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.