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Christianity would have to appeal. But Christianity, without propounding 
any new discovery in morals, may yet have put forward something new and 
of the greatest importance ; and it did so in proclaiming the universality of 
God’s mercy through the sacrifice of Christ. Mr. Bow’s next point will not 
hold water at all. He says : — 
“ The idea of a moral and spiritual revelation which contains nothing new 
is self-contradictory.” 
“ Nothing new ” is indefinite. But supposing that it did not contain any- 
thing new in morals, still the great historical facts of Christianity culminating 
in the sacrifice of Christ— all these are revelations, and, although they are 
not moral precepts, still, moral precepts of the highest kind may be and are 
based upon them. Then, in another part of the paper, we are told that 
“ philosophy destroyed religion.” That is in a rather rhetorical part of the 
paper (more especially considering that it comes from Mr. Row, who is 
generally hard-headed and very thoughtful in his remarks) ; but there he 
certainly is anything but accurate in his language. He says : — 
“ Philosophy destroyed religious belief : Christianity created a new one.” 
When St. Paul preached at Mars Hill, did he find that philosophy had 
destroyed religious belief ? He said, on the contrary, that he found the men 
of Athens were in all things too superstitious. They believed too much, 
and they evidently had convictions without reason, which Mr. Bow seems to 
think impossible. But even if the result of philosophical teaching had been 
the destruction of religious belief, you must not charge philosophy with that, 
or what would become of Christianity, when in the last days “faith will not 
be found on earth ” ? Truth is truth and right is right, whether people 
believe it or not. In this paper of Mr. Bow’s we have a mixture of esoteric 
and exoteric matters ; and, indeed, the paper is altogether a very unphilo- 
sopliical one, or, at all events, it is scarcely framed with that philosophical 
consistency which I should have expected from Mr. Bow. I am glad that 
he has found modern unbelief to be outwardly respectful ; but I am sorry to 
say that my experience has been different from that (hear, hear) ; and if 
any one can find anything very respectful in Mr. Francis Newman’s books, 
and especially in his last book in reply to Mr. Rogers’s most able work, 
“ The Eclipse of Faith,” all I can say is, that it will very much astonish me ; 
for a more offensive and unnecessarily disrespectful and blasphemous work I 
think I never read. Then in another passage Mr. Bow tell us that — 
“Faith and knowledge have often been contrasted as mental acts.” 
Adding, “As far as I am aware, such contrast is nowhere made in the New 
Testament.” 
Now, on the contrary, I say that this contrast is made throughout, and 
especially in what may be called the reasoning parts of the New Testament. 
TV hat Mr. Bow calls “ knowledge ” is called expressly “ sight ” in the Seri p- 
tures, and they are put in direct antithesis totidem verbis. But I do not agree 
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