[7]. Advancement of Learning, ii, 4, 5.
[8]. It is a strange but common mistake to expect a purer morality from a conventional Christian than from a heathen or an atheist. One ought to expect less, much less. The man who can be familiar with the character, and acknowledge the claims, of Christ, without really loving Him or serving Him, and who can believe all that the Church teaches about Him, without at all believing in Him, must surely be far below the atheist who now and then does a good turn for humanity, out of mere pity and without the least hope of any ultimate triumph of goodness. For my part, I am quite surprised at the apparent goodness of conventional Christians: but I think they are not so good as their actions would imply. They are forced, by tradition and the example of a few, to keep up an artificial standard of morality in some departments of life.
[9]. Habakkuk iii. 11.
[10]. “The legend of the victory gained by Guy of Warwick over the dun cow most probably originated in a misunderstood tradition of his conquest of the Dena gau or Danish settlement in the neighbourhood of Warwick.”—Taylor’s Words and Places, p. 269.
[11]. Page 206.
[12]. The italics are in the text. In the next sentence, the italics are mine.
[13]. A more plausible argument might be derived from any expressions of Jesus which might appear to imply a belief in the historical nature of the Old Testament miracles. This argument appeals strongly to our sense of reverence. We do not like to think that Jesus was mistaken even in a purely intellectual matter. Yet do we really suppose that Jesus, in His humanity, was exempt from the popular intellectual and scientific errors of contemporary humanity? For example, do we really suppose that Jesus was exempt from the popular belief that the sun moves? For those who realize His humanity it is hard to think that He was intended to be so far separated from the men and women around Him; and, if He was not so separated, I find little more difficulty in supposing that He would have had the same belief as was held by all His countrymen concerning the historical character of the Old Testament.
[14]. St. Matthew ix. 58, “And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” For a demonstrative proof that the Gospel of St. Mark contains the earliest tradition, see the beginning of the article “Gospels” in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
[15]. To the same effect is James V. 14, 15: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” There can he no doubt that this refers to literal healing; and it is interesting as an indication that probably these early Christian attempts at healing were often tentative. For it will hardly be maintained that all who were thus anointed were healed: otherwise death would have been exterminated in the early Christian church.
[16]. Bishop Temple excepts only the Resurrection, which is not here under consideration. His words are “It is true too that, if we take each miracle by itself, there is but one miracle, namely our Lord’s Resurrection, for which clear, and unmistakeable, and sufficient evidence is given.”—Bampton Lectures, p. 154.