CHAPTER V.

ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT.

THE next point to be considered is whether the Christian religion is really so strong and efficient a support of morality as it is common to suppose. An affirmative answer is generally taken for granted, as if the case were too obvious to admit of doubt or even of argument. The purity and elevation of the ethics of the gospel are indeed often asserted to be a sufficient proof of its divine origin. Those theologians who wince somewhat under the scientific argument against miracles, recover all their selfpossession when they dwell on the ethical side of their creed. If the casting out of devils from demoniacs is admitted to present difficulties, on the ground that it was and still is a common Eastern superstition to regard lunatics as possessed by evil spirits, a superstition which the evangelists shared with their countrymen and contemporaries, it is maintained

that the Sermon on the Mount is its own evidence of

divine inspiration. "Never man spake like this man." The spiritual depth and sublimity of Christ's teaching must, it is argued, be superhuman, from the fact that to this day it has never been surpassed or approached, and never will be in the most remote future. It is agreed that all the great changes and improvements that have been made in public and private morals, between pagan and modern times, must be set down to the vivifying effects of Christianity, which has raised woman, struck the fetters from the limbs of the slave, moralized war, conquest and commerce, in short, done every good thing that has been done in the last sixteen or eighteen centuries. This is that moral evidence for Christianity which is far more convincing than the evidence derived from works of power. Not that the latter is to be slighted or ignored; but one speaks to the heart, and must abide valid and persuasive through all time; the other addresses the head, and perhaps may not always be equally cogent.

Now it will not be necessary for the purpose of this inquiry to dispute the claims thus advanced. Many of them indeed are obviously without foundation, as the raising of the status of women, and the liberation of the slave. But, for the sake of argument, and to avoid complicated side issues, let them

be granted; and even then we maintain that it can be proved that Christianity is not favourable to morality in the way and degree commonly supposed. And by morality is meant right conduct here on earth; those outward acts and inward sentiments, which, by the suppression of the selfish passions, conduce most to the public and private well-being of the race.

Paley, with that clear, but at times somewhat cynical, common sense which marked his acute intellect, is willing to admit that "the teaching of morality was not the primary design" of the gospel. "If I were to describe," he goes on to say, “in a very few words, the scope of Christianity, as a revelation, I should say, that it was to influence the conduct of human life, by establishing the proof of a future state of reward and punishment,—“ to bring life and immortality to light.' The direct object, therefore, of the design is, to supply motives, and not rules; sanctions, and not precepts. And these were what mankind stood most in need of. The members of civilized society can, in all ordinary cases, judge tolerably well how they ought to act but without a future state, or, which is the same thing, without credited evidence of that state, they want a motive to their duty; they want, at least, strength of motive, sufficient to bear up against the

force of passion, and the temptation of present advantage. Their rules want authority. The most important service that can be rendered to human life, and that, consequently, which, one might expect beforehand would be the great end and office of a revelation from God, is to convey to the world authorized assurances of the reality of a future existence. And although doing this, or by the ministry of the same person by whom this is done, moral precepts or examples, or illustrations of moral precepts, may be occasionally given, and be highly valuable, yet still they do not form the original purpose of the mission. In other words, the purpose of the mission was to make men fit for a future state of reward, and to supply sanctions which would deter them from conduct which would make them fit for a future state of punishment. Salvation in the next world is the object of the scheme, not morality in this; and although the two objects may occasionally coincide, it is only a casual coincidence. Such difference of ends must lead to a difference of means. The road which is intended to lead to happiness in heaven, must diverge from the road which is intended to lead to happiness limited to this earth. And if anybody says that he does not see the necessity of such divergence, that

* "Evidences of Christianity," Part ii. cap. 2.

happiness in heaven may well be only a prolongation of happiness on earth, he may be asked to reflect on the inevitable dwarfing and subordination of this life, a transitory space of a few years, to a prospect of eternal life in heaven. Clearly, if this life is only a short, probationary trial-scene, preparatory to entrance upon eternity; if, moreover, conduct here is supposed to influence or decide our status there, happiness in this life is not a thing to be considered by prudent and thoughtful persons; and the conduct which conduces to happiness, either in ourselves or others, here, is evidently a trivial matter compared to the conduct which conduces to happiness hereafter. An eternal future must, in minds capable of even remotely realizing such an idea, overwhelm and crush into insignificance a minute, temporal present. Even a long temporal future suffices to do this. The inconveniences, for instance, of a sea-voyage which is going to land us in an abiding home in the Colonies or India, are borne with comparative equanimity or indifference, on the ground that they will soon be over, that it does not very much matter, as the real object is not to live happily at sea, but to prepare for happiness and prosperity in the distant land for which we are bound. A colonist does not prepare the outfit of a seaman, does not look upon the