The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths, than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.
It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ [pg 062] which would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on it as what we are craving after: so that we say, “I have always felt that there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it here.”
The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven. They said, “Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will believe,” which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word “believe” as our Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notions about Him, but to believe in Him, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being their Messiah.
The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the concluding words; and the verse “If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe [pg 063] though one rose from the dead,”[11] spoken of the rich man's brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of this parable.[12] The state of mind here pointed at is a common one enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself, but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth? Our Lord's answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply what you want, because the defect is within you. If a man did come to you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would, very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling of a noble or spiritual kind.
In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same [pg 064] way. The corresponding demand is, “Give us an undeniable philosophical proof of the truth of Christianity.” “Shew us this,” say men, “and we will believe.” Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from feeling for instance that “Christ is with us to the end of the world.” Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.
From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We must have “ears to hear” when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses, or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others, and external evidence is allowed [pg 065] its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids them report what they saw.
A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and their intuitions and ask, “How am I to know that this persuasion of mine is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental conformation.” “How can I call on other men to accept it?” Men are not left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these recollections and say “We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”
We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be out of harmony with all God's ways as revealed in the Universe. For a standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction, visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management, He might as [pg 066] well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of the Divine existence.
So when it is demanded “That a revelation should be written in the skies” we may ask, How would you have God's autograph attested? The Jews, it will be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it. If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed, admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one [pg 067] could doubt but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be very much paralysed.
The miracles of our Lord's life serve us for our “Signs;” and our assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence, which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the miracles with the Laws of Christ's action and the declared purpose of His coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days, and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.