objection to the kind of truth the Bible contains. We are aware that, properly speaking, the testimony in support of much that the Bible reveals is two-fold; first, the human testimony which proves God to speak, or otherwise convey supernatural truth, in the Bible; secondly, the testimony of God himself. Mr. Newman's dogma disavows the worth even of the latter; for if it were incontrovertibly proved that God had communicated some spiritual fact to his creatures, yet Mr. Newman's theory of essential impossibility would prevent him from relying on the testimony of God as authoritative. We do not follow him, as we do not envy him, in his boastful—it also seems to us, of man may be authoritative, because true. If the testimony of God be not authoritative, it can only be because it is false. We have said before that it is not the possibility, or even the fact, of supernatural revelation which Mr. Newman disputes, but its authoritativeness; and we review and sum up our answer in these words: With regard to the spiritual world, the only authority is truth; and if God has given an external revelation, it is authoritative, if true; and if not true, then God is false. cepts as revealing to him the power, wisdom, and beneficence of God, have not been explored or experienced by himself. The sublime order of the universe, as unfolded in the Newtonian system, he believes on the testimony of those who have evolved that system, by the rigid application of mechanical laws to the appearances of the heavenly bodies; yet, upon their testimony, he credits that fact, which reveals to him most distinctly and overpoweringly what we may term the physical and intellectual character, or the material force and contriving skill of God. Pursuing the tracks of human history to learn the moral character of God, all the facts which he assumes to exhibit this character are adopted in faith of the tes- blasphemous-incredulity. The testimony timony which records them. Beyond the narrow range of our own observation, the certainty or authority of every fact is judged by the worth of the evidence attesting it. This law is irreversible, and must be applied with strict impartiality both to spiritual and material truth. The statements of the Bible, even as to spiritual facts, such as what God is affirmed to have said, or to have done, must be rigidly tried at this tribunal, and accepted and rejected, according to this imperious necessity, by one standard, namely, the validity of the testimony vouching the truth of these facts. The specific character of the facts themselves must not weigh a scruple in the balance. Bacon has denounced the arrogance of those who would determine on purely theoretic and à priori grounds what facts of nature are to be allowed or disallowed, and has shown the office of man in search of truth to be that of servant and interpreter; and like humility is surely required in the search after spiritual as after physical truth. Our elective fancy must not become a divining-rod, the despotic nod of which is to settle the fate of any fact in despite of the plainest confirming or opposing evidence. The age of such intellectual despotism has passed away, and it ill becomes Mr. Newman to imitate, by his imaginary impossibilities, the hierarchy of the Roman Church in Galileo's time. There is, however, a metaphysical fallacy mixed up with Mr. Newman's speculations on the Bible, which is thus introduced by him: "Some assume, as a first principle, that the mind is made for truth, or that our faculties are veracious. Perhaps the real first principle here rather is, that no higher arbiter of truth is accessible to man, than the mind of man." Now, his meaning in the latter clause, we suspect, is the exact converse, instead of being a more nicely phrased and accurate definition, of the first principle which all men-not some necessarily assume in the practical conduct of life, and ought to assume in their rational speculations. He has fairly hocussed this first principle into the old doctrine of Protagoras, "Avoрwпoç TávTwv μéтpov, which is its contradictory, and issues in the denial of all truth whatsoever. Accordingly he intimates, that We claim, therefore, for the Bible the to attempt to prove the infallibility of the authority of truth, which is all the au- Bible is a blunder; for "no proof can thority that is conceivable upon the have a certainty higher than the accuracy ground of its evidences, and smile at the and veracity of the faculties which conpresumptuous impotence of Mr. Newman's duct the proof;" and again he affirms protest, that would foreclose the only just" that our certainty in Divine truth can decision by his whimsical unphilosophical not be more certain than the veracity of our inward organs of discernment." These | credibly sustained, that it may be relied sentences, though muffled in mist, are upon as accurate and authoritative, so may mere jargon, if they do not insinuate that the information we receive concerning our faculties are not "accurate and vera- God and the spiritual world. Mr. Newcious." Likewise, from the tenor of his man believes that he has found a certain writings we infer that the real ground on revelation of spiritual truth in the universe, which he disputes the possibility of an and yet "his certainty therein can not be authoritative external revelation is, that more certain than the veracity of his inthe faculties by which it is apprehended ward organs of discernment." If, then, are not trustworthy; and therefore no this doctrine avails against the Bible, it revelation, whatever it may be in itself, equally avails against the revelation of can become authoritative to us. He must nature, and neither of them can be ausee, however, that this fearful insinuation thoritative. Further, if our faculties be reaches infinitely further than to the be- suspected in the mere apprehension of an lief of a spiritual revelation, and dissipates external revelation, how much more if our with its malignant touch the entire struc- knowledge of God be entirely generated ture of human knowledge. If the facul- within by some mysterious intuitive proties of reasoning exercised in weighing cess of these fallacious powers! Assuredthe value of testimony be not accurate, ly, if the inward organs of discernment be their decisions are vitiated in every in- doubted in the belief and interpretation stance in which they are applied, and of an external revelation of spiritual truth, "Historic Doubts," not only respecting so as by their depravity to cancel its auNapoleon Bonaparte, but respecting the thority, these inward organs, which do recent change of ministry or the Indian not discern, but create spiritual truth, may Rebellion, are unavoidable. If, moreover, likewise be doubted, especially since their these faculties are false, all other faculties very existence is dubious, and, if real, apmust be so likewise-perception, memory, pertains only to a few spiritualists, the association; and man is proved to be the hierophants of humanity. If, therefore, sport of an immitigable delusion, fondly on this ground, there be no authoritative dreaming of the possibility of truth, and external revelation, à fortiori, there is no laboring in its search, while, by the con- internal, and so there is no authoritative genital vice of his mind, falsehood must revelation at all. be his eternal portion. The disappointed passion and revolving rack of Ixion become the faint emblems of his mocked existence. Such Pyrrhonism sweeps away authoritative truth, not only from the sphere of religion, but also from the sphere of history, science, and even of our own consciousness; for when a man dooms the faculties of his own soul, there is no longer any truth for him. We care not for any insinuation or flaunting profession of this doctrine; for, when once detected and exposed, it is harmless. The mind revolts from it with instinctive horror, and will never be seduced to accept a doctrine which treasonably condemns and nullifies itself. But we do care for and protest against Mr. Newman's application of this doctrine in the particular instance in which it suited his purpose, while he repudiates it every where else. If the faculties of men are veracious, and can give us authoritative certain truth in these matters, there is no essential impossibility that they may do so in the matter of Divine revelation. If any information we receive of distant or bygone events be so 2. Mr. Newman affirms the same of moral as of spiritual truth - that an authoritative external revelation of it is impossible. This, however, is a very different proposition from the former. Let us endeavor to clearly understand it. The former proposition was, that God could not reveal spiritual truth in a form external to us, so as to authorize our belief in it upon the sole ground of his testimony. The present proposition is, that God can not enjoin moral duties upon us which we must acknowledge to be right and obligatory on the sole ground of the injunction, and apart from our judgment of their rectitude on other grounds. An authoritative law is one that authorizes our obedience to it; and this authority can only belong to it when we acknowledge it to be right, and therefore obligatory. Now this proposition differs from the former in this essential point. We have a faculty that decides upon the right or wrong of an action per se. We have not a faculty that decides upon the truth or falsehood of a fact per se. The authority of truth must be wholly external, because ground ed on evidence. The authority of right is wholly internal, because grounded on conscience. We admit at once the expression that an external revelation of moral law (or truth) is only authoritative when approved by conscience to be right; for that can only be right to a man which he acknowledges to be right. And it is this element of truth subtly pervading Mr. Newman's sentence which suffuses over it the color of plausibility. But let him not think that he has carried per saltum his objection against the authority of Bible morality. We have granted that an external revelation of moral law can only be authoritative when it is acknowledged to be right. But then we affirm that a revelation of moral law by God is authoritative because it must be acknowledged to be right; and the fact that God enjoins it will outweigh in a healthy conscience every scruple that may be felt against its integrity, and bring every antagonistic moral judgment into agreement with itself. The sense of authority attributable to any moral law must come from within; but if there be an external revelation of moral law by God, that sense of authority immediately attaches to it; so that an authoritative external revelation of moral truths as well as spiritual truths is essentially possible. Having again untied the knot of Mr. Newman's fallacy, the hitch of which it may puzzle our readers to catch, we are tempted to leave him; but in illustration rather than development of the position laid down above, that if a moral command be proved to come from God, the conscience must acknowledge it to be right in itself, and therefore right to obey, though on other grounds we may have judged it wrong, we make the following observations. (1.) If upon any action, the motives and modifying circumstances of which were apparent to all, the moral judgment of one person were opposed to that of mankind, ought not that individual to accept the verdict of the universal conscience, and not his own, as right? Of course, it is not right to him till he acknowledge it right; but as a mere man, ought he not to suspend his own judgment, considering the errors by which it may have been warped, in deference to the unanimous decision of his fellow-men? Then, if so, how much more should he be willing to reverse his own judgment and even that of humanity—since the consciences of all men are exposed to prejudicial, corrupting influences-in submission to the revealed judgment of him who is raised above the sources of human depravity, and by the very necessity of his being is incorruptibly pure! The expression of his will must be authoritative to any one who has a due sense of his own fallibility, of God's indefectible rectitude. In a passage which abruptly and unfairly contrasts his doctrine with that of a believer in Divine revelations, Mr. Newman confesses the need of substantiating or verifying our individual moral judgments by those of mankind. "If," he says, "I am to obey the Commandments on the ground that a Divine voice pronounced them from Mount Sinai, (and not because I, and you, and collective humanity discern them to be right,) every one of us needs to ascertain a very distant and obscure matter of history, before he is under obligation to obey the Decalogue." Our reply is: If, because not only you individually, but collective humanity discerns them to be right, you are under obligation to obey them, may not the solemn fact that God has discerned them to be right, impose a still more imperious obligation? Mr. Newman allows here that an external revelation of moral truth in the judgment of collective humanity is in some measure authoritative—that is, it has some share in forming the moral obligation of an individual; may not then the external revelation of God's judgment be authoritative in a higher degree? As to the certainty of the fact that God has revealed the Decalogue, we only add, it is infinitely more certain than any revelation of a single moral precept which he can prove to have the sanction of collective humanity. (2.) Are we not all conscious that our judgments upon the actions of others, and also upon our desires and volitions, are apt to be biased and wrong? Is not the influence of a corrupt will upon conscience a fact of which every man is painfully convicted? Can Mr. Newman name a moral philosopher of repute, from Socrates downwards, who has failed to notice the fact, and to explain by it the vacillation and anomalies of conscience? And is not the practical discipline of a virtuous man largely confined to the rectification of his moral judgments, when they have been perverted by prejudice, or passion, or interest? If it be so, will not such a then, must be authoritative to him? In a similar manner we find a diversity in the moral usages and doctrines of different countries; all of these can not be right. "The law of right is one and absolute; nor does it speak one language at Rome, and another at Athens, varying from place to place, or from time to time." How then may this law be discerned, which will end all moral controversies by revealing "the absolutely right," save in the revelation of moral truth by God? man rejoice to accept, as a perfect standard, the moral judgments of one who has never been subject to those deteriorating forces which he feels to have wrought so mischievously in himself? Will he not accept his will as right, when his own is self-convicted of being wrong? and even when he can not discern the wrongfulness of his judgment, will he not wisely accept God's judgment as right, knowing from experience the subtle and unconscious influences arising from ignorance, evil habits, education, popular opinion, etc., that may have deflected his judgment, but could not affect God's? "The accuracy of all judicial sentences depends on the knowledge, the capacity, the patience, and the impartiality of the judge. Who will venture to claim for the judge, within his own bosom, the possession of those qualifications in a perfect, or even an emi-exposition of it is also necessarily and nent degree? In what tongue or language has not the blindness of self-love passed into a proverb? Who is the man whose mental vision is not obstructed by some beam, as often as it is directed to the survey of his own heart, or of his own conduct?"* (3.) As a matter of fact, a man's judgments often change in reference to his own actions, or those of other men. The verdict of his conscience alters according to the representation given to it. New aspects, new relations, new consequences of a certain action are discovered. Every man is aware that a decision of his conscience is not necessarily right, because he thinks it right. He thinks his present decision right, though it differs from a former one, because of the clearer, fuller knowledge upon which it is formed. Accordingly the latter decision, and not the former, is now authoritative, because acknowledged to be right. But may not he acknowledge the judgment of another person, though at variance from his own, to be the right one, because formed upon knowledge far more impartial and complete than his own? and must he not acknowledge a judgment of God to be right, and therefore authoritative, whose will is stainlessly pure, and whose knowledge of the relations and consequences of every action is absolute? His own decision he can not assert to be absolutely right; but the decisions of God he must believe to be absolutely right. Which, Sir James Stephen's Essays, vol. ii. p. 463. (4.) To conclude this chain of reasoning, Mr. Newman believes God to be unchangeably perfect. Suppose, then, (and this question is not in dispute,) that God did give a revelation of moral truth, it must be perfect too. Since the will of God is necessarily and eternally right, Mr. Newman must acknowledge that an eternally right; and this acknowledg ment binds it at once as authoritative to him, though his own previous judgments have differed from it. Since Mr. Newman believes in a holy God, this question is reduced to the point, whether he has revealed his will at all? If he has, his revealed will must be right; (for, if not, it is either not his will revealed, or his will, that is, he himself, is evil ;) and if it must be right, it must be authoritative; since, as we proved before, the only authority a moral law can possess is, that it be acknowledged to be right when it instantly becomes obligatory. If then a divine external revelation of moral truth is possible, which Mr. Newman does not deny, there is no essential impossibility, but an essential necessity, in its being authoritative. (5.) On other grounds the same conclusion is reached. Conscience may briefly be defined as "the law of the will." It pronounces a decision upon its spontaneous determinations, according to the influencing motives in each case. The selfdetermining powers of the will which are under the categorical control of conscience, relate to those beings which may be affected by them, namely, ourselves, other finite beings, and God; and our duty defines the right conduct of our will in these various relations.* What then is our "The ancients rightly founded the kúhov, or honestum, in the рérov, or decorum; that is, they in harmony with the relations necessary and acciconsidered an action virtuous which was performed dental to the agent."-Sir William Hamilton, in his Edition of Reid, p. 89. duty towards God? Considering the boundless relations in which we are connected with him, this must be the first and weightiest announcement of conscience in directing our will. What do we owe-what ought we to do-to him? Rectitude consists in doing right towards every being with whom, in the exercise of our will, we are related; the chief and essential element of rectitude or rightdoing will, therefore, consist in our conduct towards God. If, then, he has enjoined upon us a command which it is his pleasure we should obey, does it not, upon this showing, become essentially and intrinsically right for us to obey, apart from its inherent or apparent rectitude on other grounds, which simply means, when investigated, that its fulfillment is discerned to be beneficial to ourselves and our fellow-men? were forced to decide between these two opposing principles, it were right to obey the will of God, rather than consult the welfare of man. Conscience declares that we are bound by the deepest, the strongest obligation to God-an obligation infinitely greater than can bind us to our fellow-men, or to our seeming selfish interests. The revealed will of God, if incontestably proved to be such, is authoritative against all other convictions of duty; for conscience plainly asserts the duty of obedience to God to be the highest and over-ruling duty of man. dictory duties, the latter is the most urgent and inevitable in its claim; conscience declares the right of God to stand first. We are happily never forced into such a dreadful dilemma as that we have stated above; for no wise man will maintain his own conceptions of right-dealing towards his fellow-men against the clear assertion of their wrongfulness by God. He will at once admit that error has crept into Conscience announces what is right to his calculation of human interests, or wards God as well as towards man; and some secret passion has jaundiced the its most imperative sentence is, that man eye of conscience, and he will not asseveshould obey and honor God. Now sup- rate his judgment to be right against pose that in the treatment of our fellow- that of God. But even if he does, he men we had conceived a certain mode of must also judge it right to obey the comaction to be right, and God has command-mands of God; but between the contraed us to adopt a different course of action; which, then, is right? Two momenta here hang in opposite scales of the balance our conceptions of what we owe to our fellow-men, our knowledge of what we owe to God; which shall kick the beam? To whom, in such a conflict of obligation, do we confessedly owe the most? Ought we to give the supremacy to our fellow-men or to God? Let it be remembered that every such conviction of our duty to our fellow-men is formed upon our notions of what will conduce to their welfare. In the boldest expression of this dilemma, its form accordingly will be: "The welfare of man against the will of God." Such antagonism in reality is impossible; but even if the conscience We trust we have fairly expunged the veto which Mr. Newman interposed upon the prosecution of any argument in proof of the inspiration of the Bible, because of some à priori impossibility which he had discovered, and which precluded the necessity of any further deliberation or even doubt on the matter. His opinions are widely spread, and link themselves closely with the most plausible objections against biblical inspiration; so that we resolved to investigate them at length, in order to simplify our future inquiries. |