Lecture VIII.
Note 47. p. [320]. Modern Opinions With Respect To Mythology.
In the last century the opinions on the nature of mythology were two. That which taught that myths are distortions of traditions derived from the early Hebrew literature, was put forward in the seventeenth century, as early as philosophy was applied to the subject, by Huet and Bossuet, and retained its hold throughout the last century, and is advocated in the present by Mr. Gladstone (Work on Homer, vol. ii. ch. ii). The opposite theory interpreted myths by an Euhemeristic process, or allegorized them by regarding them as originally descriptions of the physical processes of nature. In the present century Creuzer (Symbolik, 1810) applied the method of comparison, and, studying Greek mythology in correlation with that of other countries, taught in a Neo-Platonic sense that myths are a second language, the echo of nature in the consciousness. Creuzers system was opposed by Lobeck about 1824, Voss, and G. Hermann, who objected to the excess of symbolism and the sacerdotal ideas implied in it; and by Ottfried Müller, and Welcker, on the narrower ground of asserting the independence of Greek mythology from foreign influence. More recently the careful study of the Sanskrit language and early literature by Max Müller, Kuhn, &c. has thrown new light upon the subject; and the solution of the problem is now approached from the side of language, and not merely from that of tradition or monuments. The distinction of myth and legend is now clear; the family relationship between the myths of different nations is made apparent; the date in human history of their creation; and the cause of them is sought in the attempt to express abstract ideas by means of the extension of concrete terms. See the Essay on Comparative Mythology by Max Müller, in the Oxford Essays for 1856. See also the Journal for Comp. Phil. of Kuhn and Aufrecht. And for a criticism on Creuzer, see E. Renan's Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse (Ess. i).
Note 48. p. [363]. The External And Internal Branches Of Evidence.
It may be almost superfluous to name that the evidences are usually divided into 1. external, and 2. internal. Each of these requires a subdivision into (α) the divine, and (β) the human.
The external divine are miracles and prophecy; the external human are the historical proof as to the authenticity and genuineness of the literature which contains the narrative of the miracles and the prophecy. The internal divine are sought in the accordance of the materials of the Revelation, the character of Christ, the scheme of Redemption, &c. with the moral sense of man, and with the expectations which we should form antecedently of the contents of a revelation; the internal human, in the critical evidence of undesigned coincidence. Looked at logically, the second is like the corroboration of the testimony of a witness; the fourth, like cross-examining him. The first two may amount almost to demonstration, being what Aristotle (Rhet. i. 2.) would call τεκμήρια: the two latter have only the force of probability; the third being antecedent probability, εἰκός; the fourth, the ἀνώνυμον σμηεῖον, or circumstantial evidence. The argument of analogy used by Butler, which may be regarded as almost[1072] one form of Aristotle's παράδειγμα (Rhet. ii. 20), (if looked at on its positive side, and not merely its negative, as disproof of objections,) comes under the third, inasmuch as it offers a series of principles obtained by generalization from the natural and moral world, which furnish an antecedent presumption of the character of any revealed scheme. The remarks in the text relate to tho comparative weight to be given to the first and third of the four classes named above. The advantage of Butler's argument over the other cases of internal à priori evidence is, that it is founded on previous careful induction; the other kinds of anticipations are founded only on hasty empirical generalizations. For this view of the evidences, see Hampden's Introduction to the Philosophical Evidences of Christianity; Davidson's Lectures on Prophecy (Introductory Lecture); and W. D. Conybeare's Lectures on Theology, ch. i.
Note 49. p. [366]. The History Of The Christian Evidences.
As frequent references have been made to the subject of apologetic in connexion with the history of free thought, it seems [pg 452] desirable to give a brief literary history of the Evidences, and to indicate the works where further information may be obtained with regard to them.
There are two methods of studying the subject; either to classify the Evidences in the manner of the last Note,[1073] and proceed to notice the ages in which, and the authors by whom, each portion of them has been developed, together with the causes which have called them forth; or else, to adopt the historic plan, and trace their gradual growth through the course of ages. By the latter method (if we exclude all that strictly belongs to the province of polemic as distinct from apologetic), we find the following controversies:—in the early centuries, the double contest against the Jews and against the Pagans; in the early middle ages, against the Mahometans without, and Freethinkers within, the limits of Christendom; at the Renaissance, against unbelief within the church: in more modern times, whilst the argument against the Jew has been called forth by contact with the Jewish denizens scattered through Europe, and the Mahometan has been occasionally excited by missionary labours; there has been the contemporaneous struggle within the church, against deism, atheism, and rationalism.
This history, it will be observed, is so complex, that it would be necessary to study each branch of the contest separately. Accordingly, we have treated in distinct notes the contests with the Jew (Note [4]), and the Mahometan (Note [5]); and there remain for study those which existed with the Pagan in the early ages, and with the various forms of scepticism in the later.
It will be convenient to classify the inquiry, under the four epochs according to which we have studied the history of unbelief in the preceding lectures; viz. (1) the contest of Christianity with Paganism; (2) with the incipient free thought of the middle ages; (8) with the unbelief of the Renaissance; and (4) with the subsequent forms of unbelief, which it may be useful to classify according to the countries where they have respectively appeared,—England, France, and Germany.
1. The apology or defence of Christianity against Pagans commences with the apostolic age.[1074] Its first form is seen in the missionary speech of St. Paul at Athens. The first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans also may be regarded as expressing the same ideas. The defence consisted in an appeal to the heart as well as to fact; to show the heathen the need of Christianity before presenting the statement of its nature, and the evidence of its divine character. In the second century, when it became gradually understood that Christianity was not a mere Jewish sect; and when the attack consisted in calumnies and persecutions, as stated in Lect. [II]. pp. [48], [54], the apologies especially were directed [pg 453] to repel the charges, or to demand toleration: (see Note [15].) In the third and fourth centuries the attack was more intelligent, and the statement of objections more definite; and the character of the apologies altered correspondingly.
There is some difficulty in arranging the early Apologies. A recent writer, Pressensé, who has made a special study of them, has used, as his fundamental principle of classification, the view which the authors took of the relation of the soul of man to Christianity; according to which he makes three classes; the first, comprising those who thought that the soul of man was fitted for truth, and acknowledged the heathen religions as a preparation for Christianity; the second, those who, taking the same view of human nature, regarded the heathen religions as corruptions, and wholly injurious; and the third, those who took such a desponding view of human nature as to regard it as possessing no truth without revelation (Hist. vol. ii. ser. ii. p. 164-5.) As examples of the first class, he cites Origen and most of the earlier fathers; of the second, Tertullian; of the third, Arnobius. He thinks, but perhaps hardly rightly, that the chronological order in which the three views occurred, coincides also with this mode of arrangement. It will be evident that the first two classes show an attempt to approach Christianity à priori, by arousing the sense of want; the last by “crushing the human soul” by authority: the first of the three trying to open the way for the reception of Christianity, by describing it as the highest philosophy and religion; the second as the substitute for both; but both schools agreeing in describing it as the satisfaction of the world's yearnings. It will be also apparent why the presentation of the à priori internal Evidences should precede the external. When the world had been impressed with the necessity of a new religion, then the opportunity came for employing the cogent power of the external and historic evidence which authenticates Christianity.
A less artificial manner however of studying the Apologies would be to view them in time, and in space; i.e. according to their date, and the churches from which they emanate, whether Syrian, Alexandrian, Roman, or African; with the view of witnessing at once the alteration in the attack and the character of the apology which existed in different countries at one and the same time.
It appears worthy of notice however, that the attempt to find difference of treatment according to difference of country almost entirely fails. If applied as a principle of classifying manuscripts, or modes of exegesis, or liturgical uses, sufficient variety is exhibited to prove that the Christian church was a collection of provincial churches, each possessing its national peculiarity, each contributing to swell the general harmony by uttering its own appropriate note; but, when applied to the subject of apologetic, the method fails to show a difference in the method of defence which was simultaneously used in the great Christian army; which [pg 454] forms a proof of the facility of intercourse between different churches, and of the uniformity in the character of the attack directed simultaneously on the church in different lands. The change in the character of the Evidences with the growth of time, according to the alteration of attack described above, is apparent, but not the variation at the same date in different parts of the world. We shall therefore merely present a list, in which the apologists are arranged according to place and date, without attempting to draw inferences which cannot be supported.
The recent publication of Pressensé's work, where the spirit of the apologies is given, together with an analysis of their contents, renders it unnecessary to offer here a full analysis of them, as had been intended. Other works indeed partially supplied the need previous to his. Such, for example, were Houtteville's Introduction to La Religion Chrétienne prourée par des Faits, containing an account of the authors for and against Christianity (translated 1739); Schramm's Analysis Patrum, 1780; Scultetus's Medullœ. Patr. Syntagma, 1631; and for the Apostolic Fathers, the Introduction to Mr. Woodham's edition of Tertullian's Apology.
It will be sufficient accordingly to give a list of the writers, with a very brief mention of the object of their treatises,[1075] and to enumerate the literary sources from which further information may be obtained in respect to them.
Table of the Early Apologists, according to Date and Place.
| A.D. | Rome and Western Provinces. | Africa. | Athens. | Alexandria. | Syria. |
| 150 | [Aristides 130]; [Quadratus]; Justin? 150; Tatian; Athenagoras; Hermias? | ||||
| 200 | Tertullian; Minucius Felix? 230 | Clement 190 | Theophilus 180 | ||
| Cyprian; Commodian | Origen 240 | ||||
| 300 | ArnobiusLactantius | [Methodius]; Eusebius | |||
| Jul. Firmicus; Ambrose; Prudentius | Athanasius | Chrysostom | |||
| 400 | Orosius; Salvian | Augustin | Cyril | Jerome? Theodoret |
N. B. The names in brackets are of authors whose apologies are almost wholly lost; those in italics are the ones which alone are usually mentioned in a list of apologists. To the above ought perhaps to have been added for completeness, Maternus, A.D. 350; Ephraim the Syrian; and Apollinaris of Asia Minor, who replied to Julian. The names marked with a note of interrogation denote those in reference to which the reader may demur to the classification. Justin Martyr wrote at Rome; but he wrote in Greek, and was a Greek philosopher in spirit. Of Hermias little is known. Jerome lived much in Syria, and leaned to the Syrian school of exegesis, so that he has been classed with the Syrian church, though his intimacy with Augustin and his writing in Latin might rather have caused him to be classed with the western. Also Minucius Felix ought perhaps rather to be classed with the Roman than the African church.
We shall next state the purpose of the treatises of those Apologists, whose names are printed in italics in the table.
The first group consists of Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Hermias, and Theophilus; the first three of whom may be considered to express the defence of Christian philosophers, who were striving to explain the nature of Christianity, partly with a view to plead for toleration, partly to make converts.
Justin has left two apologies; one against the Jews, the other against the heathens; (a second against the heathens is a fragment.) In both he adopted the same plan, of first repelling prejudices, and then assaulting his opponent. That which is directed against the Jews is analysed in Kaye's Justin, c. xi. In that which was directed against the heathens, he first repelled the charges made against Christians, such as atheism, Thyestean banquets, and treason against the state; and next, those made against Christianity, especially those which related to its late introduction, the person of Christ, and the doctrine of the resurrection. In proceeding to assault heathenism, he endeavoured to show that it did not possess religious truth, and claimed that the points of agreement with Christian truth were borrowed; and after having thus shown the superiority of Christianity to heathenism, he endeavoured to show its divinity, by the internal evidence of its doctrines and effects, and by the external evidence of miracles and prophecies.
Tatian's treatise in substance was an invective against the pagans, on the absurdity and iniquity of the pagan theology and its recent origin, with a running comparison between it and Christianity.
The object of Athenagoras was to plead for toleration; and consequently he employed himself in vindicating the Christians from various charges, such as incest, Thyestean banquets; and retaliated the charges on the heathen.
The little work of Hermias, the date of which is uncertain, [pg 457] (see Lardner, Cred. ch. xxv. and Cave, Hist. Lit. lxxxi. is a kind of sermon on St. Paul's words, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” In an amusing manner, not unlike Lucian, he criticised the heathen philosophy, arguing its falsehood from the contradictory opinions held in it.
The form of Theophilus's work Ad Autolycum is not unlike some of those which have preceded. Indeed the form was suggested by circumstances; being a defence of Christianity against particular charges, and the retaliation of similar ones on the heathens. He drew out the attributes of the true God, b. i; and afterwards exhibited the falsehood of the heathen religion and history, b. ii; defending Christians from the absurd charges made against them; and attempting to show the originality and antiquity of the Hebrew history and chronology, b. iii.
The next group of Apologists, which comprises the writers of the African church, Tertullian and Minucius Felix, differs from the last in spirit, though resembling them in purpose. It is the defence made by rhetoricians instead of philosophers. The purpose too, like that of the preceding Apologists, is partly to effect conviction, partly to obtain toleration; but there is a consciousness of the presence of danger, hardly perceivable in the former writers. We feel, as we read these early African writers, that they write like men who felt themselves in the presence of persecution, and who were brought more nearly than the former writers into the face of their foe.
Tertullian's Tract, which is analysed both by Mr. Woodham in his edition of it, and by Mr. T. Chevallier in his translation of it, is chiefly defensive. He claims toleration, ch. i-vii; refutes the miscellaneous charges against Christianity, ch. x-xxvii; and the charge of treason (xxviii-xxxvii); explains the nature of Christianity (xvii-xxiii); and compares it with philosophy, ch. xlv-xlvii.
The work of Minucius Felix is a dialogue between a heathen, Cæcilius, and a Christian, Octavius. The heathen opens by denying a Providence; next inveighs against the Christians, by a series of charges such as were named in Note [15]; and then attacks the Christian doctrines and condition. The Christian Octavius is made to answer each point successively.
In passing now from the African school of Apologists to the Alexandrian, we leave the rhetoricians, and meet with the philosophers, Clement and Origen. Clement precedes Tertullian by a few years; Origen succeeds Minucius Felix.
Clement, in part of his Stromata, and in his Cohortatio, has expressed the spirit of his apologetic; which resembles those of the first group, in admitting the value of heathen philosophy as a preparation for Christianity, and claims that the Hebrews are the source of philosophy, and that Christianity is the full satisfaction for those who sought knowledge.
The spirit and details of Origen's defence have been so fully given in Lecture [II]. and Note [14], that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the subject. His apology marks a further step. Tertullian replied to the prejudices of the vulgar, and M. Felix to the scepticism of the educated, which formed two elements in the heathen reaction of the second century. Origen furnished the reply to the attack made by the heathen philosophy. It is in reply to Celsus, who possessed a competent knowledge of Christianity; and who, though writing earlier than the time when the charges which Tertullian afterwards refuted were common, was too well informed to have believed them, and opposed Christianity on deeper grounds. Celsus stands later logically, though not chronologically, than the authors of those frivolous charges, and midway between them and the educated assailants of Christianity of the third century, such as Porphyry. Origen's defence too marks a similar advance, and, by exhibiting sympathy with the very philosophy which Porphyry and others adopted, shows the kind of defence which was thought likely to attract philosophic minds.
The chronology compels us to return to the African church, and introduces us to two Apologists;—Arnobius and Lactantius; one of whom seems to have written a little before Christianity had become a tolerated religion; the latter a little afterwards.
The work of Arnobius is taken up, partly in repelling charges made against the Christians, such as that the Christians do not worship, which are no longer charges of the absurd kind made a century before, partly in comparing Christianity and heathenism; and partly in offering the evidence for Christianity. It is in this point that we find the peculiarity which belongs to Arnobius. He is the first writer who lays firm stress on the demonstrative character of the evidence of fact. In previous writers Christianity had been proved by probability: he makes it to rest on the evidence of certainty; and considers the fact of the revelation to guarantee the contents of it.
The large work of Lactantius, the Institutiones Divinæ, is a work of ethics as well as of defence. Christians have obtained protection, and defence is becoming didactic: apology is expiring in instruction: all that is now needed for the spread of Christianity is, that its nature should be understood. The work is partly a work of religion, partly of philosophy, partly of ethics; the object in each case being to show that Christianity supplies the only true form in each department of thought.
The remaining Apologists may be grouped together, though they have no point of union, except that their arguments are directed to the special condition of heathenism; when, being no longer triumphant, it was standing on the defensive, and, at the time of the two latter of the group, was fast declining. They are, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustin.
If Origen is the metaphysical philosopher of the early Apologists; if Augustin is the political; Eusebius is the man of erudition. He has left, besides the small work against Hierocles (see Note [17]), two works of defence; the first the Evangelica Præparatio, against the Gentiles; the second the Evangelica Demonstratio, more suited for the Jews. The former work is to show that Christianity has not been accepted without just cause; which he attempts to prove by a very elaborate discussion (valuable to us in a literary point of view, on account of the quotations which he has preserved) of the various religions, Egyptian, Phœnician, Greek, and of the various types of Greek thought and belief; and, by a comparison of them with the Hebrew, he shows the superiority of the last. The other work, the Evangelica Demonstratio, is designed to prove that Christ and Christianity fulfil the ancient prophecies. His apology marks the transitionary time when Christianity was becoming the religion of the Roman world, and men hesitated as to its truth, looking back with regret to the past, with uneasiness to the future.
The other two Apologists are nearly a century later; when Christianity had been long established.
Cyril has already come before us as the respondent to Julian. It is enough to refer to Lecture [II]. and Note [19], in relation to him. It is worthy of observation, that the circumstance that he should consider it necessary to reply to Julian's work, at so long a period after the death of the author, and the frustration of his schemes, seems to show the continued existence of a wavering in the faith of Christians, of which we seldom have the opportunity of finding the traces at so late a period.
If Cyril marks the apology of the Alexandrian church at the commencement of the fifth century, Augustin similarly exhibits that of the African in presence of the new woes which were bursting upon the world. Christianity had long lived down the charges made against it by prejudice, and shown itself to be the philosophy which the educated craved. The charges of treason too had ceased, for it had become the established religion; but one prejudice still remained. Victorious with man; triumphant over the prejudices of the vulgar, the opinions of the philosophers, and the power of the state; it still was not, it seemed, victorious in heaven; and at last the heathen gods were arousing themselves to take vengeance on the earth for the overthrow of their worship, by a series of terrible calamities. Apprehensions like these haunted the imagination; and it was the object of Augustin, in his work, De Civitate Dei, to remove them. That work was a philosophy of society; it was the history of the church and of the world, viewed in presence of the dissolution, social and political, which seemed impending.
These brief remarks will suffice to give a faint idea of the line of argument adopted by the early Apologists. Further information in regard to them may be found in the following sources:—
In a history of this period written by Tzchirner, Geschichte der Apologetik, 1805; also another by Van Senden, 1831, translated into German from the Dutch, 1841; Clausen, Apologetæ Ecc. Chr. ante-Theodosiani, 1817; and a brief account in Stein, Die Apologetik des Christenthum, § 6. p. 13. Other references may be found in Hase's Church History, E. T. § 52; Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, § 29, 117; and in J. A. Fabricius, Delectus Argument, ch. i. In the same work (ch. ii-v.) is an account of the chief Apologists, and of the fragments of their lost writings. In reference to the character of the apologetic works of the early fathers, information may also be obtained in Walch's Biblioth. Patristic. (ed. Danz. 1834.) § 97-100. ch. x; and concerning some of them in P. G. Lumper's Hist. Theol.-Crit. de Sanct. Patr. 1785; Moehler's Patrologie, 1840; Ritter's Chr. Phil. i and ii; Neander's Kirchengeschichte, i. 242 seq.; ii. 411 seq.; Kaye'a works on Justin, Clement, and Tertullian; and Dr. A. Clarke's Succession of Ecclesiastical Literature, 1832.
On a review of these early apologies, some peculiarities are observable.
First, with the exception of Origen's treatise, and some parts of Eusebius, they are inferior as works of mind to many of modern times.[1076] This was to be expected from the character of the age; the literature of that period being poor in tone, compared with the earlier and with the modern. In works of encyclopædic history and geography, and in a reconsideration of philosophy by the light of the past, it had indeed some excellences; but the literature as a whole, not only the Latin, but even the Greek, was debased by the substitution of rhetoric for the healthy freshness of thought and poetry of older times: and the apologetic literature partakes of the tone of its age. The Christian writers, when looked at in a literary point of view, must be compared with authors of their own times. The Alexandrian apologies rise sometimes to philosophy; but those of the Greek nation sink to rhetoric. In later times, men who were giants in mind and learning have written on behalf of Christianity; and it would be unfair to the apologetic fathers to compare them with these.
Secondly, we cannot fail to remark the abundant use of what is now called the philosophical argument for Christianity, the conviction that prejudice must be removed, and antecedent probabilities [pg 461] be suggested, before the hearer could be expected to submit to Christianity. The just inference from this is not that which some would draw, the depreciation of the argument from external evidence, but rather a corroboration of the importance of the emotional element, as an ingredient in the judgment formed on religion. The only practical inference that can be drawn in reference to ourselves is, that if it be true that our age resembles theirs, as has been suggested by Pressensé (see Lecture [VIII]. p. [356]), we must adopt the same plan; not because we admit that the external evidence is uncertain or unreal, but because the other kind of evidence is best adapted, from philosophical reasons, to such a state of society as ours.
Several centuries pass before we again meet with works of evidence. In the dark ages, the public mind and thought were nominally Christian; and at least were not sufficiently educated to admit of the generation of doubts which might create a demand for apologetic works. Accordingly we pass over this interval, and proceed at once to the middle ages.
II. The scepticism of the second period of free thought possessed so largely the character of a tendency rather than an attitude of fixed antagonism, that it gave no opportunity for direct works of refutation. But the spirit of apologetic is seen in two respects; in the special refutation of particular points of teaching, as in Bernard's controversy with Abélard, and more especially in the works of the scholastic theology.
This theology, especially as seen in the works of the great realist Aquinas, and of others who took their method from him, was essentially, as has been before said (pp. [11] and [92]), a work of defence. In the two centuries before his time we already find the spirit of reverent inquiry working. Anselm's two celebrated works, the Monologium and Proslogium, a kind of soliloquy on the Trinity, and the Cur Deus Homo, or theory of the Atonement, are the work of a mind that was reconsidering its own beliefs, and restating the grounds of the immemorial doctrines of the church. (See J. A. Hasse, Anselm, 1843, 52.) In the following century (viz. the twelfth), the work of Peter Lombard, called the Sententiæ, marks an age when inquiry was active; and the material was supplied for its satisfaction by means of searching amid the opinions of the past for the witness of authority. But in the thirteenth century, the grand advance made by Aquinas in his Summa, is no less than the result of the conviction that religion admitted of a philosophy; that theological truth was a science; and so, commencing with the plan of first discussing God; then man; then redemption; then ethics; he created a method, which had been indeed suggested by his predecessors, but was more fully displayed by him, for arranging the truths of theology in a systematic form, in which their reasonableness might appear, and [pg 462] through which they might commend themselves to the judgment of a philosophical age.
The most successful mode of replying to objections is not to refute the error contained in them, but to grasp the truth and build it into a system, where the doubter finds his mind and heart satisfied with the possession of that for which he was craving. If the twelfth century had not had its Abélards, its spirit of inquiry, of analysis, and of doubt; the church would never have had its champion philosopher Aquinas: but if it had not had its Aquinas, the succeeding ages would probably have produced many more Abélards. The scholastic theology accordingly must be regarded as the true rationalism, the true use of reason in defence. Like as the mind goes through the process of perceiving facts, then of classifying and generalizing, next of defining and tracing principles to practical results; so the church, in forming its theology, receives its facts as they were once for all apprehended by inspired men of old, and are corroborated by the experience of the Christian consciousness from age to age: but, after so receiving them, it exercises its office in creating a theology, by classifying and arranging them, and generalizing from them; and when new doubts or objections arise, it recompares its teaching with the faith once delivered to the saints; defines and prescribes the limits of truth and error; and thus absorbs into its own system whatever is true in the newly-presented doubts or objections. This is really the action of the church in moments of peril; and is that which was effected by the scholastic theologians,—Anselm, the two Victors, Aquinas, Bonaventura, and others. It is sufficient to refer to Ritter's Christliche Philosophie, iii. 502 seq.; iv. 257 seq.; Neander's Kirchengeschichte, vol. viii; Stein's Die Apologetic, § 7 and 8; Hagenbach's Dogmengesch. § 150; and Hase's Church History, § 218, 277, 278; for information concerning these writers and their position.
III. At the time of the Renaissance, in the fifteenth century, which was the third period at which the Christian faith was in peril from doubt, we begin to meet with works of evidence of a more directly controversial kind. Defence is no longer a spirit, but a fact. Apologetic theology is severed from Dogmatic.
One work remains, written in the fourteenth century by Petrarch (Opp. de Otio Religiosor), which defends the truth of Christianity against Philosophers, Mahometans, and Jews: partly on the evidence of miracles, but mainly on the internal evidence of the purity and godliness of Christianity. In the early part of the fifteenth century, Raimond de Sebonde, professor of medicine at Barcelona, wrote his Theologia Naturalis, which was afterwards translated into French by Montaigne. It was charged with deism, but really was in spirit, as previously observed (p. [104]), only like Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. See Hallam's History of Literature, i. 138; Ritter's Christliche Philosophie, iv. [pg 463] 658 seq. Another exists by Æneas Sylvius; another by Ficinus, 1450, De Relig. Christianâ, in which the evidence of prophecy and miracles is adduced; the arguments from the moral character of the apostles and martyrs, the wonderful spread of Christianity, and the wisdom of the Bible, are used; and a comparison is drawn between Christianity and other creeds.
In the close of the same century, as soon as printing became common, several similar treatises occur. One exists by Alphonso de Spina, Fortalitium Fidei contra Judæos, &c. 1487; also by Savonarola, Triumphus Crucis, sive de Vera Fide, 1497; also by Pico di Mirandola; and by Ludovicus Vives, De Veritate Christianâ, 1551. A carefully written account of all these is given by Staüdlin, in Eichhorn's Geschichte der Literatur, vol. vi. p. 24 seq. See also Fabricius, Delect. Argument, ch. xxx.
The preceding works were mostly directed against the first of the two species of unbelief which belonged to this period, viz. the literary tendency (see Lecture [III]. p. [93], [94]). A few however exist which were directed against the second species, which was connected with the philosophy of Padua. They are not so much general treatises, as works written against particular opinions, of Pomponatius, Bruno, or Vanini. An account of them may be found in the memoirs respectively published concerning these writers; the references to which are given in the notes to Lecture [III]. (See pp. [101-103].) The work of Mornæus, De Veritate Religionis Christianæ adv. Atheistas, Epicureos, &c. 1580, was probably suggested by this species of philosophy.
IV. The fourth great period, marked by the unbelief connected with the activity of modern speculation and the influence of modern discovery, commenced in the sixteenth century. The works of defence are so numerous that we can only give a brief notice of the principal writers and writings. A list may be collected, down to the respective dates of their publication, from J. A. Fabricius's De Veritate Rel. Christ. c. 30; Pfaff's Hist. Litt. Theol. ii. § 2; Buddeus's Isagoge, pp. 856-1237; Walch's Biblioth. Theol. Select. vol. i. ch. v. § 5-7: and the principal arguments are summed up in Stapfer's Instit. Theol. Polem. 1744, vol. i. ch. iii. and vol. ii. Tholuck also has written a history of modern apologetic, Ueber Apologetik und ihre Litteratur (Vermischte Schriften, i. pp. 150-376), and the Abbe Migne has published a most important collection of the principal treatises on apologetic in all ages, arranged in chronological order. It is contained in twenty vols. 4to. 1843. The title of the work is given below.[1077]
The work of Grotius, De Veritate Religionis Christianæ, is the one which opens the period of evidences which we are now considering; of which a notice may be found in Hallam's History of Literature, ii. 364, and in Tholuck, Verm. Schr. i. 158; but no very definite cause can be pointed out why it was written. It was merely indeed one of the class of treatises already described (Notes [4] and [5]), which devoted a portion of space to the controversy with the Jews and Mahometans. It is when a new standpoint had been assumed by scepticism, and the causes, intellectual or moral, which have been pointed out in these lectures, had begun to create a real peril, that writings on the evidences begin to derive a new value and assume a new form.
We shall give an account of them according to countries. The English works of evidence.—Those which were called forth in England by Deism were of several kinds. Perhaps they may be arranged under four heads.
The first class consists of specific answers to certain books, published from time to time; of which kind are most of those which are named in the foot-notes to Lecture [IV]. Waterland's reply to Tindal is a type of this class. Occupied with tracking the opponent from point to point of his work, such replies, though important while the sceptical book is operating for evil, become obsolete along with the war of which they are a part, and henceforth are only valuable in literary history, unless, as in the special instance of Bentley's Phileleutherus Lipsiensis in reply to Collins, they are such marvellous instances of dialectical ability and literary acuteness that they possess a philosophical value as works of power, when their instructiveness has ceased.
A second kind consisted of homilies rather than arguments; sermons to Christian people, warning them against forms of unbelief, [pg 465] and regarding unbelief from a practical point of view rather than a speculative; and discussing, as would appropriately belong to such an object, the moral to the exclusion of the intellectual causes of doubt. Some of Tillotson's sermons are an example of the highest of this kind of works. The value of this class is twofold: in a purely pastoral point of view, the suggestions which they contain concerning the moral causes of doubt being founded on the real facts of the human heart, and on the declarations of scripture, have a lasting value; and in a literary point of view, these works contribute to the knowledge of the state of public feeling of the time. This is seen in this instance. Until about the end of the seventeenth century, there is no clear perception, except among the very highest of this class of writers, of the particular character of the forms of doubt against which their remarks are directed. The general name, Atheism, is used vaguely, to describe every form of unbelief. This fact tells its tale. It witnesses to the consciousness that they lived in an age of restlessness, when change of creed was going on, and doubt was prevalent; but when unbelief had not shaped itself into form, and found as yet few organs of expression. We are reminded of the works before named of the fifteenth century (p. [93] seq. 104.) At that time doubt and restlessness prevailed, as we learn from the frequent references to it; yet the works which transmit the knowledge of it to us are few, and the allusions to it vague: while the works of evidence then written are directed against antiquated forms of it,—Mahometan, Jewish, or philosophical. In like manner, in the seventeenth age, we see, as we look back, that the Christian sermons were mostly directed against older forms of unbelief,—the atheism of the ancients, or of the Paduan school; and that the contemporary unbelief had not become definite enough to enable the Christian writers to apprehend its nature. This fact too explains another circumstance. The preachers evince a bitterness, which is not merely the rudeness common in that age on all subjects, nor the indignation which arises from solicitude for souls, common in all ages on a subject so momentous as salvation; but it is the bitterness of alarm. There is a margin in their expression of vituperation, which is only to be explained by the fact, that the absence of a clear statement of the grounds of doubt, such as was subsequently given in the eighteenth century, deprived the preachers of the means of understanding the alleged excuse for the prevailing doubt. They appear not to be conscious of the causes which could create in the minds of others a restlessness which they did not feel themselves. They seem like persons living in a state of political society, who are conscious of a vast amount of general dissatisfaction, and a suspicion of a plot against society, the authors of which are unknown, as well as the causes of their supposed grievances; and where the danger is necessarily heightened from the very absence of knowledge as to its precise amount.
A third class of the English apologies consists of works which have neither the speciality of the first class, nor the vagueness of the second. They were directed against special writers and particular books; but instead of being adapted as a detailed reply, chapter by chapter, to the special work, the authors of them seized hold of the central errors of the unbeliever, or the central truths by which he was to be refuted. The works of the two Chandlers against Collins, and Leland's work on the deists, rise into this tone at times. Bishop Gibson's later Pastorals against Woolston are a good type of it; and still better, many of the courses of Boyle Lectures; and above all, Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses.
There is a fourth class of works, of a grander type, which resemble the one just named, in discussing subjects rather than books: but differ in that they are not directed against particular books or men, but take the largest and loftiest view of the evidences of Christianity. The first of this class, though a small one, is Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. The best examples are, Things Divine and Human conceived of by Analogy, by Dr. Peter Browne, 1733; and the Analogy of Bishop Butler, in reference to the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity; with the works of Lardner and Paley in reference to the Historical. Books of this class are elevated above what is local or national, and are in some sense a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί.
After this description of the different classes of works of evidence, it remains to give a brief notice of a few of the more important writers, especially of the two latter classes, in chronological order.
Omitting the repetition of those books named in the foot-notes of Lect. [IV]. which were directed against Herbert, Hobbes, and Blount, and which, as already remarked, belonged to the first of the four classes just named, and also the enumeration of the various sermons which belong to the second, we meet with the following writers:—Robert Boyle (1626-1691), an intelligent philosopher and devout Christian, who wrote works to reconcile reason and religion, suggested by the growth of new sciences; and with Ray, who first supplied materials for the argument for natural religion, drawn from final causes, 1691; and Stillingfleet, who investigated religion from the literary side, as the two just named from the scientific. Boyle not only wrote himself on the Evidences, but founded the Boyle Lectures,[1078] a series which was [pg 467] mainly composed of works written by men of real ability, and contains several treatises of value, as works of mind, as well as instruction. Among the series may be named those of Bentley (1692); Kidder, 1694; Bp. Williams, 1695; Gastrell, 1697; Dean Stanhope, 1701; Dr. Clarke, 1704, 5; Derham, 1711; Ibbot, 1713; Gurdon, 1721; Berriman, 1730; Worthington, 1766; Owen, 1769: all of which belong to the third of the classes named above, while one or two approach to the grandeur of the fourth.
Among separate treatises, the popular ones by the Non-juror Charles Leslie ([+]1722), Short Method with the Deists; Jenkins's Reasonableness of Christianity, 1721; Foster's Usefulness and Truth of Christianity, against Tindal; and Bp. Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses, against Woolston; Lyttelton on St. Paul's Conversion; Conybeare's Defence of Revelation, 1732; Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses; are the best known. A complete list of the respective replies to deist writers may be found under the criticism of each writer, in Leland's Deists, and Lechler's Gesch. des Engl. Deismus. The great work of Bishop Butler, which appeared in 1736, has been sufficiently discussed in Lect. [IV]. p. [157] seq. It was the recapitulation and condensation of all the arguments that had been previously used; but possessed the largeness of treatment and originality of combination of a mind which had not so much borrowed the thoughts of others as been educated by them. Balguy's works also, though brief, are scarcely inferior. (See his Discourse on Reason and Faith, vol. i. serm. i-vii; vol. ii. serm. ii, iii, iv; vol. iv. serm. ii. and iii.)
We have already pointed out (p. [207]), that in the latter half of the century, the historical rather than the moral evidences were developed. The philosophical argument preceded in time, as in logic. First, the religion of nature was proved: at this point the deist halted; the Christian advanced farther. The chasm between it and revealed religion was bridged at first by probability; next by Butler's argument from analogy, put as a dilemma [pg 468] to silence those who objected to revelation, but capable, as shown in Lect. [IV]. of being used as a direct argument to lead the mind to revelation; thirdly, by the historic method, which asserted that miracles attested a revelation, even without other evidence. The argument in all cases however, whether philosophical or historical, was an appeal to reason; either evidence of probability or of fact; and was in no case an appeal to the authority of the church.
Accordingly, the probability of revelation having been shown, and the attacks on its moral character parried, the question became in a great degree historical, and resolved itself into an examination either of the external evidence arising from early testimonies, which could be gathered, to corroborate the facts, and to vindicate the honesty of the writers, or of the internal critical evidence of undesigned coincidences in their writings. (See Note [48].) The first of these occupied the attention of Lardner (1684-1768). His Credibility was published 1727-57. The Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies (1764-7.) The second and third branches occupied the attention of Paley; the one in the Evidences, the other in the Horæ Paulinæ.[1079]
Before the close of the century the real danger from deism had passed, and the natural demand for evidences had therefore in a great degree ceased. Consequently the works which appeared were generally a recapitulation or summary of the whole arguments, often neat and judicious, (as is seen at a later time in Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures, vol. ii. 1805; and in a grander manner in Chalmers's works, vol. i-iv.); or in developments of particular subjects, as in Bishop Watson's replies to Gibbon and to Paine; (See p. [198], [199], note); or in Dean Graves's work on the Pentateuch, 1807.
It is only in recent years that a new phase of unbelief, a species of eclecticism rather than positive unbelief, has arisen in England, which is not the legitimate successor of the old deism, but of the speculative thought of the Continent; and only within recent years that writers on evidences have directed their attention to it. In the line of the Bampton Lectures, for example, which, as one of the classes of annually recurring volumes of evidences, is supposed to keep pace with contemporary forms of doubt, and may therefore be taken as one means of measuring dates in the corresponding history of unbelief; it is not until about 1852 that the writers showed an acquaintance with these forms of doubt derived from foreign literature. The first course[1080] which touched upon them was that of Mr. Riddle, 1852, on the Natural History of Infidelity; and the first especially directed to them was that in [pg 469] 1858 by Dr. Thomson, on the Atoning Work of Christ; since which time only two courses, those of Mr. Mansel, 1858, on The Limits of Religious Thought; and of Mr. Rawlinson, in 1859,[1081] on The Historical Evidences of the Truth of Scripture, have been directed to the subject, the one to the philosophy of religion studied on its psychological side, the other to the historical evidences.
Among isolated works on evidences not forming parts of a general series, it is hard to make a selection without unfairness. We can only cite a few, premising that silence in reference to the rest is not to be considered to be censure, nor to mark the want of a cordial and grateful acknowledgment of the utility of many smaller works of evidences in the present day, dictated by deep love for Christ; whose authors, though omitted in this humble record, have their reward in being instruments of religious usefulness by means of their works, and are doubtless not unnoticed by a merciful Saviour, who looks down with love on all who strive to spread his truth.
The following seem to merit notice. First, the arguments in favour of natural religion, drawn from physical science, stated in the Bridgewater Treatises, analogous to the earlier works of Derham and Paley; the connection of science with revelation, in Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures delivered in Rome, 2d ed. 1842, (which are a little obsolete, but very masterly;) several works by Dr. M'Cosh, Divine Government,—Typical Forms, &c. in which the author takes a large view of the world, and of the province of revealed religion in the scheme of general truth, founded mainly on Butler; also a work of Dr. Buchanan, Modern Atheism, valuable for its literary materials as much as for its argument; and of T. Erskine on the Internal Evidences, 1821. The Bampton Lectures of Mr. Miller in 1817 also deserve to be singled out as a thoughtful and original exhibition of the argument in one branch of the internal evidence; The Divine Authority of Scripture asserted from its adaptation to the real state of human nature; also Mr. Davison's Warburton Lectures on Prophecy, 1825. Among works directed to special subjects, we ought to specify, The Restoration of Belief, by Mr. Isaac Taylor, intended indirectly against speculations such as those of the Tübingen school; and an able and thoughtful work on the subject of the superhuman character of Christ, The Christ of History, by Mr. Young; also E. Miall's Bases of Belief; with the two Burnett Prize Essays by Thompson and Tullock; and a reply to Mr. Newman's Phases of Faith, viz. The Eclipse of Faith, and Letters of E. H. Greyson, by H. Rogers, constructed however partly on the argument of the dilemma.[1082] The replies written to Essays and Reviews, especially Aids to Faith, ought to be added.
We have reserved for separate mention one work, which ascends [pg 470] to the philosophy of the religious question, Mr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures, 1858, The Limits of Religious Thought, because it is a work which is valuable for its method, even if the reader differs (as the author of these lectures does in some respects) from the philosophical principles maintained, or occasionally even from the results attained.[1083] It is an attempt to reconstruct the argument of Butler from the subjective side. As Butler showed that the difficulties which are in revealed religion are equally applicable to natural; so Mr. Mansel wishes to show that the difficulties which the mind feels in reference to religion are parallel to those which are felt by it in reference to philosophy. Since the time of Kant a subjective tone has passed over philosophy. The phenomena are now studied in the mind, not in nature; in our mode of viewing, not in the object viewed. And hence Butler's argument needed reconstructing on its psychological side. Mr. Mansel has attempted to effect this; and the book must always in this respect have a value, even to the minds of those who are diametrically opposed to its principles and results. Even if the details were wrong, the method would be correct, of studying psychology before ontology; of finding the philosophy of religion, not, as Leibnitz attempted, objectively in a theodicée, but subjectively, by the analysis of the religious faculties; learning the length of the sounding-line before attempting to fathom the ocean.
These remarks must suffice in reference to the history of Evidences in England. We shall now give an account of those which existed in France; which will be still more brief, because the works are considered to be of small general value, at least they have not a general reputation.
2. The French works of evidence.—In the middle of the seventeenth century we meet with Pascal and Huet; both of them, metaphysically speaking, sceptics, who disbelieved in the possibility of finding truth apart from revelation;[1084] and with whom therefore the object of evidences was to silence doubt rather than to remove it. (On Pascal, see Rogers's Essays, Essay reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, January 1847; and on Huet, an article in the Quarterly Review, No. 194, September 1855, and the reference given p. 19. Also see Houtteville, introduction to La Religion Chrétienne prouvée par des Faits, 1722.)
Among the Roman catholics, at the close of the same century, were the following: Le Vassor([+]1718); the two Lamy [+] 1710 and 15, and Denyse; and in the eighteenth century, Houtteville, whose preface to his own work, an historical view of evidences and attacks to his own time, has been just named; Bonnet; D'Aguesseau, [+] 1751; and Bergier [+] 1790: and among the Protestants,—Abbadie, [+] 1727; and Jacquelot, [+] 1708; nearly all of whom are treated of by Tholuck [pg 471] (Verm. Schr. i. p. 28) and Walch (Bibl. Theol. Sel. ch. v. sect. 6). Several more will be found in the Demonstrations Evangeliques; among which are Choiseul du Plessis, Praslin, Polignac, De Bernis, Buffier, Tournemine, and Gerdil; the Lives of several of whom are in the Biographie Universelle.
Though some of these were men whose works were of ordinary respectability, they were by no means a match in greatness for the intellectual giants who prostituted their powers on behalf of unbelief; and on one occasion, when a prize essay had been offered for a work in behalf of Christianity, no work was deemed worthy of it. (Alison, History of Europe, i. 180.) Since the beginning of the present century, however, there has been a change. Whatever may be thought of the line of argument adopted, the skill with which it has been put forward, and the ability of the minds that have given expression to it, is undoubted. Chateaubriand may be considered as the first who, with a full appreciation of the tastes and wants of modern society, tried to show not only the compatibility of Christianity with them, but that the perfection of society was only realized in it. The work of the Christian labourers who had to bring back France to Christianity was hard. It was not the apologist, acting, as in England, from the vantage ground of a powerful church against the Deist, who was making an attack on it; but it was a weak and feeble minority acting against a powerful mass of educated intellect. The apologists were indirectly aided by philosophy. The philosophers did not aim primarily at religious truth, and we have had reason to take exception to many of their views; yet they rekindled in France the elements of natural religion, on which the Christians then proceeded to base revealed. The works of Jules Simon are the highest expression of it. (See Note [44].)
The school of evidences that has existed, has been the church school of De Maistre, already described. (See Note [45], and the references given there.) With somewhat of the spirit of the writers of the fifteenth age, they have directed their efforts to reestablish the catholic church as the condition of re-establishing the Christian religion. To this we have already taken exception, Lecture [VII]. p. [300]; and the remarks there given may suffice in reference to the movement. Yet the literary appreciation of the line of argument used by the older apologists, is perceptible in the large publication of Migne, already named.
The other attempt in France to re-establish Christianity by Protestant apologists, noticed in Lecture [VII]. p. [304], of which the ablest was Vinet, is rather directed against rationalism than against full unbelief; and aims to turn the flank of the rationalist argument, and, while accepting its premises, deny its conclusions. (On Vinet, see Note [46].) The problem which is now before the apologists is, not to show that Christianity is not imposture, but rather that it is not merely philosophy. (Compare the remarks of Strauss, at the close of his work on Reimarus, alluded to in Note [29]. p. [427]).
There now only remains the history of Apologetic in Germany.
3. The German works of evidence.—As early as the end of the seventeenth century, we find the attention of Kortholt directed to Spinoza; and in the early part of the eighteenth we see, in the grand attempt of Leibnitz to find a philosophy of religion; in Haller, 1705-77; in Euler, 1747, (for which see Tholuck, V. Schr. ii. 311-362, together with a list of others there given,) a proof of the attention which the Evidences received. The existence of works like J. A. Fabricius's Delectus Argumentorum, 1725; Reimannus, Historia Atheismi, 1725; Buddeus, De Atheismo, 1737; Stapfer, Inst. Theol. Polem. 1752; as well as the attention shown by the bibliographers, Pfaff, Walch, Fabricius, to the literature of Evidences, is a proof of the same fact.
The replies were still directed against Deism, as in England or France. It is not till later in the century that rationalism appears. When however it arose, writers were not wanting who opposed it. The history of the German theology has been treated so largely in Lectures [VI]. and [VII]. that it is only necessary to indicate the steps. The early deistic rationalism of Reimarus and Lessing met its opponents in contemporary writers named in the notes to Lecture [VI]. The critical rationalism of Eichhorn and Paulus was really answered by the later critics, as was shown when we noticed that criticism gradually abandoned their view, and rescued itself from their extravagant opinions (p. [257] seq.), while the dogmatic rationalism which was connected with it was dispersed by the discussion on the province of the supernatural already described (p. [418]). In the present century the aspect of the attack and of the defence has changed. The question had been as to the existence of the supernatural.
In the present the question has been, If the supernatural be admitted, what is the capacity of man to discover it by the light of feeling or reason respectively, without revelation? Therefore, while in the last century it was important to show that the supernatural exists, and that the religion that taught it was not deception; in the present the endeavour has been, to bring men from the supernatural to the biblical, and to make them feel that the Christian religion is not a mere mistake. Thus they have been led from the natural to the supernatural; from the supernatural to the revealed; from the ideal to the historic.[1085] The steps of this process in the present century have been twofold:—the philosophical Christianity of Schleiermacher, and the revival of biblical religion. Neander has been already adduced (p. [364]) as the type of the Christian movement which sought to unite the two: wishing to appropriate that which he believed, he strove to present Christianity as the highest form of the religious life; as a life based on a doctrine; the doctrine itself being based on a revealed [pg 473] history. It must suffice thus to have indicated, without tracing into detail, the apologetic literature which has been partly named in the Notes of the lectures, and may be found by consulting the references there given.
In all ages the purpose of Evidences has been conviction; to offer the means of proof either by philosophy or by fact. In arguing with the heathen in the first age, the former plan was adopted; the school of Alexandria trying to lead men to Christianity as the highest philosophy: in the middle ages the same method was adopted under the garb of philosophy, but with the alteration that the philosophy was one of form, not matter. In the later middle ages the appeal was to the Church: in the early contests with the Deists to the authority of reason, and to the Bible reached by means of this process; in the later, to the Bible reached through history and fact: in opposing the French infidelity the appeal was chiefly to authority; in the early German the appeal was the same as in England; in the later German it has been a return in spirit to that of the early fathers, or of the English apologists of the eighteenth century, but based on a deeper philosophy; an appeal to feeling or intuition, and not to reflective reason; and through these ultimately to the Bible.
Note 50. p. [373]. On The History Of The Doctrine Of Inspiration.
The subject of the history of inspiration has been named both in Lect. [III]. and [VIII]. It may be useful therefore to point out the sources for the study of it.
The history of it is briefly sketched in Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, § 32, 121, 161, 243, 292. A valuable catena of passages relative to the primitive doctrine of inspiration is given in Mr. Westcott's Introduction to the Gospels, Appendix B. second edition, 1860; and a continuation of the history to more recent periods in Dr. Lee's important work on Inspiration, especially in Appendices C and G; and in Tholuck's Doctrine of Inspiration, translated in the Journal of Sacred Literature, July 1854.
It appears that the theories held respecting inspiration in different ages may be arranged under three classes:
1. The belief in a full inspiration was held from the earliest times, with the few exceptions observable in occasional remarks of Origen, Jerome, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Euthymius Zigabenus (in the twelfth century).
2. Traces after a time begin to appear of a disposition, (α) to admit that the inspiration ought to be regarded as appertaining to the proper material of the revelation, viz. religion; but at the same time to maintain firmly the full inspiration of the religious [pg 474] elements of scripture. This view occurs in the allusions of the writers just named, and existed in the seventeenth century in the Helmstadt school of Calixt in Germany, and the Saumur school of Amyrault, Cameron, and Placæus, in France; and is stated decidedly by a series of writers in the English church. Some of the latter go so far as to avow, (β) that the value of the religious element in the revelation would not be lessened if errors were admitted in the scientific and miscellaneous matter which accompanies it. This admission increased after the speculations of Spinoza and the pressure of the Deist objections.
3. A third theory was suggested by Maimonides, which was revived by Spinoza, and has been held among many of the rationalists in Germany, and has lately appeared in English literature: this theory is, that the book does not, even in its religious element, differ in kind from other books, but only in degree. It will be observed that a wide chasm separates this view from either of those named under the second head; the only point in common being, that in all alike the writers agree that the nature of inspiration must be learned from experience, and not be determined antecedently by our own notions of optimism, without examining the real contents of revelation. Coleridge would by many be considered to give expression to this third theory in his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Perhaps however he hovered between it and the one previously named; being anxious rather to identify inspiration psychologically with one form of the Νοῦς or “Reason,” than theologically to confound the material of revelation with truth acquired by natural means.
It is not the purpose of this note to discuss the true view of inspiration; but merely to state the historic facts. The writer may however be allowed to repeat what has been already implied in the preface, that he dissents entirely from the third of these views. To him there seems evidence for believing that the dogmatic teaching implied on religious subjects in holy scripture is a communication of supernatural truth, miraculously revealed from the world invisible. Cfr. p. [29].
On the subject of inspiration, in addition to the works above named, instruction will be derived from the sources indicated in the Essay on Inspiration in Bp. Watson's Tracts, 1785, vol. iv. pp. 5 and 469; and from Dean Harvey Goodwin's Hulsean Lectures, first course, lectures vii. and viii. The first of the above-named views is stated in Gaussen's work on Theopneustie, and on the Canon; the third in Morell's [Philosophy of Religion], c. iv; and in the first three essays of Scherer's Mélanges de Crit. Religieuse.
A list of those theologians who have held the second class of views above named, together with the extracts from their writings, is given by Dr. S. Davidson in his Facts, Statements, &c. concerning vol. ii. of ed. x. of Horne's Introduction, 1857; and Mr. Stephen, in his defence of Dr. R. Williams, 1862, has quoted some [pg 475] of the same passages, and added a few more (Def. pp. 127-160.[1086]) As the reader was referred hither from Lecture [III]. p. [114]. for the proof of the assertion there made, that this theory had been largely held in the last century in England, it seems fair here to add the references. At the same time this list is not given with the view of endorsing the views of these writers, but merely to prove the accuracy of the assertion in the text of Lectures [III]. and [VIII].
Among English divines, those who have asserted the form of the theory named above as No. 2 a, are, Howe (Div. Author. of Scripture, lecture viii. and ix.); Bishop Williams (Boyle Lect. serm. iv. pp. 133, 4); Burnet (Article vi. p. 157. Oxford ed. 1814); Lowth (Vind. of Dir. Auth. and Inspir. of Old and New Testament, p. 45 seq.); Hey (Theol. Lect. i. 90); Watson (Tracts, iv. 446); Bishop Law (Theory of Religion); Tomline (Theology, i. 21); Dr. J. Barrow (Dissertations, 1819, fourth Diss.); Dean Conybeare (Theolog. Lect. p. 186); Bishop Hinds (Inspir. of Script. pp. 151, 2); Bishop Daniel Wilson (lect. xiii. on Evidences, i. 509); Parry (Inq. into Nat. of Insp. of Apost. pp. 26, 27); Bishop Blomfield (Lect. on Acts v. 88-90).
Among those who have gone so far as to hold the form of the theory above given as No. 2 b, are, Baxter (Method. Theol. Chr. part iii. ch. xii. 9. 4.); Tillotson (Works, fol. iii. p. 449. serm. 168); Doddridge (on Inspir.); Warburton (Doctr. of Grace, book i. ch. vii); Bishop Horsley (serm. 39 on Ecc. xii. 7. vol. iii. p. 175); Bishop Randolph (Rem. on Michaelis Introd. pp. 15, 16); Paley (Evidences of Christianity, part iii. ch. ii); Whately (Ess. on Diff. in St. Paul, Ess. i. and ix; Sermons on Festivals, p. 90; Pecul. of Christianity, p. 233); Hampden (Bampton Lect. pp. 301, 2); Thirlwall (Schleiermacher's Luke, Introd. p. 15); Bishop Heber (Bampt. Lect. viii. p. 577); Thomas Scott (Essay on Inspir. p. 3); Dr. Pye Smith (Script. and Geol. 276, 237. third ed.); Dean Alford (Proleg. to Gosp. ed. 1859) vol. i. ch. i. § 22.[1087]
It will be observed however, that both these classes of writers are separated by a chasm from those which belong to the third class above named; inasmuch as they hold inspiration to be not only miraculous in origin, but different in kind from even the highest forms of unassisted human intelligence.