse1 ere my new perceptions shaped themselves distinctly into the propositions3 ,morality is the end4 ,spirituality is the means3 ,religion is the handmaid to ,morals3 we must be spiritual1 in order that we may be in the highest and truest sense moral4 ,then at last ,i saw1 that the deficiency of mere moral men is1 that their morality is apt to be too external or merely negative1 and therefore incomplete3 that the man who worships a fiend for a ,god may be in some sense spiritual1 but his spirituality will be a devilish fanaticism1 having nothing in it to admire or approve3 that the moral man deserves approval or love for all the absolute good that he has attained1 though there be a higher good to which he aspires not2 and that the truly and rightly spiritual is he who aims at an indefinitely high moral excellence1 of which ,,god is the embodiment to his heart and soul4 ,if the absolute excellence of morality be denied1 there is nothing for spirituality to aspire after1 and nothing in ,god to worship4 ,years before ,i saw this as clearly as here stated2 the general train of thought was very wholesome1 in giving me increased kindliness of judgment towards the common world of men1 who do not show any religious development4 ,it was pleasant to me to look on an ordinary face1 and see it light up into a smile1 and think with myself3 there is one heart that will judge of me by what ,i am1 and not by a ,procrustean dogma4 ,nor only so1 but ,i saw that the saints1 without the world1 would make a very bad world of it2 and that as ballast is wanted to a ship1 so the common and rather low interests and the homely principles1 rules1 and ways of feeling1 keep the church from foundering by the intensity of her own gusts4 ,some of the above thoughts took a still more definite shape1 as follows4 ,it is clear that ,a4 ,b4 and ,x4 ,y4 would have behaved towards me more kindly1 more justly1 and more wisely1 if they had consulted their excellent strong sense and amiable natures1 instead of following 7what they suppose to be7 the commands of the word of ,god4 ,they have misinterpreted that word3 true3 but this very thing shows1 that one may go wrong by trusting one's power of interpreting the book1 rather than trusting one's common sense to judge without the book4 ,it startled me to find1 that ,i had exactly alighted on the ,romish objection to ,protestants1 that an infallible book is useless1 unless we have an infallible interpreter4 ,but it was not for some time1 that1 after twisting the subject in all directions to avoid it1 ,i brought out the conclusion1 that to go against one's common sense in obedience to ,scripture is a most hazardous proceeding3 for the rule of ,scripture means to each of us nothing but his own fallible interpretation2 and to sacrifice common sense to this1 is to mutilate one side of our mind at the command of another side4 ,in the ,nicene age1 the ,bible was in people's hands1 and the ,spirit of ,god surely was not withheld3 yet ,i had read1 in one of the ,councils an insane anathema was passed3 ,if any one call ,jesus ,god-man1 instead of ,god and man1 let him be accursed4 ,surely want of common sense1 and dread of natural reason1 will be confessed by our highest orthodoxy to have been the distemper of that day4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in all this ,i still remained theoretically convinced1 that the contents of the ,scriptures1 rightly interpreted1 were supreme and perfect truth2 indeed1 ,i had for several years accustomed myself to speak and think as if the ,bible were our sole source of all moral knowledge3 nevertheless1 there were practically limits1 beyond which ,i did not1 and could not1 even attempt to blind my moral sentiment at the dictation of the ,scripture2 and this had peculiarly frightened 7as ,i afterwards found7 the first friend who welcomed me from abroad4 ,i was unable to admit the doctrine of reprobation1 as apparently taught in the #ith chapter of ,paul's ,epistle to the ,romans2--that ,god hardens in wickedness whomever ,he pleases1 in order that ,he may show his long-suffering in putting off their condemnation to a future dreadful day3 and especially1 that to all objectors it is a sufficient confutation--,nay1 but ,o man1 who art thou1 that repliest against ,god8 ,i told my friend1 that ,i worshipped in ,god three great attributes1 all independent1--,power1 ,goodness1 and ,wisdom3 that in order to worship ,him acceptably1 ,i must discern these as realities with my inmost heart1 and not merely take them for granted on authority3 but that the argument which was here pressed upon me was an effort to supersede the necessity of my discerning ,goodness in ,god3 it bade me simply to infer ,goodness from ,power1--that is to say1 establish the doctrine1 ,might makes ,right2 according to which1 ,i might unawares worship a devil4 ,nay1 nothing so much distinguished the spiritual truth of ,judaism and ,christianity from abominable heathenism1 as this very discernment of ,god's purity1 justice1 mercy1 truth1 goodness2 while the ,pagan worshipped mere power1 and had no discernment of moral excellence2 but laid down the principle1 that cruelty1 impurity1 or caprice in a ,god was to be treated reverentially1 and called by some more decorous name4 ,hence1 ,i said1 it was undermining the very foundation of ,christianity itself1 to require belief of the validity of ,rom4 ix4 #ad-bd1 as my friend understood it4 ,i acknowledged the difficulty of the passage1 and of the whole argument4 ,i was not prepared with an interpretation2 but ,i revered ,st4 ,paul too much1 to believe it possible that he could mean anything so obviously heathenish1 as that first-sight meaning4--,my friend looked grave and anxious2 but ,i did not suspect how deeply ,i had shocked him1 until many weeks after4 ,at this very time1 moreover1 ground was broken in my mind on a new subject1 by opening in a gentleman's library a presentation-copy of a ,unitarian treatise against the doctrine of ,eternal ,punishment4 ,it was the first ,unitarian book of which ,i had even seen the outside1 and ,i handled it with a timid curiosity1 as if by stealth1 ,i had only time to dip into it here and there1 and ,i should have been ashamed to possess the book2 but ,i carried off enough to suggest important inquiry4 ,the writer asserted that the ,greek word ,greek3 aionios1 7secular1 or1 belonging to the ages17 which we translate everlasting and eternal1 is distinctly proved by the ,greek translation of the ,old ,testament often to mean only distant time4 ,thus in ,psalm lxxvi4 #e1 ,i have considered the years of ancient times3 ,isaiah lxiii #aa1 ,he remembered the days of old1 ,moses and his people2 in which1 and in many similar places1 the ,,lxx have ,greek3 aionios4 ,one striking passage is ,exodus xv4 #ah2 7,jehovah shall reign for ever and ever27 where the ,greek has ,greek3 ton aiona kai ex aiona kai eti1 which would mean for eternity and still longer1 if the strict rendering eternity were enforced4 ,at the same time a suspicion as to the honesty of our translation presented itself in ,micah v4 #b1 a controversial text1 often used to prove the past eternity of the ,son of ,god2 where the translators give us1--whose goings forth have been from everlasting1 though the ,hebrew is the same as they elsewhere render from days of old4 ,after ,i had at leisure searched through this new question1 ,i found that it was impossible to make out any doctrine of a philosophical eternity in the whole ,scriptures4 ,the true ,greek word for eternal 7,greek3 aidios7 occurs twice only3 once in ,rom4 i4 #bj1 as applied to the divine power1 and once in ,jude #f1 of the fire which has been manifested against ,sodom and ,gomorrha4 ,the last instance showed that allowance must be made for rhetoric2 and that fire is called eternal or unquenchable1 when it so destroys as to leave nothing unburnt4 ,but on the whole1 the very vocabulary of the ,greek and ,hebrew denoted that the idea of absolute eternity was unformed4 ,the hills are called everlasting 7secular871 by those who supposed them to have come into existence two or three thousand years before4--,only in two passages of the ,revelations ,i could not get over the belief that the writer's energy was misplaced1 if absolute eternity of torment was not intended3 yet it seemed to me unsafe and wrong to found an important doctrine on a symbolic and confessedly obscure book of prophecy4 ,setting this aside1 ,i found no proof of any eternal punishment4 ,as soon as the load of ,scriptural authority was thus taken off from me1 ,i had a vivid discernment of intolerable moral difficulties inseparable from the doctrine4 ,first1 that every sin is infinite in ill-desert and in result1 because it is committed against an infinite ,being4 ,thus the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil6 ,i was aghast that ,i could have believed it4 ,now that it was no longer laid upon me as a duty to uphold the infinitude of ,god's retaliation on sin1 ,i saw that it was an immorality to teach that sin was measured by anything else than the heart and will of the agent4 ,that a finite being should deserve infinite punishment1 now was manifestly as incredible as that he should deserve infinite reward1--which ,i had never dreamed4--,again1 ,i saw that the current orthodoxy made ,satan eternal conqueror over ,christ4 ,in vain does the ,son of ,god come from heaven and take human flesh and die on the cross4 ,in spite of him1 the devil carries off to hell the vast majority of mankind1 in whom1 not misery only1 but ,sin is triumphant for ever and ever4 ,thus ,christ not only does not succeed in destroying the works of the devil1 but even aggravates them4--,again3 what sort of gospel or glad tidings had ,i been holding8 ,without this revelation no future state at all 7,i presumed7 could be known4 ,how much better no futurity for any1 than that a few should be eternally in bliss1 and the great majority#b kept alive for eternal sin as well as eternal misery6 ,my gospel then was bad tidings1 nay1 the worst of tidings6 ,in a farther progress of thought1 ,i asked1 would it not have been better that the whole race of man had never come into existence8 ,clearly6 ,and thus ,god was made out to be unwise in creating them4 ,no use in the punishment was imaginable1 without setting up ,fear1 instead of ,love1 as the ruling principle in the blessed4 ,and what was the moral tendency of the doctrine8 ,i had never borne to dwell upon it3 but ,i before long suspected that it promoted malignity and selfishness1 and was the real clue to the cruelties perpetrated under the name of religion4 ,for he who does dwell on it1 must comfort himself under the prospect of his brethren's eternal misery1 by the selfish expectation of personal blessedness4 ,when ,i asked whether ,i had been guilty of this selfishness1 ,i remembered that ,i had often mourned1 how small a part in my practical religion the future had ever borne4 ,my heaven and my hell had been in the present1 where my ,god was near me to smile or to frown4 ,it had seemed to me a great weakness in my faith1 that ,i never had any vivid imaginations or strong desires of heavenly glory3 yet now ,i was glad to observe1 that it had at least saved me from getting so much harm from the wrong side of the doctrine of a future life4 ,before ,i had worked out the objections so fully as here stated1 ,i freely disclosed my thoughts to the friend last named1 and to his wife1 towards whom he encouraged me to exercise the fullest frankness4 ,i confess1 ,i said nothing about the ,unitarian book2 for something told me that ,i had violated ,evangelical decorum in opening it1 and that ,i could not calculate how it would affect my friend4 ,certainly no ,romish hierarchy can so successfully exclude heretical books1 as social enactment excludes those of ,unitarians from our orthodox circles4 ,the bookseller dares not to exhibit their books on his counter3 all presume them to be pestilential3 no one knows their contents or dares to inform himself4 ,but to return4 ,my friend's wife entered warmly into my new views2 ,i have now no doubt that this exceedingly distressed him1 and at length perverted his moral judgment3 he himself examined the texts of the ,old ,testament1 and attempted no answer to them4 ,after ,i had left his neighbourhood1 ,i wrote to him three affectionate letters1 and at last got a reply--of vehement accusation4 ,it can now concern no one to know1 how many and deep wounds he planted in me4 ,i forgave2 but all was too instructive to forget4 ,for some years ,i rested in the belief that the epithet secular punishment either solely denoted punishment in a future age1 or else only of long duration4 ,this evades the horrible idea of eternal and triumphant ,sin1 and of infinite retaliation for finite offences4 ,but still1 ,i found my new creed uneasy1 now that ,i had established a practice 7if not a right7 of considering the moral propriety of punishment4 ,i could not so pare away the vehement words of the ,scripture1 as really to enable me to say that ,i thought transgressors deserved the fiery infliction4 ,this had been easy1 while ,i measured their guilt by ,god's greatness2 but when that idea was renounced1 how was ,i to think that a good-humoured voluptuary deserved to be raised from the dead in order to be tormented in fire for #ajj years8 and what shorter time could be called secular8 ,or if he was to be destroyed instantaneously1 and secular meant only in a future age1 was he worth the effort of a divine miracle to bring him to life and again annihilate him8 ,i was not willing to refuse belief to the ,scripture on such grounds2 yet ,i felt disquietude1 that my moral sentiment and the ,scripture were no longer in full harmony4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in this period ,i first discerned the extreme difficulty that there must essentially be1 in applying to the ,christian ,evidences a principle1 which1 many years before1 ,i had abstractedly received as sound1 though it had been a dead letter with me in practice4 ,the ,bible 7it seemed7 contained two sorts of truth4 ,concerning one sort1 man is bound to judge3 the other sort is necessarily beyond his ken1 and is received only by information from without4 ,the first part of the statement cannot be denied4 ,it would be monstrous to say that we know nothing of geography1 history1 or morals1 except by learning them from the ,bible4 ,geography1 history1 and other worldly sciences1 lie beyond question4 ,as to morals1 ,i had been exceedingly inconsistent and wavering in my theory and in its application2 but it now glared upon me1 that if man had no independent power of judging1 it would have been venial to think ,barabbas more virtuous than ,jesus4 ,the hearers of ,christ or ,paul could not draw their knowledge of right and wrong from the ,new ,testament4 ,they had 7or needed to have7 an inherent power of discerning that his conduct was holy and his doctrine good4 ,to talk about the infirmity or depravity of the human conscience is here quite irrelevant4 ,the conscience of ,christ's hearers may have been dim or twisted1 but it was their best guide and only guide1 as to the question1 whether to regard him as a holy prophet3 so likewise1 as to ourselves1 it is evident that we have no guide at all whether to accept or reject the ,bible1 if we distrust that inward power of judging1 7whether called common sense1 conscience1 or the ,spirit of ,god17--which is independent of our belief in the ,bible4 ,to disparage the internally vouchsafed power of discerning truth without the ,bible or other authoritative system1 is1 to endeavour to set up a universal moral scepticism4 ,he who may not criticize cannot approve4--,well6 ,let it be admitted that we discern moral truth by a something within us1 and that then1 admiring the truth so glorious in the ,scriptures1 we are further led to receive them as the word of ,god1 and therefore to believe them absolutely in respect to the matters which are beyond our ken4 ,but two difficulties could no longer be dissembled3 #a4 ,how are we to draw the line of separation8 ,for instance1 would the doctrines of ,reprobation and of lasting ,fiery ,torture with no benefit to the sufferers1 belong to the moral part1 which we freely criticize2 or to the extra-moral part1 as to which we passively believe8 #b4 ,what is to be done1 if in the parts which indisputably lie open to criticism we meet with apparent error8--,the second question soon became a practical one with me3 but for the reader's convenience ,i defer it until my ,fourth ,period1 to which it more naturally belongs3 for in this ,third ,period ,i was principally exercised with controversies that do not vitally touch the authority of the ,scripture4 ,of these the most important were matters contested between ,unitarians and ,calvinists4 ,when ,i had found how exactly the ,nicene ,creed summed up all that ,i myself gathered from ,john and ,paul concerning the divine nature of ,christ1 ,i naturally referred to this creed1 as expressing my convictions1 when any unpleasant inquiry arose4 ,i had recently gained the acquaintance of the late excellent ,dr4 ,olinthus ,gregory1 a man of unimpeached orthodoxy2 who met me by the frank avowal1 that the ,nicene ,creed was a great mistake4 ,he said1 that the ,arian and the ,athanasian difference was not very vital2 and that the ,scriptural truth lay beyond the ,nicene doctrine1 which fell short on the same side as ,arianism had done4 ,on the contrary1 ,i had learned of an intermediate tenet1 called ,semi-,arianism1 which appeared to me more scriptural than the views of either ,athanasius or ,arius4 ,let me bespeak my reader's patience for a little4 ,arius was judged by ,athanasius 7,i was informed7 to be erroneous in two points2 #a4 in teaching that the ,son of ,god was a creature2 i4e4 that begotten and made were two words for the same idea3 #b4 in teaching1 that he had an origin of existence in time2 so that there was a distant period at which he was not4 ,of these two ,arian tenets1 the ,nicene ,creed condemned the former only2 namely1 in the words1 begotten1 not made2 being of one substance with the ,father4 ,but on the latter question the ,creed is silent4 ,those who accepted the ,creed1 and hereby condemned the great error of ,arius that the ,son was of different substance from the ,father1 but nevertheless agreed with ,arius in thinking that the ,son had a beginning of existence1 were called ,semi-,arians2 and were received into communion by ,athanasius1 in spite of this disagreement4 ,to me it seemed to be a most unworthy shuffling with words1 to say that the ,son was begotten1 but was never begotten4 ,the very form of our past participle is invented to indicate an event in past time4 ,if the ,athanasians alleged that the phrase does not allude to a coming forth completed at a definite time1 but indicates a process at no time begun and at no time complete1 their doctrine could not be expressed by our past-perfect tense begotten4 ,when they compared the derivation of the ,son of ,god from1 the ,father to the rays of light which ever flow from the natural sun1 and argued that if that sun had been eternal1 its emanations would be co-eternal1 they showed that their true doctrine required the formula--always being begotten1 and as instantly perishing1 in order to be rebegotten perpetually4 ,they showed a real disbelief in our ,english statement begotten1 not made4 ,i overruled the objection1 that in the ,greek it was not a participle1 but a verbal adjective2 for it was manifest to me1 that a religion which could not be proclaimed in ,english could not be true2 and the very idea of a ,creed announcing that ,christ was not begotten1 yet begettive1 roused in me an unspeakable loathing4 ,yet surely this would have been ,athanasius's most legitimate form of denying ,semi-,arianism4 ,in short1 the ,scriptural phrase1 ,son of ,god1 conveyed to us either a literal fact1 or a metaphor4 ,if literal1 the ,semi-,arians were clearly right1 in saying that sonship implied a beginning of existence4 ,if it was a metaphor1 the ,athanasians forfeited all right to press the literal sense in proof that the ,son must be of the same substance as the ,father4--,seeing that the ,athanasians1 in zeal to magnify the ,son1 had so confounded their good sense1 ,i was certainly startled to find a man of ,dr4 ,olinthus ,gregory's moral wisdom treat the ,nicenists as in obvious error for not having magnified ,christ enough4 ,on so many other sides1 however1 ,i met with the new and short creed1 ,jesus is ,jehovah1 that ,i began to discern ,sabellianism to be the prevalent view4 ,a little later1 ,i fell in with a book of an ,american ,professor1 ,moses ,stuart of ,andover1 on the subject of the ,trinity4 ,professor ,stuart is a very learned man1 and thinks for himself4 ,it was a great novelty to me1 to find him not only deny the orthodoxy of all the ,fathers1 7which was little more than ,dr4 ,olinthus ,gregory had done17 but avow that from the change in speculative philosophy it was simply impossible for any modern to hold the views prevalent in the third and fourth centuries4 ,nothing 7said he7 ,,was clearer1 than that with us the essential point in ,deity is1 to be unoriginated1 underived2 hence with us1 a derived ,god is a self-contradiction1 and the very sound of the phrase profane4 ,on the other hand1 it is certain that the doctrine of ,athanasius1 equally as of ,arius1 was1 that the ,father is the underived or self-existent ,god1 but the ,son is the derived subordinate ,god4 ,this 7argued ,stuart7 turned upon their belief in the doctrine of ,emanations2 but as we hold no such philosophical doctrine1 the religious theory founded on it is necessarily inadmissible4 ,professor ,stuart then develops his own creed1 which appeared to me simple and undeniable ,sabellianism4 ,that ,stuart correctly represented the ,fathers was clear enough to me2 but ,i nevertheless thought that in this respect the ,fathers had honestly made out the doctrine of the ,scripture2 and ,i did not at all approve of setting up a battery of modern speculative philosophy against ,scriptural doctrine4 ,how are we to know that the doctrine of ,emanations is false8 7asked ,i47 ,if it is legitimately elicited from ,scripture1 it is true4--,i refused to yield up my creed at this summons4 ,nevertheless1 he left a wound upon me3 for ,i now could not help seeing1 that we moderns use the word ,god in a more limited sense than any ancient nations did4 ,hebrews and ,greeks alike said ,gods1 to mean any superhuman beings2 hence derived ,god did not sound to them absurd2 but ,i could not deny that in good ,english it is absurd4 ,this was a very disagreeable discovery3 for now1 if any one were to ask me whether ,i believed in the divinity of ,christ1 ,i saw it would be dishonest to say simply1 ,yes2 for the interrogator means to ask1 whether ,i hold ,christ to be the eternal and underived ,source of life2 yet if ,i said ,no1 he would care nothing for my professing to hold the ,nicene ,creed4 ,might not then1 after all1 ,sabellianism be the truth8 ,no3 ,i discerned too plainly what ,gibbon states1 that the ,sabellian1 if consistent1 is only a concealed ,ebionite1 or us we now say1 a ,unitarian1 ,socinian4 ,as we cannot admit that the ,father was slain on the cross1 or prayed to himself in the garden1 he who will not allow the ,father and the ,son to be separate persons1 but only two names for one person1 must divide the ,son of ,god and ,jesus into two persons1 and so fall back on the very heresy of ,socinus which he is struggling to escape4 ,on the whole1 ,i saw1 that however people might call themselves ,trinitarians1 yet if1 like ,stuart and all the ,evangelicals in ,church and ,dissent1 they turn into a dead letter the generation of the ,son of ,god1 and the procession of the ,spirit1 nothing is possible but ,sabellianism or ,tritheism3 or1 indeed1 ,ditheism1 if the ,spirit's separate personality is not held4 ,the modern creed is alternately the one or the other1 as occasion requires4 ,sabellians would find themselves out to be mere ,unitarians1 if they always remained ,sabellians3 but in fact1 they are half their lives ,ditheists4 ,they do not aim at consistency2 would an upholder of the pseudo-,athanasian creed desire it8 ,why1 that creed teaches1 that the height of orthodoxy is to contradict oneself and protest that one does not4 ,now1 however1 rose on me the question3 ,why do ,i not take the ,irish clergyman at his word1 and attack him and others as idolaters and worshippers of three ,gods8 ,it was unseemly and absurd in him to try to force me into what he must have judged uncharitableness2 but it was not the less incumbent on me to find a reply4 ,i remembered that in past years ,i had expressly disowned1 as obviously unscriptural and absurd1 prayers to the ,holy ,spirit1 on the ground that the ,spirit is evidently ,god in the hearts of the faithful1 and nothing else3 and it did not appear to me that any but a few extreme and rather fanatical persons could be charged with making the ,spirit a third ,god or object of distinct worship4 ,on the other hand1 ,i could not deny that the ,son and the ,father were thus distinguished to the mind4 ,so indeed ,john expressly avowed--truly our fellowship is with the ,father1 and with his ,son ,jesus ,christ4 ,i myself also had prayed sometimes to ,god and sometimes to ,christ1 alternately and confusedly4 ,now1 indeed1 ,i was better taught6 now ,i was more logical and consistent6 ,i had found a triumphant answer to the charge of ,ditheism1 in that ,i believed the ,son to be derived from the ,father1 and not to be the ,unoriginated--,no doubt6 yet1 after all1 could ,i seriously think that morally and spiritually ,i was either better or worse for this discovery8 ,i could not pretend that ,i was4 ,this showed me1 that if a man of partially unsound and visionary mind made the angel ,gabriel a fourth person in the ,godhead1 it might cause no difference whatever in the actings of his spirit ,the great question would be1 whether he ascribed the same moral perfection to ,gabriel as to the ,father4 ,if so1 to worship him would be no degradation to the soul2 even if absolute omnipotence were not attributed1 nay1 nor a past eternal existence4 ,it thus became clear to me1 that ,polytheism as such is not a moral and spiritual1 but at most only an intellectual1 error2 and that its practical evil consists in worshipping beings whom we represent to our imaginations as morally imperfect4 ,conversely1 one who imputes to ,god sentiments and conduct which in man he would call capricious or cruel1 such a one1 even if he be as monotheistic as a ,mussulman1 admits into his soul the whole virus of ,idolatry4 ,why then did ,i at all cling to the doctrine of ,christ's superior nature1 and not admit it among things indifferent8 ,in obedience to the ,scripture1 ,i did actually affirm1 that1 as for as creed is concerned1 a man should be admissible into the ,church on the bare confession that ,jesus was the ,christ4 ,still1 ,i regarded a belief in his superhuman origin as of first-rate importance1 for many reasons1 and among others1 owing to its connexion with the doctrine of the ,atonement2 on which there is much to be said4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the doctrine which ,i used to read as a boy1 taught that a vast sum of punishment was due to ,god for the sins of men4 ,this vast sum was made up of all the woes due through eternity to the whole human race1 or1 as some said1 to the elect4 ,christ on the cross bore this punishment himself and thereby took it away3 thus ,god is enabled to forgive without violating justice4--,but ,i early encountered unanswerable difficulty on this theory1 as to the question1 whether ,christ had borne the punishment of all or of some only4 ,if of all1 is it not unjust to inflict any of it on any8 ,if of the elect only1 what gospel have you to preach8 for then you cannot tell sinners that ,god has provided a ,saviour for them2 for you do not know whether those whom you address are elect4 ,finding no way out of this1 ,i abandoned the fundamental idea of compensation in quantity1 as untenable2 and rested in the vaguer notion1 that ,god signally showed his abhorrence of sin1 by laying tremendous misery on the ,saviour who was to bear away sin4 ,i have already narrated1 how at ,oxford ,i was embarrassed as to the forensic propriety of transferring punishment at all4 ,this however ,i received as matter of authority1 and rested much on the wonderful exhibition made of the evil of sin1 when such a being could be subjected to preternatural suffering as a vicarious sinbearer4 ,to this view1 a high sense of the personal dignity of ,jesus was quite essential2 and therefore ,i had always felt a great repugnance for ,mr4 ,belsham1 ,dr4 ,priestley1 and the ,unitarians of that school1 though ,i had not read a line of their writings4 ,a more intimate familiarity with ,st4 ,paul and an anxious harmonizing of my very words to the ,scripture1 led me on into a deviation from the popular creed1 of the full importance of which ,i was not for some time aware4 ,i perceived that it is not the agonies of mind or body endured by ,christ1 which in the ,scriptures are said to take away sin1 but his death1 his laying down his life1 or sometimes even his resurrection4 ,i gradually became convinced1 that when his suffering1 or more especially his blood1 is emphatically spoken of1 nothing is meant but his violent death4 ,in the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 where the analogy of ,sacrifice is so pressed1 we see that the pains which ,jesus bore were in order that he might learn obedience1 but our redemption is effected by his dying as a voluntary victim3 in which1 death by bloodshed1 not pain1 is the cardinal point4 ,so too the ,paschal lamb 7to which1 though not properly a sacrifice1 the dying ,christ is compared by ,paul7 was not roasted alive1 or otherwise put to slow torment1 but was simply killed4 ,i therefore saw that the doctrine of vicarious agonies was fundamentally unscriptural4 ,this being fully discerned1 ,i at last became bold to criticize the popular tenet4 ,what should we think of a judge1 who1 when a boy had deserved a stripe which would to him have been a sharp punishment1 laid the very same blow on a strong man1 to whom it was a slight infliction8 ,clearly this would evade1 not satisfy justice4 ,to carry out the principle1 the blow might be laid as well on a giant1 an elephant1 or on an inanimate thing4 ,so1 to lay our punishment on the infinite strength of ,christ1 who 7they say7 bore in six hours what it would have taken thousands of millions of men all eternity to bear1 would be a similar evasion4--,i farther asked1 if we were to fall in with ,pagans1 who tortured their victims to death as an atonement1 what idea of ,god should we think them to form8 and what should we reply1 if they said1 it gave them a wholesome view of his hatred of sin8 ,a second time ,i shuddered at the notions which ,i had once imbibed as a part of religion1 and then got comfort from the inference1 how much better men of this century are than their creed4 ,their creed was the product of ages of cruelty and credulity2 and it sufficiently bears that stamp4 ,thus ,i rested in the ,scriptural doctrine1 that the death of ,christ is our atonement4 ,to say the same of the death of ,paul1 was obviously unscriptural3 it was1 then1 essential to believe the physical nature of ,christ to be different from that of ,paul4 ,if otherwise1 death was due to ,jesus as the lot of nature3 how could such death have anything to do with our salvation8 ,on this ground the ,unitarian doctrine was utterly untenable3 ,i could see nothing between my own view and a total renunciation of the authority of the doctrines promulgated by ,paul and ,john4 ,nevertheless1 my own view seemed mere and more unmeaning the more closely it was interrogated4 ,when ,i ascribed death to ,christ1 what did death mean8 and what or whom did ,i suppose to die8 ,was it man that died1 or ,god8 ,if man only1 how was that wonderful1 or how did it concern us8 ,besides2--persons die1 not natures3 a nature is only a collection of properties3 if ,christ was one person1 all ,christ died4 ,did1 then1 ,god die1 and man remain alive6 ,for ,god to become non-existent is an unimaginable absurdity4 ,but is this death a mere change of state1 a renunciation of earthly life8 ,still it remains unclear how the parting with mere human life could be to one who possesses divine life either an atonement or a humiliation4 ,was it not rather an escape from humiliation1 saving only the mode of death8 ,so severe was this difficulty1 that at length ,i unawares dropt from ,semi-,arianism into pure ,arianism1 by so distinguishing the ,son from the ,father1 as to admit the idea that the ,son of ,god had actually been non-existent in the interval between death and resurrection3 nevertheless1 ,i more and more felt1 that to be able to define my own notions on such questions had exceedingly little to do with my spiritual state4 ,for me it was important and essential to know that ,god hated sin1 and that ,god had forgiven my sin3 but to know one particular manifestation of his hatred of sin1 or the machinery by which ,he had enabled himself to forgive1 was of very secondary importance4 ,when ,he proclaims to me in his word1 that ,he is forgiving to all the penitent1 it is not for me to reply1 that ,i cannot believe that1 until ,i hear how ,he manages to reconcile such conduct with his other attributes4 ,yet1 ,i remembered1 this was ,bishop ,beveridge's sufficient refutation of ,mohammedism1 which teaches no atonement4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at the same time great progress had been made in my mind towards the overthrow of the correlative dogma of the ,fall of man and his total corruption4 ,probably for years ,i had been unawares anti-,calvinistic on this topic4 ,even at ,oxford1 ,i had held that human depravity is a fact1 which it is absurd to argue against2 a fact1 attested by ,thucydides1 ,polybius1 ,horace1 and ,tacitus1 almost as strongly as by ,st4 ,paul4 ,yet in admitting man's total corruption1 ,i interpreted this of spiritual1 not of moral1 perversion3 for that there were kindly and amiable qualities even in the unregenerate1 was quite as clear a fact as any other4 ,hence in result ,i did not attribute to man any great essential depravity1 in the popular and moral sense of the word2 and the doctrine amounted only to this1 that spiritually1 man is paralyzed1 until the grace of ,god comes freely upon him4 ,how to reconcile this with the condemnation1 and punishment of man for being unspiritual1 ,i knew not4 ,i saw1 and did not dissemble1 the difficulty2 but received it as a mystery hereafter to be cleared up4 ,but it gradually broke upon me1 that when ,paul said nothing stronger than heathen moralists had said about human wickedness1 it was absurd to quote his words1 any more than theirs1 in proof of a ,fall1--that is1 of a permanent degeneracy induced by the first sin of the first man3 and when ,i studied the #eth chapter of the ,romans1 ,i found it was death1 not corruption1 which ,adam was said to have entailed4 ,in short1 ,i could scarcely find the modern doctrine of the ,fall any where in the ,bible4 ,i then remembered that ,calvin1 in his ,institutes1 complains that all the ,fathers are heterodox on this point2 the ,greek ,fathers being grievously overweening in their estimate of human power2 while of the ,latin ,fathers even ,augustine is not always up to ,calvin's mark of orthodoxy4 ,this confirmed my rising conviction that the tenet is of rather recent origin4 ,i afterwards heard1 that both it and the doctrine of compensatory misery were first systematized by ,archbishop ,anselm1 in the reign of our ,william ,rufus3 but ,i never took the pains to verify this4 ,for meanwhile ,i had been forcibly impressed with the following thought4 ,suppose a youth to have been carefully brought up at home1 and every temptation kept out of his way3 suppose him to have been in appearance virtuous1 amiable1 religious3 suppose1 farther1 that at the age of twenty-one he goes out into the world1 and falls into sin by the first temptation3--how will a ,calvinistic teacher moralize over such a youth8 ,will he not say3 ,behold a proof of the essential depravity of human nature6 ,see the affinity of man for sin6 ,how fair and deceptive was this young man's virtue1 while he was sheltered from temptation2 but oh6 how rotten has it proved itself6--,undoubtedly1 the ,calvinist would and must so moralize4 ,but it struck me1 that if ,i substituted the name of ,adam for the youth1 the argument proved the primitive corruption of ,adam's nature4 ,adam fell by the first temptation3 what greater proof of a fallen nature have ,i ever given8 or what is it possible for any one to give8--,i thus discerned that there was priori impossibility of fixing on myself the imputation of degeneracy1 without fixing the same on ,adam4 ,in short1 ,adam undeniably proved his primitive nature to be frail2 so do we all3 but as he was nevertheless not primitively corrupt1 why should we call ourselves so8 ,frailty1 then1 is not corruption1 and does not prove degeneracy4 ,original sin 7says one of the #ci ,articles7 standeth not in the following of ,adam1 as the ,pelagians do vainly talk1 c4 ,alas1 then6 was ,i become a ,pelagian8 certainly ,i could no longer see that ,adam's first sin affected me more than his second or third1 or so much as the sins of my immediate parents4 ,a father who1 for instance1 indulges in furious passions and exciting liquors1 may 7,i suppose7 transmit violent passions to his son4 ,in this sense ,i could not wholly reject the possibility of transmitted corruption2 but it had nothing to do with the theological doctrine of the ,federal ,headship of ,adam4 ,not that ,i could wholly give up this last doctrine2 for ,i still read it in the #eth chapter of ,romans4 ,but it was clear to me1 that whatever that meant1 ,i could not combine it with the idea of degeneracy1 nor could ,i find a proof of it in the fact of prevalent wickedness4 ,thus ,i received a shadowy doctrine on mere ,scriptural authority2 it had no longer any root in my understanding or heart4 ,moreover1 it was manifest to me that the ,calvinistic view is based in a vain attempt to acquit ,god of having created a sinful being1 while the broad ,scriptural fact is1 that he did create a being as truly liable to sin as any of us4 ,if that needs no exculpation1 how more does our state need it8 ,does it not suffice to say1 that every creature1 because he is a creature and not ,god1 must necessarily be frail8 ,but ,calvin intensely aggravates whatever there is of difficulty3 for he supposes ,god to have created the most precious thing on earth in unstable equilibrium1 so as to tipple over irrecoverably at the first infinitesimal touch1 and with it wreck for ever the spiritual hopes of all ,adam's posterity4 ,surely all nature proclaims1 that if ,god planted any spiritual nature at all in man1 it was in stable equilibrium1 able to right itself when deranged4 ,lastly1 ,i saw that the ,calvinistic doctrine of human degeneracy teaches1 that ,god disowns my nature 7the only nature ,i ever had7 as not his work1 but the devil's work4 ,he hereby tells me that he is not my ,creator1 and he disclaims his right over me1 as a father who disowns a child4 ,to teach this is to teach that ,i owe him no obedience1 no worship1 no trust3 to sever the cords that bind the creature to the ,creator1 and to make all religion gratuitous and vain4 ,thus ,calvinism was found by me not only not to be ,evangelical1 but not to be logical1 in spite of its high logical pretensions1 and to be irreconcilable with any intelligent theory of religion4 ,of gloomy ,calvinism ,i had often heard people speak with an emphasis1 that annoyed me as highly unjust2 for mine had not been a gloomy religion3--far1 very far from it4 ,on the side of eternal punishment1 its theory1 no doubt1 had been gloomy enough2 but human nature has a notable art of not realizing all the articles of a creed2 moreover1 this doctrine is equally held by ,arminians4 ,but ,i was conscious1 that in dropping ,calvinism ,i had lost nothing ,evangelical3 on the contrary1 the gospel which ,i retained was as spiritual and deep-hearted as before1 only more merciful4 99 99 99 99 99 ,before this ,third ,period of my creed was completed1 ,i made my first acquaintance with a ,unitarian4 ,this gentleman showed much sweetness of mind1 largeness of charity1 and a timid devoutness which ,i had not expected in such a quarter4 ,his mixture of credulity and incredulity seemed to me capricious1 and wholly incoherent4 ,first1 as to his incredulity1 or rather1 boldness of thought4 ,eternal punishment was a notion1 which nothing could make him believe1 and for which it would be useless to quote ,scripture to him2 for the doctrine 7he said7 darkened the moral character of ,god1 and produced malignity in man4 ,that ,christ had any higher nature than we all have1 was a tenet essentially inadmissible2 first1 because it destroyed all moral benefit from his example and sympathy1 and next1 because no one has yet succeeded in even stating the doctrine of the ,incarnation without contradicting himself4 ,if ,christ was but one person1 one mind1 then that one mind could not be simultaneously finite and infinite1 nor therefore simultaneously ,god and man4 ,but when ,i came to hear more from this same gentleman1 ,i found him to avow that no ,trinitarian could have a higher conception than he of the present power and glory of ,christ4 ,he believed that the man ,jesus is at the head of the whole moral creation of ,god2 that all power in heaven and earth is given to him3 that he will be ,judge of all men1 and is himself raised above all judgment4 ,this was to me unimaginable from his point of view4 ,could he really think ,jesus to be a mere man1 and yet believe him to be sinless8 ,on what did that belief rest8 ,two texts were quoted in proof1 #a ,pet4 ii4 #ba1 and ,heb4 iv4 #ae4 ,of these1 the former did not necessarily mean anything more than that ,jesus was unjustly put to death2 and the latter belonged to an ,epistle1 which my new friend had already rejected as unapostolic and not of first-rate authority1 when speaking of the ,atonement4 ,indeed1 that the ,epistle to the ,hebrews is not from the hand of ,paul1 had very long seemed to me an obvious certainty1--as long as ,i had had any delicate feeling of ,greek style4 ,that a human child1 born with the nature of other children1 and having to learn wisdom and win virtue through the same process1 should grow up sinless1 appeared to me an event so paradoxical1 as to need the most amply decisive proof4 ,yet what kind of proof was possible8 ,neither ,apollos1 7if he was the author of the ,epistle to the ,hebrew17 nor yet ,peter1 had any power of attesting the sinlessness of ,jesus1 as a fact known to themselves personally3 they could only learn it by some preternatural communication1 to which1 nevertheless1 the passages before us implied no pretension whatever4 ,to me it appeared an axiom1#c that if ,jesus was in physical origin a mere man1 he was1 like myself1 a sinful man1 and therefore certainly not my ,judge1 certainly not an omniscient reader of all hearts2 nor on any account to be bowed down to as ,lord4 ,to exercise hope1 faith1 trust in him1 seemed then an impiety4 ,i did not mean to impute impiety to ,unitarians2 still ,i distinctly believed that ,english ,unitarianism could never afford me a half hour's resting-place4 ,nevertheless1 from contact with this excellent person ,i learned how much tenderness of spirit a ,unitarian may have2 and it pleasantly enlarged my charity1 although ,i continued to feel much repugnance for his doctrine1 and was anxious and constrained in the presence of ,unitarians4 ,from the same collision with him1 ,i gained a fresh insight into a part of my own mind4 ,i had always regarded the ,gospels 7at least the three first7 to be to the ,epistles nearly as ,law to ,gospel2 that is1 the three gospels dealt chiefly in precept1 the epistles in motives which act on the affections4 ,this did not appear to me dishonourable to the teaching of ,christ2 for ,i supposed it to be a pre-determined development4 ,but ,i now discovered that there was a deeper distaste in me for the details of the human life of ,christ1 than ,i was previously conscious of--a distaste which ,i found out1 by a reaction from the minute interest felt in such details by my new friend4 ,for several years more1 ,i did not fully understand how and why this was2 viz4 that my religion had always been ,pauline4 ,christ was to me the ideal of glorified human nature3 but ,i needed some dimness in the portrait to give play to my imagination3 if drawn too sharply historical1 it sank into something not superhuman1 and caused a revulsion of feeling4 ,as all paintings of the miraculous used to displease and even disgust me from a boy by the unbelief which they inspired2 so if any one dwelt on the special proofs of tenderness and love exhibited in certain words or actions of ,jesus1 it was apt to call out in me a sense1 that from day to day equal kindness might often be met4 ,the imbecility of preachers1 who would dwell on such words as ,weep not1 as if nobody else ever uttered such1--had always annoyed me4 ,i felt it impossible to obtain a worthy idea of ,christ from studying any of the details reported concerning him4 ,if ,i dwelt too much on these1 ,i got a finite object2 but ,i yearned for an infinite one3 hence my preference for ,john's mysterious ,jesus4 ,thus my ,christ was not the figure accurately painted in the narrative1 but one kindled in my imagination by the allusions and 7as it were7 poetry of the ,new ,testament4 ,i did not wish for vivid historical realisation3 relics ,i could never have valued3 pilgrimages to ,jerusalem had always excited in me more of scorn than of sympathy2--and ,i make no doubt such was fundamentally ,paul's#d feeling4 ,on the contrary1 it began to appear to me 7and ,i believe not unjustly7 that the ,unitarian mind revelled peculiarly in ,christ after the flesh1 whom ,paul resolved not to know4 ,possibly in this circumstance will be found to lie the strong and the weak points of the ,unitarian religious character1 as contrasted with that of the ,evangelical1 far more truly than in the doctrine of the ,atonement4 ,i can testify that the ,atonement may be dropt out of ,pauline religion without affecting its quality2 so may ,christ be spiritualized into ,god1 and identified with the ,father3 but ,i suspect that a ,pauline faith could not1 without much violence and convulsion1 be changed into devout admiration of a clearly drawn historical character2 as though any full and unsurpassable embodiment of ,god's moral perfections could be exhibited with ink and pen4 ,a reviewer1 who has since made his name known1 has pointed to the preceding remarks1 as indicative of my deficiency in imagination and my tendency to romance4 ,my dear friend is undoubtedly right in the former point2 ,i am destitute of 7creative7 poetical imagination3 and as to the latter point1 his insight into character is so great1 that ,i readily believe him to know me better than ,i know myself1 ,nevertheless1 ,i think he has mistaken the nature of the preceding argument4 ,i am1 on the contrary1 almost disposed to say1 that those have a tendency to romance who can look at a picture with men flying into the air1 or on an angel with a brass trumpet1 and dead men rising out of their graves with good stout muscles1 and not feel that the picture suggests unbelief4 ,nor do ,i confess to romance in my desire of something more than historical and daily human nature in the character of ,jesus2 for all ,christendom1 between the dates ,a4,d4 #ajj to ,a4,d4 #ahej1 with the exception of small eccentric coteries1 has held ,jesus to be essentially superhuman4 ,paul and ,john so taught concerning him4 ,to believe their doctrine 7,i agree with my friend7 is1 in some sense1 a weakness of understanding2 but it is a weakness to which minds of every class have been for ages liable4 99 99 99 99 99 ,such had been the progress of my mind1 towards the end of what ,i will call my ,third ,period4 ,in it the authority of the ,scriptures as to some details 7which at length became highly important7 had begun to be questioned2 of which ,i shall proceed to speak3 but hitherto this was quite secondary to the momentous revolution which lay ,calvinism prostrate in my mind1 which opened my heart to ,unitarians1 and1 ,i may say1 to unbelievers2 which enlarged all my sympathies1 and soon set me to practise free moral thought1 at least as a necessity1 if not as a duty4 ,yet ,i held fast an unabated reverence for the moral and spiritual teaching of the ,new ,testament1 and had not the most remote conception that anything could ever shatter my belief in its great miracles4 ,in fact1 during this period1 ,i many times yearned to proceed to ,india1 whither my friend ,groves had transferred his labours and his hopes2 but ,i was thwarted by several causes1 and was again and again damped by the fear of bigotry from new quarters4 ,otherwise1 ,i thought ,i could succeed in merging as needless many controversies4 ,in all the workings of any mind about ,tri-unity1 ,incarnation1 ,atonement1 the ,fall1 ,resurrection1 ,immortality1 ,eternal ,punishment1 how little had any of these to do with the inward exercises of my soul towards ,god6 ,he was still the same1 immutably glorious3 not one feature of his countenance had altered to my gaze1 or could alter4 ,this surely was the ,god whom ,christ came to reveal1 and bring us into fellowship with3 this is that1 about which ,christians ought to have no controversy1 but which they should unitedly1 concordantly1 themselves enjoy and exhibit to the heathen4 ,but oh1 ,christendom6 what dost thou believe and teach8 ,the heathen cry out to thee1--,physician1 heal thyself4 ,footnote #a3 ,i afterwards learned that some of those gentlemen esteemed boldness of thought a lust of the mind1 and as such1 an immorality4 ,this enables them to persuade themselves that they do not reject a heretic for a matter of opinion1 but for that which they have a right to call immoral4 ,what immorality was imputed to me1 ,i was not distinctly informed4 ,footnote #b3 ,i really thought it needless to quote proof that but few will be saved1 ,matth4 vii4 #ad4 ,i know there is a class of ,christians who believe in ,universal salvation1 and there are others who disbelieve eternal torment4 ,they must not be angry with me for refuting the doctrine of other ,christians1 which they hold to be false4 ,footnote #c3 ,in this 7second7 edition1 ,i have added an entire chapter expressly on the subject4 ,footnote #d3 ,the same may probably be said of all the apostles1 and their whole generation4 ,if they had looked on the life of ,jesus with the same tender and human affection as modern ,unitarians and pious ,romanists do1 the church would have swarmed with holy coats and other relics in the very first age4 ,the mother of ,jesus and her little establishment would at once have swelled into importance4 ,this certainly was not the case2 which may make it doubtful whether the other apostles dwelt at all more on the human personality1 of ,jesus than ,paul did4 ,strikingly different as ,james is from ,paul1 he is in this respect perfectly agreed with him4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,the ,,letter ,,renounced4 ,it has been stated that ,i had already begun to discern that it was impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle contained in the ,bible4 ,most of the points which give moral offence in the book of ,genesis ,i had been used to explain away by the doctrine of ,progress2 yet every now and then it became hard to deny that ,god is represented as giving an actual sanction to that which we now call sinful4 ,indeed1 up and down the ,scriptures very numerous texts are scattered1 which are notorious difficulties with commentators4 ,these ,i had habitually overruled one by one3 but again of late1 since ,i had been forced to act and talk less and think more1 they began to encompass me4 ,but ,i was for a while too full of other inquiries to follow up coherently any of my doubts or perceptions1 until my mind became at length nailed down to the definite study of one well-known passage4 ,this passage may be judged of extremely secondary importance in itself1 yet by its remoteness from all properly spiritual and profound questions1 it seemed to afford to me the safest of arguments4 ,the genealogy with which the gospel of ,matthew opens1 ,i had long known to be a stumbling-block to divines1 and ,i had never been satisfied with their explanations4 ,on reading it afresh1 after long intermission1 and comparing it for myself with the ,old ,testament1 ,i was struck with observing that the corruption of the two names ,ahaziah and ,uzziah into the same sound 7,oziah7 has been the cause of merging four generations into one2 as the similarity of ,jehoiakim to ,jehoiachin also led to blending them both in the name ,jeconiah4 ,in consequence1 there ought to be #ah generations where ,matthew has given as only #ad3 yet we cannot call this on error of a transcriber2 for it is distinctly remarked1 that the genealogy consists of #ad three times repeated4 ,thus there were but #ad names inserted by ,matthew3 yet it ought to have been #ah3 and he was under manifest mistake4 ,this surely belongs to a class of knowledge1 of which man has cognizance3 it would not be piety1 but grovelling superstition1 to avow before ,god that ,i distrust my powers of counting1 and1 in obedience to the written word1 ,i believe that #ah is #ad and #ad is #ah4 ,thus it is impossible to deny1 that there is cognizable error in the first chapter of ,matthew4 ,consequently1 that gospel is not all dictated by the ,spirit of ,god1 and 7unless we can get rid of the first chapter as no part of the ,bible7 the doctrine of the verbal infallibility of the whole ,bible1 or indeed of the ,new ,testament1 is demonstrably false4 ,after ,i had turned the matter over often1 and had become accustomed to the thought1 this single instance at length had great force to give boldness to my mind within a very narrow range4 ,i asked whether1 if the chapter were now proved to be spurious1 that would save the infallibility of the ,bible4 ,the reply was3 not of the ,bible as it is2 but only of the ,bible when cleared of that and of all other spurious additions4 ,if by independent methods1 such as an examination of manuscripts1 the spuriousness of the chapter could now be shown1 this would verify the faculty of criticism which has already objected to its contents3 thus it would justly urge us to apply similar criticism to other passages4 ,i farther remembered1 and now brought together under a single point of view1 other undeniable mistakes4 ,the genealogy of the nominal father of ,jesus in ,luke is inconsistent with that in ,matthew1 in spite of the flagrant dishonesty with which divines seek to deny this2 and neither evangelist gives the genealogy of ,mary1 which alone is wanted4--,in ,acts vii4 #af1 the land which ,jacob bought of the children of ,hamor1#a is confounded with that which ,abraham bought of ,ephron the ,hittite4 ,in ,acts v4 #cf1 #cg1 ,gamaliel is made to say that ,theudas was earlier in time than ,judas of ,galilee4 ,yet in fact1 ,judas of ,galilee preceded ,theudas2 and the revolt of ,theudas had not yet taken place when ,gamaliel spoke1 so the error is not ,gamaliel's1 but ,luke's4 ,of both the insurgents we have a dear and unimpeached historical account in ,josephus4--,the slaughter of the infants by ,herod1 if true1 must1 ,i thought1 needs have been recorded by the same historian1--,so again1 in regard to the allusion made by ,jesus to ,zacharias1 son of ,barachias1 as last of the martyrs1 it was difficult for me to shake off the suspicion1 that a gross error had been committed1 and that the person intended is the ,zacharias son of ,baruchus1 who1 as we know from ,josephus1 was martyred within the courts of the temple during the siege of ,jerusalem by ,titus1 about #dj years after the crucifixion4 ,the well-known prophet ,zechariah was indeed son of ,berechiah2 but he was not last of the martyrs1#b if indeed he was martyred at all4 ,on the whole1 the persuasion stuck to me1 that words had been put into the mouth of ,jesus1 which he could not possibly have used4--,the impossibility of settling the names of the twelve apostles struck me as a notable fact4--,i farther remembered the numerous difficulties of harmonizing the four gospels2 how1 when a boy at school1 ,i had tried to incorporate all four into one history1 and the dismay with which ,i had found the insoluble character of the problem1--the endless discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties4 ,these now began to seem to me inherent in the materials1 and not to be ascribable to our want of intelligence4 ,i had also discerned in the opening of ,genesis things which could not be literally received4 ,the geography of the rivers in ,paradise is inexplicable1 though it assumes the tone of explanation4 ,the curse on the serpent1 who is to go on his belly--7how else did he go before87--and eat dust1 is a capricious punishment on a race of brutes1 one of whom the ,devil chose to use as his instrument4 ,that the painfulness of childbirth is caused1 not by ,eve's sin1 but by artificial habits and a weakened nervous system1 seems to be proved by the twofold fact1 that savage women and wild animals suffer but little1 and tame cattle often suffer as much as human females4--,about this time also1 ,i had perceived 7what ,i afterwards learned the ,germans to have more fully investigated7 that the two different accounts of the ,creation are distinguished by the appellations given to the divine ,creator4 ,i did not see how to resist the inference that the book is made up of heterogeneous documents1 and was not put forth by the direct dictation of the ,spirit to ,moses4 ,a new stimulus was after this given to my mind by two short conversations with the late excellent ,dr4 ,arnold at ,rugby4 ,i had become aware of the difficulties encountered by physiologists in believing the whole human race to have proceeded in about #fjjj years from a single ,adam and ,eve2 and that the longevity 7not miraculous1 but ordinary7 attributed to the patriarchs was another stumbling-block4 ,the geological difficulties of the ,mosaic cosmogony were also at that time exciting attention4 ,it was a novelty to me1 that ,arnold treated these questions as matters of indifference to religion2 and did not hesitate to say1 that the account of ,noah's deluge was evidently mythical1 and the history of ,joseph a beautiful poem4 ,i was staggered at this4 ,if all were not descended from ,adam1 what became of ,st4 ,paul's parallel between the first and second ,adam1 and the doctrine of ,headship and ,atonement founded on it8 ,if the world was not made in six days1 how could we defend the ,fourth ,commandment as true1 though said to have been written in stone by the very finger of ,god8 ,if ,noah's deluge was a legend1 we should at least have to admit that ,peter did not know this3 what too would be said of ,christ's allusion to it8 ,i was unable to admit ,dr4 ,arnold's views2 but to see a vigorous mind1 deeply imbued with ,christian devoutness1 so convinced1 both reassured me that ,i need not fear moral mischiefs from free inquiry1 and indeed laid that inquiry upon me as a duty4 ,here1 however1 was a new point started4 ,does the question of the derivation of the human race from two parents belong to things cognizable by the human intellect1 or to things about which we must learn submissively8 ,plainly to the former4 ,it would be monstrous to deny that such inquiries legitimately belong to physiology1 or to proscribe a free study of this science4 ,if so1 there was an priori possibility1 that what is in the strictest sense called religious doctrine might come into direct collision1 not merely with my ill-trained conscience1 but with legitimate science2 and that this would call on me to ask3 ,which of the two certainties is stronger8 that the religious parts of the ,scripture are infallible1 or that the science is trustworthy8 and ,i then first saw1 that while science had 7within however limited a range of thought7 demonstration or severe verifications1 it was impossible to pretend to anything so cogent in favour of the infallibility of any or some part of the ,scriptures2 a doctrine which ,i was accustomed to believe1 and felt to be a legitimate presumption2 yet one of which it grew harder and harder to assign any proof1 the more closely ,i analyzed it4 ,nevertheless1 ,i still held it fast1 and resolved not to let it go until ,i was forced4 ,a fresh strain fell on the ,scriptural infallibility1 in contemplating the origin of ,death4 ,geologists assured us1 that death went on in the animal creation many ages before the existence of man4 ,the rocks formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon thousands of thousand years old3 to refer the death of animals to the sin of ,adam and ,eve is evidently impossible4 ,yet1 if not1 the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality4 ,nay1 when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject1 the wear and tear essential to life1 the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old1--so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology1 the reply is inevitable that death is no accident introduced by the perverse will of our first parents1 nor any way connected with man's sinfulness2 but is purely a result of the conditions of animal life4 ,on the contrary1 ,st4 ,paul rests most important conclusions on the fact1 that one man ,adam by personal sin brought death upon all his posterity4 ,if this was a fundamental error1 religious doctrine also is shaken4 ,in various attempts at compromise1--such as conceding the ,scriptural fallibility in human science1 but maintaining its spiritual perfection1--,i always found the division impracticable4 ,at last it pressed on me1 that if ,i admitted morals to rest on an independent basis1 it was dishonest to shut my eyes to any apparent collisions of morality with the ,scriptures4 ,a very notorious and decisive instance is that of ,jael4--,sisera1 when beaten in battle1 fled to the tent of his friend ,heber1 and was there warmly welcomed by ,jael1 ,heber's wife4 ,after she had refreshed him with food1 and lulled him to sleep1 she killed him by driving a nail into his temples2 and for this deed1 7which now-a-days would be called a perfidious murder17 the prophetess ,deborah1 in an inspired psalm1 pronounces ,jael to be blessed above women1 and glorifies her act by an elaborate description of its atrocity4 ,as soon as ,i felt that ,i was bound to pass a moral judgment on this1 ,i saw that as regards the ,old ,testament the battle was already lost4 ,many other things1 indeed1 instantly rose in full power upon me1 especially the command to ,abraham to slay his son4 ,paul and ,james agree in extolling ,abraham as the pattern of faith2 ,james and the author of the ,epistle to the ,hebrews specify the sacrifice of ,isaac as a firstrate fruit of faith3 yet if the voice of morality is allowed to be heard1 ,abraham was 7in heart and intention7 not less guilty than those who sacrificed their children to ,molech4 ,thus at length it appeared1 that ,i must choose between two courses4 ,i must ,,either blind my moral sentiment1 my powers of criticism1 and my scientific knowledge1 7such as they were17 in order to accept the ,scripture entire2 ,,or ,i must encounter the problem1 however arduous1 of adjusting the relative claims of human knowledge and divine revelation4 ,as to the former method1 to name it was to condemn it2 for it would put every system of ,paganism on a par with ,christianity4 ,if one system of religion may claim that we blind our hearts and eyes in its favour1 so may another2 and there is precisely the same reason for becoming a ,hindoo in religion as a ,christian4 ,we cannot be both2 therefore the principle is demonstrably absurd4 ,it is also1 of course1 morally horrible1 and opposed to countless passages of the ,scriptures themselves4 ,nor can the argument be evaded by talking of external evidences2 for these also are confessedly moral evidences1 to be judged of by our moral faculties4 ,nay1 according to all ,christian advocates1 they are ,god's test of our moral temper4 ,to allege1 therefore1 that our moral faculties are not to judge1 is to annihilate the evidences for ,christianity4--,thus1 finally1 ,i was lodged in three inevitable conclusions3 #a4 ,the moral and intellectual powers of man must be acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticize the contents of the ,scripture3 #b4 ,when so exerted1 they condemn portions of the ,scripture as erroneous and immoral3 #c4 ,the assumed infallibility of the entire ,scripture is a proved falsity1 not merely as to physiology1 and other scientific matters1 but also as to morals3 and it remains for farther inquiry how to discriminate the trustworthy from the untrustworthy within the limits of the ,bible itself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when distinctly conscious1 after long efforts to evade it1 that this was and must henceforth be my position1 ,i ruminated on the many auguries which had been made concerning me by frightened friends4 ,you will become a ,socinian1 had been said of me even at ,oxford3 ,you will become an infidel1 had since been added4 ,my present results1 ,i was aware1 would seem a sadly triumphant confirmation to the clearsighted instinct of orthodoxy4 ,but the animus of such prophecies had always made me indignant1 and ,i could not admit that there was any merit in such clearsightedness4 ,what6 7used ,i to say17 will you shrink from truth1 lest it lead to error8 ,if following truth must bring us to ,socinianism1 let us by all means become ,socinians1 or anything else4 ,surely we do not love our doctrines more than the truth1 but because they are the truth4 ,are we not exhorted to prove all things1 and hold fast that which is good8--,but to my discomfort1 ,i generally found that this 7to me so convincing7 argument for feeling no alarm1 only caused more and more alarm1 and gloomier omens concerning me4 ,on considering all this in leisurely retrospect1 ,i began painfully to doubt1 whether after all there is much love of truth even among those who have an undeniable strength of religious feeling4 ,i questioned with myself1 whether love of truth is not a virtue demanding a robust mental cultivation2 whether mathematical or other abstract studies may not be practically needed for it4 ,but no3 for how then could it exist in some feminine natures8 how in rude and unphilosophical times8 ,on the whole1 ,i rather concluded1 that there is in nearly all ,english education a positive repressing of a young person's truthfulness2 for ,i could distinctly see1 that in my own case there was always need of defying authority and public opinion1--not to speak of more serious sacrifices1--if ,i was to follow truth4 ,all society seemed so to hate novelties of thought1 as to prefer the chances of error in the old4--,of course6 why1 how could it be otherwise1 while ,test ,articles were maintained8 ,yet surely if ,god is truth1 none sincerely aspire to him1 who dread to lose their present opinions in exchange for others truer4--,i had not then read a sentence of ,coleridge1 which is to this effect3 ,if any one begins by loving ,christianity more than the truth1 he will proceed to love his ,church more than ,christianity1 and will end by loving his own opinions better than either4 ,a dim conception of this was in my mind2 and ,i saw that the genuine love of ,god was essentially connected with loving truth as truth1 and not truth as our own accustomed thought1 truth as our old prejudice2 and that the real saint can never be afraid to let ,god teach him one lesson more1 or unteach him one more error4 ,then ,i rejoiced to feel how right and sound had been our principle1 that no creed can possibly be used as the touchstone of spirituality3 for man morally excels man1 as far as creeds are concerned1 not by assenting to true propositions1 but by loving them because they are discerned to be true1 and by possessing a faculty of discernment sharpened by the love of truth4 ,such are ,god's true apostles1 differing enormously in attainment and elevation1 but all born to ascend4 ,for these to quarrel between themselves because they do not agree in opinions1 is monstrous4 ,sentiment1 surely1 not opinion1 is the bond of the ,spirit2 and as the love of ,god1 so the love of truth is a high and sacred sentiment1 in comparison to which our creeds are mean4 ,well1 ,i had been misjudged2 ,i had been absurdly measured by other men's creed3 but might ,i not have similarly misjudged others1 since ,i had from early youth been under similar influences8 ,how many of my seniors at ,oxford ,i had virtually despised because they were not evangelical6 ,had ,i had opportunity of testing their spirituality8 or had ,i the faculty of so doing8 ,had ,i not really condemned them as unspiritual1 barely because of their creed8 ,on trying to reproduce the past to my imagination1 ,i could not condemn myself quite as sweepingly as ,i wished2 but my heart smote me on account of one4 ,i had a brother1 with whose name all ,england was resounding for praise or blame3 from his sympathies1 through pure hatred of ,popery1 ,i had long since turned away4 ,what was this but to judge him by his creed8 ,true1 his whole theory was nothing but ,romanism transferred to ,england3 but what then8 ,i had studied with the deepest interest ,mrs4 ,schimmelpenninck's account of the ,portroyalists1 and though ,i was aware that she exhibits only the bright side of her subject1 yet the absolute excellencies of her nuns and priests showed that ,romanism as such was not fatal to spirituality4 ,they were persecuted3 this did them good perhaps1 or certainly exhibited their brightness4 ,so too my brother surely was struggling after truth1 fighting for freedom to his own heart and mind1 against church articles and stagnancy of thought4 ,for this he deserved both sympathy and love3 but ,i1 alas6 had not known and seen his excellence4 ,but now ,god had taught me more largeness by bitter sorrow working the peaceable fruit of righteousness2 at last then ,i might admire my brother4 ,i therefore wrote to him a letter of contrition4 ,some change1 either in his mind or in his view of my position1 had taken place2 and ,i was happy to find him once more able1 not only to feel fraternally1 as he had always done1 but to act also fraternally4 ,nevertheless1 to this day it is to me a painfully unsolved mystery1 how a mind can claim its freedom in order to establish bondage4 ,for the peculiarities of ,romanism ,i feel nothing1 and ,i can pretend nothing1 but contempt1 hatred1 disgust1 or horror4 ,but this system of falsehood1 fraud1 unscrupulous and unrelenting ambition1 will never be destroyed1 while ,protestants keep up their insane anathemas against opinion4 ,these are the outworks of the ,romish citadel3 until they are razed to the ground1 the citadel will defy attack4 ,if we are to blind our eyes1 in order to accept an article of ,king ,edward ,,vi41 or an argument of ,st4 ,paul's1 why not blind them so far as to accept the ,council of ,trent8 ,if we are to pronounce that a man without doubt shall perish everlastingly1 unless he believes the self-contradictions of the pseudo-,athanasian ,creed1 why should we shrink from a similar anathema on those who reject the self-contradictions of ,transsubstantiation8 ,if one man is cast out of ,god's favour for eliciting error while earnestly searching after truth1 and another remains in favour by passively receiving the word of a ,church1 of a ,priest1 or of an ,apostle1 then to search for truth is dangerous2 apathy is safer2 then the soul does not come directly into contact with ,god and learn of him1 but has to learn from1 and unconvincedly submit to1 some external authority4 ,this is the germ of ,romanism3 its legitimate development makes us ,pagans outright4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but in what position was ,i now1 towards the apostles8 ,could ,i admit their inspiration1 when ,i no longer thought them infallible8 ,undoubtedly4 ,what could be clearer on every hypothesis1 than that they were inspired on and after the day of ,pentecost1 and yet remained ignorant and liable to mistake about the relation of the ,gentiles to the ,jews8 ,the moderns have introduced into the idea of inspiration that of infallibility1 to which either omniscience or dictation is essential4 ,that there was no dictation1 7said ,i17 is proved by the variety of style in the ,scriptural writers2 that they were not omniscient1 is manifest4 ,in truth1 if human minds had not been left to them1 how could they have argued persuasively8 was not the superior success of their preaching to that of ,christ1 perhaps due to their sharing in the prejudices of their contemporaries8 ,an orator is most persuasive1 when he is lifted above his hearers on those points only on which he is to reform their notions4 ,the apostles were not omniscient3 granted3 but it cannot hence be inferred that they did not know the message given them by ,god4 ,their knowledge however perfect1 must yet in a human mind have coexisted with ignorance2 and nothing 7argued ,i7 but a perpetual miracle could prevent ignorance from now and then exhibiting itself in some error4 ,but hence to infer that they are not inspired1 and are not messengers from ,god1 is quite gratuitous4 ,who indeed imagines that ,john or ,paul understood astronomy so well as ,sir ,william ,herschel8 ,those who believe that the apostles might err in human science1 need not the less revere their moral and spiritual wisdom4 ,at the same time it became a matter of duty to me1 if possible1 to discriminate the authoritative from the unauthoritative in the ,scripture1 or at any rate avoid to accept and propagate as true that which is false1 even if it be false only as science and not as religion4 ,i unawares1--more perhaps from old habit than from distinct conviction1--started from the assumption that my fixed point of knowledge was to be found in the sensible or scientific1 not in the moral4 ,i still retained from my old ,calvinistic doctrine a way of proceeding1 as if purely moral judgment were my weak side1 at least in criticizing the ,scripture3 so that ,i preferred never to appeal to direct moral and spiritual considerations1 except in the most glaringly necessary cases4 ,thus1 while ,i could not accept the panegyric on ,jael1 and on ,abraham's intended sacrifice of his son1 ,i did not venture unceremoniously to censure the extirpation of the ,canaanites by ,joshua3 of which ,i barely said to myself1 that it certainly needed very strong proof of the divine command to justify it4 ,i still went so far in timidity as to hesitate to reject on internal evidence the account of heroes or giants begotten by angels1 who1 enticed by the love of women1 left heaven for earth4 ,the narrative in ,gen4 vi4 had long appeared to me undoubtedly to bear this sense2 and to have been so understood by ,jude and ,peter 7#b ,pet4 ii471 as1 ,i believe1 it also was by the ,jews and early ,fathers4 ,i did at length set it aside as incredible2 not however from moral repugnance to it1 7for ,i feared to trust the soundness of my instinct17 but because ,i had slid into a new rule of interpretation1--that ,i must not obtrude miracles on the ,scripture narrative4 ,the writers tell their story without showing any consciousness that it involves physiological difficulties4 ,to invent a miracle in order to defend this1 began to seem to me unwarrantable4 ,it had become notorious to the public1 that ,geologists rejected the idea of a universal deluge as physically impossible4 ,whence could the water come1 to cover the highest mountains8 ,two replies were attempted3 #a4 ,the flood of ,noah is not described as universal3 #b4 ,the flood was indeed universal1 but the water was added and removed by miracle4--,neither reply however seemed to me valid4 ,first1 the language respecting the universality of the flood is as strong as any that could be written3 moreover it is stated that the tops of the high hills were all covered1 and after the water subsides1 the ark settles on the mountains of ,armenia4 ,now in ,armenia1 of necessity numerous peaks would be seen1 unless the water covered them1 and especially ,ararat4 ,but a flood that covered ,ararat would overspread all the continents1 and leave only a few summits above4 ,if then the account in ,genesis is to be received1 the flood was universal4 ,secondly3 the narrator represents the surplus water to have come from the clouds and perhaps from the sea1 and again to drain back into the sea4 ,of a miraculous creation and destruction of water1 he evidently does not dream4 ,other impossibilities came forward3 the insufficient dimensions of the ark to take in all the creatures2 the unsuitability of the same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full year2 the impossibility of feeding them and avoiding pestilence2 and especially1 the total disagreement of the modern facts of the dispersion of animals1 with the idea that they spread anew from ,armenia as their centre4 ,we have no right to call in a series of miracles to solve difficulties1 of which the writer was unconscious4 ,the ark itself was expressly devised to economize miracle1 by making a fresh creation of animals needless4 ,different in kind was the objection which ,i felt to the story1 which is told twice concerning ,abraham and once concerning ,isaac1 of passing off a wife as a sister4 ,allowing that such a thing was barely not impossible1 the improbability was so intense1 as to demand the strictest and most cogent proof3 yet when we asked1 ,who testifies it8 no proof appeared that it was ,moses2 or1 supposing it to be he1 what his sources of knowledge were4 ,and this led to the far wider remark1 that nowhere in the book of ,genesis is there a line to indicate who is the writer1 or a sentence to imply that the writer believes himself to write by special information from ,god4 ,indeed1 it is well known that were are numerous small phrases which denote a later hand than that of ,moses4 ,the kings of ,israel are once alluded to historically1 ,gen4 xxxvi4 #ca4 ,why then was anything improbable to be believed on the writer's word8 as1 for instance1 the story of ,babel and the confusion of tongues8 ,one reply only seemed possible2 namely1 that we believe the ,old ,testament in obedience to the authority of the ,new3 and this threw me again to consider the references to the ,old ,testament in the ,christian ,scriptures4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but here1 the difficulties soon became manifestly more and more formidable4 ,in opening ,matthew1 we meet with quotations from the ,old ,testament applied in the most startling way4 ,first is the prophecy about the child ,immanuel2 which in ,isaiah no unbiassed interpreter would have dreamed could apply to ,jesus4 ,next2 the words of ,hosea1 ,out of ,egypt have ,i called my son1 which do but record the history of ,israel1 are imagined by ,matthew to be prophetic of the return of ,jesus from ,egypt4 ,this instance moved me much2 because ,i thought1 that if the text were spiritualized1 so as to make ,israel mean ,jesus1 ,egypt also ought to be spiritualized and mean the world1 not retain its geographical sense1 which seemed to be carnal and absurd in such a connection3 for ,egypt is no more to ,messiah than ,syria or ,greece4--,one of the most decisive testimonies to the ,old ,testament which the ,new contains1 is in ,john x41 #ce1 where ,i hardly knew how to allow myself to characterize the reasoning4 ,the case stands thus4 ,the #hbnd ,psalm rebukes unjust governors2 and at length says to them3 ,i have said1 ,ye are gods1 and all of you are children of the most high3 but ye shall die like men1 and fall like one of the princes4 ,in other words3--though we are apt to think of rulers as if they were superhuman1 yet they shall meet the lot of common men4 ,well3 how is this applied in ,john8--,jesus has been accused of blasphemy1 for saying that ,he and his ,father are one2 and in reply1 he quotes the verse1 ,i have said1 ,ye are gods1 as his sufficient justification for calling himself ,son of ,god2 for the ,scripture cannot be broken4 ,i dreaded to precipitate myself into shocking unbelief1 if ,i followed out the thoughts that this suggested2 and 7,i know not how7 for a long time yet put it off4 ,the quotations from the ,old ,testament in ,st4 ,paul had always been a mystery to me4 ,the more ,i now examined them1 the clearer it appeared that they were based on untenable ,rabbinical principles4 ,nor are those in the ,acts and in the ,gospels any better4 ,if we take free leave to canvass them1 it may appear that not one quotation in ten is sensible and appropriate4 ,and shall we then accept the decision of the ,new ,testament writers as final1 concerning the value and credibility of the ,old ,testament1 when it is so manifest that they most imperfectly understood that book8 ,in fact the appeal to them proved too much4 ,for ,jude quotes the book of ,enoch as an inspired prophecy1 and yet1 since ,archbishop ,laurence has translated it from the ,ethiopian1 we know that book to be a fable undeserving of regard1 and undoubtedly not written by ,enoch1 the seventh from ,adam4 ,besides1 it does not appear that any peculiar divine revelation taught them that the ,old ,testament is perfect truth4 ,in point of fact1 they only reproduce the ideas on that subject current in their age4 ,so far as ,paul deviates from the common ,jewish view1 it is in the direction of disparaging the ,law as essentially imperfect4 ,may it not seem that his remaining attachment to it was still exaggerated by old sentiment and patriotism8 ,i farther found that not only do the ,evangelists give us no hint that they thought themselves divinely inspired1 or that they had any other than human sources of knowledge1 but ,luke most explicitly shows the contrary4 ,he opens by stating to ,theophilus1 that since many persons have committed to writing the things handed down from eye-witnesses1 it seemed good to him also to do the same1 since he had accurately attended to every thing from its sources 7,greek3 anothen74 ,he could not possibly have written thus1 if he had been conscious of superhuman aids4 ,how absurd then of us1 to pretend that we know more than ,luke knew of his own inspiration6 ,in truth1 the arguments of theologians to prove the inspiration 7i4e4 infallibility7 of ,matthew1 ,mark1 and ,luke1 are sometimes almost ludicrous4 ,my lamented friend1 ,john ,sterling1 has thus summed up ,dr4 ,henderson's arguments about ,mark4 ,mark was probably inspired1 because he was an acquaintance of ,peter2 and because ,dr4 ,henderson would be reviled by other ,dissenters1 if he doubted it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,about this time1 the great phenomenon of these gospels1--the casting out of devils1--pressed forcibly on my attention4 ,i now dared to look full into the facts1 and saw that the disorders described were perfectly similar to epilepsy1 mania1 catalepsy1 and other known maladies4 ,nay1 the deaf1 the dumb1 the hunchbacked1 are spoken of as devil-ridden4 ,i farther knew that such diseases are still ascribed to evil genii in ,mussulman countries3 even a vicious horse is believed by the ,arabs to be majnun1 possessed by a ,jin or ,genie4 ,devils also are cast out in ,abyssinia to this day4 ,having fallen in with ,farmer's treatise on the ,demoniacs1 ,i carefully studied it2 and found it to prove unanswerably1 that a belief in demoniacal possession is a superstition not more respectable than that of witchcraft4 ,but ,farmer did not at all convince me1 that the three ,evangelists do not share the vulgar error4 ,indeed1 the instant we believe that the imagined possessions were only various forms of disease1 we are forced to draw conclusions of the utmost moment1 most damaging to the credit of the narrators4#c ,clearly1 they are then convicted of misstating facts1 under the influence of superstitious credulity4 ,they represent demoniacs as having a supernatural acquaintance with ,jesus1 which1 it now becomes manifest1 they cannot have had4 ,the devils cast out of two demoniacs 7or one7 are said to have entered into a herd of swine4 ,this must have been a credulous fiction4 ,indeed1 the casting out of devils is so very prominent a part of the miraculous agency ascribed to ,jesus1 as at first sight to impair our faith in his miracles altogether4 ,i however took refuge in the consideration1 that when ,jesus wrought one great miracle1 popular credulity would inevitably magnify it into ten2 hence the discovery of foolish exaggerations is no disproof of a real miraculous agency3 nay1 perhaps the contrary4 ,are they not a sort of false halo round a disc of glory1--a halo so congenial to human nature1 that the absence of it might be even wielded as an objection8 ,moreover1 ,john tells of no demoniacs3 does not this show his freedom from popular excitement8 ,observe the great miracles narrated by ,john1--the blind man1--and ,lazarus--how different in kind from those on demoniacs6 how incapable of having been mistaken6 how convincing6 ,his statements cannot be explained away3 their whole tone1 moreover1 is peculiar4 ,on the contrary1 the three first gospels contain much that 7after we see the writers to be credulous7 must be judged legendary4 ,the two first chapters of ,matthew abound in dreams4 ,dreams8 ,was indeed the immaculate conception merely told to ,joseph in a dream8 a dream which not he only was to believe1 but we also1 when reported to us by a person wholly unknown1 who wrote #gj or #hj years after the fact1 and gives us no clue to his sources of information6 ,shall ,i reply that he received his information by miracle8 ,but why more than ,luke8 and ,luke evidently was conscious only of human information4 ,besides1 inspiration has not saved ,matthew from error about demons2 and why then about ,joseph's dream and its highly important contents8 ,in former days1 ,i had never dared to let my thoughts dwell inquisitively on the star1 which the wise men saw in the ,east1 and which accompanied them1 and pointed out the house where the young child was4 ,i now thought of it1 only to see that it was a legend fit for credulous ages2 and that it must be rejected in common with ,herod's massacre of the children1--an atrocity unknown to ,josephus4 ,how difficult it was to reconcile the flight into ,egypt with the narrative of ,luke1 ,i had known from early days3 ,i now saw that it was waste time to try to reconcile them4 ,but perhaps ,i might say3--,that the writers should make errors about the infancy of ,jesus was natural2 they were distant from the time3 but that will not justly impair the credit of events1 to which they may possibly have been contemporaries or even eye-witnesses4--,how then would this apply to the ,temptation1 at which certainly none of them were present8 ,is it accident1 that the same three1 who abound in the demoniacs1 tell also the scene of the ,devil and ,jesuit on a pinnacle of the temple2 while the same ,john who omits the demoniacs1 omits also this singular story8 ,it being granted that the writers are elsewhere mistaken1 to criticize the tale was to reject it4 ,in near connexion with this followed the discovery1 that many other miracles of the ,bible are wholly deficient in that moral dignity1 which is supposed to place so great a chasm between them and ecclesiastical writings4 ,why should ,i look with more respect on the napkins taken from ,paul's body 7,acts xix4 #ab71 than on pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs8 ,how could ,i believe1 on this same writer's hearsay1 that the ,spirit of the ,lord caught away ,philip 7viii4 #ci71 transporting him through the air2 as oriental genii are supposed to do8 ,or what moral dignity was there in the curse on the barren fig-tree1--about which1 moreover1 we are so perplexingly told1 that it was not the time for figs8 ,what was to be said of a cure1 wrought by touching the hem of ,jesus' garment1 which drew physical virtue from him without his will8 ,and how could ,i distinguish the genius of the miracle of tribute-money in the fish's mouth1 from those of the apocryphal gospels8 ,what was ,i to say of useless miracles1 like that of ,peter and ,jesus walking on the water1--or that of many saints coming out of the graves to show themselves1 or of a poetical sympathy of the elements1 such as the earthquake and rending of the temple-veil when ,jesus died8 ,altogether1 ,i began to feel that ,christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated cavil1 and overrule each as obviously insufficient1 with the same confidence as if it were the only one4 ,yet1 in fact1 the objections collectively are very powerful1 and cannot be set aside by supercilious airs and by calling unbelievers superficial1 any more than by harsh denunciations4 ,pursuing the same thought to the ,old ,testament1 ,i discerned there also no small sprinkling of grotesque or unmoral miracles4 ,a dead man is raised to life1 when his body by accident touches the bones of ,elisha3 as though ,elisha had been a ,romish saint1 and his bones a sacred relic4 ,uzzah1 when the ark is in danger of falling1 puts out his hand to save it1 and is struck dead for his impiety6 ,was this the judgment of the ,father of mercies and ,god of all comfort8 ,what was ,i to make of ,god's anger with ,abimelech 7,gen4 xx471 whose sole offence was1 the having believed ,abraham's lie8 for which a miraculous barrenness was sent on all the females of ,abimelech's tribe1 and was bought off only by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver4--,or was it at all credible that the lying and fraudulent ,jacob should have been so specially loved by ,god1 more than the rude animal ,esau8--,or could ,i any longer overlook the gross imagination of antiquity1 which made ,abraham and ,jehovah dine on the same carnal food1 like ,tantalus with the gods2--which fed ,elijah by ravens1 and set angels to bake cakes for him8 ,such is a specimen of the flood of difficulties which poured in1 through the great breach which the demoniacs had made in the credit of ,biblical marvels4 ,while ,i was in this stage of progress1 ,i had a second time the advantage of meeting ,dr4 ,arnold1 and had satisfaction in finding that he rested the main strength of ,christianity on the gospel of ,john4 ,the great similarity of the other three seemed to him enough to mark that they flowed from sources very similar1 and that the first gospel had no pretensions to be regarded as the actual writing of ,matthew4 ,this indeed had been for some time clear to me1 though ,i now cared little about the author's name1 when he was proved to be credulous4--,arnold regarded ,john's gospel as abounding with smaller touches which marked the eye-witness1 and1 altogether1 to be the vivid and simple picture of a divine reality1 undeformed by credulous legend4 ,in this view ,i was gratified to repose1 in spite of a few partial misgivings1 and returned to investigations concerning the ,old ,testament4 ,for some time back ,i had paid special attention to the book of ,genesis2 and ,i had got aid in the analysis of it from a ,german volume4 ,that it was based on at least two different documents1 technically called the ,elohistic and ,jehovistic1 soon became clear to me3 and an orthodox friend who acknowledged the fact1 regarded it as a high recommendation of the book1 that it was conscientiously made out of pre-existing materials1 and was not a fancy that came from the brain of ,moses4 ,my good friend's argument was not a happy one3 no written record could exist of things and times which preceded the invention of writing4 ,after analysing this book with great minuteness1 ,i now proceeded to ,exodus and ,numbers2 and was soon assured1 that these had not1 any more than ,genesis1 come forth from one primitive witness of the facts4 ,in all these books is found the striking phenomenon of duplicate or even triplicate narratives4 ,the creation of man is three times told4 ,the account of the ,flood is made up out of two discrepant originals1 marked by the names ,elohim and ,jehovah2 of which one makes ,noah take into the ark seven pairs of clean1 and single 7or double87 pairs of unclean1 beasts2 while the other gives him two and two of all kinds1 without distinguishing the clean4 ,the two documents may indeed in this narrative be almost re-discovered by mechanical separation4 ,the triple statement of ,abraham and ,isaac passing off a wife for a sister was next in interest2 and here also the two which concern ,abraham are contrasted as ,jehovistic and ,elohistic4 ,a similar double account is given of the origin of circumcision1 of the names ,isaac1 ,israel1 ,bethel1 ,beersheba4 ,still more was ,i struck by the positive declaration in ,exodus 7vi4 #c7 that ,god was ,,not known to ,abraham1 ,isaac1 and ,jacob by the name ,jehovah2 while the book of ,genesis abounds with the contrary fact4 ,this alone convinced me beyond all dispute1 that these books did not come from one and the same hand1 but are conglomerates formed out of older materials1 unartistically and mechanically joined4 ,indeed a fuller examination showed in ,exodus and ,numbers a twofold miracle of the quails1 of which the latter is so told as to indicate entire unacquaintance with the former4 ,there is a double description of the manna1 a needless second appointment of ,elders of the congregation3 water is twice brought out of the rock by the rod of ,moses1 whose faith is perfect the first time and fails the second time4 ,the name of ,meribah is twice bestowed4 ,there is a double promise of a guardian angel1 a double consecration of ,aaron and his sons3 indeed1 ,i seemed to find a double or even threefold#d copy of the ,decalogue4 ,comprising ,deuteronomy within my view1 ,i met two utterly incompatible accounts of ,aaron's death2 for ,deuteronomy makes him die before reaching ,meribah ,kadesh1 where1 according to ,numbers1 he sinned and incurred the penalty of death 7,num4 xx4 #bd1 ,deut x4 #f3 cf ,num4 xxxiii4 #ca1 #ch74 ,that there was error on a great scale in all this1 was undeniable2 and ,i began to see at least one source of the error4 ,the celebrated miracle of the sun standing still has long been felt as too violent a derangement of the whole globe to be used by the most ,high as a means of discomfiting an army3 and ,i had acquiesced in the idea that the miracle was ocular only4 ,but in reading the passage1 7,josh4 x4 #ab-ad17 ,i for the first time observed that the narrative rests on the authority of a poetical book which bears the name of ,jasher4#e ,he who composed--,sun1 stand thou still upon ,gibeon2 and thou1 ,moon1 in the valley of ,ajalon6--like other poets1 called on the ,sun and ,moon to stand and look on ,joshua's deeds2 but he could not anticipate that his words would be hardened into fact by a prosaic interpreter1 and appealed to in proof of a stupendous miracle4 ,the commentator could not tell what the ,moon had to do with it2 yet he has quoted honestly4--,this presently led me to observe other marks that the narrative has been made up1 at least in part1 out of old poetry4 ,of these the most important are in ,exodus xv4 and ,num4 xxi41 in the latter of which three different poetical fragments are quoted1 and one of them is expressly said to be from the book of the wars of ,jehovah1 apparently a poem descriptive of the conquest of ,canaan by the ,israelites4 ,as for ,exodus xv4 it appeared to me 7in that stage1 and after so abundant proof of error17 almost certain that ,moses' song is the primitive authority1 out of which the prose narrative of the passage of the ,red ,sea has been worked up4 ,especially since1 after the song1 the writer adds3 v4 #ai4 ,for the horse of ,pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea1 and the ,lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them3 but the children of ,israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea4 ,this comment scarcely could have been added1 if the detailed account of ch4 xiv4 had been written previously4 ,the song of ,moses implies no miracle at all3 it is merely high poetry4 ,a later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases of v4 #h literally1 and so generated the comment of v4 #ai1 and a still later time expanded this into the elaborate #adth chapter4 ,other proofs crowded upon me1 that cannot here be enlarged upon4 ,granting then 7for argument7 that the four first books of the ,pentateuch are a compilation1 made long after the event1 ,i tried for a while to support the very arbitrary opinion1 that ,deuteronomy 7all but its last chapter7 which seemed to be a more homogeneous composition1 was alone and really the production of ,moses4 ,this however needed some definite proof3 for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the whole ,pentateuch1 it could not guarantee to me ,deuteronomy alone4 ,i proceeded to investigate the external history of the ,pentateuch1 and in so doing1 came to the story1 how the book of the ,law was found in the reign of the young king ,josiah1 nearly at the end of the ,jewish monarchy4 ,as ,i considered the narrative1 my eyes were opened4 ,if the book had previously been the received sacred law1 it could not possibly have been so lost1 that its contents were unknown1 and the fact of its loss forgotten3 it was therefore evidently then first compiled1 or at least then first produced and made authoritative to the nation4#f ,and with this the general course of the history best agrees1 and all the phenomena of the books themselves4 ,many of the ,scriptural facts were old to me3 to the importance of the history of ,josiah ,i had perhaps even become dim-sighted by familiarity4 ,why had ,i not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy8--,i found that ,i had been cajoled by the primitive assumptions1 which though not clearly stated1 are unceremoniously used4 ,dean ,graves1 for instance1 always takes for granted1 that1 until the contrary shall be demonstrated1 it is to be firmly believed that the ,pentateuch is from the pen of ,moses4 ,he proceeds to set aside1 one by one1 as not demonstrative1 the indications that it is of later origin3 and when other means fail1 he says that the particular verses remarked on were added by a later hand6 ,i considered that if we were debating the antiquity of an ,irish book1 and in one page of it were found an allusion to the ,parliamentary ,union with ,england1 we should at once regard the whole book1 until the contrary should be proved1 as the work of this century2 and not endure the reasoner1 who1 in order to uphold a theory that it is five centuries old1 pronounced that sentence evidently to be from a later hand4 ,yet in this arbitrary way ,dean ,graves and all his coadjutors set aside1 one by one1 the texts which point at the date of the ,pentateuch4 ,i was possessed with indignation4 ,oh sham science6 ,oh false-named ,theology6 ,o mihi tam long maneat pars ultima vit1 ,spiritus et1 quantum sat erit tua dicere facta6 ,yet ,i waited some eight years longer1 lest ,i should on so grave a subject write anything premature4 ,especially ,i felt that it was necessary to learn more of what the erudition of ,germany had done on these subjects4 ,michaelis on the ,new ,testament had fallen into my hands several years before1 and ,i had found the greatest advantage from his learning and candour4 ,about this time ,i also had begun to get more or less aid from four or five living ,german divines2 but none produced any strong impression on me but ,de ,wette4 ,the two grand lessons which ,i learned from him1 were1 the greater recency of ,deuteronomy1 and the very untrustworthy character of the book of ,chronicles2 with which discovery1 the true origin of the ,pentateuch becomes still clearer4#g ,after this1 ,i heard of ,hengstenberg as the most learned writer on the opposite side1 and furnished myself with his work in defence of the antiquity of the ,pentateuch3 but it only showed me how hopeless a cause he had undertaken4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in this period ,i came to a totally new view of many parts of the ,bible2 and not to be tedious1 it will suffice here to sum up the results4 ,the first books which ,i looked at as doubtful1 were the ,apocalypse and the ,epistle to the ,hebrews4 ,from the ,greek style ,i felt assured that the former was not by ,john1#h nor the latter by ,paul4 ,in ,michaelis ,i first learnt the interesting fact of ,luther having vehemently repudiated the ,apocalypse1 so that he not only declared its spuriousness in the ,preface of his ,bible1 but solemnly charged his successors not to print his translation of the ,apocalypse without annexing this avowal3--a charge which they presently disobeyed4 ,such is the habitual unfairness of ecclesiastical corporations4 ,i was afterwards confirmed by ,neander in the belief that the ,apocalypse is a false prophecy4 ,the only chapter of it which is interpreted1--the #agth1--appears to be a political speculation suggested by the civil war of ,otho1 ,vitellius and ,vespasian2 and erroneously opines that the eighth emperor of ,rome is to be the last1 and is to be one of the preceding emperors restored1--probably ,nero1 who was believed to have escaped to the kings of the ,east4--,as for the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 7which ,i was disposed to believe ,luther had well guessed to be the production of ,apollos17 ,i now saw quite a different genius in it from that of ,paul1 as more artificial and savouring of rhetorical culture4 ,as to this1 the learned ,germans are probably unanimous4 ,next to these1 the ,song of ,solomon fell away4 ,i had been accustomed to receive this as a sacred representation of the loves of ,christ and the ,church3 but after ,i was experimentally acquainted with the playful and extravagant genius of man's love for woman1 ,i saw the ,song of ,solomon with new eyes1 and became entirely convinced that it consists of fragments of love-songs1 some of them rather voluptuous4 ,after this1 it followed that the so-called ,canon of the ,jews could not guarantee to us the value of the writings4 ,consequently1 such books as ,ruth and ,esther1 7the latter indeed not containing one religious sentiment17 stood forth at once in their natural insignificance4 ,ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow production4 ,chronicles ,i now learned to be not credulous only1 but unfair1 perhaps so far as to be actually dishonest4 ,not one of the historical books of the ,old ,testament could approve itself to me as of any high antiquity or of any spiritual authority2 and in the ,new ,testament ,i found the first three books and the ,acts to contain many doubtful and some untrue accounts1 and many incredible miracles4 ,many persons1 after reading thus much concerning me1 will be apt to say3 ,of course then you gave up ,christianity8--,far from it4 ,i gave up all that was clearly untenable1 and clung the firmer to all that still appeared sound4 ,i had found out that the ,bible was not to be my religion1 nor its perfection any tenet of mine3 but what then6 ,did ,paul go about preaching the ,bible8 nay1 but he preached ,christ4 ,the ,new ,testament did not as yet exist3 to the ,jews he necessarily argued from the ,old ,testament2 but that faith in the book was no part of ,paul's gospel1 is manifest from his giving no list of sacred books to his ,gentile converts4 ,twice indeed in his epistles to ,timothy1 he recommends the ,scriptures of the ,old ,testament2 but even in the more striking passage1 7on which such exaggerated stress has been laid17 the spirit of his remark is essentially apologetic4 ,despise not1 oh ,timothy1 7is virtually his exhortation7 the ,scriptures that you learned as a child4 ,although now you have the ,spirit to teach you1 yet that does not make the older writers useless3 for every divinely inspired writing is also profitable for instruction c4 ,in ,paul's religion1 respect for the ,scriptures was a means1 not an end4 ,the ,bible was made for man1 not man for the ,bible4 ,thus the question with me was3 ,may ,i still receive ,christ as a ,saviour from sin1 a ,teacher and ,lord sent from heaven1 and can ,i find an adequate account of what he came to do or teach8 ,and my reply was1 ,yes4 ,the gospel of ,john alone gave an adequate account of him3 the other three1 though often erroneous1 had clear marks of simplicity1 and in so far confirmed the general belief in the supernatural character and works of ,jesus4 ,then the conversion of ,paul was a powerful argument4 ,i had ,peter's testimony to the resurrection1 and to the transfiguration4 ,many of the prophecies were eminently remarkable1 and seemed unaccountable except as miraculous4 ,the origin of ,judaism and spread of ,christianity appeared to be beyond common experience1 and were perhaps fairly to be called supernatural4 ,broad views such as these did not seem to be affected by the special conclusions at which ,i had arrived concerning the books of the ,bible4 ,i conceived myself to be resting under an ,indian ,figtree1 which is supported by certain grand stems1 but also lets down to the earth many small branches1 which seem to the eye to prop the tree1 but in fact are supported by it4 ,if they were cut away1 the tree would not be less strong4 ,so neither was the tree of ,christianity weakened by the loss of its apparent props4 ,i might still enjoy its shade1 and eat of its fruits1 and bless the hand that planted it4 ,in the course of this period ,i likewise learnt how inadequate allowance ,i had once made for the repulsion produced by my own dogmatic tendency on the sympathies of the unevangelical4 ,i now often met persons of ,evangelical opinion1 but could seldom have any interchange of religious sentiment with them1 because every word they uttered warned me that ,i could escape controversy only while ,i kept them at a distance3 moreover1 if any little difference of opinion led us into amicable argument1 they uniformly reasoned by quoting texts4 ,this was now inadmissible with me1 but ,i could only have done mischief by going farther than a dry disclaimer2 after which indeed ,i saw ,i was generally looked on as an infidel4 ,no doubt the parties who so came into collision with me1 approached me often with an earnest desire and hope to find some spiritual good in me1 but withdrew disappointed1 finding me either cold and defensive1 or 7perhaps they thought7 warm and disputatious4 ,thus1 as long as artificial tests of spirituality are allowed to exist1 their erroneousness is not easily exposed by the mere wear and tear of life4 ,when the collision of opinion is very strong1 two good men may meet1 and only be confirmed in their prejudices against one another3 for in order that one may elicit the spiritual sympathies of the other1 a certain liberality is prerequisite4 ,without this1 each prepares to shield himself from attack1 or even holds out weapons of offence4 ,thus articles of ,communion are essentially articles of ,disunion4--,on the other hand1 if all tests of opinion in a church were heartily and truly done away1 then the principles of spiritual affinity and repulsion would act quite undisturbed4 ,surely therefore this was the only right method8--,nevertheless1 ,i saw the necessity of one test1 ,jesus is the ,son of ,god1 and felt unpleasantly that one article tends infallibly to draw another after it4 ,but ,i had too much1 just then to think of in other quarters1 to care much about ,church ,systems4 ,footnote #a3 ,see ,gen4 xxxiii4 #ai1 and xlix4 #bi-cb1 xxiii4 ,footnote #b3 ,some say1 that ,zechariah1 son of ,jehoiada1 named in the ,chronicles1 is meant2 that he is confounded with the prophet1 the son of ,berechiah1 and was supposed to be the last of the martyrs1 because the ,chronicles are placed last in the ,hebrew ,bible4 ,this is a plausible view2 but it saves the ,scripture only by imputing error to ,jesus4 ,footnote #c3 ,my ,eclectic ,reviewer says 7p4 #bgf73 ,thus because the evangelists held an erroneous medical theory1 ,mr4 ,newman suffered a breach to be made in the credit of the ,bible4 ,no2 but as the next sentence states1 because they are convicted of misstating facts1 under the influence of this erroneous medical theory4 ,even this reviewer--candid for an orthodox critic1 and not over-orthodox either--cannot help garbling me4 ,footnote #d3 ,i have explained this in my ,hebrew ,monarchy4 ,footnote #e3 ,this poet celebrated also the deeds of ,david 7#b ,sam4 i4 #ah7 according to our translation3 if so1 he was many centuries later than ,joshua2 however1 the sense of the ,hebrew is little obscure4 ,footnote #f3 ,i have fully discussed this in my ,hebrew ,monarchy4 ,footnote #g3 ,the ,english reader may consult ,theodore ,parker's translation of ,de ,wette's ,introduction to the ,canon of ,scripture4 ,i have also amply exhibited the vanity of the ,chronicles in my ,hebrew ,monarchy4 ,de ,wette has a separate treatise on the ,chronicles1 ,footnote #h3 ,if the date of the ,apocalypse is twenty years earlier than that of the fourth ,gospel1 ,i now feel no such difficulty in their being the composition of the same writer4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,faith ,,at ,,second ,,hand ,,found ,,to ,,be ,,vain4 ,i reckon my fifth period to begin from the time when ,i had totally abandoned the claim of the ,canon of ,scripture1 however curtailed1 to be received as the object of faith1 as free from error1 or as something raised above moral criticism2 and looked out for some deeper foundation for my creed than any sacred ,letter4 ,but an entirely new inquiry had begun to engage me at intervals1 viz41 the essential logic of these investigations4 ,ought we in any case to receive moral truth in obedience to an apparent miracle of sense8 or conversely1 ought we ever to believe in sensible miracles because of their recommending some moral truth8 ,i perceived that the endless jangling which goes on in detailed controversy1 is inevitable1 while the disputants are unawares at variance with one another1 or themselves wavering1 as to these pervading principles of evidence4--,i regard my fifth period to come to an end with the decision of this question4 ,nevertheless1 many other important lines of inquiry were going forward simultaneously4 ,i found in the ,bible itself1--and even in the very same book1 as in the ,gospel of ,john1--great uncertainty and inconsistency on this question4 ,in one place1 ,jesus reproves#a the demand of a miracle1 and blesses those who believe without#b miracles2 in another1 he requires that they will submit to his doctrine because#c of his miracles4 ,now1 this is intelligible1 if blind external obedience is the end of religion1 and not ,truth and inward ,righteousness4 ,an ambitious and unscrupulous ,church1 that desires1 by fair means or foul1 to make men bow down to her1 may say1 ,only believe2 and all is right4 ,the end being gained1--,obedience to us1--we do not care about your reasons4 ,but ,god cannot speak thus to man2 and to a divine teacher we should peculiarly look for aid in getting clear views of the grounds of faith2 because it is by a knowledge of these that we shall both be rooted on the true basis1 and saved from the danger of false beliefs4 ,it1 therefore1 peculiarly vexed me to find so total a deficiency of clear and sound instruction in the ,new ,testament1 and eminently in the gospel of ,john1 on so vital a question4 ,the more ,i considered it1 the more it appeared1 as if ,jesus were solely anxious to have people believe in ,him1 without caring on what grounds they believed1 although that is obviously the main point4 ,when to this was added the threat of damnation on those who did not believe1 the case became far worse3 for ,i felt that if such a threat were allowed to operate1 ,i might become a ,mohammedan or a ,roman ,catholic4 ,could ,i in any case rationally assign this as a ground for believing in ,christ1--because ,i am frightened by his threats--8 ,farther thought showed me that a question of logic1 such as ,i here had before me1 was peculiarly one on which the propagator of a new religion could not be allowed to dictate2 for if so1 every false system could establish itself4 ,let ,hindooism dictate our logic1--let us submit to its tests of a divine revelation1 and its mode of applying them1--and we may1 perhaps1 at once find ourselves necessitated to become little children in a ,brahminical school4 ,might not then this very thing account for the ,bible not enlightening us on the topic8 namely1 since ,logic1 like ,mathematics1 belongs to the common intellect1--,possibly so3 but still1 it cannot reconcile us to vacillations and contradictions in the ,bible on so critical a point4 ,gradually ,i saw that deeper and deeper difficulties lay at bottom4 ,if ,logic cannot be matter of authoritative revelation1 so long as the nature of the human mind is what it is1--if it appears1 as a fact1 that in the writings and speeches of the ,new ,testament the logic is far from lucid1--if we are to compare ,logic with ,mathematics and other sciences1 which grew up with civilization and long time1--we cannot doubt that the apostles imbibed the logic1 like the astronomy1 of their own day1 with all its defects4 ,indeed1 the same is otherwise plain4 ,paul's reasonings are those of a ,gamaliel1 and often are indefensible by our logical notions4 ,john1 also 7as ,i had been recently learning17 has a wonderful similarity to ,philo4 ,this being the case1 it becomes of deep interest to us to know1--if we are to accept results at second hand from ,paul and ,john1--what was the sort of evidence which convinced them8 ,the moment this question is put1 we see the essential defect to which we are exposed1 in not being able to cross-examine them4 ,paul says that ,christ appeared to him3 elsewhere1 that he has received of the ,lord certain facts1 concerning the ,holy ,supper3 and that his ,gospel was given to him by revelation4 ,if any modern made such statements to us1 and on this ground demanded our credence1 it would be allowable1 and indeed obligatory1 to ask many questions of him4 ,what does he mean by saying that he has had a revelation8 ,did he see a sight1 or hear a sound8 or was it an inward impression8 and how does he distinguish it as divine8#d ,until these questions are fully answered1 we have no materials at all before us for deciding to accept his results3 to believe him1 merely because he is earnest and persuaded1 would be judged to indicate the weakness of inexperience4 ,how then can it be pretended that we have1 or can possibly get1 the means of assuring ourselves that the apostles held correct principles of evidence and applied them justly1 when we are not able to interrogate them8 ,farther1 it appears that our experience of delusion forces us to enact a very severe test of supernatural revelation4 ,no doubt1 we can conceive that which is equivalent to a new sense opening to us2 but then it must have verifications connecting it with the other senses4 ,thus1 a particularly vivid sort of dream recurring with special marks1 and communicating at once heavenly and earthly knowledge1 of which the latter was otherwise verified1 would probably be admitted as a valid sort of evidence3 but so intense would be the interest and duty to have all unravelled and probed to the bottom1 that we should think it impossible to verify the new sense too anxiously1 and we should demand the fullest particulars of the divine transaction4 ,on the contrary1 it is undeniable that all such severity of research is rebuked in the ,scriptures as unbelief4 ,the deeply interesting process of receiving supernatural revelation4--a revelation1 not of moral principles1 but of outward facts and events1 supposed to be communicated in a mode wholly peculiar and unknown to common men1--this process1 which ought to be laid open and analyzed under the fullest light1 if we are to believe the results at second hand1 is always and avowedly shrouded in impenetrable darkness4 ,there surely is something here1 which denotes that it is dangerous to resign ourselves to the conclusions of the apostles1 when their logical notions are so different from ours4 ,i farther inquired1 what sort of miracle ,i could conceive1 that would alter my opinion on a moral question4 ,hosea was divinely ordered to go and unite himself to an impure woman3 could ,i possibly think that ,god ordered me to do so1 if ,i heard a voice in the air commanding it8 ,should ,i not rather disbelieve my hearing1 than disown my moral perceptions8 ,if not1 where am ,i to stop8 ,i may practise all sorts of heathenism4 ,a man who1 in obedience to a voice in the air1 kills his innocent wife or child1 will either be called mad1 and shut up for safety1 or will be hanged as a desperate fanatic3 do ,i dare to condemn this modern judgment of him8 ,would any conceivable miracle justify my slaying my wife8 ,god forbid6 ,it must be morally right1 to believe moral rather than sensible perceptions4 ,no outward impressions on the eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of ,god's will1 as my inward judgment4 ,how amazing1 then1 that a ,paul or a ,james could look on ,abraham's intention to slay his son1 as indicating a praiseworthy faith6--,and yet not amazing3 ,it does but show1 that apostles in former days1 like ourselves1 scrutinized antiquity with different eyes from modern events4 ,if ,paul had been ordered by a supernatural voice to slay ,peter1 he would have attributed the voice to the devil1 the prince of the power of the air1 and would have despised it4 ,he praises the faith of ,abraham1 but he certainly would never have imitated his conduct4 ,just so1 the modern divines who laud ,joseph's piety towards ,mary1 would be very differently affected1 if events and persons were transported to the present day4 ,but to return4 ,let it be granted that no sensible miracle could authorize me so to violate my moral perceptions as to slay 7that is1 to murder7 my innocent wife4 ,may it1 nevertheless1 authorize me to invade a neighbour country1 slaughter the people and possess their cities1 although1 without such a miracle1 the deed would be deeply criminal8 ,it is impossible to say that here1 more than in the former case1 miracles#e can turn aside the common laws of morality4 ,neither1 therefore1 could they justify ,joshua's war of extermination on the ,canaanites1 nor that of ,samuel on the ,amalekites2 nor the murder of misbelievers by ,elijah and by ,josiah4 ,if we are shocked at the idea of ,god releasing ,mohammed from the vulgar law of marriage1 we must as little endure relaxation in the great laws of justice and mercy4 ,farther1 if only a small immorality is concerned1 shall we then say that a miracle may justify it8 ,could it authorise me to plait a whip of small cords1 and flog a preferment-hunter out of the pulpit8 or would it justify me in publicly calling the ,queen and her ministers a brood of vipers1 who cannot escape the damnation of hell#f ,such questions go very deep into the heart of the ,christian claims4 ,i had been accustomed to overbear objections of this sort by replying1 that to allow of their being heard would amount to refusing leave to ,god to give commands to his creatures4 ,for1 it seems1 if he did command1 we1 instead of obeying1 should discuss whether the command was right and reasonable2 and if we thought it otherwise1 should conclude that ,god never gave it4 ,the extirpation of the ,canaanites is compared by divines to the execution of a criminal2 and it is insisted1 that if the voice of society may justify the executioner1 much more may the voice of ,god--,but ,i now saw the analogy to be insufficient and unsound4 ,insufficient1 because no executioner is justified in slaying those whom his conscience tells him to be innocent2 and it is a barbarous morality alone1 which pretends that he may make himself a passive tool of slaughter4 ,but next1 the analogy assumes1 7what none of my very dictatorial and insolent critics make even the faintest effort to prove to be a fact17 that ,god1 like man1 speaks from without3 that what we call ,reason and ,conscience is not his mode of commanding and revealing his will1 but that words to strike the ear1 or symbols displayed before the senses1 are emphatically and exclusively ,revelation4 ,besides all this1 the command of slaughter to the ,jews is not directed against the seven nations of ,canaan only1 as modern theologians often erroneously assert3 it is a universal permission1 of avaricious massacre and subjugation of the cities which are very far off from thee1 which are not of the cities of these nations1 ,deut1 xx4 #ae4 ,the thoughts which here fill but a few pages1 occupied me a long while in working out2 because ,i consciously1 with caution more than with timidity1 declined to follow them rapidly4 ,they came as dark suspicions or as flashing possibilities2 and were again laid aside for reconsideration1 lest ,i should be carried into antagonism to my old creed4 ,for it is clear that great error arises in religion1 by the undue ardour of converts1 who become bitter against the faith which they have left1 and outrun in zeal their new associates4 ,so also successive centuries oscillate too far on the right and on the left of truth4 ,but so happy was my position1 that ,i needed not to hurry3 no practical duty forced me to rapid decision1 and a suspense of judgment was not an unwholesome exercise4 ,meanwhile1 ,i sometimes thought ,christianity to be to me1 like the great river ,ganges to a ,hindoo4 ,of its value he has daily experience3 he has piously believed that its sources are in heaven1 but of late the report has come to him1 that it only flows from very high mountains of this earth4 ,what is he to believe8 ,he knows not exactly3 he cares not much3 in any case the river is the gift of ,god to him3 its positive benefits cannot be affected by a theory concerning its source4 ,such a comparison undoubtedly implies that he who uses it discerns for himself a moral excellence in ,christianity1 and submits to it only so far as this discernment commands4 ,i had practically reached this point1 long before ,i concluded my theoretical inquiries as to ,christianity itself3 but in the course of this fifth period numerous other overpowering considerations crowded upon me which ,i must proceed to state in outline4 99 99 99 99 99 ,all pious ,christians feel1 and all the ,new ,testament proclaims1 that ,faith is a moral act and a test of the moral and spiritual that is within us2 so that he who is without faith1 7faithless1 unfaithful1 infidel17 is morally wanting and is cut off from ,god4 ,to assent to a religious proposition solely in obedience to an outward miracle1 would be ,belief2 but would not be ,faith1 any more than is scientific conviction4 ,bishop ,butler and all his followers can insist with much force on this topic1 when it suits them1 and can quote most aptly from the ,new ,testament to the same effect4 ,they deduce1 that a really overpowering miraculous proof would have destroyed the moral character of ,faith3 yet they do not see that the argument supersedes the authoritative force of outward miracles entirely4 ,it had always appeared to me very strange in these divines1 to insist on the stupendous character and convincing power of the ,christian miracles1 and then1 in reply to the objection that they were not quite convincing1 to say that the defect was purposely left to try people's ,faith4 ,faith in what8 ,not surely in the confessedly ill-proved miracle1 but in the truth as discernible by the heart without aid of miracle4 ,i conceived of two men1 ,nathaniel and ,demas1 encountering a pretender to miracles1 a ,simon ,magus of the scriptures4 ,nathaniel is guileless1 sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense1 but in worldly matters rather a simpleton4 ,demas is a sharp man1 who gets on well in the world1 quick of eye and shrewd of wit1 hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows2 but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral insight4 ,the juggleries of ,simon are readily discerned by ,demas1 but thoroughly deceive poor ,nathaniel3 what then is the latter to do8 ,to say that we are to receive true miracles and reject false ones1 avails not1 unless the mind is presumed to be capable of discriminating the one from the other4 ,the wonders of ,simon are as divine as the wonders of ,jesus to a man1 who1 like ,nathaniel1 can account for neither by natural causes4 ,if we enact the rule1 that men are to submit their understandings to apparent prodigies1 and that revelation is a thing of the outward senses1 we alight on the unendurable absurdity1 that ,demas has faculties better fitted than those of ,nathaniel for discriminating religious truth and error1 and that ,nathaniel1 in obedience to eye and ear1 which he knows to be very deceivable organs1 is to abandon his moral perceptions4 ,nor is the case altered1 if instead of ,simon in person1 a huge thing called a ,church is presented as a claimant of authority to ,nathaniel4 ,suppose him to be a poor ,spaniard1 surrounded by false miracles1 false erudition1 and all the apparatus of reigning and unopposed ,romanism4 ,he cannot cope with the priests in cleverness1--detect their juggleries1--refute their historical falsehoods1 disentangle their web of sophistry3 but if he is truehearted1 he may say3 ,you bid me not to keep faith with heretics3 you defend murder1 exile1 imprisonment1 fines1 on men who will not submit their consciences to your authority3 this ,i see to be wicked1 though you ever so much pretend that ,god has taught it you4 ,so1 also1 if he be accosted by learned clergymen1 who undertake to prove that ,jesus wrought stupendous miracles1 or by learned ,moolahs who allege the same of ,mohammed or of ,menu1 he is quite unable to deal with them on the grounds of physiology1 physics1 or history4--,in short1 nothing can be plainer1 than that the moral and spiritual sense is the only religious faculty of the poor man2 and that as ,christianity in its origin was preached to the poor1 so it was to the inward senses that its first preachers appealed1 as the supreme arbiters in the whole religious question4 ,is it not then absurd to say that in the act of conversion the convert is to trust his moral perception1 and is ever afterwards to distrust it8 ,an incident had some years before come to my knowledge1 which now seemed instructive4 ,an educated1 highly acute and thoughtful person1 of very mature age1 had become a convert to the ,irving miracles1 from an inability to distinguish them from those of the ,pauline epistles2 or to discern anything of falsity which would justify his rejecting them4 ,but after several years he totally renounced them as a miserable delusion1 because he found that a system of false doctrine was growing up and was propped by them4 ,here was a clear case of a man with all the advantages of modern education and science1 who yet found the direct judgment of a professed miracle1 that was acted before his senses1 too arduous for him6 ,he was led astray while he trusted his power to judge of miracle3 he was brought right by trusting to his moral perceptions4 ,when we farther consider1 that a knowledge of ,natural ,philosophy and ,physiology not only does not belong to the poor1 but comes later in time to mankind than a knowledge of morals2--that a ,miracle can only be judged of by ,philosophy1--that it is not easy even for philosophers to define what is a miracle--that to discern a deviation from the course of nature1 implies a previous certain knowledge of what the course of nature is1--and that illiterate and early ages certainly have not this knowledge1 and often have hardly even the idea1--it becomes quite a monstrosity to imagine that sensible and external miracles constitute the necessary process and guarantee of divine revelation4 ,besides1 if an angel appeared to my senses1 and wrought miracles1 how would that assure me of his moral qualities8 ,such miracles might prove his power and his knowledge1 but whether malignant or benign1 would remain doubtful1 until by purely moral evidence1 which no miracles could give1 the doubt should be solved4#g ,this is the old difficulty about diabolical wonders4 ,the moderns cut the knot1 by denying that any but ,god can possibly work real miracles4 ,but to establish their principle1 they make their definition and verification of a miracle so strict1 as would have amazed the apostles2 and after all1 the difficulty recurs1 that miraculous phenomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of ,god1 if we do not know these qualities in ,him without miracle4 ,there is then a deeper and an earlier revelation of ,god1 which sensible miracles can never give4 ,we cannot distinctly learn what was ,paul's full idea of a divine revelation2 but ,i can feel no doubt that he conceived it to be1 in great measure1 an inward thing4 ,dreams and visions were not excluded from influence1 and nacre or less affected his moral judgment2 but he did not1 consciously and on principle1 beat down his conscience in submission to outward impressions4 ,to do so1 is indeed to destroy the moral character of ,faith1 and lay the axe to the root1 not of ,christian doctrine only1 but of every possible spiritual system4 99 99 99 99 99 ,meanwhile1 new breaches were made in those citadels of my creed which had not yet surrendered4 ,one branch of the ,christian ,evidences concerns itself with the history and historical effects of the faith1 and among ,protestants the efficacy of the ,bible to enlighten and convert has been very much pressed4 ,the disputant1 however1 is apt to play fast and loose4 ,he adduces the theory of ,christianity when the history is unfavourable1 and appeals to the history if the theory is impugned4 ,in this way1 just so much is picked out of the mass of facts as suits his argument1 and the rest is quietly put aside4 ,i4 ,in the theory of my early creed1 7which was that of the ,new ,testament1 however convenient it may be for my critics to deride it as fanatical and not ,christian17 cultivation of mind and erudition were classed with worldly things1 which might be used where they pre-existed1 7as riches and power may subserve higher ends17 but which were quite extraneous and unessential to the spiritual kingdom of ,christ4 ,a knowledge of the ,bible was assumed to need only an honest heart and ,god's ,spirit1 while science1 history1 and philosophy were regarded as doubtful and dangerous auxiliaries4 ,but soon after the first reflux of my mind took place towards the ,common ,understanding1 as a guide of life legitimately co-ordinate with ,scripture1 ,i was impressed with the consideration that ,free ,learning had acted on a great scale for the improvement of spiritual religion4 ,i had been accustomed to believe that the ,bible#h brought about the ,protestant ,reformation2 and until my twenty-ninth year probably it had not occurred to me to question this4 ,but ,i was first struck with the thought1 that the ,bible did not prevent the absurd iniquities of the ,nicene and ,post ,nicene controversy1 and that the ,church1 with the ,bible in her hands1 sank down into the gulf of ,popery4 ,how then was the ,bible a sufficient explanation of her recovering out of ,popery8 ,even a superficial survey of the history shows1 that the first improvement of spiritual doctrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries1 came from a study of the moral works of ,cicero and ,boethius2--a fact notorious in the common historians4 ,the ,latin moralists effected1 what 7strange to think67 the ,new ,testament alone could not do4 ,in the fifteenth century1 when ,constantinople was taken by the ,turks1 learned ,greeks were driven out to ,italy and to other parts of the ,west1 and the ,roman ,catholic world began to read the old ,greek literature4 ,all historians agree1 that the enlightenment of mind hence arising was a prime mover of religious ,reformation2 and learned ,protestants of ,germany have even believed1 that the overthrow of ,popish error and establishment of purer truth would have been brought about more equably and profoundly1 if ,luther had never lived1 and the passions of the vulgar had never been stimulated against the externals of ,romanism4 ,at any rate1 it gradually opened upon me1 that the free cultivation of the understanding1 which ,latin and ,greek literature had imparted to ,europe and our freer public life1 were chief causes of our religious superiority to ,greek1 ,armenian1 and ,syrian ,christians4 ,as the ,greeks in ,constantinople under a centralized despotism retained no free intellect1 and therefore the works of their fathers did their souls no good2 so in ,europe1 just in proportion to the freedom of learning1 has been the force of the result4 ,in ,spain and ,italy the study of miscellaneous science and independent thought were nearly extinguished2 in ,france and ,austria they were crippled2 in ,protestant countries they have been freest4 ,and then we impute all their effects to the ,bible6#i ,i at length saw how untenable is the argument drawn from the inward history of ,christianity in favour of its superhuman origin4 ,in fact3 this religion cannot pretend to self-sustaining power4 ,hardly was it started on its course1 when it began to be polluted by the heathenism and false philosophy around it4 ,with the decline of national genius and civil culture it became more and more debased4 ,so far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best ,pagan teachers1 it became barbarized itself1 and sank into deep superstition and manifold moral corruption4 ,from ferocious men it learnt ferocity4 ,when civil society began to coalesce into order1 ,christianity also turned for the better1 and presently learned to use the wisdom1 first of ,romans1 then of ,greeks3 such studies opened men's eyes to new apprehensions of the ,scripture and of its doctrine4 ,by gradual and human means1 ,europe1 like ancient ,greece1 grew up towards better political institutions2 and ,christianity improved with them1--the ,christianity of the more educated4 ,beyond ,europe1 where there have been no such institutions1 there has been no ,protestant ,reformation3--that is in the ,greek1 ,armenian1 ,syrian1 ,coptic churches4 ,not unreasonably then do ,franks in ,turkey disown the title ,nazarene1 as denoting that ,christianity which has not been purified by ,european laws and ,european learning4 ,christianity rises and sinks with political and literary influences3 in so far1#aj it does not differ from other religions4 ,the same applied to the origin and advance of ,judaism4 ,it began in polytheistic and idolatrous barbarism3 it cleared into a hard monotheism1 with much superstition adhering to it4 ,this was farther improved by successive psalmists and prophets1 until ,judaism culminated4 ,the ,jewish faith was eminently grand and pure2 but there is nothing#aa in this history which we can adduce in proof of preternatural and miraculous agency4 ,,ii4 ,the facts concerning the outward spread of ,christianity have also been disguised by the party spirit of ,christians1 as though there were something essentially different in kind as to the mode in which it began and continued its conquests1 from the corresponding history of other religions4 ,but no such distinction can be made out4 ,it is general to all religions to begin by moral means1 and proceed farther by more worldly instruments4 ,christianity had a great moral superiority over ,roman paganism1 in its humane doctrine of universal brotherhood1 its unselfishness1 its holiness2 and thereby it attracted to itself 7among other and baser materials7 all the purest natures and most enthusiastic temperaments4 ,its first conquests were noble and admirable4 ,but there is nothing superhuman or unusual in this4 ,mohammedism in the same way conquers those ,pagan creeds which are morally inferior to it4 ,the ,seljuk and the ,ottoman ,turks were ,pagans1 but adopted the religion of ,tartars and ,persians whom they subjugated1 because it was superior and was blended with a superior civilization2 exactly as the ,german conquerors of the ,western ,empire of ,rome adopted some form of ,christianity4 ,but if it is true that the sword of ,mohammed was the influence which subjected ,arabia1 ,egypt1 ,syria and ,persia to the religion of ,islam1 it is no less true that the ,roman empire was finally conquered to ,christianity by the sword4 ,before ,constantine1 ,christians were but a small fraction of the empire4 ,in the preceding century they had gone on deteriorating in good sense and most probably therefore in moral worth1 and had made no such rapid progress in numbers as to imply that by the mere process of conversion they would ever ,christianize the empire4 ,that the conversion of ,constantine1 such as it was1 7for he was baptized only just before death17 was dictated by mere worldly considerations1 few modern ,christians will deny4 ,yet a great fact is here implied2 viz41 that ,christianity was adopted as a state-religion1 because of the great political power accruing from the organization of the churches and the devotion of ,christians to their ecclesiastical citizenship4 ,roman statesmen well knew that a hundred thousand ,roman citizens devoted to the interests of ,rome1 could keep in subjection a population of ten millions who were destitute of any intense patriotism and had no central objects of attachment4 ,the ,christian church had shown its immense resisting power and its tenacious union1 in the persecution by ,galerius2 and ,constantine was discerning enough to see the vast political importance of winning over such a body2 which1 though but a small fraction of the whole empire1 was the only party which could give coherence to that empire1 the only one which had enthusiastic adherents in every province1 the only one on whose resolute devotion it was possible for a partizan to rely securely4 ,the bravery and faithful attachment of ,christian regiments was a lesson not lost upon ,constantine2 and we may say1 in some sense1 that the ,christian soldiers in his armies conquered the empire 7that is1 the imperial appointments7 for ,christianity4 ,but ,paganism subsisted1 even in spite of imperial allurements1 until at length the sword of ,theodosius violently suppressed heathen worship4 ,so also1 it was the spear of ,charlemagne which drove the ,saxons to baptism1 and decided the extirpation of ,paganism from ,teutonic ,europe4 ,there is nothing in all this to distinguish the outward history of ,christianity from that of ,mohammedism4 ,barbarous tribes1 now and then1 venerating the superiority of our knowledge1 adopt our religion3 so have ,pagan nations in ,africa voluntarily become ,mussulmans4 ,but neither we nor they can appeal to any case1 where an old ,state-religion has yielded without warlike compulsion to the force of heavenly truth1--charm we never so wisely4 ,the whole influence which ,christianity exerts over the world at large depends on the political history of modern ,europe4 ,the ,christianity of ,asia and ,abyssinia is perhaps as pure and as respectable in this nineteenth century as it was in the fourth and fifth1 yet no good or great deeds come forth out of it1 of such a kind that ,christian disputants dare to appeal to them with triumph4 ,the politico-religious and very peculiar history of ,european ,christendom has alone elevated the modern world2 and as ,gibbon remarks1 this whole history has directly depended on the fate of the great battles of ,tours between the ,moors and the ,franks4 ,the defeat of ,mohammedism by ,christendom certainly has not been effected by spiritual weapons4 ,the soldier and the statesman have done to the full as much as the priest to secure ,europe for ,christianity1 and win a ,christendom of which ,christians can be proud4 ,as for the ,christendom of ,asia1 the apologists of ,christianity simply ignore it4 ,with these facts1 how can it be pretended that the external history of ,christianity points to an exclusively divine origin8 ,the author of the ,eclipse of ,faith has derided me for despatching in two paragraphs what occupied ,gibbon's whole fifteenth chapter2 but this author1 here as always1 misrepresents me4 ,gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of ,christianity before ,constantine1 and he by no means exhausts the subject4 ,i am comparing the ostensible and notorious facts concerning the outward conquest of ,christianity with those of other religions4 ,to account for the early growth of any religion1 ,christian1 ,mussulman1 or ,mormonite1 is always difficult4 ,,iii4 ,the moral advantages which we owe to ,christianity have been exaggerated by the same party spirit1 as if there were in them anything miraculous4 #a4 ,we are told that ,christianity is the decisive influence which has raised womankind3 this does not appear to be true4 ,the old ,roman matron was1 relatively to her husband1#ab morally as high as in modern ,italy3 nor is there any ground for supposing that modern women have advantage over the ancient in ,spain and ,portugal1 where ,germanic have been counteracted by ,moorish influences4 ,the relative position of the sexes in ,homeric ,greece exhibits nothing materially different from the present day4 ,in ,armenia and ,syria perhaps ,christianity has done the service of extinguishing polygamy3 this is creditable1 though nowise miraculous4 ,judaism also unlearnt polygamy1 and made an unbidden improvement upon ,moses4 ,in short1 only in countries where ,germanic sentiment has taken root1 do we see marks of any elevation of the female sex superior to that of ,pagan antiquity2 and as this elevation of the ,german woman in her deepest ,paganism was already striking to ,tacitus and his contemporaries1 it is highly unreasonable to claim it as an achievement of ,christianity4 ,in point of fact1 ,christian doctrine1 as propounded by ,paul1 is not at all so honourable to woman as that which ,german soundness of heart has established4 ,with ,paul#ac the sole reason for marriage is1 that a man may gratify instinct without sin4 ,he teaches1 that but for this object it would be better not to marry4 ,he wishes that all were in this respect as free as himself1 and calls it a special gift of ,god4 ,he does not encourage a man to desire a mutual soul intimately to share griefs and joys2 one in whom the confiding heart can repose1 whose smile shall reward and soften toil1 whose voice shall beguile sorrow4 ,he does not seem aware that the fascinations of woman refine and chasten society2 that virtuous attachment has in it an element of respect1 which abashes and purifies1 and which shields the soul1 even when marriage is deferred2 nor yet1 that the union of two persons who have no previous affection can seldom yield the highest fruits of matrimony1 but often leads to the severest temptations4 ,how should he have known all this8 ,courtship before marriage did not exist in the society open to him3 hence he treats the propriety of giving away a maiden1 as one in which her conscience1 her likes and dislikes1 are not concerned3 #a ,cor4 vii4 #cg1 #ch4 ,if the law leaves the parent power over his own will and imposes no necessity to give her away1 ,paul decidedly advises to keep her unmarried4 ,the author of the ,apocalypse1 a writer of the first century1 who was received in the second as ,john the apostle1 holds up a yet more degrading view of the matrimonial relation4 ,in one of his visions he exhibits #add1jjj chosen saints1 perpetual attendants of the ,lamb1 and places the cardinal point of their sanctity in the fact1 that they were not defiled with women1 but were virgins4 ,marriage1 therefore1 is defilement6 ,protestant writers struggle in vain against this obvious meaning of the passage4 ,against all analogy of ,scriptural metaphor1 they gratuitously pretend that women mean idolatrous religions3 namely1 because in the ,old ,testament the ,jewish ,church is personified as a virgin betrothed to ,god1 and an idol is spoken of as her paramour4 ,as a result of the apostolic doctrines1 in the second1 third1 and following centuries1 very gross views concerning the relation of the sexes prevailed1 and have been everywhere transmitted where men's morality is exclusively#ad formed from the ,new ,testament4 ,the marriage service of the ,church of ,england1 which incorporates the ,pauline doctrine is felt by ,english brides and bridegrooms to contain what is so offensive and degrading1 that many clergymen mercifully make unlawful omissions4 ,paul had indeed expressly denounced prohibitions of marriage4 ,in merely dissuading it1 he gave advice1 which1 from his limited horizon and under his expectation of the speedy return of ,christ1 was sensible and good2 but when this advice1 with all its reasons1 was made on oracle of eternal wisdom1 it generated the monkish notions concerning womanhood4 ,if the desire of a wife is a weakness1 which the apostle would gladly have forbidden1 only that he feared worse consequences1 an enthusiastic youth cannot but infer that it is a higher state of perfection not to desire a wife1 and therefore aspires to the crown of virginity4 ,here at once is full-grown monkery4 ,hence that debasement of the imagination1 which is directed perpetually to the lowest1 instead of the highest side of the female nature4 ,hence the disgusting admiration and invocation of ,mary's perpetual virginity4 ,hence the transcendental doctrine of her immaculate conception from ,anne1 the grandmother of ,god4 ,in the above my critics have represented me to say that ,christianity has done nothing for women4 ,i have not said so1 but that what it has done has been exaggerated4 ,i say3 ,if the theory of ,christianity is to take credit from the history of ,christendom1 it must also receive discredit4 ,taking in the whole system of nuns and celibates1 and the doctrine which sustains it1 the root of which is apostolic1 ,i doubt whether any balance of credit remains over from this side of ,christian history4 ,i am well aware that the democratic doctrine of the equality of souls has a tendency to elevate women1--and the poorer orders too2 but this is not the whole of actual ,christianity1 which is a very heterogeneous mass4 #b4 ,again3 the modern doctrine1 by aid of which ,west ,indian slavery has been exterminated1 is often put forward as ,christian2 but ,i had always discerned that it was not ,biblical1 and that1 in respect to this great triumph1 undue credit has been claimed for the fixed ,biblical and authoritative doctrine4 ,as ,i have been greatly misunderstood in my first edition1 ,i am induced to expand this topic4 ,sir ,george ,stephen1#ae after describing the long struggle in ,england against the ,west ,indian interest and other obstacles1 says1 that1 for some time1 worst of all1 we found the people1 not actually against us1 but apathetic1 lethargic1 incredulous1 indifferent4 ,it was then1 and not till then1 that we sounded the right note1 and touched a chord that never ceased to vibrate4 ,to uphold slavery was a crime against ,god6 ,it was a ,,novel ,,doctrine1 but it was a cry that was heard1 for it would be heard4 ,the national conscience was awakened to inquiry1 and inquiry soon produced conviction4 ,sir ,george justly calls the doctrine novel4 ,as developed in the controversy1 it laid down the general proposition1 that men and women are not1 and cannot be chattels2 and that all human enactments which decree this are morally null and void1 as sinning against the higher law of nature and of ,god4 ,and the reason of this lies in the essential contrast of a moral personality and chattel4 ,criminals may deserve to be bound and scourged1 but they do not cease to be persons1 nor indeed do even the insane4 ,since every man is a person1 he cannot be a piece of property1 nor has an owner any just and moral claim to his services4 ,usage1 so far from conferring this claim1 increases the total amount of injustice2 the longer an innocent man is forcibly kept in slavery1 the greater the reparation to which he is entitled for the oppressive immorality4 ,this doctrine ,i now believe to be irrefutable truth1 but ,i disbelieved it while ,i thought the ,scripture authoritative2 because ,i found a very different doctrine there--a doctrine which is the argumentative stronghold of the ,american slaveholder4 ,paul sent back the fugitive ,onesimus to his master ,philemon1 with kind recommendations and apologies for the slave1 and a tender charge to ,philemon1 that he would receive ,onesimus as a brother in the ,lord1 since he had been converted by ,paul in the interval2 but this very recommendation1 full of affection as it is1 virtually recognizes the moral rights of ,philemon to the services of his slave2 and hinting that if ,onesimus stole anything1 ,philemon should now forgive him1 ,paul shows perfect insensibility to the fact that the master who detains a slave in captivity against his will1 is guilty himself of a continual theft4 ,what says ,mrs4 ,beecher ,stowe's ,cassy to this8 ,stealing6--,they who steal body and soul need not talk to us4 ,every one of these bills is stolen--stolen from poor starving1 sweating creatures4 ,now ,onesimus1 in the very act of taking to flight1 showed that he had been submitting to servitude against his will1 and that the house of his owner had previously been a prison to him4 ,to suppose that ,philemon has a pecuniary interest in the return of ,onesimus to work without wages1 implies that the master habitually steals the slave's earnings2 but if he loses nothing by the flight1 he has not been wronged by it4 ,such is the modern doctrine1 developed out of the fundamental fact that persons are not chattels2 but it is to me wonderful that it should be needful to prove to any one1 that this is not the doctrine of the ,new ,testament4 ,paul and ,peter deliver excellent charges to masters in regard to the treatment of their slaves1 but without any hint to them that there is an injustice in claiming them as slaves at all4 ,that slavery1 as a system1 is essentially immoral1 no ,christian of those days seems to have suspected4 ,yet it existed in its worst forms under ,rome4 ,whole gangs of slaves were mere tools of capitalists1 and were numbered like cattle1 with no moral relationship to the owner2 young women of beautiful person were sold as articles of voluptuousness4 ,of course every such fact was looked upon by ,christians as hateful and dreadful2 yet1 ,i say1 it did not lead them to that moral condemnation of slavery1 as such1 which has won the most signal victory in modern times1 and is destined1 ,i trust1 to win one far greater4 ,a friendly reviewer replies to this1 that the apathy of the early ,christians to the intrinsic iniquity of the slave system rose out of their expectation of an immediate close of this world's affairs4 ,the only reason why ,paul sanctioned contentment with his condition in the converted slave1 was1 that for so short a time it was not worth while for any man to change his state4 ,i agree to this2 but it does not alter my fact3 on the contrary1 it confirms what ,i say1--that the ,biblical morality is not final truth4 ,to account for an error surely is not to deny it4 ,another writer has said on the above3 ,let me suppose you animated to go as missionary to the ,east to preach this 7,mr4 ,newman's7 spiritual system3 would you1 in addition to all this1 publicly denounce the social and political evils under which the nations groan8 ,if so1 your spiritual projects would soon be perfectly understood1 and summarily dealt with4--,it is vain to say1 that1 if commissioned by ,heaven1 and endowed with power of working miracles1 you would do so2 for you cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be given3 it is pretty certain1 that it would leave you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means1 and not allow you to turn the world upside down1 and mendaciously tell it that you came only to preach peace1 while every syllable you uttered would be an incentive to sedition4--,eclipse of ,faith1 p4 #dai4 ,this writer supposes that he is attacking me1 when every line is an attack on ,christ and ,christianity4 ,have ,i pretended power of working miracles8 ,have ,i imagined or desired that miracle would shield me from persecution8 ,did ,jesus not publicly denounce the social and political evils of ,juda8 was he not summarily dealt with8 ,did he not know that his doctrine would send on earth not peace1 but a sword8 and was he mendacious in saying1 ,peace ,i leave unto you8 or were the angels mendacious in proclaiming1 ,peace on earth1 goodwill among men8 ,was not every syllable that ,jesus uttered in the discourse of ,matth4 xxiii41 an incentive to sedition8 and does this writer judge it to be mendacity1 that ,jesus opened by advising to ,,obey the very men1 whom he proceeds to vilify at large as immoral1 oppressive1 hypocritical1 blind1 and destined to the damnation of hell8 ,or have ,i anywhere blamed the apostles because they did not exasperate wicked men by direct attacks8 ,it is impossible to answer such a writer as this2 for he elaborately misses to touch what ,i have said4 ,on the other hand1 it is rather too much to require me to defend ,jesus from his assault4 ,christian preachers did not escape the imputation of turning the world upside down1 and at length1 in some sense1 effected what was imputed4 ,it is matter of conjecture1 whether any greater convulsion would have happened1 if the apostles had done as the ,quakers in ,america4 ,no ,quaker holds slaves3 why not8 ,because the ,quakers teach their members that it is an essential immorality4 ,the slave-holding states are infinitely more alive and jealous to keep up their peculiar institution1 than was the ,roman government2 yet the ,quakers have caused no political convulsion4 ,i confess1 to me it seems1 that if ,paul1 and ,john1 and ,peter1 and ,james1 had done as these ,quakers1 the imperial administration would have looked on it as a harmless eccentricity of the sect1 and not as an incentive#af to sedition4 ,but be this as it may1 ,i did not say what else the apostles might have succeeded to enforce2 ,i merely pointed out what it was that they actually taught1 and that1 as a fact1 they did not declare slavery to be an immorality and the basest of thefts4 ,if any one thinks their course was more wise1 he may be right or wrong1 but his opinion is in itself a concession of my fact4 ,as to the historical progress of ,christian practice and doctrine on this subject1 it is1 as usual1 mixed of good and evil4 ,the humanity of good ,pagan emperors softened the harshness of the laws of bondage1 and manumission had always been extremely common amongst the ,romans4 ,of course1 the more humane religion of ,christ acted still more powerfully in the same direction1 especially in inculcating the propriety of freeing ,christian slaves4 ,this was creditable1 but not peculiar1 and is not a fact of such a nature as to add to the exclusive claims of ,christianity4 ,to every proselyting religion the sentiment is so natural1 that no divine spirit is needed to originate and establish it4 ,mohammedans also have a conscience against enslaving ,mohammedans1 and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he adopts their religion4 ,but no zeal for human freedom has ever grown out of the purely biblical and ecclesiastical system1 any more than out of the ,mohammedan4 ,in the middle ages1 zeal for the liberation of serfs first rose in the breasts of the clergy1 after the whole population had become nominally ,christian4 ,it was not men1 but ,christians1 whom the clergy desired to make free3 it is hard to say1 that they thought ,pagans to have any human rights at all1 even to life4 ,nor is it correct to represent ecclesiastical influences as the sole agency which overthrew slavery and serfdom4 ,the desire of the kings to raise up the chartered cities as a bridle to the barons1 was that which chiefly made rustic slavery untenable in its coarsest form2 for a villain who escaped into the free cities could not be recovered4 ,in later times1 the first public act against slavery came from republican ,france1 in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm2 when she declared black and white men to be equally free1 and liberated the negroes of ,st4 ,domingo4 ,in ,britain1 the battle of social freedom has been fought chiefly by that religious sect which rests least on the letter of ,scripture4 ,the bishops1 and the more learned clergy1 have consistently been apathetic to the duty of overthrowing the slave system4--,i was thus led to see1 that here also the ,new ,testament precepts must not be received by me as any final and authoritative law of morality4 ,but ,i meet opposition in a quarter from which ,i had least expected it2--from one who admits the imperfection of the morality actually attained by the apostles1 but avows that ,christianity1 as a divine system1 is not to be identified with apostolic doctrine1 but with the doctrine ultimately developed in the ,christian ,church2 moreover1 the ecclesiastical doctrine concerning slavery he alleges to be truer than mine1--,i mean1 truer than that which ,i have expounded as held by modern abolitionists4 ,he approves of the principle of claiming freedom1 not for men1 but for ,christians4 ,he says3 ,that ,christianity opened its arms at all to the servile class was enough2 for in its embrace was the sure promise of emancipation4444 ,is it imputed as a disgrace1 that ,christianity put conversion before manumission1 and brought them to ,god1 ere it trusted them with themselves8444 ,it created the simultaneous obligation to make the ,pagan a convert1 and the convert free4 444 ,if our author had made his attack from the opposite side1 and contended that its doctrines 'proved too much' against servitude1 and assumed with too little qualification the capacity of each man for self-rule1 we should have felt more hesitation in expressing our dissent4 ,i feel unfeigned surprize at these sentiments from one whom ,i so highly esteem and admire2 and considering that they were written at first anonymously1 and perhaps under pressure of time1 for a review1 ,i hope it is not presumptuous in me to think it possible that they are hasty1 and do not wholly express a deliberate and final judgment4 ,i must think there is some misunderstanding2 for ,i have made no high claims about capacity for self-rule1 as if laws and penalties were to be done away4 ,but the question is1 shall human beings1 who 7as all of us7 are imperfect1 be controlled by public law1 or by individual caprice8 ,was not my reviewer intending to advocate some form of serfdom which is compatible with legal rights1 and recognizes the serf as a man2 not slavery which pronounces him a chattel8 ,serfdom and apprenticeship we may perhaps leave to be reasoned down by economists and administrators2 slavery proper is what ,i attacked as essentially immoral4 ,returning then to the arguments1 ,i reason against them as if ,i did not know their author4--,i have distinctly avowed1 that the effort to liberate ,christian slaves was creditable3 ,i merely add1 that in this respect ,christianity is no better than ,mohammedism4 ,but is it really no moral fault1--is it not a moral enormity1--to deny that ,pagans have human rights8 ,that ,christianity opened its arms at all to the servile class1 was enough4 ,indeed6 ,then either unconverted men have no natural right to freedom1 or ,christians may withhold a natural right from them4 ,under the plea of bringing them to ,god1 ,christians are to deny by law1 to every slave who refuses to be converted1 the rights of husband and father1 rights of persons1 rights of property1 rights over his own body4 ,thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical converts1 and ,christian superiority a plea for depriving men of their dearest rights4 ,is not freedom older than ,christianity8 ,does the ,christian recommend his religion to a ,pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it8 ,truly1 if only ,christians have a right to personal freedom1 what harm is there in hunting and catching ,pagans to make slaves of them8 ,and this was exactly the development of thought and doctrine in the ,christian church4 ,the same priests who taught that ,christians have moral rights to their sinews and skin1 to their wives and children1 and to the fruit of their labour1 which ,pagans have not1 consistently developed the same fundamental idea of ,christian superiority into the lawfulness of making war upon the heathen1 and reducing them to the state of domestic animals4 ,if ,christianity is to have credit from the former1 it must also take the credit of the latter4 ,if cumulative evidence of its divine origin is found in the fact1 that ,christendom has liberated ,christian slaves1 must we forget the cumulative evidence afforded by the assumed right of the ,popes to carve out the countries of the heathen1 and bestow them with their inhabitants on ,christian powers8 ,both results flow logically out of the same assumption1 and were developed by the same school4 ,but1 ,i am told1 a man must not be freed1 until we have ascertained his capacity for self-rule6 ,this is indeed a tyrannical assumption3 vindicioe secundum servitutem4 ,men are not to have their human rights1 until we think they will not abuse them6 ,prevention is to be used against the hitherto innocent and injured6 ,the principle involves all that is arrogant1 violent1 and intrusive1 in military tyranny and civil espionage4 ,self-rule8 ,but abolitionists have no thought of exempting men from the penalties of common law1 if they transgress the law2 we only desire that all men shall be equally subjected to the law1 and equally protected by it4 ,it is truly a strange inference1 that because a man is possibly deficient in virtue1 therefore he shall not be subject to public law1 but to private caprice3 as if this were a school of virtue1 and not eminently an occasion of vice4 ,truer far is ,homer's morality1 who says1 that a man loses half his virtue on the day he is made a slave4 ,as to the pretence that slaves are not fit for freedom1 those ,englishmen who are old enough to remember the awful predictions which ,west ,indian planters used to pour forth about the bloodshed and confusion which would ensue1 if they were hindered by law from scourging black men and violating black women1 might1 ,i think1 afford to despise the danger of enacting that men and women shall be treated as men and women1 and not made tools of vice end victims of cruelty4 ,if ever sudden emancipation ought to have produced violences and wrong from the emancipated1 it was in ,jamaica1 where the oppression and ill-will was so great2 yet the freed blacks have not in fifteen years inflicted on the whites as much lawless violence as they suffered themselves in six months of apprenticeship4 ,it is the masters of slaves1 not the slaves1 who are deficient in self-rule2 and slavery is doubly detestable1 because it depraves the masters4 ,what degree of worldly moderation and economical forethought is needed by a practical statesman in effecting the liberation of slaves1 it is no business of mine to discuss4 ,i however feel assured1 that no constitutional statesman1 having to contend against the political votes of numerous and powerful slave-owners1 who believe their fortunes to be at stake1 will ever be found to undertake the task at all1 against the enormous resistance of avarice and habit1 unless religious teachers pierce the conscience of the nation by denouncing slavery as an essential wickedness4 ,even the petty ,west ,indian interests--a mere fraction of the ,english empire--were too powerful1 until this doctrine was taught4 ,mr4 ,canning in parliament spoke emphatically against slavery1 but did not dare to bring in a bill against it4 ,when such is ,english experience1 ,i cannot but expect the same will prove true in ,america4 ,in replying to objectors1 ,i have been carried beyond my narrative1 and have written from my present point of view2 ,i may therefore here complete this part of the argument1 though by anticipation4 ,the ,new ,testament has beautifully laid down ,truth and ,love as the culminating virtues of man2 but it has imperfectly discerned that ,love is impossible where ,justice does not go first4 ,regarding this world as destined to be soon burnt up1 it despaired of improving the foundations of society1 and laid down the principle of ,non-resistance1 even to ,injurious force1 in terms so unlimited1 as practically to throw its entire weight into the scale of tyranny4 ,it recognises individuals who call themselves kings or magistrates 7however tyrannical and usurping71 as ,powers ordained of ,god3 it does not recognize nations as ,communities ordained of ,god1 or as having any power and authority whatsoever1 as against pretentious individuals4 ,to obey a king1 is strenuously enforced2 to resist a usurping king1 in a patriotic cause1 is not contemplated in the ,new ,testament as under any circumstances an imaginable duty4 ,patriotism has no recognised existence in the ,christian records4 ,i am well aware of the cause of this2 ,i do not say that it reflects any dishonour on the ,christian apostles3 ,i merely remark on it as a calamitous fact1 and deduce that their precepts cannot and must not be made the sufficient rule of life1 or they will still be 7as they always have hitherto been7 a mainstay of tyranny4 ,the rights of ,men and of ,nations are wholly ignored#ag in the ,new ,testament1 but the authority of ,slave-owners and of ,kings is very distinctly recorded for solemn religious sanction4 ,if it had been wholly silent1 no one could have appealed to its decision3 but by consecrating mere ,force1 it has promoted ,injustice1 and in so far has made that ,love impossible1 which it desired to establish4 ,it is but one part of this great subject1 that the apostles absolutely command a slave to give obedience to his master in nil things1 as to the ,lord4 ,it is in vain to deny1 that the most grasping of slave-owners asks nothing more of abolitionists than that they would all adopt ,paul's creed2 viz41 acknowledge the full authority of owners of slaves1 tell them that they are responsible to ,god alone1 and charge them to use their power righteously and mercifully4 #c4 ,,lastly3 it is a lamentable fact1 that not only do superstitions about ,witches1 ,ghosts1 ,devils1 and ,diabolical ,miracles derive a strong support from the ,bible1 7and in fact have been exploded by nothing but the advance of physical philosophy17--but what is far worse1 the ,bible alone has nowhere sufficed to establish an enlightened religious toleration4 ,this is at first seemingly unintelligible3 for the apostles certainly would have been intensely shocked at the thought of punishing men1 in body1 purse1 or station1 for not being ,christians or not being orthodox4 ,nevertheless1 not only does the ,old ,testament justify bloody persecution1 but the ,new teaches#ah that ,god will visit men with fiery vengeance for holding an erroneous creed2--that vengeance indeed is his1 not ours2 but that still the punishment is deserved4 ,it would appear1 that wherever this doctrine is held1 possession of power for two or three generations inevitably converts men into persecutors2 and in so far1 we must lay the horrible desolations which ,europe has suffered from bigotry1 at the doors1 not indeed of the ,christian apostles themselves1 but of that ,bibliolatry which has converted their earliest records into a perfect and eternal law4 ,,iv4 ,prophecy is generally regarded as a leading evidence of the divine origin of ,christianity4 ,but this also had proved itself to me a more and more mouldering prop1 whether ,i leant on those which concerned ,messiah1 those of the ,new ,testament1 or the miscellaneous predictions of the ,old ,testament4 #a4 ,as to the ,messianic prophecies1 ,i began to be pressed with the difficulty of proving against the ,jews that ,messiah was to suffer4 ,the ,psalms generally adduced for this purpose can in no way be fixed on ,messiah4 ,the prophecy in the #ith chapter of ,daniel looks specious in the authorized ,english version1 but has evaporated in the ,greek translation and is not acknowledged in the best ,german renderings4 ,i still rested on the #ecrd chapter of ,isaiah1 as alone fortifying me against the ,rabbis3 yet with an unpleasantly increasing perception that the system of double interpretation in which ,christians indulge1 is a playing fast and loose with prophecy1 and is essentially dishonest ,no one dreams of a second sense until the primary sense proves false3 all false prophecy may be thus screened4 ,the three prophecies quoted 7,acts xiii4 #cc--ce7 in proof of the resurrection of ,jesus1 are simply puerile1 and deserve no reply4--,i felt there was something unsound in all this4 #b4 ,the prophecies of the ,new ,testament are not many4 ,first1 we have that of ,jesus in ,matt xxiv4 concerning the destruction of ,jerusalem4 ,it is marvellously exact1 down to the capture of the city and miserable enslavement of the population2 but at this point it becomes clearly and hopelessly false3 namely1 it declares1 that immediately after that tribulation1 the sun shall be darkened1 c4 c41 and then shall appear the sign of the ,son of ,man in heaven1 and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn1 and they shall see the ,son of ,man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory4 ,and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet1 and they shall gather together his elect1 c4 ,this is a manifest description of the ,great ,day of ,judgment3 and the prophecy goes on to add3 ,verily ,i say unto you1 ,this generation shall not pass1 till all these things be fulfilled4 ,when we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in the middle1 we have the well-known mark of its earlier part being written after the event3 and it becomes unreasonable to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this #bdth chapter of ,matthew1 were first composed very soon after the war of ,titus1 and never came from the lips of ,jesus at all4 ,next3 we have the prophecies of the ,apocalypse4 ,not one of these can be interpreted certainly of any human affairs1 except one in the #agth chapter1 which the writer himself has explained to apply to the emperors of ,rome3 and that is proved false by the event4--,farther1 we have ,paul's prophecies concerning the apostacy of the ,christian ,church4 ,these are very striking1 as they indicate his deep insight into the moral tendencies of the community in which he moved4 ,they are high testimonies to the prophetic soul of ,paul2 and as such1 ,i cannot have any desire to weaken their force4 ,but there is nothing in them that can establish the theory of supernaturalism1 in the face of his great mistake as to the speedy return of ,christ from heaven4 #c4 ,as for the ,old ,testament1 if all its prophecies about ,babylon and ,tyre and ,edom and ,ishmael and the four ,monarchies were both true and supernatural1 what would this prove8 ,that ,god had been pleased to reveal something of coming history to certain eminent men of ,hebrew antiquity4 ,that is all4 ,we should receive this conclusion with an otiose faith4 ,it could not order or authorize us to submit our souls and consciences to the obviously defective morality of the ,mosaic system in which these prophets lived2 and with ,christianity it has nothing to do4 ,at the same time ,i had reached the conclusion that large deductions must be made from the credit of these old prophecies4 ,first1 as to the ,book of ,daniel3 the #aath chapter is closely historical down to ,antiochus ,epiphanes1 after which it suddenly becomes false2 and according to different modern expositors1 leaps away to ,mark ,antony1 or to ,napoleon ,buonaparte1 or to the ,papacy4 ,hence we have a prima facie presumption that the book was composed in the reign of that ,antiochus2 nor can it be proved to have existed earlier3 nor is there in it one word of prophecy which can be shown to have been fulfilled in regard to any later era4 ,nay1 the #gth chapter also is confuted by the event2 for the great ,day of ,judgment has not followed upon the fourth#ai ,monarchy4 ,next1 as to the prophecies of the ,pentateuch4 ,they abound1 as to the times which precede the century of ,hezekiah2 higher than which we cannot trace the ,pentateuch4#bj ,no prophecy of the ,pentateuch can be proved to have been fulfilled1 which had not been already fulfilled before ,hezekiah's day4 ,thirdly1 as to the prophecies which concern various nations1--some of them are remarkably verified1 as that against ,babylon2 others failed1 as those of ,ezekiel concerning ,nebuchadnezzar's wars against ,tyre and ,egypt4 ,the fate predicted against ,babylon was delayed for five centuries1 so as to lose all moral meaning as a divine infliction on the haughty city4--,on the whole1 it was clear to me1 that it is a vain attempt to forge polemical weapons out of these old prophets1 for the service of modern creeds4#ba ,v4 ,my study of ,john's gospel had not enabled me to sustain ,dr4 ,arnold's view1 that it was an impregnable fortress of ,christianity4 ,in discussing the ,apocalypse1 ,i had long before felt a doubt whether we ought not rather to assign that book to ,john the apostle in preference to the ,gospel and ,epistles3 but this remained only as a doubt4 ,the monotony also of the ,gospel had often excited my wonder4 ,but ,i was for the first time offended1 on considering with a fresh mind an old fact1--the great similarity of the style and phraseology in the third chapter1 in the testimony of the ,baptist1 as well as in ,christ's address to ,nicodemus1 that of ,john's own epistle4 ,as the three first gospels have their family likeness1 which enables us on hearing a text to know that it comes out of one of the three1 though we perhaps know not which2 so is it with the ,gospel and ,epistles of ,john4 ,when a verse is read1 we know that it is either from an epistle of ,john1 or else from the ,jesus of ,john2 but often we cannot tell which4 ,on contemplating the marked character of this phenomenon1 ,i saw it infallibly#bb to indicate that ,john has made both the ,baptist and ,jesus speak1 as ,john himself would have spoken2 and that we cannot trust the historical reality of the discourses in the fourth gospel4 ,that narrative introduces an entirely new phraseology1 with a perpetual discoursing about the ,father and the ,son2 of which there is barely the germ in ,matthew3--and herewith a new doctrine concerning the heaven-descended personality of ,jesus4 ,that the divinity of ,christ cannot be proved from the three first gospels1 was confessed by the early ,church1 and is proved by the labouring arguments of the modern ,trinitarians4 ,what then can be dearer1 than that ,john has put into the mouth of ,jesus the doctrines of half a century later1 which he desired to recommend8 ,when this conclusion pressed itself first on my mind1 the name of ,strauss was only beginning to be known in ,england1 and ,i did not read his great work until years after ,i had come to a final opinion on this whole subject4 ,the contemptuous reprobation of ,strauss in which it is fashionable for ,english writers to indulge1 makes it a duty to express my high sense of the lucid force with which he unanswerably shows that the fourth gospel 7whoever the author was7 is no faithful exhibition of the discourses of ,jesus4 ,before ,i had discerned this so vividly in all its parts1 it had become quite certain to me that the secret colloquy with ,nicodemus1 and the splendid testimony of the ,baptist to the ,father and the ,son1 were wholly modelled out of ,john's own imagination4 ,and no sooner had ,i felt how severe was the shock to ,john's general veracity1 than a new and even graver difficulty rose upon me4 ,the stupendous and public event of ,lazarus's resurrection1--the circumstantial cross-examination of the man born blind and healed by ,jesus1--made those two miracles1 in ,dr4 ,arnold's view1 grand and unassailable bulwarks of ,christianity4 ,the more ,i considered them1 the mightier their superiority seemed to those of the other gospels4 ,they were wrought at ,jerusalem1 under the eyes of the rulers1 who did their utmost to detect them1 and could not2 but in frenzied despair1 plotted to kill ,lazarus4 ,how different from the frequently vague and wholesale statements of the other gospels concerning events which happened where no enemy was watching to expose delusion6 many of them in distant and uncertain localities4 ,but it became the more needful to ask2 ,how was it that the other writers omitted to tell of such decisive exhibitions8 ,were they so dull in logic1 as not to discern the superiority of these8 ,can they possibly have known of such miracles1 wrought under the eyes of the ,pharisees1 and defying all their malice1 and yet have told in preference other less convincing marvels8 ,the question could not be long dwelt on1 without eliciting the reply3 ,it is necessary to believe1 at least until the contrary shall be proved1 that the three first writers either had never heard of these two miracles1 or disbelieved them4 ,thus the account rests on the unsupported evidence of ,john1 with a weighty presumption against its truth4 ,when1 where1 and in what circumstances did ,john write8 ,it is agreed1 that he wrote half a century after the events2 when the other disciples were all dead2 when ,jerusalem was destroyed1 her priests and learned men dispersed1 her nationality dissolved1 her coherence annihilated2--he wrote in a tongue foreign to the ,jews of ,palestine1 and for a foreign people1 in a distant country1 and in the bosom of an admiring and confiding church1 which was likely to venerate him the more1 the greater marvels he asserted concerning their ,master4 ,he told them miracles of firstrate magnitude1 which no one before had recorded4 ,is it possible for me to receive them on his word1 under circumstances so conducive to delusion1 and without a single check to ensure his accuracy8 ,quite impossible2 when ,i have already seen how little to be trusted is his report of the discourses and doctrine of ,jesus4 ,but was it necessary to impute to ,john conscious and wilful deception8 ,by no means absolutely necessary2--as appeared by the following train#bc of thought4 ,john tells us that ,jesus promised the ,comforter1 to bring to their memory things that concerned him2 oh that one could have the satisfaction of cross-examining ,john on this subject6 ,let me suppose him put into the witness-box2 and ,i will speak to him thus3 ,o aged ,sir1 we understand that you have two memories1 a natural and a miraculous one3 with the former you retain events as other men2 with the latter you recall what had been totally forgotten4 ,be pleased to tell us now4 ,is it from your natural or from your supernatural memory that you derive your knowledge of the miracle wrought on ,lazarus and the long discourses which you narrate8 ,if to this question ,john were frankly to reply1 ,it is solely from my supernatural memory1--from the special action of the ,comforter on my mind3 then should ,i discern that he was perfectly truehearted4 ,yet ,i should also see1 that he was liable to mistake a reverie1 a meditation1 a day-dream1 for a resuscitation of his memory by the ,spirit4 ,in short1 a writer who believes such a doctrine1 and does not think it requisite to warn us how much of his tale comes from his natural1 and how much from his supernatural memory1 forfeits all claim to be received as an historian1 witnessing by the common senses to external fact4 ,his work may have religious value1 but it is that of a novel or romance1 not of a history4 ,it is therefore superfluous to name the many other difficulties in detail which it contains4 ,thus was ,i flung back to the three first gospels1 as1 with all their defects1--their genealogies1 dreams1 visions1 devil-miracles1 and prophecies written after the event1--yet on the whole1 more faithful as a picture of the true ,jesus1 than that which is exhibited in ,john4 ,and now my small root of supernaturalism clung the tighter to ,paul1 whose conversion still appeared to me a guarantee1 that there was at least some nucleus of miracle in ,christianity1 although it had not pleased ,god to give us any very definite and trustworthy account4 ,clearly it was an error1 to make miracles our foundation2 but might we not hold them as a result8 ,doctrine must be our foundation2 but perhaps we might believe the miracles for the sake of it4--,and in the epistles of ,paul ,i thought ,i saw various indications that he took this view4 ,the practical soundness of his eminently sober understanding had appeared to me the more signal1 the more ,i discerned the atmosphere of erroneous philosophy which he necessarily breathed4 ,but he also proved a broken reed1 when ,i tried really to lean upon him as a main support4 #a4 ,the first thing that broke on me concerning ,paul1 was1 that his moral sobriety of mind was no guarantee against his mistaking extravagances for miracle4 ,this was manifest to me in his treatment of the gift of tongues4 ,so long ago as in #ahcj1 when the ,irving miracles commenced in ,scotland1 my particular attention had been turned to this subject1 and the ,irvingite exposition of the ,pauline phenomena appeared to me so correct1 that ,i was vehemently predisposed to believe the miraculous tongues4 ,but my friend the ,irish clergyman wrote me a full account of what he heard with his own ears2 which was to the effect--that none of the sounds1 vowels or consonants1 were foreign2--that the strange words were moulded after the ,latin grammar1 ending in -abus1 -obus1 -ebat1 -avi1 c41 so as to denote poverty of invention rather than spiritual agency2--and that there was no interpretation4 ,the last point decided me1 that any belief which ,i had in it must be for the present unpractical4 ,soon after1 a friend of mine applied by letter for information as to the facts to a very acute and pious ,scotchman1 who had become a believer in these miracles4 ,the first reply gave us no facts whatever1 but was a declamatory exhortation to believe4 ,the second was nothing but a lamentation over my friend's unbelief1 because he asked again for the facts4 ,this showed me1 that there was excitement and delusion3 yet the general phenomena appeared so similar to those of the church of ,corinth1 that ,i supposed the persons must unawares have copied the exterior manifestations1 if1 after all1 there was no reality at bottom4 ,three years sufficed to explode these tongues2 and from time to time ,i had an uneasy sense1 how much discredit they cast on the ,corinthian miracles4 ,meander's discussion on the #bnd ,chapter of the ,acts first opened to me the certainty1 that ,luke 7or the authority whom he followed7 has exaggerated into a gift of languages what cannot have been essentially different from the ,corinthian1 and in short from the ,irvingite1 tongues4 ,thus ,luke's narrative has transformed into a splendid miracle1 what in ,paul is no miracle at all4 ,it is true that ,paul speaks of interpretation of tongues as possible1 but without a hint that any verification was to be used4 ,besides1 why should a ,greek not speak ,greek in an assembly of his own countrymen8 ,is it credible1 that the ,spirit should inspire one man to utter unintelligible sounds1 and a second to interpret these1 and then give the assembly endless trouble to find out whether the interpretation was pretence or reality1 when the whole difficulty was gratuitous8 ,we grant that there may be good reasons for what is paradoxical1 but we need the stronger proof that it is a reality4 ,yet what in fact is there8 and why should the gift of tongues in ,corinth1 as described by ,paul1 be treated with more respect than in ,newman ,street1 ,london8 ,i could find no other reply1 than that ,paul was too sober-minded3 yet his own description of the tongues is that of a barbaric jargon1 which makes the church appear as if it were mad1 and which is only redeemed from contempt by miraculous interpretation4 ,in the ,acts we see that this phenomenon pervaded all the ,churches2 from the day of ,pentecost onward it was looked on as the standard mark of the descent of the ,holy ,spirit2 and in the conversion of ,cornelius it was the justification of ,peter for admitting uncircumcised ,gentiles3 yet not once is interpretation alluded to1 except in ,paul's epistle4 ,paul could not go against the whole ,church4 ,he held a logic too much in common with the rest1 to denounce the tongues as mere carnal excitement2 but he does anxiously degrade them as of lowest spiritual value1 and wholly prohibits them where there is no interpreter4 ,to carry out this rule1 would perhaps have suppressed them entirely4 ,this however showed me1 that ,i could not rest on ,paul's practical wisdom1 as securing him against speculative hallucinations in the matter of miracles2 for indeed he says3 ,i thank my ,god1 that ,i speak with tongues more than ye all4 #b4 ,to another broad fact ,i had been astonishingly blind1 though the truth of it flashed upon me as soon as ,i heard it named2--that ,paul shows total unconcern to the human history and earthly teaching of ,jesus1 never quoting his doctrine or any detail of his actions4 ,the ,christ with whom ,paul held communion was a risen1 ascended1 exalted ,lord1 a heavenly being1 who reigned over arch-angels1 and was about to appear as ,judge of the world3 but of ,jesus in the flesh ,paul seems to know nothing beyond the bare fact that he did#bd humble himself to become man1 and pleased not himself4 ,even in the very critical controversy about meat and drink1 ,paul omits to quote ,christ's doctrine1 ,not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man1 c4 ,he surely1 therefore1 must have been wholly and contentedly ignorant of the oral teachings of ,jesus4 #c4 ,this threw a new light on the independent position of ,paul4 ,that he anxiously refused to learn from the other apostles1 and conferred not with flesh and blood1--not having received his gospel of many but by the revelation of ,jesus ,christ--had seemed to me quite suitable to his high pretensions4 ,any novelties which might be in his doctrine1 ,i had regarded as mere developments1 growing out of the common stem1 and guaranteed by the same ,spirit4 ,but ,i now saw that this independence invalidated his testimony4 ,he may be to us a supernatural1 but he certainly is not a natural1 witness to the truth of ,christ's miracles and personality4 ,it avails not to talk of the opportunities which he had of searching into the truth of the resurrection of ,christ1 for we see that he did not choose to avail himself of the common methods of investigation4 ,he learned his gospel by an internal revelation4#be ,he even recounts the appearance of ,christ to him1 years after his ascension1 as evidence co-ordinate to his appearance to ,peter and to ,james1 and to #ejj brethren at once4 #a ,cor4 xv4 ,again the thought is forced on us1--how different was his logic from ours6 ,to see the full force of the last remark1 we ought to conceive how many questions a ,paley would have wished to ask of ,paul2 and how many details ,paley himself1 if he had had the sight1 would have felt it his duty to impart to his readers4 ,had ,paul ever seen ,jesus when alive8 ,how did he recognize the miraculous apparition to be the person whom ,pilate had crucified8 ,did he see him as a man in a fleshly body1 or as a glorified heavenly form8 ,was it in waking1 or sleeping1 and if the latter1 how did he distinguish his divine vision from a common dream8 ,did he see only1 or did he also handle8 ,if it was a palpable man of flesh1 how did he assure himself that it was a person risen from the dead1 and not an ordinary living man8 ,now as ,paul is writing specially#bf to convince the incredulous or to confirm the wavering1 it is certain that he would have dwelt on these details1 if he had thought them of value to the argument4 ,as he wholly suppresses them1 we must infer that he held them to be immaterial2 and therefore that the evidence with which he was satisfied1 in proof that a man was risen from the dead1 was either totally different in kind from that which we should now exact1 or exceedingly inferior in rigour4 ,it appears1 that he believed in the resurrection of ,christ1 first1 on the ground of prophecy3#bg secondly1 7,i feel it is not harsh or bold to add17 on very loose and wholly unsifted testimony4 ,for since he does not afford to us the means of sifting and analyzing his testimony1 he cannot have judged it our duty so to do2 and therefore is not likely himself to have sifted very narrowly the testimony of others4 ,conceive farther how a ,paley would have dealt with so astounding a fact1 so crushing an argument as the appearance of the risen ,jesus to #ejj brethren at once4 ,how would he have extravagated and revelled in proof6 ,how would he have worked the topic1 that this could have been no dream1 no internal impression1 no vain fancy1 but a solid indubitable fact6 ,how he would have quoted his authorities1 detailed their testimonies1 and given their names and characters6 ,yet ,paul dispatches the affair in one line1 gives no details and no special declarations1 and seems to see no greater weight in this decisive appearance1 than in the vision to his single self4 ,he expects us to take his very vague announcement of the #ejj brethren as enough1 and it does not seem to occur to him that his readers 7if they need to be convinced7 are entitled to expect fuller information4 ,thus if ,paul does not intentionally supersede human testimony1 he reduces it to its minimum of importance4 ,how can ,i believe at second hand1 from the word of one whom ,i discern to hold so lax notions of evidence8 ,yet who of the ,christian teachers was superior to ,paul8 ,he is regarded as almost the only educated man of the leaders4 ,of his activity of mind1 his moral sobriety1 his practical talents1 his profound sincerity1 his enthusiastic self-devotion1 his spiritual insight1 there is no question3 but when his notions of evidence are infected with the errors of his age1 what else can we expect of the eleven1 and of the multitude8 #d4 ,paul's neglect of the earthly teaching of ,jesus might in part be imputed to the nonexistence of written documents and the great difficulty of learning with certainty what he really had taught4--,this agreed perfectly well with what ,i already saw of the untrustworthiness of our gospels2 but it opened a chasm between the doctrine of ,jesus and that of ,paul1 and showed that ,paulinism1 however good in itself1 is not assuredly to be identified with primitive ,christianity4 ,moreover1 it became clear1 why ,james and ,paul are so contrasted4 ,james retains with little change the traditionary doctrine of the ,jerusalem ,christians2 ,paul has superadded or substituted a gospel of his own4 ,this was1 ,i believe1 pointedly maintained #be years ago by the author of ,not ,paul1 but ,jesus2 a book which ,i have never read4 ,,vii4 ,i had now to ask1--,where are the twelve men of whom ,paley talks1 as testifying to the resurrection of ,christ8 ,paul cannot be quoted as a witness1 but only as a believer4 ,of the twelve we do not even know the names1 much less have we their testimony4 ,of ,james and ,jude there are two epistles1 but it is doubtful whether either of these is of the twelve apostles2 and neither of them declare themselves eyewitnesses to ,christ's resurrection4 ,in short1 ,peter and ,john are the only two4 ,of these however1 ,peter does not attest the bodily1 but only the spiritual1 resurrection of ,jesus2 for he says that ,christ was#bh put to death in flesh1 but made alive in spirit1 #a ,pet iii4 #ah3 yet if this verse had been lost1 his opening address 7i4 #c7 would have seduced me into the belief that ,peter taught the bodily resurrection of ,jesus4 ,so dangerous is it to believe miracles1 on the authority of words quoted from a man whom we cannot cross-examine6 ,thus1 once more1 ,john is left alone in his testimony2 and how insufficient that is1 has been said4 ,the question also arose1 whether ,peter's testimony to the transfiguration 7#b ,pet4 i4 #ah71 was an important support4 ,a first objection might be drawn from the sleep ascribed to the three disciples in the gospels2 if the narrative were at all trustworthy4 ,but a second and greater difficulty arises in the doubtful authenticity of the second ,epistle of ,peter4 ,neander positively decides against that epistle4 ,among many reasons1 the similarity of its second chapter to the ,epistle of ,jude is a cardinal fact4 ,jude is supposed to be original2 yet his allusions show him to be post-apostolic4 ,if so1 the second ,epistle of ,peter is clearly spurious4--,whether this was certain1 ,i could not make up my mind3 but it was manifest that where such doubts may be honestly entertained1 no basis exists to found a belief of a great and significant miracle4 ,on the other hand1 both the ,transfiguration itself1 and the fiery destruction of ,heaven and ,earth prophesied in the third chapter of this epistle1 are open to objections so serious1 as mythical imaginations1 that the name of ,peter will hardly guarantee them to those with whom the general evidence for the miracles in the gospels has thoroughly broken down4 ,on the whole1 one thing only was clear concerning ,peter's faith2--that he1 like ,paul1 was satisfied with a kind of evidence for the resurrection of ,jesus which fell exceedingly short of the demands of modern logic3 and that it is absurd in us to believe1 barely because they believed4 ,footnote #a3 ,matt4 xii4 #ci1 xvi4 #d4 ,footnote #b3 ,john xx4 #bi4 ,footnote #c3 ,john xiv1 #aa4 ,in x4 #cg1 #ch1 the same idea seems to be intended4 ,so xv4 #bd4 ,footnote #d3 ,a reviewer erroneously treats this as inculcating a denial of the possibility of inward revelation4 ,it merely says1 that some answer in needed to these questions2 and none in given4 ,we can make out 7in my opinion7 that dreams and inward impressions were the form of suggestion trusted to2 but we do not learn what precautions were used against foolish credulity4 ,footnote #e3 ,if miracles were vouchsafed on the scale of a new sense1 it is of course conceivable that they would reveal new masses of fact1 tending to modify our moral judgments of particular actions3 but nothing of this can be made out in ,judaism or ,christianity4 ,footnote #f3 ,a friendly reviewer derides this passage as a very feeble objection to the doctrine of the ,absolute ,moral perfections of ,jesus4 ,it in here rather feebly stated1 because at that period ,i had not fully worked out the thought4 ,he seems to have forgotten that ,i am narrating4 ,footnote #g3 ,an ingenious gentleman1 well versed in history1 has put forth a volume called ,the ,restoration of ,faith1 in which he teaches that ,i have no right to a conscience or to a ,god1 until ,i adopt his historical conclusions4 ,i leave his co-religionists to confute his portentous heresy2 but in fact it is already done more than enough in a splendid article of the ,westminster ,review1 ,july1 #aheb4 ,footnote #h3 ,i seem to have been understood now to say that a knowledge of the ,bible was not a pre-requisite of the ,protestant ,reformation4 ,what ,i say is1 that at this period ,i learned the study of the ,classics to have caused and determined that it should then take place2 moreover1 ,i say that a free study of other books than sacred ones is essential1 and always was1 to conquer superstition4 ,footnote #i3 ,i am asked why ,italy witnessed no improvement of spiritual doctrine4 ,the reply is1 that she did4 ,the ,evangelical movement there was quelled only by the ,imperial arms and the ,inquisition4 ,i am also asked why ,pagan ,literature did not save the ancient church from superstition4 ,i have always understood that the vast majority of ,christian teachers during the decline were unacquainted with ,pagan literature1 and that the ,church at an early period forbade it4 ,footnote #aj3 ,my friend ,james ,martineau1 who insists that a self-sustaining power in a religion is a thing intrinsically inconceivable1 need not have censured me for coming to the conclusion that it does not exist in ,christianity4 ,in fact1 ,i entirely agree with him2 but at the time of which ,i here write1 ,i had only taken the first step in his direction2 and ,i barely drew a negative conclusion1 to which he perfectly assents4 ,to my dear friend's capacious and kindling mind1 all the thought here expounded are prosaic and common2 being to him quite obvious1 so far as they are true4 ,he is right in looking down upon them2 and1 ,i trust1 by his aid1 ,i have added to my wisdom since the time of which ,i write4 ,yet they were to me discoveries once1 and he must not be displeased at my making much of them in this connexion4 ,footnote #aa3 ,it is the fault of my critics that ,i am forced to tell the reader this is exhibited in my ,hebrew ,monarchy4 ,footnote #ab3 ,it in not to the purpose to urge the political minority of the ,roman wife4 ,this was a mere inference from the high power of the bond of the husband4 ,the father had right of death over his son1 and 7as the lawyers stated the case71 the wife was on the level of one of the children4 ,footnote #ac3 #a ,cor4 vii4 #b-i ,footnote #ad3 ,namely1 in the ,armenian1 ,syrian1 and ,greek churches1 and in the ,romish church in exact proportion as ,germanic and poetical influences have been repressed2 that is1 in proportion as the hereditary ,christian doctrine has been kept pure from modern innovations4 ,footnote #ae3 ,in a tract republished from the ,northampton ,mercury ,longman1 #ahec4 ,footnote #af3 ,the ,romans practised fornication at pleasure1 and held it ridiculous to blame them4 ,if ,paul had claimed authority to hinder them1 they might have been greatly exasperated2 but they had not the least objection to his denouncing fornication as immoral to ,christians4 ,why not slavery also8 ,footnote #ag3 ,i fear it cannot be denied that the zeal for ,christianity which began to arise in our upper classes sixty years ago1 was largely prompted by a feeling that its precepts repress all speculations concerning the rights of man4 ,a similar cause now influences despots all over ,europe4 ,the ,old ,testament contains the elements which they dread1 and those gave a political creed to our ,puritans4 ,footnote #ah3 ,more than one critic flatly denies the fact4 ,it is sufficient for me here to say1 that such is the obvious interpretation1 and such historically has been the interpretation of various texts1--for instance1 #b ,thess4 i4 #g3 ,the ,lord ,jesus shall be revealed444 in flaming fire1 taking vengeance on them that know not ,god1 and that obey not the ,gospel2 who shall be punished with everlasting destruction1 c4 ,such again is the sense which all popular minds receive and must receive from ,heb1 x4 #be-ca4--;,i am willing to change teaches into has always been understood to teach1 if my critics think anything is gained by it4 ,footnote #ai3 ,the four monarchies in chapters ii4 and vii1 are1 probably1 the ,babylonian1 the ,median1 the ,persian1 the ,macedonian4 ,interpreters however blend the ,medes and ,persians into one1 and then pretend that the ,roman empire is still in existence4 ,footnote #bj3 ,the first apparent reference is by ,micah 7vi4 #e7 a contemporary of ,hezekiah2 which proves that an account contained in our ,book of ,numbers was already familiar4 ,footnote #ba3 ,i have had occasion to discuss most of the leading prophecies of the ,old ,testament in my ,hebrew ,monarchy4 ,footnote #bb3 ,a critic is pleased to call this a mere suspicion of my own2 in so writing1 people simply evade my argument4 ,i do not ask them to adopt my conviction2 ,i merely communicate it as mine1 and wish them to admit that it is my duty to follow my own conviction4 ,it is with me no mere suspicion1 but a certainty4 ,when they cannot possibly give1 or pretend1 any proof that the long discourses of the fourth gospel have been accurately reported1 they ought to be less supercilious in their claims of unlimited belief4 ,if it is right for them to follow their judgment on a purely literary question1 let them not carp at me for following mine4 ,footnote #bc3 ,i am told that this defence of ,john is fanciful4 ,it satisfies me provisionally2 but ,i do not hold myself bound to satisfy others1 or to explain ,john's delusiveness4 ,footnote #bd3 ,phil4 ii4 #e-h2 ,rom4 xv4 #c4 ,the last suggests it was from the ,psalms 7viz from ,ps4 lxix4 #i7 that ,paul learned the fact that ,christ pleased not himself4 ,footnote #be3 ,here1 again1 ,i have been erroneously understood to say that there cannot be any internal revelation of anything4 ,internal truth may be internally communicated1 though even so it does not become authoritative1 or justify the receiver in saying to other men1 ,believe1 for ,i guarantee it4 ,but a man who1 on the strength of an internal revelation believes an external event1 7past1 present1 or future17 is not a valid witness of it4 ,not ,paley only1 nor ,priestley1 but ,james ,martineau also1 would disown his pretence to authority2 and the more so1 the more imperious his claim that we believe on his word4 ,footnote #bf3 ,this appears in v4 #b1 by which ye are saved1--unless ye have believed in vain c4 ,so v4 #ag-ai4 ,footnote #bg3 #a ,cor4 xv4 ,he rose again the third day according to the ,scriptures4 ,this must apparently be a reference to ,hosea vi4 #b1 to which the margin of the ,bible refers4 ,there is no other place in the existing ,old ,testament from which we can imagine him to have elicited the rising on the third day4 ,some refer to the type of ,jonah4 ,either of the two suggests how marvellously weak a proof satiated him4 ,footnote #bh3 ,such is the most legitimate translation4 ,that in the received version is barely a possible meaning4 ,there is no such distinction of prepositions as in and by in this passage4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,history ,,discovered ,,to ,,be ,,no ,,part ,,of ,,religion4 ,after renouncing any ,canon of ,scripture or ,sacred ,letter at the end of my fourth period1 ,i had been forced to abandon all ,second-hand ,faith by the end of my fifth4 ,if asked why ,i believed this or that1 ,i could no longer say1 ,because ,peter1 or ,paul1 or ,john believed1 and ,i may thoroughly trust that they cannot mistake4 ,the question now pressed hard1 whether this was equivalent to renouncing ,christianity4 ,undoubtedly1 my positive belief in its miracles had evaporated2 but ,i had not arrived at a positive disbelief4 ,i still felt the actual benefits and comparative excellencies of this religion too remarkable a phenomenon to be scored for defect of proof4 ,in ,morals likewise it happens1 that the ablest practical expounders of truth may make strange blunders as to the foundations and ground of belief3 why was this impossible as to the apostles8 ,meanwhile1 it did begin to appear to myself remarkable1 that ,i continued to love and have pleasure in so much that ,i certainly disbelieved4 ,i perused a chapter of ,paul or of ,luke1 or some verses of a hymn1 and although they appeared to me to abound with error1 ,i found satisfaction and profit in them4 ,why was this8 was it all fond prejudice1--an absurd clinging to old associations8 ,a little self-examination enabled me to reply1 that it was no ill-grounded feeling or ghost of past opinions2 but that my religion always had been1 and still was1 a state of sentiment toward ,god1 far less dependent on articles of a creed1 than once ,i had unhesitatingly believed4 ,the ,bible is pervaded by a sentiment1#a which is implied everywhere1--viz4 the intimate sympathy of the ,pure and ,perfect ,god with the heart of each faithful worshipper4 ,this is that which is wanting in ,greek philosophers1 ,english ,deists1 ,german ,pantheists1 and all formalists4 ,this is that which so often edifies me in ,christian writers and speakers1 when ,i ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences4 ,accordingly1 though ,i saw more and more of moral and spiritual imperfection in the ,bible1 ,i by no means ceased to regard it as a quarry whence ,i might dig precious metal1 though the ore needed a refining analysis3 and ,i regarded this as the truest essence and most vital point in ,christianity1--to sympathize with the great souls from whom its spiritual eminence has flowed2--to love1 to hope1 to rejoice1 to trust with them2--and not1 to form the same interpretations of an ancient book and to take the same views of critical argument4 ,my historical conception of ,jesus had so gradually melted into dimness1 that he had receded out of my practical religion1 ,i knew not exactly when ,i believe that ,i must have disused any distinct prayers to him1 from a growing opinion that he ought not to be the object of worship1 but only the way by whom we approach to the ,father2 and as in fact we need no such way at all1 this was 7in the result7 a change from practical ,ditheism to pure ,theism4 ,his mediation was to me always a mere name1 and1 as ,i believe1 would otherwise have been mischievous4#b--,simultaneously a great uncertainty had grown on me1 how much of the discourses put into the mouth of ,jesus was really uttered by him2 so that ,i had in no small measure to form him anew to my imagination4 ,but if religion is addressed to1 and must be judged by1 our moral faculties1 how could ,i believe in that painful and gratuitous personality1--,the ,devil8--,he also had become a waning phantom to me1 perhaps from the time that ,i saw the demoniacal miracles to be fictions1 and still more when proofs of manifold mistake in the ,new ,testament rose on me4 ,this however took a solid form of positive disbelief1 when ,i investigated the history of the doctrine1--,i forget exactly in what stage4 ,for it is manifest1 that the old ,hebrews believed only in evil spirits sent by ,god to do his bidding1 and had no idea of a rebellious ,spirit that rivalled ,god4 ,that idea was first imbibed in the ,babylonish captivity1 and apparently therefore must have been adopted from the ,persian ,ahriman1 or from the ,melek ,taous1 the ,sheitan still honoured by the ,yezidi with mysterious fear4 ,that the serpent in the early part of ,genesis denoted the same ,satan1 is probable enough2 but this only goes to show1 that that narrative is a legend imported from farther ,east2 since it is certain that the subsequent ,hebrew literature has no trace of such an ,ahriman4 ,the ,book of ,tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters the exiles in ,nineveh were beginning to be4 ,the ,book of ,daniel manifests1 that by the time of ,antiochus ,epiphanes the ,jews had learned each nation to have its guardian spirit1 good or evil2 and that the fates of nations depend on the invisible conflict of these tutelary powers4 ,in ,paul the same idea is strongly brought out4 ,satan is the prince of the power of the air2 with principalities and powers beneath him2 over all of whom ,christ won the victory on his cross4 ,in the ,apocalypse we read the ,oriental doctrine of the seven angels who stand before ,god4 ,as the ,christian tenet thus rose among the ,jews from their contact with ,eastern superstition1 and was propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute1 it cannot be ascribed to divine supernatural revelation as the source4 ,the ground of it is dearly seen in infant speculations on the cause of moral evil and of national calamities4 ,thus ,christ and the ,devil1 the two poles of ,christendom1 had faded away out of my spiritual vision2 there were left the more vividly1 ,god and ,man4 ,yet ,i had not finally renounced the possibility1 that ,jesus might have had a divine mission to stimulate all our spiritual faculties1 and to guarantee to us a future state of existence4 ,the abstract arguments for the immortality of the soul had always appeared to me vain trifling2 and ,i was deeply convinced that nothing could assure us of a future state but a divine communication4 ,in what mode this might be made1 ,i could not say priori3 might not this really be the great purport of ,messiahship8 was not this1 if any1 a worthy ground for a divine interference8 ,on the contrary1 to heal the sick did not seem at all an adequate motive for a miracle2 else1 why not the sick of our own day8 ,credulity had exaggerated1 and had represented ,jesus to have wrought miracles3 but that did not wholly disprove the miracle of resurrection 7whether bodily or of whatever kind71 said to have been wrought by ,god upon him1 and of which so very intense a belief so remarkably propagated itself4 ,paul indeed believed it#c from prophecy2 and1 as we see this to be a delusion1 resting on ,rabbinical interpretations1 we may perhaps account thus for the belief of the early church1 without in any way admitting the fact4--,here1 however1 ,i found ,i had the clue to my only remaining discussion1 the primitive ,jewish controversy4 ,let us step back to an earlier stage than ,john's or ,paul's or ,peter's doctrine4 ,we cannot doubt that ,jesus claimed to be ,messiah3 what then was ,messiah to be8 and1 did ,jesus 7though misrepresented by his disciples7 truly fulfil his own claims8 ,the really ,messianic prophecies appeared to me to be far fewer than is commonly supposed4 ,i found such in the #ith and #aath of ,isaiah1 the #eth of ,micah1 the #ith of ,zechariah1 in the #gbnd ,psalm1 in the #cgth of ,ezekiel1 and1 as ,i supposed1 in the #ejth and #ecrd of ,isaiah4 ,to these nothing of moment could be certainly added2 for the passage in ,dan4 ix4 is ill-translated in the ,english version1 and ,i had already concluded that the ,book of ,daniel is a spurious fabrication4 ,from ,micah and ,ezekiel it appeared1 that ,messiah was to come from ,bethlehem and either be ,david himself1 or a spiritual ,david3 from ,isaiah it is shown that he is a rod out of the stem of ,jesse4--,it is true1 ,i found no proof that ,jesus did come from ,bethlehem or from the stock of ,david2 for the tales in ,matthew and ,luke refute one another1 and have clearly been generated by a desire to verify the prophecy4 ,but genealogies for or against ,messiahship seemed to me a mean argument2 and the fact of the prophets demanding a carnal descent in ,messiah struck me as a worse objection than that ,jesus had not got it1--if this could be ever proved4 ,the ,messiah of ,micah1 however1 was not ,jesus2 for he was to deliver ,israel from the ,assyrians1 and his whole description is literally warlike4 ,micah1 writing when the name of ,sennacherib was terrible1 conceived of a powerful monarch on the throne of ,david who was to subdue him3 but as this prophecy was not verified1 the imaginary object of it was looked for as ,messiah1 even after the disappearance of the formidable ,assyrian power4 ,this undeniable vanity of ,micah's prophecy extends itself also to that in the #ith chapter of his contemporary ,isaiah1--if indeed that splendid passage did not really point at the child ,hezekiah4 ,waiving this doubt1 it is at any rate clear that the marvellous child on the throne of ,david was to break the yoke of the oppressive ,assyrian2 and none of the circumstantials are at all appropriate to the historical ,jesus4 ,in the #cgth of ,ezekiel the 7new7 ,david is to gather ,judah and ,israel from the heathen whither they be gone and to make them one nation in the land1 on the mountains of ,israel3 and ,jehovah adds1 that they shall dwell in the land which ,i gave unto ,jacob my servant1 wherein your fathers dwelt3 and they shall dwell therein1 they and their children and their children's children for ever3 and my servant ,david shall be their prince for ever4 ,it is trifling to pretend that the land promised to ,jacob1 and in which the old ,jews dwelt1 was a spiritual1 and not the literal ,palestine2 and therefore it is impossible to make out that ,jesus has fulfilled any part of this representation4 ,the description however that follows 7,ezekiel xl4 c47 of the new city and temple1 with the sacrifices offered by the priests the ,levites1 of the seed of ,zadok1 and the gate of the sanctuary for the prince 7xliv4 #c71 and his elaborate account of the borders of the land 7xlviii4 #ac-bc71 place the earnestness of ,ezekiel's literalism in still clearer light4 ,the #gbnd ,psalm1 by the splendour of its predictions concerning the grandeur of some future king of ,judah1 earns the title of ,messianic1 because it was never fulfilled by any historical king4 ,but it is equally certain1 that it has had no appreciable fulfilment in ,jesus4 ,but what of the #aath of ,isaiah8 ,its portraiture is not so much that of a king1 as of a prophet endowed with superhuman power4 ,he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth1 and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked4 ,a ,paradisiacal state is to follow4--,this general description may be verified by ,jesus hereafter2 but we have no manifestation1 which enables us to call the fulfilment a fact4 ,indeed1 the latter part of the prophecy is out of place for a time so late as the reign of ,augustus2 which forcibly denotes that ,isaiah was predicting only that which was his immediate political aspiration3 for in this great day of ,messiah1 ,jehovah is to gather back his dispersed people from ,assyria1 ,egypt1 and other parts2 he is to reconcile ,judah and ,ephraim1 7who had been perfectly reconciled centuries before ,jesus was born17 and as a result of this ,messianic glory1 the people of ,israel shall fly upon the shoulders of the ,philistines towards the west2 they shall spoil them of the east together3 they shall lay their hand on ,edom and ,moab1 and the children of ,ammon shall obey them4 ,but ,philistines1 ,moab and ,ammon1 were distinctions entirely lost before the ,christian era4--,finally1 the ,red ,sea is to be once more passed miraculously by the ,israelites1 returning 7as would seem7 to their fathers' soil4 ,take all these particulars together1 and the prophecy is neither fulfilled in the past nor possible to be fulfilled in the future4 ,the prophecy which we know as ,zechariah ix4-xi4 is believed to be really from a prophet of uncertain name1 contemporaneous with ,isaiah4 ,it was written while ,ephraim was still a people1 i4e4 before the capture of ,samaria by ,shalmanezer2 and xi4 #a-c appears to howl over the recent devastations of ,tiglathpilezer4 ,the prophecy is throughout full of the politics of that day4 ,no part of it has the most remote or imaginable#d similarity to the historical life of ,jesus1 except that he once rode into ,jerusalem on an ass2 a deed which cannot have been peculiar to him1 and which ,jesus moreover appears to have planned with the express#e purpose of assimilating himself to the lowly king here described4 ,yet such an isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly fulfilment4 ,to ride on an ass is no mark of humility in those who must ordinarily go on foot4 ,the prophet clearly means that the righteous king is not to ride on a warhorse and trust in cavalry1 as ,solomon and the ,egyptians1 7see ,ps4 xx4 #g4 ,is4 xxxi4 #a-c1 xxx4 #af17 but is to imitate the lowliness of ,david and the old judges1 who rode on young asses2 and is to be a lover of peace4 ,chapters #ej and #ec of the pseudo-,isaiah remained2 which contain many phrases so aptly descriptive of the sufferings of ,christ1 and so closely knit up with our earliest devotional associations1 that they were the very last link of my chain that snapt4 ,still1 ,i could not conceal from myself1 that no exactness in this prophecy1 however singular1 could avail to make out that ,jesus was the ,messiah of ,hezekiah's prophets4 ,there must be some explanation2 and if ,i did not see it1 that must probably arise from prejudice and habit4--,in order therefore to gain freshness1 ,i resolved to peruse the entire prophecy of the pseudo-,isaiah in ,lowth's version1 from ch4 xl4 onward1 at a single sitting4 ,this prophet writes from ,babylon1 and has his vision full of the approaching restoration of his people by ,cyrus1 whom he addresses by name4 ,in ch4 xliii4 he introduces to us an eminent and chosen servant of ,god1 whom he invests with all the evangelical virtues1 and declares that he is to be a light to the ,gentiles4 ,in ch4 xliv4 7v4 #a--;also v4 #ba7 he is named as ,jacob my servant1 and ,israel whom ,i have chosen4 ,the appellations recur in xlv4 #d3 and in a far more striking passage1 xlix4 #a-ab1 which is eminently ,messianic to the ,christian ear1 except that in v4 #c1 the speaker distinctly declares himself to be 7not ,messiah1 but7 ,israel4 ,the same speaker continues in ch4 l41 which is equally ,messianic in sound4 ,in ch4 lii4 the prophet speaks of him1 7vv4 #ac-ae7 but the subject of the chapter is restoration from ,babylon2 and from this he runs on into the celebrated ch4 liii4 ,it is essential to understand the same elect servant all along4 ,he is many times called ,israel1 and is often addressed in a tone quite inapplicable to ,messiah1 viz4 as one needing salvation himself2 so in ch4 xliii4 ,yet in ch4 xlix4 this elect ,israel is distinguished from ,jacob and ,israel at large3 thus there is an entanglement4 ,who can be called on to risk his eternal hopes on his skilful unknotting of it8 ,it appeared however to me most probable1 that as our high ,churchmen distinguish mother ,church from the individuals who compose the ,church1 so the ,israel of this prophecy is the idealizing of the ,jewish ,church2 which ,i understood to be a current ,jewish interpretation4 ,the figure perhaps embarrasses us1 only because of the male sex attributed to the ideal servant of ,god2 for when ,zion is spoken of by the same prophet in the same way1 no one finds difficulty1 or imagines that a female person of superhuman birth and qualities must be intended4 ,it still remained strange that in ,isaiah liii4 and ,pss4 xxii4 and lxix4 there should be coincidences so close with the sufferings of ,jesus3 but ,i reflected1 that ,i had no proof that the narrative had not been strained by credulity1#f to bring it into artificial agreement with these imagined predictions of his death4 ,and herewith my last argument in favour of views for which ,i once would have laid down my life1 seemed to be spent4 ,nor only so3 but ,i now reflected that the falsity of the prophecy in ,dan4 vii4 7where the coming of a ,son of ,man to sit in universal judgment follows immediately upon the break-up of the ,syrian monarchy17--to say nothing of the general proof of the spuriousness of the whole ,book of ,daniel1--ought perhaps long ago to have been seen by me as of more cardinal importance4 ,for if we believe anything at all about the discourses of ,christ1 we cannot doubt that he selected ,son of ,man as his favourite title2 which admits no interpretation so satisfactory1 as1 that he tacitly refers to the seventh chapter of ,daniel1 and virtually bases his pretensions upon it4 ,on the whole1 it was no longer defect of proof ,which presented itself1 but positive disproof of the primitive and fundamental claim4 ,i could not for a moment allow weight to the topic1 that it is dangerous to disbelieve wrongly2 for ,i felt1 and had always felt1 that it gave a premium to the most boastful and tyrannizing superstition3--as if it were not equally dangerous to believe wrongly6 ,nevertheless1 ,i tried to plead for farther delay1 by asking3 ,is not the subject too vast for me to decide upon8--,think how many wise and good men have fully examined1 and have come to a contrary conclusion4 ,what a grasp of knowledge and experience of the human mind it requires6 ,perhaps too ,i have unawares been carried away by a love of novelty1 which ,i have mistaken for a love of truth4 ,but the argument recoiled upon me4 ,have ,i not been #be years a reader of the ,bible8 have ,i not full #ah years been a student of ,theology8 have ,i not employed #g of the best years of my life1 with ample leisure1 in this very investigation2--without any intelligible earthly bribe to carry me to my present conclusion1 against all my interests1 all my prejudices and all my education8 ,there are many far more learned men than ,i1--many men of greater power of mind2 but there are also a hundred times as many who are my inferiors2 and if ,i have been seven years labouring in vain to solve this vast literary problem1 it is an extreme absurdity to imagine that the solving of it is imposed by ,god on the whole human race4 ,let me renounce my little learning2 let me be as the poor and simple3 what then follows8 ,why1 then1 still the same thing follows1 that difficult literary problems concerning distant history cannot afford any essential part of my religion4 ,it is with hundreds or thousands a favourite idea1 that they have an inward witness of the truth of 7the historical and outward facts of7 ,christianity4 ,perhaps the statement would bring its own refutation to them1 if they would express it clearly4 ,suppose a biographer of ,sir ,isaac ,newton1 after narrating his sublime discoveries and ably stating some of his most remarkable doctrines1 to add1 that ,sir ,isaac was a great magician1 and had been used to raise spirits by his arts1 and finally was himself carried up to heaven one night1 while he was gazing at the moon2 and that this event had been foretold by ,merlin3--it would surely be the height of absurdity to dilate on the truth of the ,newtonian theory as the moral evidence of the truth of the miracles and prophecy4 ,yet this is what those do1 who adduce the excellence of the precepts and spirituality of the general doctrine of the ,new ,testament1 as the moral evidence of its miracles and of its fulfilling the ,messianic prophecies4 ,but for the ambiguity of the word doctrine1 probably such confusion of thought would have been impossible4 ,doctrines are either spiritual truths1 or are statements of external history4 ,of the former we may have an inward witness2--that is their proper evidence2--but the latter must depend upon adequate testimony and various kinds of criticism4 ,how quickly might ,i have come to my conclusion1--how much weary thought and useless labour might ,i have spared1--if at an earlier time this simple truth had been pressed upon me1 that since the religious faculties of the poor and half-educated cannot investigate ,historical and ,literary questions1 therefore these questions cannot constitute an essential part of ,religion4--,but perhaps ,i could not have gained this result by any abstract act of thought1 from want of freedom to think3 and there are advantages also in expanding slowly under great pressure1 if one can expand1 and is not crushed by it4 ,i felt no convulsion of mind1 no emptiness of soul1 no inward practical change3 but ,i knew that it would be said1 this was only because the force of the old influence was as yet unspent1 and that a gradual declension in the vitality of my religion must ensue4 ,more than eight years have since past1 and ,i feel ,i have now a right to contradict that statement4 ,to any ,evangelical ,i have a right to say1 that while he has a single1 ,i have a double experience2 and ,i know1 that the spiritual fruits which he values1 have no connection whatever with the complicated and elaborate creed1 which his school imagines1 and ,i once imagined1 to be the roots out of which they are fed4 ,that they depend directly on the heart's belief in the sympathy of ,god with individual man1#g ,i am well assured3 but that doctrine does not rest upon the ,bible or upon ,christianity2 for it is a postulate1 from which every ,christian advocate is forced to start4 ,if it be denied1 he cannot take a step forward in his argument4 ,he talks to men about ,sin and ,judgment to come1 and the need of ,salvation1 and so proceeds to the ,saviour4 ,but his very first step1--the idea of ,sin1--assumes that ,god concerns himself with our actions1 words1 thoughts2 assumes therefore that sympathy of ,god with every man1 which 7it seems7 can only be known by an infallible ,bible4 ,i know that many ,evangelicals will reply1 that ,i never can have had the true faith2 else ,i could never have lost it3 and as for my not being conscious of spiritual change1 they will accept this as confirming their assertion4 ,undoubtedly ,i cannot prove that ,i ever felt as they now feel3 perhaps they love their present opinions more than truth1 and are careless to examine and verify them2 with that ,i claim no fellowship4 ,but there are ,christians1 and ,evangelical ,christians1 of another stamp1 who love their creed1 only because they believe it to be true1 but love truth1 as such1 and truthfulness1 more than any creed3 with these ,i claim fellowship4 ,their love to ,god and man1 their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness1 will not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new discoveries in geology and in ancient inscriptions1 or by improved criticism of texts and of history1 nor have they any imaginable interest in thwarting the advance of scholarship4 ,it is strange indeed to undervalue that ,faith1 which alone is purely moral and spiritual1 alone rests on a basis that cannot be shaken1 alone lifts the possessor above the conflicts of erudition1 and makes it impossible for him to fear the increase of knowledge4 ,i fully expected that reviewers and opponents from the evangelical school would laboriously insinuate or assert1 that ,i never was a ,christian and do not understand anything about ,christianity spiritually4 ,my expectations have been more than fulfilled2 and the course which my assailants have taken leads me to add some topics to the last paragraph4 ,i say then1 that if ,i had been slain at the age of twenty-seven1 when ,i was chased#h by a mob of infuriated ,mussulmans for selling ,new ,testaments1 they would have trumpeted me as an eminent saint and martyr4 ,i add1 that many circumstances within easy possibility might have led to my being engaged as an official teacher of a congregation at the usual age1 which would in all probability have arrested my intellectual development1 and have stereotyped my creed for many a long year2 and then also they would have acknowledged me as a ,christian4 ,a little more stupidity1 a little more worldliness1 a little more mental dishonesty in me1 or perhaps a little more kindness and management in others1 would have kept me in my old state1 which was acknowledged and would still be acknowledged as ,christian4 ,to try to disown me now1 is an impotent superciliousness4 ,at the same time1 ,i confess to several moral changes1 as the result of this change in my creed1 the principal of which are the following4 #a4 ,i have found that my old belief narrowed my affections4 ,it taught me to bestow peculiar love on the people of ,god1 and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of this people4 ,that creed may be made more or less stringent2 but when driven to its minimum1 it includes a recognition of the historical proposition1 that the ,jewish teacher ,jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute him the ,messiah of the ancient ,hebrew prophets4 ,this proposition has been rejected by very many thoughtful and sincere men in ,england1 and by tens of thousands in ,france1 ,germany1 ,italy1 ,spain4 ,to judge rightly about it1 is necessarily a problem of literary criticism2 which has both to interpret the ,old ,scriptures and to establish how much of the biography of ,jesus in the ,new is credible4 ,to judge wrongly about it1 may prove one to be a bad critic but not a less good and less pious man4 ,yet my old creed enacted an affirmative result of this historical inquiry1 as a test of one's spiritual state1 and ordered me to think harshly of men like ,marcus ,aurelius and ,lessing1 because they did not adopt the conclusion which the professedly uncritical have established4 ,it possessed me with a general gloom concerning ,mohammedans and ,pagans1 and involved the whole course of history and prospects of futurity in a painful darkness from which ,i am relieved4 #b4 ,its theory was one of selfishness4 ,that is1 it inculcated that my first business must be1 to save my soul from future punishment1 and to attain future happiness2 and it bade me to chide myself1 when ,i thought of nothing but about doing present duty and blessing ,god for present enjoyment4 ,in point of fact1 ,i never did look much to futurity1 nor even in prospect of death could attain to any vivid anticipations or desires1 much less was troubled with fears4 ,the evil which ,i suffered from my theory1 was not 7,i believe7 that it really made me selfish--other influences of it were too powerful3--but it taught me to blame myself for unbelief1 because ,i was not sufficiently absorbed in the contemplation of my vast personal expectations4 ,i certainly here feel myself delivered from the danger of factitious sin4 ,the selfish and self-righteous texts come principally from the three first gospels1 and are greatly counteracted by the deeper spirituality of the apostolic epistles4 ,i therefore by no means charge this tendency indiscriminately on the ,new ,testament4 #c4 ,it laid down that the time is short2 ,,the ,,lord ,,is ,,at ,,hand3 the things of this world pass away1 and deserve not our affections3 the only thing worth spending one's energies on1 is1 the forwarding of men's salvation4 ,it bade me watch perpetually1 not knowing whether my ,lord would return at cockcrowing or at midday4 ,while ,i believed this1 7which1 however disagreeable to modern ,christians1 is the clear doctrine of the ,new ,testament17 ,i acted an eccentric and unprofitable part4 ,from it ,i was saved against my will1 and forced into a course in which the doctrine1 having been laid to sleep1 awoke only now and then to reproach and harass me for my unfaithfulness to it4 ,this doctrine it is1 which makes so many spiritual persons lend active or passive aid to uphold abuses and perpetuate mischief in every department of human life4 ,those who stick closest to the ,scripture do not shrink from saying1 that it is not worth while trying to mend the world1 and stigmatize as political and worldly such as pursue an opposite course4 ,undoubtedly1 if we are to expect our ,master at cockcrowing1 we shall not study the permanent improvement of this transitory scene4 ,to teach the certain speedy destruction of earthly things1 as the ,new ,testament does1 is to cut the sinews of all earthly progress2 to declare war against ,intellect and ,imagination1 against ,industrial and ,social advancement4 ,there was a time when ,i was distressed at being unable to avoid exultation in the worldly greatness of ,england4 ,my heart would1 in spite1 of me1 swell with something of pride1 when a ,turk or ,arab asked what was my country3 ,i then used to confess to ,god this pride as a sin4 ,i still see that that was a legitimate deduction from the ,scripture4 ,the glory of this world passeth away1 and ,i had professed to be dead with ,christ to it4 ,the difference is this4 ,i am now as dead as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to be sinful1 but ,i have not to torment myself in a 7fundamentally ascetic7 struggle against innocent and healthy impulses4 ,i now1 with deliberate approval1 love the world and the things of the world4 ,i can feel patriotism1 and take the deepest interest in the future prospects of nations1 and no longer reproach myself4 ,yet this is quite consistent with feeling the spiritual interests of men to be of all incomparably the highest4 ,modern religionists profess to be disciples of ,christ1 and talk high of the perfect morality of the ,new ,testament1 when they certainly do not submit their understanding to it1 and are no more like to the first disciples than bishops are like the pennyless apostles4 ,one critic tells me that ,i know that the above is not the true interpretation of the apostolic doctrine4 ,assuredly ,i am aware that we may rebuke the world and worldliness1 in a legitimate and modified sense1 as being the system of selfishness3 true1--and ,i have avowed this in another work2 but it does not follow that ,jesus and the apostles did not go farther3 and manifestly they did4 ,the true disciple1 who would be perfect as his ,master1 was indeed ordered to sell all1 give to the poor and follow him2 and when that severity was relaxed by good sense1 it was still taught that things which lasted to the other side of the grave alone deserved our affection or our exertion4 ,if any person thinks me ignorant of the ,scriptures for being of this judgment1 let him so think2 but to deny that ,i am sincere in my avowal1 is a very needless insolence4 #d4 ,i am sensible how heavy a clog on the exercise of my judgment has been taken off from me1 since ,i unlearned that ,bibliolatry1 which ,i am disposed to call the greatest religious evil of ,england4 ,authority has a place in religious teaching1 as in education1 but it is provisional and transitory4 ,its chief use is to guide action1 and assist the formation of habits1 before the judgment is ripe4 ,as applied to mere opinion1 its sole function is to guide inquiry4 ,so long as an opinion is received on authority only1 it works no inward process upon us3 yet the promulgation of it by authority1 is not therefore always useless1 since the prominence thus given to it may be a most important stimulus to thought4 ,while the mind is inactive or weak1 it will not wish to throw off the yoke of authority3 but as soon as it begins to discern error in the standard proposed to it1 we have the mark of incipient original thought1 which is the thing so valuable and so difficult to elicit2 and which authority is apt to crush4 ,an intelligent pupil seldom or never gives too little weight to the opinion of his teacher3 a wise teacher will never repress the free action of his pupils' minds1 even when they begin to question his results4 ,forbidding to think is a still more fatal tyranny than forbidding to marry3 it paralyzes all the moral powers4 ,in former days1 if any moral question came before me1 ,i was always apt to turn it into the mere lawyerlike exercise of searching and interpreting my written code4 ,thus1 in reading how ,henry the ,eighth treated his first queen1 ,i thought over ,scripture texts in order to judge whether he was right1 and if ,i could so get a solution1 ,i left my own moral powers unexercised4 ,all ,protestants see1 how mischievous it is to a ,romanist lady to have a directing priest1 whom she every day consults about everything2 so as to lay her own judgment to sleep4 ,we readily understand1 that in the extreme case such women may gradually lose all perception of right and wrong1 and become a mere machine in the hands of her director4 ,but the ,protestant principle of accepting the ,bible as the absolute law1 acts towards the same end2 and only fails of doing the same amount of mischief1 because a book can never so completely answer all the questions asked of it1 as a living priest can4 ,the ,protestantism which pities those as without chart and compass who acknowledge no infallible written code1 can mean nothing else1 than that the less occasion we have to trust our moral powers1 the better2 that is1 it represents it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse1 under the guidance of a mind from without4 ,those who teach this need not marvel to see their pupils become ,romanists4 ,but ,bibliolatry not only paralyzes the moral sense2 it also corrupts the intellect1 and introduces a crooked logic1 by setting men to the duty of extracting absolute harmony out of discordant materials4 ,all are familiar with the subtlety of lawyers1 whose task it is to elicit a single sense out of a heap of contradictory statutes4 ,in their case such subtlety may indeed excite in us impatience or contempt2 but we forbear to condemn them1 when it is pleaded that practical convenience1 not truth1 is their avowed end4 ,in the case of theological ingenuity1 where truth is the professed and sacred object1 a graver judgment is called for4 ,when the ,biblical interpreter struggles to reconcile contradictions1 or to prove that wrong is right1 merely because he is bound to maintain the perfection of the ,bible2 when to this end he condescends to sophistry and pettifogging evasions2 it is difficult to avoid feeling disgust as well as grief4 ,some good people are secretly conscious that the ,bible is not an infallible book2 but they dread the consequences of proclaiming this to the vulgar4 ,alas6 and have they measured the evils which the fostering of this lie is producing in the minds1 not of the educated only1 but emphatically of the ministers of religion8 ,many who call themselves ,christian preachers busily undermine moral sentiment1 by telling their hearers1 that if they do not believe the ,bible 7or the ,church71 they can have no firm religion or morality1 and will have no reason to give against following brutal appetite4 ,this doctrine it is1 that so often makes men atheists in ,spain1 and profligates in ,england1 as soon as they unlearn the national creed3 and the school which have done the mischief1 moralize over the wickedness of human nature when it comes to pass instead of blaming the falsehood which they have themselves inculcated4 ,footnote #a3 ,a critic presses me with the question1 how ,i can doubt that doctrine so holy comes from ,god4 ,he professes to review my book on the ,soul2 yet1 apparently became he himself disbelieves the doctrine of the ,holy ,spirit taught alike in the ,psalms and ,prophets and in the ,new ,testament1--he cannot help forgetting that ,i profess to believe it4 ,he is not singular in his dulness4 ,that the sentiment above is necessarily independent of ,biblical authority1 see p4 #acc4 ,footnote #b3 ,i do not here enlarge on this1 as it is discussed in my treatise on ,the ,soul #bnd edition1 p4 #gf1 or #crd edition1 p4 #eb4 ,footnote #c3 #a ,cor4 xv4 #c4 ,compare ,acts xii4 #cc1 #cd1 #ce also ,acts ii4 #bg1 #cd4 ,footnote #d3 ,i need not except the potter and the thirty pieces of silver 7,zech4 xi4 #ac71 for the potter is a mere absurd error of text or translation4 ,the ,septuagint has the foundry1 ,de ,wette has the treasury1 with whom ,hitzig and ,ewald agree4 ,so ,winer 7,simoni's ,lexicon74 ,footnote #e3 ,some of my critics are very angry with me for saying this2 but ,matthew himself 7xxi4 #d7 almost says it3--,all this was done1 that it might be fulfilled1 c4 ,do my critics mean to tell me that ,jesus was not aware of the prophecy8 or if ,jesus did know of the prophecy1 will they tell me that he was not designing to fulfil it8 ,i feel such carping to be little short of hypocrisy4 ,footnote #f3 ,apparently on these words of mine1 a reviewer builds up the inference that ,i regard the ,evangelical narrative as a mythical fancy-piece imitated from ,david and ,isaiah4 ,i feel this to be a great caricature4 ,my words are carefully limited to a few petty details of one part of the narrative4 ,footnote #g3 ,i did not calculate that any assailant would be so absurd as to lecture me on the topic1 that ,god has no sympathy with our sins and follies4 ,of course what ,i mean is1 that he has complacency in our moral perfection4 ,see p4 #abe above4 ,footnote #h3 ,this was at ,aintab1 in the north of ,syria4 ,one of my companions was caught by the mob and beaten 7as they probably thought7 to death4 ,but he recovered very similarly to ,paul1 in ,acts xiv4 #bj1 after long lying senseless4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,on ,,the ,,moral ,,perfection ,,of ,,jesus4 ,let no reader peruse this chapter1 who is not willing to enter into a discussion1 as free and unshrinking1 concerning the personal excellencies and conduct of ,jesus1 as that of ,mr4 ,grote concerning ,socrates4 ,i have hitherto met with most absurd rebuffs for my scrupulosity4 ,one critic names me as a principal leader in a school which extols and glorifies the character of ,jesus2 after which he proceeds to reproach me with inconsistency1 and to insinuate dishonesty4 ,another expresses himself as deeply wounded that1 in renouncing the belief that ,jesus is more than man1 ,i suggest to compare him to a clergyman whom ,i mentioned as eminently holy and perfect in the picture of a partial biographer2 such a comparison is resented with vivid indignation1 as a blurting out of something unspeakably painful4 ,many have murmured that ,i do not come forward to extol the excellencies of ,jesus1 but appear to prefer ,paul4 ,more than one taunt me with an inability to justify my insinuations that ,jesus1 after all1 was not really perfect2 one is extremely disappointed that ,i have not attacked him2 in short1 it is manifest that many would much rather have me say out my whole heart1 than withhold anything4 ,i therefore give fair warning to all1 not to read any farther1 or else to blame themselves if ,i inflict on them unspeakable pain1 by differing from their judgment of a historical or unhistorical character4 ,as for those who confound my tenderness with hypocrisy and conscious weakness1 if they trust themselves to read to the end1 ,i think they will abandon that fancy4 ,but how am ,i brought into this topic8 ,it is because1 after my mind had reached the stage narrated in the last chapter1 ,i fell in with a new doctrine among the ,unitarians1--that the evidence of ,christianity is essentially popular and spiritual1 consisting in the ,life of ,christ1 who is a perfect man and the absolute moral image of ,god1--therefore fitly called ,god manifest in the flesh1 and1 as such1 ,moral ,head of the human race4 ,since this view was held in conjunction with those at which ,i had arrived myself concerning miracles1 prophecy1 the untrustworthiness of ,scripture as to details1 and the essential unreasonableness of imposing dogmatic propositions as a creed1 ,i had to consider why ,i could not adopt such a modification1 or 7as it appeared to me7 reconstruction1 of ,christianity2 and ,i gave reasons in the first edition of this book1 which1 avoiding direct treatment of the character of ,jesus1 seemed to me adequate on the opposite side4 ,my argument was reviewed by a friend1 who presently published the review with his name1 replying to my remarks on this scheme4 ,i thus find myself in public and avowed controversy with one who is endowed with talents1 accomplishments1 and genius1 to which ,i have no pretensions4 ,the challenge has certainly come from myself4 ,trusting to the goodness of my cause1 ,i have ventured it into an unequal combat2 and from a consciousness of my admired friend's high superiority1 ,i do feel a little abashed at being brought face to face against him4 ,but possibly the less said to the public on these personal matters1 the better4 ,i have to give reasons why ,i cannot adopt that modified scheme of ,christianity which is defended and adorned by ,james ,martineau2 according to which it is maintained that though the ,gospel ,narratives are not to be trusted in detail1 there can yet be no reasonable doubt what ,jesus was2 for this is elicited by a higher moral criticism1 which 7it is remarked7 ,i neglect4 ,in this theory1 ,jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men2 to be liable to error1 and 7at least in some important respects7 mistaken4 ,perhaps no general proposition is to be accepted merely on the word of ,jesus2 in particular1 he misinterpreted the ,hebrew prophecies4 ,he was not less than the ,hebrew ,messiah1 but more4 ,no moral charge is established against him1 until it is shown1 that in applying the old prophecies to himself1 he was conscious that they did not fit4 ,his error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate4 ,on the other hand1 ,jesus had an infallible moral perception1 which reveals itself to the true-hearted reader1 and is testified by the common consciousness of ,christendom4 ,it has pleased the ,creator to give us one sun in the heavens1 and one ,divine soul in history1 in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality1 and unite all mankind into one family of ,god4 ,jesus is to be presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect4 ,faith in ,jesus1 is not reception of propositions1 but reverence for a person2 yet this is not the condition of salvation or essential to the ,divine favour4 ,such is the scheme1 abridged from the ample discussion of my eloquent friend4 ,in reasoning against it1 my arguments will1 to a certain extent1 be those of an orthodox ,trinitarian2#a since we might both maintain that the belief in the absolute divine morality of ,jesus is not tenable1 when the belief in every other divine and superhuman quality is denied4 ,should ,i have any orthodox reader1 my arguments may shock his feelings less1 if he keeps this in view4 ,in fact1 the same action or word in ,jesus may be consistent or inconsistent with moral perfection1 according to the previous assumptions concerning his person4 ,i4 ,my friend has attributed to me a prosaic and embittered view of human nature1 apparently because ,i have a very intense belief of ,man's essential imperfection4 ,to me1 ,i confess1 it is almost a first principle of thought1 that as all sorts of perfection coexist in ,god1 so is no sort of perfection possible to man4 ,i do not know how for a moment to imagine an ,omniscient ,being who is not ,almighty1 or an ,almighty who is not ,all-,righteous4 ,so neither do ,i know how to conceive of ,perfect ,holiness anywhere but in the ,blessed and only ,potentate4 ,man is finite and crippled on all sides2 and frailty in one kind causes frailty in another4 ,deficient power causes deficient knowledge1 deficient knowledge betrays him into false opinion1 and entangles him into false positions4 ,it may be a defect of my imagination1 but ,i do not feel that it implies any bitterness1 that even in the case of one who abides in primitive lowliness1 to attain even negatively an absolutely pure goodness seems to me impossible2 and much more1 to exhaust all goodness1 and become a single ,model-,man1 unparalleled1 incomparable1 a standard for all other moral excellence4 ,especially ,i cannot conceive of any human person rising out of obscurity1 and influencing the history of the world1 unless there be in him forces of great intensity1 the harmonizing of which is a vast and painful problem4 ,every man has to subdue himself first1 before he preaches to his fellows2 and he encounters many a fall and many a wound in winning his own victory4 ,and as talents are various1 so do moral natures vary1 each having its own weak and strong side2 and that one man should grasp into his single self the highest perfection of every moral kind1 is to me at least as incredible as that one should preoccupy and exhaust all intellectual greatness4 ,i feel the prodigy to be so peculiar1 that ,i must necessarily wait until it is overwhelmingly proved1 before ,i admit it4 ,no one can without unreason urge me to believe1 on any but the most irrefutable arguments1 that a man1 finite in every other respect1 is infinite in moral perfection4 ,my friend is at a loss to conceive in what way a superhuman physical nature could tend in the least degree to render moral perfection more credible4 ,but ,i think he will see1 that it would entirely obviate the argument just stated1 which1 from the known frailty of human nature in general1 deduced the indubitable imperfection of an individual4 ,the reply is then obvious and decisive3 ,this individual is not a mere man2 his origin is wholly exceptional2 therefore his moral perfection may be exceptional2 your experience of man's weakness goes for nothing in his case4 ,if ,i were already convinced that this person was a great ,unique1 separated from all other men by an impassable chasm in regard to his physical origin1 ,i 7for one7 should be much readier to believe that he was ,unique and ,unapproachable in other respects3 for all ,god's works have an internal harmony4 ,it could not be for nothing that this exceptional personage was sent into the world4 ,that he was intended as head of the human race1 in one or more senses1 would be a plausible opinion2 nor should ,i feel any incredulous repugnance against believing his morality to be if not divinely perfect1 yet separated from that of common men so far1 that he might be a ,god to us1 just as every parent is to a young child4 ,this view seems to my friend a weakness2 be it so4 ,i need not press it4 ,what ,i do press1 is1--whatever might or might not be conceded concerning one in human form1 but of superhuman origin1--at any rate1 one who is conceded to be1 out and out1 of the same nature as ourselves1 is to be judged of by our experience of that nature1 and is therefore to be assumed to be variously imperfect1 however eminent and admirable in some respects4 ,and no one is to be called an imaginer of deformity1 because he takes for granted that one who is ,man has imperfections which were not known to those who compiled memorials of him4 ,to impute to a person1 without specific evidence1 some definite frailty or fault1 barely because he is human1 would be a want of good sense2 but not so1 to have a firm belief that every human being is finite in moral as well as in intellectual greatness4 ,we have a very imperfect history of the apostle ,james2 and ,i do not know that ,i could adduce any fact specifically recorded concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection1 if any of his ,jerusalem disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion4 ,yet no one would blame me1 as morose1 or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness1 if ,i insisted on believing ,james to be frail and imperfect1 while admitting that ,i knew almost nothing about him4 ,and why8--,singly and surely1 because we know him to be a man3 that suffices4 ,to set up ,james or ,john or ,daniel as my ,model1 and my ,lord2 to be swallowed up in him and press him upon others for a ,universal ,standard1 would be despised as a self-degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive favouritism4 ,now why does not the same equally apply1 if the name ,jesus is substituted for these8 ,why1 in defect of all other knowledge than the bare fact of his manhood1 are we not unhesitatingly to take for granted that he does not exhaust all perfection1 and is at best only one among many brethren and equals8 ,,ii4 ,my friend1 ,i gather1 will reply1 because so many thousands of minds in all ,christendom attest the infinite and unapproachable goodness of ,jesus4 ,it therefore follows to consider1 what is the weight of this attestation4 ,manifestly it depends1 first of all1 on the independence of the witnesses3 secondly1 on the grounds of their belief4 ,if all those1 who confess the moral perfection of ,jesus1 confess it as the result of unbiassed examination of his character2 and if of those acquainted with the narrative1 none espouse the opposite side2 this would be a striking testimony1 not to be despised4 ,but in fact1 few indeed of the witnesses add any weight at all to the argument4 ,no ,trinitarian can doubt that ,jesus is morally perfect1 without doubting fundamentally every part of his religion4 ,he believes it1 because the entire system demands it1 and because various texts of ,scripture avow it3 and this very fact makes it morally impossible for him to enter upon an unbiassed inquiry1 whether that character which is drawn for ,jesus in the four gospels1 is1 or is not1 one of absolute perfection1 deserving to be made an exclusive model for all times and countries4 ,my friend never was a ,trinitarian1 and seems not to know how this operates2 but ,i can testify1 that when ,i believed in the immaculateness of ,christ's character1 it was not from an unbiassed criticism1 but from the pressure of authority1 7the authority of texts17 and from the necessity of the doctrine to the scheme of ,redemption4 ,not merely strict ,trinitarians1 but all who believe in the ,atonement1 however modified1--all who believe that ,jesus will be the future ,judge1--must believe in his absolute perfection3 hence the fact of their belief is no indication whatever that they believe on the ground which my friend assumes1--viz4 an intelligent and unbiassed study of the character itself1 as exhibited in the four narratives4 ,i think we may go farther4 ,we have no reason for thinking that this was the sort of evidence which convinced the apostles themselves1 and first teachers of the gospel2--if indeed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived of4 ,it cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral perfection of ,jesus1 who had not already adopted the belief that he was ,messiah1 and therefore ,judge of the human race4 ,my friend makes the pure immaculateness of ,jesus 7discernible by him in the gospels7 his foundation1 and deduces from this the quasi-,messiahship3 but the opposite order of deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the first age4 ,take ,paul as a specimen4 ,he believed the doctrine in question2 but not from reading the four gospels1--for they did not exist4 ,did he then believe it by hearing ,ananias 7,acts ix4 #ag7 enter into details concerning the deeds and words of ,jesus8 ,i cannot imagine that any wise or thoughtful person would so judge1 which after all would be a gratuitous invention4 ,the ,acts of the ,apostles give us many speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting ,jesus as ,messiah2 but they never press his absolute moral perfection as a fact and a fundamental fact4 ,he went about doing good1 and healing all that were oppressed of the devil1 is the utmost that is advanced on this side3 prophecy is urged1 and his resurrection is asserted1 and the inference is drawn that ,jesus is the ,christ4 ,out of this flowed the farther inferences that he was ,supreme ,judge1--and moreover1 was ,paschal ,lamb1 and ,sacrifice1 and ,high ,priest1 and ,mediator2 and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in his moral perfections1 that doctrine also necessarily followed1 and was received before our present gospels existed4 ,my friend therefore cannot abash me by the argumentum ad verecundiam2 7which to me seems highly out of place in this connexion27 for the opinion1 which is1 as to this single point1 held by him in common with the first ,christians1 was held by them on transcendental reasons which he totally discards2 and all after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by ,authority1 i4e4 by the weight of texts or church decisions3 both of which he also discards4 ,if ,i could receive the doctrine1 merely because ,i dared not to differ from the whole ,christian world1 ,i might aid to swell odium against rejectors1 but ,i should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason4 ,i feel therefore that my friend must not claim ,catholicity as on his side4 ,trinitarians and ,arians are alike useless to his argument3 nay1 nor can he claim more than a small fraction of ,unitarians2 for as many of the them believe that ,jesus is to be the ,judge of living and dead 7as the late ,dr4 ,lant ,carpenter did7 must as necessarily believe his immaculate perfection as if they were ,trinitarians4 ,the ,new ,testament does not distinctly explain on what grounds this doctrine was believed2 but we may observe that in #a ,peter i4 #ai and #b ,cor4 v4 #ba1 it is coupled with the ,atonement1 and in #a ,peter ii4 #ba1 ,romans xv4 #c1 it seems to be inferred from prophecy4 ,but let us turn to the original ,eleven1 who were eye and ear witnesses of ,jesus1 and consider on what grounds they can have believed 7if we assume that they did all believe7 the absolute moral perfection of ,jesus4 ,it is too ridiculous to imagine then studying the writings of ,matthew in order to obtain conviction1--if any of that school1 whom alone ,i now address1 could admit that written documents were thought of before the ,church outstept the limits of ,judea4 ,if the ,eleven believed the doctrine for some transcendental reason1--as by a ,supernatural ,revelation1 or on account of ,prophecy1 and to complete the ,messiah's character1--then their attestation is useless to my friend's argument3 will it then gain anything1 if we suppose that they believed ,jesus to be perfect1 because they saw him to be perfect8 ,to me this would seem no attestation worth having1 but rather a piece of impertinent ignorance4 ,if ,i attest that a person whom ,i have known was an eminently good man1 ,i command a certain amount of respect to my opinion1 and ,i do him honour4 ,if ,i celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words1 ,i extend his honour still farther4 ,but if ,i proceed to assure people1 on the evidence of my personal observation of him1 that he was immaculate and absolutely perfect1 was the pure ,moral ,image of ,god1 that he deserves to be made the ,exclusive ,model of imitation1 and is the standard by which every other man's morality is to be corrected1--,i make myself ridiculous2 my panegyrics lose all weight1 and ,i produce far less conviction than when ,i praised within human limitations4 ,i do not know how my friend will look on this point1 7for his judgment on the whole question perplexes me1 and the views which ,i call sober he names prosaic17 but ,i cannot resist the conviction that universal common-sense would have rejected the teaching of the ,eleven with contempt1 if they had presented1 as the basis of the gospel their personal testimony to the godlike and unapproachable moral absolutism of ,jesus4 ,but even if such a basis was possible to the ,eleven1 it was impossible to ,paul and ,silvanus and ,timothy and ,barnabas and ,apollos1 and the other successful preachers to the ,gentiles4 ,high moral goodness1 within human limitations1 was undoubtedly announced as a fact of the life of ,jesus2 but upon this followed the supernatural claims1 and the argument of prophecy2 without which my friend desires to build up his view1--,i have thus developed why ,i think he has no right to claim ,catholicity for his judgment4 ,i have risked to be tedious1 because ,i find that when ,i speak concisely1 ,i am enormously misapprehended4 ,i close this topic by observing1 that1 the great animosity with which my very mild intimations against the popular view have been met from numerous quarters1 show me that ,christians do not allow this subject to be calmly debated1 end have not come to their own conclusion as the result of a calm debate4 ,and this is amply corroborated by my own consciousness of the past ,i never dared1 nor could have dared1 to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of ,jesus to be an absolute model of morality1 until ,i had been delivered from the weight of authority and miracle1 oppressing my critical powers4 ,,iii4 ,i have been asserting1 that he who believes ,jesus to be mere man1 ought at once to believe his moral excellence finite and comparable to that of other men2 and1 that our judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the universal consent of ,christendom4--,thus far we are dealing priori1 which here fully satisfies me3 in such an argument ,i need no posteriori evidence to arrive at my own conclusion4 ,nevertheless1 ,i am met by taunts and clamour1 which are not meant to be indecent1 but which to my feeling are such4 ,my critics point triumphantly to the four gospels1 and demand that ,i will make a personal attack on a character which they revere1 even when they know that ,i cannot do so without giving great offence4 ,now if any one were to call my old schoolmaster1 or my old parish priest1 a perfect and universal ,model1 and were to claim that ,i would entitle him ,lord1 and think of him as the only true revelation of ,god2 should ,i not be at liberty to say1 without disrespect1 that ,i most emphatically deprecate such extravagant claims for him8 ,would this justify an outcry1 that ,i will publicly avow what ,i judge to be his defects of character1 and will prove to all his admirers that he was a sinner like other men8 ,such a demand would be thought1 ,i believe1 highly unbecoming and extremely unreasonable4 ,may not my modesty1 or my regard for his memory1 or my unwillingness to pain his family1 be accepted as sufficient reasons for silence8 or would any one scoffingly attribute my reluctance to attack him1 to my conscious inability to make good my case against his being ,god manifest in the flesh8 ,now what1 if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him2 and his character1 therein described1 was so faultless1 that a stranger to him was not able to descry any moral defeat whatever in it8 ,is such a stranger bound to believe him to be the ,divine ,standard of morals1 unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book which imply weaknesses and faults8 ,and is it insulting a man1 to refuse to worship him8 ,i utterly protest against every such pretence4 ,as ,i have an infinitely stronger conviction that ,shakespeare was not in intellect ,divinely and ,unapproachably perfect1 than that ,i can certainly point out in him some definite intellectual defect2 as1 moreover1 ,i am vastly more sure that ,socrates was morally imperfect1 than that ,i am able to censure him rightly2 so also1 a disputant who concedes to me that ,jesus is a mere man1 has no right to claim that ,i will point out some moral flaw in him1 or else acknowledge him to be a ,unique ,unparalleled ,divine ,soul4 ,it is true1 ,i do see defects1 and very serious ones1 in the character of ,jesus1 as drawn by his disciples2 but ,i cannot admit that my right to disown the pretensions made for him turns on my ability to define his frailties4 ,as long as 7in common with my friend7 ,i regard ,jesus as a man1 so long ,i hold with dogmatic and intense conviction the inference that he was morally imperfect1 and ought not to be held up as unapproachable in goodness2 but ,i have1 in comparison1 only a modest belief that ,i am able to show his points of weakness4 ,while therefore in obedience to this call1 which has risen from many quarters1 ,i think it right not to refuse the odious task pressed upon me1--,i yet protest that my conclusion does not depend upon it4 ,i might censure ,socrates unjustly1 or at least without convincing my readers1 if ,i attempted that task2 but my failure would not throw a feather's weight into the argument that ,socrates was a ,divine ,unique and universal ,model4 ,if ,i write note what is painful to readers1 ,i beg them to remember that ,i write with much reluctance1 and that it is their own fault if they read4 ,in approaching this subject1 the first difficulty is1 to know how much of the four gospels to accept as fact4 ,if we could believe the whole1 it would be easier to argue2 but my friend ,martineau 7with me7 rejects belief of many parts3 for instance1 he has but a very feeble conviction that ,jesus ever spoke the discourses attributed to him in ,john's gospel4 ,if therefore ,i were to found upon these some imputation of moral weakness1 he would reply1 that we are agreed in setting these aside1 as untrustworthy4 ,yet he perseveres in asserting that it is beyond all reasonable question what ,jesus was2 as though proven inaccuracies in all the narratives did not make the results uncertain4 ,he says that even the poor and uneducated are fully impressed with the majesty and sanctity of ,christ's mind2 as if this were what ,i am fundamentally denying2 and not1 only so far as would transcend the known limits of human nature3 surely majesty and sanctity are not inconsistent with many weaknesses4 ,but our judgment concerning a man's motives1 his temper1 and his full conquest over self1 vanity and impulsive passion1 depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points2 even the curl of the lip1 or the discord of eye and mouth1 may change our moral judgment of a man2 while1 alike to my friend and me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue4 ,much moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to any but to the highly educated4 ,in spite therefore of his able reply1 ,i abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endeavouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful biography and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious importance4 ,i shall however try to pick up a few details which seem1 as much as any1 to deserve credit1 concerning the pretensions1 doctrine and conduct of ,jesus4 ,first1 ,i believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the title ,son of ,man--a fact which pervades all the accounts1 and was likely to rivet itself on his hearers4 ,nobody but he himself ever calls him ,son of ,man4 ,secondly ,i believe that in assuming this title he tacitly alluded to the viith chapter of ,daniel1 and claimed for himself the throne of judgment over all mankind4--,i know no reason to doubt that he actually delivered 7in substance7 the discourse in ,matth4 xxv4 ,when the ,son of ,man shall come in his glory1444 before him shall be gathered all nations1444 and he shall separate them1 c4 c43 and ,i believe that by the ,son of ,man and the ,king he meant himself4 ,compare ,luke xii4 #dj1 ix4 #ef4 ,thirdly1 ,i believe that he habitually assumed the authoritative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal ,teacher in moral and spiritual matters1 and enunciated as a primary duty of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge his supremacy4 ,this element in his character1 the preaching of himself is enormously expanded in the fourth gospel1 but it distinctly exists in ,matthew4 ,thus in ,matth4 xxiii #h3 ,be not ye called ,rabbi teacher1 for one is your ,teacher1 even ,christ2 and all ye are brethren444 ,matth4 x4 #cb3 ,whosoever shall confess ,,me before men1 him will ,i confess before my ,father which is in heaven444 ,he that loveth father or mother more than ,,me is not worthy of ,,me1 c4444 ,matth4 xi4 #bg3 ,all things are delivered unto ,,me of my ,father2 and no man knoweth the ,son but the ,father2 neither knoweth any man the ,father1 save the ,son2 and he to whomsoever the ,son will reveal him4 ,come unto ,,me1 all ye that labour1444 and ,i will give you rest4 ,take ,,my yoke upon you1 c4 ,my friend1 ,i find1 rejects ,jesus as an authoritative teacher1 distinctly denies that the acceptance of ,jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour1 and treats of my demand of an oracular ,christ1 as inconsistent with my own principles4 ,but this is mere misconception of what ,i have said4 ,i find ,jesus himself to set up oracular claims4 ,i find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels4 ,if ,i may not believe that ,jesus assumed an oracular manner1 ,i do not know what moral peculiarity in him ,i am permitted to believe4 ,i do not demand 7as my friend seems to think7 that he shall be oracular1 but in common with all ,christendom1 ,i open my eyes and see that he is2 and until ,i had read my friend's review of my book1 ,i never understood 7,i suppose through my own prepossessions7 that he holds ,jesus not to have assumed the oracular style4 ,if ,i cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity1 ,i must cut out1 not only the claim of ,messiahship1 which my friend admits to have been made1 but nearly every moral discourse and every controversy3 and why8 except in order to make good a predetermined belief that ,jesus was morally perfect4 ,what reason can be given me for not believing that ,jesus declared3 ,if any one deny ,,me before men1 him will ,i deny before my ,father and his angels8 or any of the other texts which couple the favour of ,god with a submission to such pretensions of ,jesus8 ,i can find no reason whatever for doubting that he preached ,,himself to his disciples1 though in the three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the ,pharisees and to the nation at large4 ,i find him uniformly to claim1 sometimes in tone1 sometimes in distinct words1 that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him4 ,i find him ready to answer off-hand1 all difficult questions1 critical and lawyer-like1 as well as moral4 ,true1 it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence4 ,true1 in another book ,i have elaborately maintained the contrary4 ,yet in that book ,i have described men's spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development2 which surely would indicate that ,i believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible4 ,but our question here 7or at least my question7 is not1 whether ,jesus might misinterpret prophecy1 and yet be morally perfect2 but whether1 after assuming to be an oracular teacher1 he can teach some fanatical precepts1 and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments1 without impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection4 ,i do not think it useless here to repeat 7though not for my friend7 concise reasons which ,i gave in my first edition against admitting dictatorial claims for ,jesus4 ,first1 it is an unplausible opinion that ,god would deviate from his ordinary course1 in order to give us anything so undesirable as an authoritative ,oracle would be2--which would paralyze our moral powers1 exactly as an infallible church does1 in the very proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from it4 ,it is not needful here to repeat what has been said to that effect in p4 #ach4 ,secondly1 there is no imaginable criterion1 by which we can establish that the wisdom of a teacher is absolute and illimitable4 ,all that we can possibly discover1 is the relative fact1 that another is wiser than we3 and even this is liable to be overturned on special points1 as soon as differences of judgment arise4 ,thirdly1 while it is by no means clear what are the new truths1 for which we are to lean upon the decisions of ,jesus1 it is certain that we have no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching4 ,if ,god had intended us to receive the authoritative dicta of ,jesus1 he would have furnished us with an unblemished record of those dicta4 ,to allow that we have not this1 and that we must disentangle for ourselves 7by a most difficult and uncertain process7 the true sayings of ,jesus1 is surely self-refuting4 ,fourthly1 if ,i must sit in judgment on the claims of ,jesus to be the true ,messiah and ,son of ,god1 how can ,i concentrate all my free thought into that one act1 and thenceforth abandon free thought8 ,this appears a moral suicide1 whether ,messiah or the ,pope is the object whom we first criticize1 in order to instal him over us1 and then1 for ever after1 refuse to criticize4 ,in short1 we cannot build up a system of ,oracles on a basis of ,free ,criticism4 ,if we are to submit our judgment to the dictation of some other1--whether a church or an individual1--we must be first subjected to that other by some event from without1 as by birth2 and not by a process of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed4 ,but from this ,i proceed to consider more in detail1 some points in the teaching and conduct of ,jesus1 which do not appear to me consistent with absolute perfection4 ,the argument of ,jesus concerning the tribute to ,csar is so dramatic1 as to strike the imagination and rest on the memory2 and ,i know no reason for doubting that it has been correctly reported4 ,the book of ,deuteronomy 7xvii4 #ae7 distinctly forbids ,israel to set over himself as king any who is not a native ,israelite2 which appeared to be a religious condemnation of submission to ,csar4 ,accordingly1 since ,jesus assumed the tone of unlimited wisdom1 some of ,herod's party asked him1 whether it was lawful to pay tribute to ,csar4 ,jesus replied3 ,why tempt ye me1 hypocrites8 ,show me the tribute money4 ,when one of the coins was handed to him1 he asked3 ,whose image and superscription is this8 ,when they replied3 ,csar's1 he gave his authoritative decision3 ,render therefore to ,csar the things that are ,csar's4 ,in this reply not only the poor and uneducated1 but many likewise of the rich and educated1 recognize majesty and sanctity3 yet ,i find it hard to think that my strong-minded friend will defend the justness1 wisdom and honesty of it4 ,to imagine that because a coin bears ,csar's head1 therefore it is ,csar's property1 and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him1 is puerile1 and notoriously false4 ,the circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the ,mediterranean then as now2 and everybody knew that the coin was the property of the holder1 not of him whose head it bore4 ,thus the reply of ,jesus1 which pretended to be a moral decision1 was unsound and absurd3 yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom1 and ushered in by a grave rebuke1 ,why tempt ye me1 hypocrites8 ,he is generally understood to mean1 ,why do you try to implicate me in a political charge8 and it is supposed that he prudently evaded the question4 ,i have indeed heard this interpretation from high ,trinitarians2 which indicates to me how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns the conduct of ,jesus4 ,no reason appears why he should not have replied1 that ,moses forbade ,israel voluntarily to place himself under a foreign king1 but did not inculcate fanatical and useless rebellion against overwhelming power4 ,but such a reply1 which would have satisfied a more commonplace mind1 has in it nothing brilliant and striking4 ,i cannot but think that ,jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answer3 ,i do not think it so likely to have been a conscious evasion4 ,but neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all commend itself to me4 ,how can any man assume to be an authoritative teacher1 and then claim that men shall not put his wisdom to the proof8 ,was it not their duty to do so8 ,and when1 in result1 the trial has proved the defect of his wisdom1 did they not perform a useful public service8 ,in truth1 ,i cannot see the ,model ,man in his rebuke4--,let not my friend say that the error was merely intellectual3 blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness4 ,i might go into detail concerning other discourses1 where error and arrogance appear to me combined4 ,but1 not to be tedious1--in general ,i must complain that ,jesus purposely adopted an enigmatical and pretentious style of teaching1 unintelligible to his hearers1 and needing explanation in private4 ,that this was his systematic procedure1 ,i believe1 because1 in spite of the great contrast of the fourth gospel to the others1 it has this peculiarity in common with them4 ,christian divines are used to tell us that this mode was peculiarly instructive to the vulgar of ,juda2 and they insist on the great wisdom displayed in his choice of the lucid parabolical style4 ,but in ,matth4 xiii4 #aj-ae1 ,jesus is made confidentially to avow precisely the opposite reason1 viz4 that he desires the vulgar not to understand him1 but only the select few to whom he gives private explanations4 ,i confess ,i believe the ,evangelist rather than the modern ,divine4 ,i cannot conceive how so strange a notion could ever have possessed the companions of ,jesus1 if it had not been true4 ,if really this parabolical method had been peculiarly intelligible1 what could make them imagine the contrary8 ,unless they found it very obscure themselves1 whence came the idea that it was obscure to the multitude8 ,as a fact1 it is very obscure1 to this day4 ,there is much that ,i most imperfectly understand1 owing to unexplained metaphor3 as3 ,agree with thine adversary quickly1 c4 c43 ,whoso calls his brother#b a fool1 is in danger of hell fire3 ,every one must be salted with fire1 and every sacrifice salted with salt4 ,have salt in yourselves1 and be at peace with one another4 ,now every man of original and singular genius has his own forms of thought2 in so far as they are natural1 we must not complain1 if to us they are obscure4 ,but the moment affectation comes in1 they no longer are reconcilable with the perfect character3 they indicate vanity1 and incipient sacerdotalism4 ,the distinct notice that ,jesus avoided to expound his parables to the multitude1 and made this a boon to the privileged few2 and that without a parable he spake not to the multitude2 and the pious explanation1 that this was a fulfilment of ,prophecy1 ,i will open my mouth in parables1 ,i will utter dark sayings on the harp1 persuade me that the impression of the disciples was a deep reality4 ,and it is in entire keeping with the general narrative1 which shows in him so much of mystical assumption4 ,strip the parables of the imagery1 and you find that sometimes one thought has been dished up four or five times1 and generally1 that an idea is dressed into sacred grandeur4 ,this mystical method made a little wisdom go a great way with the multitude2 and to such a mode of economizing resources the instinct of the uneducated man betakes itself1 when he is claiming to act a part for which he is imperfectly prepared4 ,it is common with orthodox ,christians to take for granted1 that unbelief of ,jesus was a sin1 and belief a merit1 at a time when no rational grounds of belief were as yet public4 ,certainly1 whoever asks questions with a view to prove ,jesus1 is spoken of vituperatingly in the gospels2 and it does appear to me that the prevalent ,christian belief is a true echo of ,jesus's own feeling4 ,he disliked being put to the proof4 ,instead of rejoicing in it1 as a true and upright man ought1--instead of blaming those who accept his pretensions on too slight grounds1--instead of encouraging full inquiry and giving frank explanations1 he resents doubt1 shuns everything that will test him1 is very obscure as to his own pretensions1 7so as to need probing and positive questions1 whether he does or does not profess to be ,messiah17 and yet is delighted at all easy belief4 ,when asked for miracles1 he sighs and groans at the unreasonableness of it2 yet does not honestly and plainly renounce pretension to miracle1 as ,mr4 ,martineau would1 but leaves room for credit to himself for as many miracles as the credulous are willing to impute to him4 ,it is possible that here the narrative is unjust to his memory4 ,so far from being the picture of perfection1 it sometimes seems to me the picture of a conscious and wilful impostor4 ,his general character is too high for this2 and ,i therefore make deductions from the account4 ,still1 ,i do not see how the present narrative could have grown up1 if he had been really simple and straight-forward1 and not perverted by his essentially false position4 ,enigma and mist seem to be his element2 and when ,i find his high satisfaction at all personal recognition and bowing before his individuality1 ,i almost doubt whether1 if one wished to draw the character of a vain and vacillating pretender1 it would be possible to draw anything more to the purpose than this4 ,his general rule 7before a certain date7 is1 to be cautious in public1 but bold in private to the favoured few4 ,i cannot think that such a character1 appearing now1 would seem to my friend a perfect model of a man4 ,no precept bears on its face clearer marks of coming from the genuine ,jesus1 than that of selling all and following him4 ,this was his original call to his disciples4 ,it was enunciated authoritatively on various occasions4 ,it is incorporated with precepts of perpetual obligation1 in such a way1 that we cannot without the greatest violence pretend that he did not intend it as a precept#c to all his disciples4 ,in ,luke xii4 #bb-dj1 he addresses the disciples collectively against ,avarice2 and a part of the discourse is3 ,fear not1 little flock2 for it is your ,father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom4 ,sell that ye have1 and give alms3 provide yourselves bags that wax not old2 a treasure in the heavens that faileth not1 c4444 ,let your loins be girded about1 and your lights burning1 c4 ,to say that he was not intending to teach a universal morality1#d is to admit that his precepts are a trap2 for they then mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal sacred obligations1 enunciating all in the same breath1 and with the same solemnity4 ,i cannot think that ,jesus intended any separation4 ,in fact1 when a rich young man asked of him what he should do1 that he might inherit eternal life1 and pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments1 but felt that to be insufficient1 ,jesus said unto him3 ,if thou wilt be perfect1 go and sell that thou hast1 and give to the poor1 and thou shalt have treasure in heaven3 so that the duty was not contingent upon the peculiarity of a man possessing apostolic gifts1 but was with ,jesus the normal path for all who desired perfection4 ,when the young man went away sorrowing1 ,jesus moralized on it1 saying3 ,how hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven3 which again shows1 that an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom4 ,hereupon1 when the disciples asked3 ,lo6 we have forsaken all1 and followed thee3 what shall we have therefore8 ,jesus1 instead of rebuking their self-righteousness1 promised them as a reward1 that they should sit upon twelve#e thrones1 judging the twelve tribes of ,israel4 ,a precept thus systematically enforced1 is illustrated by the practice1 not only of the twelve1 but apparently of the seventy1 and what is stronger still1 by the practice of the five thousand disciples after the celebrated days of the first ,pentecost4 ,there was no longer a ,jesus on earth to itinerate with1 yet the disciples in the fervour of first love obeyed his precept3 the rich sold their possessions1 and laid the price at the apostles' feet4 ,the mischiefs inherent in such a precept rapidly showed themselves1 and good sense corrected the error4 ,but this very fact proves most emphatically that the precept was pre-apostolic1 and came from the genuine ,jesus2 otherwise it could never have found its way into the gospels4 ,it is undeniable1 that the first disciples1 by whose tradition alone we have any record of what ,jesus taught1 understood him to deliver this precept to all who desired to enter into the kingdom of heaven1--all who desired to be perfect3 why then are we to refuse belief1 and remould the precepts of ,jesus till they please our own morality8 ,this is not the way to learn historical fact4 ,that to inculcate religious beggary as the only form and mode of spiritual perfection1 is fanatical and mischievous1 even the church of ,rome will admit4 ,protestants universally reject it as a deplorable absurdity2--not merely wealthy bishops1 squires and merchants1 but the poorest curate also4 ,a man could not preach such doctrine in a ,protestant pulpit without incurring deep reprobation and contempt2 but when preached by ,jesus1 it is extolled as divine wisdom1--and disobeyed4 ,now ,i cannot look on this as a pure intellectual error1 consistent with moral perfection4 ,a deep mistake as to the nature of such perfection seems to me inherent in the precept itself2 a mistake which indicates a moral unsoundness4 ,the conduct of ,jesus to the rich young man appears to me a melancholy exhibition of perverse doctrine1 under an ostentation of superior wisdom4 ,the young man asked for bread and ,jesus gave him a stone4 ,justly he went away sorrowful1 at receiving a reply which his conscience rejected as false and foolish4 ,but this is not all ,jesus was necessarily on trial1 when any one1 however sincere1 came to ask questions so deeply probing the quality of his wisdom as this3 ,how may ,i be perfect8 and to be on trial was always disagreeable to him4 ,he first gave the reply1 ,keep the commandments2 and if the young man had been satisfied1 and had gone away1 it appears that ,jesus would have been glad to be rid of him3 for his tone is magisterial1 decisive and final4 ,this1 ,i confess1 suggests to me1 that the aim of ,jesus was not so much to enlighten the young man1 as to stop his mouth1 and keep up his own ostentation of omniscience4 ,had he desired to enlighten him1 surely no mere dry dogmatic command was needed1 but an intelligent guidance of a willing and trusting soul4 ,i do not pretend to certain knowledge in these matters4 ,even when we hear the tones of voice and watch the features1 we often mistake4 ,we have no such means here of checking the narrative4 ,but the best general result which ,i can draw from the imperfect materials1 is what ,i have said4 ,after the merit of selling all and following ,jesus1 a second merit1 not small1 was1 to receive those whom he sent4 ,in ,matt4 x41 we read that he sends out his twelve disciples1 7also seventy in ,luke17 men at that time in a very low state of religions development1--men who did not themselves know what the ,kingdom of ,heaven meant1--to deliver in every village and town a mere formula of words3 ,repent ye3 for the ,kingdom of ,heaven is at hand4 ,they were ordered to go without money1 scrip or cloak1 but to live on religious alms2 and it is added1--that if any house or city does not receive them1 it shall be more tolerable for ,sodom and ,gomorrha in the day of judgment than for it4 ,he adds1 v4 #dj3 ,he that receiveth you1 receiveth me1 and he that receiveth me1 receiveth ,,him that sent me4--,i quite admit1 that in all probability it was 7on the whole7 the more pious part of ,israel which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries2 but inasmuch as they had no claims whatever1 intrinsic or extrinsic1 to reverence1 it appears to me a very extravagant and fanatical sentiment thus emphatically to couple the favour or wrath of ,god with their reception or rejection4 ,a third1 yet greater merit in the eyes of ,jesus1 was1 to acknowledge him as the ,messiah predicted by the prophets1 which he was not1 according to my friend4 ,according to ,matthew 7xvi4 #ac71 ,jesus put leading questions to the disciples in order to elicit a confession of his ,messiahship1 and emphatically blessed ,simon for making the avowal which he desired2 but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to any one4 ,unless this is to be discarded as fiction1 ,jesus1 although to his disciples in secret he confidently assumed ,messianic pretensions1 had a just inward misgiving1 which accounts both for his elation at ,simon's avowal1 and for his prohibition to publish it4 ,in admitting that ,jesus was not the ,messiah of the prophets1 my friend says1 that if ,jesus were less than ,messiah1 we can reverence him no longer2 but that he was more than ,messiah4 ,this is to me unintelligible4 ,the ,messiah whom he claimed to be1 was not only the son of ,david1 celebrated in the prophets1 but emphatically the ,son of ,man of ,daniel vii41 who shall come in the clouds of heaven1 to take dominion1 glory and kingdom1 that all people1 nations and languages shall serve him1--an everlasting kingdom which shall not pass away4 ,how ,jesus himself interprets his supremacy1 as ,son of ,man1 in ,matt4 x41 xi41 xxiii41 xxv41 and elsewhere1 ,i have already observed4 ,to claim such a character1 seems to me like plunging from a pinnacle of the temple4 ,if miraculous power holds him up and makes good his daring1 he is more than man2 but if otherwise1 to have failed will break all his bones4 ,i can no longer give the same human reverence as before to one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious2 and ,i feel assured priori that such presumption must have entangled him into evasions and insincerities1 which naturally end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture1 however noble a man's commencement1 and however unshrinking his sacrifices of goods and ease and life4 ,the time arrived at last1 when ,jesus felt that he must publicly assert ,messiahship2 and this was certain to bring things to an issue4 ,i suppose him to have hoped that he was ,messiah1 until hope and the encouragement given him by ,peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon1 but not always strong enough to still misgivings4 ,i say1 ,i suppose this2 but ,i build nothing on my supposition4 ,i however see1 that when he had resolved to claim ,messiahship publicly1 one of two results was inevitable1 if that claim was ill-founded3--viz41 either he must have become an impostor1 in order to screen his weakness2 or1 he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation1 and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom4 ,from these alternatives there was escape only by death1 and upon death ,jesus purposely rushed4 ,all ,christendom has always believed that the death of ,jesus was voluntarily incurred2 and unless no man ever became a wilful martyr1 ,i cannot conceive why we are to doubt the fact concerning ,jesus4 ,when he resolved to go up to ,jerusalem1 he was warned by his disciples of the danger2 but so far was he from being blind to it1 that he distinctly announced to them that he knew he should suffer in ,jerusalem the shameful death of a malefactor4 ,on his arrival in the suburbs1 his first act was1 ostentatiously to ride into the city on an ass's colt in the midst of the acclamations of the multitude1 in order to exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of ,david4 ,thus he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason4--,he next entered the temple courts1 where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice1 and--7,i must say it to my friend's amusement1 and in defiance of his kind but keen ridicule17 committed a breach of the peace by flogging with a whip those who trafficked in the area4 ,by such conduct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment1 and probably might have been publicly scourged for it1 had the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance4 ,but he meant to be prosecuted for treason1 not for felony1 to use the words of a modern offender4 ,he therefore commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful1 calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood2 and denouncing upon them the condemnation of hell4 ,he was successful4 ,he had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life1 and given colour to the charge of political rebellion4 ,he resolved to die2 and he died4 ,had his enemies contemptuously let him live1 he would have been forced to act the part of ,jewish ,messiah1 or renounce ,messiahship4 ,if any one holds ,jesus to be not amenable to the laws of human morality1 ,i am not now reasoning with such a one4 ,but if any one claims for him a human perfection1 then ,i say that his conduct on this occasion was neither laudable nor justifiable2 far otherwise4 ,there are cases in which life may be thrown away for a great cause2 as when a leader in battle rushes upon certain death1 in order to animate his own men2 but the case before us has no similarity to that4 ,if our accounts are not wholly false1 ,jesus knowingly and purposely exasperated the rulers into a great crime1--the crime of taking his life from personal resentment4 ,his inflammatory addresses to the multitude have been defended as follows3 ,the prophetic ,spirit is sometimes oblivious of the rules of the drawing-room2 and inspired ,conscience1 like the inspiring ,god1 seeing a hypocrite1 will take the liberty to say so1 and act accordingly4 ,are the superficial amenities1 the soothing fictions1 the smotherings of the burning heart1444 really paramount in this world1 and never to give way8 and when a soul of power1 unable to refrain1 rubs off1 though it be with rasping words1 all the varnish from rottenness and lies1 is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor8 ,is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men1--the duty of publicly exposing them8 of awakening the popular conscience1 and sweeping away the conventional timidities1 for a severe return to truth and reality8 ,no rule of morals can be recognized as just1 which prohibits conformity of human speech to fact2 and insists on terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity4 ,i certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of drawing-room compliment1 but to the highest and purest principles which ,i know2 and ,i lament to find my judgment so extremely in opposition4 ,to me it seems that inability to refrain shows weakness1 not power1 of soul1 and that nothing is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad rulers4 ,the last sentence quoted1 seems to say1 that the speaking of ,truth is never to be condemned3 but ,i cannot agree to this4 ,when ,truth will only exasperate1 and cannot do good1 silence is imperative4 ,a man who reproaches an armed tyrant in words too plain1 does but excite him to murder2 and the shocking thing is1 that this seems to have been the express object of ,jesus4 ,no good result could be reasonably expected4 ,publicly to call men in authority by names of intense insult1 the writer of the above distinctly sees will never convert them2 but he thinks it was adapted to awaken the popular conscience4 ,alas6 it needs no divine prophet to inflame a multitude against the avarice1 hypocrisy1 and oppression of rulers1 nor any deep inspiration of conscience in the multitude to be wide awake on that point themselves ,a ,publius ,clodius or a ,cleon will do that work as efficiently as a ,jesus2 nor does it appear that the poor are made better by hearing invectives against the rich and powerful4 ,if ,jesus had been aiming1 in a good cause1 to excite rebellion1 the mode of address which he assumed seems highly appropriate2 and in such a calamitous necessity1 to risk exciting murderous enmity would be the act of a hero3 but as the account stands1 it seems to me the deed of a fanatic4 ,and it is to me manifest that he overdid his attack1 and failed to commend it to the conscience of his hearers4 ,for up to this point the multitude was in his favour4 ,he was notoriously so acceptable to the many1 as to alarm the rulers2 indeed the belief of his popularity had shielded him from prosecution4 ,but after this fierce address he has no more popular support4 ,at his public trial the vast majority judge him to deserve punishment1 and prefer to ask free forgiveness for ,barabbas1 a bandit who was in prison for murder4 ,we moderns1 nursed in an arbitrary belief concerning these events1 drink in with our first milk the assumption that ,jesus alone was guiltless1 and all the other actors in this sad affair inexcusably guilty4 ,let no one imagine that ,i defend for a moment the cruel punishment which raw resentment inflicted on him4 ,but though the rulers felt the rage of ,vengeance1 the people1 who had suffered no personal wrong1 were moved only by ill-measured ,indignation4 ,the multitude love to hear the powerful exposed and reproached up to a certain limit2 but if reproach go clearly beyond all that they feel to be deserved1 a violent sentiment reacts on the head of the reviler3 and though popular indignation 7even when free from the element of selfishness7 ill fixes the due measure of ,punishment1 ,i have a strong belief that it is righteous1 when it pronounces the verdict ,guilty4 ,does my friend deny that the death of ,jesus was wilfully incurred8 ,the orthodox not merely admit1 but maintain it4 ,their creed justifies it by the doctrine1 that his death was a sacrifice so pleasing to ,god1 as to expiate the sins of the world4 ,this honestly meets the objections to self-destruction2 for how better could life be used1 than by laying it down for such a prize8 ,but besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement1 the orthodox creed startles us by the incredible conception1 that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be unacceptable to ,god1 unless offered by ferocious and impious hands4 ,if ,jesus had authority from the ,father to lay down his life1 was he unable to stab himself in the desert1 or on the sacred altar of the ,temple1 without involving guilt to any human being8 ,did ,he1 who is at once ,high ,priest and ,victim1 when offering up himself and presenting his own blood unto ,god1 need any justification for using the sacrificial knife8 ,the orthodox view more clearly and unshrinkingly avows1 that ,jesus deliberately goaded the wicked rulers into the deeper wickedness of murdering him2 but on my friend's view1 that ,jesus was no sacrifice1 but only a ,model man1 his death is an unrelieved calamity4 ,nothing but a long and complete life could possibly test the fact of his perfection2 and the longer he lived1 the better for the world4 ,in entire consistency with his previous determination to die1 ,jesus1 when arraigned1 refused to rebut accusation1 and behaved as one pleading ,guilty4 ,he was accused of saying that if they destroyed the temple1 he would rebuild it in three days2 but how this was to the purpose1 the evangelists who name it do not make clear4 ,the fourth however 7without intending so to do7 explains it2 and ,i therefore am disposed to believe his statement1 though ,i put no faith in his long discourses4 ,it appears 7,john ii4 #ah-bj7 that ,jesus after scourging the people out of the temple-court1 was asked for a sign to justify his assuming so very unusual authority3 on which he replied3 ,destroy this temple1 and in three days ,i will raise it up4 ,such a reply was regarded as a manifest evasion2 since he was sure that they would not pull the temple down in order to try whether he could raise it up miraculously4 ,now if ,jesus really meant what the fourth gospel says he meant2--if he spoke of the temple of his body2--how was any one to guess that8 ,it cannot be denied1 that such a reply1 prim facie1 suggested1 that he was a wilful impostor3 was it not then his obvious duty1 when this accusation was brought against him1 to explain that his words had been mystical and had been misunderstood8 ,the form of the imputation in ,mark xiv4 #eh1 would make it possible to imagine1--if the three days were left out1 and if his words were not said in reply to the demand of a sign1--that ,jesus had merely avowed that though the outward ,jewish temple were to be destroyed1 he would erect a church of worshippers as a spiritual temple4 ,if so1 ,john has grossly misrepresented him1 and then obtruded a very far-fetched explanation4 ,but whatever was the meaning of ,jesus1 if it was honest1 ,i think he was bound to explain it2 and not leave a suspicion of imposture to rankle in men's minds4#f ,finally1 if the whole were fiction1 and he never uttered such words1 then it was his duty to deny them1 and not remain dumb like a sheep before its shearers4 ,after he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had used a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he was no real ,messiah1 he suddenly burst out with a full reply to the ,high ,priest's question2 and avowed that he was the ,messiah1 the ,son of ,god2 and that they should hereafter see him sitting on the right-hand of power1 and coming in the clouds of heaven1--of course to enter into judgment on them all4 ,i am the less surprized that this precipitated his condemnation1 since he himself seems to have designed precisely that result4 ,the exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death2 and when men's minds had cooled1 natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man4 ,his words had been met with deeds3 the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of ,jerusalem2 and to the ,jews who assembled from distant parts at the feast of ,pentecost he was nothing but the image of a sainted martyr4 ,i have given more than enough indications of points in which the conduct of ,jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man3 how any one can think him a ,universal ,model1 is to me still less intelligible4 ,i might say much more on this subject4 ,but ,i will merely add1 that when my friend gives the weight of his noble testimony to the ,perfection of ,jesus1 ,i think it is due to himself and to us that he should make clear what he means by this word ,jesus4 ,he ought to publish--7,i say it in deep seriousness1 not sarcastically7--an expurgated gospel2 for in truth ,i do not know how much of what ,i have now adduced from the gospel as fact1 he will admit to be fact4 ,i neglect1 he tells me1 a higher moral criticism1 which1 if ,i rightly understand1 would explode1 as evidently unworthy of ,jesus1 many of the representations pervading the gospels3 as1 that ,jesus claimed to be an oracular teacher1 and attached spiritual life or death to belief or disbelief in this claim4 ,my friend says1 it is beyond all serious question what ,jesus was3 but his disbelief of the narrative seems to be so much wider than mine1 as to leave me more uncertain than ever about it4 ,if he will strike out of the gospels all that he disbelieves1 and so enable me to understand what is the ,jesus whom he reveres1 ,i have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers1 that ,i am fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve my objections3 but ,i cannot honestly say that ,i see the least probability of his altering my conviction1 that in consistency of goodness ,jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured disciples4 ,footnote #a3 ,i have by accident just taken up the ,british ,quarterly1 and alighted upon the following sentence concerning ,madame ,roland3--,to say that she was without fault1 would be to say that she was not human4 ,this so entirely expresses and concludes all that ,i have to say1 that ,i feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present4 ,footnote #b3 ,i am acquainted with the interpretation1 that the word ,mr is not here ,greek1 i4e41 fool1 but is ,hebrew1 and means rebel1 which is stronger than ,raca1 silly fellow4 ,this gives partial1 but only partial relief4 ,footnote #c3 ,indeed we have in ,luke vi4 #bj-bd1 a version of the ,beatitudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine1 as to make it an open question1 whether the version in ,matth4 v4 is not an improvement upon ,jesus1 introduced by the purer sense of the collective church4 ,in ,luke1 he does not bless the poor in spirit1 and those who hunger after righteousness1 but absolutely the poor and the hungry1 and all who honour ,him2 and in contrast1 curses the rich and those who are full4 ,footnote #d3 ,at the close1 is the parable about the absent master of a house2 and ,peter asks1 ,lord8 7,sir87 speakest thou this parable unto us1 or also unto all8 ,who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply1 ,to you only1 or1 ,to everybody8 ,instead of which1 so inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery1 he replies1 ,who then is that faithful and wise steward1 c41 c41 and entirely evades reply to the very natural question4 ,footnote #e3 ,this implied that ,judas1 as one of the twelve1 had earned the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods4 ,footnote #f3 ,if the account in ,john is not wholly false1 ,i think the reply in every case discreditable4 ,if literal1 it all but indicates wilful imposture4 ,if mystical1 it is disingenuously evasive2 and it tended1 not to instruct1 but to irritate1 and to move suspicion and contempt4 ,is this the course for a religious teacher8--to speak darkly1 so as to mislead and prejudice2 and this1 when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and his supremacy8 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,on ,,bigotry ,,and ,,progress4 ,if any ,christian reader has been patient enough to follow me thus far1 ,i now claim that he will judge my argument and me1 as before the bar of ,god1 and not by the conventional standards of the ,christian churches4 ,morality and ,truth are principles in human nature both older and more widespread than ,christianity or the ,bible3 and neither ,jesus nor ,james nor ,john nor ,paul could have addressed or did address men in any other tone1 than that of claiming to be themselves judged by some pre-existing standard of moral truth1 and by the inward powers of the hearer4 ,does the reader deny this8 or1 admitting it1 does he think it impious to accept their challenge8 ,does he say that we are to love and embrace ,christianity1 without trying to ascertain whether it be true or false8 ,if he say1 ,yes1--such a man has no love or care for ,truth1 and is but by accident a ,christian4 ,he would have remained a faithful heathen1 had he been born in heathenism1 though ,moses1 ,elijah and ,christ preached a higher truth to him4 ,such a man is condemned by his own confession1 and ,i here address him no longer4 ,but if ,faith is a spiritual and personal thing1 if ,belief given at random to mere high pretensions is an immorality1 if ,truth is not to be quite trampled down1 nor ,conscience to be wholly palsied in us1--then what1 ,i ask1 was ,i to do1 when ,i saw that the genealogy in the first chapter of ,matthew is an erroneous copy of that in the ,old ,testament8 and that the writer has not only copied wrong1 but also counted wrong1 so1 as to mistake eighteen for fourteen8 ,can any man1 who glories in the name of ,christian1 lay his hand on his heart1 and say1 it was my duty to blind my eyes to the fact1 and think of it no further8 ,many1 alas1 ,i know1 would have whispered this to me2 but if any one were to proclaim it1 the universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent4 ,if however this first step was right1 was a second step wrong8 ,when ,i further discerned that the two genealogies in ,matthew and ,luke were at variance1 utterly irreconcilable1--and both moreover nugatory1 because they are genealogies of ,joseph1 who is denied to be the father of ,jesus1--on what ground of righteousness1 which ,i could approve to ,god and my conscience1 could ,i shut my eyes to this second fact8 ,when forced1 against all my prepossessions1 to admit that the two first chapters of ,matthew and the two first chapters of ,luke are mutually destructive1#a would it have been faithfulness to the ,god of ,truth1 or a self-willed love of my own prejudices1 if ,i had said1 ,i will not inquire further1 for fear it should unsettle my faith8 ,the reader's conscience will witness to me1 that1 on the contrary1 ,i was bound to say1 what ,i did say3 ,i must inquire further in order that ,i may plant the foundations of my faith more deeply on the rock of ,truth4' ,having discovered1 that not all that is within the canon of the ,scripture is infallibly correct1 and that the human understanding is competent to arraign and convict at least some kinds of error therein contained2--where was ,i to stop8 and if ,i am guilty1 where did my guilt begin8 ,the further ,i inquired1 the more errors crowded upon me1 in ,history1 in ,chronology1 in ,geography1 in ,physiology1 in ,geology4#b ,did it then at last become a duty to close my eyes to the painful light8 and if ,i had done so1 ought ,i to have flattered myself that ,i was one of those1 who being of the truth1 come to the lights that their deeds may be reproved8 ,moreover1 when ,i had clearly perceived1 that since all evidence for ,christianity must involve moral considerations1 to undervalue the moral faculties of mankind is to make ,christian evidence an impossibility and to propagate universal scepticism2--was ,i then so to distrust the common conscience1 as to believe that the ,spirit of ,god pronounced ,jael blessed1 for perfidiously murdering her husband's trusting friend8 ,does any ,protestant reader feel disgust and horror1 at the sophistical defences set up for the massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew and other atrocities of the wicked ,church of ,rome8 ,let him stop his mouth1 and hide his face1 if he dares to justify the foul crime of ,jael4 ,or when ,i was thus forced to admit1 that the ,old ,testament praised immorality1 as well as enunciated error2 and found nevertheless in the writers of the ,new ,testament no indication that they were aware of either2 but that1 on the contrary1 the ,scripture 7as the book was vaguely called7 is habitually identified with the infallible word of ,god2--was it wrong in me to suspect that the writers of the ,new ,testament were themselves open to mistake8 ,when ,i farther found1 that ,luke not only claims no infallibility and no inspiration1 but distinctly assigns human sources as his means of knowledge2--when the same ,luke had already been discovered to be in irreconcilable variance with ,matthew concerning the infancy of ,jesus2--was ,i sinful in feeling that ,i had no longer any guarantee against other possible error in these writers8 or ought ,i to have persisted in obtruding on the two evangelists on infallibility of which ,luke shows himself unconscious1 which ,matthew nowhere claims1 and which ,i had demonstrative proof that they did not both possess8 ,a thorough-going ,bibliolater will have to impeach me as a sinner on this count4 ,after ,luke and ,matthew stood before me as human writers1 liable to and convicted of human error1 was there any reason why ,i should look on ,mark as more sacred8 ,and having perceived all three to participate in the common superstition1 derived from ,babylon and the ,east1 traceable in history to its human source1 existing still in ,turkey and ,abyssinia1--the superstition which mistakes mania1 epilepsy1 and other forms of disease1 for possession by devils2--should ,i have shown love of truth1 or obstinacy in error1 had ,i refused to judge freely of these three writers1 as of any others who tell similar marvels8 or was it my duty to resolve1 at any rate and against evidence1 to acquit them of the charge of superstition and misrepresentation8 ,i will not trouble the reader with any further queries4 ,if he has justified me in his conscience thus far1 he will justify my proceeding to abandon myself to the results of inquiry4 ,he will feel1 that the ,will cannot1 may not1 dare not dictate1 whereto the inquiries of the ,understanding shall lead2 and that to allege that it ought1 is to plant the root of ,insincerity1 ,falsehood1 ,bigotry1 ,cruelty1 and universal ,rottenness of ,soul4 ,the vice of ,bigotry has been so indiscriminately imputed to the religious1 that they seem apt to forget that it is a real sin2--a sin which in ,christendom has been and is of all sins most fruitful1 most poisonous3 nay1 grief of griefs6 it infects many of the purest and most lovely hearts1 which want strength of understanding1 or are entangled by a sham theology1 with its false facts and fraudulent canons4 ,but upon all who mourn for the miseries which ,bigotry has perpetrated from the day when ,christians first learned to curse2 upon all who groan over the persecutions and wars stirred up by ,romanism2 upon all who blush at the overbearing conduct of ,protestants in their successive moments of brief authority1--a sacred duty rests in this nineteenth century of protesting against ,bigotry1 not from a love of ease1 but from a spirit of earnest justice4 ,like the first ,christians1 they must become confessors of the ,truth2 not obtrusively1 boastfully1 dogmatically1 or harshly2 but1 speaking the truth in love1 not be ashamed to avow1 if they do not believe all that others profess1 and that they abhor the unrighteous principle of judging men by an authoritative creed4 ,the evil of ,bigotry which has been most observed1 is its untameable injustice1 which converted the law of love into licensed murder or gratuitous hatred4 ,but ,i believe a worse evil still has been1 the intense reaction of the human mind against ,religion for ,bigotry's sake4 ,to the millions of ,europe1 bigotry has been a confutation of all pious feeling4 ,so unlovely has religion been made by it1 ,horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans1 that now1 as #bjjj years ago1 men are lapsing into ,atheism or ,pantheism2 and a totally new dispensation is wanted to retrieve the lost reputation of ,piety4 ,two opposite errors are committed by those who discern that the pretensions of the national religious systems are overstrained and unjustifiable4 ,one class of persons inveighs warmly1 bitterly1 rudely against the bigotry of ,christians2 and know not how deep and holy affections and principles1 in spite of narrowness1 are cherished in the bosom of the ,christian society4 ,hence their invective is harsh and unsympathizing2 and appears so essentially unjust and so ignorant1 as to exasperate and increase the very bigotry which it attacks4 ,an opposite class know well1 and value highly1 the moral influences of ,christianity1 and from an intense dread of harming or losing these1 do not dare plainly and publicly to avow their own convictions4 ,great numbers of ,english laymen are entirely assured1 that the ,old ,testament abounds with error1 and that the ,new is not always unimpeachable3 yet they only whisper this2 and in the hearing of a clergyman1 who is bound by ,articles and whom it is indecent to refute1 keep a respectful silence4 ,as for ministers of religion1 these1 being called perpetually into a practical application of the received doctrine of their church1 are of all men least able to inquire into any fundamental errors in that doctrine4 ,eminent persons among them will nevertheless aim after and attain a purer truth than that which they find established3 but such a case must always be rare and exceptive4 ,only by disusing ministerial service can any one give fair play to doubts concerning the wisdom and truth of that which he is solemnly ministering3 hence that friend of ,arnold's was wise in this world1 who advised him to take a curacy in order to settle his doubts concerning the ,trinity4--,nowhere from any body of priests1 clergy1 or ministers1 as an ,order1 is religious progress to be anticipated1 until intellectual creeds are destroyed4 ,a greater responsibility therefore is laid upon laymen1 to be faithful and bold in avowing their convictions4 ,yet it is not from the practical ministers of religion1 that the great opposition to religious reform proceeds4 ,the secular clergy 7as the ,romanists oddly call them7 were seldom so bigoted as the regulars4 ,so with us1 those who minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a deeper moral spirit1 and are less apt to place religion in systems of propositions4 ,the robur legionum of bigotry1 ,i believe1 is found1--first1 in non-parochial clergy1 and next in the anonymous writers for religious journals and conservative newspapers2 who too generally#c adopt a style of which they would be ashamed1 if the names of the writers were attached2 who often seem desirous to make it clear that it is their trade to carp1 insult1 or slander2 who assume a tone of omniscience1 at the very moment when they show narrowness of heart and judgment4 ,to such writing those who desire to promote earnest ,thought and tranquil ,progress ought anxiously to testify their deep repugnance4 ,a large part of this slander and insult is prompted by a base pandering to the 7real or imagined7 taste of the public1 and will abate when it visibly ceases to be gainful4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the law of ,god's moral universe1 as known to us1 is that of ,progress4 ,we trace it from old barbarism to the methodized ,egyptian idolatry2 to the more flexible ,polytheism of ,syria and ,greece2 the poetical ,pantheism of philosophers1 and the moral monotheism of a few sages4 ,so in ,palestine and in the ,bible itself we see1 first of all1 the image-worship of ,jacob's family1 then the incipient elevation of ,jehovah above all other ,gods by ,moses1 the practical establishment of the worship of ,jehovah alone by ,samuel1 the rise of spiritual sentiment under ,david and the ,psalmists1 the more magnificent views of ,hezekiah's prophets1 finally in the ,babylonish captivity the new tenderness assumed by that second ,isaiah and the later ,psalmists4 ,but ceremonialism more and more encrusted the restored nation2 and ,jesus was needed to spur and stab the conscience of his contemporaries1 and recal them to more spiritual perceptions2 to proclaim a coming kingdom of heaven1 in which should be gathered all the children of ,god that were scattered abroad2 where the law of love should reign1 and no one should dictate to another4 ,alas6 that this great movement had its admixture of human imperfection4 ,after this1 ,steven the protomartyr1 and ,paul once him persecutor1 had to expose the emptiness of all external santifications1 and free the world from the law of ,moses4 ,up to this point all ,christians approve of progress2 but at this point they want to arrest it4 ,the arguments of those who resist ,progress are always the same1 whether it be ,pagans against ,hebrews1 ,jews against ,christians1 ,romanists against ,protestants1 or modern ,christians against the advocates of a higher spiritualism4 ,each established system assures its votaries1 that now at length they have attained a final perfection3 that their foundations are irremovable3 progress up to that position was a duty1 beyond it is a sin4 ,each displaces its predecessor by superior goodness1 but then each fights against his successor by odium1 contempt1 exclusions and 7when possible7 by violences4 ,each advances mankind one step1 and forbids them to take a second4 ,yet if it be admitted that in the earlier movement the party of progress was always right1 confidence that the case is now reversed is not easy to justify4 ,every persecuting church has numbered among its members thousands of pious people1 so grateful for its services1 or so attached to its truth1 as to think those impious who desire something purer and more perfect4 ,herein we may discern1 that every nation and class is liable to the peculiar illusion of overesteeming the sanctity of its ancestral creed4 ,it is as much our duty to beware of this illusion1 as of any other4 ,all know how easily our patriotism may degenerate into an unjust repugnance to foreigners1 and that the more intense it is1 the greater the need of antagonistic principles4 ,so also1 the real excellencies of our religion may only so much the more rivet us in a wrong aversion to those who do not acknowledge its authority or perfection4 ,it is probable that ,jesus desired a state of things in which all who worship ,god spiritually should have an acknowledged and conscious union4 ,it is clear that ,paul longed above all things to overthrow the wall of partition which separated two families of sincere worshippers4 ,yet we now see stronger and higher walls of partition than ever1 between the children of the same ,god1--with a new law of the letter1 more entangling to the conscience1 and more depressing to the mental energies1 than any outward service of the ,levitical law4 ,the cause of all this is to be found in the claim of ,messiahship for ,jesus4 ,this gave a premium to crooked logic1 in order to prove that the prophecies meant what they did not mean and could not mean4 ,this perverted men's notions of right and wrong1 by imparting factitious value to a literary and historical proposition1 ,jesus is the ,messiah1 as though that were or could be religion4 ,this gave merit to credulity1 and led pious men to extol it as a brave and noble deed1 when any one overpowered the scruples of good sense1 and scolded them down as the wisdom of this world1 which is hostile to ,god4 ,this put the ,christian church into an essentially false position1 by excluding from it in the first century all the men of most powerful and cultivated understanding among the ,greeks and ,romans4 ,this taught ,christians to boast of the hostility of the wise and prudent1 and in every controversy ensured that the party which had the merit of mortifying reason most signally should be victorious4 ,hence1 the downward career of the ,church into base superstition was determined and inevitable from her very birth2 nor was any improvement possible1 until a reconciliation should be effected between ,christianity and the cultivated reason which it had slighted and insulted4 ,such reconciliation commenced1 ,i believe1 from the tenth century1 when the ,latin moralists began to be studied as a part of a theological course4 ,it was continued with still greater results when ,greek literature became accessible to churchmen4 ,afterwards1 the physics of ,galileo and of ,newton began not only to undermine numerous superstitions1 but to give to men a confidence in the reality of abstract truth1 and in our power to attain it in other domains than that of geometrical demonstration4 ,this1 together with the philosophy of ,locke1 was taken up into ,christian thought1 and ,political ,toleration was the first fruit4 ,beyond that point1 ,english religion has hardly gone4 ,for in spite of all that has since been done in ,germany for the true and accurate exposition of the ,bible1 and for the scientific establishment of the history of its component books1 we still remain deplorably ignorant here of these subjects4 ,in consequence1 ,english ,christians do not know that they are unjust and utterly unreasonable1 in expecting thoughtful men to abide by the creed of their ancestors4 ,nor1 indeed1 is there any more stereotyped and approved calumny1 than the declaration so often emphatically enunciated from the pulpit1 that unbelief in the ,christian miracles is the fruit of a wicked heart and of a soul enslaved to sin4 ,thus do estimable and well-meaning men1 deceived and deceiving one another1 utter base slander in open church1 where it is indecorous to reply to them1--and think that they are bravely delivering a religions testimony4 ,no difficulty is encountered1 so long as the inward and the outward rule of religion agree1--by whatever names men call them1--the ,spirit and the ,word--or ,reason and the ,church1--or ,conscience and ,authority4 ,none need settle which of the two rules is the greater1 so long as the results coincide3 in fact1 there is no controversy1 no struggle1 and also probably no progress4 ,a child cannot guess whether father or mother has the higher authority1 until discordant commands are given2 but then commences the painful necessity of disobeying one in order to obey the other4 ,so1 also1 the great and fundamental controversies of religion arise1 only when a discrepancy is detected between the inward and the outward rule3 and then1 there are only two possible solutions4 ,if the ,spirit within us and the ,bible 7or ,church7 without us are at variance1 we must either follow the inward and disregard the outward law2 else we must renounce the inward law and obey the outward4 ,the ,romanist bids us to obey the ,church and crush our inward judgment3 the ,spiritualist1 on the contrary1 follows his inward law1 and1 when necessary1 defies ,church1 ,bible1 or any other authority4 ,the orthodox ,protestant is better and truer than the ,romanist1 because the ,protestant is not like the latter1 consistent in error1 but often goes right3 still he is inconsistent as to this point4 ,against the ,spiritualist he uses ,romanist principles1 telling him that he ought to submit his proud reason and accept the ,word of ,god as infallible1 even though it appear to him to contain errors4 ,but against the ,romanist the same disputant avows ,spiritualist principles1 declaring that since the ,church appears to him to be erroneous1 he dares not to accept it as infallible4 ,what with the ,romanist he before called proud reason1 he now designates as ,conscience1 ,understanding1 and perhaps the ,holy ,spirit4 ,he refused to allow the right of the ,spiritualist to urge1 that the ,bible contains contradictions and immoralities1 and therefore cannot be received2 but he claims a full right to urge that the ,church has justified contradictions and immoralities1 and therefore is not to be submitted to4 ,the perception that this position is inconsistent1 and1 to him who discerns the inconsistency1 dishonest1 is every year driving ,protestants to ,rome4 ,and in principle there are only two possible religions3 the ,personal and the ,corporate2 the ,spiritual and the ,external4 ,i do not mean to say that in ,romanism there is nothing but what is ,corporate and ,external2 for that is impossible to human nature3 but that this is what the theory of their argument demands2 and their doctrine of ,implicit#d 7or ,virtual7 ,faith entirely supersedes intellectual perception as well as intellectual conviction4 ,the theory of each church is the force which determines to what centre the whole shall gravitate4 ,however men may talk of spirituality1 yet let them once enact that the freedom of individuals shall be absorbed in a corporate conscience1 and you find that the narrowest heart and meanest intellect sets the rule of conduct for the whole body4 ,it has been often observed how the controversies of the ,trinity and ,incarnation depended on the niceties of the ,greek tongue4 ,i do not know whether it has ever been inquired1 what confusion of thought was shed over ,gentile ,christianity1 from its very origin1 by the imperfection of the ,new ,testament ,greek4 ,the single ,greek#e word ,greek3 pistis needs probably three translations into our far more accurate tongue1--viz41 ,belief1 ,trust1 ,faith2 but especially ,belief and ,faith have important contrasts4 ,belief is purely intellectual2 ,faith is properly spiritual4 ,hence the endless controversy about ,justification by ,greek3 pistis1 which has so vexed ,christians2 hence the slander cast on unbelievers or misbelievers 7when they can no longer be burned or exiled71 as though they were faithless and infidels4 ,but nothing of this ought to be allowed to blind us to the truly spiritual and holy developments of historical ,christianity1--much less1 make us revert to the old ,paganism or ,pantheism which it supplanted4--,the great doctrine on which all practical religion depends1--the doctrine which nursed the infancy and youth of human nature1--is1 the sympathy of ,god with the perfection of individual man4 ,among ,pagans this was so marred by the imperfect characters ascribed to the ,gods1 and the dishonourable fables told concerning them1 that the philosophers who undertook to prune religion too generally cut away the root1 by alleging#f that ,god was mere ,intellect and wholly destitute of ,affections4 ,but happily among the ,hebrews the purity of ,god's character was vindicated2 and with the growth of conscience in the highest minds of the nation the ideal image of ,god shone brighter and brighter4 ,the doctrine of his ,sympathy was never lost1 and from the ,jews it passed into the ,christian church4 ,this doctrine1 applied to that part of man which is divine1 is the wellspring of ,repentance and ,humility1 of ,thankfulness1 ,love1 and ,joy4 ,it reproves and it comforts2 it stimulates and animates4 ,this it is which led the ,psalmist to cry1 ,whom have ,i in heaven but ,thee8 there is none upon earth that ,i desire beside ,thee4 ,this has satisfied prophets1 apostles1 and martyrs with ,god as their ,portion4 ,this has been passed from heart to heart for full three thousand years1 and has produced bands of countless saints4 ,let us not cut off our sympathies from those1 who have learnt to sympathize with ,god2 nor be blind to that spiritual good which they have2 even if it be1 more or less sensibly1 tinged with intellectual error4 ,in fact1 none but ,god knows1 how many ,christian hearts are really pure from bigotry4 ,i cannot refuse to add my testimony1 such as it is1 to the effect1 that the majority is always truehearted4 ,as one tyrant1 with a small band of unscrupulous tools1 manages to use the energies of a whole nation of kind and well-meaning people for cruel purposes1 so the bigoted few1 who work out an evil theory with consistency1 often succeed in using the masses of simpleminded ,christians as their tools for oppression4 ,let us not think more harshly than is necessary of the anathematizing churches4 ,those who curse us with their lips1 often love us in their hearts4 ,a very deep fountain of tenderness can mingle with their bigotry itself3 and with tens of thousands1 the evil belief is a dead form1 the spiritual love is a living reality4 ,whether ,christians like it or not1 we must needs look to ,historians1 to ,linguists1 to ,physiologists1 to ,philosophers1 and generally1 to men of cultivated understanding1 to gain help in all those subjects which are preposterously called ,theology3 but for devotional aids1 for pious meditations1 for inspiring hymns1 for purifying and glowing thoughts1 we have still to wait upon that succession of kindling souls1 among whom may be named with special honour ,david and ,isaiah1 ,jesus and ,paul1 ,augustine1 ,a ,kempis1 ,fenelon1 ,leighton1 ,baxter1 ,doddridge1 ,watts1 the two ,wesleys1 and ,channing4 ,religion was created by the inward instincts of the soul3 it had afterwards to be pruned and chastened by the sceptical understanding4 ,for its perfection1 the co-operation of these two parts of man is essential4 ,while religious persons dread critical and searching thought1 and critics despise instinctive religion1 each side remains imperfect and curtailed4 ,it is a complaint often made by religious historians1 that no church can sustain its spirituality unimpaired through two generations1 and that in the third a total irreligion is apt to supervene4 ,sometimes indeed the transitions are abrupt1 from an age of piety to an age of dissoluteness4 ,the liability to such lamentable revulsions is plainly due to some insufficiency in the religion to meet all the wants of human nature4 ,to scold at that nature is puerile1 and implies an ignorance of the task which religion undertakes4 ,to lay the fault on the sovereign will of ,god1 who has withheld his grace from the grandchildren of the pious1 might be called blasphemy1 if we were disposed to speak harshly4 ,the fault lies undoubtedly in the fact1 that ,practical ,devoutness and ,free ,thought stand apart in unnatural schism4 ,but surely the age is ripe for something better2--for a religion which stall combine the tenderness1 humility1 and disinterestedness1 that are the glory of the purest ,christianity1 with that activity of intellect1 untiring pursuit of truth1 and strict adherence to impartial principle1 which the schools of modern science embody4 ,when a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern good and evil1 judges of right and wrong by an inward power1 proves all things and holds fast that which is good1 fears no truth1 but rejoices in being corrected1 intellectually as well as morally1--it will not be liable to be carried to and fro by shifting winds of doctrine4 ,it will indeed have movement1 namely1 a steady onward one1 as the schools of science have had1 since they left off to dogmatize1 and approached ,god's world as learners2 but it will lay aside disputes of words1 eternal vacillations1 mutual illwill and dread of new light1 and will be able without hypocrisy to proclaim peace on earth and goodwill towards men1 even towards those who reject its beliefs and sentiments concerning ,god and his glory4 ,,note ,,on ,,page #afh4 ,the author of the ,eclipse of ,faith1 in his ,defence 7p4 #afh71 referring to my reply in p4 #aja above1 says3--,in this very paragraph ,mr4 ,newman shows that ,i have not misrepresented him1 nor is it true that ,i overlooked his novel hypothesis4 ,he says that ',gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of ,christianity before ,constantine1'--which ,mr4 ,newman says had not spread4 ,on the contrary2 he assumes that the ,christians were 'a small fraction1' and thus does dismiss in two sentences1 ,i might have said three words1 what ,gibbon had strained every nerve in his celebrated chapter to account for4 ,observe his phrase1 ,on the contrary4 ,it is impossible to say more plainly1 that ,gibbon represents the spread of ,christianity before ,constantine to have been very great1 and then laboured in vain to account for that spread2 and that ,i1 arbitrarily setting aside ,gibbon's fact as to the magnitude of the spread1 cut the knot which he could not untie4 ,but the fact1 as between ,gibbon and me1 is flatly the reverse4 ,i advance nothing novel as to the numbers of the ,christians1 no hypothesis of my own1 no assumption4 ,i have merely adopted ,gibbon's own historical estimate1 that 7judging1 as he does judge1 by the examples of ,rome and ,antioch71 the ,christians before the rise of ,constantine were but a small fraction of the population4 ,indeed1 he says1 not above one-twentieth part2 on which ,i laid no stress4 ,it may be that ,gibbon is here in error4 ,i shall willingly withdraw any historical argument1 if shown that ,i have unawares rested on a false basis4 ,in balancing counter statements and reasons from diverse sources1 different minds come to different statistical conclusions4 ,dean ,milman 7,hist4 of ,christianity1 vol4 ii4 p4 #cda7 when deliberately weighing opposite opinions1 says cautiously1 that ,gibbon is perhaps inclined to underrate the number of the ,christians4 ,he adds3 ,m4 ,beugnot agrees much with ,gibbon1 and ,i should conceive1 with regard to the ,west1 is clearly right4 ,i beg the reader to observe1 that ,i have not represented the numerical strength of the ,christians in ,constantine's army to be great4 ,why my opponent should ridicule my use of the phrase ,christian regiments1 ,i am too dull to understand4 7,who would not think1 says he1 that it was one of ,constantine's aide-de-camps that was speaking87 ,it may be that ,i am wrong in using the plural noun1 and that there was only one such regiment1--that which carried the ,labarum1 or standard of the cross 7,gibbon1 ch4 #bj71 to which so much efficacy was attributed in the war against ,licinius4 ,i have no time at present1 nor any need for further inquiries on such matters4 ,it is to the devotion and organization of the ,christians1 not to their proportionate numbers1 that ,i attributed weight4 ,if 7as ,milman says7 ,gibbon and ,beugnot are clearly right as regards the ,west--i4e41 as regards all that vast district which became the area of modern ,european ,christendom1 ,i see nothing in my argument which requires modification4 ,but why did ,christianity1 while opposed by the ruling powers1 spread in the ,east8 ,in the very chapter from which ,i have quoted1 ,dean ,milman justifies me in saying1 that to this question ,i may simply reply1 ,i do not know1 without impairing my present argument4 7,i myself find no difficulty in it whatever2 but ,i protest against the assumption1 that ,i am bound to believe a religion preternatural1 unless ,i con account for its origin and diffusion to the satisfaction of its adherents47 ,dean ,milman1 vol4 ii4 pp4 #cbb-cdj1 gives a full account of the ,manichan religion1 and its rapid and great spread in spate of violent persecution4 ,,mani1 the founder1 represented himself as a man invested with a divine mission4 ,his doctrines are described by ,milman as wild and mystical metaphysics1 combining elements of thought from ,magianism1 ,judaism1 ,christianity1 and ,buddhism4 ,his worship was simple1 without altar1 temple1 images1 or any imposing ceremonial4 ,pure and simple prayer was their only form of adoration4 ,they talked much of ,christ as a heavenly principle1 but did not believe in his birth or death4 ,prayers and ,hymns addressed to the source of light1 exhortations to subdue the dark and sensuous element within1 and the study of the marvellous book of ,mani1 constituted their devotion4 ,their manners were austere and ascetic2 they tolerated1 but only tolerated1 marriage1 and that only among the inferior orders4 ,the theatre1 the banquet1 and even the bath1 they severely proscribed4 ,their diet was of fruits and herbs2 they shrank with abhorrence from animal food4 ,mani met with fierce hostility from ,west and ,east alike2 and at last was entrapped by the ,persian king ,baharam1 and was flayed alive4 ,his skin1 stuffed with straw1 was placed over the gate of the city of ,shahpoor4 ,such a death was as cruel and as ignominious as that of crucifixion2 yet his doctrines expired not with their author4 ,in the ,east and in the ,west they spread with the utmost rapidity4444 ,the extent of its success may be calculated by the implacable hostility of other religions to the doctrines of ,mani2 the causes of that success are more difficult to conjecture4 ,every reason1 which1 as far as ,i know1 has ever been given1 why it should be hard for early ,christianity to spread1 avail equally as reasons against the spread of ,manichism4 ,the state of the ,east1 which admitted the latter without miracle1 admitted the former also4 ,it nevertheless is pertinent to add1 that the recent history of ,mormonism1 compared with that of ,christianity and of ,manichism1 may suggest that the martyr-death of the founder of a religion is a positive aid to its after-success4 ,footnote #a3 ,see ,strauss on the ,infancy of ,jesus4 ,footnote #b3 ,my ,eclectic reviewer 7who is among the least orthodox and the least uncandid7 hence deduces1 that ,i have confounded the two questions1 ,does the ,bible contain errors in human science8 and1 ,is its purely spiritual teaching true8 ,it is quite wonderful to me1 how educated men can so totally overlook what ,i have so plainly and so often written4 ,this very passage might show the contrary1 if he had but quoted the whole paragraph1 instead of the middle sentence only4 ,see also pp4 #fg1 #gd1 #ge1 #hf1 #hg1 #abe4 ,footnote #c3 ,any orthodox periodical which dares to write charitably1 is at once subjected to fierce attack us unorthodox4 ,footnote #d3 ,explicit ,faith in a doctrine1 means1 that we understand what the propositions are1 and accept them4 ,but if through blunder we accept a wrong set of propositions1 so as to believe a false doctrine1 we nevertheless have ,implicit 7or ,virtual7 ,faith in the true one1 if only we say from the heart3 ,whatever the ,church believes1 ,i believe4 ,thus a person1 who1 through blundering1 believes in ,sabellianism or ,arianism1 which the ,church has condemned1 is regarded to have virtual faith in ,trinitarianism1 and all the merit of that faith1 because of his good will to submit to the ,church2 which is the really saving virtue4 ,footnote #e3 ,greek3 ,dikaiosune 7righteousness71 ,greek3 ,diatheke 7covenant1 testament71 ,greek3 ,charis 7grace71 are all terms pregnant with fallacy4 ,footnote #f3 ,horace and ,cicero speak the mind of their educated contemporaries in saying that we ought to pray to ,god only for external blessings1 but trust to our own efforts for a pure and tranquil soul1--a singular reversing of spiritual religion ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,reply ,,to ,,the ,,defence ,,of ,,the ,,eclipse ,,of ,,faith4 ,this small treatise was reviewed1 unfavourably of course1 in most of the religious periodicals1 and among them in the ,prospective ,review1 by my friend ,james ,martineau4 ,i had been about the same time attacked in a book called the ,eclipse of ,faith1 written 7chiefly against my treatise on the ,soul7 in the form of a ,platonic ,dialogue2 in which a sceptic1 a certain ,harrington1 is made to indulge in a great deal of loose and bantering argumentation1 with the view of ridiculing my religion1 and doing so by ways of which some specimen will be given4 ,i made an indignant protest in a new edition of this book1 and added also various matter in reply to ,mr4 ,martineau1 which will still be found here4 ,he in consequence in a second article#a of the ,prospective reviewed me afresh2 but1 in the opening1 he first pronounced his sentence in words of deep disapproval against the ,eclipse of ,faith4 ,the method of the work1 says he1 its plan of appealing from what seems shocking in the ,bible to something more shocking in the world1 simply doubles every difficulty without relieving any2 and tends to enthrone a devil everywhere1 and leave a ,god nowhere4444 ,the whole force of the writer's thought1--his power of exposition1 of argument1 of sarcasm1 is thrown1 in spite of himself1 into the irreligious scale4444 ,if the work be really written#b in good faith1 and be not rather a covert attack on all religion1 it curiously shows how the temple of the author's worship stands on the same foundation with the officina of ,atheism1 and in such close vicinity that the passer-by cannot tell from which of the two the voices stray into the street4 ,the author of the ,eclipse1 buoyed up by a large sale of his work to a credulous public1 put forth a ,defence1 in which he naturally declined to submit to the judgment of this reviewer4 ,but my readers will remark1 that ,mr4 ,martineau1 writing against me1 and seeking to rebut my replies to him--7nay1 ,i fear ,i must say my attack on him2 for ,i have confessed1 almost with compunction1 that it was ,i who first stirred the controversy7--was very favourably situated for maintaining a calmly judicial impartiality4 ,he thought us both wrong1 and he administered to us each the medicine which seemed to him needed4 ,he passed his strictures on what he judged to be my errors1 and he rebuked my assailant for profane recklessness4 ,i had complained1 not of this merely1 but of monstrous indefensible garbling and misrepresentation1 pervading the whole work4 ,the dialogue is so managed1 as often to suggest what is false concerning me1 yet without asserting it2 so as to enable him to disown the slander1 while producing its full effect against me4 ,of the directly false statements and garblings ,i gave several striking exhibitions4 ,his reply to all this in the first edition of his ,defence was reviewed in a third article of the ,prospective ,review1 ,its ability and reach of thought are attested by the fact that it has been mistaken for the writing of ,mr4 ,martineau2 but 7as clearly as reviews ever speak on such subjects7 it is intimated in the opening that this new article is from a new hand1 at the risk of revealing division of persons and opinions within the limits of the mystic critical ,we4 ,who is the author1 ,i do not know2 nor can ,i make a likely guess at any one who was in more than distant intercourse with me4 ,this third reviewer did not bestow one page1 as ,mr4 ,martineau had done1 on the ,eclipse2 did not summarily pronounce a broad sentence without details1 but dedicated thirty-four pages to the examination and proof4 ,he opens with noticing the parallel which the author of the ,eclipse has instituted between his use of ridicule and that of ,pascal2 and replies that he signally violates ,pascal's two rules1 first1 to speak with truth against one's opponents and not with calumny2 secondly1 not to wound them needlessly4 ,neglect of the first rule 7says he7 has given to these books the ,eclipse and its ,defence their apparent controversial success2 disregard of the second their literary point4 ,he adds1 ,we shall show that their author misstates and misrepresents doctrines2 garbles quotations1 interpolating words which give the passage he cites reference to subjects quite foreign from those to which in the original they apply1 while retaining the inverted commas1 which are the proper sign of faithful transcription2 that similarly1 he allows himself the licence of omission of the very words on which the controversy hangs1 while in appearance citing verbatim2444 and that he habitually employs a sophistry too artful 7we fear7 to be undesigned4 ,may he not himself have been deceived1 some indulgent render perhaps asks1 by the fallacies which have been so successful with others8 ,it would be as reasonable to suppose that the grapes which deluded the birds must have deluded ,zeuxis who painted them4 ,so grave an accusation against my assailant's truthfulness1 coming not from me1 but from a third party1 and that1 evidently a man who knew well what he was saying and why1--could not be passed over unnoticed1 although that religious world1 which reads one side only1 continued to buy the ,eclipse and its ,defence greedily1 and not one in a thousand of them was likely to see the ,prospective ,review1 ,in the second edition of the ,defence the writer undertakes to defend himself against my advocate1 in on ,appendix of #ai closely printed pages1 the ,defence itself being #bah4 ,the ,eclipse1 in its #ith edition of small print1 is #cic pages4 ,and how does he set about his reply8 ,by trying to identify the third writer with the second 7who was notoriously ,mr4 ,martineau71 and to impute to him ill temper1 chagrin1 irritation1 and wounded self-love1 as the explanation of this third article3 ,he says 7p4 #bba73-- ,the third writer--if1 as ,i have said1 he be not the second--sets out on a new voyage of discovery 444 and still humbly following in the wake of ,mr4 ,newman's great critical discoveries1#c repeats that gentleman's charges of falsifying passages1 garbling and misrepresentation4 ,in doing so1 he employs language1 and manifests a temper1 which ,i should have thought that respect for himself1 if not for his opponent1 would have induced him to suppress4 ,it is enough to say1 that he quite rivals ,mr4 ,newman in sagacity1 and if possible1 has more successfully denuded himself of charity4444 ,if he be the same as the second writer1 ,i am afraid that the little ,section ,,xv4 i4e4 the reply to ,mr4 ,martineau in #ast edition of the ,defence must have offended the amour propre more deeply than it ought to have done1 considering the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very lenient reply1 and that the critic affords another illustration of the old maxim1 that there are none so implacable as those who have done a wrong4 ,as the spectacle of the reeling ,helot taught the ,spartans sobriety1 so his bitterness shall teach me moderation4 ,i know enough of human nature to understand that it is very possible for an angry man--and chagrin and irritation are too legibly written on every page of this article--to be betrayed into gross injustice4 ,the reader will see from this the difficulty of my position in this controversy4 ,mr4 ,martineau1 while defending himself1 deprecated the profanity of my other opponent1 and the atheistic nature of his arguments4 ,he spoke as a bystander1 and with the advantage of a judicial position1 and it is called wanton and outrageous4 ,a second writer goes into detail1 and exposes some of the garbling arts which have been used against me2 it is imputed#d to ill temper1 and is insinuated to be from a spirit of personal revenge4 ,how much less can ,i defend myself1 and that1 against untruthfulness1 without incurring such imputation6 ,my opponent speaks to a public who will not read my replies4 ,he picks out what he pleases of my words1 and takes care to divest them of their justification4 ,i have 7as was to be expected7 met with much treatment from the religious press which ,i know cannot be justified2 but all is slight1 compared to that of which ,i complain from this writer4 ,i will presently give a few detailed instances to illustrate this4 ,while my charge against my assailant is essentially moral1 and ,i cannot make any parade of charity1 he can speak patronizingly of me now and then1 and makes his main attacks on my logic and metaphysics4 ,he says1 that in writing his first book1 he knew no characteristics of me1 except that ,i was a gentleman1 a scholar1 and a very indifferent metaphysician ,at the risk of encountering yet more of banter and insult1 ,i shall here quote what the third ,prospective ,reviewer says on this topic4 7,vol4 x4 p4 #bjh73-- ,our readers will be able to judge how well qualified the author is to sneer at ,mr4 ,newman's metaphysics1 which are far more accurate than his own1 or to ridicule his logic4 ,the tone of contempt which he habitually assumes preposterously reverses the relative intellectual status1 so far as sound systematic thought is concerned1 of the two men4 ,i do not quote this as testimony to myself but as testimony that others1 as well as ,i1 feel the contemptuous tone assumed by my adversary in precisely that subject on which modesty is called for4 ,on metaphysics there is hitherto an unreconciled diversity among men who have spent their lives in the study2 and a large part of the endless religious disputes turns on this very fact4 ,however1 the being told1 in a multitude of ingenious forms1 that ,i am a wretched logician1 is not likely to raffle my tranquillity4 ,what does necessarily wound me1 is his misrepresenting my thoughts to the thoughtful1 whose respect ,i honour2 and poisoning the atmosphere between me and a thousand religious hearts4 ,that these do not despise me1 however much contempt he may vent1 ,i know only too well through their cruel fears of me4 ,i have just now learned incidentally1 that in the last number 7a supplementary number7 of the ,prospective ,review1 there was a short reply to the second edition of ,mr4 ,rogers's ,defence1 in which the ,editors officially deny that the third writer against ,mr4 ,rogers is the same as the second2 which1 ,i gather from their statement1 the ,british ,quarterly had taken on itself to affirm4 ,i proceed to show what liberties my critic takes with my arguments1 and what he justifies4 ,i4 ,in the closing chapter of my third edition of the ,phases1 ,i had complained of his bad faith in regard to my arguments concerning the ,authoritative imposition of moral truth from without4 ,i showed that1 after telling his reader that ,i offered no proof of my assertions1 he dislocated my sentences1 altered their order1 omitted an adverb of inference1 and isolated three sentences out of a paragraph of forty-six lines3 that his omission of the inferential adverb showed his deliberate intention to destroy the reader's clue to the fact1 that ,i had given proof where he suppresses it and says that ,i have given none2 that the sentences quoted as #a1b1c1 by him1 with me have the order #c1 #b1a2 while what he places first1 is with me an immediate and necessary deduction from what has preceded4 ,now how does he reply8 ,he does not deny my facts2 but he justifies his process4 ,i must set his words before the reader4 7,defence1 #bnd ed41 p4 #he47 ,the strangest thing is to see the way in which1 after parading this supposed 'artful dodge1'#e which1 ,i assure you1 gentle reader1 was all a perfect novelty to my consciousness1--,mr4 ,newman goes on to say1 that the author of the ',eclipse' has altered the order of his sentences to suit a purpose4 ,he says3 ',the sentences quoted as #a1 #b1 #c1 by him1 with me have the order #c1 #b1 #a4' ,i answer1 that ,harrington was simply anxious to set forth at the head of his argument1 in the clearest and briefest form1 the conclusions#f he believed ,mr4 ,newman to hold1 and which he was going to confute4 ,he had no idea of any relation of subordination or dependence in the above sophisms1 as ,i have just proved them to be1 whether arranged as #c1 #b1 #a1 or #a1 #b1 #c1 or #b1 #c1 #a1 or in any other order in which the possible permutations of three things1 taken #c and #c together1 can exhibit them2 ex nihilo1 nil fit2 and three nonentities can yield just as little4 ,jangle as many changes as you will on these three cracked bells1 no logical harmony can ever issue out of them4 ,thus1 because he does not see the validity of my argument1 he is to pretend that ,i have offered none3 he is not to allow his readers to judge for themselves as to the validity1 but they have to take his word that ,i am a very queer sort of logician1 ready for any feats of logical legerdemain4 ,i have now to ask1 what is garbling1 if the above is not8 ,he admits the facts1 but justifies them as having been convenient from his point of view2 and then finds my charity to be very grotesque1 when ,i do not know how1 without hypocrisy1 to avoid calling a spade a spade4 ,i shall here reprint the pith of my argument1 somewhat shortened3-- ,no heaven-sent ,bible can guarantee the veracity of ,god to a man who doubts that veracity4 ,unless we have independent means of knowing that ,god is truthful and good1 his word 7if we be over so certain that it is really his word7 has no authority to us3 hence no book revelation can1 without sapping its own pedestal1 deny the validity of our a priori conviction that ,god has the virtues of goodness and veracity1 and requires like virtues in us4 ,and in fact1 all ,christian apostles and missionaries1 like the ,hebrew prophets1 have always confuted ,paganism by direct attacks on its immoral and unspiritual doctrines1 and have appealed to the consciences of heathens1 as competent to decide in the controversy4 ,christianity itself has thus practically confessed what is theoretically clear1 that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man4 ,what ,god reveals to us1 he reveals within1 through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses4 ,external teaching may be a training of those senses1 but affords no foundation for certitude4 ,this passage deserved the enmity of my critic4 ,he quoted bits of it1 very sparingly1 never setting before his readers my continuous thought1 but giving his own free versions and deductions4 ,his fullest quotation stood thus1 given only in an after-chapter3--,what ,god reveals to us1 he reveals within1 through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses4 ,christianity itself has practically confessed what is theoretically clear1 7you must take ,mr4 ,newman's word for both17#g that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man4 ,no book-revelation can1 without sapping its own pedestal1 c4 c4 ,these three sentences are what ,mr4 ,rogers calls the three cracked bells1 and thinks by raising a laugh1 to hide his fraud ,i have carefully looked through the whole of his dialogue concerning ,book ,revelation in his #ith edition of the ,eclipse 7pp4 #fc-hc of close print74 ,he still excludes from it every part of my argument1 only stating in the opening 7p4 #fc7 as my conclusions1 that a book-revelation is impossible1 and that ,god reveals himself from within1 not from without ,in his ,defence 7which circulates far less than the ,eclipse1 to judge by the number of editions7 he displays his bravery by at length printing my argument2 but in the ,eclipse he continues to suppress it1 at least as far as ,i can discover by turning to the places where it ought to be found4 ,in p4 #gg 7#ith ed47 of the ,eclipse4 he implies1 without absolutely asserting1 that ,i hold the ,bible to be an impertinence4 ,he repeats this in p4 #he of the ,defence4 ,such is his mode4 ,i wrote3 ,without a priori belief1 the ,bible is an impertinence1 but ,i say1 man has this a priori belief1 on which account the ,bible is not an impertinence4 ,my last sentence in the very passage before us1 expressly asserts the value of 7good7 external teaching4 ,this my critic laboriously disguises4 ,he carefully avoids allowing his readers to see that ,i am contending fundamentally for that which the ablest ,christian divines have conceded and maintained2 that which the common sense of every missionary knows1 and every one who is not profoundly ignorant of the ,bible and of history ought to know4 ,mr4 ,rogers is quite aware1 that no apostle ever carried a ,bible in his hand and said to the heathen1 ,believe that there is a good and just ,god1 because it is written in this book2 but they appealed to the hearts and consciences of the hearers as competent witnesses4 ,he does not even give his reader enough of my paragraph to make intelligible what ,i meant by saying ,christianity has practically confessed2 and yet insists that ,i am both unreasonable and uncharitable in my complaints of him4 ,i here reprint the summary of my belief concerning our knowledge of morality as fundamental1 and not to be tampered with under pretence of religion4 ,if an angel from heaven bade me to lie1 and to steal1 and to commit adultery1 and to murder1 and to scoff at good men1 and usurp dominion over my equals1 and do unto others everything that ,i wish not to have done to me2 ,i ought to reply1 ,,be ,,thou ,,anathema6 ,this1 ,i believe1 was ,paul's doctrine2 this is mine4 ,it may be worth while to add how in the ,defence ,mr4 ,rogers pounces on my phrase a priori view of the ,divine character1 as an excuse for burying his readers in metaphysics1 in which he thinks he has a natural right to dogmatize against and over me4 ,he must certainly be aware of the current logical 7not metaphysical7 use of the phrase a priori3 as when we say1 that ,le ,verrier and ,adams demonstrated a priori that a planet must exist exterior to ,uranus1 before any astronomer communicated information that it does exist4 ,or again3 the ,french ,commissioners proved by actual measurement that the earth is an oblate spheroid1 of which ,newton had convinced himself a priori4 ,i always avoid a needless argument of metaphysics4 ,writing to the general public ,i cannot presume that they are good judges of anything but a practical and moral argument4 ,the a priori views of ,god1 of which ,i here speak1 involve no subtle questions2 they are simply those views which are attained independently of the alleged authoritative information1 and1 of course1 are founded upon considerations earlier than it4 ,but it would take too much of space and time1 and be far too tedious to my readers1 if ,i were to go in detail through ,mr4 ,rogers's objections and misrepresentations4 ,i have the sad task of attacking his good faith1 to which ,i further proceed4 ,,ii4 ,in the preface to my second edition of the ,hebrew ,monarchy1 ,i found reason to explain briefly in what sense ,i use the word inspiration4 ,i said1 ,i found it to be current in three senses2 first1 as an extraordinary influence peculiar to a few persons1 as to prophets and apostles2 secondly1 as an ordinary influence of the ,divine ,spirit on the hearts of men1 which quickens and strengthens their moral and spiritual powers1 and is accessible to them all 7in a certain stage of development7 in some proportion to their own faithfulness4 ,the third view teaches that genius and inspiration are two names for one thing4444 ,christians for the most part hold the two first conceptions1 though they generally call the second spiritual influence1 not inspiration2 the third1 seems to be common in the ,old ,testament4 ,it so happens that the second is the only inspiration which ,i hold4 ,i here super-add the italics ,on this passage ,mr4 ,rogers commented as follows 7,defence p4 #aef73-- ,the latest utterance of ,mr4 ,newman on the subject of inspiration that ,i have read1 occurs in his preface to the second edition of his ,hebrew ,monarchy1 where he tells us1 that he believes it is an influence accessible to all men1 in a certain stage of development6 ,italics4 ,surely it will be time to consider his theory of inspiration1 when he has told us a little more about it4 ,to my mind1 if the very genius of mystery had framed the definition1 it could not have uttered anything more indefinite4 ,upon this passage the ,prospective reviewer said his say as follows 7vol x4 p4 #bag73-- ,the writer will very considerately defer criticism on ,mr4 ,newman's indefinite definition1 worthy of the genius of mystery1 till its author has told us a little more about it4 ,will anyone believe that he himself deliberately omits the substance of the definition1 and gives in its stead a parenthetical qualification1 which might be left out of the original1 without injury either to the grammatical structure1 or to the general meaning of the sentence in which it occurs8 ,he proceeds to state what ,i did say1 and adds3 ,mr4 ,newman1 in the very page in which this statement occurs1 expressly identifies his doctrine with the ordinary ,christian belief of ,divine influence4 ,his words are exactly coincident in sense with those employed by the author of the ,eclipse1 where he acknowledges the reality of 'the ordinary1 though mysterious action1 by which ,god aids those who sincerely seek him in every good word and work4' ,the moral faithfulness of which ,mr4 ,newman speaks1 is the equivalent of the sincere search of ,god in good word and work1 which his opponent talks of4 ,i must quote the entire reply given to this in the ,defence1 second edition1 p4 #bbd3-- ,and now for a few examples of my opponent's criticisms4 #a4 ,i said in the ,defence that ,i did not understand ,mr4 ,newman's notions of inspiration1 and that1 as to his very latest utterance--namely1 that it was an influence accessible to all men in a certain stage of development italics1 it was utterly unintelligible to me4 ',will any one believe 7says my critic7 that he deliberately omits the substance of the definition1 and gives in its stead a parenthetical qualification1 which might be left out of the original without injury either to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning of the sentence in which it occurs8 ,was anything ever more amusing8 ,a parenthetical clause which might be left out of the original without injury to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning6 ,might be left out8 ,ay1 to be sure it might1 and not only 'without injury1' but with benefit2 just as the dead fly which makes the ointment of the apothecary to stink might be left out of that without injury4 ,but it was not left out2 and it is precisely because it was there1 and diffused so remarkable an odour over the whole1 that ,i characterized the definition as ,i did--and most justly4 ,accessible to all men in a certain stage of development6 ,when and how accessible8 ,what species of development1 ,i beseech you1 is meant8 ,and what is the stage of it8 ,the very thing1 which1 as ,i say1 and as everybody of common sense must see1 renders the definition utterly vague1 is the very clause in question4 ,such is his entire notice of the topic4 ,from any other writer ,i should indeed have been amazed at such treatment4 ,i had made the very inoffensive profession of agreeing with the current doctrine of ,christians concerning spiritual influence4 ,as ,i was not starting any new theory1 but accepting what is notorious1 nothing more than an indication was needed4 ,i gave1 what ,i should not call definition1 but description of it4 ,my critic conceals that ,i have avowed agreement with ,christians2 refers to it as a theory of my own2 complains that it is obscure2 pretends to quote my definition1 and leaves out all the cardinal words of it1 which ,i have above printed in italics4 ,my defender1 in the ,prospective ,review1 exposes these mal-practices2 points out that my opponent is omitting the main words1 while complaining of deficiency2 that ,i profess to agree with ,christians in general2 and that ,i evidently agree with my critic in particular4 ,the critic undertakes to reply to this1 and the reader has before him the whole defence4 ,the man who1 as it were1 puts his hand on his heart to avow that he anxiously sets before his readers1 if not what ,i mean1 yet certainly what ,i have expressed1--still persists in hiding from them the facts of the case2 avoids to quote from the reviewer so much as to let out that ,i profess to agree#h with what is prevalent among ,christians and have no peculiar theory2--still withholds the cardinal points of what he calls my definition2 while he tries to lull his reader into inattention by affecting to be highly amused1 and by bantering and bullying in his usual style1 while perverting the plainest words in the world4 ,i have no religious press to take my part4 ,i am isolated1 as my assailant justly remarks4 ,for a wonder1 a stray review here and there has run to my aid1 while there is a legion on the other side--newspapers1 magazines1 and reviews4 ,now if any orthodox man1 any friend of my assailant1 by some chance reads these pages1 ,i beg him to compare my quotations1 thus fully given1 with the originals2 and if he find anything false in them1 then let him placard me as a ,,liar in the whole of the religious press4 ,but if he finds that ,i am right1 then let him learn in what sort of man he is trusting--what sort of champion of truth this religious press has cheered on4 ,,iii4 ,i had complained that ,mr4 ,rogers falsely represented me to make a fanatical divorce between the intellectual and the spiritual1 from which he concluded that ,i ought to be indifferent as to the worship of ,jehovah or of the image which fell down from ,jupiter4 ,he has pretended that my religion1 according to me1 has received nothing by traditional and historical agencies2 that it owes nothing to men who went before me2 that ,i believe ,i have 7in my single unassisted bosom7 a spiritual faculty so bright as to anticipate all essential#i spiritual verities2 that had it not been for traditional religion1 we should everywhere have heard the invariable utterance of spiritual religion in the one dialect of the heart1--that this divinely implanted faculty of spiritual discernment anticipates all external truth1 c4 c4 ,i then adduced passages to show that his statement was emphatically and utterly contrary to fact4 ,in his ,defence1 he thus replies1 p4 #ge3-- ,i say with an unfaltering conscience1 that no controvertist ever more honestly and sincerely sought to give his opponent's views1 than ,i did ,mr4 ,newman's1 after the most diligent study of his rather obscure books2 and that whether ,i have succeeded or not in giving what he thought1 ,i have certainly given what he expressed4 ,it is quite true that ,i supposed ,mr4 ,newman intended to divorce faith and intellect2 and what else on earth could ,i suppose1 in common even with those who were most leniently disposed towards him1 from such sentiments as these8 ,,all ,,the ,,grounds ,,of ,,belief ,,proposed ,,to ,,the ,,mere ,,understanding ,,have ,,nothing ,,to ,,do ,,with ,,faith ,,at ,,all4 ,,the ,,processes ,,of ,,thought ,,have ,,nothing ,,to ,,quicken ,,the ,,conscience ,,or ,,affect ,,the ,,soul4 ,how then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led8 ,i was compelled1 ,i say1 to take these passages as everybody else took them1 to mean what they obviously express4 ,here he so isolates three assertions of mine from their context1 as to suggest for each of them a false meaning1 and make it difficult for the reader who has not my book at hand to discover the delusion4 ,the first is taken from a discussion of the arguments concerning the soul's immortality 7,soul1 p4 #bbc1 #bnd edition71 on which ,i wrote thus1 p4 #bai3--that to judge of the accuracy of a metaphysical argument concerning mind and matter1 requires not a pure conscience and a loving soul1 but a clear and calm head2 that if the doctrine of immortality be of high religious importance1 we cannot believe it to rest on such a basis1 that those in whom the religious faculties are most developed may be more liable to err concerning it than those who have no religious faculty in action at all4 ,on the contrary1 concerning truths which are really spiritual it is an obvious axiom1#aj that he who is spiritual judgeth all things1 and he himself is judged of no man4 ,after this ,i proceeded to allude to the history of the doctrine among the ,hebrews1 and quoted some texts of the ,psalms1 the argument of which1 ,i urged1 is utterly inappreciable to the pure logician1 because it is spiritually discerned4 ,i continued as follows3-- ,this is as it should be4 ,can a mathematician understand physiology1 or a physiologist questions of law8 ,a true love of ,god in the soul itself1 an insight into ,him depending on that love1 and a hope rising out of that insight1 are prerequisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine1 which is a spontaneous impression of the gazing soul1 powerful 7perhaps7 in proportion to its faith2 whereas all the grounds of belief proposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with faith at all4 ,i am expounding the doctrine of the great ,paul of ,tarsus1 who indeed applies it to this very topic1--the future bliss which ,god has prepared for them that love him4 ,does ,mr4 ,rogers attack ,paul as making a fanatical divorce between faith and intellect1 and say that he is compelled so to understand him1 when he avows that the natural man understandeth not the things of ,god2 for they are foolishness unto him4 ,when the world by wisdom knew not ,god1 it pleased ,god by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe4 ,here is a pretended champion of ,evangelical truth seeking to explode as absurdities the sentiments and judgments which have ever been at the heart of ,christianity1 its pride and its glory6 ,but ,i justify my argument as free from fanaticism--and free from obscurity when the whole sentence is read--to a ,jew or ,mohammedan1 quite as much as to a ,christian4 ,my opponent innocently asks1 how much ,i desire him to quote of me8 ,but is innocence the right word1 when he has quoted but two lines and a half1 out of a sentence of seven and a half1 and has not even given the clause complete8 ,by omitting1 in his usual way1 the connecting particle whereas1 he hides from the reader that he has given but half my thought2 and this is done1 after my complaint of this very proceeding4 ,a reader who sees the whole sentence1 discerns at once that ,i oppose the mere understanding1 to the whole soul2 in short1 that by the man who has mere understanding1 ,i mean him whom ,paul calls the natural man4 ,such a man may have metaphysical talents and acquirements1 he may be a physiologist or a great lawyer2 nay1 ,i will add1 7to shock my opponent's tender nerves71 even if he be an ,atheist1 he may be highly amiable and deserving of respect and love2 but if he has no spiritual development1 he cannot have insight into spiritual truth4 ,hence such arguments for immortality as can be appreciated by him1 and cannot be appreciated by religious men as such1 have nothing to do with faith at all ,the two other passages are found thus1 in p4 #bde of the ,soul1 #bnd edition4 ,after naming local history1 criticism of texts1 history of philosophy1 logic1 physiology1 demonology1 and other important but very difficult studies1 ,i ask3-- ,is it not extravagant to call inquiries of this sort spiritual or to expect any spiritual#aa results from them8 ,when the spiritual man 7as such7 cannot judge1 the question is removed into a totally different court from that of the soul1 the court of the critical understanding4444 ,how then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led8 ,what means the anathematizing of those who remain unconvinced8 ,and how can it be imagined that the ,lord of the soul cares more about a historical than about a geological1 metaphysical1 or mathematical argument8 ,the processes of thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or affect the soul4 ,from my defender in the ,prospective ,review ,i learn that in the first edition of the ,defence the word thought in the last sentence above was placed in italics4 ,he not only protested against this and other italics as misleading1 but clearly explained my sense1 which1 as ,i think1 needs no other interpreter than the context4 ,in the new edition the italics are removed1 but the unjust isolation of the sentences remains4 ,the processes of thought1 of which ,i spoke1 are not all processes1 but the processes involved in the abstruse inquiries to which ,i had referred4 ,to say that no processes of thought quicken the conscience1 or affect the soul1 would be a gross absurdity4 ,this1 or nothing else1 is what he imputes to me2 and even after the protest made by the ,prospective reviewer1 my assailant not only continues to hide that ,i speak of certain processes of thought1 not all processes1 but even has the hardihood to say that he takes the passages as everybody else does1 and that he is compelled so to do4 ,in my own original reply ,i appealed to places where ,i had fully expressed my estimate of intellectual progress1 and its ultimate beneficial action4 ,all that ,i gain by this1 is new garblings and taunts for inconsistency4 ,mr4 ,newman1 says be1 is the last man in the world to whom ,i would deny the benefit of having contradicted himself4 ,but ,i must confine myself to the garbling4 ,defence1 p4 #ie3-- ,mr4 ,newman affirms that my representations of his views on this subject are the most direct and intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully written6 ,he still says1 what ,god reveals1 he reveals within and not without1 and he did say 7though1 it seems1 he says no longer71 that 'of ,god we know everything from within1 nothing from without2' yet he says ,i have grossly misrepresented him4 ,this pretended quotation is itself garbled4 ,i wrote1 7,phases1 #ast edition1 p4 #aeb7--,of our moral and spiritual ,god we know nothing without1 everything within4 ,by omitting the adjectives1 the critic produces a statement opposed to my judgment and to my writings2 and then goes on to say4 ,well1 if ,mr4 ,newman will engage to prove contradictions1444 ,i think it is no wonder that his readers do not understand him4 ,i believe it is a received judgment1 which ,i will not positively assert to be true1 but ,i do not think ,i have anywhere denied1 that ,god is discerned by us in the universe as a designer1 creator1 and mechanical ruler1 through a mere study of the world and its animals and all their adaptations1 even without an absolute necessity of meditating consciously on the intelligence of man and turning the eyes within4 ,thus a creative ,god may be said to be discerned from without4 ,but in my conviction1 that ,god is not so discerned to be moral or spiritual or to be our ,god2 but by moral intellect and moral experience acting inwardly4 ,if ,mr4 ,rogers chooses to deny the justness of my view1 let him deny it2 but by omitting the emphatic adjectives he has falsified my sentence1 and then has founded upon it a charge of inconsistency4 ,in a previous passage 7p4 #gi7 he gave this quotation in full1 in order to reproach me for silently withdrawing it in my second edition of the ,phases4 ,he says3-- ,the two sentences in small capitals are not found in the new edition of the ',phases4' ,they are struck out4 ,it is no doubt the right of an author to erase in a new edition any expressions he pleases2 but when he is about to charge another with having grossly garbled and stealthily misrepresented him1 it is as well to let the world know what he has erased and why4 ,he says that my representation of his sentiments is the most direct and intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully written4 ,it certainly is not the intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully scratched out4 ,i exhibit here the writer's own italics4 ,by this attack on my good faith1 and by pretending that my withdrawal of the passage is of serious importance1 he distracts the reader's attention from the argument there in hand 7p4 #gi71 which is1 not what are my sentiments and judgements1 but whether he had a right to dissolve and distort my chain of reasoning 7see ,i4 above7 while affecting to quote me1 and pretending that ,i gave nothing but assertion4 ,as regards my elaborately and carefully scratching out1 this was done2 #a4 ,because the passage seemed to me superfluous2 #b4 ,because ,i had pressed the topic elsewhere2 #c4 ,because ,i was going to enlarge on it in my reply to him1 p4 #aii of my second edition4#ab ,when the real place comes where my critic is to deal with the substance of the passage 7p4 #id of ,defence71 the reader has seen how he mutilates it4 ,the other passage of mine which he has adduced1 employs the word reveals1 in a sense analogous to that of revelation1 in avowed relation to things moral and spiritual1 which would have been seen1 had not my critic reversed the order of my sentences2 which he does again in p4 #gh of the ,defence1 after my protest against his doing so in the ,eclipse4 ,i wrote3 7,soul1 p4 #ei7 ,christianity itself has thus practically confessed1 what is theoretically clear1 that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man4 ,what ,god reveals to us1 he reveals within1 through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses4 ,the words1 ,what ,god reveals1 seen in the light of the preceding sentence1 means3 ,that portion of moral and spiritual truth which ,god reveals4 ,this cannot be discovered in the isolated quotation2 and as1 both in p4 #gh and in p4 #ie1 he chooses to quote my word ,what in italics1 his reader is led on to interpret me as saying every thing whatsoever which we know of ,god1 we learn from within2 a statement which is not mine4 ,besides this1 the misrepresentation of which ,i complained is not confined to the rather metaphysical words of within and without1 as to which the most candid friends may differ1 and may misunderstand one another2--as to which also ,i may be truly open to correction2--but he assumes the right to tell his readers that my doctrine undervalues ,truth1 and ,intellect1 and ,traditional teaching1 and ,external suggestion1 and ,historical influences1 and counts the ,bible an impertinence4 ,when he fancies he can elicit this and that1 by his own logic1 out of sentences and clauses torn from their context1 he has no right to disguise what ,i have said to the contrary1 and claim to justify his fraud by accusing me of self-contradiction4 ,against all my protests1 and all that ,i said to the very opposite previous to any controversy1 he coolly alludes to it 7p4 #dj of the ,defence7 as though it were my avowed doctrine1 that3 ,each man1 looking exclusively within1 can at once rise to the conception of ,god's infinite perfections4 ,,iv4 ,when ,i agree with ,paul or ,david 7or think ,i do71 ,i have a right to quote their words reverentially2 but when ,i do so1 ,mr4 ,rogers deliberately justifies himself in ridiculing them1 pretending that he only ridicules me4 ,he thus answers my indignant denunciation in the early part of his ,defence1 p4 #e3-- ,mr4 ,newman warns me with much solemnity against thinking that 'questions pertaining to ,god are advanced by boisterous glee4' ,i do not think that the ',eclipse' is characterised by boisterous glee2 and certainly ,i was not at all aware1 that the things which alone#ac ,i have ridiculed--some of them advanced by him1 and some by others--deserved to be treated with solemnity4 ,for example1 that an authoritative external revelation1#ad which most persons have thought possible enough1 is impossible1--that man is most likely born for a dog's life1 and 'there an end'--that there are great defects in the morality of the ,new ,testament1 and much imperfection in the character of its founder1--that the miracles of ,christ might be real1 because ,christ was a clairvoyant and mesmerist1--that ,god was not a ,person1 but a ,personality2--,i say1 ,i was not aware that these things1 and such as these1 which alone ,i ridiculed1 were questions 'pertaining to ,god1' in any other sense than the wildest hypotheses in some sense pertain to science1 and the grossest heresies to religion4 ,now first1 is his statement true8 ,are these the only things which he ridiculed8 ,i quoted in my reply to him enough to show what was the class of things pertaining to ,god to which ,i referred4 ,he forces me to requote some of the passages4 ,eclipse1 p4 #hb #ast ed4 ,you shall be permitted to say 7what ,i will not contradict71 that though ,mr4 ,newman may be inspired for aught ,i know 444 inspired as much as 7say7 the inventor of ,lucifer matches--yet that his book is not divine1--that it is purely human4 ,again3 p4 #abf #ast ed4 ,mr4 ,newman says to those who say they are unconscious of these facts of spiritual pathology1 that the consciousness of the spiritual man is not the less true1 that though8 the unspiritual man is not privy to it2 and this most devout gentleman quotes with unction the words3 ,for the spiritual man judgeth all things1 but himself is judged of no man4 ,p4 #da1 #ast ed41 ,i have rejected creeds1 and ,i have found what the ,scripture calls1 that peace which passeth all understanding4 ,i am sure it passes mine1 7says ,harrington7 if you have really found it1 and ,i should be much obliged to you1 if you would let me participate in the discovery4 ,yes1 says ,fellowes3444 ',i have escaped from the bondage of the letter and have been introduced into the liberty of the ,spirit4444 ,the letter killeth1 but the spirit giveth life4 ,the fruit of the ,spirit is joy1 peace1 not--' ,upon my word 7said ,harrington1 laughing71 ,i shall presently begin to fancy that ,douce ,davie ,deans has turned infidel4 ,i have quoted enough to show the nature of my complaints4 ,i charge the satirist with profanity1 for ridiculing sentiments which he himself avows to be holy1 ridiculing them for no other reason but that with me also they are holy and revered4 ,he justifies himself in p4 #e of his ,defence1 as above1 by denying my facts4 ,he afterwards1 in ,section ,,xii4 p4 #adg1 admits and defends them2 to which ,i shall return4 ,i beg my reader to observe how cleverly ,mr4 ,rogers slanders me in the quotation already made1 from p4 #e1 by insinuating1 first1 that it is my doctrine1 that man is most likely born for a dog's life1 and there an end2 next1 that ,i have taken under my patronage the propositions1 that the miracles of ,christ might be real1 because ,christ was a clairvoyant and mesmerist1 and that ,god is not a ,person but a ,personality4 ,i cannot but be reminded of what the ,prospective reviewer says of ,zeuxis and the grapes1 when ,i observe the delicate skill of touch by which the critic puts on just enough colour to affect the reader's mind1 but not so much as to draw him to closer examination4 ,i am at a loss to believe that he supposes me to think that a theory of mesmeric wonders 7as the complement of an atheistic creed87 is a question pertaining to ,god1 or that my rebuke bore the slightest reference to such a matter4 ,as to ,person and ,personality1 it is a subtle distinction which ,i have often met from ,trinitarians2 who1 when they are pressed with the argument that three divine ,persons are nothing but three ,gods1 reply that ,person is not the correct translation of the mystical ,hypostasis of the ,greeks1 and ,personality is perhaps a truer rendering4 ,if ,i were to answer with the jocosity in which my critic indulges1 ,i certainly doubt whether he would justify me4 ,so too1 when a ,pantheist objects 7erringly1 as ,i hold7 that a ,person is necessarily something finite1 so that ,god cannot be a ,person2 if1 against this1 a ,theist contend that ,god is at once a ,person and a ,principle1 and invent a use of the word ,personality to overlap both ideas2 we may reject his nomenclature as too arbitrary1 but what rightful place ridicule has here1 ,i do not see4 ,nevertheless1 it had wholly escaped my notice that the satirist had ridiculed it1 as ,i now infer that he did4 ,he tells me he was not aware that the holding that there are great defects in the morality of the ,new ,testament1 and much imperfection in the character of its ,founder1 was a question pertaining to ,god4 ,nor indeed was ,i aware of it4 ,i regard questions concerning a book and a human being to be purely secular1 and desire to discuss them1 not indeed with ridicule but with freedom4 ,when ,i discuss them1 he treats my act as intolerably offensive1 as though the subject were sacred2 yet he now pretends that ,i think such topics pertain to ,god1 and he was not aware of it until ,i told him so6 ,thus he turns away the eyes of his readers from my true charge of profanity1 and fixes them upon a fictitious charge so as to win a temporary victory4 ,at the same time1 since ,christians believe the morality of the ,old ,testament to have great defects1 and that there was much imperfection in the character of its eminent saints1 prophets1 and sages2 ,i cannot understand how my holding the very same opinion concerning the ,new ,testament should be a peculiarly appropriate ground of banter and merriment2 nor make me more justly offensive to ,christians1 than the ,pauline doctrine is to ,jews4 ,in more than one place of this ,defence he misrepresents what ,i have written on ,immortality1 in words similar to those here used1 though here he does not#ae expressly add my name4 ,in p4 #ei1 he says1 that according to ,mr4 ,newman's theology1 it is most probable 7in italics7 that the successive generations of men1 with perfect indifference to their relative moral conditions1 their crimes or wrongs1 are all knocked on the head together2 and that future adjustment and retribution is a dream4 7,so p4 #gb47 ,in a note to the next page1 he informs his readers that if ,i say that ,i have left the question of immortality doubtful1 it does not affect the argument2 for ,i have admitted the probability of there being no future life4 ,this topic was specially discussed by me in a short chapter of my treatise on the ,soul1 to which alone it is possible for my critic to refer4 ,in that chapter assuredly ,i do not say what he pretends2 what ,i do say is1 7after rejecting1 as unsatisfactory to me1 the popular arguments from metaphysics1 and from the supposed need of a future state to redress the inequalities of this life27 p4 #bcb3 ,but do ,i then deny a future life1 or seek to undermine a belief of it8 ,most assuredly not2 but ,i would put the belief 7whether it is to be weaker or firmer7 on a spiritual basis1 and on none other4 ,i am ashamed to quote further from that chapter in this place2 the ground on which ,i there tread is too sacred for controversy4 ,but that a ,christian advocate should rise from reading it to tell people that he has a right to ridicule me for holding that man is most likely born for a dog's life1 and there an end2 absorbs my other feelings in melancholy4 ,i am sure that any candid person1 reading that chapter1 must see that ,i was hovering between doubt1 hope1 and faith1 on this subject1 and that if any one could show me that a ,moral ,theism and a ,future ,life were essentially combined1 ,i should joyfully embrace the second1 as a fit complement to the first4 ,this writer takes the opposite for granted2 that if he can convince me that the doctrine of a ,future ,life is essential to ,moral ,theism1 he will--not add to--but refute my ,theism6 ,strange as this at first appears1 it is explained by his method4 ,he draws a hideous picture of what ,god's world has been in the past1 and indeed is in the present2 with words so reeking of disgust and cruelty1 that ,i cannot bear to quote them2 and ample quotation would be needful4 ,then he infers1 that since ,i must admit all this1 ,i virtually believe in an immoral ,deity4 ,i suppose his instinct rightly tells him1 that ,i shall not be likely to reason1 ,because ,god can be so very cruel or careless to-day1 he is sure to be very merciful and vigilant hereafter4 ,accepting his facts as a complete enumeration of the phenomena of the present world1 ,i suppose it is better inductive logic to say3 ,he who can be himself so cruel1 and endure such monsters of brutality for six or more thousand years1 must 7by the laws of external induction7 be the same1 and leave men the same1 for all eternity2 and is clearly reckless of moral considerations4 ,if ,i adopt this alternative1 ,i become a ,pagan or an ,atheist1 one or other of which ,mr4 ,rogers seems anxious to make me4 ,if he would urge1 that to look at the dark and terrible side of human life is onesided and delusive1 and that the ,god who is known to us in ,nature has so tempered the world to man and man to the world as to manifest his moral intentions2--7arguments1 which ,i think1 my critic must have heard from ,socrates or ,plato1 without pooling out on them scalding words1 such as ,i feel and avow to be blasphemous27--then he might perhaps help my faith where it is weakest1 and give me 7more or less7 aid to maintain a future life dogmatically1 instead of hopefully and doubtfully4 ,but now1 to use my friend ,martineau's words3 ,his method doubles every difficulty without relieving any1 and tends to enthrone a ,devil everywhere1 and leave a ,god nowhere4 ,since he wrote his second edition of the ,defence1 ,i have brought out my work called ,theism1 in which 7without withdrawing my objections to the popular idea of future ,retribution7 ,i have tried to reason out a doctrine of ,future ,life from spiritual considerations4 ,i have no doubt that my critic would find them highly aboard1 and perhaps would pronounce them ineffably ludicrous1 and preposterous feats of logic4 ,if ,i could hide their existence from him1 ,i certainly would1 lest he misquote and misinterpret them4 ,but as ,i cannot keep the book from him1 ,i here refer to it to say1 that if ,i am to maintain this most profound and mysterious doctrine with any practical intensity1 my convictions in the power of the human mind to follow such high inquiries1 need to be greatly strengthened1 not to be undermined by such arguments and such detestable pictures of this world1 as ,mr4 ,rogers holds up to me4 ,he throws at me the imputation of holding1 that man is most likely born for a dog's life1 and there an end4 ,and is then the life of a saint for seventy years1 or for seven years1 no better than a dog's life8 ,what else but a long dog's life does this make heaven to be8 ,such an undervaluing of a short but noble life1 is consistent with the scheme which blasphemes earth in order to ennoble heaven1 and then claims to be preeminently logical4 ,according to the clear evidence of the ,bible1 the old saints in general were at least as uncertain as ,i have ever been concerning future life2 nay1 according to the writer to the ,hebrews1 through fear of death they were all their lifetime subject to bondage4 ,if ,i had called that a dog's life1 how eloquently would ,mr4 ,rogers have rebuked me6 ,v4 ,but ,i must recur to his defence of the profanity with which he treats sacred sentiments and subjects4 ,after pretending1 in p4 #e1 that he had ridiculed nothing but the things quoted above1 he at length1 in pp4 #adg-aef1 makes formal admission of my charge and justifies himself4 ,the pith of his general reply is in the following1 p4 #aeb3-- ',now 7says ,mr4 ,newman7 ,i will not here farther insist on the monstrosity of bringing forward ,st4 ,paul's words in order to pour contempt upon them2 a monstrosity which no sophistry of ,mr4 ,harrington can justify6' ,i think the real monstrosity is1 that men should so coolly employ ,st4 ,paul's words1--for it is a quotation from the treatise on the ,soul1--to mean something totally different from anything he intended to convey by them1 and employ the dialect of the ,apostles to contradict their doctrines2 that is the monstrosity 444 ,it is very hard to conceive that ,mr4 ,newman did not see this4444 ,but had he gone on only a few lines1 the reader would have seen ,harrington saying3 ',these words you have just quoted were well in ,st4 ,paul's mouth1 and had a meaning4 ,in yours1 ,i suspect1 they would have none1 or a very different one4' ,according to this doctrine of ,mr4 ,rogers1 it would not have been profane in an unbelieving ,jew to make game of ,moses1 ,david1 and the ,prophets1 whenever they were quoted by ,paul4 ,the ,jew most profoundly believed that ,paul quoted the old ,scriptures in a false1 as well as in a new meaning4 ,one ,christian divine does not feel free to ridicule the words of ,paul when quoted erroneously 7as he thinks7 by another ,christian divine8 ,why then1 when quoted by me8 ,i hold it to be a great insolence to deny my right to quote ,paul or ,david1 as much as ,plato or ,homer1 and adopt their language whenever ,i find it to express my sentiment4 ,mr4 ,rogers's claim to deride highly spiritual truth1 barely because ,i revere it1 is a union of inhumanity and impiety4 ,he has nowhere shown that ,paul meant something totally different from the sense which ,i put on his words4 ,i know that he cannot4 ,i do not pretend always to bind myself to the definite sense of my predecessors2 nor did the writers of the ,new ,testament4 ,they often adopt and apply in an avowedly new sense the words of the ,old ,testament2 so does ,dr4 ,watts with the ,hebrew ,psalms4 ,such adaptation1 in the way of development and enlargement1 when done with sincerely pious intention1 has never been reproved or forbidden by ,christians1 ,whether ,i am wise or unwise in my interpretations1 the subject is a sacred one1 and ,i treat it solemnly2 and no errors in my logic can justify ,mr4 ,rogers in putting on the mask of a profane sceptic1 who scoffs 7not once or twice1 but through a long book7 at the most sacred and tender matters1 such as one always dreads to bring before a promiscuous public1 lest one cast pearls before swine4 ,and yet unless devotional books be written1 especially by those who have as yet no church1 how are we to aid one another in the uphill straggle to maintain some elements of a heavenly life8 ,can anything be more heartless1 or more like the sneering devil they talk of1 than ,mr4 ,harrington8 ,and here one who professes himself a religions man1 and who deliberately1 after protest1 calls me an ,,infidel1 is not satisfied with having scoffed in an hour of folly--7in such an hour1 ,i can well believe1 that melancholy record the ,eclipse of ,faith1 was first penned7--but he persists in justifying his claim to jeer and snarl and mutilate1 and palm upon me senses which he knows are deliberately disavowed by me1 all the while pretending that it is my bad logic which justifies him6 ,we know that very many religious men are bad logicians3 if ,i am as puzzle-headed a fool as ,mr4 ,rogers would make people think me1 how does that justify his mocking at my religion8 ,he justifies himself on the ground that ,i criticize the ,new ,testament as freely as ,i should ,cicero 7p4 #adg74 ,well1 then let him criticize me1 as freely 7and with as little of suppression7 as ,i criticize it4 ,but ,i do not laugh at it2 ,god forbid6 ,the reader will see how little reason ,mr4 ,rogers had to imagine that ,i had not read so far as to see ,harrington's defence2 which defence is1 either an insolent assumption1 or at any rate not to the purpose4 ,i will here add1 that ,i have received letters from numerous ,christians to thank me for my book on the ,soul1 in such terms as put the conduct of ,mr4 ,rogers into the most painful contrast3 painful1 as showing that there are other ,christians who know1 and he does not know1 what is the true heart and strength of ,christianity4 ,he trusts in logic and ridicules the ,spirit of ,god4 ,that leads me to his defence of his suggestion that ,i might be possibly as much inspired as the inventor of lucifer matches4 ,he says1 p4 #aed3-- ,mr4 ,newman tells me1 that ,i have clearly a profound unbelief in the ,christian doctrine of divine influence1 or ,i could not thus grossly insult it ,i answer444 that which ,harrington ridiculed1 as the context would have shown ,mr4 ,newman1 if he had had the patience to read on1 and the calmness to judge1 is the chaotic view of inspiration1 formally held by ,mr4 ,parker1 who is expressly referred to1 ,eclipse1 p4 #ha4 ,in #ith edition1 p4 #ga4 ,the passage concerning ,mr4 ,parker is in the preceding page3 ,i had read it1 and ,i do not see how it at all relieves the disgust which every right-minded man must feel at this passage4 ,my disgust is not personal3 though ,i might surely ask1--,if ,parker has made a mistake1 how does that justify insulting me8 ,as ,i protested1 ,i have made no peculiar claim to inspiration4 ,i have simply claimed that which all#af pious ,jews and ,christians since ,david have always claimed4 ,yet he pertinaciously defends this rude and wanton passage1 adding1 p4 #aee3 ,as to the inventor of lucifer matches1 ,i am thoroughly convinced that he has shed more light upon the world and been abundantly more useful to it1 than many a cloudy expositor of modern spiritualism4 ,where to look for the many expositors of spiritualism1 ,i do not know4 ,would they were more numerous4 ,mr4 ,parker differs from me as to the use of the phrase ,spirit of ,god4 ,i see practical reasons1 which ,i have not here space to insist on1 for adhering to the ,christian1 as distinguished from the ,jewish use of this phrase4 ,theodore ,parkes follows the phraseology of the ,old ,testament1 according to which ,bezaleel and others received the spirit of ,god to aid them in mere mechanical arts1 building and tailoring4 ,to ridicule ,theodore ,parker for this1 would seem to me neither witty nor decent in an unbeliever2 but when one does so1 who professes to believe the whole ,old ,testament to be sacred1 and stoops to lucifer matches and the ,eureka shirt1 as if this were a refutation1 ,i need a far severer epithet4 ,mr4 ,rogers implies that the light of a lucifer match is comparable to the light of ,theodore ,parker2 what will be the judgment of mankind a century hence1 if the wide dissemination of the ,eclipse of ,faith lead to inscribing the name of ,henry ,rogers permanently in biographical dictionaries6 ,something of this sort may appear3-- ,,theodore ,,parker1 the most eminent moral theologian whom the first half of the nineteenth century produced in the ,united ,states4 ,when the churches were so besotted1 as to uphold the curse of slavery because they found it justified in the ,bible2 when the ,statesmen1 the ,press1 the ,lawyers1 and the ,trading ,community threw their weight to the same fatal side2 ,parker stood up to preach the higher law of ,god against false religion1 false statesmanship1 crooked law and cruel avarice4 ,he enforced three great fundamental truths1 ,god1 ,holiness1 and ,immortality4 ,he often risked life and fortune to rescue the fugitive slave4 ,after a short and very active life full of good works1 he died in blessed peace1 prematurely worn out by his perpetual struggle for the true1 the right1 and the good4 ,his preaching is the crisis which marked the turn of the tide in ,america from the material to the moral1 which began to enforce the eternal laws of ,god on trade1 on law1 on administration1 and on the professors of religion itself4 ,and what will be then said of him1 who now despises the noble ,parker8 ,i hope something more than the following3--,,henry ,,rogers1 an accomplished gentleman and scholar1 author of many books1 of which by far the most popular was a smart satirical dialogue1 disfigured by unjustifiable garbling and profane language1 the aim of which was to sneer down ,theodore ,parker and others who were trying to save spiritual doctrine out of the wreck of historical ,christianity4 ,jocose scoffing1 and dialogue writing is the easiest of tasks2 and if ,mr4 ,rogers's co-religionists do not take the alarm1 and come in strength upon ,messrs4 ,longman1 imploring them to suppress these books of ,mr4 ,rogers1 persons who despise all religion 7with whom ,mr4 ,rogers pertinaciously confounds me under the term infidel71 may one of these days imitate his sprightly example against his creed and church4 ,he himself seems to me at present incurable4 ,i do not appeal to him1 ,i appeal to his co-religionists1 how they would like the publication of a dialogue1 in which his free and easy sceptic ,mr4 ,harrington might reason on the opposite side to that pliable and candid man of straw ,mr4 ,fellowes8 ,i here subjoin for their consideration1 an imaginary extract of the sort which1 by their eager patronage of the ,eclipse of ,faith1 they are inviting against themselves4 ,extract4 ,i say1 ,fellowes6 7said ,harrington71 what was that1 that ,parker and ,rogers said about the ,spirit of ,god8 ,excuse me 7said ,fellowes71 ,theodore ,parker and ,henry ,rogers hold very different views1 ,mr4 ,rogers would be much hurt to bear you class him with ,parker4 ,i know 7replied he71 but they both hold that ,god inspires people2 and that is a great point in common1 as ,i view it4 ,does not ,mr4 ,rogers believe the ,old ,testament inspired and all of it true8 ,certainly 7said ,fellowes73 at least he was much shocked with ,mr4 ,newman for trying to discriminate its chaff from its wheat4 ,well then1 he believes1 does not he1 that ,jehovah filled men with the spirit of wisdom to help them make a suit of clothes for ,aaron6 ,fellowes1 after a pause1 replied3--,that is certainly written in the #bhth chapter of ,exodus4 ,now1 my fine fellow6 7said ,harrington71 here is a question to rile ,mr4 ,rogers4 ,if ,aaron's toggery needed one portion of the spirit of wisdom from ,jehovah1 how many portions does the ,empress ,eugenie's best crinoline need8 ,really 7said ,fellowes1 somewhat offended71 such ridicule seems to me profane4 ,forgive me1 dear friend 7replied ,harrington1 with a sweet smile74 ,your views ,i never will ridicule2 for ,i know you have imbibed somewhat of ,francis ,newman's fancy1 that one ought to feel tenderly towards other men's piety4 ,but ,henry ,rogers is made of stouter stuff2 he manfully avows that a religion1 if it is true1 ought to stand the test of ridicule1 and he deliberately approves this weapon of attack4 ,i cannot deny that 7said ,fellowes1 lifting his eyebrows74 ,but ,i was going to ask 7continued ,harrington7 whether ,mr4 ,rogers does not believe that ,jehovah filled ,bezaleel with the ,spirit of ,god1 for the work of jeweller1 coppersmith1 and mason8 ,of course he does 7answered ,fellowes71 the text is perfectly clear1 in the #cast of ,exodus2 ,bezaleel and ,aholiab were both inspired to become cunning workmen4 ,by the ,goose 7said ,harrington7--forgive a ,socratic oath--,i really do not see that ,mr4 ,rogers differs much from ,theodore ,parker4 ,if a man cannot hack a bit of stone or timber without the ,spirit of ,god1 ,mr4 ,rogers will have hard work to convince me1 that any one can make a rifled cannon without the ,spirit of ,god4 ,there is something in that 7said ,fellowes74 ,in fact1 ,i have sometimes wondered how ,mr4 ,rogers could say that which looks so profane1 as what he said about the ,eureka shirt4 ,pray what is that8 7said ,harrington27 and where8 ,it is in his celebrated ,defence1 #bnd edition1 p4 #aee4 ,if ,minos and ,praxiteles are inspired in the same sense as ,moses and ,christ1 then the inventor of lucifer matches1 as well as the inventor of the ,eureka shirts1 must be also admitted--to be inspired4 ,do you mean that he is trying to save the credit of ,moses1 by maintaining that the ,spirit of ,god which guides a sculptor is not the same in kind as that which guides a saint8 ,no 7replied ,fellowes1 with surprise71 he is not defending ,moses2 he is attacking ,parker4 ,bless me 7said ,harrington1 starting up71 what is become of the man's logic6 ,why1 ,parker and ,moses are in the same boat4 ,mr4 ,rogers fires at it1 in hope to sink ,parker2 and does not know that he is sending old ,moses to ,davy's locker4 ,now this is too bad 7said ,fellowes71 ,i really cannot bear it4 ,nah6 ,nah6 good friend 7said ,harrington1 imploringly71 be calm2 and remember1 we have agreed that ridicule--against ,mr4 ,rogers1 not against you--is fair play4 ,that is true 7replied ,fellowes with more composure74 ,now 7said ,harrington1 with a confidential air71 you are my friend1 and ,i will tell you a secret--be sure you tell no one--,i think that ,henry ,rogers1 ,theodore ,parker1 and ,francis ,newman are three ninnies2 all wrong2 for they all profess to believe in divine inspiration3 yet they are not ninnies of the same class4 ,i admit to ,mr4 ,rogers that there is a real difference4 ,how do you mean 7said ,fellowes1 with curiosity aroused78 ,why 7said ,harrington1 pausing and becoming impressive71 ,newman is a flimsy mystic2 he has no foundation1 but he builds logically enough--at least as far as ,i see--on his fancies and other people's fancies4 ,this is to be a simple ninny4 ,but ,mr4 ,rogers fancies he believes a mystical religion1 and doesn't2 and fancies he is very logical1 and isn't4 ,this is to be a doubly distilled ninny4 ,really ,i do not call this ridicule1 ,mr4 ,harrington 7said ,fellowes1 rising71 ,i must call it slander4 ,what right have you to say that ,mr4 ,rogers does not believe in the holy truths of the ,new ,testament8 ,surely 7replied ,harrington7 ,i have just as much right as ,mr4 ,rogers has to say that ,mr4 ,newman does not believe the holy sentiments of ,st4 ,paul1 when ,mr4 ,newman says he does4 ,do you remember how ,mr4 ,rogers told him it was absurd for an infidel like him to third3 he was in a condition to rebuke any one for being profane1 or fancy he had a right to say that he believed this and that mystical text of ,paul1 which1 ,mr4 ,rogers avows1 ,newman totally mistakes and does not believe as ,paul meant it4 ,now ,i may be very wrong2 but ,i augur that ,newman does understand ,paul1 and ,rogers does not4 ,for ,rogers is of the ,paley school1 and a wit2 and a brilliant chap he is1 like ,macaulay4 ,such men cannot be mystics nor ,puritans in ,pauline fashion2 they cannot bear to hear of a religion from within2 but1 as ,i heard a fellow say the other day1 ,newman has never worked off the ,puritan leaven4 ,well 7said ,fellowes71 but why do you call ,mr4 ,rogers illogical8 ,i think you have seen one instance already1 but that is a trifle compared to his fundamental blunder 7said ,harrington74 ,what can you mean8 how fundamental 7asked his friend78 ,why1 he says1 that ,i 7for instance7 who have so faith whatever in what he calls revelation1 cannot have any just belief or sure knowledge of the moral qualities of ,god2 in fact1 am logically bound 7equally with ,mr4 ,newman7 to regard ,god as immoral1 if ,i judge by my own faculties alone4 ,does he not say that8 ,unquestionably2 he has a whole chapter 7ch4 ,,iii47 of his ,defence to enforce this on ,mr4 ,newman 7replied ,fellowes74 ,well1 next1 he tells me1 that when the ,christian message1 as from ,god1 is presented to me1 ,i am to believe it on the word of a ,god whom ,i suppose to be1 or ought to suppose to be1 immoral4 ,if ,i suppose ,a ,b a rogue1 shall ,i believe the message which the rogue sends me8 ,surely1 ,harrington1 you forget that you are speaking of ,god1 not of man3 you ought not to reason so 7said ,fellowes1 somewhat agitated74 ,surely1 ,fellowes1 it is you who forget 7retorted ,harrington7 that syllogism depends on form1 not on matter4 ,whether it be ,god or ,man1 makes no difference2 the logic must be tried by turning the terms into ,x ,y ,z4 ,but ,i have not said all ,mr4 ,rogers says1 ,i am bound to throw away the moral principles which ,i already have1 at the bidding of a ,god whom ,i am bound to believe to be immoral4 ,no1 you are unfair 7said ,fellowes71 ,i know he says that revelation would confirm and improve your moral principles4 ,but ,i am not unfair4 ,it is he who argues in a circle4 ,what will be improvement1 is the very question pending4 ,he says1 that if ,jehovah called to me from heaven1 ,o ,harrington6 ,o ,harrington6 take thine innocent son1 thine only son1 lay him on the altar and kill him1 ,i should be bound to regard obedience to the command an improvement of my morality2 and this1 though1 up to the moment when ,i heard the voice1 ,i had been bound logically to believe ,jehovah to be an ,,immoral ,god4 ,what think you of that for logic8 ,i confess 7said ,fellowes1 with great candour7 ,i must yield up my friend's reputation as a logician2 and ,i begin to think he was unwise in talking so contemptuously of ,mr4 ,newman's reasoning faculties4 ,but in truth1 ,i love my friend for the great spiritual benefits ,i have derived from him and cannot admit to you that he is not a very sincere believer in mystical ,christianity4 ,what benefits1 may ,i ask8 7said ,harrington74 ,i have found by his aid the peace which passeth understanding 7replied he74 ,it passes my understanding1 if you have 7answered ,harrington1 laughing71 and ,i shall be infinitely obliged by your allowing me to participate in the discovery4 ,in plain truth1 ,i do not trust your mysticism4 ,but are you in a condition to form an opinion8 7said ,fellowes1 with a serious air74 ,mr4 ,rogers has enforced on me ,st4 ,paul's maxim3 ,the natural man discerneth not the things of the ,spirit of ,god4 ,my most devout gentleman ,i 7replied ,harrington71 how unctuous you are6 ,forgive my laughing2 but it does so remind me of ,douce ,davie ,deans4 ,i will make you professor of spiritual insight1 c41 c41 c4 99 99 99 99 99 ,now is not this disgusting8 ,might ,i not justly call the man a profane dog who approved of it8 ,yet everything that is worst here is closely copied from the ,eclipse of ,faith1 or justified by the ,defence4 ,how long will it be before ,english ,christians cry out ,shame against those two books8 ,,vi4 ,i must devote a few words to define the direction and justification of my argument in one chapter of this treatise4 ,all good arguments are not rightly addressed to all persons4 ,an argument good in itself may be inappreciable to one in a certain mental state1 or may be highly exasperating4 ,if a thoughtful ,mohammedan1 a searcher after truth1 were to confide to a ,christian a new basis on which be desired to found the ,mohammedan religion--viz41 the absolute moral perfection of its prophet1 and were to urge on the ,christian this argument in order to convert him1 ,i cannot think that any one would blame the ,christian for demanding what is the evidence of the fact4 ,such an appeal would justify his dissecting the received accounts of ,mohammed1 pointing out what appeared to be flaws in his moral conduct2 nay1 if requisite1 urging some positive vice1 such as his excepting himself from his general law of four wives only4 ,but a ,christian missionary would surely be blamed 7at least ,i should blame him71 if1 in preaching to a mixed multitude of ,mohammedans against the authority of their prophet1 he took as his basis of refutation the prophet's personal sensuality4 ,we are able to foresee that the exasperation produced by such an argument must derange the balance of mind in the hearers1 even if the argument is to the purpose2 at the same time1 it may be really away from the purpose to them1 if their belief has no closer connexion with the personal virtue of the prophet1 than has that of ,jews and ,christians with the virtue of ,balaam or ,jonah4 ,i will proceed to imagine1 that while a missionary was teaching1 talking1 and distributing tracts to recommend1 his own views of religion1 a ,moolah were to go round and inform everybody that this ,christian believed ,mohammed to be an unchaste man1 and had used the very argument to such and such a person4 ,i feel assured that we should all pronounce this proceeding to be a very cunning act of spiteful1 bigotry4 ,my own case1 as towards certain ,unitarian friends of mine1 is quite similar to this4 ,they preach to me the absolute moral perfection of a certain man 7or rather1 of a certain portrait7 as a sufficient basis for my faith4 ,hereby they challenge me1 and as it were force me1 to inquire into its perfection4 ,i have tried to confine the argument within a narrow circle4 ,it is addressed by me specifically to them and not to others4 ,i would not address it to ,trinitarians2 partly1 because they are not in a mental state to get anything from it but pain1 partly because much of it becomes intrinsically bad as argument when addressed to them4 ,many acts and words which would be right from an incarnate ,god1 or from an angel1 are 7in my opinion7 highly unbecoming from a man2 consequently ,i must largely remould the argument before ,i could myself approve of it1 if so addressed4 ,the principle of the argument is such as ,mr4 ,rogers justifies1 when he says that ,mr4 ,martineau quite takes away all solid reasons for believing in ,christ's absolute perfection4 7,defence1 p4 #bbj47 ,i opened my chapter 7chapter ,,vii47 above with a distinct avowal of my wish to confine the perusal of it to a very limited circle4 ,mr4 ,rogers 7acting1 it seems1 on the old principle1 that whatever one's enemy deprecates1 is a good7 instantly pounces on the chapter1 avows that if infidelity could be ruined1 such imprudencies#ag would go far to ruin it1 p4 #bb2 and because he believes that it will be unspeakably#ah painful to the orthodox for whom ,i do not intend it1 he prints the greater part of it in an ,appendix1 and expresses his regret that he cannot publish every syllable of it1 p4 #bb4 ,such is his tender regard for the feeling of his co-religionists4 ,my defender in the ,prospective ,review wound up as follows 7x4 p4 #bbg73-- ,and now we have concluded our painful task1 which nothing but a feeling of what justice--literary1 and personal--required1 would have induced us to undertake4 ,the tone of intellectual disparagement and moral rebuke which certain critics1--deceived by the shallowest sophisms with which an unscrupulous writer could work on their prepossessions and insult their understandings--have adopted towards ,mr4 ,newman made exposure necessary4 ,the length to which our remarks have extended requires apology4 ,evidence to character is necessarily cumulative1 and not easily compressible within narrow limits4 ,enough has been said to show that there is not an art discreditable in controversy1 to which recourse is not freely had in the ',eclipse of ,faith' and the ,defence of it4 ,the reader must judge for himself whether this severe and terrible sentence of the reviewer proceeds from ill-temper and personal mortification1 as the author of the ,eclipse and its ,defence gratuitously lays down1 or whether it was prompted by a sense of justice1 as he himself affirms4 ,footnote #a3 ,the ,eclipse had previously been noticed in the same review1 on the whole favourably1 by a writer of evidently a different religious school1 and before ,i had exposed the evil arts of my assailant4 ,footnote #b3 ,the authorship is since acknowledged by ,mr4 ,henry ,rogers1 in the title to his article on ,bishop ,butler in the ,encyclopdia ,britannica4 ,footnote #c3 ,that is1 my discovery that the writer of the ,eclipse of ,faith grossly misquotes and misinterprets me4 ,footnote #d3 ,page #bbe1 he says1 that each criticism is quite worthy of ,mr4 ,newman's friend1 defender and admirer2 assuming a fact1 in order to lower my defender's credit with his readers4 ,footnote #e3 ,as he puts artful dodge into quotation marks1 his readers will almost inevitably believe that this vulgar language is mine4 ,in the same spirit to speaks of me as making merry with a ,book ,revelation2 as if ,i had the slightest sympathy or share in the style and tone which pervades the ,eclipse4 ,but there is no end of such things to be denounced4 ,footnote #f3 ,italics in the original4 ,footnote #g3 ,in the ninth edition1 p4 #ajd1 ,i find that to cover the formal falsehood of these words1 he adds3 what he calls his arguments are assertions only1 still withholding that which would confute him4 ,footnote #h3 ,i will here add1 that this stinking fly--the parenthesis 7in a certain stage of development7--was added merely to avoid dogmatizing on the question1 how early in human history or in human life this mysterious notion of the divine spirit is recognizable as commencing4 ,footnote #i3 ,if the word essential is explained away1 this sentence may be attenuated to a truism4 ,footnote #aj3 ,paul to the ,corinthians1 #ast ,ep4 ii4 ,footnote #aa3 ,this clause is too strong4 ,expect direct spiritual results1 might have been better4 ,footnote #ab3 ,the substance of what ,i wrote was this4 ,socrates and ,cicero ask1 where did we pick up our intelligence8 ,it did not come from nothing2 it most reside in the mind of him from whom we and this world came2 ,god must be more intelligent than man1 his creature4--,but this argument may be applied with equal truth1 not to intelligence only1 but to all the essential high qualities of man1 everything noble and venerable4 ,whence came the principle of love1 which is the noblest of all6 ,it must reside in ,god more truly and gloriously than in man4 ,he who made loving hearts must himself be loving4 ,thus the intelligence and love of ,god are known through our consciousness of intelligence and love within4 ,footnote #ac3 ,he puts alone in italics4 ,a little below he repeats1 which alone ,i ridiculed4 ,footnote #ad3 ,he should add3 external authoritative revelation of moral and spiritual truth4 ,no communication from heaven could have moral weight1 to a heart previously destitute of moral sentiment1 or unbelieving in the morality of ,god4--,what is there in this that deserves ridicule8 ,footnote #ae3 ,he puts it between two other statements which avowedly refer to me4 ,footnote #af3 ,mr4 ,rogers asks on this3 ,does ,mr4 ,newman mean that he claims as much as the apostles claimed1 whether they did so rightfully or not8 ,see how acutely a logician can pervert the word all6 ,footnote #ag3 ,there is much meaning in the word imprudencies on which ,i need not comment4 ,footnote #ah3 ,unspeakably painful is his phrase for something much smaller1 7,eclipse ninth edition p4 #aid17 which he insists on similarly obtruding1 against my will and protest4 ,,appendix ,i4 ,it is an error not at all peculiar to the author of the ,eclipse of ,faith1 but is shared with him by many others1 and by one who has treated me in a very different spirit1 that ,christians are able to use atheistic arguments against me without wounding ,christianity4 ,as ,i have written a rather ample book1 called ,theism1 expressly designed to establish against ,atheists and ,pantheists that moral ,theism which ,christians1 ,jews1 and ,mohammedans have in common1 and which underlies every attempt of any of the three religions to establish its peculiar and supernatural claims2 ,i have no need of entering on that argument here4 ,it is not true1 that1 as a ,theist1 ,i evade the objections urged by real atheists or sceptics2 on the contrary1 ,i try to search them to the very bottom4 ,it is only in arguing with ,christians that ,i disown the obligation of reply2 and that1 because they are as much concerned as ,i to answer2 and ought to be able to give me1 on the ground of natural theology1 good replies to every fundamental objection from the sceptic1 if ,i have not got them myself4 ,to declare the objections of our common adversaries valid against those first principles of religion which are older than ,jesus or ,moses1 is certainly to surrender the cause of ,christianity4 ,if this need more elucidation1 let it be observed1 that no ,christian can take a single step in argument with a heathen1 much less establish his claim of authority for the ,bible1 without presuming that the heathen will admit1 on hearing them1 those doctrines of moral ,theism1 which1 it is pretended1 ,i can have no good reason for admitting4 ,if the heathen sincerely retorts against the missionary such ,pagan scepticism as is flung at me by ,christians1 the missionary's words are vain2 nor is any success possible1 unless 7with me7 he can lay a prior foundation of moral ,theism1 independent of any assumption concerning the claims of the ,bible4 ,it avails nothing to preach repentance of sin and salvation from judgment to come1 to minds which are truly empty of the belief that ,god has any care for morality4 ,i of course do not say1 and have never said1 that the doctrine of the divine holiness1 goodness1 truth1 must have been previously an active belief of the heathen hearer4 ,to have stated a question clearly is often half the solution2 and the teacher1 who so states a high doctrine1 gives a great aid to the learner's mind4 ,but unless1 after it has been affirmed that there is a ,great ,eternal ,being pervading the universe1 who disapproves of human evil and commands us to pursue the good1 the conscience and intellect of the hearer gives assent1 no argument of moral religion can have weight with him2 therefore neither can any argument about miracles1 nor any appeal to the ,bible as authoritative4 ,of course the book has not as yet any influence over him1 nor will its miracles1 any more than its doctrines1 be received on the ground of their being in the book4 ,thus a direct and independent discernment of the great truths of moral ,theism is a postulate1 to be proved or conceded before the ,christian can begin the argument in favour of ,biblical preternaturalism4 ,i had thought it would have been avowed and maintained with a generous pride1 that eminently in ,christian literature we find the noblest1 soundest1 and fullest advocacy of moral ,theism1 as having its evidence in the heart of man within and nature without1 independently of any postulates concerning the ,bible4 ,i certainly grew up for thirty years in that belief4 ,treatises on ,natural ,theology1 which 7with whatever success7 endeavoured to trace--not only a constructive ,god in the outer world1 but also a good ,god when that world is viewed in connexion with man2 were among the text-books of our clergy and of our universities1 and were in many ways crowned with honour4 ,bampton ,lectures1 ,bridgewater ,treatises1 ,burnet ,prize ,essays1 have 7at least till very recently in one case7 been all1 ,i rather think1 in the same direction4 ,and surely with excellent reason4 ,to avow that the doctrines of ,moral ,theism have no foundation to one who sees nothing preternatural in the ,bible1 is in a ,christian such a suicidal absurdity1 that whenever an atheist advances it1 it is met with indignant denial and contempt4 ,the argumentative strength of this ,appendix1 as a reply to those who call themselves orthodox ,christians1 is immensely increased by analysing their subsidiary doctrines1 which pretend to relieve1 while they prodigiously aggravate1 the previous difficulties of ,moral ,theism2 ,i mean the doctrine of the fall of man by the agency of a devil1 and the eternal hell4 ,but every man who dares to think will easily work out such thoughts for himself4 ,,appendix ,,ii4 ,i here reproduce 7merely that it may not be pretended that ,i silently withdraw it7 the substance of an illustration which ,i offered in my #bnd edition1 p4 #ahd4 ,when ,i deny that ,history can be ,religion or a part of ,religion1 ,i mean it exactly in the same sense1 in which we say that history is not mathematics1 though mathematics has a history4 ,religion undoubtedly comes to us by historical transmission3 it has had a slow growth2 but so is it with mathematics1 so is it with all other sciences4 7,i refer to mathematics1 not as peculiarly like to religion1 but as peculiarly unlike2 it is therefore and fortiori argument4 ,what is true of them as sciences1 is true of all science47 ,no science can flourish1 while it is received on authority4 ,science comes to us by external transmission1 but is not believed because of that transmission4 ,the history of the transmission is generally instructive1 but is no proper part of the science itself4 ,all this is true of ,religion4 ,,the ,,end4