Of these it may be remarked:—
1. Innate ideas.—With regard to these, very conclusive reasons have been advanced by eminent philosophers for disbelieving that we have any. And human experience confirms this conclusion. Some nations, as the people of the Arru Islands, have no idea of a God. So this source of knowledge concerning one is, to say the least, dubious.
2. Senses.—'No man hath seen God at any time,' is a sufficient reply to this—for the same may be affirmed of every other sense, which is here affirmed of sight.
3. Conjecture.—This defies us. We only prove our own inability and multiply difficulties. For when we suppose a God, we cannot suppose how he came, nor how he created something out of nothing, which is held by the learned to be plainly impossible.**
* Oracle of Reason, No. 31, p. 251.
** Since this time Mr. Francis William Newman has put this
argument unanswerably in these words; 'A God uncaused and
existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible
as a world uncaused and existing from eternity'—'The Soul,'
p. 36. Second edition.
4. Analogy will not inform us. A small pivot or wheel cannot infallibly indicate to us the mechanism to which it belongs, nor anything conclusive as to whether the whole had only one or more makers. So of the universe, no part can shadow forth the whole of that, nor inform us conclusively whether it had a creator or creators. And here it is to be observed the difficulty is greater than with machines—for a pivot or wheel is a finite part of a finite whole, and both comprehensible; but with the universe, all we can take cognisance of is but a very finite part of an infinite whole, and that whole to all men acknowledged incomprehensible. Moreover, creation can have no analogy—no one ever saw or can conceive of anything being created. So that this mode of learning the existence of a God fails. The Rev. Hugh M'Neile, M.A., minister of St. Jade's Church, Liverpool, in a lecture delivered to above four hundred of the Irish clergy, at the Rotunda in Dublin, said in reference to this part of the question, 'I am convinced, I say, that, from external creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the moral character of God. Creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an adequate contemplation of nature. The authors of a multitude of books on this subject, have given an inadequate and partial induction of particulars. Already aware (though perhaps scarcely recognising how or whence) that "God is love," they have looked on nature for proofs of this conclusion, and taken what suited their purpose. But they have not taken nature as a whole, and collected a conclusion fairly from impartial premises. They expatiate on the blessings and enjoyments of life, in the countless tribes of earth, air, and sea. But if life be a blessing, death is a curse. Nature presents the universal triumph of death. Is this the doing of a God of love? or are there two Gods—a kind one, giving life; and an unkind one taking it away; and the wicked one invariably the victor? In external creation, exclusively and adequately contemplated, there is no escape from Manichæism. It is vain to say that the death of the inferior creatures is a blessing to man; for why, in the creation of a God of love, should any such necessity exist? And how would this account for the death of man himself?' So far the argument of analogy.
5. Revelation.—We have none. If others ever had, we can only determine it by human reason, and for this purpose Leslie has furnished his well-known rules. Therefore, as revelation means something superadded to reason, we cannot be said to possess it, for reason has to determine what is, and what is not revelation, and therefore is superior to it. Also, it is contended by divines that, but for the Bible we should know nothing of a God, which shows the unsatisfactory nature of the four methods of learning his existence we have gone through. And Lord Brougham contends that but for natural theology, or the analogy argument, which has been shown to be no argument at all, the Bible would have no other basis than mere tradition.
So you see, gentlemen, the philosophical difficulties besetting the path of a young inquirer into sacred things. These difficulties are to me insuperable, and hence I find myself incapable of employing language you are more fortunate in being able to adapt to your conscience.*
* The object of this passage was to show the jury the
intellectual difficulties belonging to this subject, and the
passage formed but an episode among the moral issues I
raised. A friend of mine asking an eminent divine at one of
Dr. Elliotson's seances, and who afterwards entered
parliament, what he thought of my defence. 'Oh it turned
upon that eternal conundrum the existence of God,' was the
answer. But I hope the reader will see something more in my
defence than the frivolity that employs itself on riddles.
But it has been stated I said I would put the Deity on half-pay. After first stating that I did not believe there was a Deity, is it likely I should say I would put him on half-pay? Would you put a servant on half-pay whom you never hired or had? All my expressions went to prove that I referred to the expenses of religion. I could not suppose that there is a being capable of governing the world, and consider him good and kind, and yet have any intention of bringing him into contempt. I had no personal reference to the Deity. I made use of that figure of speech because I thought they would understand it better, and they did understand it. I was saying we had many heavy burdens to pay to capitalists and others, and that I thought it hung like a millstone round us. Sir R. Peel said, when he introduced the income-tax, that the poor man could bear no more. I said there were twenty-four millions taken from us for the support of religion, and that they would do well to reduce that one-half. Suppose, gentlemen, that I did refer to the Deity, was my notion a dishonourable one? What man of you who had enough and to spare, and seeing the people around him in poverty, would not willingly relinquish part of his income to give them a bare subsistence? Who will deny that in England there are honest, industrious, hard-working men, honourable women, and beautiful children, who have not the means of obtaining food? Did I do him a disgrace if I thought he, who is called our Father, the Most High, would have dispensed with one-half of the lip-service he receives in order to give his creatures necessaries!