Morality Based on Divinity. 7 Will the spectators applaud that act? Will they not instantly, passionately, without doubt, stigmatise it as wrong, wicked, base, abominable turpitude? Then place before them the life of Christ, good and gentle, promising to His own hurt, and changing not, denying Himself, helping the unfortunate and unhappy, dying amidst the taunts and scoffs of His murderers, and praying while He dies that God will forgive them. That whole audience will admire and approve. In every language the voice of the multitude will be, "That man is a good man, He is a man of God." While human nature remains the same, such will be the real sentiments of humanity; so long as common sense continues, virtue will have a sort of glorious pattern coming from God and returning to God. We are unwisely urged to abandon the Divine Record of this God-Man and of Creation. Mr Herbert Spencer writes thus against the Bible doctrine of Creation :-"Many who in all else have abandoned the aboriginal theory of things still hold this remnant." Then, speaking of a man who has not abandoned it, he says, "Catechise him, and he is forced to confess that it was put into his mind in childhood, as one portion of a story which, as a whole, he has long since rejected. Why this fragment is likely to be right while all the rest is wrong, he is unable to say. May we not then expect that the relinquishment of all other parts of this story, will by and by be followed by the relinquishment of this remaining part of it?"1 If all other parts of the story had been disproved, then the narrative of Creation might be imperilled; but, as intelligence widens, piety deepens, and a really scientific investigation of Revelation confirms the sacred truths, and makes our knowledge of them more accurate. Men of honourable name, world-heroes, historians, poets, the ablest students of nature are not atheists; nor are they pure secularists. The Newtons, Bacons, Boyles, Faradays, are Christians. If Materialists have lost the Spirit of Divinity, is there neither Spirit nor Divinity for other and wiser men? Take Socrates and Cicero, who lived and died before Christianity appeared; or Voltaire, who rejected it; or Napoleon, who regarded it with the 1 "Principles of Biology," vol. i. pp. 335, 336. genius of a statesman; all recognised Divine handiwork in the Creation. In every man, worthy of the name, there is a longing for higher fulness of life, a closer walk with God, which, whether formulated in the symbols of science or of Scripture, is the indestructible essence of all religion. It is well known that a singularly large proportion of the leading scientific men of the day are devout Christians; and we may safely hold that religion which, in time past, by organic expression in creeds and ceremonies, preserved reverence and holiness of thought and feeling, will be preserved, not destroyed, by science. Opponents are in part aware of it: "If nature have in store a man of the requisite completeness—equivalent, let us say, to Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one—such a man, freed by his own volition from 'society,' and fed for a time upon the wild honey of the wilderness, might be able to detach religious feeling from its accidents, and realise it to us in a form not out of keeping with the knowledge of the time." Another writes-" The army of liberal thought is, at present, in very loose order, and many a spirited freethinker makes use of his freedom merely to vent nonsense. We should be the better for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us into cohesion and discipline; and I, for one, lament that the Bench of Bishops cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the 'Analogy,' who, if he were alive, would make short work of the current à priori infidelity." 2 Now, in reality, the scientific work is not so much for the priest as for the professor. Science, less than religion, can stand alone; but must freely combine with all right efforts for the betterment of men. Men of science are the priests of the material universe; why do they not, with the feelings of awe, reverence, wonder, and worship, woven into the texture of their nature, give reasonable satisfaction to holy emotion? For them also is the privilege of removing the apparent antagonism between Science and Religion-the abiding terror of timid or superficial minds; theirs the high aim to unite moral power with intellectual achievement, and all the 1"Fragments of Science," pref., 2nd ed.: Prof. Tyndall. 2 "Scientific Education:" Prof. Huxley. Union of Intellect and Piety. 9 more because out of their own province, and from men of their companionship, flows the poison-stream of unbelief which destroys the ignorant. They well know that around the intellect is the horizon of spiritual convictions from which our noblest impulses are derived; that, as the universe contains psychical as well as material phenomena, it is impossible to live for ever in the cold light of intellect only; the sublime, the beautiful, the moral supply the highest and best energies of life. The man for whom the wedding-bells have to be rung at the union of Intellect and Piety will come : "I hope and believe, that when the world is older, and when the mutual relations of all branches of knowledge are as well understood as are now, for instance, the relation of chemistry to the theory of electricity, the scientific progress which began by rejecting religion as the basis of science, will finally accept religion as not indeed the basis, but the summit and crown."1 Meanwhile the theologian and the student of nature must ask each other-"How readest thou?" For the book of Nature and the book of Scripture are the two books which were meant to be compared, and can never be antagonistic. The opposition of Materialists to the Biblical manner of looking at things, is owing to the fact that they prefer cosmic or physical symbols to those which are human; forgetting that both are relatively inadequate, and both indeed equally anthropomorphic; owing, also, to the error of counting psychical changes as nothing more than an undulatory displacement of molecules; yet, further, that they make morality, even in the highest stages, nothing better than enlightened selfishness; and yet, again, to the ignoring of this other fact, that only those who apprehend in full subjective faith the mysteries of revealed religion, are capable of reasonable, sufficient, and accurate knowledge as to the life of God in the soul, and the record of God in Creation and Redemption. Lord Bacon observed "The subtilty of nature far transcends the subtilty of the human understanding;" but professors of naturalism, forgetting that moral and religious faculties have equal authority and reality with those purely intellectual "Scientific Bases of Faith," intr. : Joseph John Murphy. and mechanical, interpret only the mechanical structure of things. Using their mind to destroy mind, even while professing to live in the light of intellect, they assert, Matter, not Mind, is king. "He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies: Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will; First put it out, then take it for a guide."-Cowper. Not so the coming man, "the Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one;" realising religious feeling "in a form not out of keeping with the knowledge of the time," and aiming at the highest possible culture of the individuals, he will think in essentials as did Abraham, as did the pious cloistered monk, as did the true puritan, as do now the holy and lowly in heart; but he will put his thought in the language of a man,—not in that of the childhood of our race,—and going beneath the symbolic superstratum, teach us to rest our faith on the underlying spiritual principle; not explaining Scripture as a book which fell from Heaven, but as written by holy men who were moved of God; one side all human, one side all divine—πάντα θεῖα και ἀνθρώπινα πάντα; “The Book of God,” say "God of Books." This coming man, Milton and Newton rolled into one, will not be an Antichrist to deny the Father and the Son, nor that man of sin who, by subtlety and force, shall renew the old delusion that men can be happy without God. We may expect clear proof that there are only two principles on which the system of the universe can be explained. 1. A Personal Intelligence creating, sustaining, ruling—this is the Christian hypothesis and will be preserved. 2. A supreme power, but no supreme being; an invisible principle, not a personal God-this really atheistic, is called the Pantheistic notion, and will be refused. It will be shewn that only two principles of government are possible in the world-1. Providence. 2. Law. Providence, foreseeing, arranging, applying. Law, ordering, subordinating, invariable. Providence, without law, would be irregular and capricious. Law, without providence, Two Principles of Government. II is necessity or fate. The doctrine of Providence requires not, but disallows unforeseen interventions; and the doctrine of law sets no limit to varieties of motion and life. The two principles, when applied, merge into one process; for as there is a world of mind, besides that of matter, and as our own mind subordinates matter by acting upon the intelligible order in it, we have proof of a twofold mental action; our own, in ascertaining and using the intelligible order; another, as manifested in that order. Providence then is the soul of law, and law is Providence in action; in other words, God governs by law. Now, it is evident that Providence must contain all law, and law administer all Providence; consequently no truly scientific man should say, "There never has been, and never will be, any intervention in the operation of natural laws."1 It is certain that the origin and maintenance of law are, unless every faculty fails us, by an ordaining Intelligence. Take an illustration of highest order-the Divine Individuality of Christ Jesus. He lived 1800 years ago, and was confessedly the crown and perfection of humanity. He could not have been the product of an atheistic, or of a pantheistic system of the universe: for perfection is only attainable as the ultimate outcome, as the indefinitely remote completion, of a well-nigh immeasurable period of evolution. The Perfect Man, therefore, must be regarded-not only on Scriptural, but on scientific grounds-as a providential Manifestation of the Divine Personality: for the appearance of Perfect Humanity in an age, by itself, wholly incapable of producing such a type was, in itself, a miracle. Such a break of continuity is conceivable and practicable only on the supposition of a Personal Ruler of the universe, of a Lawgiver higher than His own laws, manifesting Himself equally in the orderly sequence of Nature, and in those Supernatural Revelations which, as breaking in upon that orderly sequence, we call miraculous. We obtain the same truth from three representatives of opposing schools of thought: "The Life of Christ," by Dr Farrar; “Ecce Homo;" and "Vie de Jesus," by M. Renan. They agree on two great facts-1. That primitive Chris 1 "Conflict between Religion and Science :" Professor Draper. |