LECTURE I. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away."-Matt. xxiv. 34. 66 stated. "TRUTH," says S. Augustine, "is the Subject daughter of Time." The weight of prescription in the balance of proof rests rather with the era in which we live than with antiquity, however hoary. For, in comparison with earlier ages, it is of our own days only that it is true that "the world hath lost his youth and the times begin to wax old." The argument from authority has thus been of little avail in the departments of general knowledge either to arrest or to control 3 2 progress. In the region of religious truth its com- The argupetence has been more often admitted upon special prescrip 1 So Bacon, Nov. Org., I. Aph. lxxxiv.: "Recte enim Veritas Temporis filia dicitur, non Authoritatis"; and De Augm., I. 458 (ed. Spedding): "Quâ in re Temporis filiae malè patrissant." 22 Esdras, xiv. 10. 3 The reason is admirably stated by Pascal: "Les secrets de la nature sont cachés: quoiqu'elle agisse toujours, on ne découvre pas toujours ses effets: le temps les révèle d'âge en âge, et quoique toujours égale en ellemême, elle n'est pas toujours également connue. Les expériences, qui nous en donnent l'intelligence, multiplient continuellement; et, comme elles sont les seuls principes de la physique, les conséquences multiplient à proportion. C'est de cette façon que l'on peut aujourd'hui prendre d'autres sentiments et de nouvelles opinions sans mépriser les anciens et sans ingratitude; puisque les premières connaissances qu'ils nous ont données, ont servi de degrés aux nôtres, et que dans ces avantages nous leur sommes redevables de l'ascendant que nous avons sur eux.”—Pensées, I. 96 (ed. Faugère). ment from tion now only applicable. grounds, into which it does not endern ne lere to enter. It was usel at the first, as might le expected, against Christianity and not in favour of it. I would rather remind you that, though in the hour of doubt and perplexity we may sigh after that nearness to Apostolic tradition which was the heritage of the first ages of the Church, and ery with Plato, "They of old time dwelt more nigh to God";2 yet is there a counter-advantage in our remoteness from the beginning of the faith which it is the purpose of these Lectures to work out. Religions, it must be admitted, are perishable. Are to age succeels, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, It has been asserted, though no doubt questionably, that there is no country except India which has the same religion now which it had at the birth of Christ.3 Before the event no one could appeal to experience as an evidence of the power or genius of Christianity. Numberless objections can be imagined which might have been raised to its success. Apparent impossibilities might very 1 "Quanto venerabilius ac melius antistitem veritatis majorum excipere disciplinam? religiones traditas colere?" Minucius F., Octav., cap. v.; and Lactantius, Div. Inst., II. vii.: "Tanta est auctoritas vetustatis ut inquirere in eam scelus esse dicatur.” * Οἱ μὲν παλαιοὶ, κρείττονες ἡμῶν Phileb., 16 c.; cf. Cic., Legg., II. xi. : Deos." 66 καὶ ἐγγυτέρω Θεῶν οἰκοῦντες. Antiquitas proxime accedit ad See Draper, History of Intellectual Development in Europe, i. 63. easily have been alleged. But eighteen hundred years have passed and the faith of Christ is still a power in the world. "After a revolution," says Gibbon, "of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms." "Its chief home is still in the bosom of enterprise, wealth, science, and civilization, and it is at this moment most powerful amongst the nations that have most of these." If on the wane it is still vigorous.3 But is it on the wane? And in its collision with the "elements of the world," with political power, national temperament, antecedent tradition, philosophical antagonism, with moral and physical limitations of whatever kind, has it suffered on the way? "The fishermen of Gennesaret," it has . 1 Vol. II., p. 151, ed. Milman. 2 Rogers, Essays, ii. 343. In this view Christendom represents what Comte (Phil. Pos., v. 7) calls "l'élite de l'humanité." This fact must be admitted to carry weight in the argument from development. Ei μèv yàp tà ávóŋta wpéyeto avtŵv, hv äv ti tò λeyóμevov, ei dè kaì rà Þрóviμа, πŵs λéyoɩev äv tɩ ; Arist., N. Eth., X. ii. 4. "Christianity," says Dr. Mozley (Bampton Lectures, p. 27), "is the religion of the civilized world. . . . This is a great result—the establishment and the continuance of a religion in the world-as the religion too of the intelligent as well as of the simpler portion of society." "Christendom includes the entire civilized world, that is to say, all nations whose agreement on a matter of opinion has any real weight or authority."-Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Influence of Authority, p. 69. 3 "What the Church has lost in her appeal to the imagination she has gained in philosophical cogency by the evidence of her persistent vitality. She is as vigorous in her age as in her youth, and has upon her prima facie signs of divinity."-Dr. Newman, Grammar of Assent, 425, 6. |