1 ven platmaquely all, "planned Christianity, and rany a winter and many a summer Live site ruled over it. More than croe it has shed its Joves and seemed to be dying: and when the bude buret again, the colour of the foliage was changel" Simething it may, perhaps must, Lave parted with; something gained: to what extent, and in what directions? Such are some of the thoughts or, it may be sail, a missions which crowd upon the mind in approaching the wucject of the present Lectures-the steadfastness of Christianity an argument for the truth and ultimate permanence of its doctrines. §2. Such an argument, it may be permitted to ve point out, is drawn from experience and is an appeal to the logic of facts. In this respect it is perhaps suited to the bias of the English mind, and certainly falls in with the intellectual temper of the time. For what is called the spirit of the 1 Froude, Short Studies, Series II., p. 32. Thus Pascal, Pensées, II. 200 (el, Faugère): “Il est venu enfin en la consommation des temps, et depuis on a vu naitre tant de schismes et d'hérésies, tant renverser d'états, tant de changements en toutes choses; et cette Église qui adore Celui qui a toujours été adoré, a subsisté sans interruption. Et ce qui est admirable, incomparable, et tout à fait divin, est que cette religion qui a toujours duré, a tonjours été combattue. Mille fois elle a été à la veille d'une destruction universelle, et toutes les fois qu'elle a été en cet état, Dieu l'a relevée par des coups extraordinaires de sa puissance.” Mr. Buckle (Hist. Civ., II. 285) assumes, for he does not go into proofs, that Christianity has been affected by foreign events contrary to the original scheme, 2 "Nulle autre religion n'a la perpétuité; qui est la principale marque de la véritable."-Pascal, Pensées, II. 368. “Les trois marques de la religion sont la perpétuité, la bonne vie, les miracles.”—Ib. age is unmistakably inductive: and by the inductive spirit is really intended a mental disposition to rest upon observed facts or repetitions of fact, not upon any inherent necessity of sequence or prior proof. There would seem to be three main roads open to mankind for reaching a knowledge of God, of our duties towards Him, and of His will respecting us. These are our own nature and constitution, the testimony of mankind, and the course of the world's history. Of these, the last, as being the most matter of fact, would probably in the present day be held to be the least disputable. The results of a religious system furnish at least an indirect proof of its truth. Taken in connection with prophecy, this proof becomes unanswerable; but it has also a value and importance of its own. Such accordingly, as regards the fortunes of the Roman Empire, an epitome of the history of the world, was the motive of Augustine's masterpiece of Christian Apology, the Civitas Dei.' There is equal reason 1 See Dr. Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 384. 2 Dr. Mozley, Bampton Lectures, p. 263, points out that Augustine pushes this argument almost to the exclusion of miracles, e. g. Civ. Dei, xxii. 5: "hoc nobis unum grande miraculum sufficit, quod eam terrarum orbis sine ullis miraculis credidit." This is no doubt rhetorically expressed. Elsewhere he states the proper relation of miracles to the spread of Christianity. "Ergo Ille afferens medicinam quæ corruptissimos mores sanatura esset, miraculis conciliavit auctoritatem, auctoritate meruit fidem, fide contraxit multitudinem, multitudine obtinuit vetustatem, vetustate roboravit religionem.”—De Util. Cred., c. xiv., and cf. De Ver. Rel., c. iii., xxv. Thus he rests his faith on the traditional Possible only after centuries. for its being the ground of Christian defence now. § 3. It is with the field of time as with areas of a lapse of mensurable space. A certain remoteness from the object viewed is necessary to clear and distinct. vision. Still more necessary is it for any purpose of determining the relative magnitude and actual proportions of the thing perceived. These can be understood only by the medium of intervening objects. The same holds good in any mental reception of Christianity. "Nullis me video credidisse nisi populorum 1 "All that we call modern civilization in a sense which deserves H survey of the past, when we take stock, as it were, of the phenomena of history. Only after the lapse of centuries does it become possible to estimate the association and import of facts, the tendency of principles, their falseness or their truth. The thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns. Christianity is at this time a fact of long standing. Its relative importance among other elements of civilization may now be measured: its effects eliminated from those of other agencies: the laws of its progress determined: its retardations adjusted its ultimate movements conjectured. But there was a time when these processes could not have been carried on, when any argument grounded on them would have been preposterous: and the more nearly we return in thought to the beginnings of the Faith of Christ, the less room is found for their admission. gress of but inevit The religion of Jesus Christ, we may maintain, The prohas now achieved for itself an actual positive stand- Truth slow point against the assaults of detractors. Those able. who impugn its claims have at least to account in some other way for the successes it has gained and the influence which it wields. Men, it may be allowed, may blunder into truth: perhaps even, they must go wrong before they come out right. It is probable that this is the key to much of the history of thought, resembling those arithmetical calculations in which error is checked by error to obtain an approximation to the truth.' But the mind on looking back can well enough discern its wanderings on the road. It is true that there is much in the career of Christianity to obscure the light of its own progress. The tardiness and partial character of its advance have been often remarked. It has not flashed with meteor brilliancy across the world's story, neither has it shone with steady undimmed effulgence along the track of time; rather, like the sun in heaven, it has struggled through cloud and mist. At the first it wrought irregularly on individual minds, not by an organized system. The Reformation and all returns to its primitive character have "The 1 Thus "error," as Voltaire remarked, "has its merits." history of philosophy," says Sir William Hamilton, "is the history of error." We may say with Virgil, Pater Ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit. "Encore que les philosophes," says Bossuet, "soient les protecteurs de l'erreur, toutefois ils ont frappé à la porte de la Vérité." 2 See some good remarks on this subject by the Bishop of Ely in his lecture on Christ's Influence on History, p. 28. Thus Neander compares the development of Christianity to a process moving steadily onward, though not in a direct line, but through various windings, yet in the end furthered by whatever has attempted to arrest its course. "Religion," says Mr. Morley, Crit. Misc., p. 95, "must be accepted as a fact in the history of the human mind,.. and Christianity is undeniably entitled to one of the most important places in it, however we may be disposed to strike the balance between the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has been the means of dealing to the civilization of the West." ... |