CHRISTIANITY. 



389 



:i-iiuni- i-j necessary than the external evidences on which Chris- 

 ty- tianity rests. You must reconcile the doctrines of Chris- 



~Y"^' / tianity with those previous conceptions which the light 

 of nature has given them ; and a great deal of elaborate 

 argument i often expended in bringing about this ac- 

 commodation. It is, of course, a work of greater diffi- 

 culty, to make Christians of this description of people, 

 though, in point of fact, this difficulty has been over- 

 come, in a way the most masterly and decisive, by one 

 of the soundest and most philosophical of our theolo- 

 gians. 



176. To another description of Christians, this at- 

 tempt to reconcile the doctrines of Christianity with the 

 light of natural religion is superfluous. Give them his- 

 torical evidence for the truth of Christianity, and all that 

 natural religion may have taught them will fly like so 

 many visionary phantoms before the light of its over- 

 bearing authority. With them the argument is reduced 

 to a narrower compass. Is the testimony of the apostles 

 and first Christians sufficient to establish the credibility 

 of the fact* which are recorded in the New Testament ? 

 The question is made to rest exclusively on the character 

 of this testimony, and the circumstances attending it, and 

 no antecedent theology of their own is suffered to mingle 

 with the investigation. If the historical evidence of 

 Christianity is found to be conclusive, they conceive 

 the investigation to be at an end ; and that nothing re- 

 mains on their part, but an act of unconditional submis- 

 sion to all its doctrines. 



177. Though it might be proper, in the present state 

 of opinion, to accommodate to both these cases, yet we 

 profess ourselves to belong to the latter description of 

 Christians. We hold by the total insufficiency of natu- 

 ral religion to pronounce upon the intrinsic merits of any 

 revelation, and think that the authority of every revela- 

 tion rests exclusively upon its external evidences, and 

 upon such marks of honesty in the composition itself as 

 would apply to any human performance. We rest this 



opinion, not upon any fanatical expression of the igno- 

 rance of man, or how sinful it is for a weak and guilty 

 mortal to pronounce upon the counsels of heaven, and 

 the laws of the divine administration ; we disown this 

 presumption, not merely because it is sinful, but because 

 we conceive it to be unphilosophical, and precisely ana- 

 logous to that theorising a priori spirit, which the wis- 

 dom of Bacon has banished from all the schools of phi- 

 losophy. 



178. For the satisfaction of the first class, we refer 

 them to that argument which has been prosecuted with 

 to much ability and success by Bishop Butler, in his A- 

 nalogy of Natural and Revealed Religion. It is not so 

 much the object of this author to found any positive ar- 

 gument on the accordancy which subsists between the 

 processes of the divine administration in nature, and the 

 processes ascribed to God by revelation, as to repel the 

 argument founded upon their supposed discordancy. To 

 one of the second class, the argument of Bishop Butler 

 is not called lor ; but as to one of the first class, we can 

 conceive nothing more calculated to quiet his difficulties. 

 He believes a God, and he must therefore believe the 

 character and existence of God to be reconcileable with 

 all that he observes in the events and phenomena around 

 him. He questions the claims of the New Testament to 

 be a revelation from heaven ; because he conceives, that 

 it ascribes a plan and an economy to the Supreme Being, 

 which are unworthy of his character. We offer no po- 

 sitive solution of this difficulty. We profess ourselves to 

 be too little acquainted with the character of God ; and 

 that in this little corner of his works, we see not far 



enough to offer any decision on the merits of a govern, 

 ment, which embraces worlds, and reaches eternity. We 

 think we do enough, if \ve give a sufficiency of external 

 proof for the New Testament being a true and authentic 

 message from heaven ; and that therefore nothing re- 

 mains for us, but to attend and to submit to it. But 

 the argument of Bishop Butler enables us to do still 

 more than this. It enables us to say, that the very thing 

 objected against in Christianity exists in nature ; and 

 that therefore the same God who is the author of na- 

 ture, may be the author of Christianity. We do not say 

 that any positive evidence can be founded upon this ana- 

 logy. But in as far as it goes to repel the objection, it 

 is triumphant. A man has no right to retain his theism, 

 if he rejects Christianity upon difficulties to which natu- 

 ral religion is equally liable. If Christianity tells us, 

 that the guilt of a father has brought suffering and vice 

 upon his posterity, it is what we see exemplified in a thou- 

 sand instances amongst the families around us. If it 

 tells us, that the innocent have suffered for the guilty, 

 it is nothing more than what all history and alt observa- 

 tion have made perfectly familiar to us. If it tells us of 

 one portion of the human race being distinguished by the 

 sovereign will of the Almighty for superior knowledge, 

 or superior privileges, it only adds one inequality more 

 to the many inequalities which we perceive every day in 

 the gifts of nature, of fortune, and of providence. In 

 short, without entering into all the details of that argu- 

 ment, which Butler has brought forward in a way so 

 masterly and decisive, there is not a single impeachment 

 which can be offered against the God of Christianity, 

 that may not, if consistently proceeded upon, be offered 

 against the God of Nature itself; if the one be unwor- 

 thy of God, the other is equally so ; and if, in spite of 

 these difficulties, you still retain the conviction, that 

 there is a God of Nature, it is not fair or rational to suf- 

 fer them to outweigh all that positive evidence and testi- 

 mony, which have been adduced for proving that the 

 same God is the God of Christianity also. 



179. If Christianity be still resisted, it appears to us 

 that the only consistent refuge is Atheism. The very 

 same peculiarities in the dispensation of the gospel, which 

 lead the infidel to reject it as unworthy oT God, go to 

 prove, that nature is unworthy of him, and land us in the 

 melancholy conclusion, that whatever theory can be offer- 

 ed as to the mysterious origin and existence of the things 

 which be, they are not under the dominion of a supreme 

 and intelligent mind. Nor do we look upon Atheism as 

 a more hopeless species of infidelity thin Deism, unless 

 in so far as it proves a more stubborn disposition of the 

 heart to resist every religious conviction. Viewed pure- 

 ly as an intellectual subject, we look upon the mind 

 of an Atheist, as in a better state of preparation for the 

 proofs of Christianity than the mind of a Deist. The 

 one is a blank surface, on which evidence may make a 

 fair impression, and where the finger of history may in- 

 scribe it- cr dibleand well-attested'information. The other 

 is occupitd with pre-conceptions. It will not take what 

 history offers to it. It put* itself into the same unphiloso- 

 ph'cal posture, in which the mind of a prejudiced Carte- 

 sian opposed its theory of the heavens to the demonstra- 

 tion and measurem nts ol Newton. The theory of the 

 Deist upon a subject, where truth is still more inaccessi- 

 ble, and speculation still more presumptuous, sets him to 

 resist the only safe and competent evidence that can be 

 appealed to. What was originally the evidence of ob- 

 servation, and is now transformed into the evidence of 

 testimony, comes down to us in a series of historical do- 

 cuments, the closest and most conshtent that all anti^ui- 



Clirisriam'' 



