Over how many countries did primitive Christianity soon degenerate into such odious idolatry, that even the delusions of the "false prophet" have been considered (like the doom to "labor") as a sort of beneficent curse in comparison! What, again, for ages, was the history of those "Shemitic races," in which, of all "races," was found, according to Mr. Parker, the happiest "religious organization," by which they discovered, earlier than other "races," the great truths of Monotheism? One incessant bulimia for idolatry was their master-passion for ages; while for many ages past, as has been remarked by a countryman of Mr. Parker, their "happy religious organization" has been in deplorable ruins.

I humbly venture, then, once again, to doubt whether any sober-minded man, apart from "special inspiration," can affirm that he has any grounds to utter a word about a "progress" in religion or virtue for the race collectively. But it is easy to see where these writers obtained the notion; they have stolen it from that Bible which as a special revelation they have abjured.

I cannot help remarking here, that it is a most suspicious circumstance, if there be, indeed, any universal and sufficient "internal revelation," that these writers find every memorable advance of what they deem religious truth in unaccountable connection either with the happy "religious organization of one race," according to Mr. Parker, or in equally strange connection with the records of "two books" originating among that race; according to Mr. Newman. "The Bible," says the latter, "is pervaded by a sentiment which is implied everywhere, namely, the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper. This is that which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all formalists. This is that which so often edifies me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences." (Phases, p. 188.)

It is unaccountably odd that the universal spiritual faculty should act thus capriciously, and equally odd that Mr. Newman does not perceive, that, if it were not for the "Bible," his religion would no more have assumed the peculiar task it has, than that of Aristotle or Cicero. Sentiments due to the still active influences of his Christian education he imputes to the direct intuitions of spiritual vision, just as we are apt to confound the original and acquired perceptions of our eyesight. He is in the condition of one who mistakes a reflected image for the object itself, or a forgotten suggestion of another for an original idea. In the camera obscura of his mind, he flatters himself that the colored forms there traced are the original inscriptions on the walls, forgetful of the little aperture which has let in the light; and not even disturbed by the untoward phenomenon, that the ideas thus contemplated are all upside down.

But, surely, it is natural to ask,—How is it that Greek philosophers, Hindoo sages, Egyptian priests, English Deists,—that men of all other religions,—having always had access to the fountain of natural illumination within, have not also had their "Baxters, Leightons, Watts, Doddridges"? that the whole style of thought on this subject is so totally different in them all, by his own confession? If man possess the "spiritual faculty" attributed to him,—if it be a characteristic of humanity,—it will be surely generally manifested; and even if those disturbing causes, which he and Mr. Parker so plentifully provide, by which the genesis of religion is so unhappily marred, but which, alas! no revelation from without can ever counteract—prevent its uniform, or nearly uniform display, still its principal indications (partial though they may be everywhere) ought, at least, to be everywhere indifferently diffused throughout the race. Its manifestation may be sporadic, but it will be in one race as in another; it will not be suspiciously confined to one race with a peculiarly felicitous "religious organization," or to "two books" exclusively originating with that favored race.

For his "spiritual" illumination, it is easy to see Mr. Newman's exclusive dependence on that Bible which he abjures as a special revelation. If it has not been so to mankind, it has, at least, been so to Mr. Newman. To it he perpetually runs for argument and illustration. Among those who will accept his infidelity I apprehend there will be few who will not recoil from his representations of spiritual experience, so obviously nothing more than a disguised and mutilated Christianity. They will say, that they do not wish the "new cloth sewed on to the old garment"; scarcely a soul amongst them will sympathize with his soul's "sorrows," or share his soul's "aspirations"!

But, however these things may be, I now proceed to what I acknowledge is the most weighty topic of my argument; which is to prove that, if I acquiesce, on Mr. Newman's grounds, in the rejection of the Bible as a special revelation of God, I am compelled on the very same principles to go a few steps further, and to express doubts of the absolutely divine original of the World, and the administration thereof, just as he does of the divine original of the Bible. If I concede to Mr. Newman, however we may differ as to the moral and spiritual faculties of man, that these are yet the sole and ultimate court of appeal to us; that from our "intuitions" of right and wrong, of "moral and spiritual, truth," be they more perfect according to him, or more rudimentary and imperfect according to me, we must form a judgment of the moral bearings of every presumed external revelation of God,—I cannot do otherwise than reject much of the revelation of God in his presumed Works as unworthy of him, just as Mr. Newman does very much in his supposed Word as equally unworthy of him. Mr. Newman says, "Only by discerning that God has Virtues, similar in kind to human Virtues, do we know of his truthfulness and his goodness…… The nature of the case implies, that the human mind is competent to sit in moral and spiritual judgment on a professed revelation, and to decide (if the case seem to require it) in the following tone:—'This doctrine attributes to God that which we should all call harsh, cruel, or unjust in man: it is therefore intrinsically inadmissible; for if God may be (what we should call) cruel, he may equally well be (what we should call) a liar; and, if so, of what use is his word to us?'" (Soul, p. 58) Similarly Mr. Newman continually affirms that God reveals himself, when he reveals himself at all, within, and not without; as he says in his "Phases,"—"Of our moral and spiritual God we know nothing without,—every thing within. It is in the spirit that we meet him not in the communications of sense." (p. 52.) If I acquiesce in this judgment, I must apply the reasoning of the above passage to the "external revelation" of God in his Works, as well as to that in his Word; and the above reasoning will be equally valid, merely substituting one word for the other. We are to decide, if the case seem to require it, in the following tone:—"These phenomena—this conduct—implies what we should call in man harsh, or cruel, or unjust; it is, therefore, intrinsically inadmissible as God's work or God's conduct."

Acting on his principles, Mr. Newman refuses to "depress" his conscience (as he says) to the Bible standard. He affirms, that in many cases the Bible sanctions, and even enjoins, things which shock his moral sense as flagrantly immoral, and he must therefore reject them as supposed to be sanctioned by God. He in different places gives instances;—as the supposed approbation of the assassination of Sisera by the wife of Heber, the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, and the extermination of the Canaanites. Now, whether the Bible represents God, or not, in all these cases, as sanctioning the things in question, I shall not be at the pains to inquire, because I am willing to take it for granted that Mr. Newman's representation is perfectly correct. I only think that he ought, in consistency, to have gone a little further. Let him defend, as in perfect harmony with his "intuitions" of right and wrong, the undeniably similar instances which occur in the administration of the universe; or, if it be found impossible to solve those difficulties, let him acknowledge, either that our supposed essential "intuitions" of moral rectitude are not to be trusted, as applicable to the Supreme Being, and that therefore the argument from them against the Bible is inconclusive; or, that no such being exists; or, lastly, that he has conferred upon man an intuitive conception of moral equity and rectitude,—of the just and the unjust,—in most edifying contradiction to his own character and proceedings!

Here Fellowes broke in:—

"If indeed there be any such instances; but I think Mr. Newman would reply, that they will be sought for in vain in the 'world,' however plentiful, as I admit they are, in the Bible."