We have dwelt long upon the modern forms of free thought which exist within the church of Christ, because they have a living interest for us. They meet us in life as well as in literature; and we must daily form our judgment upon their truth and falsehood. They are not indeed peculiar to one church, nor to one country;[990] but form the theological question which is presented to the Christian church in this age.
The result of our inquiries in reference to the free thought of the present time has been especially to exhibit three main tendencies; one, arising from Positivism, a tendency to deny the possibility of revelation;[991] a second, from an opposite philosophy, to deny [pg 339] its necessity;[992] and a third, to accept it only in part.[993] These are the three tendencies by which the world and church of the coming generation are likely to be influenced. Our path in life will be in a world where they are operating; and we shall have need to be armed with the whole armour of God. If we have in our personal history so investigated the evidences of our faith, as to feel that we have a well-grounded hope, unassailable by these doubts, we may be thankful: if we have gone safely through the perilous test of a careful examination of them, sometimes staggering perhaps in our faith, yet struggling after truth in prayerful trust that the Lord would himself be our teacher, until we now are able to feel that we have our faith grounded on a Rock,—a faith which is the result of inquiry, not of ignorance,—let us be still more thankful, and exemplify our thankfulness by trying to assist the doubter with our tender sympathy, and to aid him in finding the truth and peace which Christ has given to us. Our attitude in moments of peril must be that of solemn reliance on God's help; and our behaviour towards others ought to exhibit Christian firmness, mingled with candour and tenderness; evincing the moderation of true learning, joined to the uncompromising adherence to the Christian faith.
The history now given, of the doubt which is expressed at present through the English language, completes the account of the fourth great crisis of belief in church history;[994] and with it we bring to an end our long survey of the history of free thought.
Since the commencement of the second lecture, we have been so involved in the details of the investigation, that, to those who have lost sight of the plan proposed in the commencement, the lectures may have [pg 340] appeared historical rather than controversial, and hardly compatible with the purpose of the founder of the Lecture. We have been like travellers moving in a tangled plain, where the path at times seems lost. Before entering upon it, we took our stand, as it were, on an eminence; and indicated the plan of the route; pointed to the kind of territory through which it would conduct us, and the direction to which it would tend. Now, that we have at last extricated ourselves from its windings, and rest after our journey, let us cast a glance backward over its course, and see how far the result has verified our anticipations. Let us reconsider the purpose designed by this course of inquiry; notice how far the promises in respect to it have been fulfilled; show its relation to controversial purpose; and collect the moral lessons which are derivable.
It will be remembered that we stated[995] the topic to be, a critical history of free thought in Europe in relation to the Christian religion. Our criticism started from a Christian point of view, and assumed alike the miraculous character of Christianity, the exceptional character of the religious inspiration of the first teachers of it, and the reality of its chief doctrines. From this point of view we proposed to consider the attempts of the human mind to get free from the authority of the Christian religion, either by rejecting it in whole or in part.[996] Four great crises of faith were enumerated in church history;[997] the first, the struggle, literary and philosophical, of early heathenism against Christianity;[998] the second, the reawakening of free thought in the middle ages;[999] the third, that which appertained to the revival of classical literature;[1000] the fourth, to the growth of modern philosophy;[1001]—a series of epochs which exhibit the struggle of Christianity in the great centres of thought and civilization, ancient or modern; and it was proposed that our investigation should not [pg 341] only contain a chronicle of the facts, but explain the causes, and teach the moral.[1002] We considered that the causes which make thought develope into unbelief are chiefly two,—the emotional and the intellectual;[1003] and, while vindicating distinctness of operation for the intellectual under certain circumstances,[1004] yet we allowed the union of them with the moral to be so intimate,[1005] that not only must account always be taken of the latter in estimating the unbelief of individuals, but the exclusive study of the former, without allowing for the existence of the latter, must be regarded as likely to lead to an imperfect and injurious idea of unbelief.
The intellectual causes were however selected as the special subject of our study;[1006] partly because they have been much neglected by Christian writers, partly because they are the forms which for the most part create the doubts which Christians encounter in the present age. The principal intellectual causes were considered[1007] to be, either the new material of knowledge, such as the physical or metaphysical sciences, which may present truth antagonistic to the teaching of the sacred literature; or new methods of criticism, the application of which creates opinions differing from those of the traditionary belief; and, above all, the effects of the application of particular tests of truth,—sense, reason, intuition, feeling,—to the doctrines of revealed religion.
This was our plan; and we have been employed in tracing the influence of these causes in generating doubt in the four great crises, with a minuteness which may almost have been tedious; endeavouring to supply the natural as well as the literary history; analysing each successive step of thought into the causes which produced it; searching for them when necessary in the intellectual biography of individuals; and, if not refuting results, at least laying bare by criticism the processes through which they were attained. At the same time we have attempted to show the grounds on which [pg 342] the faith of the church has reposed in the various ages of history. A defence, itself also twofold in its character—emotional and intellectual—has been generated by the attack in each of the crises, and an example thus furnished of the law which governs human society,—progress by antagonism. Permanent gain to truth was seen to be the result of the various controversies; quiet and refreshment after the discharge of the storm had cleared the atmosphere from the intellectual and moral ills with which it was charged.
The utility of the inquiry will now, it is hoped, be apparent. Though these lectures must be regarded as instructive for the believer, rather than polemic against the unbeliever, yet they are intended to serve also a controversial purpose.
There are times indeed when the mere instructiveness of a history, independently of practical use, is a sufficient justification for writing it;—times when it is important to take the gauge of past knowledge as the condition of a step forward in the future. Those who are accustomed to meditate on the present age, on the multifarious elements which in a time of great peace are quietly laying the basis of great changes, and on the unity of intellectual condition which the international intercourse is creating in the world of letters, as really as in that of industry, will perhaps think that the present is such a period, when the knowledge of the history of the former perils of the Christian faith, the nature of the attack and of the defence, is itself of value in regard to the prospects of the future.[1008] Those again also, who are accustomed to look at the contemporary works of evidence in our own country, will deplore the fact that in many cases, however well meant in spirit, they are essentially deficient in a due appreciation of the precise origin and character of present forms of doubt, and the natural and literary history of doubt in general;[1009] reproducing arguments unanswerable [pg 343] against older kinds of doubt, but unavailing against the modern, like wooden walls against modern weapons of war. We stand in the presence of forms of doubt, which press us more nearly than those of former times, because they do not supersede Christianity by disbelief, but disintegrate it by eclecticism; which come in the guise of erudition, unknown in former times, appealing to new canons of truth, reposing on new methods, invested with a new air. In such a moment a reconsideration of the struggles of past ages becomes indirectly a contribution to the evidences, by supplying the knowledge of similarity and contrast, which is necessary, as a preliminary, before entering on a new conflict.