and mechanical, interpret only the mechanical structure of "He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies: Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will; First put it out, then take it for a guide."-Cowper. Not so the coming man, "the Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one;" realising religious feeling "in a form not out of keeping with the knowledge of the time," and aiming at the highest possible culture of the individuals, he will think in essentials as did Abraham, as did the pious cloistered monk, as did the true puritan, as do now the holy and lowly in heart; but he will put his thought in the language of a man,—not in that of the childhood of our race, and going beneath the symbolic superstratum, teach us to rest our faith on the underlying spiritual principle; not explaining Scripture as a book which fell from Heaven, but as written by holy men who were moved of God; one side all human, one side all divine-πάντα θεία και ἀνθρώπινα πάντα; “The Book of God,” say "God of Books." This coming man, Milton and Newton rolled into one, will not be an Antichrist to deny the Father and the Son, nor that man of sin who, by subtlety and force, shall renew the old delusion that men can be happy without God. We may expect clear proof that there are only two principles on which the system of the universe can be explained. 1. A Personal Intelligence creating, sustaining, ruling-this is the Christian hypothesis and will be preserved. 2. A supreme power, but no supreme being; an invisible principle, not a personal God-this really atheistic, is called the Pantheistic notion, and will be refused. 2. Law. It will be shewn that only two principles of government are possible in the world-1. Providence. Providence, foreseeing, arranging, applying. Law, ordering, subordinating, invariable. Providence, without law, would be irregular and capricious. Law, without providence, Two Principles of Government. II is necessity or fate. The doctrine of Providence requires not, but disallows unforeseen interventions; and the doctrine of law sets no limit to varieties of motion and life. The two principles, when applied, merge into one process; for as there is a world of mind, besides that of matter, and as our own mind subordinates matter by acting upon the intelligible order in it, we have proof of a twofold mental action; our own, in ascertaining and using the intelligible order; another, as manifested in that order. Providence then is the soul of law, and law is Providence in action; in other words, God governs by law. Now, it is evident that Providence must contain all law, and law administer all Providence; consequently no truly scientific man should say, "There never has been, and never will be, any intervention in the operation of natural laws."1 It is certain that the origin and maintenance of law are, unless every faculty fails us, by an ordaining Intelligence. Take an illustration of highest order-the Divine Individuality of Christ Jesus. He lived 1800 years ago, and was confessedly the crown and perfection of humanity. He could not have been the product of an atheistic, or of a pantheistic system of the universe: for perfection is only attainable as the ultimate outcome, as the indefinitely remote completion, of a well-nigh immeasurable period of evolution. The Perfect Man, therefore, must be regarded-not only on Scriptural, but on scientific grounds—as a providential Manifestation of the Divine Personality: for the appearance of Perfect Humanity in an age, by itself, wholly incapable of producing such a type was, in itself, a miracle. Such a break of continuity is conceivable and practicable only on the supposition of a Personal Ruler of the universe, of a Lawgiver higher than His own laws, manifesting Himself equally in the orderly sequence of Nature, and in those Supernatural Revelations which, as breaking in upon that orderly sequence, we call miraculous. We obtain the same truth from three representatives of opposing schools of thought: "The Life of Christ," by Dr Farrar; "Ecce Homo;" and "Vie de Jesus," by M. Renan. They agree on two great facts-1. That primitive Chris1 "Conflict between Religion and Science :" Professor Draper. x de That theory, whey ན a 12 Is Intellect Divorced from Piety? tianity is the true religion. 2. That Jesus, by whom it was given, is the one around whom universal history gathers. Hence it follows that the life of Christ was a real life. He undoubtedly lived and taught as the New Testament substantially represents; Providentially and by Law, He exhibited the true Fatherhood of God; lived as if with the touch of God, to quicken the dead; and, with the tenderness of God, to comfort the sorrowful. Christ was the highest and purest intellect the world ever possessed, and Christ confirmed the Old Testament record of creation, and enlarged the doctrine of God, so that in Christ we have example and proof that purest faith is married to highest reason. Revelation, the Divine warrant for piety, far from opposing Intelligence, is a special message to our intelligence, and unites the reasoning power of the philosopher, the imagination of the poet, and the inspiration of the seer. This trinity of graces renders the power of the Bibleone book, greater than the whole literature of Greecemany books. This one Book, from a nation despised by all in former and by some in present time, holds the world in awe. It is read and preached in hundreds and thousands of churches. It is in the cottage of the lowly man, and abides with the honourable; it weaves the literature of the scholar, and sweetens the common talk of life. It enters the closet of the student, the king's chamber, and the counsel-hall. In sickness and sadness, in perils and partings, in life and death, it tempers our grief to finer issues, and gladdens joy with yet brighter hopes. Our best prayers are in "its storied speech," which tells of earthly duties and heavenly rest, as if Plato's wisdom, Newton's science, and Raphael's art, had sought to make it beautiful and good. No other book, sacred or profane, can pretend to the suffrages of so many men of great genius, of so many intelligent and educated adherents from so many nations and races, or has formed, like it, "a succession of men heroically bent on making it universal." A Book, thus winning reason's highest triumphs, the crown of poetry, and glorification by art, revealing wisdom from the depths, morality from the heights, and transforming the deathangel into a heavenly messenger; approves itself to the best Erroneous View of Doubt. 13 and wisest of our race, unites intellect and piety in sacred bonds by authority of God. Professor Huxley, in his lecture on the "Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge," said:" The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith. .... The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification." Ob This is only half true. Making holes and filling them up again is a waste of labour. A continual undermining of foundations renders even the firmest fabrics insecure. servers in natural science must maintain their independence, and science progresses not authoritatively but experimentally; if, for example, we doubt whether there is on the floor of the deep ocean a thing called Bathybius, the doubt may arise. from our knowledge of the analogy of nature; but he who counts "scepticism the highest of duties" should doubt concerning his doubt, and deny any actuality or reality toknowledge. "Theological habits of thought are relatively useful, while scepticism, if permanent, is intellectually and morally pernicious." It is well to dig about trees, not to uproot them; and we all know, as to Scripture and science, theology and therapeutics, that the mass must wait outside and receive the result on authority. A thoughtful ath! man has remarked,-"To bring into doubt in any way (and it is of little moment in what way, or on what pretext), that which the common sense of mankind has always assumed to be certain, is, if not to shake the evidence of all truth, yet to paralyse the faculty by which evidence of any kind is seized and held.” 2 Even in natural knowledge the researches and discoveries. of the most self-reliant investigators are worked out upon the foundation laid by previous authority, whether that 1 "Cosmic Philosophy :" John Fiske. 2" Physical Theory of Another Life: " Isaac Taylor. authority be censured, or amended and confirmed; and must be matter of faith to most men, only to be justified by those who have power to verify. Would the learned professor call it intelligence or stupidity, for common men to deny everything that they do not know by their own actual verification? Is the professor's own authority to be absolutely rejected? Did he never try to overcome authoritatively a fellow-labourer by the dogmatic expression of his belief? Must the botanist try, by his own star-measurement, every statement of the astronomer; and the patient demand proof, in the physician's prescription, that the drugs will heal? Or are godly men, with their prayerful, scholarly, critical, and historical investigations, the only men whose authority is to be absolutely rejected? Doubt, in itself, is not a mark of knowledge; but is certain proof of ignorance. At the best, it is the halting step of prudence in pursuit of knowledge, but a contemptible thing indeed when men flaunt it as an encouragement to godless unbelief. What saith another professor ?-"We encounter our sceptical 'as if.' It is one of the parasites of science, ever at hand, and ready to plant itself, and sprout, if it can, on the weak points of our philosophy. But a strong constitution defies the parasite, and in our case, as we question the phenomena, probability grows like growing health, until in the end the malady of doubt is completely extirpated." As to the comfort of doubt, that is downright nonsense, there is no comfort in it; uncertainty and suspense are full of discomfort. Duty, far from delighting in it, does her best to get rid of it; and, obtaining confidence of conviction, reposes and rejoices in the truth, "La Philosophie est une tentative incessante de l'esprit humain pour arriver au repos." The argument strengthens in the region of morality and religion. Irresistible mathematical evidence would confound all characters and dispositions; subvert rather than promote the purpose of the Divine Counsel, which is to produce obedience as the free-will offering of love. Do we then ignore reason in religion? Certainly not. Religion is intensely practical, and experimentally realised and verified in the soul 1 "Scientific Use of the Imagination:" Professor Tyndall. |