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by which he neutralized the testimony of | Christianity. We do not ask him to prethe first Christians, is as complete a trans-sume the existence of God. We ask him gression against the temper and principles to examine the miracles of the New Testaof true science, as a category of Aristotle.ment merely as recorded events, and to adwhen employed to overrule an experiment mit no other principle into the investigain chemistry. But however this be, it is tion, than those which are held to be satisevident that Rousseau would have given a fying and decisive, on any other subject readier reception to the Gospel history, had of written testimony. The sweeping prinhis mind not been pre-occupied with the ciple upon which Rosseau, filled with his speculation; and the negative state of Athe- own assumptions, condemned the historical ism would have been more favourable to the evidence for the truth of the Gospel narraadmission of those facts which are connect-tive, can have no influence on the blank ed with the origin and establishment of our and unoccupied mind of an Atheist. He religion in the world. has no presumptions upon the subject; for to his eyes the phenomena of nature sit so loose and unconnected with that intelligent Being, to whom they have been referred as their origin, that he does not feel himself entitled, from the phenomena, to ascribe any existence, any character, any attributes, or any method of administration to such a Being. He is therefore in the best possible condition for submitting his understanding to the entire impression of the historical evidence. Those difficulties which perplex the Deist, who cannot recognize in the God of the New Testament the same features and the same principles in which they have invested the God of Nature, are no difficulties to him. He has no God of nature to confront with that real though invisible power which lay at the bottom of those astonishing miracles, on which history has stamped her most authentic characters. Though the power which presided there should be an arbitrary, an unjust, or a malignant being, all this may startle a Deist, but it will not prevent a consistent Atheist from acquiescing in any legitimate inference, to which the miracles of the Gospel, viewed in the simple light of historical facts, may chance to carry him. He cannot bring his antecedent information into play upon this question. He professes to have no antecedent information on the subject; and this sense of his entire ignorance, which lies at the bottom of his Atheism, would expunge from his mind all that is theoretical, and make it the passive recipient of every thing which observation offers to its notice, or which credible testimony has brought down to it of the history of past ages.

This suggests the way in which the evidence for Christianity should be carried home to the mind of an Atheist. He sees nothing in the phenomena around him, that can warrant him to believe in the existence of a living and intelligent principle, which gave birth and movement to all things. He does not say that he would refuse credit to the existence of God upon sufficient evidence, but he says that there are not such appearances of design in nature, as to supply him with that evidence. He does not deny the existence of God to be a possible truth; but he affirms, that while there is nothing before him but the consciousness of what passes within, and the observation of what passes without, it remains an assertion destitute of proof, and can have no more effect upon his conviction than any other nonentity of the imagination. There is a mighty difference between not proven and disproven. We see nothing in the argument of the Athiest which goes farther than to establish the former sentence upon the question of God's existence. It is altogether an argument ab ignorantia; and the same ignorance which restrains them from asserting in positive terms that God exists, equally restrains them from asserting in positive terms that God does not exist. The assertion may be offered, that, in some distant regions of the creation, there are tracts of space which, instead of being occupied like the tracts around us with suns and planetary systems, teem only with animated beings, who, without being supported like us on the firm surface of a world, have the power of spontaneous movements in free spaces. We cannot say that the assertion is not true, but we can say that it is not proven. It carries in it no positive character either of truth or falsehood, and may therefore be admitted on appropriate and satisfying evidence. But till that evidence comes, the mind is in a state entirely neutral; and such we conceive to be the neutral state of the Atheist, as to what he holds to be the unproved assertion of the existence of God.

To the neutral mind of the Atheist, then, unfurnished as it is with any previous conception, we offer the historical evidence of H

What then, we ask, does the Atheist make of the miracles of the New Testament? If he questions their truth, he must do it upon grounds that are purely historical; he is precluded from every other ground by the very principle on which he has rested his Atheism; and we therefore, upon the strength of that testimony which has been already exhibited, press the admission of these miracles as facts. If there be nothing then, in the ordinary phenomena of nature, to infer a God, do these extraordinary phenomena supply him with no argument? Does a voice from heaven make no impression

upon him? And we have the best evidence | demands our attention,-the testimony of a which history can furnish, that such a voice man who in addition to evidences of honesty was uttered; "This is my beloved Son in more varied and more satisfying than were whom I am well pleased." We have the evi- ever offered by a brother of the species, had dence of a fact for the existence of that very a voice from the clouds, and the power of Being from whom the voice proceeded, and working miracles, to vouch for him. We the evidence of a thousand facts, for a power do not think the account which this man superior to nature; because, on the impulse gives of himself can be viewed either with of a volition, it counteracted her laws and indifference or distrust, and the account is processes, it allayed the wind, it gave sight most satisfying. "I proceeded forth, and to the blind, health to the diseased, and, at came from God."-"He whom God hath the utterance of a voice, it gave life to the sent speaketh the words of God."-"Even dead. The ostensible agent in all these won- as the Father said unto me, so I speak." derful proceedings gave not only credentials He hath elsewhere said that God was his of his power, but he gave such credentials Father. The existence of God is here laid of his honesty, as dispose our understanding before us, by an evidence altogether distinct to receive his explanation of them. We do from the natural argument of the schools; not avail ourselves of any other principle and it may therefore be admitted in spite of than what an Atheist will acknowledge. He the deficiency of that argument. From understands as well as we do, the natural the same pure and unquestionable source signs of veracity which lie in the tone, the we gather our information of his attrimanner, the countenance, the high moral butes. "God is true."-"God is a spirit." expression of worth and benevolence, and, He is omnipotent, " for with God all things above all, in that firm and undaunted con- are possible." He is intelligent, "for he stancy, which neither contempt, nor poverty, knoweth what things we have need of." nor death, could shift from any of its positions. He sees all things, and he directs all things, All these claims upon our belief, were ac- "for the very hairs of our head are numcumulated to an unexampled degree in the bered," and "a sparrow falleth not to the person of Jesus of Nazareth; and when we ground without his permission." couple with them his undoubted miracles, The evidences of the Christian religion and the manner in which his own personal are suited to every species of infidelity. appearance was followed up by a host of We do not ask the Atheist to furnish himwitnesses, who, after a catastrophe which self with any previous conception. We ask would have proved a death-blow to any him to come as he is; and upon the strength cause of imposture, offered themselves to of his own favourite principle, viewing it as the eye of the public, with the same powers, a pure intellectual question, and abstracting the same evidence, and the same testimony, from the more unmanageable tendencies of it seems impossible to resist his account of the heart and temper, we conceive his unthe invisible principle, which gave birth and derstanding to be in a high state of preparamovement to the whole of this wonderful tion, for taking in Christianity in a far purer transaction. Whatever Atheism we may and more scriptural form, than can be expecthave founded on the common phenomena ed from those whose minds are tainted and around us, here is a new phenomena which pre-occupied with their former speculations.

CHAPTER X.

On the Supreme Authority of Revelation.

IF the New Testament be a message from God, it behoves us to make an entire and unconditional surrender of our minds, to all the duty and to all the information which it sets before us.

rity of the New Testament, because the plan and the dispensation of the Almighty which is recorded there, is different from that plan and that dispensation which they have chosen to ascribe to him. We speak There is, perhaps, nothing more tho- of Christians, who profess to admit the roughly beyond the cognizance of the hu- authority of this record, but who have man faculties, than the truths of religion, tainted the purity of their profession by and the ways of that mighty and invisible not acting upon its exclusive authority; Being who is the object of it; and yet who have mingled their own thoughts and nothing, we will venture to say, has been their own fancy with its information; who, made the subject of more hardy and adven- instead of repairing in every question, turous speculation. We make no allusion and in every difficulty, to the principle of at present to Deists, who reject the autho-"What readest thou," have abridged the

to others, of which we undertake to make out the incompetency; who, in addition to the word of God, talk also of the reason of the thing, or the standard of orthodoxy; and have in fact brought down the Bible from the high place which belongs to it, as the only tribunal to which the appeal should be made, or from which the decision should be looked for.

sovereignty of this principle, by appealing to the capricious variations of this man's taste, or of that man's fancy? Our maxim, and our sentiment! God has put an authorative stop to all this. He has spoken, and the right or the liberty of speculation no longer remains to us. The question now is, not "What thinkest thou?" In the days of Pagan antiquity, no other question could be put; and to the wretched delusions and idolatries of that period let us see what kind of answer the human mind is capable of making, when left to its own guidance, and its own authority. But we call ourselves Christians, and profess to receive the Bible as the directory of our faith; and the only question in which we are concerned, is, "What is written in the law? how read

But it is not merely among partizans or the advocates of a system, that we meet with this indifference to the authority of what is written. It lies at the bottom of a great deal of that looseness, both in practice and speculation, which we meet with every day in society, and which we often hear expressed in familiar conversation.est thou?" Whence that list of maxims which are so But there is a way of escaping from indolently conceived, but which, at the this conclusion. No man calling himself same time, are so faithfully proceeded upon? a Christian, will ever disown in words "We have all our passions and infirmities; the authority of the Bible. Whatever be but we have honest hearts, and that will counted the genuine interpretation, it must make up for them. Men are not all cast in be submitted to. But in the act of coming the same mould. God will not call us to to this interpretation, it will be observed, task too rigidly for our foibles; at least there is room for the unwarrantable printhis is our opinion, and God can never be ciples which we are attempting to exso unmerciful, or so unjust, as to bring us to pose. The business of a scripture critic a severe and unforgiving tribunal for the is to give a fair representation of the sense mistakes of the understanding." Now it is of all its passages as they exist in the originot licentiousness in general, which we are nal. Now, this is a process which requires speaking against. It is against that sanc- some investigation, and it is during the time tion which it appears to derive from the that this process is carrying on, that the self-formed maxims of him who is guilty tendencies and antecedent opinions of the of it. It is against the principle, that either mind are suffered to mislead the inquirer an error of doctrine, or an indulgence of from the true principles of the business in passion, is to be exempted from condemna- which he is employed. The mind and tion, because it has an opinion of the mind meaning of the author, who is translated, is to give it countenance and authority. What purely a question of language, and should we complain of is, that a man no sooner be decided upon no other principles than sets himself forward and says, "this is my those of grammar or philology. Now, what sentiment," than he conceives that all cul- we complain of is, that while this principle pability is taken away from the error, is recognized and acted upon in every other either of practice or speculation, into which composition which has come down to us he has fallen. The carelessness with which from antiquity, it has been most glaringly the opinion has been formed, is of no ac- departed from in the case of the Bible; that count in the estimate. It is the mere ex- the meaning of its author, instead of being istence of the opinion, which is pleaded in made singly and entirely a question of vindication; and under the authority of our grammar, has been made a question of memarim, and our mode of thinking, every taphysics, or a question of sentiment; that man conceives himself to have a right to instead of the argument resorted to being, his own way and his own peculiarity. "such must be the rendering from the strucNow this might be all very fair, were ture of the language, and the import and there no Bible and no revelation in exist- significancy of its phrases," it has been, ence. But it is not fair, that all this loose- "such must be the rendering from the ananess, and all this variety, should be still logy of the faith, the reason of the thing, the floating in the world, in the face of an character of the Divine mind, and the wis authoritative communication from God him-dom of all his dispensations." And whether self. Had no messsage come to us from this argument be formally insisted upon or the Fountain-head of truth, it were natural not, we have still to complain, that in reality enough for every individual mind to betake it has a most decided influence on the unitself to its own speculation. But a mes-derstanding of many a Christian; and in sage has come to us, bearing on its fore- this way, the creed which exists in his mind, head every character of authenticity; and instead of being a fair transcript of the New is it right now, that the question of our Testament, is the result of a compromise faith, or of our duty, should be committed which has been made between its authori

tative decisions and the speculations of his to know the mind of the Spirit, the commuown fancy. nications of the Spirit, and the expression What is the reason why there is so much of these communications in written lanmore unanimity among critics and gram-guage, should be consulted. These are the marians about the sense of any ancient only data upon which the inquiry should author, than about the sense of the New be instituted. But, no. Instead of learning Testament? Because the one is made purely the designs and character of the Almighty a question of criticism: the other has been from his own mouth, we sit in judgment complicated with the uncertain fancies of a upon them, and make our conjecture of daring and presumptuous theology. Could what they should be, take the precedency we only dismiss these fancies, sit down like of his revelation of what they are. We do a school-boy to his task, and look upon the him the same injustice that we do to an acstudy of divinity as a mere work of transla- quaintance, whose proceedings and whose tion, then we would expect the same una-intentions we venture to pronounce upon, nimity among Christians that we meet with while we refuse him a hearing, or turn among scholars and literati, about the sys-away from the letter in which he explains tem of Epicurus or the philosophy of Aris-himself. No wonder, then, at the want of totle. But here lies the distinction between unanimity among Christians, so long as the the two cases. When we make out, by a question of "What thinkest thou?" is made critical examination of the Greek of Aris- the principle of their creed, and, for the safe totle, that such was his meaning, and such guidance of criticism, they have committed his philosophy, the result carries no autho-themselves to the endless caprices of the hurity with it, and our mind retains the con-man intellect. Let the principle of "what genial liberty of its own speculations. But if we make out by a critical examination of the Greek of St. Paul, that such is the theology of the New Testament, we are bound to submit to this theology; and our minds must surrender every opinion, however dear to it. It is quite in vain to talk of the mysteriousness of the subject, as being the cause Now this principle is not exclusively apof the want of unanimity among Christians.plicable to the learned. The great bulk of It may be mysterious, in reference to our Christians have no access to the Bible in its former conceptions. It may be mysterious original languages; but they have access to in the utter impossibility of reconciling it the common translation, and they may be with our own assumed fancies and self-satisfied by the concurrent testimony of the formed principles. It may be mysterious learned among the different sectaries of this in the difficulty which we feel in comprehending the manner of the doctrine, when we ought to be satisfied with the authoritative revelation which has been made to us of its existence and its truth. But if we could only abandon all our former conceptions, if we felt that our business was to submit to the oracles of God, and that we are not called upon to effect a reconciliation between a revealed doctrine of the Bible, and an assumed or excogitated principle of our own ;-then we are satisfied, that we would find the language of the Testament to have as much clear, and precise, and didactic simplicity, as the language of any sage or philosopher that has come down

thinkest thou" be exploded, and that of "what readest thou" be substituted in its place. Let us take our lesson as the Almighty places it before us, and, instead of being the judge of his conduct, be satisfied with the safer and humbler office of being the interpreter of his language,

country, that the translation is a good one. We do not confine the principle to critics and translators; we press it upon all. We call upon them not to form their divinity by independent thinking, but to receive it by obedient reading; to take the words as they stand, and submit to the plain English of the Scriptures which lie before them. It is the office of a translator to give a faithful representation of the original. Now that this faithful representation has been given, it is our part to peruse it with care, and to take a fair and a faithful impression of it. It is our part to purify our understanding of all its previous conceptions. We must bring a free and unoccupied mind to the exercise. It must not be the pride or the Could we only get it reduced to a mere obstinacy of self-formed opinions, or the question of language, we should look, at no haughty independence of him who thinks distant period, for the establishment of a he has reached the manhood of his underpure and unanimous Christianity in the standing. We must bring with us the doworld. But, no. While the mind and the cility of a child, if we want to gain the meaning of any philosopher is collected kingdom of heaven. It must not be a parfrom his words, and these words tried, as tial, but an entire and unexcepted obedience. to their import and significancy, upon the There must be no garbling of that which is appropriate principles of criticism, the mind entire, no darkening of that which is lumiand the meaning of the Spirit of God is not nous, no softening down of that which is collected upon the same pure and compe-authoritative or severe. The Bible will allow tent principles of investigation. In order of no compromise. It professes to be the

to us.

directory of our faith, and claims a total the human mind deserted its guidance, and ascendency over the souls and the under- rambled as much as ever in quest of new standings of men. It will enter into no speculations. It is true, that they took a composition with us, or our natural princi-juster and loftier flight since the days of ples. It challenges the whole mind as its Heathenism. But it was only because they due, and it appeals to the truth of heaven walked in the light of revelation. They for the high authority of its sanctions. borrowed of the New Testament without "Whosoever addeth to, or taketh from, the acknowledgment, and took its beauties and words of this book, is accursed," is the abso- its truths to deck their own wretched fanlute language in which it delivers itself. cies and self-constituted systems. In the This brings us to its terms. There is no process of time, the delusion multiplied and way of escaping after this. We must bring extended. Schools were formed, and the every thought into the captivity of its obe- ways of the Divinity were as confidently dience, and as closely as ever lawyer stuck theorized upon, as the processes of chemisto his document or his extract, must we try, or the economy of the heavens. Univerabide by the rule and the doctrine which sities were endowed, and natural theology this authentic memorial of God sets be- took its place in the circle of the sciences. fore us. Folios were written, and the respected luNow we hazard the assertion, that with minaries of a former age poured their a a number of professing Christians, there is priori and their a posteriori demonstranot this unexcepted submission of the un- tions on the world. Taste, and sentiment, derstanding to the authority of the Bible; and imagination, grew apace; and every and that the authority of the Bible is often raw untutored principle which poetry could modified, and in some cases superseded by clothe in prettiness, or over which the hand the authority of other principles. One of of genius could throw the graces of sensithese principles is the reason of the thing. bility and elegance, was erected into a prinWe do not know if this principle would be ciple of the divine government, and made at all felt or appealed to by the earliest to preside over the counsels of the Deity. Christians. It may perhaps by the dispu-In the mean time, the Bible which ought to tations or the philosophising among con- supersede all, was itself superseded. It was verted Jews and Greeks, but not certainly quite in vain to say that it was the only by those of whom Paul said, that "not authentic record of an actual embassy which many wise men after the flesh, not many God had sent into the world. It was quite mighty, not many noble, were called." in vain to plead its testimonies, its miracles, They turned from dumb idols to serve the and the unquestionable fulfilment of its proliving and the true God. There was nothing phecies. These mighty claims must lie in their antecedent theology which they over, and be suspended, till we have settled could have any respect for: nothing which-what? the reasonableness of its doctrines. they could confront, or bring into compe- We must bring the theology of God's amtition with the doctrines of the New Testa-bassador to the bar of our self-formed thement. In those days, the truth as it is in ology. The Bible, instead of being admitted Jesus came to the mind of its disciples, re-as the directory of our faith upon its extercommended by its novelty, by its grandeur, nal evidences, must be tried upon the merits by the power and recency of its evidences, of the work itself; and if our verdict be and above all by its vast and evident supe- favorable, it must be brought in, not as a riority over the fooleries of a degrading Pa- help to our ignorance, but as a corollary to ganism. It does not occur to us, that men our demonstrations. But is this ever done? in these circumstances would ever think of Yes! by Dr. Samuel Clarke, and a whole sitting in judgment over the mysteries of host of followers and admirers. Their first that sublime faith which had charmed them step in the process of theological study, is into an abandonment of their earlier reli- to furnish their minds with the principles gion. It rather strikes us, that they would of natural theology. Christianity, before receive them passively; that, like scholars its external proofs are looked at or listened who had all to learn, they would take their to, must be brought under the tribunal of lesson as they found it; that the information these principles. All the difficulties which of their teachers would be enough for them; attach to the reason of the thing, or the fitand that the restless tendency of the human ness of the doctrines, must be formally dismind to speculation, would for a time find am- cussed, and satisfactorily got over. A voice ple enjoyment in the rich and splendid dis- was heard from heaven, saying of Jesus coveries, which broke like a flood of light Christ, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye upon the world. But we are in different cir- him." The men of Galilee saw him ascend cumstances. To us, these discoveries, rich from the dead to the heaven which he now and splendid as they are, have lost the fresh-occupies. The men of Galilee gave their ness of novelty. The sun of righteousness, testimony; and it is a testimony which like the sun of the firmament, has become fa- stood the fiery trial of persecution in a miliarized to us by possession. In a few ages, former age, and of sophistry in this. And

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