As Robert Hall justly remarks:—"It is degrading to the dignity of a revelation, established through a succession of ages by indubitable proofs, to be adverting every moment to the hypothesis of its being an imposture, and to be inviting every ignorant sophist to wrangle about the title, when we should be cultivating the possession."
But there are exceptions to every rule, and as I am not addressing a promiscuous audience, but the members of a society whose rule is to discuss all subjects without limitation, I venture to think I am justified in bringing under your notice a recent heterodox book which is so well written as to be likely to mislead if it be not neutralized. And the more so, if I can make the author not only answer himself, but other writers whose anti-Christian arguments are not put forth anonymously, but with the authority of well-known names and much reputation in the world of letters and science.
Let me further premise that the Christian is occupying an exceptional position when he descends to the neutral level of the sceptic to discuss the internal evidences of Evangelical truth. His usual privileged abode is more favourable for the survey than the lower ground, for the light is brighter and the air clearer on the mountain heights where he is wont to contemplate religious matters, than on the plain where faith has no temple, and reason, ignoring Divine influence, operates with the carnal instruments of a negative creed. To appeal to the spiritual discernment of a disbeliever in Divine illumination would be like expecting a man who is not of the mystical craft of the Masonic brotherhood to use the signs (if such there be) of a Freemason. Yet the argument in defence of the reality of Divine revelation is not complete without a reference to that "Spirit of Truth" which Jesus Christ promised to send "to testify of him," and to "bring all things to the remembrance" of those disciples who were to "bear witness, because they had been with him from the beginning."[1]
A good cause may be injured by injudicious and feeble advocacy, but I trust I am not presumptuously meddling with a theme which only an erudite scholar and theologian should deal with. I beg you to bear in mind, however, that if I or others fail in the contest for truth, there still will remain the indubitable proofs of Divine revelation in all their variety and superabundance.
Although the ability, scholarship, and research displayed in this anti-Christian work are considerable, I doubt if it has really much in it that is original. The author has only cleverly reproduced and rearranged the anti-Christian arguments, chiefly German,[2] which are to be found in the library of the British Museum.
The "Examiner" says, in regard to three-fourths of the work, "It is neither more nor less than a digest of recent German speculation on the date and authorship of the Gospels; devoid of originality, and infected with the verbosity and repetition of the authorities on which it is based."
In the other notices of the work which have appeared so far, it has, I think, been somewhat over-estimated.
The "Fortnightly Review" writes of it: "It is not too much to say of the two volumes before us that they are by far the most decisive, trenchant, and far-reaching of the direct contributions to theological controversy that have been made in this generation."
The "Athenæum" says: "The book proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar, and reasoner, who writes like an earnest seeker after truth, and knows well all the German and Dutch books relating to the criticism of the New Testament, as well as the English ones."
The "Westminster Review" asserts that "no more formidable assailant of orthodoxy could well be imagined."