THE MANIFOLD WITNESS FOR CHRIST. PART I. CHRISTIANITY AND NATURAL THEOLOGY. CHAPTER I. CHRISTIANITY NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.-Heb. i. 1, 2. argument. IN the great argument for Christianity, whenever we are called upon to 'give a reason for the hope that is in us,' and accordingly to analyse by reason what faith grasps Two parts of as one living whole, there are two chief parts. the Christian The distinction and the connexion of these two are plainly marked in our Lord's own command, Believe in God; believe also in Me;' and in His declaration, 'This is the life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' On the one hand, Christianity, as the one living and progressive religion of the world, is the central force of Theism. The Gospel is what Butler calls the republication Christianity of Natural Religion ;" that is-to use language more the familiar to us, and more accordant with historical Theism. truth-it is the ultimate expression of all those fundamental beliefs, which, in various degrees of perfection, underlie as the central force of See Butler's Analogy, Part II. chap. i. 'On the Importance of Christianity.' B the definite tenets of the great religions of the world, and even the vaguer faiths of those who, casting off all attachment to definite religious systems, nevertheless hold firmly to the consciousness of spirituality in man, and to the acceptance of an eternal and living God. Christianity as super On the other hand (as Butler has again reminded us), the Gospel claims to reveal unique and supernatural truths -'mysteries' (to use St. Paul's words) 'hidden from ages and generations, but now made manifest' natural. in Jesus Christ--in virtue of which it refuses to be reckoned as but one of many religions, or even as the chief among many, differing from it only in degree. It cannot accept either the ancient or modern form of the 'philosophic devotion,' which unites as objects of worship Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, and Christ,' even if the pedestal assigned to its founder be somewhat higher than the rest. It claims, in the ordinary sense of the words, to be at once natural and supernatural. Both views contem plated by Boyle. Hence, as the founder of these Lectures distinctly saw, the ground for the assertion of its unique and supernatural character must be cleared by the consideration, as against Atheism-whether it be positive or negative, whether it assume a materialistic or pantheistic form of the foundation of the great principles of Theism. Then, and not till then, is it right in theory to go on to test those distinctive truths, on which it bases its claim to be the religion of humanity: although I cannot doubt that in practice here (as in many other cases) the concrete precedes the abstract; and that because the Gospel is accepted as a whole, and Christ is known by a true personal knowledge, therefore the mind, when it turns to speculation, is able to enter into the more philosophic aspects of the great theistic argument, or to trace one ultimate basis of truth underlying the multiform religions of the world. The former treated in 1876. I. To the former branch of this argument the lectures of 1876 were devoted. Starting with the all-important fact that by a universal consent (to which the exceptions are apparent rather than real) the faith in a personal God is in possession of the whole field of 2 See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap, vi ment of Na human thought, and recognising Natural Theology as in itself an inductive science, wrought out under two great absolute conceptions of Causation and Righteousness, I contended for three principles. First, that in this Natural The cumulaTheology there are various lines, corresponding to the tive arguvarious faculties of man. Next, that no one of these tural Theolines ought to be treated and judged as if it existed logy. alone. Thirdly, that, by the law of convergence, the aggregate result of these lines of evidence is infinitely greater than the mere sum of their results taken separately. Now, when on these principles we examine the lines of Natural Theology, they fall into two groups-the speculative and the moral: the first embracing the theology of the intellect and the imagination; the second the theology of the conscience and the affections; each having its own peculiar force, and the two, at once by independence and by harmony, bearing on each other. Entering on the successive consideration of these lines of thought, and combining their results, I ventured to assert that, but for one great disturbing power in the mystery of evil, their united force would be all but irresistible in deciding what is the main issue the great alternative between Pantheism and Theism, and leading us to a true and living God, absolute alike in being and in righteousness. But, while endeavouring to bring out the full force of Natural Theology, I also urged that according to the Christian theory Revelation itself is 'natural;' that the searching after God was never intended to stand alone; and that to the law of induction there must be added the law of faith-a faith ultimately resting on the Lord Jesus Christ.3 This I believe to be the right principle of estimate of the first great branch of the Christian argument. It will be my endeavour hereafter to show that the same principle should be applied also to the second part of that argument, The similar which examines the peculiar claims of Christianity argument of to an absolute allegiance. I believe that it is at Christian once accordant with sound theory and true to actual fact, to hold that 'the reason,' which we are bidden to be ready to give' on challenge for the hope that is in us' 6 positive Evidence. See Boyle Lectures for 1876, What is Natural Theology?' Published by S. P. C. K. 1878. (probably implanted by other means than any formal examination of Christian evidences) must be a complex reason, made up of various elements of evidence, internal and external, direct and indirect; out of which perhaps each mind by a natural selection chooses out one or other as predominant, but of which a sound judgment on the whole question will despise none. Pre liminary con between them. II. But, before passing on to any examination of this latter part of the argument, there is a consideration, which is in theory an appropriate link between the two, sideration of and in practice has certainly immense power in the relation clearing the ground for a right appreciation of the evidences of Christianity. It is the consideration of the relation which Christianity, as a revelation, occupies towards the conclusions of Natural Theology itself. If it contradicts them, it will need strong evidence indeed to convince us of its truth. If it simply coincides with them, this coincidence may induce us to doubt whether it can claim to be a revelation supernatural and supreme. But if, on the one hand, it accepts and confirms those conclusions, and yet, on the other, goes beyond them-now turning possibilities or probabilities into certainties-now clearing up perplexities, which had hitherto appeared speculatively hopeless and morally intolerable-then there will result a strong presumption both of its truth and its necessity, which must bear very forcibly on the examination of the positive credentials of its authority. The har natural and supernatural. Our first great theologian, Richard Hooker, writing not as an apologist for Christianity, but as an inquirer into the true principle of its Ecclesiastical Polity, mony of the brought out with a magnificent comprehensiveness the harmony of the law natural' and the law supernatural.' He dwelt on both as correlative parts of the Second law eternal,' which is the expression to all God's creatures of so much as is needful or possible for them to understand of the First law eternal,' 'which He has set Himself to do all things by.' Now, after three centuries of change and growth, the same principle presents itself to us— under a far wider knowledge of the 'law natural,' and (as we See Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I. |