Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine; Apologia; Grammar of Assent

do much more than refer to the fact of its existence, —

Now that the Jewish Scriptures were in existence

_ Abraham’s call, he is told of it:—“I will maxeof thee _

: {eo Bheetig eas gh aks han ad vies GALA Py AE rs;: Be, ee 1442 Inference oa Assit in I eli gion On, ae a great nation, and in thee shall all tribe of the earth’ D8 blessed.” Thrice is this promise and purpose announced in Abraham’s history; and after Abraham’s time itis — repeated to Isaac, “ In thy seed shall all the nations of — the earth be blessed;” and after Isaac to Jacob, whena wanderer from his home, “ In thee and in thy seed shall — all the tribes of the earth be blessed.” And from J acob the promise passes on to his son Judah, and that With — an addition, viz. with a reference to the great Person who was to be the world-wide blessing, and to the date when He should come. Judah was the chosen son of | Jacob, and his staff or sceptre, that is, his patriarchal — authority, was to endure till a greater than Judah camé, — so that the loss of the sceptre, when it took place, was — the sign of His near approach. “The sceptre,” says — Jacob on his death-bed, “ shall not be taken away from Judah, until He come for whom it is reserved,” or“ who — is to be sent,” “and He shall be the pear: of ‘the nations,”’ § H a 8 Before and apart from Christianity, the Samaritan Version reads, * donec veniat Pacificus, et ad ipsum congregabuntur populi.” The Tar: 4 gum, “‘donec veniat Messias, cujus est regnum, et obedient populi.” The — Septuagint, ‘‘ donec veniant que reservata sunt illi” (or “ donec venia | cui reservatum est”), “ et ipse expectatio gentium.” And so again the — | Vulgate, “ donec veniat qui mittendusest, et ipse erit expectatio gentium.” e 2 The ingenious translation of some feared men (‘“ donec venerit Juda Siluntem,” i.e. “the tribe-sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Judah comes to Shiloh”), with the explanation that the tribe of Toil 9 had the leadership in the war against the Canaanites, vide Judges i. 1, 2; xx. 18 (i. ec. after Joshua’s death), and that possibly, and for what we know, the tribe gave up that war-command at Shiloh, vide Teohnit xviii. 1 (i, e. in Joshua’s life-time), labours under three grave di feulties _ 1. That the patriarchal sceptre is a temporary war- command. 2. ' _ this command belonged to Judah at the very time that. it belonged t Joshua. And 3. That it was finally lost to Judah (Jo, osiua a living)ehe D it had been committed to Jadah aa sri aie of > oe bal Such was ‘ae, categorical prophecy, literal and unequivocal in its wording, direct and simple in its scope.

One man, born of the chosen tribe, was the destined minister of blessing to the whole world; and the race, as represented by that tribe, was to lose its old self in gaining a new self in Him. Its destiny was sealed upon it in its beginning. An expectation was the measure of its life. It was created for a great end, and in that end it had its ending, Such were the initial communications made to the chosen people, and there they stopped;—as if the outline of promise, so sharply cut, had to be effectually imprinted on their minds, before more knowledge was given to them; as if, by the long interval of years which passed before the more varied prophecies in type and figure, after the manner of the East, were added, the original notices might stand out in the sight of all in their severe explicitness, as archetypal truths, and guides in interpreting whatever else was obscure in its wording or complex in its direction.

“And in the second place itis quite clear that the

Jews did thus understand their prophecies, and did and that men who issued from Judea should obtain the expect their great Ruler, in the very age in which our

Lord came, and in which they, on the other hand, were | destroyed, losing their old self without gaining their new. Heathen historians, shall speak for the fact. * A persuasion had possession of most of them,” says ‘Tacitus, speaking of their resistance to the Romans, “that it was contained in the ancient books of the priests, that at that very time the East should prevail, empire. The common people, as is the way with a human cupidity, having once interpreted in their own — favour this grand destiny, were not even by their y reverses brought round to the truth of facts.” And Suetonius extends the belief:—‘‘ The whole East was rife with an old and persistent belief, that at that time persons who issued from Judea, should possess the empire.” After the event of course the Jews drew ~ back, and denied the correctness of their expectation, | still they could not deny that the expectation had. existed. Thus the Jew Josephus, who was of the — Roman party, says that what encouraged them in the © stand they made against the Romans was “an ambi- — guous oracle, found in their sacred writings, that at that date some one of them from that country should | rule the world.” He can but pronounce that the © oracle was ambiguous; he cannot state that they — thought it so.

Now, considering that at that very time our Lord © did appear as a teacher, and founded not merely a religion, but (what was then quite a new idea in the — world) a system of religious warfare, an aggressive and — militant body, a dominant Catholic Church, which aimed — at the benefit of all nations by the spiritual conquest — of all; and that this warfare, then begun by it, has © gone on without cessation down to this day, and now 7 is as living and real as ever it was; that that militant body has from the first filled the world, that it has had — wonderful successes, that its successes have on the whole been of extreme benefit to the human race, that it has imparted an intelligent notion about the Supre me

ES TON Tee ee Teme Yom AO * ae | eee eX ‘, Ke Jet te Se Saw 4.

God to millions who would have lived and died in irreligion, that it has raised the tone of morality 7 wherever it has come, has abolished great social anomalies and miseries, has elevated the female sex. to its proper dignity, has protected the poorer classes, has destroyed slavery, encouraged literature and philosophy, and had a principal part in that civilization of human kind, which, with some evils, has still on the whole been productive of far greater good,—considering, I say, that all this began at the destined, expected, recognized season when the old prophecy said that in one Man, born of the tribe of Judah, all the tribes of the earth were to be blessed,—I feel I have a right to say (and my line of argument does not lead me to say more), that it is at the very least a remarkable coincidence; that is, one of those coincidences which, when they are accumulated, come close upon the idea of miracle, as being impossible without the Hand of God directly and immediately in them. When we have got as far as this, we may go ona great deal farther. Announcements, which could not | be put forward in the front of the argument, as being - figurative, vague, or ambiguous, may be used validly and with great effect, when they have been interpreted for us, first by the prophetic outline, and still more by the historical object. It is a principle which applies to all matters on which we reason, that what is only a maze of facts, without order or drift prior to the due explanation, may, when we once have that explanation,, be located and adjusted with great facility in all its _ separate parts, as we know is the case as regards the motions of the heavenly bodies since ‘the hypothesis 0 ude Newton. In like manner the event is the true key to prophecy, and reconciles conflicting and ‘divergent descriptions by embodying them in one common representative. Thus it is that we learn how, as the prophecies said, the Messialycould both suffer, yet be victorious; His kingdom be Judaic in structure, yet evangelic: in spirit; and His people the children of Abraham, yet “sinners of the Gentiles.” These seeming paradoxes, are only parallel and akin to those others which form _ so prominent a feature in the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles.:

As to the Jews, since they lived before the event, it a is not wonderful, that, though they were right in their ~ general interpretation of Scripture as far as it went, they stopped short of the whole truth; nay, that even when their Messiah came, they could not recognize Him as the promised King as we recognize Him now;—for — we have the experience of His history for nearly two thousand years, by which to interpret their Scriptures. We may partly understand their position towards those — prophecies, by ourownat present towards the Apocalypse. Who can deny the superhuman grandeurand impressiveness of that sacred book! yet, as a prophecy, though some outlinesof the future are discernible, how differently _ it affects us from the predictions of Isaiah! either because it relates to undreamed-of events still to come, or because it has been fulfilled long ago in events which | in their detail and circumstance have never become history. And the same remark applies doubtless ‘e % ae ape of the Messianic prophecies hind ‘bat, if their

q thane has been thus gradual in time past, we must not be surprised though portions of them still await their slow but true accomplishment i in the future.

When I implied that in some points of view Christianity has not answered the expectations of the old prophecies, of which it claims to be the fulfilment, I had in mind principally the contrast which is presented to us between the picture which they draw of the universality of the kingdom of the Messiah, and that partial development of it through the world, which is all the Christian Church can show; and again the | - contrast between the rest and peace which they said

He was to introduce, and the Church’s actual history, —the conflicts of opinion which have raged within its

_ pale, the violent acts and unworthy lives of many of its rulers, and the moral degradation of great masses of its people. I donot profess to meet these difficulties

7. here; except by saying that the failure of Christianity in one respect in corresponding to those prophecies cannot destroy the force of its correspondence to them in others; just as we may allow that the portrait ofa friend is a faulty likeness to him, and yet be quite sure that it is his portrait. What I shall actually attempt to show here is this,—that- Christianity was quite aware from the first of its own prospective _ future, so unlike the expectations which the prophets q would excite concerning it, and that it meets the _ difficulty thence arising by anticipation, by giving us iis own Ppecietions of what “S was to be in petorsiat in the gentleness and tenderness of His mode of

“Inference and Assent in Rel ligion.

fact, ssi which are at once explanatory co me ments upon the Jewish Scriptures, and direct evidences of its own prescience. |

I think it observable then, that, though our Lord — claims to be the Messiah, He shows so little of con-— scious dependence on the old Scriptures, or of anxiety — te fulfil them; as if it became Him, who was the Lord of the Prophets, to take His own course, and to leave — their utterances to adjust themselves to Him as they — could, and not to be careful to accommodate Himself | to them. The evangelists do indeed show some such | natural zeal in His behalf, and thereby illustrate what J I notice in Him by the contrast. They betray an — earnestness to trace in His Person and history the accomplishment of prophecy, as when they discern it in His return from Egypt, in His life at Nazareth, — teaching, and in the various minute occurrences of | His passion; but He Himself goes straight forward on _ His way, of course claiming to be the Messiah of the — Prophets,° still not so much recurring to past prophecies, as uttering new ones, with an antithesis not — unlike that which is so impressive in the Sermon on © the Mount, when He first says, “It has been said by — = pent of old time,” and then adds, “ But I say unto © you.” Another striking instance of this is seen in the Names under which He spoke of Himself, which

9 He appeals to the prophecies in evidence of His Divine mission, in have little or no foundation in anything which was said of Him beforehand in the Jewish Scriptures. They speak of Him as Ruler, Prophet, King, Hope of Israel, Offspring of Judah, and Messiah; and His Evangelists and Disciples call Him Master, Lord, Prophet, Son of David, King of Israel, King of the Jews, and Messiah or Christ; but He Himself, though, I repeat, He acknowledges these titles as His own, especially that of the Christ, chooses as His special designations these two, Son of God and Son of Man, the latter of which is only once given Him in the Old Scriptures, and by which He corrects any narrow Judaic interpretation of them; while the former was never distinctly used of Him before He came, and seems first to have been announced to the world by the Angel Gabriel and St. John the Baptist. In those two Names, Son of God and Son of Man, declaratory of the two natures of Emmanuel, He separates Himself from the Jewish Dispensation, in which He was born, and inaugurates the New Covenant.

This is not an accident, and I shall now give some instances of it, that is, of what I may call the independent autocratic view which He takes of His own religion, into which the old Judaism was melting, and of the prophetic insight into its spirit and its future which that view involves. In quoting His own sayings from the Evangelists for this purpose, I assume (of which there is no reasonable doubt) that they wrote before any historical events had happened of a nature to cause them unconsciously to modify or to colour the.- ‘enguage which their Master used.

1. First, then, the fact has been often Saatatod on asa. bold conception, unheard of before, and worthy of divine | origin, that He should even project a universal religion, and that to be effected by what may be called a propagandist movement from one centre. Hitherto it had been the received notion in the world, that each nation had itsown gods. The Romans legislated upon that basis, and the Jews had held it from the first, holding of course also, that all gods but their own God were idols anddemons. It is true that the Jews ought to have been taught by their prophecies what was in store for the world and for them, and that their first dispersion through the Empire centuries before Christ came, and the proselytes which they collected around them in every place, were a kind of comment on the prophecies larger than their own; but we see what was, in fact, when our Lord came, their expectation from those prophecies, in the passages which I have quoted above from the Roman historians of His day. But He from the first resisted those plausible, but mis taken interpretations of Scripture. In His cradle indeed He had been recognized by the Eastern Sages as their king; the Angel announced that He was to reign over the house of Jacob; Nathanael, too, owned Him as the Messiah with a regal title; but He, on entering © upon His work, interpreted these anticipations in His own way, and that not the way of ‘l’heudas and Judas of Galilee, who took the sword, and collected soldiers — about them,—nor the way of the ‘’empter, who offered —

Him “ all the kingdoms of the world.” In the words of the Evangelists, He began, not to fight, but “to — preach;” and further, to “preach the kingdom of heaven,” saying, “‘ The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the Gospel.” This is the significant title, “the kingdom of heaven,”—the more significant, when explained by the attendant precept of repentance and faith,—on which He founds the polity which He was establishing from first to last. One of His last sayings before He snffered was, ‘‘ My kingdom is not of this world.” And His last words, before He left the earth, when His disciples asked Him about His kingdom, were that they, preachers as they were, and not soldiers, should “ be His witnesses to the end of the earth,” should “ preach to all nations, beginning with Jerusalem,” should “go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” should ‘oo and make disciples of all nations till the cousummation of all things.”

The last Evangelist of the four is equally precise in recording the initial purpose with which our Lord began His ministry, viz. to create an empire, not by force, but by persuasion. ‘ Light is come into the world: every one that doth evil, hateth the light, but he that doth truth, cometh to the hght.”’ “ Lift up your eyes, and see the countries, for they are white already to harvest.” “No man can come to Me, except the Father, who hath sent Me, draw him.” “ And_I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself.”

Thus, while the Jews, relying on their Scriptures with great appearance of reason, looked for a deliverer who should conquer with the sword, we find that Christianity, from the first, not by an afterthought upon

452 Inference and Assent n Religion. ee trial and experience, but as a fundamental truth, magis- q terially set right that mistake, transfiguring the old | prophecies, and bringing to light, as St. Paul might _ say, “the mystery which had been hidden from ages — and generations, but now was made manifest in His — saints, the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you,” not simply over you, but in you, by faith and love, “the hope of glory.”

2. I have partly anticipated my next remark, which — relates to the means by which the Christian enterprise — was to be carried into effect. That preaching was to © have a share in the victories of the Messiah was plain © from Prophet and Psalmist; but then Charlemagne — preached, and Mahomet preached, with an army to back them. The same Psalm which speaks of those “who preach good tidings,” speaks also of their King’s “ foot being dipped in the blood of His enemies;” but what is so grandly original in Christianity is, that on — its broad field of conflict its preachers were to be simply unarmed, and to suffer, but to prevail. Ifwe were not so familiar with our Lord’s words, I think they would astonish us. ‘ Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.” This was to be their normal state, and so it was; and all the promises and directions given to | them imply it. “ Blessed are they that suffer persecution;” “blessed are ye when they revile you;” “the — meek shall inherit the earth;” “‘ resist not evil;” “you — shall be hated of all men for My Name’s sake;” “a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household;” “he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.” 1 What sort of encouragement was this for men who were ~

Bee cs oo Reedeated Religion.

to go about an immense work? Do men in this way gend out their soldiers to battle, or their sons to India

because he always “ prophesied of him evil.” “So persecuted they the Prophets that were before you,” says our Lord. Yes, and the Prophets failed; they were persecuted and they lost the battle. “Take, my brethren,” says St. James, “ for an example of suffering evil, of labour and patience, the Prophets, who spake in the Name of the Lord.” They were “racked, mocked, stoned, cut asunder, they wandered about,—of whom the world was not worthy,” says St. Paul. What an argument to encourage them to aim at success by suffering, to put before them the precedent of those who suffered and who failed!

Yet the first preachers, our Lord’s immediate disciples, saw no difficulty in a prospect to human eyes so appalling, so hopeless. How connatural this strange, unreasoning, reckless courage was with their regenerate state is shown most signally in St. Paul, as having been a convert of later vocation. He was no personal associate of our Lord’s, yet how faithfully he echoes back our Lord’s language! His instrument of conversion is “the foolishness of preaching;” “the weak things of the earth confound the strong;” “we hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no home;” “ we are reviled and bless, we are persecuted, and blasphemed, and are made the refuse of this world, and the offscouring of all things.” Such is the intimate

-comprehension, on the part of one who had never seen our Lord on earth, and knew little from His original

RF Pafevencs aa ys in 2 Religion.

disciples of the genius of His becchiilg;—and consider-: ing that the prophecies, upon which he had lived from — his birth, for the most part bear on their surface a contrary doctrine, and that the Jews of that day did commonly understand them in that contrary sense, we cannot deny that Christianity, in tracing out the method — by which it was to prevail in the future, took its own, independent line, and, in assigning from the first a rule and a history to its propagation, a rule and a history which have been carried out to this day, rescues itself — from the charge of but partially fulfilling those Jewish prophecies, by the assumption of a prophetical character of its own.

8. Now we come to a third point, in which the — Divine Master explains, and in a certain sense corrects, the prophecies of the Old Covenant, by a more exact — interpretation of them from Himself. I haye granted that they seemed to say that His coming would issue in a period of peace and religiousness. “ Behold,” says the Prophet, “ a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule in judgment. The fool shall no more be ~ called prince, neither shall the deceitful be called great. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard — lie down with the kid. They shall not hurt nor kill. in all My holy mountain, for the earth is filled with | the seh of the Lord, as the covering waters of — the sea.’ a These words seem to predict a reversal of the con-— sequences of the fall, and that reversal has not yet been ~ granted to us, it is true; but let us consider how dis-— tinctly Christianity warns us against any such antici tion. While it is so forcibly laid down in the Gospels that the history of the kingdom of heaven begins in suffering and sanctity, it is as plainly said that it results in unfaithfulness and sin; that is to say, that, though there are at all times many holy, many religious men in it, and though sanctity, as at the beginning, is ever

‘the life and the substance and the germinal seed of the

Divine Kingdom, yet there will ever be many too, there will be more, who by their lives are a scandal and injury to it, notadefence. This again is an astonishing announcement, and the more so when viewed in contrast with the precepts delivered by our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount, and His description to the Apostles of their weapons and their warfare. So perplexing to Christians was the fact when fulfilled, as it was in no long time on a large scale, that three of the early here- sies more or less originated in obstinate, unchristian refusal to readmit to the privileges of the Gospel those who had fallen into sin. Yet our Lord’s words are express: He tells us that ‘ Many are called, few are chosen;” in the parable of the Marriage Feast, the servants who are sent out gather together “ all that they

~ found, both bad and good;” the foolish virgins “ had no oil in their vessels;” amid. the good seed an enemy sows seed that is noxious or worthless; and “ the king-

‘dom is like to a net which gathered together all kind of fishes;” and “at the end of the world the Angels shall go forth, and shall separate the wicked from among the just.”

Moreover, He not only speaks ot His religion as

= destined to possess a wide temporal power, such, that, as in the case of the Babylonian, “ the birds of the air should dwell in its branches,” but He opens on us the — prospect of ambition and rivalry in its leading members, when He warns His disciples against desiring the first places in His kingdom; nay, of grosser sins, in | His description of the Ruler, who “began to strike his fellow-servants; and to eat and drink and be — drunken,” —passages which have an awful significance, considering what kind of men have before now been | His chosen representatives, and have satin the chair — of His Apostles. 7 If then it be objected that Christianity does not, as — the old prophets seem to promise, abolish sin and | irreligion within its pale, we may answer, not only that) it did not engage to do so, but that actually in a prophetical spirit it warned its followers against the expectation of its so doing.

According to our Lord’s announcements before the event, Christianity was to prevail and to become a great empire, and to fill the earth; but it was to accomplish this destiny, not as other victorious powers had done, and as the Jews expected, by force of arms — or by other means of this world, but by the novel ex- — pedient of sanctity and suffering. If some aspiring —

: party of this day, the great Orleans family, or a branch of the Hohenzollern, wishing to found a kingdom, — é were to profess, as’ their only weapon, the practice of © virtue, they would not startle us more than it startled — a Jew eighteen hundred years ago, to be told that his, glorious Messiah was not to fight, like Joshua or | David, but simply to preach. It is indeed a thought go strange, both in its prediction and in its fulfilment, as urgently to suggest to us that some Divine Power went with him who conceived and proclaimed it. This is what I have been saying;—now I wish to consider the fact, which was predicted, in itself, without reference to its being the subject whether of a prediction or of a fulfilment: that is, the history of the rise and establishment of Christianity; and to enquire whether it is a history that admits of being resolved, by any philosophical ingenuity, into the ordinary operation of moral, social, or political causes.

As is well known, various writers have attempted to assign human causes in explanation of the phenomenon: Gibbon has especially mentioned five, viz. the zeal of Christians, inherited from the Jews, their doctrine of a future state, their claim to miraculous power, their virtues, and their ecclesiastical organization. Let us briefly consider them.

He thinks these five causes, when combined, will fairly account for the event; but he has not thought of accounting for their combination. If they are ever so available for his purpose, still that availableness arises out of their coincidence, and out of what does that coincidence arise? Until this is explained, nothing is explained, and the question had better have been let alone. These presumed causes are quite distinct from

_ each other, and, I say, the wonder is, what made them come together. How came a multitude of Gentiles tc 4 st AF he ee ee oe & =e (458 Inference and Assent in Religion, be influenced with Jewish zeal? How came zealcts © to submit toa strict, ecclesiastical régime? What connexion has a secular régime with the immortality of the soul? Why should immortality, a philosophical doctrine, lead to belief in miracles, which is a supersti- _ tion of the vulgar? What tendency had miracles and magic to make men austerely virtuous? Lastly, what — power was there in a code of virtue, as calm and enlightened as that of Antoninus, to generate a zeal as fierce as that of Maccabeus? Wonderfulevents before now have apparently been nothing but coincidences, — certainly; but they do not become less wonderful by — cataloguing their constituent causes, unless we also show how these came to be constituent.

However, this by the way; the real question is this, —are these historical characteristics of Christianity, also in matter of fact, historical causes of Christianity? Has Gibbon given proof that they are? Has he brought evidence of their operation, or does he simply conjecture in his private judgment that they operated? Whether they were adapted to accomplish a certain work, is a matter of opinion; whether they did accomplish it is a question of fact. He ought to adduce instances of their efficiency before he has a right to say that they are efficient. And the second question is, what is this effect, of which they are to be con- — sidered as causes? It is no other than this, the con- — version of bodies of men to the Christian faith. Let us keep this in view. We have to determine whether ‘4 these five characteristics of Christianity were efficient _ causes of bodies of men becoming Christians? Ithink — they neither did effect such conversions, nor were adapted to do so, and for these reasons:—

1. For first, as to zeal, by which Gibbon means party spirit, or esprit de corps; this doubtless is a motive principle when men are already members of a body, but does it operate in bringing them into it? The ~ Jews were born in Judaism, they had a long and glorious history, and would naturally feel and show esprit de corps; but how did party spirit tend to transplant Jew or Gentile out of his own place into a new society, and that a society which as yet scarcely was formed in a society? Zeal, certainly, may be felt for a cause, or for a person; on this point I shall speak presently; but Gibbon’s idea of Christian zeal is nothing better than the old wine of Judaism decanted into new Christian bottles, and would be too flat a stimulant, even if it admitted of such a transference, to be taken as a cause of conversion to Christianity without definite evidence in proof of the fact. Christians had zeal for Christianity after they were converted, not before.

2. Next, as to the doctrine of a future state. Gibbon seems to mean by this doctrine the fear of hell; now certainly in this day there are persons converted from sin to a religious life, by vivid descriptions of the future punishment of the wicked; but then it must be recollected that such persons already believe in the doctrine thus urged upon them. On the contrary, give some Tract upon hell-fire to one of the wild boys in a large town, who has had no education, who has no faith; and instead of being startled by it, he will laugh at it as something frightfully ridiculous.

Christians brought before the magistrate, or writhing

460 © Inference and Assent wn Religion. eal

The belief in Styx and Tartarus was dying out of the world at thetime that Christianity came in,as the parallel — belief now seems to be dying out in all classes of our © own society. The doctrine of eternal punishment does only anger the multitude of men in our large towns now, and make them blaspheme; why should it have had any other effect on the heathen population in the age when our Lord came? Yet it was among those populations, that He and His made their way from the first. As to the hope of eternal life, that doubtless, as well as the fear of hell, was a most operative doctrine in the case of men who had been actually converted, of — under torture, but the thought of eternal glory does not keep bad men from a bad life now, and why should it convert them then from their pleasant sins, to a — heavy, mortified, joyless existence, to a life of ill-usage, fright, contempt, and desolation.

3. That the claim to miracles should have any wide influence in favour of Christianity among heathen ~ populations, who had plenty of portents of their own, is an opinion in curious contrast with the objection against Christianity which has provoked an answer — from Paley, viz. that “Christian miracles are not ~ recited or appealed to, by early Christian writers themselves, so fully or so frequently as might have been expected.” Paley solves the difficulty as far as it is a fact, by observing, as I have suggested, that _ “it was their lot to contend with magical agency, — against which the mere production of these facts was _ not sufficient for the convincing of their adversaries:”

1 do not know,” he continues, “ whether they themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy.” A claim to miraculous power on the part of Christians, which was so unfrequent as to become now an objection to the fact of their possessing it, can hardly have been a principal cause of their success. 4, And how is it possible to imagine with Gibbon that what he calls the “sober and domestic virtues ” of Christians, their “ aversion to the luxury of the age,” their “ chastity, temperance, and economy,” that these dull qualities were persuasives of a nature to win and melt the hard heathen heart, in spite too of the dreary prospect of the barathruwm, the amphitheatre, and the stake? Did the Christian morality by its severe beauty make a convert of Gibbon himself? On the contrary, he bitterly says, “It was not in this world that the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves either agreeable or useful.” The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.” “ Their g.ioomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their fre-. quent predictions of impending calamities, inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger which would arise from the new sect.” Here we have not only Gibbon hating the moral and social bearing, but his heathen also. How then were those heathen overcome by the amiableness of that which they viewed — with such disgust? We have here plain proof that the

_ Christian character repelled the heathen; where is the

- evidence that it converted them? | "4

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5. Lastly, as to the eocloaealice’ organization, this, — doubtless, as time went on, was a special characteristic | of the new religion; but how could it directly contribute — to its extension? Of course it gave itstrength, but it did not give it life. We are not born of bones and muscles. It is one thing to make conquests, another to consolidate anempire. It was before Constantine that Christians made their great conquests. Rules are for

_ settled times, not for time of war. So much is this contrast felt in the Catholic Church now, that, as is well known, in heathen countries and in countries which have thrown off her yoke, she suspends her diocesan administration and her Canon Law, and puts her children under the extraordinary, extra-legal jurisdiction of Propaganda.

This is what Iam led to say on Gibbon’s Five Causes. I do not deny that they might have operated now and then; Simon Magus came to Christianity in order te learn the craft of miracles, and Peregrinus from love of influence and power; but Christianity made its way, not by individual, but by broad, wholesale conversions, and the question is, how they originated?

It is very remarkable thatit should not have occurred to a man of Gibbon’s sagacity to inquire, what account the Christians themselves gave of the matter. Would it not have been worth while for him to have let conjecture alone, and to have looked for facts instead? Why did he not try the hypothesis of faith, hope, and — charity? Did he never hear of repentance towards God, and faith in Christ? Did he not recollect the many words of Apostles, Bishops, Apologists, Martyrs, — close upon him, and close upon the truth; but he cannot sympathize with them, he cannot believe in them, he cannot even enter into them, because he needs the due formation for such an exercise of mind.’ Let us see whether the facts of the case do not come out clear and unequivocal, if we will but have the patience to endure them.

A Deliverer of the human race through the Jewish nation had been promised from time immemorial. ‘The day came when He was to appear, and He was eagerly expected; moreover, One actually did make His appearance at that date in Palestine, and claimed to be He. He left the earth without apparently doing much for the object of His coming. But when He was gone, His disciples took upon themselves to go forth to preach to all parts of the earth with the object of preaching Him, and collecting converts in His Name. After a little while they are found wonderfully to have succeeded. Large bodies of men in various places are to be seen, professing to be His disciples, owning Him as their King, and continually swelling in number and penetrating into the populations of the Roman Empire; at length they convert the Empire itself. All this is historical fact. Now, we want to know the farther historical fact, viz. the cause of their conversion; in other words, what were the topies of that preaching which was so effective? If we believe what is told us by the preachers and their converts, the answer is plain. They “preached Christ;” they called on men all forming one testimony? No; such thoughts are | a ie ross aed at Assen i in J Rel on, a to believe, hope, and place hoe affections, in that Deliverer who had come and gone; and the moral instru-— ment by which they persuaded them to do so, was a description of the life, character, mission, and power of } that Deliverer, a promise of His invisible Presence and Protection here, and of the Vision and Fruition of Him ~ hereafter. From “first to last to Christians, as to — Abraham, He Himself is the centre and fulness of the — dispensation. They, as Abraham, “see His day, and — are glad.” a A temporal sovereign makes himself felt by means of his subordinate administrators, who bring his power and will to bear upon every individual of his subjects who personally know him not; the universal — Deliverer, long expected, when He came, He too, | instead of making and securing subjects by a visible © graciousness or majesty, departs;—but is found, — through His preachers, to have imprinted the Image? or idea of Himself in the minds of His subjects indi- 7 vidually; and that Image, apprehended and worshipped in individual minds, becomes a principle of association, and a real bond of those subjects one with another, who are thus united to the body by being united to that Image; and moreover that Image, which is © their moral life, when they have been already con- — verted, is also the original instrument of their con- © version. It is the Image of Him who fulfils the one — great need of human nature, the Healer of its wounds, the Physician of the soul, this Image it is which q both creates faith, and then rewards it. ia 2 Vide supra, pp. 23—30 and 75—80.

Gl eee _ When we recognize this céntral Image as the a _ vivifying idea both of the Christian body and of; _ individuals in it, then, certainly, we are able to take into account at least two of Gibbon’s causes, as having, in connexion with that idea, some influence both in making converts and in strengthening then to persevere. It was the Thought of Christ, not a corporate body or a doctrine, which inspired that zeal which the historian so poorly comprehends; and it was the Thought of Christ which gave a life to the promise of that eternity, which without Him would be, in any soul, nothing short of an intolerable burden. Now a mental vision such as this, perhaps will be _ called cloudy, fanciful, unintelligible; that is, in other words, miraculous. I think it is so. How, without the Hand of God, could a new idea, one and the same, enter at once into myriads of men, women, and children of all ranks, especially the lower, and have power to wean them from their indulgences - and sins, and to nerve them against the most cruel _ tortures, and to last in vigour as a sustaining influence for seven or eight generations, till it founded an extended polity, broke the obstinacy of the strongest and wisest government which the world has ever seen, and forced its way from its first caves anc catacombs to the fulness of imperial power? In considering this subject, I shall confine myself to the proof, as far as my limits allow, of two points, — first, that this Thought or Image of Christ was the _ principle of conversion and of fellowship; and next,that Hh igs 406 eros ond Assent in «Rel ligion. — i among the lower classes, wie had no power, nuene, x reputation, or education, lay its principal success.* "u As to the vivifying idea, this is St. Paul’s account of it: “I make known to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you © stand; by which also you are saved. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that — Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” &c., &e. “I am the least of the Apostles; but, whether I or they, so we preached, and so you believed.” ‘It has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” ‘“ We preach Christ crucified.” I determined to know nothing among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” “Your life is hid with Christ in God, When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory.” “I live, but now not I, but Christ liveth in me.” |

St. Peter, who has been accounted the master of a separate school, says the same: “Jesus Christ, whom you have not cours yet love; in whom you now believe, and shall rejoice.”

And St. John, who is sometimes accounted a third master in Christianity: “It hath not yet appeared what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall © appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”

’ Had my limits allowed it, I ought, asa third subject, to have de- — scribed the existing system of impure idolatry, and the wonderful — phenomenon of such multitudes, who had been slaves to it, escaping from it by the power of Christianity,—under the guidance of the great work — (“ On the Gentile and the Jew ”’) of Dr. Déllinger.:

That their disciples followed them in this sovereign devotion to an Invisible Lord, will appear as I proceed. And next, as to the worldly position and character of His disciples, our Lord, in the well-known passage, returns thanks to His Heavenly Father, “ because,” He says, “ Thou hast hid these things ”’—the mysteries of His kingdom—* from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” And, in accordance with this announcement, St. Paul says that “ not many wise men according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,” became Christians. He, indeed, is one of those few; so were others his contemporaries, and, as time went on, the number of these exceptions increased, so that converts were found, not a few, in the high places of the Empire, and in the schools of philosophy and learning; but still the rule held, that the great mass of Christians were to be found in those classes which were of no account in the world, whether on the score of rank or of education.

We all know this was the case with our Lord and His temporal employments, when we are so simply accustomed to consider them in their spiritual associations; but it is profitable to remind ourselves that our Lord Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs and cattle-yokes. Four Apostles were fishermen, one a petty tax collector, two husbandmen, and another is said to have been a market gardener.* When Peter

Apostles. It seems almostirreverent to speak of their ~

468 Inference and Assent in Religion. Sy and John were brought before the Council, they are © spoken of as being, in a secular point of view, “illiterate men, and of the lower sort,” and thus they are spoken of in a later age by the Fathers.

That their converts were of the same rank as themselves, is reported, in their favour or to their discredit, by friends and enemies, for four centuries. “Ifaman be educated,” says Celsus in mockery, “let him keep | clear of us Christians; we want no men of wisdom, ne men of sense. Weaccount all such as evil. No; but, if there be one who is inexperienced, or stupid, or un- — taught, or a fool, let him come with good heart.’ — credulous women; norant even of the sordid arts of life; they do not understand even civil matters, how can they understand divine?” ‘ They have left their tongs, mallets, and anvils, to preach about the things of heaven,” says Libanius. ‘‘ They deceive women, servants, and slaves,” says Julian. ‘The author of Philopatris speaks of them as “poor creatures, blocks, withered old — fellows, men of downcast and pale visages.” As to > their religion, it had the reputation popularly, according to various Fathers, of being an anile superstition, the discovery of old women, a joke, a madness, an infatuation, an absurdity, a fanaticism. |

‘he Fathers themselves confirm these statements, so — tags oy; Oy 2 io i me Revealed Religion. 469 far as they relate to the insignificance and ignorance of their brethren. Athenagoras speaks of the virtue of their “ignorant men, mechanics, and old women.” “They are gathered,” says St. Jerome, “ not from the Academy or Lyceum, but from the low populace.” “They are whitesmiths, servants, farm-labourers, woodmen, men of sordid trades, beggars,” says Theodoret. ‘ We are engaged in the farm, in the market, at the baths, wine-shops, stables, and fairs; as seamen, as soldiers, as peasants, as dealers,” says Tertullian. How came such men to be converted? and, being converted, how came such men to overturn the world? Yet they went forth from the first, ‘‘ conquering and to conquer.”

The first manifestation of their formidable numbers is made just about the time when St. Peter and St. Paul suffered martyrdom, and was the cause ofa terrible persecution. We have the account of it in Tacitus.

“Nero,” he says, “to put an end to the common talk [that Rome had been set on fire by his order], imputed

it to others, visiting with a refinement of punishment those detestable criminals who went by the name of ‘Christians. The author of that denomination was Christus, who had been executed in Tiberius’s time by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. The pestilent superstition, checked for a while, burst out again, not only throughout Judea, the first seat of.the evil, but even throughout Rome, the centre both of confluence and outbreak of all that is atrocious and disgraceful from every quarter. First were arrested those who made

3 no secret of their sect; and by this clue a vast multi-

and put questions to them; if they confessed the

Se: Sr ie. in a ig 470 Inference and Assent in Religionn

tude of others, convicted not so much of firing the city, as of hatred to the human race. Mockery was — added to death; clad in skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs; they were nailed up to crosses; they were made inflammable, so that, when day failed, they might serve as lights. Hence, guilty as they were, and deserving of exemplary punishment, — they excited compassion, as being destroyed, not for — the public welfare, but from the cruelty of one man.”

The two Apostles suffered, and a silence follows of a whole generation. At the end of thirty or forty years, — Pliny, the friend of Trajan, as well as of Tacitus, is sent as that Emperor’s Propreetor into Bithynia, and — is startled and perplexed by the number, influence, and pertinacity of the Christians whom he finds there, and in the neighbouring province of Pontus. He has the opportunity of being far more fair to them than ~ his friend the historian. He writes to Trajan to know how he ought to deal with them, and I will quote ~ some portions of his letter. | He says he does not know how to proceed with them, as their religion has not received toleration from the state. He never was present at any trial of them; he doubted whether the children among them, as well — as grown people, ought to be accounted as culprits; whether recantation would set matters right, or | whether they incurred punishment all the same; whether they were to be punished, merely because — Christians, even though no definite crime was proved. against them. His way had been to examine them, charge, he gave them one or two chances, threatening them with punishment; then, if they persisted, he

_ gave orders for their execution. “For,” he argues,

“T felt no doubt that, whatever might be the character of their opinions, stubborn and inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment. Others there were of a like infatuation, whom, being citizens, I sent to Rome.”

Some satisfied him; they repeated after him an invocation to the gods, and offered wine and incense to the Emperor’s image, and in addition, cursed the name of Christ. “ Accordingly,” he says, “ I let them go; for I am told nothing can compel a real Christian to do any of these things.” There were others, too, who sacrificed; who had been Christians, some of them for as many as twenty years.

Then he is curious to know something more definite

about them. ‘This, the informers told me, was the whole of their crime or mistake, that they were accus-

_tomed to assemble on a stated day before dawn, and to say together a hymn to Christ as a god, and to bind themselves by an oath [sacramento] (not to any crime, but on the contrary) to keep from theft, robbery, adultery, breach of promise, and making free with deposits. After this they used to separate, and then to meet again for a meal, which was social and harmless. However, they left even that off, after my Edict against their meeting.”

‘This information led him to put to the torture two maid-servants, “‘who were called ministers,” in order to find out what was true, what was false in it; but he

” says he could make out nothing, except a depraved and excessive superstition. This is what led him to. consult the Emperor, “especially because of the number who were implicated in it; for these are, or — are likely to be, many, of all ages, nay, of both sexes, For the contagion of this superstition has spread, not — only in the cities, but about the villages and the open country.” He adds that already there was some improvement. “The almost forsaken temples begin — to be filled again, and the sacred solemnities after a long intermission are revived. Victims, too, are again on sale, purchasers having been most rare to find.” The salient points in this account are these, that, at the end of one generation from the Apostles, nay, almost in the lifetime of St. John, Christians had so widely spread in a large district of Asia, as nearly to suppress the Pagan religions there; that they were — people of exemplary lives; that they had a name for invincible fidelity to their religion; that no threats er sufferings could make them deny it; and that their — only tangible characteristic was the worship of our Lord. — This was at the beginning of the second century; — not a great many years after, we have another — avcount of the Christian body, from an anonymous Greek Christian, in a letter to a friend whom he was —. anxious to convert. It is far too long to quote, — and difficult to compress; but a tew sentences will show how strikingly it agrees with the account of the a heathen Pliny, especially in two points,—first, im the — numbers of the Christians, secondly, on devotion to © _ our Lord as the vivifying principle of their association. —

“ Christians,” says the writer, “ differ not from other —