EXTRACT

FROM

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

OF THE

REV. JOHN BAMPTON,

CANON OF SALISBURY.

. . . . “I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, and to be performed in the manner following:

“I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. “Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects—to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics—upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures—upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

“Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached, and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.

“Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.”

PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The work, here offered to the American public, has been received with the most marked attention in England, and has already reached a third edition, though but few months have elapsed since the issue of the first. It is believed that its great merits will command for it a like attention wherever it is known; the rare learning and metaphysical ability with which it discusses problems, no less profound in their philosophical nature than practical in their religious applications; the devout reverence for the authority of the Bible, and the truly Christian spirit with which it is imbued, must gain for it a cherished place in the minds and hearts of all who wish well to a sound philosophy, and a pure, and we may add, a real, Christianity. In its more immediate aspect, it is eminently a work for the present times; so closely is it connected with the higher thinking of the present generation, and so boldly and triumphantly does it carry the Christian argument through the entire course of recent, and especially German, speculation. But rightly viewed, these Lectures of Mr. Mansel have a far wider scope than this; for, in unfolding his great theme, the author aims to lay the foundations of a sound religious philosophy in the laws of the human mind, and in the general conditions to which it is thereby necessarily subject in the attainment of all truth and knowledge; his work therefore belongs, in its principles and applications, to all periods of human inquiry, and is thus invested with a universal interest and a permanent value.

But without enlarging upon the general merits of this work, the Publishers have only to mention the single change of any importance, which it has undergone in the present reprint. This change is the translation in the author’s learned Notes—a most valuable portion of his work—of the numerous passages from foreign writers, Greek, Latin, French, and German, which in the English edition appear in the original languages. It has been thought best to translate these passages, in order to bring them within the reach of all general readers; and it is hoped that this proceeding will be regarded by scholars with indulgence at least, if not with entire approval.

The translations have been made by Prof. John L. Lincoln, of Brown University, whose reputation as a scholar is deemed by the Publishers a sufficient guaranty for the execution of the work. It has been the translator’s endeavor to reproduce the original with as much fidelity as possible; and to make only such departures, even in the form of the thought, as the English idiom seemed to require. The difficulties belonging to the task of translating isolated passages from so many and so different writers, will doubtless be best understood by those who are most familiar with the languages in which they are written, and with the abstruse subjects which they discuss.

An Index of the Authors, quoted in the work, has been also prepared for the American edition, which will be of great service to readers, and will indicate the wide and various range of Mr. Mansel’s studies.

Boston, April 20, 1859.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

THE various Criticisms to which these Lectures have been subjected since the publication of the last Edition, seem to call for a few explanatory remarks on the positions principally controverted. Such remarks may, it is hoped, contribute to the clearer perception of the argument in places where it has been misunderstood, and are also required in order to justify the republication, with little more than a few verbal alterations, of the entire work in its original form.

On the whole, I have no reason to complain of my Critics. With one or two exceptions, the tone of their observations has been candid, liberal, and intelligent, and in some instances more favorable than I could have ventured to expect. An argument so abstruse, and in some respects so controversial, must almost inevitably call forth a considerable amount of opposition; and such criticism is at least useful in stimulating further inquiry, and in pointing out to an author those among his statements which appear most to require explanation or defence. If it has not done more than this, it is because the original argument was not put forth without much previous consideration, nor without anticipation of many of the objections to which it was likely to be exposed.

At present, I must confine myself to those explanations which appear to be necessary to the right appreciation of the main purposes of the work, on the supposition that its fundamental principles may be admitted as tenable. To reargue the whole question on first principles, or to reply minutely to the criticisms on subordinate details, would require a larger space than can be allotted to a preface, and would be at least premature at the present stage of the controversy, while the work has in all probability not yet completed the entire course of criticism which a new book is destined to undergo if it succeeds in attracting any amount of public attention.

In the first place, it may be desirable to obviate some misapprehensions concerning the design of the work as a whole. It should be remembered, that to answer the objections which have been urged against Christianity, or against any religion, is not to prove the religion to be true. It only clears the ground for the production of the proper evidences. It shows, so far as it is successful, that the religion may be true, notwithstanding the objections by which it has been assailed; but it cannot by itself convert this admission into a positive belief. It only calls for an impartial hearing of the other grounds on which the question must be decided.

When, therefore, a critic objects to the present argument, that “the presence of contradictions is no proof of the truth of a system;” that “we are not entitled to erect on this ethereal basis a superstructure of theological doctrine, only because it, too, possesses the same self-contradictions;” that “the argument places all religions and philosophies on precisely the same level;”—he merely charges it with accomplishing the very purpose which it was intended to accomplish. So far as certain difficulties are inherent in the constitution of the human mind itself, they must of necessity occupy the same position with respect to all religions,—the false no less than the true. It is sufficient if it can be shown that they have not, as is too often supposed, any peculiar force against Christianity alone. No sane man dreams of maintaining that a religion is true because of the difficulties which it involves: the utmost that can reasonably be maintained is that it may be true in spite of them. Such an argument of course requires, as its supplement, a further consideration of the direct evidences of Christianity; and this requirement is pointed out in the concluding Lecture. But it formed no part of my design to exhibit in detail the evidences themselves;—a task which the many excellent works already existing on that subject would have rendered wholly unnecessary, even if it could have been satisfactorily accomplished within the limits of the single Lecture which alone could have been given to it.

But granting for the present the main position of these Lectures, namely, that the human mind inevitably and by virtue of its essential constitution, finds itself involved in self-contradictions whenever it ventures on certain courses of speculation; it may be asked, in the next place, what conclusion does this admission warrant, as regards the respective positions of Faith and Reason in determining the religious convictions of men. These Lectures have been charged with condemning, under the name of Dogmatism, all Dogmatic Theology; with censuring, “the exercise of Reason in defence and illustration of the truths of Revelation;” with including “schoolmen and saints and infidels alike” in one and the same condemnation. Such sweeping assertions are surely not warranted by anything that is maintained in the Lectures themselves. Dogmatism and Rationalism are contrasted with each other, not as employing reason for opposite purposes, but as employing it in extremes. The contrast was naturally suggested by the historical connection between the Wolfian philosophy and the Kantian, the one as the stronghold of Dogmatism, the other of Rationalism. The religious philosophy of Wolf and his followers, whose system, and not that of either “’schoolmen or saints,” is cited as the chief specimen of Dogmatism, was founded on the assumption that philosophical proofs of theological doctrines were absolutely necessary in all cases. “He maintained,” says a writer quoted in the Notes, “that philosophy was indispensable to theology, and that, together with biblical proofs, a mathematical or strictly demonstrative dogmatical system, according to the principles of reason, was absolutely necessary.” Dogmatism, as thus exemplified, is surely not the use of reason in theology, but its abuse. Unless a critic is prepared to accept, as legitimate reasoning, Canz’s demonstration of the Trinity, cited at p. 232 of the present volume, or the more modern specimen of the same method noticed at p. 51, he must surely admit the conclusion which these instances were adduced to prove; namely, that the methods of the Dogmatist and the Rationalist are alike open to criticism, “in so far as they keep within, or go beyond those limits of sound thought which the laws of man’s mind, or the circumstances in which he is placed, have imposed upon him.”

All Dogmatic Theology is not Dogmatism, nor all use of Reason Rationalism, any more than all drinking is drunkenness. The dogmatic or the rational method may be rightly or wrongly employed, and the question is to determine the limits of the legitimate or illegitimate use of each. It is expressly as extremes that the two systems are contrasted: each is described as leading to error in its exclusive employment, yet as being, in its utmost error, only a truth abused. If reason may not be used without restriction in the defence any more than in the refutation of religious doctrines; if there are any mysteries of revelation which it is our duty to believe, though we cannot demonstrate them from philosophical premises,—this is sufficient to show that the provinces of Faith and Reason are not coextensive. But to assert this is surely not to deny, that the dogmatic method may be and has been rightly used within certain limits. The dogmatism which is condemned is not system, but the extravagance of system. If systematic completeness is made the end which the theologian is bound to pursue, at every cost; if whatever is left obscure and partial in revealed truth is, as a matter of necessity, to be cleared and completed by definitions and inferences, certain or uncertain; if the declarations of Scripture are in all cases to be treated as conclusions to be supported by philosophical premises, or as principles to be developed into philosophical conclusions,—then indeed Dogmatic Theology is in danger of degenerating into mere Dogmatism. But it is only the indiscriminate use of the method which is condemned, and that not simply as an employment of reason in religious questions, but as an employment beyond its just limits. And if, in citing instances of this misuse, it has been occasionally necessary to point out the errors of writers whose names are justly honored in the Church, and whose labors, as a whole, are entitled to the reverence and gratitude of posterity, I wish distinctly to state, that the censure, such as it is, reaches only to the points directly indicated, by reference or quotation, and is not intended to apply further.

What, then, is the practical lesson which these Lectures are designed to teach concerning the right use of reason in religious questions? and what are the just claims of a reasonable faith, as distinguished from a blind credulity? In the first place, it is obvious that, if there is any object whatever of which the human mind is unable to form a clear and distinct conception, the inability equally disqualifies us for proving or disproving a given doctrine, in all cases in which such a conception is an indispensable condition of the argument. If, for example, we can form no positive notion of the Nature of God as an Infinite Being, we are not entitled either to demonstrate the mystery of the Trinity as a necessary property of that Nature, or to reject it as necessarily inconsistent therewith. Such mysteries clearly belong, not to Reason, but to Faith; and the preliminary inquiry which distinguishes a reasonable from an unreasonable belief, must be directed, not to the premises by which the doctrine can be proved or disproved as reasonable or unreasonable, but to the nature of the authority on which it rests, as revealed or unrevealed. The brief summary of Christian Evidences contained in my concluding Lecture,

See below, p. 214.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

Dogmatism and Rationalism as methods of religious philosophy—meaning of these terms—errors of the respective systems denoted by each; the one forcing reason into agreement with revelation, the other forcing revelation into agreement with reason.—Both methods may be regarded as attempts, from opposite sides, to produce exact coincidence between belief and thought.—Instances of each exhibited and examined.—Human conceptions are unavoidable in Theology; but there is need of some principle to determine their proper place in it.—Such a principle can only be gained by an investigation of the Limits of Human Thought.—The proper object of criticism is not religion, but the human mind in its relation to religion.—A direct criticism of religion as a representation of God can only be accomplished by the construction of a Philosophy of the Infinite.—It is therefore necessary to inquire whether such a philosophy is possible; and this can only be ascertained by an examination of the laws of human thought in general, which will determine those of religious thought in particular.—Analogous difficulties may be expected in philosophy and in religion, arising from the limitations of thought common to both.—Contrast between two opposite statements of the extent of human knowledge, in the words of St. Paul and of Hegel.—Purpose of the following Lectures, as an Examination of the Limits of Religious Thought, . . . . 45

LECTURE II.

Statement of the two opposite methods by which a Philosophy of Religion may be attempted; the Objective or Metaphysical, based on a supposed knowledge of the nature of God, and the Subjective or Psychological, based on a knowledge of the mental faculties of man.—Relation of these methods respectively to the Criticism of Revelation—dependence of the former method upon the latter.—Further examination of the Objective or Metaphysical method. Two different modes in which man may be supposed to be capable of attaining to a knowledge of God—specimen of each—insufficiency of both to found a Rational Theology.—Examination of the fundamental ideas of Rational Theology,—the Absolute—the Infinite—the First Cause—mutual contradictions involved in these three ideas—conception of an eternal Causation incompatible with the Absolute—conception of a temporal Causation incompatible with the Infinite.—The Absolute cannot be conceived as a necessary and unconscious cause,—nor as a voluntary and conscious cause,—nor as possessing’ consciousness at all,—nor as containing within itself any kind of relation,—nor as one and simple, out of all relation. Effect of these counter impossibilities on the conceptions of Theology—apparent contradictions in the conception of the Divine Attributes as absolute and infinite.—Further contradictions involved in the coexistence of the Relative with the Absolute, and of the Finite with the Infinite. Pantheism avoids these contradictions by denying the existence of the Finite and Relative—this solution untenable—self-contradictions of the Pantheistic hypothesis.—Alternative of Atheism, which denies the existence of the Infinite and Absolute—contradictions involved in this hypothesis.—Summary of conclusions.—Necessary failure of all attempts to construct a Metaphysical Theology—alternative necessitated by this failure.—Practical result of the above inquiry, . . . . 68

LECTURE III.

Recapitulation of the results of the last Lecture.—Necessity of examining the Philosophy of Religion from the Subjective or Psychological side, as dependent upon a knowledge of the laws of the human mind.—General conditions of all human Consciousness.—First condition of Consciousness, Distinction between one Object and another—such a distinction necessarily implies Limitation—consequent impossibility of conceiving the Infinite.—Explanation of the contradictions involved in the idea of the Infinite—this idea inadmissible as the basis of a scientific Theology.—Second condition of Consciousness, Relation between Subject and Object—consequent impossibility of conceiving the Absolute.—Explanation of the contradictions involved in the idea of the Absolute.—Impossibility of a partial knowledge of the Infinite and Absolute.—Third condition of Consciousness, Succession and Duration in Time—hence all objects are conceived as finite—consequent impossibility of conceiving Creation, and counter impossibility of conceiving finite existence as uncreated.—Attempt to evade this limitation in Theology by the hypothesis of the existence of God out of Time—this hypothesis untenable in philosophy and unavailable in theology.—Fourth condition of Consciousness, Personality—Personality a limitation and a relation, and hence inadequate to represent the Infinite.—Theological consequences of this condition. Personality the source and type of our conception of Reality, and therefore the only fitting representation of God.—Necessity of thinking of God as personal and yet of believing in Him as infinite—apparent contradiction between these representations—hence Thought cannot be the measure of Belief.—Consequent impossibility of constructing a Rational Theology.—Attempt to avoid the above conclusions by placing the Philosophy of the Infinite in a point beyond Consciousness—necessary failure of this attempt.—Summary of Conclusions.—Practical lesson from the above inquiry. . . . . 91

LECTURE IV.

Analysis of the religious Consciousness, reflective and intuitive.—Relation of the reflective Consciousness to Theology; its reasonings sufficient to correct our conception of a Supreme Being, but not to originate it—examination of some current theories on this point—statement of the value of the reflective faculties within their proper limits.—Reflection, as well as intuition necessary to distinct consciousness; but intuition is first in the order of nature, though not in that of time.—Two principal modes of religious intuition—the Feeling of Dependence and the Conviction of Moral Obligation, giving rise respectively to Prayer and Expiation.—Examination of these two modes of Consciousness.—Dependence implies a Personal Superior; hence our conviction of the Power of God—Moral Obligation implies a Moral Lawgiver; hence our conviction of the Goodness of God.—Limits of the Religious Consciousness—Sense of Dependence not a consciousness of the Absolute and Infinite—opposite theory of Schleiermacher on this point—objections to his view.—Sense of Moral Obligation not a consciousness of the Absolute and Infinite.—Yet the Infinite is indirectly implied by the religious consciousness, though not apprehended as such; for the consciousness of limitation carries with it an indirect conviction of the existence of the Infinite beyond consciousness.—Result of the above analysis—our knowledge of God relative and not absolute—the Infinite an object of belief, but not of thought or knowledge; hence we may know that an Infinite God exists, but not what He is as Infinite.—Further results of an examination of the religious consciousness.—God known as a Person through the consciousness of ourselves as Persons—this consciousness indispensable to Theism; for the denial of our own Personality, whether in the form of Materialism or of Pantheism, logically leads to Atheism.—Summary of conclusions—our religious knowledge is regulative, but not speculative—importance of this distinction in theological reasoning—conception of the Infinite inadmissible in Theology.—Office of religious philosophy, as limited to finite conceptions.—Practical benefits of this limitation.—Conclusion, . . . .114

LECTURE V.

Distinction between Speculative and Regulative Truth further pursued.—In Philosophy, as well as Religion, our highest principles of thought are regulative and not speculative.—Instances in the Ideas of Liberty and Necessity; Unity and Plurality as implied in the conception of any object; Commerce between Soul and Body; Extension, as implied in external perception; and Succession, as implied in the entire consciousness.—Illustration thus afforded for determining the limits of thought- distinction between legitimate and illegitimate thought, as determined by their relation to the inexplicable and the self-contradictory respectively.—Conclusion to be drawn as regards the manner of the mind’s operation—all Consciousness implies a relation between Subject and Object, dependent on their mutual action and reaction; and thus no principle of thought can be regarded as absolute and simple, as an ultimate and highest truth.—Analogy in this respect between Philosophy and Natural Religion which apprehends the Infinite under finite forms—corresponding difficulties to be expected in each.—Provinces of Reason and Faith.—Analogy extended to Revealed Religion—testimony of Revelation plain and intelligible when regarded as regulative, but ultimately incomprehensible to speculation—corresponding errors in Philosophy and Religion, illustrating this analogy.—Regulative conceptions not therefore untrue.—The above principles confirmed by the teaching of Scripture.—Revelation expressly adapted to the limits of human thought.—Relation of the Infinite to the Personal in the representations of God in the Old Testament.—Further confirmation from the New Testament.—Doctrine of the Incarnation; its practical position in Theology as a regulative truth; its perversion by modern philosophy, in the attempt to exhibit it as a speculative truth.—Instances in Hegel, Marheineke, and Strauss.—Conclusion, . . . .136

LECTURE VI.

Result of the previous inquiries—religious ideas contain two elements, a Form, common to them with all other ideas, as being human thoughts; and a Matter, peculiar to themselves, as thoughts about religious objects—hence there may exist two possible kinds of difficulties; the one formal arising from the universal laws of human thought; the other material arising from the peculiar nature of religious evidence.—The principal objections suggested by Rationalism are of the former kind; common to all human thinking as such, and therefore to Rationalism itself.—Proof of this position by the exhibition of parallel difficulties in Theology and Philosophy.—Our ignorance of the nature of God compared with our ignorance of the nature of Causation.—Doctrine of the Trinity compared with the philosophical conception of the Infinite and the Absolute, as one and yet as many.—Doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son compared with the relation of an Infinite Sub stance to its Attributes.—Purpose of such comparisons, not to prove the doctrines, but to show the weakness of human reason with regard to them—true evidence of the doctrines to be found, not in Reason, but in Revelation.—Further parallels.—Doctrine of the twofold nature of Christ compared with the philosophical conception of the Infinite as coexisting with the Finite.—Reason thus shown not to be the supreme judge of religious truth; for Religion must begin with that which is above Reason.—Extension of the same argument to our conceptions of Divine Providence.—Representations of General Law and Special Interposition—supposed difficulty in the conception of the latter shown to be really common to all human conceptions of the Infinite.—Both representations equally imperfect as speculative truths, and both equally necessary as regulative.—Imperfections in the conception of General Law and mechanical action of the universe—this conception is neither philosophically necessary nor empirically universal; and hence it is not entitled to supersede all other representations—it is inapplicable to the phenomena of mind, and only partially available in relation to those of matter.—Conception of Miraculous Agency, as subordinate to that of Special Providence—no sufficient ground, either from philosophy or from experience, for asserting that miracles are impossible.—Comparison between the opposite conceptions of a miracle, as an exception to a law, or as the result of a higher law—both these conceptions are speculatively imperfect, but the former is preferable as a regulative truth.—Summary of Conclusions—parallel difficulties must exist in Theology and in Philosophy—true value and province of Reason in relation to both, . . . . 158

LECTURE VII.

Philosophical parallel continued with regard to the supposed moral objections to Christian doctrines.—Error of the moral theory of Kant.—Moral convictions how far necessary and trustworthy, how far contingent and fallible—parallel in this respect between moral and mathematical science, as based on the formal conditions of experience—possibility of corresponding errors in both.—Human morality not absolute, but relative.—The Moral Law cannot be conceived as an absolute principle, apart from its temporal manifestations—parallel in the idea of Time and its relations.—Morality, as conceived by us, necessarily contains a human and positive element; and therefore cannot be the measure of the Absolute Nature of God.—Application of the above principles to Christian Theology.—The Atonement—weakness of the supposed moral objections to this doctrine-such objections equally applicable to any conceivable scheme of Divine Providence.—Predestination and Free Will—Predestination, as a determination of the Absolute Mind, is speculatively inconceivable, and therefore cannot be known to be incompatible with human Freedom—parallel in this respect between Predestination in Theology and Causation in Philosophy.—Eternal Punishment—rashness and ignorance of rationalist criticisms of this doctrine—the difficulties of the doctrine are not peculiar to Theology, but common to all Philosophy, and belong to the general problem of the existence of Evil at all, which is itself but a subordinate case of the universal impossibility of conceiving the coëxistence of the Infinite with the Finite.—Contrast between illegitimate and legitimate mode of reasoning on evil and its punishment—illustrations to be derived from analogies in the course of nature and in the constitution of the human mind.—Extension of the argument from analogy to other religious doctrines—Original Sin—Justification by Faith—Operation of Divine Grace.—Limits of the Moral Reason.—Conclusion, . . . . 182

LECTURE VIII.

Right use of Reason in religious questions—Reason entitled to judge of a Religion in respect of its evidences, as addressed to men, but not in respect of its correspondence with philosophical conceptions of the Absolute Nature of God.—No one faculty of the human mind is entitled to exclusive preference as the criterion of religious truth—the true criterion is to be found in the general result of many and various Evidences—practical neglect of this rule by different writers.—Comparative value of internal and external evidences of religion, the former as negative, the latter as positive.—Cautions as requisite in the use of the negative argument from internal evidence—external and internal evidence can only be estimated in conjunction with each other.—Distinction between the proper and improper use of the Moral Sense in questions of religious evidence.—Application of this distinction to facts recorded in Sacred History.—Analogy between physical and moral laws as regards miraculous interventions.—Probable and partial character of the moral argument; error of supposing it to be demonstrative and complete; possibility of mistakes in its application.—General summary of Christian Evidences—alternative in the case of their rejection—Christ’s teaching either wholly divine or wholly human.—Impossibility of an eclectic Christianity.—Value of the a priori presumption against miracles—nothing gained in point of probability by a partial rejection of the supernatural.—Christianity regarded as a Revelation must be accepted wholly or not at all.—Speculative difficulties in religion form a part of our probation—analogy between moral and intellectual temptations.—General result of an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought—Theology not a speculative science, nor in the course of progressive development.—Cautions needed in the treatment of religious knowledge as regulative—this view does not solve difficulties, but only shows why they are insoluble.—Instance of the neglect of this caution in Archbishop King’s rule of scripture interpretation as regards the Divine Attributes.—No explanation possible of those difficulties which arise from the universal laws of human thought—such difficulties are inherent in our mental constitution, and form part of our training and discipline during this life.—The office of Philosophy is not to give us a knowledge of the absolute nature of God, but to teach us to know ourselves and the limits of our faculties.—Conclusion, . . . . 204

LECTURE I.

YE SHALL NOT ADD UNTO THE WORD WHICH I COMMAND YOU, NEITHER SHALL YE DIMINISH AUGHT FROM IT.—DEUT. IV. 2.

DOGMATISM and Rationalism are the two extremes between which religious philosophy perpetually oscillates. Each represents a system from which, when nakedly and openly announced, the well regulated mind almost instinctively shrinks back; yet which, in some more or less specious disguise, will be found to underlie the antagonist positions of many a theological controversy. Many a man who rejects isolated portions of Christian doctrine, on the ground that they are repugnant to his reason, would hesitate to avow broadly and unconditionally that reason is the supreme arbiter of all religious truth; thiough at the same time he would find it hard to point out any particular in which the position of reason, in relation to the truths which he still retains, differs from that which it occupies in relation to those which he rejects. And on the other hand, there are many who, while they would by no means construct a dogmatic system on the assumption that the conclusions of reason may always be made to coincide with those of revelation, yet, for want of an accurate distinction between that which is within the province of human thought and that which is beyond it, are accustomed in practice to demand the assent of the reason to positions which it is equally incompetent to affirm or to deny. Thus they not only lessen the value of the service which it is capable of rendering within its legitimate sphere, but also indirectly countenance that very intrusion of the human intellect into sacred things, which, in some of its other aspects, they so strongly and so justly condemn.

In using the above terms, it is necessary to state at the outset the sense in which each is employed, and to emancipate them from the various and vague associations connected with their ordinary use. I do not include under the name of Dogmatism the mere enunciation of religious truths, as resting upon authority and not upon reasoning. The Dogmatist, as well as the Rationalist, is the constructor of a system; and in constructing it, however much the materials upon which he works may be given by a higher authority, yet in connecting them together and exhibiting their systematic form, it is necessary to call in the aid of human ability. Indeed, whatever may be their actual antagonism in the field of religious controversy, the two terms are in their proper sense so little exclusive of each other, that both were originally employed to denote the same persons;—the name Dogmatists or Rationalists being indifferently given to those medical theorists who insisted on the necessity of calling in the aid of rational principles, to support or correct the conclusions furnished by experience.⁽¹⁾ A like signification is to be found in the later language of philosophy, when the term Dogmatists was used to denote those philosophers who endeavored to explain the phenomena of experience by means of rational conceptions and demonstrations; the intelligible world being regarded as the counterpart of the sensible, and the necessary relations of the former as the principles and ground of the observed facts of the latter.⁽²⁾ It is in a sense analogous to this that the term may be most accurately used in reference to Theology. Scripture is to the theological Dogmatist what Experience is to the philosophical. It supplies him with the facts to which his system has to adapt itself. It contains in an unsystematic form the positive doctrines, which further inquiry has to exhibit as supported by reasonable grounds and connected into a scientific whole. Theological Dogmatism is thus an application of reason to the support and defence of preëxisting statements of Scripture.⁽³⁾ Rationalism, on the other hand, so far as it deals with Scripture at all, deals with it as a thing to be adapted to the independent conclusions of the natural reason, and to be rejected where that adaptation cannot conveniently be made. By Rationalism, without intending to limit the name to any single school or period in theological controversy, I mean generally to designate that system whose final test of truth is placed in the direct assent of the human consciousness, whether in the form of logical deduction, or moral judgment, or religious intuition; by whatever previous process those faculties may have been raised to their assumed dignity as arbitrators. The Rationalist, as such, is not bound to maintain that a divine revelation of religious truth is impossible, nor even to deny that it has actually been given. He may admit the existence of the revelation as a fact: he may acknowledge its utility as a temporary means of instruction for a ruder age: he may even accept certain portions as of universal and permanent authority.⁽⁴⁾ But he assigns to some superior tribunal the right of determining what is essential to religion and what is not: he claims for himself and his age the privilege of accepting or rejecting any given revelation, wholly or in part, according as it does or does not satisfy the conditions of some higher criterion to be supplied by the human consciousness.⁽⁵⁾

In relation to the actual condition of religious truth, as communicated by Holy Scripture, Dogmatism and Rationalism may be considered as severally representing, the one the spirit which adds to the word of God, the other that which diminishes from it. Whether a complete system of scientific Theology could or could not have been given by direct revelation, consistently with the existing laws of human thought and the purposes which Revelation is designed to answer, it is at least certain that such a system is not given in the Revelation which we possess, but, if it is to exist at all, must be constructed out of it by human interpretation. And it is in attempting such a construction that Dogmatism and Rationalism exhibit their most striking contrasts. The one seeks to build up a complete scheme of theological doctrine out of the unsystematic materials furnished by Scripture, partly by the more complete development of certain leading ideas; partly by extending the apparent import of the Revelation to ground which it does not avowedly occupy, and attempting by inference and analogy to solve problems which the sacred volume may indeed suggest, but which it does not directly answer. The other aims at the same end by opposite means. It strives to attain to unity and completeness of system, not by filling up supposed deficiencies, but by paring down supposed excrescences. Commencing with a preconceived theory of the purpose of a revelation and the form which it ought to assume, it proceeds to remove or reduce all that will not harmonize with this leading idea; sometimes explaining away in the interpretation that which it accepts as given in the letter; sometimes denying, on a priori grounds, the genuineness of this or that portion of the sacred text; sometimes pretending to distinguish between the several purposes of Revelation itself, and to determine what portions are intended to convey the elements of an absolute religion, valid in all countries and for all ages, and what must be regarded as relative and accidental features of the divine plan, determined by the local or temporal peculiarities of the individuals to whom it was first addressed.

The two methods thus contrasted may appear at first sight to represent the respective claims of Faith and Reason, each extended to that point at which it encroaches on the domain of the other. But in truth the contrast between Faith and Reason, if it holds good in this relation at all, does so merely by accident. It may be applicable in some instances to the disciples of the respective systems, but not to the teachers; and even as regards the former, it is but partially and occasionally true. The disciples of the Rationalist are not necessarily the disciples of reason. It is quite as possible to receive with unquestioning submission a system of religion or philosophy invented by a human teacher, as it is to believe, upon the authority of Revelation, doctrines which no human reason is competent to discover. The so-called freethinker is as often as any other man the slave of some self-chosen master; and many who scorn the imputation of believing anything merely because it is found in the Bible, would find it hard to give any better reason for their own unbelief than the ipse dixit of some infidel philosopher. But when we turn from the disciples to the teachers, and look to the origin of Dogmatism and Rationalism as systems, we find both alike to be the products of thought, operating in different ways upon the same materials. Faith, properly so called, is not constructive, but receptive. It cannot supply the missing portions of an incomplete system, though it may bid us remain content with the deficiency. It cannot of itself give harmony to the discordant voices of religious thought; it cannot reduce to a single focus the many-colored rays into which the light of God’s presence is refracted in its passage through the human soul; though it may bid us look forward to a time when the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped;

Isaiah xxxv. 5.

In fact the two systems may be considered as both aiming, though in different ways, at the same end; that end being to produce a coincidence between what we believe and what we think; to remove the boundary which separates the comprehensible from the incomprehensible. The Dogmatist employs reason to prove, almost as much as the Rationalist employs it to disprove. The one, in the character of an advocate, accepts the doctrines of revealed religion as conclusions, but appeals to the reason, enlightened, it may be, by Revelation, to find premises to support them. The other, in the character of a critic, draws his premises from reason in the first instance; and, adopting these as his standard, either distorts the revealed doctrine into conformity with them, or, if it obstinately resists this treatment, sets it aside altogether. The one strives to lift up reason to the point of view occupied by Revelation: the other strives to bring, down Revelation to the level of reason. And both alike have prejudged or neglected the previous inquiry,—Are there not definite and discernible limits to the province of reason itself, whether it be exercised for advocacy or for criticism?

Thus, to select one example out of many, the revealed doctrine of Christ’s Atonement for the sins of men has been alternately defended and assailed by some such arguments as these. We have been told, on the one hand, that man’s redemption could not have been brought about by any other means⁽⁶⁾:—that God could not, consistently with his own attributes, have suffered man to perish unredeemed, or have redeemed him by any inferior sacrifice⁽⁷⁾:—that man, redeemed from death, must become the servant of him who redeems him; and that it was not meet that he should be the servant of any other than God⁽⁸⁾:—that no other sacrifice could have satisfied divine justice⁽⁹⁾:—that no other victim could have endured the burden of God’s wrath.⁽¹⁰⁾ These and similar arguments have been brought forward, as one of the greatest of their authors avows, to defend the teaching of the Catholic Faith on the ground of a reasonable necessity.⁽¹¹⁾ While, on the other hand, it has been argued that the revealed doctrine itself cannot be accepted as literally true; because we cannot believe that God was angry, and needed to be propitiated⁽¹²⁾:—because it is inconsistent with the Divine Justice that the innocent should suffer for the sins of the guilty⁽¹³⁾:—because it is more reasonable to believe that God freely forgives the offences of his creatures⁽¹⁴⁾:—because we cannot conceive how the punishment of one can do away with the guilt of another.⁽¹⁵⁾

I quote these arguments only as specimens of the method in which Christian doctrines have been handled by writers on opposite sides. To examine them more in detail would detain me too long from my main purpose. I shall not therefore at present consider whether the conclusions actually arrived at, on the one side or on the other, are in themselves reasonable or unreasonable, orthodox or heretical. I am concerned only with the methods respectively employed, and the need of some rule for their employment. May reason be used without restriction in defence or refutation of religions doctrines? And if not, what are the conditions of its legitimate use? It may be that this man has defended, on reasonable grounds, none but the most essential articles of the Christian Faith: but has he pointed out any rule which can hinder the same or similar reasoning from being advanced by another in support of the most dangerous errors? It may be that that man has employed the test of reasonableness, only in the refutation of opinions concerning which the church has pronounced no positive judgment: but has he fenced his method round with any cautions to prevent its being used for the overthrow of Christianity itself? If we can find no other ground than the arbitrary will of the man himself, why he should stop short at the particular point which he has chosen, we may not perhaps condemn the tenets of the individual, but we may fairly charge his method with the consequences to which it logically leads us.

Thus, we find a late lamented writer of our own day, and at that time of our own church, defending the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ, on the metaphysical assumption of the real existence of an abstract humanity. “This,” he tells us, “is why the existence of human nature is a thing too precious to be surrendered to the subtleties of logic, because, upon its existence depends that real manhood of Christ, which renders him a copartner with ourselves.” And again: “To the reality of this work, the existence of that common nature is indispensable, whereby, as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He Himself took part of the same. Else, how would the perfect assumption of humanity have consisted with His retaining that divine personality which it was impossible that He should surrender? Since it was no new person which He took, it can only have been the substratum, in which personality has its existence.”⁽¹⁶⁾ In this case, our belief in the undeniable truth of the doctrine defended may dispose us to overlook the questionable character of the defence. But if we are inclined for a moment to acquiesce in this unnatural union of metaphysical premises and theological conclusions, we are recalled to ourselves by the recollection of the fearful consequence which Occam deduces from the same hypothesis, of the assumption by Christ of a “substratum in which personality has its existence;”—a consequence drawn in language which we shudder to read, even as it is employed by its author, merely for the purpose of reducing to an absurdity the principles of his antagonists.⁽¹⁷⁾

There is an union of Philosophy with Religion in which each contributes to the support of the other; and there is also an union which, under the appearance of support, does but undermine the foundations and prey upon the life of both. To which of these two the above argument belongs, it needs but a bare statement of its assumption to determine. It tells us that our belief in the doctrine of God manifest in the flesh, indispensably depends upon our acceptance of the Realist theory of the nature of universal notions. Philosophy and Theology alike protest against such an outrage upon the claims, both of Reason and of Revelation, as is implied in this association of one of the most fundamental truths of the Christian Faith with one of the most questionable speculations of mediaeval metaphysics. What does Theology gain by this employment of a weapon which may, at any moment, be turned against her? Does it make one whit clearer to our understandings that mysterious two-fold nature of one Christ, very God, and very Man? By no means. It was a truth above human comprehension before; and it remains a truth above human comprehension still. We believe that Christ is both God and Man; for this is revealed to us. We know not how He is so; for this is not revealed; and we can learn it in no other way. Theology gains nothing; but she is in danger of losing everything. Her most precious truths are cut from the anchor which held them firm, and cast upon the waters of philosophical speculation, to float hither and thither with the ever-shifting waves of thought. And what does Philosophy gain? Her just domains are narrowed, and her free limbs cramped in their onward course. The problems which she has a native right to sift to the uttermost, are taken out of the field of free discussion, and fenced about with religious doctrines which it is heresy to call in question. Neither Christian truth nor philosophical inquiry can be advanced by such a system as this, which revives and sanctifies, as essential to the Catholic Faith, the forgotten follies of Scholastic Realism, and endangers the cause of religion, by seeking to explain its greatest mysteries by the lifeless forms of a worn-out controversy. “Why seek ye the living among the dead? Christ is not here.”

St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6.

But if the tendency of Dogmatism is to endanger the interests of religious truth, by placing that which is divine and unquestionable in too close an alliance with that which is human and doubtful, Rationalism, on the other hand, tends to destroy revealed religion altogether, by obliterating the whole distinction between the human and the divine. Rationalism, if it retains any portion of revealed truth as such, does so, not in consequence of, but in defiance of, its fundamental principle. It does so by virtually declaring that it will follow reason up to a certain point, and no further; though the conclusions which lie beyond that point are guaranteed by precisely the same evidence as those which fall short of it. We may select a notable example from the writings of a great thinker, who has contributed, perhaps, more than any other person to give a philosophical sanction to the rationalizing theories of his countrymen, yet from whose speculative principles, rightly employed, might be extracted the best antidote to his own conclusions, even as the body of the scorpion, crushed upon the wound, is said to be the best cure for its own venom.

Kant’s theory of a rational religion is based upon the assumption that the sole purpose of religion must be to give a divine sanction to man’s moral duties.⁽¹⁸⁾ He maintains that there can be no duties towards God, distinct from those which we owe towards men; but that it may be necessary, at certain times and for certain persons, to give to moral duties the authority of divine commands.⁽¹⁹⁾ Let us hear: then the philosopher’s rational explanation, upon this assumption, of the duty of Prayer. It is a mere superstitious delusion, he tells us, to consider prayer as a service addressed to God, and as a means of obtaining His favor.⁽²⁰⁾ The true purpose of the act is not to alter or affect in any way God’s relation towards us; but only to quicken our own moral sentiments, by keeping alive within us the idea of God as a moral Lawgiver.⁽²¹⁾ He, therefore, neither admits the duty unconditionally, nor rejects it entirely; but leaves it optional with men to adopt that or any other means, by which, in their own particular case, this moral end may be best promoted;—as if any moral benefit could possibly accrue from the habitual exercise of an act of conscious self-deception.

The origin of such theories is of course to be traced to that morbid horror of what they are pleased to call Anthropomorphism, which poisons the speculations of so many modern philosophers, when they attempt to be wise above what is written, and seek for a metaphysical exposition of God’s nature and attributes.⁽²²⁾ They may not, forsooth, think of the unchangeable God as if Ile were their fellow man, influenced by human motives, and moved by human supplications. They want a truer, a juster idea of the Deity as He is, than that under which He has been pleased to reveal Himself; and they call on their reason to furnish it. Fools, to dream that man can escape from himself, that human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of God! They do but substitute a marred and mutilated humanity for one exalted and entire: they add nothing to their conception of God as He is, but only take away a part of their conception of man. Sympathy, and love, and fatherly kindness, and forgiving mercy, have evaporated in the crucible of their philosophy; and what is the caput mortuum that remains, but only the sterner features of humanity exhibited in repulsive nakedness? The God who listens to prayer, we are told, appears in the likeness of human mutability. Be it so. What is the God who does not listen, but the likeness of human obstinacy? Do we ascribe to him a fixed purpose? our conception of a purpose is human. Do we speak of Him as continuing unchanged? our conception of continuance is human. Do we conceive Him as knowing and determining? what are knowledge and determination but modes of human consciousness? and. what know we of consciousness itself, but as the contrast between successive mental states? But our rational philosopher stops short in the middle of his reasoning. He strips off from humanity just so much as suits his purpose;—“and the residue thereof he maketh a god;”

Isaiah xliv. 17.

LECTURE II.

KEEP THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED TO THY TRUST, AVOIDING PROFANE AND VAIN BABBLINGS, AND OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE FALSELY SO CALLED; WHICH SOME PROFESSING HAVE ERRED CONCERNING THE FAITH.—1 TIMOTHY VI. 20, 21.

A PHILOSOPHY of Religion may be attempted from two opposite points of view, and by two opposite modes of development. It may be conceived either as a Philosophy of the Object of Religion; that is to say, as a scientific exposition of the nature of God; or as a Philosophy of the Subject of Religion; that is to say, as a scientific inquiry into the constitution of the human mind, so far as it receives and deals with religious ideas. The former is that branch of Metaphysics which is commonly known by the name of Rational Theology. Its general aim, in common with all metaphysical inquiries, is to disengage the real from the apparent, the true from the false: its special aim, as a Theology, is to exhibit a true representation of the Nature and Attributes of God, purified from foreign accretions, and displaying the exact features of their Divine Original. The latter is a branch of Psychology, which at its outset at least, contents itself with investigating the phenomena presented to it, leaving their relation to further realities to be determined at a later stage of the inquiry. Its primary concern is with the operations and laws of the human mind; and its special purpose is to ascertain the nature, the origin, and the limits of the religious element in man; postponing, till after that question has been decided, the further inquiry into the absolute nature of God.

As applied to the criticism of Revelation, the first method, supposing its end to be attained, would furnish an immediate and direct criterion by which the claims of any supposed Revelation to a divine origin might be tested; while at the same time it would enable those possessed of it to dispense with the services of any Revelation at all. For on the supposition that we possess an exact idea of any attribute of the Divine Nature, we are at liberty to reject at once any portion of the supposed Revelation which contradicts that idea; and on the supposition that we possess a complete idea of that Nature as a whole, we are at liberty to reject whatever goes beyond it. And as, upon either supposition, the highest praise to which Revelation can aspire is that of coinciding, partially or wholly, with the independent conclusions of Philosophy, it follows that, so far as Philosophy extends, Revelation becomes superfluous.⁽¹⁾ On the other hand, the second method of philosophical inquiry does not profess to furnish a direct criticism of Revelation, but only of the instruments by which Revelation is to be criticized. It looks to the human, not to the divine, and aspires to teach us no more than the limits of our own powers of thought, and the consequent distinction between what we may and what we may not seek to comprehend. And if, upon examination, it should appear that any portion of the contents of Revelation belongs to the latter class of truths, this method will enable us to reconcile with each other the conflicting claims of Reason and Faith, by showing that Reason itself, rightly interpreted, teaches the existence of truths that are above Reason.

Whatever may be the ultimate use of the first of these methods of criticism, it is obvious that the previous question, concerning our right to use it at all, can only be satisfactorily answered by the employment of the second method. The possibility of criticism at all implies that human reason is liable to error: the possibility of a valid criticism implies that the means of distinguishing between its truth and its error may be ascertained by a previous criticism. Let it be granted, for the moment, that a religion whose contents are irreconcilable with human reason is thereby proved not to have come from God, but from man,—still the reason which judges is at least as human as the religion which is judged; and if the human representation of God is erroneous in the latter, how can we assume its infallibility in the former? If we grant for the present the fundamental position of Rationalism, namely, that man by his own reason can attain to a right conception of God, we must at any rate grant also, what every attempt at criticism implies, that he may also attain to a wrong one. We have therefore still to ask by what marks the one is to be distinguished from the other; by what method we are to seek the truth; and how we are to assume ourselves that we have found it. And to answer this question, we need a preliminary examination of the conditions and limits of human thought. Religious criticism is itself an act of thought; and its immediate instruments must, under any circumstances, be thoughts also. We are thus compelled in the first instance to inquire into the origin and value of those thoughts themselves.

A Philosophy which professes to elicit from its own conceptions all the essential portions of religious belief, is bound to justify its profession, by showing that those conceptions themselves are above suspicion. The ideas thus exalted to the supreme criteria of truth must bear on their front unquestionable evidence that they are true and sufficient representations of the Divine Nature, such as may serve all the needs of human thought and human feeling, adequate alike for contemplation and for worship. They must manifest the clearness and distinctness which mark the strong vision of an eye gazing undazzled on the glory of Heaven, not the obscurity and confusion of one that turns away blinded from the glare, and gropes in its own darkness after the fleeting spectrum. The conviction which boasts itself to be superior to all external evidence must carry in its own inward constitution some sure indication of its truth and value.

Such a conviction may be possible in two different ways. It may be the result of a direct intuition of the Divine Nature; or it may be gained by inference from certain attributes of human nature, which, though on a smaller scale, are known to be sufficiently representative of the corresponding properties of the Deity. We may suppose the existence in man of a special faculty of knowledge, of which God is the immediate object,—a kind of religious sense or reason, by which the Divine attributes are apprehended in their own nature:⁽²⁾ or we may maintain that the attributes of God differ from those of man in degree only, not in kind; and hence that certain mental and moral qualities, of which we are immediately conscious in ourselves, furnish at the same time a true and adequate image of the infinite perfections of God.⁽³⁾ The first of these suppositions professes to convey a knowledge of God by direct apprehension, in a manner similar to the evidence of the senses: the second professes to convey the same knowledge by a logical process, similar to the demonstrations of science. The former is the method of Mysticism, and of that Rationalism which agrees with Mysticism, in referring the knowledge of divine things to an extraordinary and abnormal process of intuition or thought.(4) The latter is the method of the vulgar Rationalism, which regards the reason of man, in its ordinary and normal operation, as the supreme criterion of religious truth.

On the former supposition, a system of religious philosophy or criticism may be constructed by starting from the divine and reasoning down to the human: on the latter, by starting from the human and reasoning up to the divine. The first commences with a supposed immediate knowledge of God as He is in his absolute nature, and proceeds to exhibit the process by which that nature, acting according to its own laws, will manifest itself in operation, and become known to man. The second commences with an immediate knowledge of the mental and moral attributes of man, and proceeds to exhibit the manner in which those attributes will manifest themselves, when exalted to the degree in which they form part of the nature of God. If, for example, the two systems severally undertake to give a representation of the infinite power and wisdom of God, the former will profess to explain how the nature of the infinite manifests itself in the forms of power and wisdom; while the latter will attempt to show how power and wisdom must manifest themselves when existing in an infinite degree. In their criticisms of Revelation, in like manner, the former will rather take as its standard that absolute and essential nature of God, which must remain unchanged in every manifestation; the latter will judge by reference to those intellectual and moral qualities, which must exist in all their essential features in the divine nature as well as in the human.

Thus, for example, it has been maintained by a modern philosopher, that the absolute nature of God is that of a pure Will, determining itself solely by a moral law, and subject to no affections which can operate as motives. Hence it is inferred that the same law of action must form the rule of God’s manifestation to mankind as a moral Governor; and therefore that no revelation can be of divine origin, which attempts to influence men’s actions by the prospect of reward or punishment.⁽⁵⁾ In this mode of reasoning, an abstract conception of the nature of God is made the criterion to determine the mode in which He must reveal Himself to man. On the other hand, we meet with an opposite style of criticism, which reasons somewhat as follows: All the excellences, it contends, of which we are conscious in the creature, must necessarily exist in the same manner, though in a higher degree, in the Creator. God is indeed more wise, more just, more merciful than man; but for that very reason, I-is wisdom and justice and mercy must contain nothing that is incompatible with the corresponding attributes in their human character.⁽⁶⁾ Hence, if the certainty of man’s knowledge implies the necessity of the events which he knows, the certainty of God’s omniscience implies a like necessity of all things:⁽⁷⁾ if man’s justice requires that he should punish the guilty alone, it is inconsistent with God’s justice to inflict the chastisement of sin upon the innocent:⁽⁸⁾ if man’s mercy finds its natural exercise in the free forgiveness of offences, God’s mercy, too, must freely forgive the sins of His creatures.⁽⁹⁾ From the same premises it is consistently concluded that no act which would be wrong, if performed by a man upon his own responsibility, can be justified by the plea of a direct command from God.⁽¹⁰⁾ Abraham may not be praised for his readiness to slay his son in obedience to God’s command; for the internal prohibition must always be more certain than the external precept.⁽11) Joshua cannot be warranted in obeying the Divine injunction to exterminate the Canaanites, unless he would be equally warranted in destroying them of his own accord.⁽¹²⁾ And, as the issuing of such commands is contrary to the moral nature of God, therefore the Book which represents them as so issued is convicted of falsehood, and cannot be regarded as a Divine Revelation.⁽¹³⁾ In this mode of reasoning, the moral or intellectual nature of man is made the rule to determine what ought to be the revealed attributes of God, and in what manner they must be exercised.

Within certain limits, both these arguments may have their value; but each is chiefly useful as a check upon the exclusive authority of the other. The philosophy which reasons downwards from the infinite, is but an exaggeration of the true conviction that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways:

Isaiah iv. 8.

LECTURE III.

AND HE SAID, THOU CANST NOT SEE MY FACE; FOR THERE SHALL NO MAN SEE ME, AND LIVE. AND THE LORD SAID, BEHOLD, THERE IS A PLACE BY ME, AND THOU SHALT STAND UPON A ROCK: AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, WHILE MY GLORY PASSETH BY, THAT I WILL PUT THEE IN A CLEFT OF THE ROCK, AND WILL COVER THEE WITH MY HAND WHILE I PASS BY: AND I WILL TAKE AWAY MINE HAND, AND THOU SHALT SEE MY BACK PARTS; BUT MY FACE SHALL NOT BE SEEN.—EXODUS XXXIII. 20-23.

MY last Lecture was chiefly occupied with an examination of the ideas of the Absolute and the Infinite,—ideas which are indispensable to the foundation of a metaphysical Theology, and of which a clear and distinct consciousness must be acquired, if such a Theology is to exist at all. I attempted to show the inadequacy of these ideas for such a purpose, by reason of the contradictions which to our apprehension they necessarily involve from every point of view. The result of that attempt may be briefly summed up as follows. We are compelled, by the constitution of our minds, to believe in the existence of an Absolute and Infinite Being,—a belief which appears forced upon us, as the complement of our consciousness of the relative and the finite. But the instant we attempt to analyze the ideas thus suggested to us, in the hope of attaining to an intelligible conception of them, we are on every side involved in inextricable confusion and contradiction. It is no matter from what point of view we commence our examination;—whether, with the Theist, we admit the coexistence of the Infinite and the Finite, as distinct realities; or, with the Pantheist, deny the real existence of the Finite; or, with the Atheist, deny the real existence of the Infinite;—on each of these suppositions alike, our reason appears divided against itself, compelled to admit the truth of one hypothesis, and yet unable to overcome the apparent impossibilities of each. The philosophy of Rationalism, thus traced upwards to its highest principles, finds no legitimate resting-place, from which to commence its deduction of religious consequences.

In the present Lecture, it will be my endeavor to offer some explanation of the singular phenomenon of human thought, which is exhibited in these results. I propose to examine the same ideas of the Absolute and the Infinite from the opposite side, in order to see if any light can be thrown on the anomalies which they present to us, by a reference to the mental laws under which they are formed. Contradiction, whatever may be its ultimate import, is in itself not a quality of things, but a mode in which they are viewed by the mind; and the inquiry which it most immediately suggests is, not an investigation of the nature of things in themselves, but an examination of those mental conditions under which it is elicited in thought. Such an examination, if it does not enable us to extend the sphere of thought beyond a certain point, may at least serve to make us more distinctly conscious of its true boundaries.

The much-disputed question, to what class of mental phenomena the religious consciousness belongs, must be postponed to a later stage of our inquiry. At present, we are concerned with a more general investigation, which the answer to that question will in nowise affect. Whether the relation of man to God be primarily presented to the human mind in the form of knowledge, or of feeling, or of practical impulse, it can be given only as a mode of consciousness, subject to those conditions under which alone consciousness is possible. Whatever knowledge is imparted, whatever impulse is communicated, whatever feeling is excited, in man’s mind, must take place in a manner adapted to the constitution of its human recipient, and must exhibit such characteristics as the laws of that constitution impose upon it. A brief examination of the conditions of human consciousness in general will thus form a proper preliminary to any inquiry concerning the religious consciousness in particular.

Now, in the first place, the very conception of Consciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies distinction between one object and another. To be conscious, we must be conscious of something; and that something can only be known as that which it is, by being distinguished from that which it is not.⁽¹⁾ But distinction is necessarily limitation; for, if one object is to be distinguished from another, it must possess some form of existence which the other has not, or it must not possess some form which the other has. But it is obvious that the Infinite cannot be distinguished, as such, from the Finite, by the absence of any quality which the Finite possesses; for such absence would be a limitation. Nor yet can it be distinguished by the presence of an attribute which the Finite has not; for, as no finite part can be a constituent of an infinite whole, this differential characteristic must itself be infinite; and must at the same time have nothing in common with the finite. We are thus thrown back upon our former impossibility; for this second infinite will be distinguished from the finite by the absence of qualities which the latter possesses. A consciousness of the Infinite as such thus necessarily involves a self-contradiction; for it implies the recognition, by limitation and difference, of that which can only be given as unlimited and indifferent.⁽²⁾ That man can be conscious of the Infinite, is thus a supposition which, in the very terms in which it is expressed, annihilates itself. Consciousness is essentially a limitation; for it is the determination of the mind to one actual out of many possible modifications. But the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing; for if there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it is thelreby excluded from being any other thing. But again, it must also be conceived as actually everything and potentially nothing; for an unrealized potentiality is likewise a limitation.⁽³⁾ If the infinite can be that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristic feature, by which it can be distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of consciousness.

This contradiction, which is utterly inexplicable on the supposition that the infinite is a positive object of human thought, is at once accounted for, when it is regarded as the mere negation of thought. If all thought is limitation,—if whatever we conceive is, by the very act of conception, regarded as finite,—the infinite, from a human point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible. To speak of a Conception of the Infinite is, therefore, at once to affirm those conditions and to deny them. The contradiction, which we discover in such a conception, is only that which we have ourselves placed there, by tacitly assuming the conceivability of the inconceivable. The condition of consciousness is distinction; and the condition of distinction is limitation. We have no consciousness of Being in general which is not some Being in particular; a thing, in consciousness, is one thing out of many. In assuming the possibility of an infinite object of consciousness, I assume, therefore, that it is at the same time limited and unlimited;—actually something, without which it could not be an object of consciousness, and actually nothing, without which it could not be infinite.⁽⁴⁾

Rationalism is thus only consistent with itself, when it refuses to attribute consciousness to God. Consciousness, in the only form in which we can conceive it, implies limitation and change,—the perception of one object out of many, and a comparison of that object with others. To be always conscious of the same object, is, humanly speaking, not to be conscious at all;⁽⁵⁾ and, beyond its human manifestation, we can have no conception of what consciousness is. Viewed on the side of the object of consciousness, the same principle will carry us further still. Existence itself, that so-called highest category of thought, is only conceivable in the form of existence modified in some particular manner. Strip off its modification, and the apparent paradox of the German philosopher becomes literally true;—pure being is pure nothing.⁽⁶⁾ We have no conception of existence which is not existence in some particular manner; and if we abstract from the manner, we have nothing left to constitute the existence. Those who, in their horror of what they call anthropomorphism, or anthropopathy, refuse to represent the Deity under symbols borrowed from the limitations of human consciousness, are bound, in consistency, to deny that God exists; for the conception of existence is as human and as limited as any other. The conclusion which Fichte boldly announces, awful as it is, is but the legitimate consequence of his premises. “The moral order of the universe is itself God: we need no other, and we can comprehend no other.”⁽⁷⁾

A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is only possible in the form of a relation. There must be a Subject, or person conscious, and an Object, or thing of which he is conscious. There can be no consciousness without the union of these two factors; and, in that union, each exists only as it is related to the other.⁽⁸⁾ The subject is a subject, only in so far as it is conscious of an object: the object is an object, only in so far as it is apprehended by a subject: and the destruction of either is the destruction of consciousness itself. It is thus manifest that a consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-contradictory with that of the Infinite. To be conscious of the Absolute as such, we must know that an object, which is given in relation to our consciousness, is identical with one which exists in its own nature, out of all relation to consciousness. But to know this identity, we must compare the two together; and such a comparison is itself a contradiction. We are in fact required to compare that of which we are conscious with that of which we are not conscious; the comparison itself being an act of consciousness, and only possible through the consciousness of both its objects. It is thus manifest that, even if we could be conscious of the absolute, we could not possibly know that it is the absolute: and, as we can be conscious of an object as such, only by knowing it to be what it is, this is equivalent to an admission that we cannot be conscious of the absolute at all. As an object of consciousness, everything is necessarily relative; and what a thing may be out of consciousness, no mode of consciousness can tell us.

This contradiction, again, admits of the same explanation as the former. Our whole notion of existence is necessarily relative; for it is existence as conceived by us. But Existence, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways in which objects are presented to our consciousness,—a general term, embracing a variety of relations. The Absolute, on the other hand, is a term expressing no object of thought, but only a denial of the relation by which thought is constituted. To assume absolute existence as an object of thought, is thus to suppose a relation existing when the related terms exist no longer. An object of thought exists, as such, in and through its relation to a thinker; while the Absolute, as such, is independent of all relation. The Conception of the Absolute thus implies at the same time the presence and the absence of the relation by which thought is constituted; and our various endeavors to represent it are only so many modified forms of the contradiction involved in our original assumption. Here, too, the contradiction is one which we ourselves have made. It does not imply that the Absolute cannot exist; but it implies, most certainly, that we cannot conceive it as existing.⁽⁹⁾

Philosophers who are anxious to avoid this conclusion have sometimes attempted to evade it, by asserting that we may have in consciousness a partial, but not a total knowledge of the infinite and the absolute.⁽¹⁰⁾ But here again the supposition refutes itself. To have a partial knowledge of an object, is to know a part of it, but not the whole. But the part of the infinite which is supposed to be known must be itself either infinite or finite. If it is infinite, it presents the same difficulties as before. If it is finite, the point in question is conceded, and our consciousness is allowed to be limited to finite objects. But in truth it is obvious, on a moment’s reflection, that neither the Absolute nor the Infinite can be represented in the form of a whole composed of parts. Not the Absolute; for the existence of a whole is dependent on the existence of its parts. Not the Infinite; for if any part is infinite, it cannot be distinguished from the whole; and if each part is finite, no number of such parts can constitute the Infinite.

It would be possible, did my limits allow, to pursue the argument at length, through the various special modifications which constitute the subordinate forms of consciousness. But with reference to the present inquiry, it will be sufficient to notice two other conditions, under which all consciousness is necessarily manifested; both of which have a special bearing on the relation of philosophy to theological controversy.

All human consciousness, as being a change in our mental state, is necessarily subject to the law of Time, in its two manifestations of Succession and Duration. Every object, of whose existence we can be in any way conscious, is necessarily apprehended by us as succeeding in time to some former object of consciousness, and as itself occupying a certain portion of time. In the former point of view, it is manifest, from what has been said before, that whatever succeeds something else, and is distinguished from it, is necessarily apprehended as finite; for distinction is itself a limitation. In the latter point of view, it is no less manifest that whatever is conceived as having a continuous existence in time is equally apprehended as finite. For continuous existence is necessarily conceived as divisible into successive moments. One portion has already gone by; another is yet to come; each successive moment is related to something which has preceded, and to something which is to follow: and out of such relations the entire existence is made up. The acts, by which such existence is manifested, being continuous in time, have, at any given moment, a further activity still to come: the object so existing must therefore always be regarded as capable of becoming something which it is not yet actually,—as having an existence incomplete, and receiving at each instant a further completion. It is manifest therefore that, if all objects of human thought exist in time, no such object can be regarded as exhibiting, or representing the true nature of an Infinite Being.

As a necessary consequence of this limitation, it follows, that an act of Creation, in the highest sense of the term,—that is to say, an absolutely first link in the chain of phenomena, preceded by no temporal antecedent,—is to human thought inconceivable. To represent in thought the first act of the first cause of all things, I must conceive myself as placed in imagination at the point at which temporal succession commences, and as thus conscious of the relation between a phenomenon in time and a reality out of time. But the consciousness of such a relation implies a consciousness of both the related members; to realize which, the mind must be in and out of time at the same moment. Time, therefore, cannot be regarded as limited; for to conceive a first or last moment of time would be to conceive a consciousness into which time enters, preceded or followed by one from which it is absent. But, on the other hand, an infinite succession in time is equally inconceivable; for this succession also cannot be bounded by time, and therefore can only be apprehended by one who is himself free from the law of conceiving in time. From a human point of view, such a conception could only be formed by thrusting back the boundary forever;—a process which itself would require an infinite time for its accomplishment.⁽¹¹⁾ Clogged by these counter impossibilities of thought, two opposite speculations have in vain struggled to find articulate utterance, the one for the hypothesis of an endless duration of finite changes, the other for that of an existence prior to duration itself. It is perhaps another aspect of the same difficulty, that, among various theories of the generation of the world, the idea of a creation out of nothing seems to have been altogether foreign to ancient philosophy.⁽¹²⁾

The limited character of all existence which can be conceived as having a continuous duration, or as made up of successive moments, is so far manifest, that it has been assumed, almost as an axiom, by philosophical theologians, that in the existence of God there is no distinction between past, present, and future. “In the changes of things,” says Augustine, there is a past and a future: in God there is a present, in which neither past nor future can be.”⁽¹³⁾ “Eternity,” says Boethius, “is the perfect possession of interminable life, and of all that life at once:”⁽¹⁴⁾ and Aquinas, accepting the definition, adds, “Eternity has no succession, but exists all together.”⁽¹⁵⁾ But, whether this assertion be literally true or not (and this we have no means of ascertaining), it is clear that such a mode of existence is altogether inconceivable by us, and that the words in which it is described represent not thought, but the refusal to think at all. It is impossible that man, so long as he exists in time, should contemplate an object in whose existence there is no time. For the thought by which he contemplates it must be one of his own mental states: it must have a beginning and an end: it must occupy a certain portion of duration, as a fact of human consciousness. There is therefore no manner of resemblance or community of nature between the representative thought and that which it is supposed to represent; for the one cannot exist out of time, and the other cannot exist in it.⁽¹⁶⁾ Nay, more: even were a mode of representation out of time possible to a man, it is utterly impossible that he should know it to be so, or make any subsequent use of the knowledge thus conveyed to him. To be conscious of a thought as mine, I must know it as a present condition of my consciousness: to know that it has been mine, I must remember it as a past condition; and past and present are alike modes of time. It is manifest, therefore, that a knowledge of the infinite, as existing out of time, even supposing it to take place at all, cannot be known to be taking place, cannot be remembered to have taken place, and cannot be made available for any purpose at any period of our temporal life.⁽¹⁷⁾

The command, so often urged upon man by philosophers and theologians of various ages and schools, “In contemplating God, transcend time,”⁽¹⁸⁾ if meant for anything more than a figure of rhetoric, is equivalent to saying, “Be man no more; be thyself God.” It amounts to the admission that, to know the infinite, the human mind must itself be infinite; because an object of consciousness, which is in any way limited by the conditions of human thought, cannot be accepted as a representation of the unlimited. But two infinites cannot be conceived as existing together; and if the mind of man must become infinite to know God, it must itself be God.⁽¹⁹⁾ Pantheism, or self-acknowledged falsehood, are thus the only alternatives possible under this precept. If the human mind, remaining in reality finite, merely fancies itself to be infinite in its contemplation of God, the knowledge of God is itself based on a falsehood. If, on the other hand, it not merely imagines itself to be, but actually is, infinite, its personality is swallowed up in the infinity of the Deity; its human existence is a delusion: God is, literally and properly, all that exists; and the Finite, which appears to be, but is not, vanishes before the single existence of the One and All.

Subordinate to the general law of Time, to which all consciousness is subject, there are two inferior conditions, to which the two great divisions of consciousness are severally subject. Our knowledge of body is governed by the condition of space; our knowledge of mind by that of personality. I can conceive no qualities of body, save as having a definite local position; and I can conceive no qualities of mind, save as modes of a conscious self. With the former of these limitations our present argument is not concerned; but the latter, as the necessary condition of the conception of spiritual existence, must be taken into account in estimating the philosophical value of man’s conception of an infinite Mind.

The various mental attributes which we ascribe to God—Benevolence, Holiness, Justice, Wisdom, for example—can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy and just and wise Being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes, but the common subject of them all; in one word, in a Person. But Personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation.⁽²⁰⁾ Our own personality is presented to us as relative and limited; and it is from that presentation that all our representative notions of personality are derived. Personality is presented to us as a relation between the conscious self and the various modes of his consciousness. There is no personality in abstract thought without a thinker: there is no thinker, unless he exercises some mode of thought. Personality is also a limitation; for the thought and the thinker are distinguished from and limit each other; and the several modes of thought are distinguished each from each by limitation likewise. If I am any one of my own thoughts, I live and die with each successive moment of my consciousness. If I am not any one of my own thoughts, I am limited by that very difference, and each thought, as different from another, is limited also. This, too, has been clearly seen by philosophical theologians; and accordingly, they have maintained that in God there is no distinction between the subject of consciousness and its modes, nor between one mode and another. “God,” says Augustine, “is not a Spirit as regards substance, and good as regards quality; but both as regards substance. The justice of God is one with his goodness and with his blessedness; and all are one with his spirituality.”⁽²¹⁾ But this assertion, if it be literally true (and of this we have no means of judging), annihilates Personality itself, in the only form in which we can conceive it. We cannot transcend our own personality, as we cannot transcend our own relation to time: and to speak of an Absolute and Infinite Person, is simply to use language to which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself.

But are we therefore justified, even on philosophical grounds, in denying the Personality of God? or do we gain a higher or a truer representation of Him, by asserting, with the ancient or the modern Pantheist, that God, as absolute and infinite, can have neither intelligence nor will?⁽²²⁾ Far from it. We dishonor God far more by identifying Him with the feeble and negative impotence of thought, which we are pleased to style the Infinite, than by remaining content within those limits which He for his own good purposes has imposed upon us, and confining ourselves to a manifestation, imperfect indeed and inadequate, and acknowledged to be so, but still the highest idea that we can form, the noblest tribute that we can offer. Personality, with all its limitations, though far from exhibiting the absolute nature of God as He is, is yet truer, grander, more elevating, more religious, than those barren, vague, meaningless abstractions in which men babble about nothing under the name of the Infinite. Personal, conscious existence, limited though it be, is yet the noblest of all existences of which man can dream; for it is that by which all existence is revealed to him: it is grander than the grandest object which man can know; for it is that which knows, not that which is known.⁽23) “Man,” says Pascal, “is but a reed, the frailest in nature; but he is a reed that thinks. It needs not that the whole universe should arm itself to crush him;—a vapor, a drop of water, will suffice to destroy him. But should the universe crush him, man would yet be nobler than that which destroys him; for he knows that he dies; while of the advantage which the universe has over him, the universe knows nothing.”⁽²⁴⁾ It is by consciousness alone that we know that God exists, or that we are able to offer Him any service. It is only by conceiving Him as a Conscious Being, that we can stand in any religious relation to Him at all; that we can form such a representation of Him as is demanded by our spiritual wants, insufficient though it be to satisfy our intellectual curiosity.

It is from the intense consciousness of our own real existence as Persons, that the conception of reality takes its rise in our minds: it is through that consciousness alone that we can raise ourselves to the faintest image of the supreme reality of God. What is reality, and what is appearance, is the riddle which Philosophy has put forth from the birthday of human thought; and the only approach to an answer has been a voice from the depths of the personal consciousness: “I think; therefore I am.”⁽²⁵⁾ In the antithesis between the thinker and the object of his thought,—between myself and that which is related to me,—we find the type and the source of the universal contrast between the one and the many, the permanent and the changeable, the real and the apparent. That which I see, that which I hear, that which I think, that which I feel, changes and passes away with each moment of iy varied existence. I, who see, and hear, and think, and feel, am the one continuous self, whose existence gives unity and connection to the whole. Personality comprises all that we know of that which exists: relation to personality comprises all that we know of that which seems to exist. And when, from the little world of man’s consciousness and its objects, we would lift up our eyes to the inexhaustible universe beyond, and ask, to. whom all this is related, the highest existence is still the highest personality; and the Source of all Being reveals Himself by His name, I AM.

Exodus iii. 14.

If there is one dream of a godless philosophy to which, beyond all others, every moment of our consciousness gives the lie, it is that which subordinates the individual to the universal, the person to the species; which deifies kinds and realizes classifications; which sees Being in generalization, and Appearance in limitation; which regards the living and conscious man as a wave on the ocean of 1the unconscious infinite; his life, a momentary tossing to and fro on the shifting tide; his destiny, to be swallowed up in the formless and boundless universe.⁽²⁷⁾ The final conclusion of this philosophy, in direct antagonism to the voice of consciousness, is, “I think; therefore I am not.” When men look around them in bewilderment for that which lies within them; when they talk of the enduring species and the perishing individual, and would find, in the abstractions which their own minds have made, a higher and truer existence than in the mind which made them;—they seek for that which they know, and know not that for which they seek.⁽²⁸⁾ They would fain lift up the curtain of their own being, to view the picture which it conceals. Like the painter of old, they know not that the curtain is the picture.⁽²⁹⁾

It is our duty, then, to think of God as personal; and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true that we cannot reconcile these two representations with each other; as our conception of personality involves attributes apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. But it does not follow that this contradiction exists any where but in our own minds: it does not follow that it implies any impossibility in the absolute nature of God. The apparent contradiction, in this case, as in those previously noticed, is the necessary consequence of an attempt on the part of the human thinker to transcend the boundaries of his own consciousness. It proves that there are limits to man’s power of thought; and it proves no more.

The preceding considerations are equally conclusive against both the methods of metaphysical theology described in my last Lecture,—that which commences with the divine to reason down to the human, and that which commences with the human to reason up to the divine. For though the mere abstract expression of the infinite, when regarded as indicating nothing more than the negation of limitation, and, therefore, of conceivability, is not contradictory in itself; it becomes so the instant we attempt to apply it in reasoning to any object of thought. A thing—an object—an attribute—a person—or any other term signifying one out of many possible objects of consciousness, is by that very relation necessarily declared to be finite. An infinite thing, or object, or attribute, or person, is, therefore, in the same moment declared to be both finite and infinite. We cannot, therefore, start from any abstract assumption of the divine infinity, to reason downwards to any object of human thought. And, on the other hand, if all human attributes are conceived under the conditions of difference, and relation, and time, and personality, we cannot represent in thought any such attribute magnified to infinity; for this, again, is to conceive it as finite and infinite at the same time. We can conceive such attributes, at the utmost, only indefinitely: that is to say, we may withdraw our thought, for the moment, from the fact of their being limited; but we cannot conceive them as infinite: that is to say, we cannot positively think of the absence of the limit; for, the instant we attempt to do so, the antagonist elements of the conception exclude one another, and annihilate the whole.

There remains but one subterfuge to which Philosophy can have recourse, before she is driven to confess that the Absolute and the Infinite are beyond her grasp. If consciousness is against her, she must endeavor to get rid of consciousness itself And, accordingly, the most distinguished representatives of this philosophy in recent times, however widely differing upon other questions, agree in maintaining that the foundation for a knowledge of the infinite must be laid in a point beyond consciousness.⁽³⁰⁾ But a system which starts from this assumption postulates its own failure at the outset. It attempts to prove that consciousness is a delusion; and consciousness itself is made the instrument of proof; for by consciousness its reasonings must be framed and apprehended. It is by reasonings, conducted in conformity to the ordinary laws of thought, that the philosopher attempts to show that the highest manifestations of reason are above those laws. It is by representations, exhibited under the conditions of time and difference, that the philosopher endeavors to prove the existence, and deliver the results, of an intuition in which time and difference are annihilated. They thus assume, at the same moment, the truth and the falsehood of the normal consciousness; they divide the human mind against itself; and by that division prove no more than that two supposed faculties of thought mutually invalidate each other’s evidence. Thus, by an act of reason, philosophy destroys reason itself: it passes at once from rationalism to mysticism, and makes inconceivability the criterion of truth. In dealing with religious truths, the theory which repudiates with scorn the notion of believing a doctrine although it is incomprehensible, springs at one desperate bound clear over faith into credulity, and proclaims that its own principles must be believed because they are incomprehensible. The rhetorical paradox of the fervid African is adopted in cold blood as an axiom of metaphysical speculation: “It is certain, because it is impossible.”⁽³¹⁾ Such a theory is open to two fatal objections,—it cannot be communicated, and it cannot be verified. It cannot be communicated; for the communication must be made in words; and the meaning of those words must be understood; and the understanding is a state of the normal consciousness. It cannot be verified; for, to verify, we must compare the author’s experience with our own; and such a comparison is again a state of consciousness. Let it be granted for a moment, though the concession refutes itself, that a man may have a cognizance of the infinite by some mode of knowledge which is above consciousness. He can never say that the idea thus acquired is like or unlike that possessed by any other man; for likeness implies comparison; and comparison is only possible as a mode of consciousness, and between objects regarded as limited and related to each other. That which is out of consciousness cannot be pronounced true; for truth is the correspondence between a conscious representation and the object which it represents. Neither can it be pronounced false; for falsehood consists in the disagreement between a similar representation and its object. Here, then, is the very suicide of Rationalism. To prove its own truth and the falsehood of antagonistic systems, it postulates a condition under which neither truth nor falsehood is possible.

The results, to which an examination of the facts of consciousness has conducted us, may be briefly summed up as follows. Our whole consciousness manifests itself as subject to certain limits, which we are unable, in any act of thought, to transgress. That which falls within these limits, as an object of thought is known to us as relative and finite. The existence of a limit to our powers of thought is manifested by the consciousness of contradiction, which implies at the same time an attempt to think and an inability to accomplish that attempt. But a limit is necessarily conceived as a relation between something within and something without itself; and thus the consciousness of a limit of thought implies, though it does not directly present to us, the existence of something of which we do not and cannot think. When we lift up our eyes to that blue vault of heaven, which is itself but the limit of our own power of sight, we are compelled to suppose, though we cannot perceive, the existence of space beyond, as well as within it; we regard the boundary of vision as parting the visible from the invisible. And when, in mental contemplation, we are conscious of relation and difference, as the limits of our power of thought, we regard them, in like manner, as the boundary between the conceivable and the inconceivable; though we are unable to penetrate, in thought, beyond the nether sphere, to the unrelated and unlimited which it hides from us.⁽³²⁾ The Absolute and the Infinite are thus, like the Inconceiveable and the Imperceptible, names indicating, not an object of thought or of consciousness at all, but the mere absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possible. The attempt to construct in thought an object answering to such names, necessarily results in contradiction; a contradiction, however, which we have ourselves produced by the attempt to think;—which exists in the act of thought, but not beyond it;—which destroys the conception as such, but indicates nothing concerning the existence or non-existence of that which we try to conceive. It proves our own impotence, and it proves nothing more. Or rather, it indirectly leads us to believe in the existence of that Infinite which we cannot conceive; for the denial of its existence involves a contradiction, no less than the assertion of its conceivability. We thus learn that the provinces of Reason and Faith are not coëxtensive;—that it is a duty, enjoined by Reason itself, to believe in that which we are unable to comprehend.

I have now concluded that portion of my argument in which it was necessary to investigate in abstract terms the limits of human thought in general, as a preliminary to the examination of religious thought in particular. As yet, we have viewed only the negative side of man’s consciousness;—we have seen how it does not represent God, and why it does not so represent Him. There remains still to be attempted the positive side of the same inquiry,—namely, what does our consciousness actually tell us concerning the Divine Existence and Attributes; and how does its testimony agree with that furnished by Revelation. In prosecuting this further inquiry, I hope to be able to confine myself to topics more resembling those usually handled in this place, and to language more strictly appropriate to the treatment of Christian Theology. Yet there are advantages in the method which I have hitherto pursued, which may, I trust, be accepted as a sufficient cause for whatever may have sounded strange and obscure in its phraseology. So long as the doubts and difficulties of philosophical speculation are familiar to us only in their religious aspect and language, so long we may be led to think that there is some peculiar defect or perplexity in the evidences of religion, by which it is placed in apparent antagonism to the more obvious and unquestionable conclusions of reason. A very brief examination of cognate questions in their metaphysical aspect, will suffice to dissipate this misapprehension, and to show that the philosophical difficulties, which rationalists profess to discover in Christian doctrines, ale in fact inherent in the laws of human thought, and must accompany every attempt at religious or irreligious speculation.

There is also another consideration, which may justify the Christian preacher in examining, at times, the thoughts and language of human philosophy, apart from their special application to religious truths. A religious association may sometimes serve to disguise the real character of a line of thought which, without that association, would have little power to mislead. Speculations which end in unbelief are often commenced in a believing spirit. It is painful, but at the same time instructive, to trace the gradual progress by which an unstable disciple often tears off strip by strip the wedding garment of his faith,—scarce conscious the while of his own increasing nakedness,—and to mark how the language of Christian belief may remain almost untouched, when the substance and the life have departed from it. While Philosophy speaks nothing but the language of Christianity, we may be tempted to think that the two are really one; that our own speculations are but leading us to Christ by another and a more excellent way. Many a young aspirant after a philosophical faith, trusts himself to the trackless ocean of rationalism in the spirit of the too-confident Apostle: “Lord, bid me to come unto thee on the water.”

St. Matthew xiv. 28.

But who that enters upon this course of mistrust shall dare to say that such will be the end of it? Far better is it to learn at the outset the nature of that unstable surface on which we would tread, without being tempted by the phantom of religious promise, which shines delusively over it. He who hath ordered all things in measure and number and weight,

Wisdom xi. 20.

LECTURE IV.

O THOU THAT HEAREST PRAYER, UNTO THEE SHALL ALL FLESH COME.—PSALM LXV. 2.

THAT the Finite cannot comprehend the Infinite, is a truth more frequently admitted in theory than applied in practice. It has been expressly asserted by men who, almost in the same breath, have proceeded to lay down canons of criticism, concerning the purpose of Revelation, and the truth or falsehood, importance or insignificance, of particular doctrines, on grounds which are tenable only on the supposition of a perfect and intimate knowledge of God’s Nature and Counsels.⁽¹⁾ Hence it becomes necessary to bring down the above truth from general to special statements;—to inquire more particularly wherein the limitation of man’s faculties consists, and in what manner it exhibits itself in the products of thought. This task I endeavored to accomplish in my last Lecture. To pursue the conclusion thus obtained to its legitimate consequences in relation to Theology, we must next inquire how the human mind, thus limited, is able to form the idea of a relation between man and God, and what is the nature of the conception of God which arises from the consciousness of this relation. The purpose of our inquiry is to ascertain the limits of religious thought; and, for this purpose, it is necessary to proceed from the limits of thought and of human consciousness in general, to those particular forms of consciousness which, in thought, or in some other mode, especially constitute the essence of Religion.

Reasonings, probable or demonstrative, in proof of the being and attributes of God, have met with a very different reception at different periods. Elevated at one time, by the injudicious zeal of their advocates, to a certainty and importance to which they have no legitimate claim, at another, by an equally extravagant reäction, they have been sacrificed in the mass to some sweeping principle of criticism, or destroyed piecemeal by minute objections in detail. While one school of theologians has endeavored to raise the whole edifice of the Christian Faith on a basis of metaphysical proof,⁽²⁾ others have either expressly maintained that the understanding has nothing to do with religious belief, or have indirectly attempted to establish the same conclusion by special refutations of the particular reasonings.⁽³⁾

An examination of the actual state of the human mind, as regards religious ideas, will lead us to a conclusion intermediate between these two extremes. On the one hand, it must be allowed that it is not through reasoning that men obtain the first intimation of their relation to the Deity; and that, had they been left to the guidance of their intellectual faculties alone, it is possible that no such intimation might have taken place; or at best, that it would have been but as one guess, out of many equally plausible and equally natural. Those who lay exclusive stress on the proof of the existence of God from the marks of design in the world, or from the necessity of supposing a first cause of all phenomena, overlook the fact that man learns to pray before he learns to reason,—that he feels within him the consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship, before he can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the traces of wisdom and benevolence scattered through the creation. But, on the other hand, arguments which would be insufficient to create the notion of a Supreme Being in a mind previously destitute of it, may have great force and value in enlarging or correcting a notion already existing, and in justifying to the reason the unreasoning convictions of the heart. The belief in a God, once given, becomes the nucleus round which subsequent experiences cluster and accumulate; and evidences which would be obscure or ambiguous, if addressed to the reason only, become clear and convincing, when interpreted by the light of the religious consciousness.

We may therefore, without hesitation, accede to the argument of the great critic of metaphysics, when he tells us that the speculative reason is unable to prove the existence of a Supreme Being, but can only correct our conception of such a Being, supposing it to be already obtained.⁽⁴⁾ But, at the same time, it is necessary to protest against the pernicious extent to which the reaction against the use of the reason in theology has in too many instances been carried. When the same critic tells us that we cannot legitimately infer, from the order and design visible in the world, the omnipotence and omniscience of its Creator, because a degree of power and wisdom short of the very highest might possibly be sufficient to produce all the effects which we are able to discern;⁽⁵⁾ or when a later writer, following in the same track, condemns the argument from final causes, because it represents God exclusively in the aspect of an artist;⁽⁶⁾ or when a third writer, of a different school, tells us that the processes of thought have nothing to do with the soul, the organ of religion;⁽⁷⁾—we feel that systems which condemn the use of reasoning in sacred things may be equally one-sided and extravagant with those which assert its Supreme authority. Reasoning must not be condemned for failing to accomplish what no possible mode of human consciousness ever does or can accomplish. If consciousness itself is a limitation; if every mode of consciousness is a determination of the mind in one particular manner out of many possible;—it follows indeed that the infinite is beyond the reach of man’s arguments; but only as it is also beyond the reach of his feelings or his volitions. We cannot indeed reason to the existence of an infinite Cause from the presence of finite effects, nor contemplate the infinite in a finite mode of knowledge; but neither can we feel the infinite in the form of a finite affection, nor discern it as the law of a finite action. If our whole consciousness of God is partial and incomplete, composed of various attributes manifested in various relations, why should we condemn the reasoning which represents Him in a single aspect, so long as it neither asserts nor implies that that aspect is the only one in which He can be represented? If man is not a creature composed solely of intellect, or solely of will, why should any one element of his nature be excluded from participating in the pervading consciousness of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being?

Acts xvii. 28.

Taking, then, as the basis of our inquiry, the admission that the whole consciousness of man, whether in thought, or in feeling, or in volition, is limited in the manner of its operation and in the objects to which it is related, let us endeavor, with regard to the religious consciousness in particular, to separate from each other the complicated threads which, in their united web, constitute the conviction of man’s relation to a Supreme Being. In distinguishing, however, one portion of these as forming the origin of this conviction, and another portion as contributing rather to its further development and direction, I must not be understood to maintain or imply that the former could have existed and been recognized, prior to and independently of the cooperation of the latter. Consciousness, in its earliest discernible form, is only possible as the result of an union of the reflective with the intuitive faculties. A state of mind, to be known at all as existing, must be distinguished from other states; and, to make this distinction, we must think of it, as well as experience it. Without thought as well as sensation, there could be no consciousness of the existence of an external world: without thought as well as emotion and volition, there could be no consciousness of the moral nature of man. Sensation without thought would at most amount to no more than an indefinite sense of uneasiness or momentary irritation, without any power of discerning in what manner we are affected, or of distinguishing our successive affections from each other. To distinguish, for example, in the visible world, any one object from any other, to know the house as a house, or the tree as a tree, we must be able to refer them to distinct notions; and such reference is an act of thought. The same condition holds good of the religious consciousness also. In whatever mental affection we become conscious of our relation to a Supreme Being, we can discern that consciousness, as such, only by reflecting upon it as conceived under its propel notion. Without this, we could not know our religious consciousness to be what it is; and, as the knowledge of a fact of consciousness is identical with its existence,—without this, the religious consciousness, as such, could not exist.

But, notwithstanding this necessary coöperation of thought in every manifestation of human consciousness, it is not to the reflective faculties that we must look, if we would discover the origin of religion. For, to the exercise of reflection, it is necessary that there should exist an object on which to reflect; and though, in the order of time, the distinct recognition of this object is simultaneous with the act of reflecting upon it, yet, in the order of nature, the latter presupposes the former. Religious thought, if it is to exist at all, can only exist as representative of some fact of religious intuition,—of some individual state of mind, in which is presented, as an immediate fact, that relation of man to God, of which man, by reflection, may become distinctly and definitely conscious.

Two such states may be specified, as dividing between them the rude material out of which Reflection builds up the edifice of Religious Consciousness. These are the Feeling of Dependence and the Conviction of Moral Obligation. To these two facts of the inner consciousness may be traced, as to their sources, the two great outward acts by which religion in various forms has been manifested among men;—Prayer, by which they seek to win God’s blessing upon the future, and Expiation, by which they strive to atone for the offences of the past.⁽⁸⁾ The feeling of Dependence is the instinct which urges us to pray. It is the feeling that our existence and welfare are in the hands of a superior Power;—not of an inexorable Fate or immutable Law; but of a Being having at least so far the attributes of Personality, that He can show favor or severity to those dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by them with the feelings of hope, and fear, and reverence, and gratitude. It is a feeling similar in kind, though higher in degree, to that which is awakened in the mind of the child towards his parent, who is first manifested to his mind as the (giver of such things as are needful, and to whom the first language he addresses is that of entreaty. It is the feeling so fully and intensely expressed in the language of the Psalmist: “Thou art he that took me out of my mother’s womb: thou wast my hope, when I hanged yet upon my mother’s breasts. I have been left unto thee ever since I was born: thou art my God even from my mother’s womb. Be not thou far from me, O Lord: thou art my succour; haste thee to help me. I will declare thy Name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.”

Psalm xxii. 9, 10, 19, 22.

But the mere consciousness of dependence does not of itself exhibit the character of the Being on whom we depend. It is as consistent with superstition as with religion;—with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent Deity: it is as much called into existence by the severities, as by the mercies of God; by the suffering which we are unable to avert, as by the benefits which we did not ourselves procure.⁽⁹⁾ The Being on whom we depend is, in that single relation, manifested in the infliction of pain, as well as in the bestowal of happiness. But in order to make suffering, as well as enjoyment, contribute to the religious education of man, it is necessary that he should be conscious, not merely of suffering, but of sin;—that he should look upon pain not merely as inflicted, but as deserved; and should recognize in its Author the justice that punishes, not merely the anger that harms. In the feeling of dependence, we are conscious of the Power of God, but not necessarily of His Goodness. This deficiency, however, is supplied by the the other element of religion,—the Consciousness of Moral Obligation,—carrying with it, as it necessarily does, the Conviction of Sin. It is impossible to establish, as a great modern philosopher has attempted to do, the theory of an absolute Autonomy of the Will; that is to say, of an obligatory law, resting on no basis but that of its own imperative character.⁽¹⁰⁾ Considered solely in itself, with no relation to any higher authority, the consciousness of a law of obligation is a fact of our mental constitution, and it is no more. The fiction of an absolute law, binding on all rational beings, has only an apparent universality; because we can only conceive other rational beings by identifying their constitution with our own, and making, human reason the measure and representative of reason in general. Why then has one part of our constitution, merely as such, an imperative authority over the remainder? What right has one portion of the human consciousness to represent itself as duty, and another merely as inclination? There is but one answer possible. The moral Reason, or Will, or Conscience, of Man, call it by what name we please, can have no authority, save as implanted in him by some higher Spiritual Being, as a Law emanating from a Lawgiver. Man can be a law unto himself, only on the supposition that he reflects in himself the Law of God;—that he shows, as the Apostle tells us, the works of that law written in his heart.

Romans ii. 15.

LECTURE V.

FOR AFTER THAT IN THE WISDOM OF GOD THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD, IT PLEASED GOD BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING TO SAVE THEM THAT BELIEVE. FOR THE JEWS REQUIRE A SIGN, AND THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM: BUT WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED, UNTO THE JEWS A STUMBLINGBLOCK, AND UNTO THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO THEM WHICH ARE CALLED, BOTH JEWS AND GREEKS, CHRIST TI1E POWER OF GOD, AND THE WISDOM OF GOD.—1 CORINTHIANS 1. 21-24.

“THOUGH it were admitted,” says Bishop Butler, “that this opinion of Necessity were speculatively true; yet, with regard to practice, it is as if it were false, so far as our experience reaches; that is, to the whole of our present life. For the constitution of the present world, and the condition in which we are actually placed, is as if we were free. And it may perhaps justly be concluded that, since the whole process of action, through every step of it, suspense, deliberation, inclining one way, determining, and at last doing as we determine, is as if we were free, therefore we are so. But the thing here insisted upon is, that under the present natural government of the world, we find we are treated and dealt with as if we were free, prior to all consideration whether we are or not.”⁽¹⁾

That this observation has in any degree settled the speculative difficulties involved in the problem of Liberty and Necessity, will not be maintained by any one who is acquainted with the history of the controversy. Nor was it intended by its author to do so. But, like many other pregnant sentences of that great thinker, it introduces a principle capable of a much wider application than to the inquiry which originally suggested it. The vexed question of Liberty and necessity, whose counter-arguments have become a by-word for endless and unprofitable wrangling, is but one of a large class of problems, some of which meet us at every turn of our daily life and conduct, whenever we attempt to justify in theory that which we are compelled to carry out in practice. Such problems arise inevitably, whenever we attempt to pass from the sensible to the intelligible world, from the sphere of action to that of thought, from that which appears to us to that which is in itself: In religion, in morals, in our daily business, in the care of our lives, in the exercise of our senses, the rules which guide our practice cannot be reduced to principles which satisfy our reason.⁽²⁾

The very first Law of Thought, and, through Thought, of all Consciousness, by which alone we are able to discern objects as such, or to distinguish them one from another, involves in its constitution a mystery and a doubt, which no effort of Philosophy has been able to penetrate:—How can the One be many, or the Many one?⁽³⁾ We are compelled to regard ourselves and our fellow-men as persons, and the visible world around us as made up of things: but what is personality, and what is reality, are questions which the wisest have tried to answer, and have tried in vain. Man, as a Person, is one, yet composed of many elements;—not identical with any one of them, nor yet with the aggregate of them all; and yet not separable from them by any effort of abstraction. Man is one in his thoughts, in his actions, in his feelings, and in the responsibilities which these involve. It is I who think, I who act, I who feel; yet I am not thought, nor action, nor feeling, nor a combination of thoughts and actions and feelings heaped together. Extension, and resistance, and shape, and the various sensible qualities, make up my conception of each individual body as such; yet the body is not its extension, nor its shape, nor its hardness, nor its color, nor its smell, nor its taste; nor yet is it a mere aggregate of all these with no principle of unity among them. If these several parts constitute a single whole, the unity, as well as the plurality, must depend upon some principle which that whole contains: if they do not constitute a whole, the difficulty is removed but a single step; for the same question,—what constitutes individuality?—must be asked in relation to each separate part. The actual conception of every object, as such, involves the combination of the One and the Many; and that combination is practically made every time we think at all. But at the same time, no effort of reason is able to explain how such a relation is possible; or to satisfy the intellectual doubt which necessarily arises on the contemplation of it.

As it is with the first law of Thought, so it is with the first principle of Action and of Feeling. All action, whether free or constrained, and all passion, implies and rests upon another great mystery of Philosophy,—the Commerce between Mind and Matter. The properties and operations of matter are known only by the external senses: the faculties and acts of the mind are known only by the internal apprehension. The energy of the one is motion: the energy of the other is consciousness. What is the middle term which unites these two? and how c8n their reciprocal action, unquestionable as it is in fact, be conceived as possible in theory?⁽⁴⁾ How can a contact between body and body produce consciousness in the immaterial soul? How can a mental self-determination produce the motion of material organs?⁽⁵⁾ How can mind, which is neither extended nor figured nor colored itself, represent by its ideas the extension and figure and color of bodies? How can the body be determined to a new position in space by an act of thought, to which space has no relation? How can thought itself be carried on by bodily instruments, and yet itself have nothing in common with bodily affections? What is the relation between the last pulsation of the material brain and the first awakening of the mental perception? How does the spoken word, a merely material vibration of the atmosphere, become echoed, as it were, in the silent voice of thought, and take its part in an operation wholly spiritual? Here again we acknowledge, in our daily practice, a fact which we are unable to represent in theory; and the various hypotheses to which Philosophy has had recourse,—the Divine Assistance, the Preëstablished Harmony, the Plastic Medium, and others,⁽⁶⁾ are but so many confessions of the existence of the mystery, and of the extraordinary, yet wholly insufficient efforts made by human reason to penetrate it.⁽⁷⁾

The very perception of our senses is subject to the same restrictions. “No priestly dogmas,” says Hume, “ever shocked common sense more than the infinite divisibility of extension, with its consequences.”⁽⁸⁾ He should have added, that the antagonist assumption of a finite divisibility is equally incomprehensible; it being as impossible to conceive an ultimate unit, or least possible extension, as it is to conceive the process of division carried on to infinity. Extension is presented to the mind as a relation between parts exterior to each other, whose reality cannot consist merely in their juxtaposition. We are thus compelled to believe that extension itself is dependent upon some higher law;—that it is not an original principle of things in themselves, but a derived result of their connection with each other. But to conceive how this generation of space is possible,—how unextended objects can by their conjunction produce extension,—baffles the utmost efforts of the wildest imagination or the profoundest reflection.⁽⁹⁾ We cannot conceive how unextended matter can become extended; for of unextended matter we know nothing, either in itself or in its relations; though we are apparently compelled to postulate its existence, as implied in the appearances of which alone we are conscious. The existence of mental succession in time is as inexplicable as that of a material extension in space;—a first moment and an infinite regress of moments being both equally inconceivable, no less than the corresponding theories of a first atom and an infinite division.

The difficulty which meets us in these problems may help to throw some light on the purposes for which human thought is designed, and the limits within which it may be legitimately exercised. The primary fact of consciousness, which is accepted as regulating our practice, is in itself inexplicable, but not inconceivable. There is mystery; but there is not yet contradiction. Thought is baffled, and unable to pursue the track of investigation; but it does not grapple with an idea and destroy itself in the struggle. Contradiction does not begin till we direct our thoughts, not to the fact itself, but to that which it suggests as beyond itself. This difference is precisely that which exists between following the laws of thought, and striving to transcend them;—between leaving the mystery of Knowing and Being unsolved, and making unlawful attempts to solve it. The facts,—that all objects of thought are conceived as wholes composed of parts; that mind acts upon matter, and matter upon mind; that bodies are extended in space, and thoughts successive in time,—do not, in their own statement, severally contain elements repulsive of each other. As mere facts, they are so far front being inconceivable, that they embody the very laws of conception itself, and are experienced at every moment as true: but though we are able, nay, compelled to conceive them as facts, we find it impossible to conceive them as ultimate facts. They are made known to us as relations; and all relations are in themselves complex, and imply simpler principles;—objects to be related, and a ground by which the relation is constituted. The conception of any such relation as a fact thus involves a further inquiry concerning its existence as a consequence; and to this inquiry no satisfactory answer can be given. Thus the highest principles of thought and action, to which we can attain, are regulative, not speculative;—they do not serve to satisfy the reason, but to guide the conduct; they do not tell us what things are in themselves, but how we must conduct ourselves in relation to them.

The conclusion which this condition of human consciousness almost irresistibly forces upon us, is one which equally exhibits the strength and the weakness of the human intellect. We are compelled to admit that the mind, in its contemplation of objects, is not the mere passive recipient of the things presented to it; but has an activity and a law of its own, by virtue of which it reäcts upon the materials existing without, and moulds them into that form in which consciousness is capable of apprehending them. The existence of modes of thought, which we are compelled to accept as at the same time relatively ultimate and absolutely derived,—as limits beyond which we cannot penetrate, yet which themselves proclaim that there is a further truth behind and above them,—-suggests, as its obvious explanation, the hypothesis of a mind cramped by its own laws, and bewildered in the contemplation of its own forms. If the mind, in the act of consciousness, were merely blank and inert;—if the entire object of its contemplation came from without, and nothing from within; -no fact of consciousness would be inexplicable; for everything would present itself as it is. No reality would be suggested, beyond what is actually given: no question would be asked which is not already answered. For how can doubt arise, where there is no innate power in the mind to think beyond what is placed before it,—to reäct upon that which acts upon it? But upon the contrary supposition, all is regular, and the result such as might naturally be expected. If thought has laws of its own, it cannot by its own act go beyond them; yet the recognition of law, as a restraint, implies the existence of a sphere of liberty beyond. If the mind contributes its own element to the objects of consciousness, it must, in its first recognition of those objects, necessarily regard them as something complex, something generated partly from without and partly from within. Yet in that very recognition of the complex, as such, is implied an impossibility of attaining to the simple; for to resolve the composition is to destroy the very act of knowledge, and the relation by which consciousness is constituted. The object of which we are conscious is thus, to adopt the well-known language of the Kantian philosophy, a phenomenon, not a thing in itself;—a product, resulting from the twofold action of the thing apprehended, on the one side, and the faculties apprehending it, on the other. The perceiving subject alone, and the perceived object alone, are two unmeaning elements, which first acquire a significance in and by the act of their conjunction.⁽¹⁰⁾

LECTURE VI.

FOR WHAT MAN KNOWETH THE THINGS OF A MAN, SAVE THE SPIRIT OF MAN WHICH IS IN HIM? EVEN SO THE THINGS OF GOD KNOWETH NO MAN, BUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD.—1 CORINTHIANS II. 11.

THE conclusion to be drawn from our previous inquiries is, that the doctrines of Revealed Religion, like all other objects of human thought, have a relation to the constitution of the thinker to whom they are addressed; within which relation their practical application and significance is confined. At the same time, this very relation indicates the existence of a higher form of the same truths, beyond the range of human intelligence, and therefore not capable of representation in any positive mode of thought. Religious ideas, in short, like all other objects of man’s consciousness, are composed of two distinct elements,—a Matter, furnished from without, and a Form, imposed from within by the laws of the mind itself. The latter element is common to all objects of thought as such: the former is the peculiar and distinguishing feature, by which the doctrines of Revelation are distinguished from other religious representations, derived from natural sources; or by which, in more remote comparison, religious ideas in general may be distinguished from those relating to other objects. Now it is indispensable, before we can rightly estimate the value of the various objections which are adduced against this or that representation of Christian doctrine, to ascertain which of these elements it is, against which the force of the objection really makes itself felt. There may be objections whose force, such as it is, tells against the revealed doctrine alone, and which are harmless when directed against any other mode of religious representation. And there may also be objections which are applicable to the form which revealed religion shares in common with other modes of human thinking, and whose force, if they have any, is in reality directed, not against Revelation in particular, but against all Religion, and indeed against all Philosophy also. Now if, upon examination, it should appear that the principal objections which are raised on the side of Rationalism properly so called,—those, namely, which turn on a supposed incompatibility between the doctrine of Scripture and the deductions of human reason, are of the latter kind, and not of the former, Christianity is at least so far secure from any apprehension of danger from the side of rational philosophy. For the weapon with which she is assailed exhibits its own weakness in the very act of assailing. If there is error or imperfection in the essential forms of human thought, it must adhere to the thought criticizing, no less than to the thought criticized; and the result admits of but two legitimate alternatives. Either we must abandon ourselves to an absolute Skepticism, which believes nothing and disbelieves nothing, and which thereby destroys itself in believing that nothing is to be believed; or we must confess that reason, in thus criticizing, has transcended its legitimate province: that it has failed, not through its inherent weakness, but through being misdirected in its aim. We must then shift the inquiry to another field, and allow our belief to be determined, not solely by the internal character of the doctrines themselves, as reasonable or unreasonable, but partly at least, by the evidence which can be produced in favor of their asserted origin as a fact. The reasonable believer, in short, must abstain from pronouncing judgment on the nature of the message, until he has fairly examined the credentials of the messenger.

There are two methods by which such an examination of objections may be conducted. We may commence by an analysis of thought in general, distinguishing the Form, or permanent element, from the Matter, or variable element; and then, by applying the results of that analysis to special instances, we may show, upon deductive grounds, the formal or material character of this or that class of objections. Or we may reverse the process, commencing by an examination of the objections themselves; and, by exhibiting them in their relation to other doctrines besides those of Revelation, we may arrive at the same conclusion as to their general or special applicability. The former method is perhaps the most searching and complete, but could hardly be adequately carried out within my present limits, nor without the employment of a language more technical than would be suitable on this occasion. In selecting the latter method, as the more appropriate, I must request my hearers to bear in mind the general principles which it is proposed to exhibit in one or two special instances. These are, first, that there is no rational difficulty in Christian Theology which has not its corresponding difficulty in human Philosophy: and, secondly, that, therefore we may reasonably conclude that the stumblingblocks which the rationalist professes to find in the doctrines of revealed religion arise, not from defects peculiar to revelation, but from the laws and limits of human thought in general, and are thus inherent in the method of rationalism itself, not in the objects which it pretends to criticize.

But, before applying this method to the peculiar doctrines of the Christian revelation, it will be desirable to say a few words on a preliminary condition, on which our belief in the possibility of any revelation at all is dependent. We must justify, in the first instance, the limitations which have been assigned to human reason in relation to the great foundation of all religious belief whatsoever: we must show how far the same method warrants the assertion which has been already made on other grounds; namely, that we may and ought to believe in the existence of a God whose nature we are unable to comprehend; that we are bound to believe that God exists; and to acknowledge Him as our Sustainer and our Moral Governor: though we are wholly unable to declare what He is in His own Absolute Essence.⁽¹⁾

Many philosophical theologians, who are far from rejecting any of the essential doctrines of revelation, are yet unwilling to ground their acceptance of them on the duty of believing in the inconceivable. “The doctrine of the incognizability of the Divine essence,” says the learned and deep-thinking Julius Müller, “with the intention of exalting God to the highest, deprives Him of the realities, without which, as it is itself obliged to confess, we cannot really think of Him. That this negative result, just as decidedly as the assumption of an absolute knowledge of God, contradicts the Holy Scriptures, which especially teach that God becomes revealed in Christ, as it does that of the simple Christian consciousness, may be too easily shown for it to be requisite that we should here enter upon the same: it is also of itself clear into what a strange position theology must fall by the renunciation of the knowledge of its essential object.”⁽²⁾ As regards the former part of this objection, I endeavored, in my last Lecture, to show that a full belief in God, as revealed in Christ, is not incompatible with a speculative inability to apprehend the Divine Essence. As regards the latter part, it is important to observe the exact parallel which in this respect exists between the fundamental conception of Theology and that of Philosophy. The Principle of Causality, the father, as it has been called, of metaphysical science,⁽³⁾ is to the philosopher what the belief in the existence of God is to the theologian. Both are principles inherent in our nature, exhibiting, whatever may be their origin, those characteristics of universality and certainty which mark them as part of the inalienable inheritance of the human mind. Neither can be reduced to a mere logical inference from the facts of a limited and contingent experience. Both are equally indispensable to their respective sciences: without Causation, there can be no Philosophy; as without God there can be no Theology. Yet to this day, while enunciating now, as ever, the fundamental axiom, that for every event there must be a Cause, Philosophy has never been able to determine what Causation is; to analyze the elements which the causal nexus involves; or to show by what law she is justified in assuming the universal postulate upon which all her reasonings depend.⁽⁴⁾ The Principle of Causality has ever been, and probably ever will be, the battle ground on which, from generation to generation, Philosophy has struggled for her very existence in the death-gripe of Skepticism; and at every pause in the contest, the answer has been still the same: “We cannot explain it, but we must believe it.” Causation is not the mere invariable association of antecedent and consequent: we feel that it implies something more than this.⁽⁵⁾ Yet, beyond the little sphere of our own volitions, what more can we discover? and within that sphere, what do we discover that we can explain?⁽⁶⁾ The unknown something, call it by what name you will,—power, effort, tendency,—still remains absolutely concealed, yet is still conceived as absolutely indispensable. Of Causality, as of Deity, we may almost say, in the emphatic language of Augustine, “Cujus nulla scientia est in anima, nisi scire quomodo eum nesciat.”⁽⁷⁾ We can speak out boldly and clearly of each, if we are asked, what it is not: we are silent only when we are asked, what it is. The eloquent words of the same great father are as applicable to human as to divine Philosophy:

“God is ineffable; more easily do we tell what He is not, than what He is. You think of earth; this is not God: of the sea; this is not God: of all things that are on the earth, men and animals; these are not God: of all that are in the sea, that fly through the air; these are not God: of whatever shines in heaven, stars, sun, and moon; these are not God: the heaven itself; this is not God. Think of Angels, Virtues, Powers, Archangels, Thrones, Seats, Dominations; these are not God, And what is He? This only can I tell, what He is not.

LECTURE VII.

YET YE SAY, THE WAY OF THE LORD IS NOT EQUAL. HEAR NOW, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL; IS NOT MY WAY EQUAL? ARE NOT YOUR WAYS UNEQUAL?-EZEKIEL XVIII. 25.

“IF I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”

Galatians ii. 18.

LECTURE VIII.

THE WORKS WHICH THE FATHER HATH GIVEN ME TO FINISH, THE SAME WORKS THAT I DO, BEAR WITNESS OF ME, THAT THE FATHER HATH SENT ME.—ST. JOHN V. 36.

TO construct a complete Criticism of any Revelation, it is necessary that the Critic should be in possession of a perfect Philosophy of the Infinite. For, except on the supposition that we possess an exact knowledge of the whole Nature of God, such as only that Philosophy can furnish, we cannot know for certain what are the purposes which God intends to accomplish by means of Revelation, and what are the instruments by which those purposes may be best carried out. If then it can be shown, as I have attempted to show in the previous Lectures, that the attainment of a Philosophy of the Infinite is utterly impossible under the existing laws of human thought, it follows that it is not by means of philosophical criticism that the claims of a supposed Revelation can be adequately tested. We are thus compelled to seek another field for the right use of Reason in religious questions; and what that field is, it will not be difficult to determine. To Reason, rightly employed, within its proper limits and on its proper objects, our Lord himself and his Apostles openly appealed in proof of their divine mission; and the same proof has been unhesitatingly claimed by the defenders of Christianity in all subsequent ages. In other words, the legitimate object of a rational criticism of revealed religion, is not to be found in the contents of that religion, but in its evidences.

At first sight it may appear as if this distinction involved no real difference; for the contents of a revelation, it might be objected, are included among its evidences. In one sense, no doubt they are; but that very inclusion gives them a totally different significance and weight from that to which they lay claim when considered as the basis of a philosophical criticism. In the one case, they are judged by their conformity to the supposed nature and purposes of God; in the other, by their adaptation to the actual circumstances and wants of man. In the one case they are regarded as furnishing a single and a certain criterion; for on the supposition that our reason is competent to determine, from our knowledge of the Divine Nature, what the characteristics of a true Revelation ought to be, we are entitled, by virtue of that criterion alone, to reject without hesitation whatever does not satisfy its requirements. In the other case, they are regarded as furnishing only one probable presumption out of many;—a presumption which may confirm and be confirmed by coinciding testimony from other sources, or, on the contrary, may be outweighed, when we come to balance probabilities, by conflicting evidence on the other side.

The practical conclusion, which may be deduced from the whole previous survey of the Limits of Religious Thought, is this: that if no one faculty of the human mind is competent to convey a direct knowledge of the Absolute and the Infinite, no one faculty is entitled to claim preëminence over the rest, as furnishing especially the criterion of the truth or falsehood of a supposed Revelation. There are presumptions to be drawn from the internal character of the doctrines which the revelation contains: there are presumptions to be drawn from the facts connected with its first promulgation: there are presumptions to be drawn from its subsequent history and the effects which it has produced among mankind. But the true evidence, for or against the religion, is not to be found in any one of these taken singly and exclusively; but in the resultant of all, fairly examined and compared together; the apparently conflicting evidences being balanced against each other, and the apparently concurring evidences estimated by their united efficacy.

A truth so obvious as this may be thought hardly worth announcing as the result of an elaborate inquiry. But the whole history of religious controversy bears witness that, however evident in theory, there is no truth m6re liable to be neglected in practice. The defenders of Christianity are not altogether free from the charge of insisting exclusively or preëminently upon some one alone of its evidences: the assailants, under the influence of a still more exclusive reäction, have assumed that a method which fails to accomplish everything has succeeded in accomplishing nothing; and, flying at once to the opposite extreme, have in their turn appealed to some one infallible criterion, as constituting a royal road to philosophical unbelief.

In the present day we are feeling the pernicious effects of a reaction of this kind. Because the writings of Paley and his followers in the last generation laid a principal stress on the direct historical evidences of Christianity, we meet now with an antagonist school of writers, who perpetually assure us that history has nothing whatever to do with religion;⁽¹⁾ that an external revelation of religious truth is impossible;⁽²⁾ that we may learn all that is essential to the Gospel by inward and spiritual evidence only.⁽³⁾ In the spirit of the Pharisees of old, who said, “This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day,”

St. John ix. 16.

The evidence derived from the internal character of a religion, whatever may be its value within its proper limits, is, as regards the divine origin of the religion, purely negative. It may prove in certain cases (though even here the argument requires much caution in its employment) that a religion has not come from God; but it is in no case sufficient to prove that it has come from Him.⁽⁷⁾ For the doctrines revealed must either be such as are within the power of man's natural reason to verify, or such as are beyond it. In the former case, the reason which is competent to verify may also be competent to discover: the doctrine is tested by its conformity to the conclusions of human philosophy; and the wisdom which sits in judgment on the truth of a doctrine must itself be presumed to have an equal power of discerning the truth. In the latter case, where the doctrine is beyond the power of human reason to discover, it can be accepted only as resting on the authority of the teacher who proclaims it; and that authority itself must then be guaranteed by the external evidence of a superhuman mission. To advance a step beyond the merely negative argument, it is necessary that the evidence contained in the character of the doctrine itself should be combined with that derived from the exterior history. When, for example, the Divine Origin of Christianity is maintained, on the ground of its vast moral superiority to all Heathen systems of Ethics; or on that of the improbability that such a system could have been conceived by a Galilean peasant among the influences of the contemporary Judaism; the argument is legitimate and powerful: but its positive force depends not merely on the internal character of the doctrine, but principally on its relation to certain external facts.⁽⁸⁾

And even the negative argument, which concludes from the character of the contents of a religion that it cannot have come from God, however legitimate within its proper limits, is one which requires considerable caution in the application. The lesson to be learnt from an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought, is not that man’s judgments are worthless in relation to divine things, but that they are fallible; and the probability of error in any particular case can never be fairly estimated, without giving their full weight to all collateral considerations. We are indeed bound to believe that a Revelation given by God can never contain anything that is really unwise or unrighteous; but we are not always capable of estimating exactly the wisdom or righteousness of particular doctrines or precepts. And we are bound to bear in mind that exactly in proportion to the strength of the remaining evidence for the divine origin of a religion, is the probability that we may be mistaken in supposing this or that portion of its contents to be unworthy of God. Taken in conjunction, the two arguments may confirm or correct each other: taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the result which should follow from their joint application. We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the moral attributes of God; we can but infer and conjecture from what we know of the moral attributes of man: and the analogy between the Finite and the Infinite can never be so perfect as to preclude all possibility of error in the process. But the possibility becomes almost a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, without regard to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be modified and corrected.

“The human mind,” says a writer of the present day, “is competent to sit in moral and spiritual judgment on a professed revelation; and to decide, if the case seems to require it, in the following tone: This doctrine attributes to God, that which we should all call harsh, cruel, or unjust in man: it is therefore intrinsically inadmissible.” . . . “In fact,” he continues, “all Christian apostles and missionaries, like the Hebrew prophets, have always refuted Paganism by direct attacks on its immoral and unspiritual doctrines; and have appealed to the consciences of heathens, as competent to decide in the controversy.”⁽⁹⁾ Now, an appeal of this kind may be legitimate or not, according to the purpose for which it is made, and the manner in which it is applied. The primary and proper employment of man’s moral sense, as of his other faculties, is not speculative, but regulative. It is not designed to tell us what are the absolute and immutable principles of Right, as existing in the eternal nature of God; but to discern those relative and temporary manifestations of them, which are necessary for human training in this present life. But if morality, in its human manifestation, contains a relative and temporary, as well as an absolute and eternal element, an occasional suspension of the human Law is by no means to be confounded with a violation of the divine Principle. We can only partially judge of the Moral government of God, on the assumption that there is an analogy between the divine nature and the human: and in proportion as the analogy recedes from perfect likeness, the decisions of the human reason necessarily become more and more doubtful. The primary and direct inquiry, which human reason is entitled to make concerning a professed revelation is,—how far does it tend to promote or to hinder the moral discipline of man. It is but a secondary and indirect question, and one very liable to mislead, to ask how far it is compatible with the Infinite Goodness of God.

Thus, for example, it is one thing to condemn a religion on account of the habitual observance of licentious or inhuman rites of worship, and another to pronounce judgment on isolated acts, historically recorded as having been done by divine command, but not perpetuated in precepts for the imitation of posterity. The former are condemned for their regulative character, as contributing to the perpetual corruption of mankind; the latter are condemned on speculative grounds, as inconsistent with our preconceived notions of the character of God. “There are some particular precepts in Scripture,” says Bishop Butler, “given to particular persons, requiring actions, which would be immoral and vicious, were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see, that all these are of such a kind, as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the action; and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral, which, prior to the precept, must have appeared, and really have been so: which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the principles and act from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty; the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action, in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing an external action; for instance, taking away the property or life of any. For men have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely from the grant of God: when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either: and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either. And though a course of external acts, which without command would be immoral, must make an immoral habit; yet a few detached commands have no such natural tendency. . . . There seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their being offences: i. e. from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid purposes; and, perhaps, to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. And objections from this head are not objections against revelation; but against the whole notion of religion, as a trial; and against the general constitution of nature.”⁽¹⁰⁾

There is indeed an obvious analogy between these temporary suspensions of the laws of moral obligation and that corresponding suspension of the laws of natural phenomena which constitutes our ordinary conception of a Miracle. So much so, indeed, that the former might without impropriety be designated as Moral Miracles. In both, the Almighty is regarded as suspending, for special purposes, not the eternal laws which constitute His own absolute Nature, but the created laws, which he imposed at a certain time upon a particular portion of his creatures. Both are isolated and rare in their occurrence; and apparently, from the nature of the case, must be so, in order to unite harmoniously with the normal manifestations of God’s government of the world. A perpetual series of physical miracles would destroy that confidence in the regularity of the course of nature, which is indispensable to the cultivation of man’s intellectual and productive energies: a permanent suspension of practical duties would be similarly prejudicial to the cultivation of his moral character. But the isolated character of both classes of phenomena removes the objection which might otherwise be brought against them on this account: and this objection is the only one which can legitimately be urged, on philosophical grounds, against the conception of such cases as possible; as distinguished from the historical evidence, which may be adduced for or against their actual occurrence.

Even within its own legitimate province, an argument of this kind may have more or less weight, varying from the lowest presumption to the highest moral certainty, according to the nature of the offence which we believe ourselves to have detected, and the means which we possess of estimating its character or consequences. It is certain that we are not competent judges of the Absolute Nature of God: it is not certain that we are competent judges, in all cases, of what is best fitted for the moral discipline of man. But granting to the above argument its full value in this relation, it is still important to remember that we are dealing, not with demonstrative but with probable evidence; not with a single line of reasoning, but with a common focus, to which many and various rays converge; that we have not solved the entire problem, but only obtained one of the elements contributing to its solution. And the combined result of all these elements is by no means identical with the sum of their separate effects. The image, hitherto employed, of a balance of probabilities, is, in one respect at least, very inadequate to express the character of Christian evidence. It may be used with some propriety to express the provisional stage of the inquiry, while we are still uncertain to which side the evidence inclines; but it becomes inapplicable as soon as our decision is made. For the objections urged against a religion are not like the weights in a scale, which retain their full value, even when outweighed on the other side;—on the contrary, they become absolutely worthless, as soon as we are convinced that there is superior evidence to prove that the religion is true. We may not say, for example, that certain parts of the Christian scheme are unwise or unrighteous, though outweighed by greater acts of righteousness and wisdom;—we are bound to believe that we were mistaken from the first in supposing them to be unwise or unrighteous at all. In a matter of which we are so ignorant and so liable to be deceived, the objection which fails to prove everything proves nothing: from him that hath not, is taken away even that which he seemeth to have. And on the other hand, the objection which really proves anything proves everything. If the teaching of Christ is in any one thing not the teaching of God, it is in all things the teaching of man: its doctrines are subject to all the imperfections inseparable from man’s sinfulness and ignorance: its effects must be such as can fully be accounted for as the results of man’s wisdom, with all its weakness and all its error.

Here then is the issue, which the wavering disciple is bound seriously to consider. Taking into account the various questions whose answers, on the one side or the other, form the sum total of Evidences for or against the claims of the Christian Faith;—the genuineness and authenticity of the documents; the judgment and good faith of the writers; the testimony to the actual occurrence of prophecies and miracles, and their relation to the religious teaching with which they are connected; the character of the Teacher Himself, that one protrait, which, in its perfect purity and holiness and beauty, stands alone and unapproached in human history or human fiction; those rites and ceremonies of the elder Law, so significant as typical of Christ, so strange and meaningless without Him; those predictions of the promised Messiah, whose obvious meaning is rendered still more manifest by the futile ingenuity which strives to pervert them;⁽¹¹⁾ the history of the rise and progress of Christianity, and its comparison with that of other religions; the ability or inability of human means to bring about the results which it actually accomplished; its antagonism to the current ideas of the age and country of its origin; its effects as a system on the moral and social condition of subsequent generations of mankind; its fitness to satisfy the wants and console the sufferings of human nature; the character of those by whom it was first promulgated and received; the sufferings which attested the sincerity of their convictions; the comparative trustworthiness of ancient testimony and modern conjecture; the mutual contradictions of conflicting theories of unbelief, and the inadequacy of all of them to explain the facts for which they are bound to account;—taking all these and similar questions into full consideration, are you prepared to affirm, as the result of the whole inquiry, that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor, or an enthusiast, or a mythical figment; and his disciples crafty and designing, or well-meaning, but deluded men? For be assured, that nothing short of this is the conclusion which you must maintain, if you reject one jot or one tittle of the whole doctrine of Christ. Either He was what He proclaimed Himself to be,—the incarnate Son of God, the Divine Saviour of a fallen world—and if so, we may not divide God’s Revelation, and dare to put asunder what He has joined together,—or the civilized world for eighteen centuries has been deluded by a cunningly devised fable; and He from whom that fable came has turned that world from darkness to light, from Satan to God, with a lie in His right hand.

Many who would shrink with horror from the idea of rejecting Christ altogether, will yet speak and act as if they were at liberty to set up for themselves an eclectic Christianity; separating the essential from the superfluous portions of Christ’s teaching; deciding for themselves how much is permanent and necessary for all men, and how much is temporary and designed only for a particular age and people.⁽¹²⁾ Yet if Christ is indeed God manifest in the flesh, it is surely scarcely less impious to attempt to improve His teaching, than to reject it altogether. Nay, in one respect it is more so; for it is to acknowledge a doctrine as the revelation of God, and at the same time to proclaim that it is interior to the wisdom of man. That it may indeed come, and has come, within the purposes of God’s Providence, to give to mankind a Revelation partly at least designed for a temporary purpose, and for a limited portion of mankind;—a Law in which something was permitted to the hardness of men’s hearts,

St. Matthew xix. 8.

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