BUDDHISM, AND ^'^ THE LIGHT OF ASIA." 187 



o. But wlietlaer Buddliisin does or does not contradict this 

 particular human instinct of the soul's existence, it does deny 

 another instinct of humauitj, namely the existence of God. 

 Buddhism knows no God. And what follows thence ? 



i. Without a God there can be no revelation. How much light 

 has Asia received from this doctrine of no God and no revelation r 

 Contrast with this the flocid of light that conies from such a pas- 

 sage (to quote one only) as this : " God, having of old time spoken 

 unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers 

 manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son . 

 . Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very 

 image of His substance and upholding all things by the word of 

 His power, when He had made piirification of sins, sat down on 

 the right hand of the Majesty on high." R. v. 



ii. Without a God there can be no Inspiration. Even if the 

 accepted teachings of the Buddha could be traced back to their 

 reputed author with the same certainty that the books of the N'ew 

 Testament can be traced to their reputed authors, still the fact 

 remains that the teaching is entirely human. There is nothing in 

 it like to John xiv, 26 ; 2 Tim. iii, 16; 2 Pet. i, 21. With no 

 Revelation and no Inspiration, how much light does Asia receive 

 from Buddhism? 



iii. With no God, it follows that there can be no law, and there- 

 fore no lawlessness, no sin. The Buddhist writings (I suppose) 

 could give us nothing like that fundamental doctrine expressed so 

 pithily by St. John; y ajuapria earli' ?} di/ojiu'a: "sin is lawlessness." 



iv. With no God, man is not held responsible to any supreme 

 authority. Hence it follows that the basis of the ethics of Budd- 

 hism is not a distinction between right and wrong, but one 

 between the advisable and the unadvisable. Whatever there 

 may be in the place of law, it could not be called a law of righteous- 

 ness, but only a law of expediency. 



V. Lastly, as Mr. Collins points out on p. 167, see mite, with- 

 out God " there is no acknowledgment of a power above man's." 

 However noble may be the moral tenets of a religion (though I 

 would not call Buddhism a religion) these tenets cannot be of any 

 real practical use without some accompanying power, outside of 

 and above man. This indeed was the very reason why gt, Paul 

 was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for he knew it to be " the 

 power of God unto Salvation," Rom. i, 16. 



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