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 00.11
4014. .
 CHRISTIANITY

AND

RECENT SPECULATIONS .

Six Lectures

BY MINISTERS OF THE FREE CHURCH.

WITH A PREFACE

BY

ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D.,

PRINCIPAL OF THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.

EDINBURGH :
JOHN MACLAREN, PRINCES STREET.
1866.
 H MU
TIS SE
RI UM
B
 CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE, 1
By Rev. THOMAS SMITH, M.A.

II. ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES , 33

By ROBERT RAINY, D.D., Professor of Divinity and
Church History, New College, Edinburgh.

III. SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SECU-

LAR PROGRESS, 67
By WILLIAM G. BLAIKIE, D.D., F.R.S.E.

IV. THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, 97

By Rev. ANDREW CRICHTON, B.A.

V. PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW, 125

By JOHN DUNS, D.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Natural Science,
New College, Edinburgh.

VI. THE SABBATH, 153

By Rev. PRINCIPAL CANDLISH.
 PREFATORY NOTE.

I Do not see much occasion for any preliminary re-

marks of mine to introduce this little volume to the

public ; nor have I indeed any thing of importance

to say. But as my colleagues seemed to think that
it fell to the senior member of the body to prepare
some sort of opening statement on his own behalf
and theirs, and as that was made a condition of the
publication, I felt that necessity was laid upon me.
The delivery of this course of lectures was en-
tirely matter of private arrangement among the
lecturers themselves ; there having been no official
authorization from any quarter, nor even any gene-
ral consultation of brethren. We thought it best
to proceed upon our own responsibility, committing
no one beyond our little circle to an approval either
of our plan or of its execution. It was with some
hesitation that we ventured on what I may call our
experiment. But it turned out to be successful
beyond our expectations. The crowded audiences
who filled the church to overflowing consisted
vi PREFATORY NOTE.

largely, or rather almost entirely, of men, and young

men, of the class we wished especially to reach.
And their singularly close attention impressed all
the lecturers.

A twofold inference may be drawn from this

success.
In the first place, it is clear that something in
the line of our movement is needed ; something that
will turn the Sabbath to account for more than
what is held to be included under the ordinary con-
ducting of public worship and the ordinary preach-
ing of the gospel. Let me not be misunderstood .
I have no faith in new plans and panaceas for im-
proving on the old way of " beseeching men to be
reconciled to God." And I deprecate, with all my
heart, the introduction of scientific or literary
discussions into the pulpit, under the guise of ac-
commodation to modern thought. But, leaving
untouched the stated Sabbath means of grace, as
hereditarily handed down to us from our fathers, I
cannot but think that we have opportunities on the
Sabbath of, at least, occasional arguments and ap-
peals, bearing on the questions that touch religion
from without. I say occasional ; for I believe that
therein lies their safety and their strength.
Then, secondly, it is still more clear, that intelli-
gent and thoughtful men, in the class to which I
refer, are not only exercised on these subjects, but
are willing, nay eager, to come and hear what the
 PREFATORY NOTE. vii

defenders and expounders of revelation have to say.

Provided only they know and understand that there
is to be no attempt to put down inquiry, brevi
manu, by the mere summary assertion of authority
and imputation of heresy, they are prepared to give
a fair hearing to us, if we merely show that we are
as ready to receive the proved facts of science, as
we ask them to be to receive the proved facts of
Scripture. Their jealousy of theologians has often
arisen out of an idea that theological dicta must
override and overrule all scientific inquiries and
results. Let them see that we face the question in
a very different spirit ; that we have something of
the Baconian as well as the dogmatic mind in us ;
and that we hold sacred the facts and inferences of

philosophy, physical and metaphysical, as having a

distinct foundation of their own, not to be touched
by indirect arguments from any other quarter. Of
course, we ask the same admission to be made on
the side of theological science. And there is this
difference in our favour . We are quite prepared to let
apparently antagonistic or contradictory conclusions,
occurring in distinct spheres of discovery and thought,
remain unexplained, if that must be so, for a time ;
to accept both, each on its own proper evidence ; and
to await the result of further disclosure on either
side . Our opponents , on the other hand, are too
often found prematurely pressing discrepancies, as
though their attainments were so complete and final
 viii PREFATORY NOTE.

as to warrant their insisting on making them the

law, even within a sphere which in their own nature
they do not touch. The former of these courses is
surely the more philosophical in itself, as well as
the more becoming, when our ignorance of many
things in heaven and earth, and our partial infor-
mation about all things, are taken into account. I
think it will appear that it is the line taken in
these lectures.

There is only one other remark I have to make,

suggested specially by the first two lectures, and
confirmed by the others. It is this. The real work
such inquirers and thinkers have to do now, is to
shew that there is absolutely and literally nothing
new, either in the state of the question or in the
mode of dealing with it, as regards the great con-
troversy about the authority of the Bible, and its
contents. The skill, and I must add the effrontery,
with which our sceptical friends contrive to put a
new face on an old phantom, and reproduce an old
cavil in a new form, is beyond belief beforehand.
I am mistaken if there is not something in these
Lectures fitted to impress candid minds with this
truth, though I cannot now illustrate or elaborate it.
R. S. C.

52 MELVILLE STREET,
March 7, 1866.
THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH

SCIENCE .

BY THE

REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., C

MINISTER OF COWGATE-HEAD.
I -The Bible not Inconsistent with Science .

WHEN I was invited to take that part in this course

of lectures which has been actually assigned to me,
and to treat of the consistency between the declara-
tions of the Bible and the discoveries of science in
respect of those matters which are in any way touched
upon by them in common, I shrank at first from the
task, from a feeling and a fear that the undertaking
of it would be regarded by many as implying a pre-
tension to scientific attainments which I have no right
to put forward, and to an acquaintance with the recent
progress of science which the engagements of my life
make it simply impossible that I should possess in
any considerable degree of extensiveness or minute-
ness. I was, however, induced to consent to the
arrangement proposed, mainly by the consideration
that no such pretension is necessarily involved in the
undertaking to discuss such a subject, since any one
very moderately acquainted with science may treat it
usefully and satisfactorily, inasmuch as the questions
at issue, with a few exceptions, and these by no means
the most important, relate to the general principles,
and not to the minute details, of scientific discovery.
I have nothing further to say by way of introduction,
A
2 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

except this ; that I requested that the subject of the

lecture should be stated negatively, rather than posi-
tively ; so that I should not be pledged to show that
there is any positive confirmation of any statements
of the Bible by any discoveries made by science ; or,
on the other hand, any considerable light cast upon
the discoveries of the one by the statements of the
other ; but only negatively, that there is no inconsis-
tency betwixt the two, which should prevent our
holding by both with perfect confidence.
From this it will appear that we propose to stand
wholly on the defensive ; that it is no part of our
undertaking to deduce any positive argument for the
truth and divine inspiration of the Scriptures from
any harmony that may be found to subsist between
any of their statements on the one hand, and the con-
clusions of true science on the other. We have only
to show negatively that there is no such force in the
objections which have been made to the Scriptures,
on the ground of supposed inconsistencies, as to re-
quire of us to reject them, or even to suspend our
belief in them, until the supposed inconsistencies can
be cleared away. If we succeed in doing this, we
submit that it is no small service rendered to the
cause of defence, since it allows the positive evidences
derived from other quarters, to produce their legiti-
mate and unimpaired effect.
It is true that we shall have occasion to allude to
certain peculiarities in the manner in which the Bible
occasionally touches upon scientific subjects, which
might form the basis, if not of a positive argument, at
least of a strong presumption that the finger of God is
here, and that the human penmen must have been
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 3

guided by a wisdom far higher than their own. But

we wish it to be distinctly understood that this is
accidental rather than essential to our argument ;
which will be complete when we have shewn, as we
trust to be able to shew conclusively, that there is
nothing in the Bible in such wise inconsistent with
any truth that is fairly ascertained by scientific re-
search as to make it in the slightest degree improbable
that the Bible is inspired by the omniscient God. If
there be, over and above this, produced or strengthened
an impression of the extreme unlikelihood, amounting
in fact to a virtual impossibility, that so many men,
living in so remote ages, could have written so large
a book, of so diversified contents, without actually
coming into collision with truths which have been
only recently discovered by scientific men, unless they
had been specially guided by Him to whom all truth
is known, and all events foreknown- if such an im-
pression be produced or confirmed, of course we shall
be all the more satisfied ; but we wish it to be dis-
tinctly understood at the outset that the production
of such a positive impression or conviction, is more
than, and is in fact different from, what we have
undertaken.
And now, brethren, let us say that we feel very
deeply the importance of our subject, and the respon-
sibility, we may say the solemnity, of the position .
which we occupy ; and let us impress upon you that
this responsibility and solemnity it is yours to share
with us. We come not here to an encounter of wits,
a logical battle in which victory is to be sought at any
cost, or by any means. It is not the battle of the
warrior that is before us, whose confused noise, and
4 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

garments rolled in blood, might stir up the natural

enthusiasm of the heart, the love of contest and the
desire of victory, " and the stern joy which warriors
feel, in foemen worthy of their steel." It is not our
part, at least it is not our main part, to set ourselves
6
against the oppositions of science, falsely so called,'
but cordially accepting the conclusions of science,
which we believe to be upon the whole sound, and
cordially accepting the declarations of the Bible, as
they are understood by common sense and intelligent
scholarship, we have to act the part of peace-makers
between the respective champions of those two classes
of truths ; and that not merely by urging upon them
the rightness or expediency of mutual forbearance,
but by demonstrating that they have positively no
cause of quarrel.
We shall conduct our argument by laying down
certain propositions, and proving or illustrating them
as they may seem severally to require.

I. First of all, then, we call you to observe, that

the Bible is written in ordinary language, such as is
used by men in their common intercourse with one
another. This seems to be at once so unquestionably
the fact, and at the same time so essentially necessary
to the very idea of a revelation addressed to mankind,
and fitted to be of any practical value to them, that
it seems strange that it should require even to be
stated as a step in our argument. It is manifest, that
if any other course were adopted, it would necessarily
involve one or other of these two inconveniences ;
either that constant explanations must be given, which
from the very nature of the case, would be utterly
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 5

unintelligible to a great proportion of those for whom

the Bible is unquestionably designed ; or else, that
being left without such explanations, it would be
utterly useless for all but those who understood the
peculiar language employed, who would be simply
none at all in many ages and countries, and very few
in any. In either case, the Bible must wait for the
fulfilment of its manifest purpose, not only until
scientific discoveries were perfected, but until they
were so popularized that the technical language in
which they were described was universally under-
stood ; and this is certainly not the case in this latter
half of the 19th century, and we are pretty safe in
predicting that it never will be the case. Let us just
imagine an example of the jargon that must be sub-
stituted for the simple energetic language of the Bible
if it were translated into the technical phraseology of
modern science. Take the plain text in the epistle of
James, "The sun is no sooner risen with burning heat."
This would have to be expressed in some such way as
the following, in order to satisfy the demands of our
modern astronomical science, "The earth has no sooner
rotated on her axis sufficiently to bring the horizon
of a place into such a position that its plane will cut
the heavens at a lower elevation than the sun's !"
Even this would not indeed satisfy the demands of
astronomy, for the question would arise whether the
elevating effects of refraction, and the depressing
effects of parallax were or were not taken into account !
But suppose this difficulty were got over, and the
expression were allowed to be upon the whole correct
astronomically, there is a far greater difficulty behind
with respect to the theories of heat and combustion,
6 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

and the phraseology must be modified to suit the ways

in which modern chemistry accounts for the phenom-
enon which is popularly called " burning heat." We
desire to avoid every train of remark which the most
scrupulous might regard as unsuitable to the place
and the day ; but really we know of no weapon but
ridicule wherewith to assail what is simply and only
ridiculous.
Certainly the philosophers have no right to find
fault with the Bible on the ground that it uses the
language of common men and of common sense in
alluding to natural phenomena ; for they uniformly
follow the same course, not only in their intercourse
with unphilosophic men, but in their communications
with one another also, excepting, of course, when they
have occasion actually to set forth the realities, or
what they suppose to be the realities, as distinct from
the appearances.
While the overlooking of this very obvious principle
has been the cause of a very large amount of the sup-
positionof discrepancy between the Bible and science, it
ought, we think, in fairness to be admitted that the
advocates of revelation have been more pertinacious
in their opposition to it than the advocates of science.
It was clearly through this oversight that Galileo was
constrained to abjure his belief in the Copernican
system, and on his knees to declare that the earth
stands still, while on his feet he uttered the memor-
able speech which has passed into a proverb, It does
move, notwithstanding. Of course we impute this
humiliating scene exclusively to Romish bigotry and
intolerance ; and no doubt the recantation, under the
threat of perpetual imprisonment or death, was en-
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 7

tirely a Romish procedure ; but it ought, in fairness,

to be stated that the Protestants of those days equally
charged the adherents of the Copernican system with
infidelity, because they held that the earth moves, and
the sun is stationary, in manifest contradiction, as was
alleged, of the declaration of the nineteenth Psalm, that
the sun " goeth forth from his chamber in the one end of
heaven and circleth to the other end thereof." In proof
of this we need only mention that in an excellent
Commentary on the prophet Habakkuk, just reprinted
in this city, there are several pages devoted to the en-
forcement of this charge. We have considerable re-
spect for the scrupulousness which led the divines
of that age, Romanist and Protestant alike, to stand
up so strenuously as they did for the absolute literal
truth of every statement in the Bible, and the abso-
lute literal accuracy of every one of its allusions.
They understood, as well as we, that in ordinary
human language, all kinds of figures are admissible,
but they seem to have thought that it is inconsistent
with the idea of inspiration that it should express
anything but absolute truth, and in absolutely un-
figurative language. How this imagination could
have stood with the fact, of which they could not but
be cognizant, and of which their writings afford abun-
dant proofs that they were cognizant, that the Bible
does contain an immense amount of manifestly figu-
rative language, and that in point of fact all its
descriptions of the actings of Jehovah, the sight of
his eyes, the hearing of his ears, the outstretching of
his arm, must, from the very necessity of the case, be
figurative, it is not very easy to understand. It is
certain that more correct ideas are all but universal
8 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

now amongst the advocates of the plenary inspiration

of the Bible by the God of truth. You may indeed
still meet, as we have met, with a modern treatise on
unfulfilled prophecy in which it is gravely maintained
that there is to be erected upon this earth a city,
12,000 furlongs long, 12,000 furlongs broad, and
12,000 furlongs high ! and you may occasionally meet,
in reading or hearing, with an exposition of the last
verse of John's Gospel disfigured with a laboured cal-
culation, showing how much parchment, spread out,
would cover the habitable part of the surface of the
globe ; whereas the expositor ought at once, we will
not say to confess, but to declare and maintain, that
the Evangelist, under the influence of inspiration,
made the statement that he supposed the world would
not contain the books which would suffice to record
all the mighty works and gracious words of our Lord,
in precisely the same sense in which any uninspired
man might have made the same statement ; and that
inspiration on any other principle would have been a
great evil instead of a great blessing, inasmuch as its
interpretation would become a simple impossibility.
We have dwelt longer upon our first proposition
than its importance with reference to the present state
of the controversy may seem to require. It certainly
was in the past, much more than in the present, that
the neglect of it led to antagonism between men of
science and defenders of the Bible as the inspired
word of God ; yet it has not lost its importance as a
principle, whether of Scripture interpretation or Scrip-
ture defence, and it is quite possible that it may be
the ground on which the adjustment of some apparent
differences is yet to be effected. It is manifestly no part
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 9

of our present duty to protest against any actual or

possible perversion or abuse of this principle, whether
viewed as a principle of interpretation or of defence.
If it is sound, neither the fact nor the possibility of
its being perverted or misapplied can make it false ;
and it is for its sound application, and not for its per-
version, that we contend.

II. Our second proposition is that the Bible was

manifestly not intended to teach us scientific truth .
It never does formally teach anything relating to
science at all, and the only way in which it ever
touches upon scientific matters is by incidental allu-
sions, in the course of statements with respect to
matters altogether different, and, we will venture to
say, unspeakably more important. This is a principle
which is manifest on the very face of the Bible, and
yet it has been directly contravened by many in almost
every age. You may have heard how the Kabbalists
amongst the Jews not only held, as we do, that the
Bible is all true ; But they held also this other and
very different doctrine, which is not true, that the
Bible contains all truth. In order to make this out
they expended an amazing amount of perverted and
misapplied ingenuity, assuming that there is a hidden
mystery not only in every sentence but in every word
and letter of the sacred book, and giving a loose rein
to their fancy in constructing amazing systems of
science, philosophy and theology, which being com-
posed of nothing, necessarily were potentially nothing.
Some of the early Christian fathers showed a tendency
in the same direction ; and the Rosicrucians and other
mystics of the middle ages busied themselves in the
10 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

same manner, torturing the word of God to make it

bear testimony to their vain fancies respecting the
nature and order of the universe. In almost all ages
there has been exhibited a revival of this idea in one
form or another ; and in our own country, not very
long before our own times, it was reduced into a sort
of system, under the title of the Hutchisonian doc-
trine. Disciples of this school are still occasionally
to be met with ; we have happened to know several
very enthusiastic ones. Now the so constant recur-
rence of this idea, under so widely different circum-
stances, would seem to indicate that there is naturally
an expectation in the minds of men that a divine
revelation should contain an authoritative exposition
of science and philosophy. It therefore becomes
necessary to examine this expectation ; and we think
that we are prepared to show that it is in the highest
degree unreasonable.
First, it is not at first sight an unnatural supposi-
tion, that a revelation of scientific truth would have
been a strong recommendation of the Bible to the
acceptance of man, and would have served a most
valuable purpose as an evidence of its divine inspira-
tion. We are fully convinced that it would have been
just the contrary. Suppose such a book brought to a
man ignorant of science, and that it began with a
statement of the truth, that the earth is never at rest,
but is constantly whirling round its own axis, and at
the same time revolving in an elliptical orbit round
the sun. Is it not evident that that man would con-
sider himself both entitled and bound to reject it at
once, as containing a statement which he knew to be
utterly false ? Bnt suppose it were brought to a man
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 11

who by study had acquired a knowledge of the true

theory of the earth's motion, or to a community, such
as ours, throughout which there is diffused a general
knowledge of that theory, and a general assent to it.
Is it not certain that when such a man or such a
community found in an old book a statement of the
theory which had been arrived at amongst them, as
the result of a long process of study and investigation,
their inference would simply be, that the author of
the book had anticipated the discoveries of Copernicus,
Kepler, and others, and had arrived at the theory by
a similar process of investigation to that which had
conducted them to it. We are confident, therefore,
that neither in the case of ignorant men, nor in that
of well instructed and enlightened men, would such
an announcement have had any value whatever as an
evidence of divine revelation ; and just as little would
it have had in the case of men in any intermediate
state between complete ignorance and full knowledge.
Secondly, as to the matter of the revelation itself,
it seems to us very clear, that the mixing up of scien-
tific with religious truth, would have greatly marred
the catholicity, damaged the beauty, and lessened the
utility of the Bible. Physical science, from the very
necessity of the case, must be, in a great degree, of the
earth, earthly ; and it is a great matter that in the
Bible we have our eyes turned constantly and undis-
tractedly to the great theme of salvation through the shed
blood, imputed righteousness, and indwelling Spirit of
the Son of God. We know how apt we all are to
degrade this grand theme from the place which it
occupies in the Bible, and to regard it practically, if
not theoretically, not as the truth, in comparison of
12 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

which all other truths are of insignificant importance,

but merely as a truth, co-ordinate with, or even sub-
ordinate to, multitudes of others. How much more
liable should we have been to such a perversion, if the
Bible itself had been so framed as to give countenance
to such an idea ? As we cannot but feel that it was
with our blessed Lord Himself, that His glory as a
teacher of righteousness, and the Saviour of men, stood
out in all the brighter relief, that it was not associated
in the days of His flesh with any other glory, that He
is all the more "" the chiefest among ten thousand, and
altogether lovely," in proportion as He " grows up as a
tender plant, and a root out of a dry ground," " without
form or comeliness, or any beauty that we should desire
Him," so we feel with respect to the Bible. Some of
you may remember a grand passage in Pascal's
Thoughts, in which he distinguishes three orders of
greatness, viz., physical, intellectual, and moral great-
ness, or the greatness of holiness. The carnal Jews
expected the Messiah to come in the merely animal
greatness of a conqueror, leading forth an irresistible
army against the hosts of Rome, bathing His sword
in the blood of His enemies, dethroning Cæsar, and
transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Jeru-
salem. The Samaritans would appear to have had
somewhat more refined ideas, and to have fixed their
thoughts more upon intellectual greatness . Their
expectation was, that when the Messias came He
would teach them all things. But when He came His
utterances were such as these, " I must be about my
Father's business ." 66 Who made me a judge or a
divider among you ?" " My kingdom is not of this
world." " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 13

how am I straitened until it be accomplished ?" Now,

what we maintain is this, that as the glory of the in-
carnate Word, as the appointed king of a kingdom
not of this world, would have been rather tarnished
than rendered more illustrious by the addition of
political or intellectual sovereignty, so it is in its
measure with the glory of the written word. It gives
"laws from heaven for life on earth ; " but that is only
because earth is, by the incarnation, and life and death
of the Son of God, made one with heaven, as man is
made one with God, and they who are crucified with
Christ nevertheless live, and the life which they now
live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved them, and gave Himself for them, and their life
is hid with Christ in God.
Then, thirdly, as to the influence of an authoritative
exposition of scientific truth upon science itself, a
little reflection will show that it would have been
most injurious to it, in fact destructive of it as science.
Its very essence consists in investigation, and that
investigation must be altogether free from authorita-
tive restraints . We all know that there was, and
could be, no real science as long as men subjected
themselves to the authority of Aristotle, and that not
because Aristotle or the Aristotelians taught erroneous
doctrines, but because the receiving of any doctrines
on authority was inconsistent with the very condi-
tions on which alone science can exist. Accordingly
Bacon gave existence to science, not by teaching truth
in opposition to Aristotelian errors, for he taught very
little positive truth at all, and his writings contain
probably as many errors as do those of Aristotle ; but
he gave being to science, because he disclaimed the
14 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

authority of Aristotle, and taught men that they must

study nature, observe her actings, and deduce her laws
from an extensive observation of her processes. To
make this all the clearer to such as may not have had
occasion to think of this subject, let us just look for
a moment at the simplest of all the sciences, viz., the
mathematical. Suppose that in teaching the elements
of geometry, instead of placing before the learner the
steps and processes by which the propositions are
proved, and requiring him to go over every step of
the proof, and make it, so far as possible, an act of his
own mind ; suppose that instead of this we were to
place before him only the enunciations of the pro-
positions, and assure him that they are all true, and
that he must believe them ;-could we by any possi-
bility take a more effective mode of securing that he
should never become a mathematician ? Now it is at
least equally so with respect to the more complicated
branches of science, and the evil would be still greater
if we were required to receive them on the more con-
straining and unquestionable authority of a divine
revelation.
Let us now point out how this consideration bears
upon our general subject. It is fitted to modify, and
as we believe, to correct, the expectation which many
have formed, and which probably all of us have a
natural tendency to form, of finding many confirma-
tions of Bible statements in the results of scientific
research. It is very common to say that the book of
nature and the book of revelation, being the works of
one and the same author, must necessarily bear marks
of that common authorship. Now this is true ; but
then it must not be forgotten that, if they may both
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 15

be called books, they are books on entirely different

subjects. While, therefore, we may confidently
expect that they shall not contain statements or senti-
ments mutually contradictory, we have clearly no
right to expect that they should contain any consider-
able portion of matter in common. We question if
any critic could have found out, from internal evi-
dences alone, that the " Treatise on the Freedom of
the Will," and the " Narrative of Revivals in New
England " are the products of one mind ; yet no one
ever thought of doubting that Jonathan Edwards
wrote them both. Now if this be fair and reasonable,
and if aught else would be unreasonable and unfair,
in judging of the writings of a human author, whose
ideas and knowledge and modes of expression are
necessarily limited ; of course it is abundantly more
so with respect to the Divine author, who is far less
likely to repeat himseif, being able, out of his infinite
.
resources, to introduce into his works a variety no
less than infinite.
A positive service which we think that this part of
our argument renders to the cause, is one that we had
in view when we said in our introduction, that there
might arise a positive evidence, or at least a strong
presumption, of the divine inspiration of the Bible,
from some parts of our argument. We have seen how
general is the expectation, that a divine revelation
should contain a system of science. Those who have
professed to be the vehicles of revelation have known
of the existence of this expectation in others, and have
been conscious of it in themselves ; and all of them,
with the exception of the writers of the Bible, have
undertaken to fulfil that expectation. Accordingly,
16 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

we find that both the Vedas and the Puranas of the

Hindoos, the Zendavesta of Zoroaster, the sacred books
of the Chinese, the Koran of Mohammed, as well as
the miserable and blasphemous utterances of the
Mormonites, the Clairvoyants, and the Spiritualists of
our own day, are filled with statements of the views
of their several authors, respecting the constitution
and laws of the physical world. Now, to us it does
appear that the fact, that no one of the fifty writers of
the Bible has given forth a single utterance of his
views on any of these subjects, is altogether unac-
countable on any supposition but one ; and that one
is, that these men wrote not according to the un-
prompted and unrestrained tendencies of their own
minds, but that they wrote under the influence of
the supernatural guidance of the Spirit of God, which
we call inspiration.

III. Our next proposition is, that the past relations

between the Bible and science are fitted to inspire the
advocates of inspiration with confidence. From the
days when the infidel sadducees disputed with our
blessed Lord, from the time when the synagogue of
the Libertines arose and disputed with Stephen, from
the time when the Epicureans and Stoics encountered
with Paul on Mars Hill, we have had a long succes-
sion of Celsuses, and Porphyries, and Cardans, who
have from time to time waged a desultory guerilla
warfare with the gospel and the Bible, until the siege
was regularly laid to the citadel by the Encyclopedists
of France, in the end of the past century and begin-
ning of the present. While we may, and do regret,
that so much fine talent was wasted, and far worse
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 17

than merely wasted, while we regret that the minds of

Christians have been disturbed, and the minds of en-
quirers distracted, by objections of which they could
not estimate the value or the force, we have only cause
for rejoicing, that the Bible has come out of every
encounter unwounded and unsullied. We remember
at the distance of thirty years, and shall not forget if we
live thirty more, the thrill with which we heard from
the lips of Dr. Chalmers, a burst of noble eloquence on
this subject, which now forms part of the preface to
vol. v. of his Works. We must confine our quotation
to the concluding sentences. "We are not aware of
a single science in the vast Encyclopædia of human
knowledge, which has not, in some shape or other,
been turned, by one or more of its perverse disciples,
into an instrument of hostility against the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it too has an evidence of
its own, alike unassailable, and beyond the reach of
violence from without. It is not by the hammer of
the mineralogist that this evidence can be broken. It
is not by the telescope of the astronomer that we can
be made to descry in it any character of falsehood.
It is not by the knife of the anatomist that we can
find our way to the alleged rottenness which lies at
its core . Most ridiculous of all, it is not by his re-
cently invented cranioscope that the phrenologist can
take the dimensions of it, and find them to be utterly
awanting. And lastly may it be shown that it is
not by a dissecting metaphysics that the philosopher
of the human mind can probe his way to the secret of
its insufficiency, and make exposure to the world of
the yet unknown flaw which incurably vitiates and
irreparably condemns either the proofs or the subject-
B
18 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

matter of the Christian faith. All these sciences have

at one time or other, cast their missiles at the stately
fabric of our Christian philosophy and erudition ; but
they have fallen impotent at its base. They have
offered insult, but done no injury, save to the defence-
less youth whose principles they have subverted, or
to those men of ambitious vanity, yet imperfect educa-
tion, whose ' little learning is a dangerous thing.'
If the noble author of this passage had been still
spared to lift up his grand voice in the midst of us,
we can well imagine the splendid indignation with
which he would have rebuked the presumption of the
bishop of Natal, in bringing to the encounter with this
hero of a thousand victories the squared ranks of the
multiplication table, fondly dreaming that the Chris-
tian faith, like a wearied House of Commons, could
be simply counted out ! We can imagine the high-
souled withering scorn with which he would have cast
off and cast back the foul insult offered by a few of
the physiologists and anthropologists of our day, who
would put our faith out of countenance by the grin-
nings of the chimpanzee, or frighten it out of being
by the roarings of the gorilla !

IV. That our augury of the future from the history

of the past is not too sanguine, we think we shall be
able to make apparent, under a fourth proposition,
which is, that the objections now made by science
against the Bible are neither numerous nor formid-
able. In order to evince this, we shall briefly allude
to what may be called the outstanding objections pro-
pounded in connection with the several sciences
Probably most of you expected that we should occupy
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 19

the whole or the greater part of our lecture with this,

and may be disappointed that we only bring it in at
the close ; but we have thought it better to dwell
upon principles than to enter very minutely into
details.
We mention first astronomy, because it is at once
the noblest, and the exactest, and most accurate of the
sciences. One charge connected with the history of
this science has been most satisfactorily demonstrated
by the science itself to have been unfounded. We
allude to the conclusions that were deduced from the
Hindoo and Chinese astronomical tables regarding
chronology. The Hindoo tables profess to contain
records of astronomical observations from 3102 years
B.C. , or about 700 years before the flood . Now we
have the unhesitating testimony, not of an ignorant
advocate of inspiration, but of Laplace himself, that
these records are entirely spurious, that their errors
show them to have been calculated back from a com-
paratively recent date. It is also certain that by far
the oldest of the Hindoo astronomical treatises makes
mention of a city called Romaka, far to the west of
India. There can be no reasonable doubt that the
reference is to Rome, and consequently that the
Surjya Siddhanta was not written until the days of
Rome's greatness.
Some astronomers have objected to the miracle re-
corded in the book of Joshua, of the standing still of
the sun and the moon, that this would have deranged
the whole cosmical order of the universe. Now we
might say that the question just reduces itself to the
other question, whether there can be a miracle at all.
If God could work the miracle as described, he could
20 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE .

surely obviate the inconveniencies that might have

ensued from it. But it is remarkable that the objec-
tion proceeds upon an erroneous assumption altogether.
It is assumed that for the production of the phenome-
non it was necessary that the earth's revolution round
the sun should be suspended, whereas all that was re-
quired was a suspension of her rotation on her axis.
This wouldnot affect the otherbodies ofthe system at all,
and if the rotation were brought to a stay somewhat
gradually, would not even produce any concussion on
the earth's surface. Of course, there is nothing in the
record inconsistent with the supposition that this
miracle might be in the department of optics rather
than in that of astronomy. It is quite supposable that
a change in the atmosphere, effected by the command
of God, may have caused it to reflect the sun and moon
after they were actually below the horizon.
But a more serious, because a more fundamental
objection than this has been brought against the Bible
and the gospel in connection with this science. It is
to the effect that astronomy has so evinced the stu-
pendous magnitude of the universe, as to make it in-
conceivable that the Son of God should have been
incarnate, and should have died under the curse, for
the redemption of inhabitants of one of the smallest
and most insignificant of its worlds. You know that
this is the objection which Dr Chalmers dealt with in
his wonderful Astronomical Sermons, and dealt with it
so as to leave it no logical standing-place. We shall
only say regarding this matter that it is wonderful,
passing all wonder ; but this only shews the more
distinctly that the love of God passeth all understand-
ing. It is nowise inconsistent with the scriptural re-
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 21

presentation of the matter, which tells us that Christ

laid not hold of the angelical nature, but of the seed
of Abraham, and even amongst the inhabitants of
earth themselves he chooseth not the great, the mighty,
the learned, the noble ; but " he hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, the weak
things of the world to confound the mighty ; and base
things of the world, and things which are despised
hath he chosen, yea, things which are not, to bring to
nought things which are, that no flesh should glory in
""
his presence .'
It is only now, when we come to notice the geolo-
gical objections to the narrative of the creation, that
we are disposed to regret the plan that we have
adopted in this lecture, as we should have particularly
liked, and we believe it would have been instructive,
to notice them in some detail. We dare not, however,
presume upon your patience further than to glance at
the past history and present state of the controversy.
For a time after geological observations began to be
systematically made, the students of the science were
divided into two classes - those who argued that the
crust ofthe globe presents numberless indications that it
must have been created at a period greatly more remote
than the Scripture chronology would seem to indicate,
and those who held that the strata afford confirma-
tions of the Scripture account of the six days' work ;
while the fossils embedded in them, and especially the
remains of marine animals found at great elevations,
furnish a demonstration of the universal deluge re-
corded in the Scriptures. But the arguments in favour
of the former view gradually accumulated until they
commanded all but the universal assent of geo-
22 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

logists. It is now admitted by all intelligent men

that the matter of our globe was called into being very
much more than 6000 years ago, and the books that
were written at the commencement of the controversy
on Scriptural Geology have fallen into oblivion. But
two modes of interpreting the narrative of the first
chapter of Genesis were suggested, which had each,
and which have even to this day, their several de-
fenders. They are inconsistent with each other, and
cannot be both correct ; but we think we may say
that there is no intelligent man now who does not be-
lieve that the one or the other is correct. The one is
that which supposes the six days of the creation to
have been long periods of time. We do not know who
was the first propounder of this theory. We first met
with it in the writings of the late Dr Stanley Faber,
whose immense learning and wonderful ingenuity
converted us to the acceptance of it. This theory the
late Hugh Miller may be said to have made peculi-
arly his own. He defended it with an amount of
geological science, and illustrated it with a radiance
of poetical beauty, such as were probably never
before united in a scientific work. The other theory
was propounded by Dr. Chalmers just half a century
ago, and has been adopted and advocated by Buck-
land, Sedgwick, and other eminent geologists.
According to this view, the narrative in the first
chapter of Genesis divides itself into two, or perhaps
more properly into three parts. The first verse tells
us that in the beginning, that is, at some period
which may be indefinitely remote, the heavens and
the earth were created by the word of God. Then
the second verse informs us that at a subsequent
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 23

period the earth was reduced to a state of chaos, it

may be, by some convulsion , which may not have
been the first, or the tenth, or the hundredth which
had taken place from " the beginning ;" and that then the
Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, to con-
vert the chaos once more into a cosmos, and then the
arrangement of the present order of things began
and was completed in six days. It cannot be denied
that this may be the meaning of the Scriptural narra-
tive, and when we become a little accustomed to con-
template it in this light, it not only seems to do no
violence to the narrative, but to be in fact its most
natural interpretation. The historian has to do not
with the earth either in its astronomical or geological
relations, but simply as the habitation of man, whose
history he is to record. A single sentence suffices to
account for the earth's being in existence, and another
to account for the necessity of a new organisation of
it ; and then he proceeds to give an account of this
organisation, with which alone his subject gave him
any concern . It is quite evident that either of these
modes of interpretation completely neutralizes the
geological objection as it then was, inasmuch as, "
according to the one, all the changes which geology
shews to have taken place in the earth's crust may
have occurred during the six periods which the
author of the Book of Genesis calls days ; and accord-
ing to the other, they may have occurred in the
interval which elapsed between the beginning, when
the matter of the earth was created, and the first of
the six days when that matter began to be arranged
substantially as we now find it.
Neither is it any good argument against the truth
24 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

of the Scriptural narrative, that geology proves that

there was death in the world numberless ages before
man was in it, whereas the Bible represents that
death is the wages of sin, that it was the sin of man
that made the creation subject to vanity, that
"brought death unto the world, and all our woe." It
was indeed the sin of man that brought death into
his world, which is our world, but why may not there
have been sin in the previous worlds which were
constructed of the same materials, but of which the
Bible gives no account ? Yea, does not the Bible
itself allude in the very next chapter to sin existing
somewhere in the universe before the creation of man,
and why may it not have been committed in the earth
that then was ? May not the earth in some one of its
previous conditions have been the habitation of Satan
and his hosts, and may not this have been one reason
of his fell malignity against those who succeeded him
in his tenancy ? Is it not possible that both the
angels that fell, and the angels that stood, may have
had their dwelling-place during a period of probation
in this province of their Lord's boundless dominions ;
and that those who stood may have been removed into
a place where God's presence is more specially mani-
fested, prepared for them and for the redeemed of
men before the foundation of the world, where they
have been made secure for ever in virtue of the
covenant established with Him, of whom the whole.
family both in heaven and in earth is named, and
whose prerogative it is, by the appointment of his
Father, to " gather together in one all things, botl
which are in heaven and which are in earth," even
Him, " in whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 25

being predestinated according to the purpose of him

who worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will ;" while those who fell, even the devil and his
angels, were hurried off to a place of outer darkness,
a lake of everlasting fire, prepared for them by their
offended Lord ? May not the song of the morning
stars, and the shout of the sons of God, when they
saw the earth prepared for the habitation of men,
have been all the more jubilant because its creation
was substantially the refitting of an abode endeared
to them by innumerable blissful associations ? May
not the malignity of the tempter have been intensified
and envenomed by the thought that the new race
was to occupy the place which he had once regarded
as peculiarly his own ? This is of course only specu-
lation, and we found no argument upon it.
When the modes of interpretation of the first chapter
of Genesis to which we have referred were propounded,
it was admitted by the common consent of geologists,
that the existence of man upon the earth is compara-
tively of recent date, and so far, science was under-
stood to confirm rather than contradict the scriptural
narrative. It is only within a few months that a
geologist of any note has ventured to assail this posi-
tion, and we venture to assert that a feebler assault
was never made. We have no hesitation in saying,
that Sir Charles Lyell's book on the Antiquity of man
is one of the most un-Baconian productions that ever
proceeded from a scientific man. One premise in
each of his twenty arguments is indeed a fact, but the
other is an assumption, and all of these assumptions
are purely gratuitous, while several are notoriously
and demonstrably false.
26 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

Closely akin in their intention and in their character

to the geological arguments of Sir Charles Lyell for
the antiquity of man, are those which Bunsen and
others have founded upon Egyptian monuments and
inscriptions. They are simply bold assertions, and
wild conjectures, without any foundation to rest upon,
supported by the process of collecting and magnifying
all evidence that seems to support a foregone conclu-
sion, and resolutely excluding all that tends to over-
throw that conclusion. It will be admitted, that there
could not be a more unexceptionable judge on this
subject, than the late Sir G. C. Lewis, and with a
sentence or two from him we shall dismiss the subject.
"6
Egyptology," says Sir George, " has a historical
method of its own. It recognizes none of the ordinary
rules of evidence ; the extent of its demands upon
our credulity is almost unbounded. Even the writers
on ancient Italian ethnology are modest and tame in-
their hypotheses, compared with the Egyptologists.
Under their potent logic all identity disappears, every
thing is subject to become any thing but itself. Suc-
cessive dynasties become contemporary dynasties ;
[contemporary become successive ?] ; one king becomes
another king, or several other kings , or a fraction of
another king ; one name becomes another name, one
number becomes another number, one place becomes
another place." May we not safely affirm, that it is
not weapons such as these, forged in the work-shop of
a diseased brain, composed of the materials whereof
sick men's dreams are made, that shall ever prosper
against our faith or its records ?
When we were speaking of astronomical objections,
we passed over in silence what was called the nebular
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 27

hypothesis, which held that the universe consisted

originally of atoms or particles of matter in a state of
fire-dust or nebula, that this matter was in the course
of millions of ages collected by the action of gravita-
tion into masses, which gradually formed themselves
into worlds and systems, and that upon the surfaces
of these worlds plants and animals were formed by the
action of similar laws ; that this process has been
going on probably for millions of millions of years,
and is going on still. We passed over this in silence,
because it has not only been long abandoned as an
astronomical theory , but has been abundantly confuted
by the advance of astronomical knowledge, and par-
ticularly by the increased power of our modern tele-
scopes, which show that the nebulæ are not fire- dust
out of which suns and worlds are to be made, but
suns actually shining in countless numbers and amaz-
ing splendour. We refer to the theory now, because
of its close connection with that of Lamarck, who held
that all varieties of plants and animals had been
developed from a monad by a process of wishing,
continued through innumerable ages. Thus a particle
of inert matter longed for life, and became a moss ;
the moss became a sponge, half vegetable, half animal ;
wishing for a protection from the dashing waves it made
for itself shell, and became a limpet ; disliking its con-
finement on a rock, it longed for means of locomotion,
it got free, and became a fish ; wishing to see what
was doing in other elements, it longed for wings, and
became first a flying fish, and then a bird. Finding
that its wings, while admirably fitted for motion through
the air, were not suited to aid materially its progress
upon earth, it got them converted into legs and feet, in
28 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

addition to the two that it had before. But while the

bird could fly, and the quadruped could run, neither
of them was very specially fitted for climbing, and so
the four feet were converted into four hands . Then
however, it was found that a mistake had been com-
mitted. Hands were, doubtless, very good things,
but there might be too many of them, especially if
they were purchased at the expense of feet, and so
the monkey exchanged two of his hands for feet,
while he retained the other two, and so he became a
man. It was only further necessary that he should
get a soul, and that also he got by wishing for it.
We are not sure that anybody ever seriously believed
in this theory, or regarded it as aught else than an
ingenious mode of exhibiting, by way of fable or alle-
gory, the singular analogies that pervade the vegetable
and animal kingdoms . But a few years ago both the
nebular theory of astronomy, and the development
theory of species, were set forth anew in a book which
excited a considerable amount of attention at the time
of its publication, the " Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation." Since that time the theory of the trans-
mutation of species, which is just Lamarck's theory of
development, divested of some of its more ridiculous
aspects, has been advocated with great ingenuity by
Dr Darwin, while Mr Huxley and others have at-
tempted, in confirmation of it, to prove the generic
identity of man with the higher order of monkeys.
Now, in answer to all this, it is enough to say that
there is not a single fact on which the hypothesis
rests. There is no record of any one of all the innu-
merable changes which the hypothesis requires. True,
they are supposed to require innumerable ages for
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE, 29

their perfecting, but in every particular age there

ought to be many in all stages of progress. How is
it then that we do not find them actually beginning,
and going on and terminating ? It is easy to suppose
that such an order of things might have been, but it
is abundantly certain that it is not the actually exist-
ing order of things.
We have been speaking of a hypothesis which
dispenses with Adam altogether ; we need do no
more than refer to one which requires a dozen
Adams. Dr Darwin's theory would make all the
races of man of one species originally with the
monkeys, the other would make each of the varieties
of the human race a distinct species, descended from
a different ancestor. This theory was confessedly
originated in America with a view to getting rid of the
""
' difficulty," with respect to the negro race ; and as
that difficulty has been happily got over otherwise,
the theory itself will pass away and be forgotten. We
cannot but mention, however, how satisfactorily it is
confuted, and the Scriptural history of the unity of
mankind, and the dispersion at Babel, is confirmed by
another science, the science of philology. Such men
as Bopp and Max Muller have established, on a de-
monstrative basis, that the languages of men were
originally one, and that they were broken into several
by a violent and sudden cause. These several have
branched out gradually into all the different dialects
that have been spoken in the world.

Thus, brethren, have we shown that there is no in-

consistency between the Bible and true science. Any
supposed inconsistencies that we have not noticed, we
30 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

have not shrunk from because they were too formid-

able to be grappled with, but because they were too
trifling to deserve notice. We have done more than
this. We have shown that it is infant science alone,
that is to say imperfect and inaccurate science, that is
inconsistent with the Bible, while, in proportion as
science is corrected, it is brought round to harmony
with the holy oracles. Thus we may apply to the
Bible what Lord Bacon said, long ago, respecting
natural religion and the existence of God ; " A little
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to
religion." And now we conclude, as we are quite
conscious that we ought to have done ere now, by sug-
gesting two reflections of a practical character.
1. The first is this : that we are not to hold by our
Bible as in a state of suspense, as if the next morn-
ing's newspaper, or the next month's scientific maga-
zine might tear it from our grasp, and prove to us
that it is no Bible at all. We have strenuously
excluded from our discussion the argument from
authority ; but here, we think, it may legitimately
find a place. It would be no answer to any particular
objection from astronomy, to say that Newton was,
and that Herschell is, a believer in the Bible ; or to
any particular geological objection, to assert that Hugh
Miller read with as much reverence the word of God
as he did the works of God ; or to any particular ob
jection, derived from physiology, to say that John
Abercrombie regarded it as no less an honour to be
a humble learner in the school of Christ, than to be a
great teacher of all that man can discover of the
mysteries of man's being ; or to any particular objec-
 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE. 31

tion derived from the department of chemistry, to say

that George Wilson found in the simple faith of Christ
a peace in the midst of his sore sufferings which the
world, with all its mines of knowledge open, could not
give ; but we submit that it is a fair inference from
such facts as these, with reference to objections of
whose force we have not the means of judging, that
we may wait with perfect security for the adjustment
of differences which did not prevent these, and such-
like men, from being at once very " learned and very
pious."
2. Our second reflection may be attached to this
very expression which we have just employed. It is
that there is no foundation for the prevalent idea that
there is a natural antagonism between scientific pur-
suits and religion, and that religious men look with
some sort of jealousy upon the votaries of science.
No ; we know that ignorance is not the mother of any
devotion that is worthy of the name. We wish very
earnestly that all the learned were devout, and we
wish, if it were possible, that all the devout were
learned too. We know there is such a thing as un-
sanctified knowledge, but we know there is such a
thing also as unsanctified ignorance ; and without car-
ing to decide which of these two is worse, we have no
scruple or difficulty in averring that at all events sanc-
tified knowledge is far better than even sanctified ig-
norance. We hail and rejoice in the advance of
science, not only because we hold that knowledge is in
itself far better than ignorance, civilisation than bar-
barism ; but, in addition, because we are persuaded
that every advance in science, by whomsoever made,
shall be in the end an additional contribution to the
32 THE BIBLE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE.

glory of our exalted Lord. When the kings of Tarshish

and the isles shall bring presents unto him, and the
kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts ; yea, when
all kings shall fall down before him, there shall not
be wanting those true kings of men, those men
of ruling intellect, who, according to Lord Bacon's
description of the highest end of science, have contri-
buted to the recovery of man's lost dominion over na-
ture. The anthem of praise which, arising from a
multitude whom no man can number, shall be like
the ceaseless roar of ocean's ever-rolling waves, shall
be composed not wholly of the untutored accents of
the tenants of the rock, but with these shall be
mingled in sweetest symphony the polished notes of
those whose intellects have been expanded, and their
tastes refined, and their souls elevated by the lofty
contemplations of science. Jealous of scientific pur-
suits ! Why, we knowthat science in all her laboratories
is but fabricating for our Lord one of the most grace-
ful and resplendent of all the many crowns which shall
be on his head in the day of his completed glory. To
this end-
" Science is but his factor,
To engross up glorious deeds on his behalf ;
And he will call her to so strict account,
That she shall render every glory up ; "-

And then herself, having paid her willing tribute, shall

sit at his feet to hear his word, or wait as a humble
handmaid to execute his behests, esteeming it as her
highest honour that she is permitted to honour Him.
 ON THE

PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES .

BY

A
ROBERT RAINY, D.D. ,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AND CHURCH HISTORY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.
 II.—On the Place and Ends of Miracles .

THE subject which I have chosen does not impose on

me the obligation to discuss from end to end the
argument concerning miracles, and the difficulties
which men have chosen to raise about them. I have
only undertaken to illustrate how miracles fit into
God's ways of dealing with our minds and hearts.
And my object in undertaking this, is to do something
to fortify the mind against a vague doubt, not unfre-
quently suggested now-a-days by those who do not
choose to come forth with an explicit denial. I find,
however, that it will be necessary for me to glance at
the general argument, before I pass to my more
especial theme ; for it is desirable to indicate what
place my subject holds in the general argument, and
how it stands related to other considerations . This
must be my apology for touching rapidly on various
branches of the subject, which it is impossible to dis-
cuss fully, impossible almost even to represent fairly
within the limits which I must observe.
Eighteen hundred years ago and more, a great
teacher appeared in Judea. The people of the Jews
among whom he appeared, was a people distinguished
C
34 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

by the remarkable character of its religious history.

They were the only nation on the earth that held the
faith and worship of one God, Infinite and Almighty,
and that had joined with it a practical persuasion of His
present and particular providence, and of near relations
to men assumed and borne by Him. They believed
that He had been dealing with them for many ages ;
and certainly along the line of their remarkable history
there had arisen successively great teachers, claiming
a divine mission , and uttering a series of splendid
prophecies. Moreover, in their own opinion and be-
lief, their religious history was still unfinished, the
dealings of God with them were still in progress.
The religion which they cherished, the worship that
had been delivered to them, the prophetic messages
which they had received, had this peculiarity, that
they were all, and always, expectant. The people
were thrown upon the future. God, who had been
dealing with them, was yet further to unfold His
character and will, in other greater interpositions.
The splendid history of the past was only leading up,
through the hopes and yearnings of the present, to a
more consummate future. So they were led to join,
with all their present service, a peculiar spirit of
waiting; and that which they waited for, was to prove
the consolation of Israel. Such was their hope.
That past history of theirs had been marked accord-
ing to their historians, among other things, by miracles
or mighty acts of the Lord . These were not confined
to narrow periods of the history ; rather, they were
found more or less attaching to the whole. Yet two
principal masses might be singled out, connected with
two great eras. The one was the time of Moses and
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 35

Joshua, when the people received their institutions,

and were led into their land. The other was that of
Elijah and Elisha, when the authority of their insti-
tutions, and the majesty of their God, were vindicated.
and restored to honour. Those mighty acts were
wrought in general in connection with the ministry,
and at the hand of men ; they marked those men as
messengers from God, and they betokened the em-
phasis and peculiarity of divine care bestowed on the
people in whose behalf they were wrought. On these
great recollections the people reposed, waiting for the
manifestations yet to come.
Among them, then, there appeared at length that
great teacher, Jesus. He was mighty in word : He
was also mighty in deed. Of Him it is recorded, that
He wrought many miracles, mighty works and signs.
All who followed Him testified that He did so. He
Himself appealed to them in evidence of His authority
as sent from God. Nor is there the slightest trace of
the reality of those remarkable events having been
denied by His contemporaries, who had access to in-
formation on the subject ; nor yet that His works
had at all a tentative character, sometimes succeeding
and sometimes failing. Moreover, as He wrought
many mighty works during His ministry, so it closed
with the greatest miracle of all. For, having been
rejected, and as rejected , put to death by His country-
men, He rose again the third day ; and forty days
afterwards He was seen ascending into the heavens,
by His assembled disciples.
This coming of our Lord with signs and wonders
throws a light back on the whole course of the previ-
ous history, with its signs ; that was preparing His
36 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

way. And it throws a light forward also, inasmuch

as it prepares and establishes our hearts in the
expectation of one conclusive mighty work, which we
still await,-even our Lord's return from the heavens,
the resurrection and judgment of quick and dead
at His appearing.
Concerning miracles, then, and concerning those
ascribed to our Lord in particular, questions have
often been raised, and objections proposed. The
nature of the objection and the ground of it have
never varied materially. It is always based on the
unlikeness of miracles to what we see around us,
on their startlingly exceptional character, as contrasted
with the constancy of nature and her laws. In truth,
it is simply the application to the miracles of Scrip-
ture of that familiar feeling, in virtue of which, any
of you going out in the afternoon to take a walk, feels
pretty sure that he is not likely to meet with any
miracles before he comes home again. The substance
of the objection, I repeat, has never varied ; but the
way of putting it has. At present we have it pro-
pounded and pressed, broadly and unequivocally, by
one class of reasoners. But there are many persons
who, either from a recollection of the vigour with
which such objections have been met heretofore, or
from an idea that an objection veiled often does more
work than an objection displayed, seem more disposed
to put it obliquely, so to say, than directly. They
say that every day furnishes us with a more precise
acquaintance with the facts and laws of nature. And
this inevitable advance in our views of nature and
the world, tends to render the very idea of a miracle
more and more anomalous and incongruous. That
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 37

idea must more and more rank with the antiquated

and exploded notions which were entertained once,
but cannot be easily entertained any more. There-
fore, it is suggested, it may be as well to inquire
whether it is of any great importance that we should
continue to give it a place in our minds ; and whether
Christianity in our days may not dispense with all con-
cern about the matter, and all responsibility for it.
Now, in point of fact, it is further said, one may be
comforted to find that on a just view of things, this
is precisely what results. Whatever miracles, or
events so called, might do or mean for men of a past
age, they are, for Christians now, entirely extraneous
and superfluous . They are not useful, it is said, for
the purpose of supporting our faith, for our faith may
rest on the general excellence of Christianity, con-
sidered as involving a worthy tone of mind, and lead-
ing to nobility of conduct and life. Nay, instead of
miracles grounding a faith in anything else, they
require faith in order to believe in them, and that
Inuch more than the doctrines which they are said
to support. And then, they are not now fitted either
to be objects of contemplation or sources of instruc-
tion. We ought rather to refuse to let mere wonders
like these occupy our minds. There might be a stage
when people could usefully contemplate a truth in
the garb of a wonder, but we now-a-days would do
better to contemplate exclusively the moral or
spiritual principle in itself, that alone can be con-
sidered to have within it a value, and permanent
importance. So then we may peacefully lay miracles
aside, we may be willing to let questions about them
settle themselves as they can, secure that nothing
38 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

that bears on such a point can be for us, as Chris-

tians, modern Christians, a matter of any great im-
portance.
This line is taken by a certain number of persons
who profess and who believe themselves to be Chris-
tians, and who do not wish to be understood as
attacking Christianity. Others again do not go so
far as the views and statements I have adduced ; but
they are more or less uncomfortable and perplexed,
either because they believe there is some force in the
difficulty, or because they are aware that others think
So. Others of course who renounce Christianity, take
advantage of these views to make a more unqualified
or at least a more frank and open application of them.
It is because such things are put abroad, that I have
undertaken to say something upon the subject to-
night.
And first, men delude themselves, who profess to
retain Christianity, and yet to be indifferent about
miracles, or ready to renounce belief in them, as if
they were a kind of garnishing and nothing more. I
shall not illustrate this position by dwelling on the
necessity of miracles to certify us of the Divine
character of the revelation that comes to us, although
I believe that for this purpose miracles have a place
which cannot be supplied in any other way. Nor
shall I dwell on the kind of conception with respect
to God and religion which miracles announce, and
for which they prepare us ; though this also is rele-
vant here. But I rely simply on the consideration,
that the very central articles of Christianity cannot
be confessed without confessing miracles. That
Christ was supernaturally conceived and born, and
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 39

was on the earth Immanuel, God with us ; that after

three days he rose again ; and that bye and bye He
ascended up into heaven in the presence of His dis-
ciples ; these are miracles the greatest and most
stupendous. If these are denied our faith is vain.
If they are admitted, then the question of miracles
is settled, for what objection can be laid against the
other miracles that would not first apply to these.
To speak therefore of resigning the miraculous
element, and retaining our religion notwithstanding,
is either a delusion or a snare. If we are to assert
Christianity we are to assert miracles. And if the
advancing spirit of the age is to antiquate miracles,
and make them practically incredible, then it is
Christianity itself which this spirit of the age is
moving out of the way.
But, secondly, let us see what it is that is relied
upon as either formally and logically excluding
miracles, or as practically putting them out of the
question. It is the advance of science, as it is seen
reducing all things to laws, and turning every pheno-
menon into a fresh illustration of the constancy of
nature, which constancy knows no exception, and
discloses no hint of any. That is the lever they work
with. Now as to this, one thing is perfectly certain,
viz., that no recent discoveries, no recent progress in
the details of science, or in the correlation of its de-
partments, can have even the least bearing on the
question now before us. Whatever force may be in
the argument against miracles from the constancy of
nature, no recent discoveries have made that argu-
ment one whit better or worse ; none has affected in
any way the difficulties said to arise in that quarter.
40 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

A hundred years ago, the argument was precisely the

same as it is to-day, and the answers to it were not
founded on anything on which the progress of science
can exert any influence. The constancy of na-
ture, as alleged here, we may suppose, implies that
the qualities of natural objects, or the forces which
those qualities imply, always manifest themselves in
the like circumstances, and so as to fulfil or exemplify
the same laws of working. So we find it in our ex-
perience ; and so, we may presume, we are to find it.
On the assumption of this general principle the in-
vestigations of scientific men proceed. Now this prin-
ciple has been perfectly familiar for generations, and
could not be enhanced in point of evidence or preci-
sion by any progress of science. It was perfectly well
understood long ago, that this must be the assumption
at the foundation of all progress in human knowledge.
All that has recently been done simply affords fresh
illustrations of it, illustrations which were confidently
expected to arise in the same proportion as phenomena
should be analysed and resolved . These illustrations
have added neither range nor force to any principle
that is available in this argument. It is vain to pre-
tend to be, on this particular point, more advanced
than our great-grandfathers.
The truth is, that the recent advances of science,
and the increasing number of facts reduced to law,
have had, in connection with our argument, just one
legitimate effect, and no more. It has added nothing
to the principle on which correct thinkers have been
dealing with nature for generations, but it has modified
legitimately and advantageously some popular impres-
sions. There were impressions on the popular mind,
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 41

as though some departments of nature were to be re-

garded as in some degree the domain of chance ; as
though in these the chain of causes were more loosely
knit, and as though an element of inherent uncertainty
and precariousness, and therefore a region of caprice,
might be here presumed. These were the departments
of nature with respect to which we were uncertain (the
phenomena being hard to analyse), and the tendency
was to place the uncertainty in the things. This has
not entered formally into the views of any correct
thinker for a long time back, e. g
. , so as to modify a
formal argument ; but an influence from it might, in
a loose way, and inadvertently, adhere to the mind
and occasionally manifest itself. Hence also a ten-
dency to suppose those to be departments of nature
in which especially place or room might be as-
sumed to exist for a kind of interference not else-
where manifest, and that in them the agency of va-
rious supernatural beings, good and evil, might be
specially and frequently exerted. The progress of
science has narrowed the domain regarding which it
was possible to frame such fancies ; and it has taught
many how unreasonable it is to entertain such fancies re-
garding any department ofnature- winds, earthquakes,
or any other whatever. This influence, then, has been
exerted by the progress of science, and it has been ex-
erted legitimately ; and now, does any one suppose
that this influence is adverse to a belief in Scripture
miracles ? He who does so betrays only the most
complete confusion of mind upon the subject of
miracles, and the relations in which miracles must
stand with the ordinary process of the world.
For now, to come to the point as regards this branch
42 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

of the subject, this constancy of nature, of which so

much has been said,-which has been illustrated so
copiously by all the investigations that have re-
duced phenomena to laws, and assigned manner
and measure to the forces of the world - this constancy
of nature, how does it really stand related to miracles ?
It is the supposition and assumpt on on which miracles
are based, and upon which the evidence for miracles
rests. It is so far from having anything in it against
miracles, that it is the foundation of the argument for
miracles and from miracles.
It needs no elaborate or metaphysical reasoning
to make this out. The constancy of nature, as
applicable to this argument, includes these posi-
tions. 1. That no event takes place without a cause,
or set of conditions on which its occurrence depends.
Secondly, that the objects around us in the world,
with their properties, are to be regarded as constant
causes, embodying forces that are constant in the
manner and measure of their working, or conform ac-
curately to law. The conditions being all present in
the same way, and nothing present to modify their
action, the event always will take place . These are
precisely the fundamentals of the argument concern-
ing miracles. Here is an event, it must have a cause.
There must have been a power precedent, a source of
power present to produce it. Secondly, it cannot be
ascribed to any ordinary cause, any of those which
exemplify their action in the experience of the world's
processes. For these are constant in their working,
they make no leaps, they do not vary from the track.
The forces of nature have a range and a physiognomy
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 43

of their own ; and so the miracle stands out, still claim-

ing to have its cause found.
No doubt it may be said, how can you tell but
that the extraordinary event which you call a miracle
may be the effect of some purely natural cause,
though it be a cause not yet discovered ? If this
is objected, it is enough to reply, first, that though
it may sound well as generally stated, there are
some events of which no one will venture to
allege, that they could be produced by natural
causes ; and secondly, (as has been very well urged
lately,) that the very progress of science since those
days, with the discovery and analysis of natural forces
which it implies, puts it more than ever out of the
question that natural causes, undiscovered, still should
have produced, eighteen hundred years ago, the re-
markable events of which we speak.
Well, but remember that we are not speaking about
an " event " merely. The events do not stand alone.
They are connected with a man. The man performed
them, and that simply by a word , indicating that the
divine power was now to go forth to accomplish them.
A word indicates that the finger of God is to be laid
on the things of nature, and that you are to see events
of an unprecedented pattern, springing amid its ordi-
nary phenomena. Hence it has been said that it is
not merely miracle, but prophecy terminating in
miracle, that is here presented to us. Again the event
is not solitary another way, for it is one of a number
and a variety of such events, which are said to cluster
round this man's history. Yet, again, this man and
his works, arise in the line of a great providential
movement which has been going on for ages, in the
history of a people whose religious character and ex-
44 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

perience are most singular. Finally, the appearance

of this man, by whom, and at whose word these wonders
were wrought, has proved, beyond all question , to be
the turning point of the history of the world. These
are the ' miracles of which we speak, the miracles
alleged by us. And they are related to the constancy
' of nature, simply in the manner which I described a
little ago.

I know very well that those who wish to make a

difficulty on this ground, try to stretch the principle
of the constancy of nature, so as to make it cover a
position which would sustain a more effectual argu-
ment. They say, " This is the constancy of nature as
we find it verified, viz . that no event occurs, that cannot
be referred to a natural and constant cause, to a law
that is capable of being assigned and verified. We
know that many marvels have occurred which seemed
inexplicable for a time ; of these, many have been
explained ; when explained, it has always been by
assigning them to causes working according to con-
stant and assignable laws. And we believe this to be
the constancy of nature, viz., that no event ever oc-
curs that may not be referred to natural and constant
causes." But, to assume this ground, is to advance a
whole bunch of fallacies. First, it assumed what is
denied as to universal experience. Secondly, if it be
taken of more recent experience, it comes to this , that
for a long time, and during the whole formation of the
rigorous experimental science, we have seen nothing
but the agency of constant causes, and these conform-
ing, of course, to their constant laws. This is as much
as to say, that we have not seen, for a long time, God
working any miracles. What does that prove ? Not
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 45

even that He is not working them, though that may

be probable enough on other grounds ; but simply,
that God is not wont to exhibit miracles, either to
entertain or to perplex those who investigate the pro-
cesses of nature. Does any body really suppose that
the advocates of miracles are bound to assert that He
will or that He ought ? But I do not choose to dwell
on these things. For, as it seems to me, the proper
answer to the assumption, as thus stated, is simply
this, that it contradicts the fundamental principles of
the Inductive Philosophy. There is not a position
more sacredly established in the modern philosophy
than this, that no a priori principle, such as that as-
sumed, can absolutely prejudge or exclude the proper
evidence of a fact or phenomenon having taken place.
It may be, and is true, that certain kinds of alleged
facts may be highly improbable on various grounds.
Theymaybe so improbable as to justify a man in requir-
ing very respectable evidence before attending to the
allegation, and in sifting the evidence very well before
he believes it. It would be interesting (if it were
possible here, which it is not) to consider the just
operation of this kind of improbability, and how far it
does or does not attach to the miracles of Scripture.
All I can say now is, that when you come to proba-
bilities, you must take in all the kinds and all the
sources of probability. But all this, whatever be in
it, does not come in the way of the assertion I have
made, viz., that no presumptions or assumptions such
as that supposed, can absolutely exclude the proof of
a fact. The fact, the phenomenon, duly witnessed,
must be admitted, and then you immediately cast
about for the cause or source of it. " Yes," some one
46 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

may reply, "we look for a cause reducible to a law, and

we will admit the fact on the hypothesis that it may
be so reducible." I reply, You fly in the face of the
fundamental principles of inductive philosophy in
prescribing any such conditions. The fact must come
to its rights ; it must do so, even if it be a fact that
shall imply a wholly new kind of causes. Your busi-
ness is to take facts and causes as they come ; to trace
and verify them, not to dictate to them.
No, there is no argument of this kind that will
stand, unless you can establish a positive impossibility,
by positively excluding every ground for, or every
source of miracles. And that can only be by Atheism,
not assumed, or asserted, but proved.
For, only consider, that we modify the course of
nature. We are doing it continually. God has been
pleased to appoint or allow, that the course of nature
may be controlled by the interposition of will, acting
freely, though within limits, the whereabouts of which
is easily ascertained. And, being conscious of this
every day of our lives, is it anything but philosophy
bewitched, fascinated by ghosts of its own raising, that
can persuade men who admit a personal God, to allow
themselves to be entangled in such a feeble web of
sophistry as this is ? What should hinder God from
interposing in like manner ; only with a power and
mastery that mark the interposition as His ?
But will He ? Here we come on a new way of
putting the objection, and one that falls in very much
with the current tone on these matters. Men say,
"We believe in God ; but as we contemplate His
works in their magnificent march from age to age, the
conviction grows and deepens that this is God's man-
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 47

ner, to work by laws ; and that He will have us to

mark it as His manner, His way of working ; and the
march of science over all departments deepens this
conviction on our minds ; and it will deepen it on the
minds of men at large, whatever you may choose to
say to the contrary. God, as a matter of fact, accus-
toms us to this style and way of working—viz.,
by laws, and the impression grows strong, that to
suppose He ever works otherwise is a mistake, and
rests on some mistake or other." This may be regarded
as one of the best shapes which the argument can
assume ; and in this shape it falls in very much with
that strain of remark which I indicated near the be-
ginning of the lecture, as at present popular in certain
quarters. "What we see makes us think it unlikely,
that God will, or would work miracles." Now, it
might be enough to say, that an objection like this
would be all very well, if we had nothing to do but to
discuss likelihoods ; it would not be strong, but it
might have a certain weight ; but that it is merely
presumptuous, when we are dealing with evidence that
miracles have been wrought. Let it be proved if it
can be proved, that God cannot work miracles ; or,
let it be proved if it can be proved, that God ought
not to work miracles. But if neither of these things
can be proved, then you never can plead your opinion
of what God will do, to shut out evidence of what He
has done. This might be enough, if a complete argu-
ment were the only thing in view. But we are here
dealing with an impression, vague it may be, and
unreasonably applied ; but impressions are not the
less influential in many cases, because they are vague,
nor although they are unreasonable. And, therefore,
48 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

I have thought it fit to speak of the ends of mir-

acles, that we may both perceive the groundless
character of that impression, and may feel on the con-
trary how fitly miracles fall in with the design of the
dispensations of God.
I say, then, that what God will do, or the style of
operation which He will adopt, depends on the ends
He has in view, and which, by his working, He de-
signs to bring to pass. Now the experience of the
world, as observed and analysed by scientific investi-
gators, shews us God's way of working for the unfold-
ing of the physical world, from age to age, and for
enabling man to develope his ordinary history in the
scene so constituted. God's way of working here, and
for these ends, appears to be by upholding constant
forces, which operate according to fixed laws. And
this result of observation may be taken as yielding a
presumption that in general that will be his manner
in this sphere and for these ends. Yet it can never be
more than a presumption ; and even as a presumption
cannot be stretched very far. We do not know where
or when reasons may exist which shall make it fit
for God to interpose some altered mode of working,
some form of energy that cannot be reduced to
the formula I have referred to. Still we see how
steadfastly, for ages, the order of the universe abides,
all things being set in number, and measure, and
weight. We see how fitted it this to promote the edu-
cation of the race, and to give us the opportunity of
penetrating one depth after another of creative wis-
dom , power, and glory . We see how impressively
such a mode of working, by its very steadfastness , is
fitted to train us in the knowledge of some Divine
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 49

attributes. We see how the conceptions which this

order supplies, meeting us and shining out on us from
every domain of science, furnish the mind of man for
steady and growing mastery over nature. And so we
may well gather that this is to be the ordinary cha-
racter of our experience, as it regards God's ways of
working in this sphere and for these ends.
But there are other ends which God may and does
design , for the attainment of which miracles seem
to be the appropriate and most admirable means :
not miracles scattered without an apparent reason
through the workings of nature, but occurring as
marked exceptions to the general order, and in marked
connection with the object for which they are designed.
There may be many reasons in consideration of which
God might work miracles which we do not know ; his
reasons are his own. But there are some which we
do know, and which we ought to consider. And
these reasons which we do know, these ends which we
may assign are most weighty ; and they are such that,
if we are not to say they could not be attained without
miracles - which is perhaps more than ought to be
asserted by us—-we may yet say that there is no other
way by us conceivable in which they could have been
attained.
For miracles accompany revelation. They present
themselves as fit works of God when He reveals. This,
I may say, furnishes us with the reason why we have
seen no miracles for so many ages (the fact on which
the doubt is based). If God has closed his revelation,
it is no wonder that He has ceased for the present to add
those signs. Objectors love to reason as though
miracles, if possible at all, might be expected to turn
D
50 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES.

up occasionally in the midst of our experiments as

pure anomalies, that come from nothing and go to
nothing. We assert, and are bound to assert, no such
thing. We believe in no miracles but such as are the
birth of God's steadfast purposes, and are ordered to
ends. And believing the ends of miracles to be con-
nected with the process of revelation, the fact that
they do not occur during this period in which re-
velation has bid us wait for our Lord's return, is
precisely what we should be prepared to count upon.
I repeat, then, miracles present themselves as fit
works of God Revealing. They come to us, then, as
part of this general allegation, that God has been
pleased to deal with the minds and wills of men by
something additional to the works of nature, viz., by
revelation. So that it is with reference to the end
thus assigned, and with reference to that only, that
the question ought to be raised. Is the natural order
of things, with its constant course, the only revelation
of himself which God has made to man ? or is there a
farther dealing with the minds and wills of men by
revelation ? For if so, then here, where God passes
forth beyond nature to speak, it may be very fit that
he should pass beyond nature to do.
Now through natural things God does deal with
our minds. They supply to our minds a noble field
of exercise ; they disclose to us depths and reaches of
beauty and order that are inexhaustible, for still
the boundaries retreat as we pass onward over the
field. Nor is it only with the creatures that our
minds become conversant in this discourse. That
which may be known of God also, is here. His being
and perfections are in these things displayed to
 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES. 51

us. And there is that within us which teaches us

to refer those works to a personal and righteous
God, and suggests to us the concreated law under
which He has placed us, and which we cannot
doubt to be the expression to us of His eternal will.
He does reach our minds through the things that are
made ; and the minds which he reaches are so consti-
tuted, that being put in play they do or may gather
true thoughts of God, they may discern something
of His nature and something of His will. But
then this is not enough, for man. We have the best
reason for believing it was not enough, even in the un-
fallen state ; certainly it is not enough now that man
is fallen.
God speaks to us by His works ; yet there remains
a distance ; yes, and there is a silence too. The voice
is gone through all the earth, the words to the ends
of the world ; yet there is no speech, there is no lan-
guage, their voice is not heard. For this great nature
stands and utters herself from age to age in her play
of laws, unbending, equal to herself ; so that the more
she is searched, though the chorus deepens, widens,
swells immeasurably, yet the sum of meaning is
found only the more certainly to be the same, one
unvarying sameness from age to age- one tranquil
and majestic testimony to every man and every race
-uttered still as fully and persistently if there is no
man to hear, no mind to be filled by it. Here indeed
God is revealed, yet so that he remains veiled. There
is not enough here for man. Bearing God's own
image he needs more. He was made for fellowship, for
intercourse, for friendship, not only with his fellows,
but with his Maker. And that implies the disclo-
52 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES .

sure of personal meanings , mind apprehended bending

to my mind, and heart moving to meet my heart.
Moreover, that element in man, in virtue of which
he can choose and take his course as a moral
being finds no sympathy, in the steadfast and equal
sequences of nature. Man feels, indeed, that God
must be one who has a moral character. But he finds
no adequate utterance addressed to this capital ca-
pacity.
Even conscience, the monitor within, which, as life
unfolds, suggests to us what the character of the great
Creator is, does not speak the adequate utterance of
man's Maker to such a being as inan ; rather it moves
man to a listening earnestness, to say, Speak, be not
silent unto me. If there be no answer but that which
nature gives, then God remains veiled and distant.
For, let it be remembered, it is the nature of man, and
the very meaning of his place in this scene of things,
that he should be dealt with from without. The con-
science and capacities within fit him to hearken to
voices from without. And if the constitution and
course of nature be the only divine utterance, so ad-
dressed, to him, then as to the highest wants and
capabilities of man, God remains veiled. Wise, in-
deed, He is, and benevolent, in general arrangements,
but remote and immoveable - disclosing only purposes
and meanings that are equal to themselves from age
to age . He never, nowhere, comes down to walk,
step for step, beside my path, and to make me feel that
as my life of changes passes on, He has a purpose and
a meaning for every change, and an individual pur-
pose and meaning for the result to which every change
shall bring me.
 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES. 53

That God, therefore, should reveal himself, in some

way that is additional to the revelation in nature,
should deal with our minds and wills in a way more
personal and special, is surely an admissible idea.
It is so in any view ; but it is more evidently so when
we view man fallen. If God has any purpose of mercy
towards man fallen, it must be revealed to him and
made good to him in a way proportioned to his actual
state. But man's actual state is that of having fallen
out of harmony with himself, and with God's works
around him. He is plainly prone to miss and lose
even those teachings which nature might afford to a
purer mind. And he plainly needs information and
direction which a purer mind would not need to seek
from nature, or from any other quarter.
The sum is, that on all accounts we may judge it
fit, that to His creature man God shall have meanings
to declare, meanings which nature does not disclose,
of which her whole course seems calmly ignorant,
meanings which she was not fitted to embody or attain.
Now the method which God will take, in this
special dealing with the minds of men, may be easily
assigned. For we see how He has done it ; and we
may at all events maintain to our opponents that so
He might do it. There is nothing unworthy or un-
likely about it. God can convey his meaning by a
direct and most inward impression on His creature's
mind, accompanying it with an assuring evidence as
to the source from which, and the authority with
which it comes . He might do that in the case of
every man. But as I have already said, so I now re-
peat, it is the nature of man, and the explanation of
his whole place and constitution-that he was meant
54 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES.

to be dealt with from without. He is dealt with

through persons and through things without him, in
all of which he finds the materials of his history, and
the objects upon which his capacities are exercised :
God, therefore, has chosen to deal with man, by mak-
ing his inward impression on his servants' mind to be
a message and a meaning concerning things and events
transacted in the world. To these things and events the
meaning, the Divine meaning is attached, or, in these it
is embodied and realised. And this being declared by
God's servant, God is seen and found entering into a
special course of dealings with men, setting them forth
into a history of transactions with God, at every turn
of which they may be conscious of his nearness, of His
special mind toward them, of that regard and bent of
His thoughts, His judgments, and His mercies, which
mere nature never could disclose. So he did before
man fell. So He has done ever since. And thus man's
nearest and most momentous relations to his God,
in those matters in which man is above nature-in
which man is not measured by mere mechanical forces
-those relations are ascertained, unfolded, exercised,
so as to produce the effects that are embraced in God's
design. This is the kind of professed revelation to
which the alleged miracles are attached. No one
can show that such a revelation is unsuitable to man
or unworthy of God. Now, I say that such a revela-
tion, unfolding meanings of God which nature cannot
disclose, of which, from age to age, she takes no note,
and makes no sign, might most fitly be accompanied
by works of God, that are no part of the order of
nature, are no birth of the forces that are governed by
her laws. Are not such works a fit token, that
 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES. 55

those divine meanings, which man is now to appre-

hend, and deal with, and keep in view as he looks
out on the scenery of his life, are sure objective re-
alities ? Do they not fitly assure him that though
nature does not echo them to his inner man, as she
does some other truths, yet he need not doubt nor
fear, as though this persistent silence of nature were
a silence of God ? Do they not fitly assure him, that
this added meaning with which he is called to deal,
is no fancy of some erring brother, but is indeed the
unfolded mind of God ?
So then, in general, the miracles come to serve for
attestation of the authority ofthe messenger ; they are
the work of divine power, here and now accompany-
ing the man and going forth at his word. He that is
able to announce a present work of God, of the nature
of immediate interposition, apart from the ordinary
forces of nature, may well be thought commissioned
to declare God's mind on those other matters, in re-
spect to which he announces a message from on high.
This, in general, is the leading function of miracles.
But there are several additional considerations which
are fitted to show you how fitly miracles occupy this
place, and in how many ways they are adapted to pro-
duce on the human mind the precise effects intended.
For, first, they are striking in their own nature ; they
attract and secure attention, by their very unlikeness
to the ordinary course of things. They call into the
liveliest exercise that sense of awe to which immense
and strange power wielded by the will of one unseen,
disturbing the ordinary course of affairs, always gives
birth in human minds. This effect, indeed, is pro-
duced primarily in the witnesses and the contempo-
56 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES.

raries ; but it is not confined to them. For every one

who receives the message down to the latest genera-
tions, may receive it as a message so from God, that
when it came God laid claim to human attention and
human submission by these emphatic and exceptional
signs. To us, who are hardened and confused by sin,
this admonitory emphasis of communication serves a
most important purpose. For who does not feel that,
as a race, we are in a condition of bondage to the
creature, " serving the creature more than the creator?"
This is our sin, that we have regard to the creatures,
the order of things around us, as a seat of power, and
a source of good, independent of God, and considered
apart from Him. On the other hand, that Divine
being, whom we do not altogether deny, we are skilful
to place far away ; and we think of His will, so far as
it is His, as no such august matter, just because all
things continue as they were. On these accounts the
appeal to our attention is made in a way precisely
adapted to the evils of our state, when , along with the
message (which, even if we believed it, we might be
disposed to treat so idly) we have presented the idea
of God's power in movement- in movement along a
line of sudden energy that is strange to nature. This
presents to us a person who sets forth his will in deeds.
It suggests to us how much we need to have our rela-
tions to that Power, and the results it brings about,
and to the principles which it is pledged to enforce,
adjusted, and set right.
But, again, in another respect, the miracle is pre-
cisely adapted to be the proper and convincing pledge
of the truth of revelation. For observe what it is
 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES. 57

that revelation is concerned to set forth. It sets forth

or reveals God ; yet not merely nor mainly God in
the internal glory of His immanent perfections ; but
rather God contemplated in that which He is doing
and will do. The communion or fellowship of God
with man always proceeds by a manifestation of that
which God will do. Special dealings and ways of
procedure on God's part, on which nature is silent, are
announced ; things which God pledges himself to effect
are declared . And man is to order and conform his
ways answerably to those pledged proceedings of God.
For man, as a historical being, is not called to stand
with God, but to walk with Him.
What the Revelation therefore declares to man is
this, how the power of God will go forth in action,
in justice, faithfulness and love ; and this egress of
God's power man is thenceforth to expect, and in the
expectation of it dealing with God as pledged to it,
he is to go. This I repeat is the general character of
Divine Revelations. Now on account of this general
character which attaches to them, the fit evidences
are miracles and prophecy. Of prophecy which is
itself a miracle, I will not speak now. But the
miracle is an exhibition here and now of Divine
action going forth in a manner and along a line
strange to the action of constant causes and ordin-
ary laws, singling out an effect which is not con-
tained in the order of nature, and bringing it to pass.
So it stands for a token that the agency of God shall
not fail to be there and to do its work, when the
times of the promise come round ; it stands for a
token that the likelihood based on the appearances of
things, on that certain order which seems to look so
58 ON THE PLACE AND END OF MIRACLES.

impassive on all our hopes and fears, is not to mea-

sure or bound our faith. It justifies us in resolving
that our faith shall measure its confidence only by
the word, from which shall not be parted the power,
of the infinite One.
Still more impressively, however, do such considera-
tions present and press themselves when we come
nearer to the practical exigences of man, and con-
sider what God undertakes and calls us to expect in
a revelation of mercy. The revelation comes to
sinners, and it sets forth a scheme of restitution. It
finds us not only darkened and perplexed, which we
have stated already, but undone.
It finds us fallen, and so fallen, that neither nature
nor conscience, in virtue of any power in either or
both of them, shall enable us to emerge again on
the platform of a state of solid well-being. The
object therefore of the divine word and deed is not
merely to unfold the possibilities and impossibilities
of our actual state, but to make a new beginning of
our highest life, from which beginning there shall go
forward a career of deliverance and glory. This
indeed may be denied ; men may assert that the fall
was not so deep, and that the remedial dispensation
does not import anything so extraordinary. But it
is enough for my argument, that the case may be in
this respect as I have stated it. This may be the
actual fact and the Scripture doctrine :-the fall may
be so deep, the remedy so wonderful and decisive.
When we are maintaining the fitness of the miracle
to be appended to the doctrine, we must be allowed
to bring forward our own persuasion of what the
doctrine is, and to allege the congruities discernible
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 59

from our own point of view. At all events, whether

granted or not, it must be asserted and maintained
.
against all who deny it or explain it away, that the
case is even so, that the fall is so ruinous, that the
redemption must be so decisive. But if the case be
so, or be anything like this, then manifestly the
question which is raised, and may be addressed to
every teacher inspired or not, about every doctrine
revealed or imagined, is not a question of truth
merely, but a question of power. Let true things be
said bearing on the case, and on the relations both of
God and man to it-true things, never so true and
never so clearly truths, which God only could reveal,
that is not enough ; the question is whether they are
truths that set forth an assurance of power, actually
coming forth to do the work required ; and whether
they are accompanied with tokens and pledges that
may certify and sustain the faith of so great a
thing as the actual egress and exercise of this power.
Is this truth wedded to a power and declarative of a
power fit to deal with such a case as ours ? Is it allied
to power, in whose going forth a Divine hand shall
be laid on the ruin of the fall, a new life breathed,
a new beginning made ; power that shall clear away
the difficulties that obstruct our return, and open
a pathway for us, and bring us thereby back to God ?
Are we left to the order of nature, and to the resources
that are contained in and measured by her laws ? are
we left to those forces, doomed to labour in contriv-
ances that still break down, seeking to make nature.
serve a purpose for us, for which her powers were
never destined ? or ceasing from the toil, are we left
to stand in the world, amid its many ordered har
 60 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

monies, and feel how sadly they look on the creature

that has fallen and gone astray ? Is that our case ?
Or is there power, and does there come to us the as-
surance of a power, which has entered into history,
and can enter into our hearts, a power above any or
all the powers that are contained in the order of
nature, above them all ; power which however gently
it entered into history, however secretly it may work
within the heart, is a power of that order which
wrought in the beginning, and made the beginnings,
a power that can lay-has laid- a new foundation,
and can wake the pulses of a new heart ? That is the
question of Redemption, a question not of truth only,
but of power. God means us to feel it to be the ques-
tion. When we say so, we neither deny nor disgrace
the natural order, which is good, and worthy to abide
steadfast for its ends. Nor do we forget that that
. redeeming power has also its order, doubtless a glori-
ous order, which we partly apprehend. Nor do we
forget that usually that redeeming virtue is so co-
ordinated to the natural order, or takes up that into
its working, as to make no jar. But yet, in the end,
that question still returns. Is there such a power
pledged and working-power measureless ? Are we
assured that it comes, able to exceed and bear rule
over all the forces of the natural order? Are we assured
that there is no fate in that order that can stay its
blessed course ? Is there a power that can bid any
waves be still, make any diseases whole, awaken out
of the most real death ? We need a revelation that
shall deal with us so as to make this manifest and
plain to us, a revelation that shall mark it as a most
experimental matter of fact. For this is the con-
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 61

dition, and the only ground of true faith in redemption ;

not otherwise shall there be born and reared, a faith
that, in the presence of the evils of our state, shall expect
and embrace redemption. There are times, decisive
times in the lives of men, when this order of nature
that girds us about, with its sure recurrences, its un-
halting processes, its onward march, in which it seems
to say , "" The sum of power is mine, and I am the
highest law," presses upon men very sore. There are
times when, doubting if there be anything beyond this
that they can practically deal with ; men begin to
realise what the order of nature means for a trans-
gressor, for this is the order of nature, that the past
determines and shapes the future. And the question .
rises, He that came, asking for our faith, did He
come like so many others, bringing words only, very
good words, but oh how feeble, or did He come with
word and deed, words wedded to power, as one able
to reverse the past, and make all new ? Surely
miracles were one direct, fit, most reasonable way to
make this clear. Marvellously it sustains and leads
on the mind, when we are passing in to deal with
Christ about the inward mysteries of the heart of man,
and the life of God, that we see those mighty works of
His ; that we see how the magnificent and ancient
order, which claims silently to sum in itself all the
possible, retreated before His word to make way for
new possibilities, for divine effects ; so that what was
most wayward, and what was most stable in
nature, put a new demeanour on when He came near
—and waves and storms were quieted-and death
awoke to life.
This might lead us, if time served, to notice how
62 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

the miracles in the nature or character of them were

adapted to express the manner in which the divine
power that is above nature would exert itself to carry
forward the divine counsel. It might be interesting
to remark how the miracles varied with the stages of
the dispensation ,-in the time of Moses, expressing to
that nation of slaves, called out to the privileges of
God's first-born, how God set them free, fought along
with them and for them, provided for them, carried
them to their inheritance ; in the days of Elijah and
Elisha, when the question was raised whether Jehovah
were indeed the supreme and the Lord of the world,
or whether another ought not to be preferred before
Him, miracles that taught how the elements became
servants of Jehovah's servants, to sustain them, to
overthrow the rebellious, to reinstate the law of Moses,
the servant of God ; in our Lord's day, setting forth
the character of Him who was, and is, God's abiding
ordinance for good, God's fountain of living water set
forth for us to drink it, the eternal life manifest in the
flesh, and given to the need and the sorrow of men.
But I cannot dwell on this, neither can I now go
on to indicate other views that illustrate the reasons
and ends of miracles, how fit it was that they should
have a place, and a large place in the divine economy
of revelation. What has been said may go some way
to illustrate how congruous they are to the work of
God as revealing ; so that if you once admit that God
might conceivably design to reveal to His creatures
truths such as Scripture embodies, you cannot but
admit that miracles form the most appropriate, ex-
pedient, and, as far as we can judge, necessary accom-
paniment, both with a view to declare the mission of
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 63

the messengers, and also to elevate the impressions of

men, and direct their perception of what they deal
with, and whom they deal with, and how they are to
bear themselves in their dealings when they hearken
to the word of God.
In conclusion, I shall express my persuasion that
a due impression and belief of miracles (not alone our
Lord's, but the others in the Scriptures in their connec-
tion with his) belong to those exercises of faith which
at the present day exercise a most important influence
on our general persuasion of the truth of Christianity,
and more particularly on our religious training and
our spiritual wellbeing. I do not wish to be under-
stood as offering to pass judgment on individuals,
who, under various influences, may have been led to
take some erroneous ground on this matter, but I am
thoroughly persuaded that, speaking generally, the
real ground and bottom of difficulties about miracles
is to be found here, viz., that men are not really per-
suaded of the fundamental truth that God is. And
I believe, on the other hand, that a due impres-
sion of the mighty acts of Christ and of his servants
under the old dispensation and the new, is very im-
portant for vivifying and brightening that belief, and
counteracting some of the temptations of the present
time. In former days, when the course of revelation
was not yet completed, when, therefore, miracles still
recurred from time to time, there was a trial of faith
and an exercise for it. For so it was in those days
that men were not so much disposed to deny the pos-
sibility of something more or less miraculous ; but
they were ready many of them to think that such works
might come from an evil source. And so the connec-
64 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES.

tion of the miracle with the whole course of God's

dispensations, and with the character and teaching of
him who was commissioned to perform it, came in to
steady the mind and to fix the confidence of those who
believed in God. Now the current runs the other
way. Men, familiarised with the great discoveries
which have expounded so much of the ways of na-
ture's working, and shewn us steadfast principles
always exemplified as regulating the forces of the
world, are tempted to make nature a prison both for
God and man. They are tempted to believe in a God,
measured in his working by that which nature shews,
and to cut down religion to the proportions of such a
God. Very much now the question of the faith is in-
volved in our admiring and adoring God, doubtless as
He exhibits himself in his works in the order of na-
ture, and yet so that we refuse to stay there, and pass
forward to adore Him as the " God that is ABOVE."
Now miracles, as connected with the especial declara-
tion of himself by God to man's spirit and man's need,
with the drawing near of God to institute a fellowship
of salvation, come into connection with this faith. A
due impression about them is at once an instance of
that faith, and it exerts an influence to define and fix
it When men who do not profess to deny miracles
undervalue them, either as evidence of our religion,
or as a constitutive element of it, they exhibit a very
shallow spiritualism , and indicate at least a defective
exercise of mind about the being and ways of God.
And the exercise of our mind in this department
should gather itself to an especial energy as it rises to
contemplate the central miracle and the source of
miracles in the blessed and adorable person of the
 ON THE PLACE AND ENDS OF MIRACLES. 65

Lord Jesus. In the midst of all the voices, loud and

low, that nature utters with her multitudinous tongues
(which all do speak something of God), let us catch the
accents of another voice, clearer, deeper, charged with
quite another meaning-a voice coming from heaven,
opened across that tide of lower sounds- a voice that
says, "This is my beloved Son ; hear Him. "

E
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

IN RELATION TO

SECULAR PROGRESS .

BY

WILLIAM G. BLAIKIE, D.D., F.R.S.E.

All things are yours; whether things present or things to come. "-1 COF, III. 21, 22.
Spiritual Christianity in Relation to Secular
Progress .

AMONG the many charges that are brought in these

days against spiritual Christianity, one is, that it
hinders secular progress, that it weakens all attempts
to promote the temporal welfare of mankind. By
spiritual Christianity is meant that which rests on
such doctrines as these ;-that the salvation of the soul
through faith in Christ, and the regeneration of the
Holy Spirit, is the one thing needful ; that it profits a
man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul ; that this world is but a temporary and
fleeting scene, the mere portal of the eternity which
is beyond ; and that our great object here should be
to get our spirits trained and ripened for the life to
come. The spirit of these doctrines, it has been
alleged, is in many ways adverse to social improve-
ment and secular progress. They teach us (accord-
ing to the secularist) to look with resignation and
indifference on the evils that prevail in the world ,
instead of trying to remedy them ; they tend to make
us careless of wrong now, because we say all will be
put right hereafter ; they lead us to stifle some of our
truest instincts, such as desire of property, love of
nature, love of home, love of innocent joys and recrea-
70 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

tions ; they make us aim at an impossible life, at living

in the future and the unseen while we are intended to
live mainly in the present and the visible ; they engage
us to a warfare in which we cannot conquer, spur us
to a race in which we cannot win ; and thus, through
the constant mortification of defeat, make us cross,
and sour, and miserable, oftentimes less genial and
less gladsome than many who are living without God,
and without hope in the world.
Thus Mr W. R. Greg, one of the class of serious
sceptics so characteristic of the present day, has said,
"It is only those who feel a deep interest in, and affec-
tion for this world who will work resolutely for its
amelioration ; those whose affections are transferred to
heaven acquiesce easily in the miseries of earth, give
them up as hopeless, as befitting, as ordained, and
console themselves with the idea of the amends which
are one day to be theirs. If we had looked upon this
earth as our only scene, it is doubtful if we should so
long have tolerated its more monstrous anomalies and
more cureable evils. But it is easier to look to a
future paradise than to strive to make one on earth ;
and the depreciating and hollow language of preachers
has played into the hands both of the insincerity and
the indolence of mankind." To these general remarks
this writer subjoins a note furnished him by a friend,
to the effect, that when he counted up among his per-
sonal friends all whom he thought to be most decidedly
given to spiritual contemplation, and to make religion
rule in their hearts, at least three out of four appeared
to have been apathetic towards all improvement of
this world's systems , and a majority had been virtual
conservatives of evil, and hostile to political and
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 71

social reform, as diverting men's energies from

eternity.*
Much to the same effect is a remark by Mr Ruskin,
in the 5th vol . of his “ Modern Painters :" " The right
faith in man is not intended to give him repose, but
to enable him to do his work. It is not intended that
he should look away from the place he lives in now,
and cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to
live in next, but that he should look stoutly into this
world, in faith that if he does his work thoroughly
here, some good to others or himself, with which , how-
ever, he is not at present concerned, will come of it
hereafter. And this kind of brave, but not very hope-
ful or cheerful kind of faith, I perceive to be always
rewarded by clear practical success and splendid intel-
lectual power ; while the faith which dwells in the
future fades away into rosy mist and emptiness of musi-
cal air. That result, indeed, always follows naturally
enough on its habit of assuming that things must be
right, or must come right, when probably the fact is,
that so far as we are concerned, they are entirely
wrong and going wrong, and also on its false and weak
way of looking on what these religious persons call
‘ the bright side of things,' that is to say, on one side
of them only, when God has given them two sides ,
and intended us to see both."
Besides standing in the way of the temporal good
of society, spiritual Christianity is conceived by its
opponents to be a great promoter of insincerity and
hypocrisy on the part of those who affect it. They
are regarded as ever professing to view this world and

* The Creed of Christendom, p. 251 .

72 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

all its interests in a light which is not real and true.

One of the writers whom I have quoted (Mr Greg)
draws a picture of a preacher urging his congregation
"to despise this world and all that belongs to it ; to
detach their hearts from this earthly life as inane,
fleeting, and unworthy, and fix them on heaven, as
the only sphere deserving the love of the loving, or
the meditation of the wise ; " then, an hour afterwards,
snugly seated with his hearer at a well-spread table,
enjoying all the comforts of life, fondling his children ,
discussing public arrangements or private plans in life
with passionate interest ; and yet both preacher and
hearer looking at each other without a smile or a
blush for the hollow and unworthy profession they are
regarded as just having been making in church. In
general, too, wholesale charges of hypocrisy against
persons professing great spirituality are based upon
an alleged difference between the way in which they
practically treat this world, and the principles they
profess to hold regarding it. It is insinuated, or
boldly affirmed, that your very spiritual men know
very well in most cases how to look after their own
interests, and that the great contempt of the world
which they affect is often not apparent when they are
concluding a bargain or maintaining a right. But, then,
there is a natural unwillingness on their part to be-
lieve that what they do and what they feel is funda-
mentally at variance with that superiority to the world
which they profess to have attained ; and hence ( it is
affirmed) a temptation arises to a course of sophistry
that goes to vitiate conscience, and to make the light
which is in them darkness. They are unwilling to
let themselves believe that they really have a love for
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 73

the good things of this world ; they will not let them-
selves fancy that they have any enjoyment in money
or the other good things of life, or in a tale of fiction,
or in an athletic exercise, or in a secular amusement.
They are tempted to forced and unnatural methods of
explaining their sensations in connection with such
things ; an atmosphere of self-deception is created
around them ; their consciences become morbid and
unreliable ; and, in many cases, the way is prepared
for terrible departures from duty, for those flagrant
outbreaks of corruption which give a triumph to the
ungodly, and fill the hearts of Christians with horror
and shame. Of course, I am not endorsing these
charges against spiritual Christianity. I merely report 、
them as the assertions of secularists ; while, at the
same time, it is impossible to deny that there are some
professors of spiritual religion whose conduct does give
a colouring of truth to the exaggerated picture.
In the case of some honest, humble, holy men, who
day by day are endeavouring to live according to their
conception of the spiritual life, there is often an un-
comfortable uncertainty whether or not they are right
in the attention they bestow on the things of this
world, and the pleasure they derive from them. There 1
is a lingering notion that there is something essen-
tially carnal and wrong in all those tastes and ten-
dencies which are not directly of a religious nature.
To crucify all these tastes and tendencies they have
never made up their minds to attempt ; but not being
very sure about them, it is in a somewhat furtive and
underhand way they gratify them, as if they were afraid
to attract the observation of persons more spiritually-
minded, and were conscious of an inferiority which
74 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

they cannot defend. A life spent in this atmosphere

of uncertainty can neither be a very comfortable nor
very influential one. The tread of such persons
cannot be the firm and manly advance of those who
walk in the day, but rather the timid and hesitating
motion of " him who walketh in darkness , and knoweth
not whither he goeth."
All these considerations make it exceedingly de-
sirable that we should endeavour to get our concep-
tions cleared as to what the Word of God really
teaches on the relation of Christians to this world, and
the bearing of spiritual Christianity on social improve-
ment and secular progress generally. The subject is
one of great practical importance, and it demands not
a little delicate discrimination and careful handling.
Our course lies between a Scylla and a Charybdis—
between a morbid spiritualism on the one hand, and a
vulgar secularism on the other ; and I must frankly
throw myself on the indulgence of my audience ; for
besides the difficulties I have already mentioned, there
is great difficulty, within the limits of a single lecture,
in making one's meaning clear, and preventing mis-
conceptions on the many points that must be raised.
The subject is a two-sided one, and it is but one of
its sides that I have directly to deal with. I hope it
will not be inferred that I am indifferent to the other,
or that, in shewing how godliness really has the pro-
mise of the life that now is, I forget that its great in-
heritance is in that which is to come.
What, then, is the doctrine of the Bible as to the
relation to this world in which Christians should
stand, more especially-I. As to the sense in which
the world is to be renounced and overcome ; and II. As
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 75

to the sense in which it is to be possessed and en-

joyed ?

1. My first remark in reply to the former of these

questions is, that in reproving the love of the world, and
calling on Christians to renounce it, the Bible does so on
great moral grounds- not because the world is in itself
a bad thing, or essentially unworthy of our regard, but
because devotion to the world, as it usually exists,
tends to the destruction of our higher nature, and
hinders the application of the great Divine remedy
for our sin. What the Bible aims its thrust at is
idolatry of the world, and especially of its more ma-
terial interests ; putting these in the place of God ;
treating them as the chief good and the main chance
for man ; using them as the prodigal son used his
share of his father's goods, -not with his father, nor
under his wholesome supervision, but away by him-
self in a far-off country ; making them thus the occa-
sion of an actual separation from the personal God,
and from all those holy and blessed influences that
come from Him. The uniform teaching of the Bible
is, that when the world is thus treated, the nature of
man is not only dwarfed and starved, but corrupted,
and finally ruined . Its baser tendencies are vio-
lently stimulated ; a grovelling and selfish character
is formed ; all reverence for what is high, and pure,
and holy evaporates ; the blessed habit of correcting
and elevating our ideas and impressions of things, by
placing ourselves beside God, and looking on them
from his lofty stand-point, has no existence ; that sense
of the dignity and grandeur of our being which is de-
rived from the habitual contemplation of Eternity is
76 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

lost ; that awful impression of our responsibility, and

of the meaning and bearing of our life here which
comes from viewing them in their relations to an end-
less existence, in which both we and all around us are to
bear a part, never comes into play ; the soul becomes
numb and torpid, it degenerates into a kind of higher
animal instinct, into a faculty that guides merely to
present enjoyment. And with all this, there grows
up a sad aversion to a spiritual Saviour and salvation,
an unwillingness to be disturbed in present pleasures
and pursuits, a disbelief in the reality of any future
state, a dread of God, a feeling that his presence
must be hateful, an inability to conceive of a higher
life, a horror at the thought of being born again .
And as it is impossible for any one to degenerate
Godwards, without also falling off manwards, the
human sympathies, under this process, contract and
shrivel ; and selfishness, in many of its most odious
forms, becomes the ruling power within. It would
not be difficult to shew that this is what the Word of
God regards as the bad and dangerous elements of
the love of the world. It is in this sense mainly that
we are called to renounce and to overcome it. As
God's rival in its claim to our hearts, and in its offer
of reward, we dare not listen to it ; and when the
tempter spreads before us the glittering prize, as he
did to Jesus in the wilderness, we are to repel him in
the stern words of our Master, " Get thee hence,
Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."
2. Hence, secondly, I remark that the great anti-
thesis to the world in the Bible, the great object for
whom the Bible claims the world's place in our
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 77

hearts, is God. It does not simply substitute a better

world for a bad one, as secularists allege ; it does not
bid us expel this world from our hearts, and admit a
better ; it bids us give GOD his due place in them—
that place which the world has usurped. Hence the
grand object of the redemption accomplished by the
death of Christ is given in these words-" Christ also
hath once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us unto God" -not merely that He
might free us from deserved punishment, or even that
He might restore us to our forfeited inheritance, but,
including these, yet going far beyond them, " that he
might bring us unto God." The great end of redemp-
tion is to place man in a right relation to God, and
thus to bring to bear on Him all those purifying, ele-
vating, transforming influences that come directly
from his Father. Thus it was that when the prodigal
son came to himself, he saw as clear as mid-day that
the one course for him to take was to rise and go unto
his father. It was not more money he wanted then.
It was not another and better inheritance some-
where else that would have satisfied him ; this might
have been his feeling at one time, but not " when he
came to himself." And so, in the Bible, it is coming
back to our Father, coming into a blessed relation to
God, God in Christ, that is presented to us as the
better part, the pearl of great price, the great end of
redemption, the great substitute for the world as the
true portion of our hearts. When we come into that
blessed relation, not in theory only, but in practice, we
come under the influence of all healing, purifying, ele-
vating agencies. Whatever in us the world has cor-
rupted, the influence of God's fellowship renews. We
78 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

come under a glorious fatherly training, of which we

know the issue is to be the complete restoration of the
character, and the complete restitution of the privileges
of God's children. Even as this process goes on, some
of these privileges are enjoyed. Among other things,
we are invited to have filial fellowship with God in
the contemplation of his works in the world around
us, and in the enjoyment of some of the good things
of this life. In our present state, however, this privi-
lege is guarded and limited, because we are so prone to
forget that filial spirit in which these gifts should be
received. We are so prone to forget that it is as God's
children we should go about the study of his works
and the enjoyment of his gifts. But then we are
always getting glimpses of another state, where this
proneness to forget our Father shall no longer exist,
and these restrictions shall no longer be required.
We are stimulated to patience and cheerfulness under
the ills of this life by the hope of that better portion.
But it is not merely as a better inheritance that it is
made to animate us. It is not merely that the place
is to be better, but that we are to be better-in better
company-under better influences-in our Father's
house-under our Father's care. It is as the portion
which we are to enjoy with our Father, and with
Jesus Christ, our elder brother, in whose image we are
to be confirmed and established for ever. I appeal to
any intelligent reader of the Bible whether, in all its
pictures of heaven, this thought is not uppermost. " I
saw no temple there, for the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb are the temple of it." " I have a desire to
depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better."
"It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 79

know that when he shall appear, we shall be like

him, for we shall see him as he is."
Hence it is not a picture but a caricature of the
Scripture doctrine of the better life, when it is repre-
sented as teaching us to sacrifice everything that is good
and pleasant here, in order that we may enjoy a larger
share of the same kind of things hereafter. We are
not encouraged to renounce this world and seek after
heaven, simply because the one is a bad investment,
and the other a good. We are not called to be patient
and content under loss and suffering here, on the
mere ground that, like money sunk in a deferred
annuity, what we put past us at present will bring
a great increase hereafter. We are not required to
neglect the interests of time, because it will be more
profitable to attend to the interests of eternity. In
fact, neither the interests of the soul, nor the inter-
ests of eternity is a Scriptural phrase, and the mer-
cantile aspect of both should banish them from use. I
grant that the Bible does not exclude the considera-
tion- that in the future life God's children shall have
a far better portion than any that this world can
bestow. I grant that it does present this as one
ground of consolation for loss and suffering here.
But I maintain that it is a subordinate consideration ;
it is by no means the leading view of the bearing of
this life on that which is to come. The course which
is set before Christians in this life, has ever for its
chief recommendation, that in following it they are
brought nearer to God, more under the direct influ-
ence of His grace and truth ; that thus their own
character is elevated, and their influence upon others
for good is increased ; that more of the filial spirit is
80 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

gendered in them, and a greater capacity for enjoy-

ing the fellowship of the Father ; and that all this
will be for their good in the world to come, inasmuch
as by the gracious provision of God, the place of his
children in heaven will be according to their attain-
ments and services on earth.
But perhaps it will be said, that when we study
the New Testament, we find a strain of remark and ex-
hortation that seems to imply that it is a mark of a true
Christian to live far above all the comforts and en-
joyments of this world, and that instead of these, he
must lay his account with a continual experience of
griefs and pains ; a wilderness life, a life in an enemy's
country, a career of harassment and vexation, never
to be terminated till he crosses the Jordan, and gets
to his Father's house. Did not Christ say to his
disciples, " If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow
me ?" Did he not speak of a broad road that goeth
to destruction, and a narrow way that leadeth unto
life ? Are we not told to go forth to him without the
camp, bearing his reproach ? Is it not said that they
that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecu-
tion, and that through much tribulation we must enter
into the kingdom of God ? Did not Christ dissuade
his followers from laying up for themselves treasures
on earth ? Did not St. Paul call on Timothy to
endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ ?
Did he not tell him that the love of money was the
root, or at least a root of all evil ? And do not all
such texts and expressions teach us that the lot of
the faithful Christian must always be a self- denying
one ; that he ought not to desire nor attempt to make.
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 81

this life comfortable, but accepting it as necessarily

hard and full of pain, expect neither rest nor happi-
ness till he reach the promised land.
To attempt an exhaustive examination of this class
of texts would be utterly out of place on the present
occasion ; for such a task would require a treatise
rather than the corner of a lecture. * If we were to do
so, we should probably find that the style of language
adverted to finds its justification (1.) in that unceasing
effort to subject his own will to the will of God to
which every child of God is called, but which does
not necessarily imply physical discomfort, or barren-
ness of worldly good. If there were nothing else to
give pain to the Christian but that bitter and endless
warfare with sin dwelling in him, which is so patheti-
cally described in the seventh chapter of Romans,
there would be enough to account for a considerable
portion of the expressions quoted. (2.) The effort re-
quired to resist our strong and inveterate tendency to
sin in our handling ofworldly things, accounts for much
of the strong language of Christ and His apostles. In
handling money, for example, what constant care and
self-denial are needed, to keep off the taint of greed,
injustice, dishonesty, pride, dependence on the crea-
ture, self-indulgence, not doing to others as we would
that they should to us ! What extraordinary care
and self-discipline are ever needed to discharge that

* The reader may find the subject handled with great judgment
and discrimination in a little treatise by my venerable friend, Mr
John Shepperd of Frome, entitled " Thoughts at Seventy-nine,"
in the chapters on " New Testament Precepts." It will not be
supposed that the admirable author of " Thoughts on Devotion "
approaches the subject under the influence of a secular bias.
F
82 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

one department of stewardship ! Our hearts are

ever ready to substitute an outward penance for an
inward discipline, and to resort to outward renuncia-
tions of worldly good , when the more essential thing
is an inward separation from all taint of sinful lust.
Nothing could be farther from my desire than to
obliterate the distinction between the broad road and
the narrow, or to make out that it is much easier to
be a Christian than many suppose ; but it is very
necessary to remind you that what, in all ages and
in all circumstances, must chiefly make the Christian
path a narrow one, is the necessity of a constant
watch and struggle against sin in its more subtle as
well as its grosser forms, --in the forms that are over-
looked and tolerated in Christian society, as well as
in those that are stigmatised and denounced. (3.)
Still further, the language of Christ and His apostles
is accounted for by the peculiar necessity of the times.
It was necessary to prepare the church for the terrible
era of persecution- the three centuries of fiery trial
through which it had to pass. There are circum-
stances in which it becomes the duty of Christians
to abandon every possession and pleasure, however
lawful in itself, out of loyalty to Christ. Though not
the normal state of things, it is far from uncommon,
and the spirit must be cultivated that will not shrink
from the sacrifice. In times of trial, it is peculiarly
necessary to call up this spirit, and train Christians to
a more than ordinary indifference even to the lawful
joys and possessions of the world. The early ages of
Christianity were emphatically such times. Hence
much of what is said by Christ and His apostles, on
the obligation of Christians to face life-long affliction
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 83

and tribulation, and the loss of all that was dear to

them in this world. Hence, too, the extent to which
they draw on what may be called the compensating
power of Christianity- its great reserve- its power,
through faith's vision ofthe future, to supply a solace
and refreshment under the miseries of the present.
It is true none of us can be sure that what befel the early
Christians shall not befal us, and therefore it is always
incumbent on us to cherish such a spirit, that if we
were called to choose between Christ on the one hand,
and poverty, disgrace, and persecution on the other,
we should not hesitate one moment as to our choice.
(And I daresay none of us would select a time of fiery
persecution and struggle for very life, to push forward
schemes for social improvement and secular progress.)
But it is certain that the present times in this country
are times of an opposite character. We have no open
or public persecution. Domestic and social persecu-
tion there may be, bitter enough at times ; but on the
other hand, in how many cases are all the domestic
and social influences in favour of Christianity- how
often does one's choosing Christ delight the heart
and gratify the warmest longings of one's friends and
family !
It is out of the question, therefore, to regard all the
strong language used by Christ and His apostles as
applicable to present times. No doubt the faithful
Christian will always have a cross to carry. There
will always be mortal enemies in his own heart with
whom he must grapple, and whom he must labour to
subdue. There will always be fierce collisions between
his will and Christ's will, and in all these he must
sacrifice his own. Personal afflictions and domestic
84 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

sorrows may be poured into his cup, constituting the

chastisements by which God trains and nurtures His
people. The absence of his Lord will always leave a
desolate feeling in his heart, only to be completely
removed when he is with Him in glory. But, for the
most part, the very best Christians in this land are
permitted to dwell, each under his vine and under his
fig-tree. And there is nothing in the aspect of Provi-
dence to prevent them from gratifying the instincts
of their nature, by enjoying the shade and the fruit of
the vine and fig-tree as God intends them to be en-
joyed ; or from trying to get for their less fortunate
neighbours a home as peaceful, and a shade as refresh-
ing. Only let them bear in mind that they are run-
ning a race, and fighting a fight that therefore they
must not let themselves be entangled with the things
of earth ; but do as St. Paul did, - " I keep under my
body, and bring it into subjection ; lest that by any
means, when I have preached to others, I myself
should be a cast-away."

I have spent a great deal of time on what is but

the negative side of my subject- in trying to remove
a misconception often connected with the exhortations
of Scripture as to renouncing and overcoming the
world. I go on now to the more positive side- to
consider the sense in which the world is intended to
be possessed and enjoyed by the children of God.
1. Here let us consider, in the first place, how God has
actually made this world for man, and given it to him ;
and how he has stored it with every thing that is fitted .
to minister to man's advantage or to man's enjoyment.
Not only so, but he has furnished him with instincts,
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 85

that in their most natural and legitimate exercise,

seek for these things, and take pleasure in them.
Can we suppose, then, that He who has thus stored
the earth for man, and provided man with the instincts
that crave these stores, can be ill-pleased with him.
when engaged in securing them ? Bear in mind (as
we have already seen), how good cause God would
have to be displeased if this were done in the spirit
ofthe prodigal son,—if the gifts of God were severed
from God himself, and we were to banish Him from
the provision He has made for our good. But we
are supposing a different state of things. We have
returned to our Father's house. We never desire to
be absent from Him any more. We dread every thing
that would tempt us to an unfilial spirit towards
Him. What we find around us, we regard as His gifts
to us, and it is as such we would use and enjoy them.
It is impossible that God can be but pleased with
those that seek in this spirit to possess and enjoy the
things of earth. You need not fear, in this spirit, to
gratify the instincts that go after temporal good.
You may gratify your love of property, your love of
beauty, your love of comfort, your love of society,
your love of recreation. Of course there are limits
to be observed in these pursuits ; but if, within
these limits, you engage in them as pursuits and
pleasures which God designs for you, and for which
he has adapted you, you may do so without any
feeling of uneasiness, or uncertainty whether you are
right or wrong. He giveth us all things richly to

* Limits of two kinds ; the limit imposed by the effect on our

own highest good ; and the limit imposed by the effect on the
spiritual good of others. (See 1 Cor. vi. 12 and 1 Cor. x. 23.)
86 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY.

enjoy. Every creature of God is good , and not to be

refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. You
need not mar your comfort in the enjoyment of them,
by thinking that it would be better to deny yourselves
every thing of the kind. Why should the children
not eat the children's bread ? Why should we shut
our eyes to the beauty that was meant to delight us ?
Why should we refuse the banquet that was prepared
expressly for our sake ?
Instead, therefore, of blackening and depreciating
this world and all that belongs to it, it seems much
more filial, much more pious, and much more
wholesome, to dwell with delight on its manifold
beauties and advantages, and rejoice in them as
tokens of God's fatherly love for his children. What
beautiful objects this world presents to our view-
what lovely sights, what wealth of musical sounds !
What a glorious sky above us, what a Sun to
brighten it by day, what gems to sparkle in it by
night ! What a wonderful Ocean to girdle our shores,
what rivers, and streams, and prattling brooks and
burns! What majestic mountains and smiling valleys !
Yes, truly, " The earth, O Lord, is full of thy riches ! "
And how interesting, and pleasant, and manifold, are
the social enjoyments connected with this world ! The
joys of childhood, the merry sports of little children, the
happy scenes ofearly home-the pleasures of friendship,
your walks and talks with intimate friends, to whom
you can pour out every thought and feeling of your
heart--the happiness of congenial marriage, the
brightness and freshness of domestic bliss, the in-
terest connected with the birth and growth of
children, especially if they turn out helps to their
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 87

parents and blessings to the world-the pleasures of

knowledge, of travel, of change of scene-the pleasures
of taste and of fancy-the satisfaction there is in well
done work, the joy of doing your duty, the pleasure
of earning your wages, or receiving your salary, or
realising the profit of honest business (for I am not
going to leave that out)—the still greater pleasure of
helping the needy, cheering the hearts of the down-
cast, receiving the blessing of him that was ready to
perish. Really, brethren, if this world be a wilder-
ness, it is not the desert of Sahara ; it is a wilderness
well provided with palm- groves and wells of water,
rich in manifold refreshments for the pilgrims that
have to traverse it. It is plain that it was and is the
intention of the gracious Creator, that human life
should be cheered and brightened by these manifold
sources of enjoyment ; and that the life that is spent
in absolute darkness and barrenness, is not spent in a
wholesome manner. It is not for me, as a creature
and child of God, to depreciate these blessings , or
train myself to despise them. Rather let me thank
Him for His goodness, and do what I can that others
may share it, and with me bless His holy name.
And if I find that by the social arrangements of the
community, a large portion of my fellow-men are shut
out from most or many of these cheering influences,
and left to plod weary and uncheered along hard and
dusty highways, is it no part of my duty to try to get
them brought under the blessings which God designed
for the sweetening and brightening of their life ?
True it is, these things will be real blessings to them
only when they return to God in Christ as their
Father, and accept of them as his kind gift ; and for
88 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

my part, I will always put that in the foreground, and

I will always tell them that God's love and favour
in Christ is far the best gift of any, even though
the fig-tree should not blossom, and no herd should
be in the stall ; but I will not for that reason leave
them without any share of temporal joys and refresh-
ments. I will not say to myself, " It is not good for
these people to be too well off-when Jeshurun waxed
fat, he kicked, they are the better to feel that they
are but pilgrims and strangers here." That lesson I
will leave in God's hands-the only hands in which
it can be left with safety. I will labour to supply
my fellow-men with some of those earthly enjoyments
for which their hearts are often blindly yearning ; all
the more, that if these be not supplied to them, they
are so liable to plunge recklessly into the deadly
depths of sensual indulgence.
2. But again, let us consider that God has not only
given to man the earth as it is, to be possessed and
enjoyed, but he has told him to subdue it and have
dominion over it ; thus giving him the prospect of
getting much more out it, if he investigate its laws
and properties and bend these to his use. The world
we dwell in is an indefinitely improveable world ; it
is designed by God to be improved, and the improve-
ment of it is intended for the greater welfare of the
human race. And this improvement can only be
effected through investigation of its laws, and applica-
tion of these to the nature and circumstances of man.
This business of investigation and application would
have been one of man's chief employments in an un-
fallen condition ; and in his present state, a strong
natural instinct is ever impelling him towards it. All
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 89

persons, therefore, who are engaged in the investiga-

tion of nature, in any branch or form, or in the appli-
cation of natural resources to the wants of man, are
doing a work that has God's approval and blessing, if
only they do it in a right filial spirit. Inquirers into
the laws of matter, the laws of mind, the laws of
health, the laws of taste, the laws of commerce, the
laws of social order and political well-being ; pro-
moters of intercourse between one part of the globe and
another ; travellers in unexplored regions ; traders
who bring the fulness of one region to supply the
wants of another ; devisers of improvements who
make the resources of nature available for a larger
measure of good ; workers in the busy system by
which the world's stores are spread over the whole
family ; teachers, authors, writers, who scatter the
light that has been already gathered, and give the im-
pulse to seek for more,-all these, and all such as
these, I regard as one way or other implementing
the great command to possess the earth and have
dominion over it, and aiding in accomplishing the
great divine design for the increased comfort and well-
being of man. It is true- alas ! that it should be so-
that many of them-how many I do not like to think
-are doing this blindly, not because it is God's will,
not because it is God's design, but simply because
their own unchastened instincts or their own worldly
interests urge them to this course. If only they did
it in a filial spirit, seeking to work as God's children
according to His will and for His glory, it would be
every way blessed work. The scenes of this busy
world, our crowded thoroughfares, our hives of industry,
our railways, our ships, our schools of learning and of
90 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

science, how blessed it would be if the predominant

idea suggested by them were-not a race for riches, not
a struggle for distinction, but a great scheme of filial
duty, in which the great army of workers were animated
by a desire to fulfil a father's design, and by subduing
the earth at once glorify Him, benefit themselves, and
bless the world !
Now, this is the thought that spiritual Christianity
has got to supply. Don't let us disparage the work.
Don't let us be so ready as we preachers sometimes
are, to depreciate secular employments . Don't let us
shake our heads in despair at the secular activity of
the age. Don't let us turn pale at the discoveries of
science. Don't let us look askance at any of these
things. The work in itself is good and right, part of
a Divine scheme, the issue of which is to be greatly
for the benefit of the world. But let us say to the
busy workers, Don't carry on the work on an inde-
pendent footing. Don't labour at your own hand or
for your ends merely ; but try to work in a true filial
and loyal spirit ; work as God's workers, as labourers
in God's vineyard ; and that God not a vague imper-
sonality, not a mere algebraic sign, not the god of the
pantheist, but the one, living, personal God ; the God
with whom you have to do ; the God and Father of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ-the God from
whom you have wandered, but who invites you to re-
turn to Him ; without whom life can never be blessed,
but with whom all honest work will have a fresh and
living interest, and will command the blessing that
maketh rich, and with which He addeth no sorrow.
There is a notion we sometimes hear propounded
by secularists, that if this task of exploring the laws
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 91

of nature, and applying the resources of the world

were once accomplished, man would have Providence,
so to speak, very much in his own hands ;-in fact,
it is a secularist formula, that " science is the Provi-
dence of life." When the laws of nature are thoroughly
explored, it is said, men will no longer be at the
mercy of those hidden evils which have often been so
disastrous to them ; they will know all about these
things, and be able to shape their course accordingly.
As the serpent said to Eve, they shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil. But even at the best, this
escape from dependence on Providence cannot be
looked for till the secrets of nature are all laid bare ;
and if, as some of these persons say, man has been on
earth more than a hundred thousand years, and if his
future progress in discovering the secrets of nature be
not more rapid than the past, it will be long enough,
in all conscience, to the era of emancipation ! But if
man pursues his work with a right spirit, surely the
very remotest desire he can have will be, to be inde-
pendent of Providence. If he cherishes the filial
spirit-if he is a fellow-worker with God, -if, in all
his worldly work, he has the desire to carry out God's
plan, and to benefit God's family, surely a consum-
mation that would in a manner supersede dependence
on the personal God, is the very last he would think
of. It is in the very opposite direction that we would
most earnestly urge him to go ; " nearer to God " is the
aspiration that should ever be on his lip ; and the
nearer he comes, the deeper will be his satisfaction in
the thought-" This God is my God for ever and ever ;
He will be my guide even unto death.”
3. Once more let us consider how, according to the
92 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

Bible, Christians are to use this world as a sphere of

service to God, and of doing good to man. In this
view we shall find that the principle of looking for-
ward to the future life encourages instead of destroy-
ing the habit of diligence in our calling, and stimu-
lates the desire to do good to our fellow-men in every
available way.
If there were no vital connection between the two
states ; if the common employments of this world
were utterly alien from the next ; if the one were
quite unfitted to form or exercise the graces and habits
appropriate to the other, it might be granted that the
more you lived in the future, the less would you be
fitted for the present. And hence, if you should hold
that it is only when you are engaged in exercises di-
rectly religious that you are serving God or preparing
for heaven, it must follow that the more religious men
become, the less interest can they feel in the ordinary
work of the world. But, certainly, this is not the
doctrine of the Bible. The Bible expressly and re-
peatedly exalts the lawful callings of Christians, and
encourages them to work on by the consideration, that
fidelity to worldly duty is an act ofservice to the Lord.
The Bible teaches us to look on the whole surround-
ings of our worldly lot as a rough but wholesome
school, where, by God's help, all manner of virtues
and graces must be formed and exercised, - those
virtues and graces that will have their home in heaven.
Faith in God, fidelity to Christ, love to man ; truth,
mercy, honesty, forbearance, generosity, meekness,
and many more, must gather strength and influence,
from the very roughness and unpropitiousness of the
climate in which they grow. Hence the better a
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 93

Christian does his worldly work, and the more he

makes it the occasion of exercising such graces as
these, the higher will be his reward in heaven. Nay,
who can tell, but there may be a much closer connec-
tion than we see between the particular phase of our
life here, and our form of service hereafter ? In the
case of King David, there was a connection between
his early life as a shepherd and his later life as a king ;
in the case of the apostles, there was a connection be-
tween their first employment as fishermen, and their
last as fishers of men ; and who can tell whether, in
the infinite wisdom of God, there may not be some
important bearing, in the pursuits of Christian car-
penters, and merchants, and students, and teachers,
on the particular mode of service in which God is to
employ them hereafter ?
If such be the case, to live much in the future
implies no disregard of the duties of the present, but
the very reverse. Does a youth at school or college
pursue his studies less diligently that he often thinks
of a glowing future, for which his education is fitting
him ? Does an apprentice do the drudgery of his
office less carefully that he sometimes fancies himself
a merchant-prince, remembering, however, that nothing
but diligence and perseverance can ever make him so ?
More especially, if he have a strong filial spirit—a
strong regard and love for his father, and if the burden
of every letter he receives from his father be, " Do
well your present work, never fancy yourself above it,
-you may not see the advantage of it, but be assured
that fidelity and diligence in youth, are the sure and
indispensable forerunners of success and honour in
after life." So with the spiritual Christian. God has
94 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY

given him a work to do in this world, and told him to

do it well. God has encouraged him to look forward
to a better life, and to draw hope and inspiration from
the thought of it, and patience under the troubles and
trials of time. If there be anything genuine in his
religion, he will do his work well. He will do it all
the better, for living in the future, for walking by faith
not by sight, for having his treasure in heaven. He
will feel that he is entrusted with his Father's honour ;
and the love he bears to him will make him doubly
careful that in all he does, he be found faithful.
And thus, as spiritual Christianity, with its habit
of living in the future, does not hinder but help a man
in his own sphere of earthly duty, so neither does it
hinder but help undertakings which have for their
object to relieve temporal suffering, and promote tem-
poral good. In spite of the confident remarks of
secularists, I would make appeal here to facts. Time
prevents me from entering into details ; I content
myself with quoting a sentence from the admirable
work of de Liefde, just published, on the " Charities
of Europe." " I have been always of opinion that
nowhere could a better proof of the divine origin of
Christianity and of the truth of the Gospel be found,
than in the story, simply told, of some charitable insti-
tutions. Whatever the Christian religion may ap-
parently have in common with other religions, this
much is certain, that true, self-denying charity, which
seeks the lost, loves the poor, and consoles the sufferer,
is exclusively its own. There never were such things
as charities known in heathendom, however civilised ;
nor were they even known in Israel before He appeared
who taught His people to love their enemies, and to
 IN RELATION TO SECULAR PROGRESS. 95

exercise charity towards the harlot, the publican, and

""
the sinner.'
So also, facts might be supplied to show, that even
where spiritual Christianity has given its influence to
encourage sufferers to bear their wrongs patiently, and
comfort themselves with the hope of the better life, it
has more effectually removed these wrongs than if it
had declared open war against them. Such was the
course followed in the New Testament in regard to
slaves and slavery, for example : and yet, as Mr. Isaac
Taylor remarked, more then twenty years ago, " the
deep working principle of Christianity-its force of
love, as it slowly developes itself, and becomes better
understood, and takes a firmer hold of all minds, and
raises the standard of humane feeling, must render
slavery every year less and less tolerable, within
christianised communities- must at length expel it
from the bosom of civilization- must drive it further
and further outward into the wilds of society, and
leave it, seen and confessed as such, a sheer curse,
resting upon the heads and homes of its infatuated
supporters ; and at length bring it to be denounced,
by all but savages, as a nuisance in the world,—a
nuisance insufferable, to be swept away at whatever
risk."*
So far, then, from admitting that spiritual Christian-
ity, rightly understood, is the opponent, or even the
lukewarm friend of secular progress, I hold that it is
the very reverse. It smiles on the efforts of science,
and civilization, and social reformation ; and it sup-
plies the great moving spring of philanthropy, the
unwearied heavenly love that goes forth, like its Mas-
" Spiritual Christianity," p. 120.
96 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY, ETC.

ter, to seek and to save that which was lost. The hope
of the world, and especially of its down-trodden and
suffering masses, lies in spiritual Christianity. Where,
if you discard it, will you find a power to take its
place ? Does it appear " (asks Mr. Taylor), "that
civilization alone with its intercourse and traffic, its
arts and its useful sciences, its town -crowding industry,
and its disorderly peopling of wildernesses— its hurry
and impatience of restraint-its intensity of individual
will, and its contempt of authority-its uncontrollable
sway of the masses- its unlooked for upturns and
reverses, its passionate pursuit of momentary advan-
tages, and its appetite for such gratifications as may be
snatched at in all haste-does it appear that civiliza-
tion alone (Christian influence not considered) is likely
much to promote the personal and home-felicity of
the millions it is summoning into life ? Judging of
what is future from what we see around us, dare we
look to mere civilization as worthy to be trusted with
the moral, or even with the physical well-being of the
human family, and with the guardianship of the
generation next coming up ? Dare we, if we had the
infant human race in our arms, dare we turn ourselves
to that care-worn personage, our modern civilization,
sitting at her factory gate, and say to her, ' Take this
child, and nurse it for me ?' "
Nay, verily. But if so, we must find the child's true
mother. And the true mother must care for her child.
THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY

SCRIPTURE.

BY THE

REV. ANDREW CRICHTON. c

‫وح‬

G
 IV. The Purpose and Form of Holy
Scripture.

THE work of the teacher often is to unteach rather

than to teach ; and the work of the learner, to unlearn
rather than to learn. To put it more specifically : the
clearing away of mistakes and misconceptions, and
the bringing of the matter to a definite issue, is, very
often, virtually, the vindication of the truth, and the
settlement of the vexed question. In the case, of con-
troversies about the Bible, particularly, of difficulties
in the way of accepting the Bible as being throughout,
what I believe that it claims to be, divine and autho-
ritative, this is especially so. The Bible has been
made responsible for things for which it did not
make itself responsible ; has had its veracity and au-
thority perilled on doctrines and practices which alto-
gether want its endorsation ; has been found guilty of
offences which it never committed ; has lost what
seemed a chief, if not the chief, cornerstone, and, lo !
it stands where it did, safe and luminous as ever.
Like those palimpsests, those ancient manuscripts,
classic and precious, which have been written over
and concealed by some foolish monkish legend, and
which the scholar finds, to his joy, plain and complete
when the later inscription has been effaced ; or those
 100 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

paintings, of great masters perhaps, which the skilful

picture-cleaner discovers and restores from beneath
the daubing of a later and feebler hand-the Bible, as
it is in its very self, its nature and claims, has some-
times got crusted over with traditional notions and
interpretations, has been charged with the folly and
futility of these, and must gradually come forth from
beneath them , the very mind of the Spirit, and of the
Spirit-moved men of old, divinely authoritative and
divinely true.
The best defence of the Bible is to be found in un-
derstanding it. It grows luminous while one looks.
The best solvent of difficulties is a free, full, fair in-
terpretation. As scientific inquirers peruse the volume
of nature, so let Biblical students peruse the Book of
God. Surely the reverence of spirit and self-denying
diligence of the former should be far surpassed by
those of the latter. I believe that indolence is at the
bottom of many of the difficulties- indolence, which
shrinks from the task of piercing beneath the super-
ficial inconsistency to its deeper-lying solution ; and
that ignorance the ignorance of the individual in-
quirer, or the ignorance of a progressive but still im-
mature hermeneutic-is at the bottom of the rest.*

* "It costs much to disbelieve ; it requires submission to our God

and his grace to believe. The temptation of this age is to try
to find a middle path between faith and unbelief ; to say that
' there is much to be said on both sides ; ' to think that all things
must be uncertain in themselves, because many of the persons
around us are at sea as to all things, as if one thought all things to
be in a whirl, because they seemed so to our neighbours who had
dizzied themselves ; to be browbeaten out of belief ; to shrink
from avowing a steadfast adherence to that which must be old
because it is eternal, and which must be unchangeable because it is
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 101

I have hope, then, that I may sweep away some

misconceptions, and may obviate some difficulties , if I
direct attention for a little to some proveable charac-
teristics of Holy Scripture, which I group together
under the general title of its purpose and form ; my
course of thought naturally leading me to bring out
more especially its humanity, which the orthodox
doctrine of inspiration holds to be as inseparable from
its divinity, as the humanity is inseparable from the
divinity of Christ.
The first and most general truth about Holy Scrip-
ture is that it is a book-revelation. How it came to
be so, it is not our work here to inquire. The ques-
tions of inspiration and the canon do not fall within
our present plan. It is a book, or written, revelation.
There is also an oral revelation, to the recording of
which part of the written revelation is devoted. It is
important for us to connect these two together. Why
God should so order it that his revelation should, after
a certain period, become written instead of spoken, is
surely plain enough. The prophesyings of individual
prophets were limited in their reach, were addressed
to comparatively few, were for a season and a time.
How natural and how blessed that the many prophetic
voices should blend in this one prophetic voice, speak-
ing to all the ages and all the world ! It is important
to connect the oral and written together as in fact the
same thing. This book is the prophesying of the
prophets, is the written-out or printed preaching of

truth ; to pick something out of revelation which, it thinks, will

not be gainsaid, and to relegate all else to be matter of opinion ;
an indolent, conceited, soft, weak, pains-hating trifling with the
truth of God."-Dr Pusey on Daniel the Prophet, p. 561 .
102 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

those ancient preachers ; who, however, differed from

other preachers in ancient and modern times in this,
that they spoke and wrote as moved by the Holy
Ghost. I need scarcely explain here that the use of
prophecy to mean prediction or foretelling is a narrow
and not very scriptural one. A prophet was simply
a supernaturally-endowed preacher. The Bible, in
narrative, and exhortation, and prediction, and psalm,
and familiar epistle, is simply, so to speak, discourse
after discourse, prophesying after prophesying. Moses,
and Samuel, and David, and Paul, and John are here
in writing, instead of in audible speech. The spoken
and the written revelation are one. They have the
same character and obey the same laws. Difficulties
in the case of the one tell equally in the case of the
other.
But this is only throwing the question of the need
of a book-revelation a little further back. Is it ne-
cessary to suppose, that, by prophet or Bible, God has
ever spoken to man at all ?
That there must be revelation of some sort, follows, I
think, from the idea of a personal God. Revelation and
atheism, it has been said, are the alternatives ; or, if the
second be not atheism, it is pantheism at least- pan-
theism, in which humanity, by becoming self-conscious ,
will attain its knowledge of God . If you are a Theist at
all, the absence of revelation, a terrible silence between
earth and heaven, is inconceivable to you- impossible.
The God who speaks not is not, or is not God. If the
supernatural find no voice, no open way whereby to
break in on the world of nature and of human life,
then it is not, is not at least to the world and to
humanity.
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 103

But there is a revelation, it may yet be said, not

supernatural-a revelation in nature and humanity.
God has spoken when he created-speaks on in that
continual creation which we call providence. " The
light of nature sheweth there is a God. " Humanity
and the world retain the impress of the eternal die,
with which they were stamped at first. Without
oral teaching or written word, our hearts would con-
fess God and open themselves to God. There is
reason : there is conscience. There is a human virtue :
there is a human truth.
It were a very mistaken honouring of the Bible
that would deny that- though Biblical defenders have
sometimes delighted to undervalue the light of
nature, and to deny to mankind, apart from revelation,
any virtue, any truth. I believe this to be a sort of
Nihilism. I believe this to make " God a deceiver,
and humanity a lie." St Paul said that the Gentiles
66
'having not the law, are a law unto themselves." *
They have a Bible, they have a revelation, apart from
this Bible and this revelation ; the natural and the
supernatural are alike true and authoritative. Sceptics
against conscience are little better than sceptics against
Scripture.
But you are forgetting the fact of the fall, it may be
said. This natural revelation is in fact obliterated.
The Bible of man's heart is a blank page, or a page
disfigured with all that is dark, or grotesque, or vile.
I do not forget the fact of the fall ; but the fall has
not made reasonable and responsible beings into
sticks and stones. That is not the meaning of
spiritual death. There is a virtue and a truth- a
* Romans ii. 14, 15.
104 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

moral science or philosophy-a natural ethic and

natural theology, drawn not from the Bible but from
the conscience of the race. I admit the corruption
of man's nature, but deny that it makes him a devil on
the one hand, or a mere insensate stone on the other."
There being then a natural revelation-a revelation
containing in it not only physical but also moral truth,
it may be said, and it has been said, that a supernatural
revelation, a book revelation like that of the Bible, is
simply unnecessary. There never was a more mistaken
conclusion. I have shewn that I am no enemy to the

"Nevertheless, as regards its capacity of recognising both the

character and the authority of divine law, the conscience is upon
the whole intact. The corruption of our nature has not so vitiated
the conscience as to invalidate its conclusions, where it discri-
minates between right and wrong, or deprive it of its right to rule
and to be obeyed. If it had, our guilt would have been less, and
our recovery would have been impossible. For it is through the
conscience alone that a fallen, but yet free, intelligence can be
reached. It is to the conscience that the violated law appeals.
It is the conscience that accepts the sentence of condemnation.
It is the conscience that pleads guilty of sin as the transgression
of the law, and welcomes the assurance of a sufficient expiation,
and an adequate satisfaction."
* * *
" From the beginning God revealed Himself and His will, by
means of words, to men. He spoke to them of his own character,
purposes, and plans. He placed them under an explicit and formal
obligation of obedience to an explicit and formal commandment.
That, however, does not impeach either the competency of reason
to prove the truths of natural religion, or the competency of con-
science to establish the principles of natural morality. It is of the
utmost consequence, for the interests of revelation itself, to vindi-
cate the independent validity, both of natural theology and of
natural ethics ; to assert not the sufficiency, indeed, but the
legitimacy and trustworthiness of the light of reason and the
jurisdiction of conscience."-' Reason and Revelation,' by Dr.
Candlish, pp. 107 and 123.
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 105

doctrine of a light of nature, but I say unhesitatingly

that it is insufficient. Taking it at its very best-
supposing the moral nature of man to be as when he
was created, the moral conceptions and convictions
of man to be Edenic in their purity, there would still
be much that they could not reach or discover ; a
knowledge of God and fellowship with God which
would be utterly beyond them. And so, we find that,
before the fall, apart from the fall altogether, God
entered into supernatural communication with man.
Adam, otherwise than reflected in his own heart and
in the glassy streams of Eden, saw the face of God.
And I think it is plain that, fall or no fall, there
would have been revelation of a supernatural kind ;
the contents in great measure different, the method of
it unknown to us, but still, revelation.
For I take it that this inward light in man, this
natural revelation, is, more than anything else, a kind
of receptivity, a possibility of divine intercourse and
inhabitation. It is the image of God in which God
made man, that man might be able to behold the face,
and hear the voice, and know, in a measure, the nature
and the will, of God. This, in any case, in the best of
cases. How much more necessary since the fall has
revelation become, necessary to restore what has been
lost, as well as to lead upwards and onwards in
the knowledge of God ! The starriest night of nature
yearns for the revelations of the supernatural dawn ;
how much more the starless night with its utterly
unillumined gloom ! The Protevangelium was given
by God in the very hour of the fall.
We have now before us, all the materials for a
settlement of the controversy, —which, in one form or
106 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

another, must be familiar,-as to the relation between

nature and revelation, as to the relation, particularly,
between reason or conscience and the Bible. The
negative party have arraigned the Scripture at the bar
of reason and conscience, and condemned it there.
The positive party have sometimes, from confusion of
mind, seemed to deny to reason and conscience any
standing in the matter whatever. * The truth, I believe ,
lies between those two positions. There is a natural and
a supernatural revelation- a light from within and a
light from without, and the one is as certain and divine
as the other. With this difference, that, by reason of
corruption and darkness, the real utterances of the
voice within are hard to ascertain. Still they may be
ascertained-it is possible for men in their natural
state, to distinguish in some measure between right
and wrong, between true and false ; and so, if the
oracle without and the oracle within contradict each
other, it is a conflict not of God with man, but of God
with God, for in the image of God made he man ; not
of authorities subordinate and supreme, but of autho-
rities co-ordinate with each other, authorities, in fact,
which, if you trace them to their fountain, are not two
but one, not different but the same. Such contradic-
tion of course is impossible, and, if it seem to occur, you
are obliged to say, this is not reason or conscience,
on the one side ; or this is not Scripture, on the other.
I fortify myself here with the words of Bishop But-
ler-" Now," says he, " what is the just consequence
from all these things ? Not that reason is no judge
of what is offered to us as being of divine revelation.

* Vide Birks' " Bible and Modern Thought," page 343.

 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 107

For this would be to infer, that we are unable to judge

of anything, because we are unable to judge of all
things. Reason can, and it ought to judge, not only
of the meaning but also of the morality and the evi-
dence of revelation. First, It is the province of rea-
son to judge of the morality of the Scripture ; that is,
not whether it contains things different from what we
should have expected from a wise, just and good
being ; for objections from hence have now been
obviated, but whether it contains things plainly con-
tradictory to wisdom, justice or goodness , to what the
light of nature teaches us of God. "* I hold with
Bishop Butler. I see no escape from this. The real
cause of the dread, which many have, of this co-ordi-
nation, if you like to call it so, of the natural and
supernatural revelations of conscience and the Bible,
is to be found in the misapplication of the principle.
My resource, in every alleged difference between the
two, would be either, on the one hand, that reason
and conscience were applied to matters beyond their
field, to the answering of questions which transcend
them altogether, or that their utterance was misread ;
or, on the other hand, that the Bible was misinter-
preted, made responsible for things of which it did .
not itself assume the responsibility ; its approbations
and disapprobations, its narrative of the teaching and
practice of men, and its own teaching and practice,
confounded with each other. Patience, I believe,
will solve every difficulty ; when the fire of scrutiny
has burned itself out, the residuum will be found to
be gold, yea, most fine gold.

* Butler's Analogy, Part II., cap, 3.

108 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

To the heart of man the Bible comes, and finds a

response to it there ; its choicest evidence there. It
speaks a known language ; it supplies a more or less
conscious, always terribly actual need. If there were
nothing in man that responded to it, nothing that leapt
forth to meet it, its oracles would be melancholy
enigmas -to the heart that lied it would seem a lie.
Something like this, and yet infinitely removed from
this, is seen, when the Word of God addresses itself
to the unrenewed heart, and the Holy Spirit is not
given. It is intelligible, and yet not intelligble. It
offers needed help, but there is a barrier between.
Its voice is not unknown, but strangely sounding, and
from afar. But, let the Holy Spirit illumine the
blind eyes and warm the cold heart ; which He does,
not by giving eyes where there were none, and a
heart where there was none, but by kindling the eye
with light, and making the old heart new ; and then
the divine in man confesses the divine in Scrip-
ture ; spirit leaps forth to meet with spirit ; conscience
and the Bible meet and embrace, like an older and a
newer messenger from the same Lord-and thus, an
evidence is constituted, and a faith in the divine
verity of holy writ implanted, against which the
wildest surges of objection and difficulty must dash
themselves in vain.
Dealing now, more strictly, with the form of Scrip-
ture, we find, in the second place, that it is of various
authorship, and belongs to various ages of the Church's
history. A firm belief in the unity of the Bible is
quite consistent with a continual remembrance of the
fact that, while it is one book, it is also many books,
that its divine unity utters itself through a wonderfully
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 109

varied humanity. From Moses to St. John, whose

gospel is perhaps the latest, as it is certainly the
grandest, book in the Bible, are a decade and a half of
centuries. The Biblical period is the most brilliant
in the history of the world ; it covers the whole field
of the noblest of the ancient civilizations. The great-
est days, that both east and west have known, fall with-
in it. While the world was building up its highest
kingdoms was built up the kingdom of Messiah.
Amidst the most magnificent products of human intel-
lect grew up this Book, which needs a divine as well
as human mind for its explanation .
Now, in order to exalt the divine in the Bible, it is
not at all necessary to depreciate the human. There
are frequent misapplications made of the Scriptural
saying, that God hath chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things that are mighty.* Weak,
here, does not mean so much, actually and veritably
weak, as weak, measured by the world's standard and
in the world's esteem. You may take human intellect
at its very highest and attribute it to the Bible, and
you will find that it does not explain what you find
there, that the miracle of inspiration is as great as
ever. The difference, in height, between Arthur Seat
and Mont Blanc, does not appreciably diminish the
distance between Arthur Seat and the stars ; and the
difference, between the greatest and the least of men,
is but a drop in the infinite ocean of the distance be-
tween man and God.
Looking at the Bible itself, apart from any theory
about it, we find it, on its human side, to be the work

* 1 Cor. i. 27.
110 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

of men, all of them with more or less of intellectual

force and greatness, and some of them towering like
high mountain-peaks above the rest. Some at least
of these books are written by men, who, in their own
time, were without a peer, and who, to this hour, re-
main enrolled among the mightiest of mankind—the
leading minds of the world . Think of Moses, with his
manifold culture, the richest and rarest of these early
times, and his extraordinary grasp of the principles on
which society and national life are built : one to whom
the Roman Numa is but a child. Think of David the
Psalmist, who, as a poet, belongs not to the Bible only
but to humanity. Think of Solomon, whom the
queen of Sheba came from afar to see. Think of
Isaiah. Think of Daniel, the highest subject, both in
Babylon and Media. Think of Paul, apart from his
inspiration altogether, a scholar, thinker, theologian.
Think of John, of whose personal history the Bible
tells us little, but about whom, from earliest Church
tradition, we gather what we had otherwise been led to
suspect, that he is not unworthy to be named with the
Grecian Plato. These men, uninspired, would have
been great men still, in action or in thought. Their
divine mission roused their slumbering powers : their
inspiration of God made divine meanings and truths
to flow along the channel of their human thought and
speech. I think it might be shown that, in the Bible,
God illustrates those principles of His acting, that
" whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall
have more abundance," and that "to whomsoever
much is given, of him shall be much required.'t To

* Matt. xiii. 12 † Luke xii. 48.

 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 111

the greater men He has given the greater message, to

the lesser men the less ; using each, not lawlessly, capri-
ciously, but according to his capabilities, his circum-
stances, his character, his personal history ; so that, in
this holy book, there are none of the spasms, convul-
sions, incoherences of heathen oracles or diabolic pos-
session, but the strong, quiet, healthful outcome of
thoughts and words divine through all their human-
ness. Yea, as in Christ himself, the divine and human
are sweetly wedded, sweetly work together, till, in the
one intense light, you cannot distinguish the stronger
and the feebler ray.
Now, all this, which I hold to be quite reconcileable
with the strictest doctrine of inspiration, nay, to be
distinctly involved therein, makes the humanity of
Scripture a lawful and important subject of study as
well as its divineness. But, at this point, I meet with,
and must distinctly protest against, that system, or
rather method, of interpretation, defended by Profes-
sor Jowett, in his exquisitely beautiful and exqui-
sitely unsound essay, in Essays and Reviews, and, if
not defended, very largely proceeded on, for example
by Dean Stanley and other writers of the same school. *
The foundation principle of this system is, that the
Bible is to be interpreted just like any other book-
that is, that you are to go to it without a theory, and
use the same canons of interpretation as you would
use, in dealing with Plato or with Shakspeare.+ There

* Vide Dean Stanley, " The Bible, its Form and Substance."
"What remains may be comprised in a few precepts, or rather
is the expansion of a single one. Interpret the Scripture like any
other book. There are many respects in which Scripture is unlike
any other book : these will appear in the results of such an interpre ·
 112 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

is a certain amount of truth in this principle ; but,

in the application which is made of it, it is really no
better than false. That it contains somewhat of truth
appears from the fact, that the writers of that school
have made most valuable contributions to the depart-
ment of Introduction- to the history and literature of
the Bible. That it contains a great deal of error ap-
pears from the fact, that the same school-its bolder
and more consistent men at least- have eliminated
from the Bible the most distinctive tenets of Christi-
anity, and are left standing very much on the ground
of mere natural religion.
I accept all that is positive in the principle, but
reject the negation which it contains. It is true, that
the meaning of an inspired writer will be largely
elucidated, by a knowledge of his modes of thought
and personal character, by a knowledge of the materials
which were before him, in the shape, of previous
Scriptures, or previous writings not inspired, by a
knowledge of the language which was most familiar
to him, the style which is characteristic of him, the
general tendencies and point of view of the time in
which he lived. But it is not true, that his meaning
tation. The first step is to know the meaning, and this can only
be done in the same careful and impartial way that we ascertain
the meaning of Sophocles or of Plato. The subordinate principles,
which flow out of this general one, will also be gathered from the
observation of Scripture. No other science of Hermeneutics is
possible but an inductive one : that is to say, one based on the
language, and thoughts, and narrations of the sacred writers. And
it would be well to carry the theory of interpretation no further
than in the case of other works. Excessive system tends to create
an impression that the meaning of Scripture is out of our reach, or
is to be attained in some other way than by the exercise of manly
sense and industry." Essays and Reviews- Professor Jowett "On
the Interpretation of Scripture." Section 3.
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 113

will be exhausted thus, that his words mean nothing

but what such a mode of interpretation would
lead you to attribute to them, had no under-
current of divine thought- no significance for the far
future time hid in them in germ at least. Take the
almost creative, almost prophetic, power of human
genius at its highest, and it is no measure whatever of
the creative might and prophetic insight of the Book
of God.
Still, I firmly hold, that the interpretation of the
Bible will be defective, unless full effect be given to
its humanity- its humanity without error, like the
Lord's humanity, without sin. And I believe that
many precious meanings will be evolved, and many
objections disposed of, by an attention to this. The
Bible writers had the previous mental preparation
which other writers have, used materials as other
writers do. Traces of earlier documents in the warp
and woof of Scripture, quotations of, or allusions to,
sayings or writings not inspired, have introduced into
the Bible no element of uncertainty ; the Hand that
placed them there has taken care of that. We may
hunt after earlier sources, or separate writings, if we
please, of which the Bible itself frankly puts us on the
track-books of Jasher, Chronicles of the Kings,
Sayings and Songs of Solomon- and yet believe, that
here, in the accomplished result, we have all the
Scripture, and nothing but the Scripture. *
*Vide Professor Plumptre's discourse on "the Prophets of the New
Testament " in his recent book entitled " Theology and Life." In
a fcot-note to page 95, he gives, from the Old Testament, sixteen
names of works, which must have formed part of the Hebrew pro-
phetic literature, but which were not admitted into the canon of
Scripture, and whose only memorial is due to the Bible.
H
114 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

The orientalism of the Bible is another source of

difficulty, and, by attention to it, many difficulties will
be removed. Its scenery is different, from that to
which we are accustomed ; its imagery is unfamiliar.
The eternal truths have found a form and framework,
to understand which, we must search in the distances
of the present, or in the history of the past. How does
the traveller, who comes with his tale from the Desert
and the Promised Land-from lonely Sinai--from fair
Galilee, and snowy Hermon, and lofty Libanus-from
the desolations of Jerusalem - from

" Bethlehem's glade, and Carmel's haunted strand,”

make the page of Scripture gleam with light, and

many of its darknesses unfold themselves, till the
dim grows clear, and the old and familiar is fresh
and new!
Still further, these inspired compositions are of
different kinds, as well as by different authors in
different ages. There is a tendency to treat them as
all didactic compositions on the same plan, to deal
with the Bible as if it were a treatise, instead of being,
as it is, a conglomerate of all the various forms in
which thought and feeling express themselves. In a
deep sense of the word, it is throughout didactic- a
prophesying of many voices, as I have already said.
But it is history- it is song or poem—it is prophetic
rhapsody- it is aphorism or apophthegm—and the
most systematic portions of it are in the form of
pastoral letters. There is not one treatise on a theme
from beginning to end : the Bible is related, at every
step of it, to the experience of social or individual
life. Now this fact, a sufficiently evident one, has

1
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 115

often been forgotten, and the forgetting of it has

allowed a large class of difficulties to arise and
establish themselves. The firmest belief in inspira-
tion is quite reconcileable with recognising in Scripture
compositions of various kinds, constructed according to,
and obeying, the laws which rule such compositions.
Thus, the history must be allowed to be history,
and not an ideal narration in which moral or religious
truth is conveyed-history, in which, the writer does
not commit himself, nor commit God, to an approval of
the human misdeeds or blunders which he chronicles.
Any one, for example, who quotes the story of the
sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter as an objection to the
inspiration of Scripture, has forgotten this simple rule.
Again, reported conversations, whether in the narrative
or dramatic form, must be allowed to be such, and
God and the inspired writer are not to be credited
with what any of the interlocutors may say, unless
thay have, in some ascertainable way, assumed the
responsibility. Those who, on the one hand, refer to
the book of Job as supplying store of objections to
the inspiration of the Scriptures, or who, on the other,
treat every word which is uttered by Eliphaz the
Temanite, or Bildad the Shuhite, as divine and au-
thoritative, have forgotten this simple principle.
Once more, inspired psalm and song must be held,
along with its divine fountain, to spring out of the
depths of individual and national experience, and so,
to be deeply tinged with the peculiarities of these ;
true and touching for all time, just because true and
touching for that one- not like the music breathed by
a harp when some skilled hand has swept the strings,
but the veritable outcome of a living human spirit,
116 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

informed, not violently, nor against its nature, but in

sweetest harmony therewith, by the Spirit of the
Lord. *
The modern reaction, against the mechanical view of
inspiration, which made the books of Scripture mere
repetitions of each other, and the writers of Scripture
nothing but senseless instruments in the Spirit's
hand,† was led by Coleridge, in his " Confessions of
an Inquiring Spirit." He seems to see no middle
way, between this mechanical theory and one which
would make it possible that Scripture should be crusted
here and there, as a recent writer said, with " dark
patches of human passion and error." I think I have
showed you that there is a middle way, that an atten-
tion to the form of Scripture reveals the fact, that in

See the chapter, "Critical Objections, " in the very valuable

work of Dr Bannerman, on " The Inspiration of Scripture."
"He (the Holy Ghost) so raised and prepared their minds, as
that they might be capable to receive and retain those impressions
of things which he communicated to them. So a man tunes the
strings of an instrument that it may, in a due manner, receive the
impressions of his finger, and give out the sound he intends. He
did not speak in them or by them, and leave it unto the use of their
natural faculties, their minds, and memories, to understand and
remember the things spoken by Him, and so declare them to
others. But He himself acted their faculties, making use of them
to express His words, not their own conceptions. * * *
Secondly, He acted and guided them as to the very organs of
their bodies, whereby they expressed the revelation which they
had received by inspiration from him. They spake as they were
acted by the Holy Ghost. He guided their tongues in the declara-
tion of His revelations, as the mind of a man guideth his hand,
in writing, to express its conceptions." Owen on the Holy Spirit.
Book ii. cap. 1. In the case of Owen, and, doubtless, of many
other supposed holders of the mechanical theory of Scripture, the
whole thing is due to one-sided and extreme modes of expression,
like those which are employed in the passage which I have quoted.
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 117

sinless, errorless, but thoroughly natural human forms,

the divine has made its home. And so you will find
that his celebrated passage, which I now quote, how-
ever it may tell against a mechanical theory of Scrip-
ture, has no force against the true one, places no real
difficulty in our path- " Curse ye Meroz, said the
angel of the Lord ; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants
thereof-sang Deborah. Was it that she called to
mind any personal wrongs- rapine or insult that
she or the house of Lapidoth had received from Jabin
or Sisera ? No ; she had dwelt under her palm-tree in
the depth of the mountain. But she was a mother in
Israel ; and with a mother's heart, and the vehemency
of a mother's and a patriot's love, she had shot the
light of love from her eyes, and poured the blessings
of love from her lips, on the people that had jeoparded
their lives unto the death, against the oppressors ; and
the bitterness, awakened and borne aloft by the same
love, she precipitated in curses on the selfish and
coward recreants who came not to the help of the
Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. As
long as I have the image of Deborah before my eyes,
and while I throw myself back into the age, country,
circumstances , of this Hebrew Bonduca, in the not
yet tamed chaos of the spiritual creation ; as long as I
contemplate the impassioned, high-souled, heroic
woman in all the prominence and individuality of
will and character, I feel as if I were among the first
ferments of the great affections - the proplastic waves
of the microcosmic chaos, swelling up against, and yet
towards, the outspread wings of the Dove, that lies
brooding on the troubled waters. In the fierce and
inordinate, I am made to know and be grateful for
118 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

the clearer and purer radiance that shines on a

Christian's paths, neither blunted by the preparatory
veil , nor crimsoned in its struggle through the all-en-
wrapping mist of the world's ignorance ; whilst in the
self- oblivion of these heroes of the Old Testament,
their elevation above all low and individual interests,
-above all, in the entire and vehement devotion of
their whole being to the service of their divine Master,
I find a lesson of humility, a ground of humiliation,
and a shaming yet rousing example of faith and fealty.
But let me once be persuaded that all these heart-
awakening utterances of human hearts-of men of like
faculties and passions with myself, mourning, rejoic-
ing, suffering, triumphing-are but as a Divina com-
media of a superhuman-oh, bear with me if I say-
Ventriloquist ; that the royal harper, to whom I have
so often submitted myself, as a many-stringed instru-
ment for his fire-tipt fingers to traverse, while every
several nerve of emotion, passion, thought, that thrids
the flesh and blood of our common humanity, responded
to the touch-that this sweet Psalmist of Israel was
himself as mere an instrument as his harp, an automa-
ton poet, mourner, and supplicant ; all is gone—all
sympathy at least, and all example. I listen in awe
and fear, but likewise in perplexity and confusion of
spirit.”*.
So far as all this claims, for the Song of Deborah
and Psalms of David, a veritable humanity as well as
inspiration of God, I agree with it. So far as it
ascribes to them human passion or imperfect morality,
so denying or explaining away their inspiration of

* Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit. Fourth Edition, page 65.

 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 119

God, I do not agree. And, with the difficulty thus

suggested, I shall deal under my next and concluding
proposition, which is as follows :-
The various compositions which form the Holy
Scriptures are one amidst all their manifoldness, and
proceed on a progressive plan. Unity and progress
are two grand features of the Bible. It is many voices,
but it is all the while one voice. The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The Bible is the his-
tory of redemption, tells the story of the mediatorial
kingdom of the Divine Redeemer. And it does this
progressively. The beginning contains the end, the
earlier the later ; but only in germ, living germ, whose
outgrowth and development is a necessity. The pro-
mise, given to Adam after the fall, of the woman's seed
who should bruise the head of the serpent, is the great
biblical utterance on which the changes are rung, and
the meaning of which is unfolded, down to the last
syllable in the canon of Scripture. The sun, in the
sky all the while, climbs slowly to its high noontide ;
the light, kindled by God amidst the darkness of
spiritual ruin, brightens and broadens slowly into the
fulness of New Testament grace and truth.
Now, the fact that the Bible is one, as I have said—
the articulate expression of one great thought—ac-
counts for its antinomies, as they are called, in doc-
trine, and also its seeming contradictions in matters of
fact. It would appear at first sight that its writers
contradict each other ; nay, sometimes contradict
themselves. Their statements are always partial, one-
sided, and not systematic-that is, they give just the
one view of the truth or fact with which they are con-
cerned at the time, leaving all other views of it to be
120 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

given as occasion may arise. In one place the so-

vereignty of God seems to be so stated as to obliterate
human freedom ; in the other, human freedom, so as
to obliterate the sovereignty of God. Grace and
nature, love and law, faith and works, are all illus-
trated, not as they would be in a doctrinal system, but
as they come up, one by one, in the history of churches
or of men. Hence, while each passage and part of
Scripture is to be taken in its own meaning and appli-
cation, without being stretched on a Procrustes-bed,
and informed, with significances it never dreamt of, by
the interpreter, all are to be taken together, one with
another ; for they are the separate notes of one har-
mony, and out of their seeming discord, to the hearing
ear, the grand sweet music of eternal truth will come.
Paul is imperfect without James, and Paul and James
without John ; but bring the three lights together, and
what a glory follows ! The interpretation of Scripture
is often narrow, limited to particular points and views :
Scripture itself is wide, consistent, all-inclusive, as the
round world, or the heaven with its stars.
But the unity of the Bible carries along with it, and
implies, the progress of the Bible. The very fact that
it is on one great plan produces seeming inconsis-
tencies in its earlier and later portions- inconsis-
tencies which are all of them explained by the pro-
gressiveness of its teaching. The truth is one, and the
life is one ; the earliest and the latest are fundamen-
tally the same. But the revelation is gradual ; its
periods, the instruments employed in it, the fulness
of its outflowings, are on an ascending scale.
Now, apply this principle of the unity and progress
of the Bible to the question of the relation between
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 121

the Old Testament and the New, and it will help you
to solve that question. The Old and New are one ;
therefore, in the New must be continued on, everything
in the Old which cannot be shewn to be, by the New
itself, abrogated and made to cease, as belonging to a
prophetic dispensation, and fulfilling a temporary use.
But the New is an advance on the Old ; so that, while
the same things are found in it, their horizon will be
widened, and their breadth and depth of spiritual
meaning will be increased . Familiar illustrations, of
the cases to which this principle applies, will be found,
for example, in the Paedo-baptist controversy, in the
Decalogue controversy, in the public worship contro-
versy, in the marriage law controversy. I cannot
enter on these, and would only say, that most people
who engage in them seem to me to have no principle
in their minds at all, or to forget it whenever they
find it convenient to do so ; cutting the tie between
the New Testament and the Old when it suits them,
or making it as strong as links of iron when it suits
them to do the opposite.
Another source of difficulty, of which this principle
disposes, is, the peculiarity of the quotations by later
writers of the sayings of earlier ones. These are

always characterised by a singular freedom ; they

almost invariably quote the earlier words, in a deeper
or shallower sense than that which they originally
bore. The fact that the Bible is one book, with an
unchanging Divine authorship, as well as changing
human authorship, one and progressive, accounts for
this. The later inspiration had a freedom in dealing
Iwith the earlier which one human writer could not
have in dealing with another human writer, because
122 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

the inspiring Spirit was one. And so Christ or Paul

may quote some Old Testament saying in a limited and
narrow application , unforeseen by the man who uttered
it first ; or in a wide and deep application, unforeseen
by him ; because his thought was also the Holy Spirit's
thought, and the later sense was hidden in the earlier
as germ, or ran beneath the earlier as an undertone.
I know that this seems to ascribe to thought that was
human a certain infinitude, but then it was also divine ;
and the mystery of the relation between the finite and
the infinite is not peculiar to the incarnation of Christ,
or the inspiration of Scripture. Wherever we encoun-
ter it, we must content ourselves with certain facts,
and forbear to tempt the deeps of theory-forbear
vainly trying
" To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. "
And, last of all, the unity and progress of the Bible
solve that favourite objection, which is drawn from the
morality of the earlier Scriptures. I have committed
myself, in my earlier remarks, to hold it a fair objection,
where the dictates of conscience are ascertained, and, for
the morality enjoined or commended, Scripture makes
itself responsible. But in each case-the case of the
Avenger of Blood, for example-the case of the Song
of Deborah, in which the assassination of Sisera by
Jael is lauded as a heroic deed- the case of the sacri-
fice of Isaac-a patient interpretation will solve the
problem. The circumstances of the time are to be
considered ; the typical relation of Israel to the heathen
nations ; the fact that the revelation was growing up
amidst a human weakness and darkness to which it
wisely accommodated itself, not in the way of error, but
 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 123

of imperfection, which are two very different things

-imperfection, which did better work at the time
than perfection would have done, and which, before the
book was finished , was to be gathered up and lost in
the light of the perfect day. And then, if difficulty
still remain, I am not sure that all things which con-
tradict a nineteenth-century sentimentalism, contra-
dict the eternal morality. What seems strange enough
on the misty, swampy level, may be clear and plain
on the mountain-top. There is a good deal in the
apology which the biographer of Oliver Cromwell
makes for what was called the massacre of Tredah :-
" Terrible surgery this ; but is it surgery and judg-
ment, or atrocious murder merely ? That is a question
which should be asked and answered. Oliver Crom-
well did believe in God's judgments, and did not be-
lieve in the rose-water plan of surgery- which, in
fact, is this editor's case too ! "* and the case of some
other people.
I have brought you a long way, but I think I have
given you some reason to believe, that the difficulties
of Scripture will disappear, before a fair, and thorough,
and systematic interpretation. Calmly the Bible
invites your scrutiny ; the Lord Jesus invites it in the
Bible's name. And a true faith in the Bible, and
true love for it, will echo the cry, 66 Search the
Scriptures !" In their . light we shall see light ;
amidst their reassuring voices we shall cease to fear.
It is a secret unbelief which cleaves to old words and
notions simply because they are old, and dreads
inquiry and the letting in of the daylight at the
window. We need not be cowards for the Bible,
* Carlyle's Cromwell, II. , p. 453.
124 THE PURPOSE AND FORM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

when it never dreams of being a coward for itself.

The truth is ever life and peace, and the falsehood or
suppression of the truth is inward misery and then
death.
I have no sympathy, however, with the pet modern
plan, of giving up the letter of Scripture as involved
in inextricable difficulties, and supposing that the
spirit and the power will still remain.* No ! the
medium through which the heavenly light comes
cannot be impure. Error or defect in the form any
more than in the substance there cannot be. Take
refuge, from the myriad objections which this position
summons up, in diligent study of the Scriptures, or in
patient waiting for the solution which God will send.
And let us not forget that for the task of explaining
and defending this holy Book there is supernatural aid,
to be won by faith and prayer. The Holy Spirit that
inspired the writer's meaning and his words, has his
best interpreter in the Holy Spirit dwelling and shin-
ing in the reader's heart.

*"Some have tried to assail a book here and a chapter there ; in

one place a few sentences, in others a mere phrase ; and they would
persuade us that these may be allowed to fall away and perish, as
withered leaves might drop from a tree which continues to
flourish. It is a more true figure to say that the result would
rather resemble the slow degrees by which life passes from the
dying body first the extremities are chilled under the grasp of
death ; than the fatal numbness steals gradually onward, till it
fastens on life's strong hold in the heart. Or we might liken it to
the dying out of an illumination in a royal mansion ; first, there is
darkness in some distant chamber ; then it steals along the
corridors and halls ; one room after another vanishes from sight :
one light after another is extinguished ; till the whole building
rests in unbroken obscurity, when the last lamp of all has been
withdrawn."-Hannah's Bampton Lectures, 249.
PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

BY THE

REV. JOHN DUNS, D.D., F.R.S.E., c

PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.
 V - Prayer and Natural Law .

THE subject of this Lecture is held at present by many

thoughtful men, to be one of great interest and im-
portance. While I freely acknowledge its difficulty,
I make no pretensions to impartiality in the discus-
sion which follows,-if by impartiality be meant the
freedom ofthe understanding from all bias of Christian
sentiment and affection. The theme is too much in
the line of some of the purest and deepest expe-
riences of homely walk, and of personal work and
trial for this. Besides, the heights ofimpartiality are
far up where the snows lie. We dwell in the valley
where the mists are said to be. Yet there the warmth
is felt ; there the trees grow, and the flowers follow
the sun, and the birds sing ; there homes for human
hearts cluster ; and there even, in " God's light, we see
light." Without a figure, let me say in the outset,
that the question is to be discussed from the point of
view of belief in the personality of God as the " Hearer
of Prayer,” and of confidence in the efficacy of prayer.
The subject is thus one which goes straight home to
the very heart of our strength and hope.
One or two topics which lie on the threshold must
be glanced at, in order to a clear view of the state of
the question, though they have not any very close and
direct bearings on it.
128 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

I am not called here to deal with miracles. The illus-

tration of the harmony of miraculous manifestations
of the power of Jehovah with, so-called, evenly work-
ing natural laws, is, from the view point of natural
science, a subject of deep interest, and presents a wide
field to competent thinkers, especially when we asso-
ciate the geologic history of the earth with that of the
Adamic period. But even a brief and imperfect out-
line of this ground would lead us far away from our
present task.
Again, most who have given some attention to this
matter, must have noticed how much haze and un-
certainty surround the views of many as to the rela-
tion of God to the laws of nature. Not only is the
meaning of the term " natural law " very imperfectly
understood by them, if indeed it be understood at all,
but language is used in speaking of God and nature,
as if they were believed to be in some sense one. It
is no doubt true, that several of the class now referred
to, would count you guilty of a breach of charity, were
you to set them down as holding such notions, though
warranted by a fair and honest construction of their
words.
Now, let us inquire, for a moment, how the matter
stands. Few, if any, will refuse to acknowledge the
presence of special adaptations in nature,-such fit-
nesses between means and ends, structure and func
tion, as at least suggest to the observer the likelihood,
that intelligent Personality exists above and behind
them. Unless blinded by prejudice, we are forced to
this by the well-known laws of our own minds.
Take, for example, the breast fins of the fish, the
wings of the bird, the fore-legs of the horse, and the
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 129

arms of man ? These are not only formed on the

same plan, but, under various and wide modifications,
they contain the same bones. Or, take the foot of the
pigeon, of the duck, and of the hawk, or even the
teeth of the hare, of the dog, of the ox, and of the
tiger, and associate the modifications of the structure
of these organs with the functions which depend on
them, and the habits of the various animals to which
they belong ! Would you, in the full knowledge of
these, not be ready to call that man by a hard name,
who would persistently refuse to recognise adapta-
tion in these ? And if adaptation, why not a per-
sonal designer ? I am anxious to have your assent
here, because it will give definiteness to our views
when we come to discuss the special subject before us.
Perhaps, a thoughtful review of the relation between
the artist or the machinist, and his work, might shed
some light on this topic, which has, one cannot well
see why, come to be associated with the present ques-
tion. Take, say, a picture and a reaping- machine. It
is hardly possible, even to imagine that these could
have been produced by unconscious and unintelligent
workers. Nor can we easily mistake the varied evi-
dences of the action of adaptive wisdom and of a
determining will, for the manifestations of mere blind
force and unconscious, unthinking energy. Moreover,
in both cases the product tells us much more than
that the worker is intelligent. It says, most plainly
and emphatically, that he is higher than his work ;
that he was conscious of his intention in realizing it ;
yea, even that the work had, in a sense, independent
existence in his own mind before it was revealed to
other minds,-before, as a picture, it was put on the
I
130 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

canvass in colours that never fade, or as a reaping

machine, it was realised in cunningly adapted modifi-
cations of wood and iron. This all implied personality.
The picture influences the onlooker. It appeals to
some of his most influential tastes-his love of beauty,
for example, his appreciation of symmetry and the
like. It introduces him to the thoughts, if not to the
moral tastes, of the artist. Thus, then, as regards the
mere act of fashioning, the analogy between God's
work and man's holds good. Before he had realized
even the workable materials, and before that touch of
the creative hand, interpretive of thought, was laid on
them, he was aware of their fitness to enter into
certain combinations, for they were created thereto,
and to assume certain forms , because these forms were
from eternity in his own mind. Thus there was One,
even the Almighty, before the materials, who knew
what they were equal to, even as he was equal to the
work of introducing them, when as yet they were not.
But this was not, as has been foolishly alleged, an
interference with the divine personality, as if so
much of this personality must have been transferred to
nature, or merged in it, and thus have become part of
the laws under which nature was put. This impres-
sion influences many who would not care to own it,
and has become the dead fly in the ointment of their
higher beliefs . When man realizes his sense of
beauty in the picture- when he gives material expres-
sion and permanence to ideal wisdom, or strength, or
trust- and when he exhibits his inventive skill in
the complicated machine, is his personality thereby
interfered with ? Or has he lost part of it in such
acts ? On the contrary the ability belongs to man to
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 131

realise objects distinct from himself. It is absurd to

merge the worker in the work. Mind and its mani-
festations are no more one, than the steam engine
and its speed are. Man, with materials for work,
realizes in them intentions of which he was con-
scious before they were brought out, and these,
when thus realised, are distinct from his thoughts.
They bear plain testimony to the presence and the
action of will, but are not the same as the will. God
provides even the materials, and thus shews His
greatness. He is not, however, creation. He is the
creator. The work is His. It is not He. It is other
than himself. It is, as it were, outside of his person-
ality. Now I do not see how we can avoid this
inference. But having reached it, we see that the
works of nature are not the same as the laws of
nature, and the laws in turn, are not God. Neither
are they the action of a transferred creative personality.
In our prayers, then, we aim at the heart of him who
is above nature, and whose freedom is no more
bounded by the laws which he has impressed on it,
than the artist's freedom is by the thought which he
has embodied in his picture, or the machinist's by the
personal skill which he has transferred to the machine.
I have long thought that this whole question of
the relation of God to the works of his hands , and
to the laws which he has assigned to them, has been
too much limited to the point of view of natural
theism. In discussing it we have been far too anxious
to escape from that suspicion of prejudice, which many
hasten to entertain the moment you profess to be
under the influence of Christian thought. Neverthe-
less I think it can be made good, that the Christian
132 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

point of view is truer and more in harmony with the

present demands of science than the theistic.
No one, I imagine, would venture to assert that
science has no higher aim than to minister to mere
physical wants. It is not only to serve the body or
to foster pride in vulgar material prosperity, that she
sends her busy and untiring workers into the wide
fields of nature. Like a true child she wishes to know
the father's thoughts, that, knowing them, she may
reveal them to others besides her own children, in
order to influence their spiritual nature. Yet when
science has told all that she can tell, much still re-
mains to be known, because man's spiritual nature has
a side which needs to be influenced from above, from
heaven rather than from the earth. Now, I can make
comparatively little of the external world, of its
phenomena and its laws, until I have learned to
associate it with an active Power over it, and a
working Will above it. In a word, with a person
whose power and will are associated by me with
truth and love, and whose manifestations are seen by
me to be ever in behalf of truth, and to embrace
rational objects of love. But let me bring the exter-
nal world into relation with the highest wants of my
soul, as personally loving a love-worthy One, whom
I have discovered to be both Creator and Redeemer,
then how full of meaning, how rich in motives to
worship , how suggestive of motives to work every thing
comes to be ! This is put with great force and beauty
by one of the foremost thinkers that the world ever
saw : " The head," he says, " of every man is Christ.”
Brought to Him by faith and love, and made com-
plete in Him, we see Him as " head of all principality
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 133

and power," for " by him were all things created that
are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and in-
visible," " all things were created by him and for him."
Then comes an announcement of the grandest kind,
" God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by
whom also he made the worlds."
This is, in every sense, the highest, yea, shall I not
say, the most impartial point of view. The merely
theistic one is not for a moment to be compared with
it. The theist speaks of a God who may be love-
worthy, but there is nothing in nature either to reveal
this clearly, or to turn the heart to Him. The
Christian associates essential and veritable Godhead
with one as Creator, whom he has learned to love, to
revere, and to serve as Redeemer. So called pure
theism-the natural idea of an almighty one, an
eternal and absolute God, dwelling in the depths of
being, far off, remote, shadowy-is enough to make
one tremble under a feeling of utter loneliness in the
cold night of the world. But the dark disappears,
and the sun breaks through, bringing warmth and
revealing beauty, when I know that He who created
all things, is the same who has become to me a Saviour,
a Companion, a Friend. The same voice now speaks
to me in the constant working of the laws of nature,
as in the moral precepts of the written Word. The
World and the Word are only parts of that one great
revelation of Himself which He has made to me.
Nature is no longer regarded as cast out. Matter is
no more associated by me with what is essentially
evil. He who guides all nature's laws is the same
134 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

one who, as my Redeemer, High Priest, and everlast-

ing Father, hears prayer.
It has ever been a source both of perplexity and
weakness, to those who have tried to think on these
things, and who have sought to have all made plain
to them, to have cherished an impression that, some-
how or other, He who holds the forces of the external
world is not the same whom, mayhap from childhood,
we learned to love, or, in riper years, to trust intelli-
gently as a covenant God. Indeed, to this is to be
traced the attempt to make good a case in behalf of
prayer for spiritual blessings, while its place and
proper efficacy are denied in regard to temporal
mercies. But this is vain. He who is believed to
hear prayer created all things, and He by whom we
are redeemed disposes of all events. He it is whose
controlling power we call providence. Spiritual bles-
sings and temporal mercies are equally in His hands.
He who reigns in Grace rules in Nature.
But to come closer to our subject : The doubt and
hesitancy on this question, which have recently been
fully expressed, are not new. The same views have
frequently been discussed before, though, perhaps,
under different forms. One of the most striking
features of error is that it never dies. It changes its
face to the times, but it never gives up the struggle
against truth. It suits itself to the culture and the
social advancement of the age, and tries to use these
against Him to whom we are indebted for all true
progress in knowledge, as well as for all true moral
health.
The point at which the difficulty as to the relation
of prayer to natural law takes its rise should be
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 135

clearly seen and understood. It is held to have been

first broadly stated by scientific workers, because,
it is said, they had been forced thereto by the facts of
science. They had seen evidences of forces working
evenly and without a mistake, like the stars in their
courses, " unhasting, yet unresting." The experience
and observation of all the workers who have ever lived,
it is alleged, have been in the same direction. There
have been no interruptions in the grandeur of the
action and course of law, at least, since the beginning
of the present epoch. Yea, when geologic time has
been taken into account, they have found that through-
out millions, not of years, but of ages, the stars had
shivered in cold wintry skies, the moon had walked
in her brightness, and the sun had shone forth in his
strength. There had been sea, and land, and atmo-
sphere ; rain and wind, summer and winter, cold and
heat. And the question has arisen-“ May there not
have been creation by law?" At least, is it not clear
that law reigns ? But there are two records, or rather
two parts of one record. Thus far the testimony of the
one-the World. What says the other-the Word ? " In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Thus, according to the Bible, we have the Creator's
testimony to His own work. He has spoken to man,
and made known a fact, which all true science
acknowledges to be beyond its scope- the fact,
namely, of the origin of all things. This discovery
became the foundation of all the revelation later made
to man. The earth owed its origin to the direct
forth-putting of creative power, and it has been in the
great grasp of that power ever since. Thus the views
of Scripture as to God's relation to the earth. In its
136 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

present condition it was prepared for man, and man

is now under the special charge, care, holy guard and
keeping of his great Creator. He has so guided
circumstances, He has so controlled events, even from
the beginning, as to make them serve to discipline
man-to provoke him to action, to break in on his
natural slothfulness, to give strength to his will, to
give depth to his love, and to hold out to his hopes
objects which, though known on earth, are never to
be fully enjoyed until we are called to leave it. Now,
in this divine ministration, the same God, we are
assured by the Bible, has used the sun in the heavens,
the stars of the sky, the waves of ocean, the course of
mighty rivers, the rolling thunder, the forked flashing
lightning, the noisome pestilence, the deadly plague, the
hail, the blight, the beasts of the field, the birds of the
air, the fishes of the sea, and even the tiny insect
itself, in ways which, while they might at the time
harmonize with the laws under which they were all
originally put, yet gave to those influenced by them,
the well grounded persuasion, that they were all
under direct sovereign control, and, as such, had been
specially used for their sake. Can they then resist
the impression that not law, but the Lord, reigns ?
Thus the issue. It is one of great moment. Science
claims for her sons all sympathy and credit, when they
tell to the world the wonders of Natural Law. Good ;
but why refuse the same to the simple-minded,
earnest student of the Word, and of providence
regarded in the light of the Word ? Charity is not
one-sided. If the reader of the Word of Life can
point to the record of innumerable evidences of direct
interference and constant control, why not acknowledge
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 137

his sincerity when he appeals to these, and asks, as

one profoundly convinced of the fact, " Does not the
Lord reign ?"
But, perhaps, science has been made responsible for
more than should have been attributed to her. It is
doubtful if she has been so forward in putting the
question of unbelief as has been alleged. The fact is,
it has, for the most part, been put by men who are
in a great measure destitute of true scientific attain-
ments- men who have had no experience of the great
yet pleasant toil and weariness in work which is the
lot of all who are fairly and honestly entitled to put
these questions. These men, who seize on the disco-
veries and findings of science, in order to twist them
to their own purposes, have done no more than stand
at the mouth of the mine, and steal the silver as it
was brought up out of the dark into the light of the
revealing sun. They have never gone down into the
dark, never left their cushioned chairs or warm places
of ease by the fireside, in order to reach the under-
standing of very difficult subjects, on the outside of
which, forsooth, they jauntily hang the new-fashioned
garments of old, very old, unbeliefs.
Now, what at the present time is wanted, is the
exercise of a spirit which will calmly look at both
sides, and will candidly inquire, if there be not good
standing-ground for all in search of truth, even in
the face of the full acknowledgment of both classes
of phenomena. I believe there is, but it is difficult to
reach, not so much because of its height or its dis-
tance, as because of the mental quality which must
distinguish all who would seek to stand on it. " The
kingdom of men found in science," says Bacon, " is like
138 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

the kingdom of God. It can be entered only in the

character of little children ." As far as this qualifica-
tion goes, it is, then, demanded equally from the true
student of the Word and from the painstaking ob-
server of Nature. The Scripture record contains the
account of many interferences with nature which we
can bring under no law. What, for example, can we
make of the passage of the Red Sea by the hosts of
Israel as they marched away from the land of their
bondage ? We believe it actually took place, and are
humbled before God as we confess our ignorance of
the mode in which it was accomplished, and of the
conditions which the waters assumed, in direct oppo-
sition to one of the best known laws under which
water has been put. We cannot explain how this was.
We attempt an explanation on mere natural principles,
and feel ourselves baffled at every point. Where or in
what shall we find rest ? In nothing save in the ac-
knowledgment of the action of a Divine Will and
Almighty Person, as One able to control the law ori-
ginally impressed by Himself on fluids. How it was,
we know not ; that it was, we know and believe.
Conscious ignorance sets us apart as little children.
Such, too, will be the experience of the sincere
worker in the rich, wide field of science. Take the
history of the earth ? Has its march really been as
steady as some theorists would have us to believe ?
Is it not rather the case, that the world has been built
up after a fashion not of the most regular kind, and
in a very unequal way ? There is proof that, at one
time and another, creative energy suddenly, yea,
almost violently, broke forth after long periods of
rest. Whole worlds of life have once and again been
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 139

destroyed. New species have been introduced, and a

most complicated new series of physical conditions
been realised in consequence. Yet, in connection
with some of these changes, forethought of a most
remarkable kind had been working, as, for example,
in preparing coal, great ages before man, who was to
use it, appeared on the earth, and, in subjecting it to
conditions in order to mineralisation, which demanded
the lapse of vast periods before it could be as useful
as it now is. Where , too, we might ask, are the
graptolites of those old Silurian seas, which rolled
over the areas now held by some of the richest of the
southern counties of Scotland ? Where the ganoid
fishes of that " Old Red," in which Hugh Miller, one
of Scotland's noblest sons, worked to such purpose ?
Where the shore swamps and the luxuriant vegeta-
tion, which, long ages before the sun looked down on
Eden, prepared for us the coal in the basins of the
Forth and the Clyde ? A thousand such questions
might be put.
There have, then, been breaks in the succession of
the great ages. But how shall the student of science
account for these ? How, but in the sovereign action
and control of creative will and forethought ! True,
on the very threshold he is met by much which he
cannot explain. Shall he doubt on this account ?
To doubt is to lose blessing, for he has been brought
face to face with these things, in order that he too
might feel his ignorance, and become as a little child.
The state of the question thus gradually becomes
clearer as we proceed. And now we may ask, what
is " Natural Law," what is, " Prayer," and on what
hypothesis can we explain the harmony between the
140 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

action of the former, and the profitable exercise of the

latter ?
Any property natural to, and inherent in matter,
whether organic or inorganic, is held to be a law of
matter. Natural Law is thus the stamp of God's will
on creation, and the action of law is simply the mani-
festation of this. A law is not a cause but a condi-
tion of matter-of substance. As, however, nothing
in nature stands alone, the action of any one law
implies the existence of a highly complicated series
of inter-actions, in spheres sometimes closely related ,
but often far removed from its own. These relations
are chiefly in view when the term " Natural Law" is
used. Law might thus be said to be, the constant
working of creative will. In the words of Oersted,
"the laws of nature are the thoughts of God."
It is the business of science to bring facts together
by a process of induction, and by another of deduction
to determine the laws under which these facts are.
For example, the periods in which the Earth and Mars
revolve round the sun are to each other as 3,652,564
is to 6,879, 796. Respectively they are distant from
the sun as 100,000 to 152,369 . Now, if you multiply
each of the first two numbers by itself, and each of
the last two by itself twice, it will be found that the
proportion of the first two results is exactly the same
to each other as is that of the last two. This was
Kepler's discovery, and it is known in science as his
third law. Its mathematical expression is, "the
squares of the periodic times of any two planets
are to each other in the same proportion as the cubes
of their mean distances from the sun." The delicate
adjustment here must strike you all, and you might
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 141

be ready to affirm, that when once fixed it must have

been unalterably so. I purposely take an extreme
illustration. But what is this law? Is it not simply
the stamp of creative will, and, if so, is it not conceiv-
able, that he to whom its action in all time was
known, and in the eye of whose purpose its innu-
merable relations were all spread out, could, when he
determined it, have made a provision for its modi-
fied action, at one moment in a thousand, or if you
will, in a million of years, as an answer to a cry like
that which rung up to heaven from the valley of Gibeon
"Sun, stand thou still." You must either grant
the possibility of this or deny the omniscience of God.
Thus far as to law. We ask now " What is prayer ?"
And here let there be no mistake. Prayer is an act
in which two persons-God and man-have a part.
It is not simply the cry of a sorrowful soul, or of an
anxious mind, or of a broken heart ; but it is that cry
reaching the ear and entering the heart of God him-
self. Man cries, and God hears. Man asks, and
God gives. Man prays, and God answers. Prayer is
a chain, one end of which we believe reaches the
bosom of the Father ; the other end is in our own
bosom. There are, no doubt, intermediate links which
we do not see ; but it would even be unphilosophical to
plead here defect of knowledge and the limits of man's
thought, as a reason or an excuse for not believing.
See where this would land you. You pluck a red
rose from one bush, and a white one from another
near it ; but do you withhold your belief of the white-
ness in the one case and the redness in the other till
you can explain the cause of the difference ? There
are even more mysteries in matter than in morals ;
142 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

and why make mystery an excuse for unbelief in the

latter, while you refuse to let it influence you in the
former ?
Having seen what the external world says of natural
law, let us now inquire what the Word says of
prayer. 1. God hears prayer : -" He forgetteth not
the cry of the humble " (Ps. ix. 12). " This poor man
cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of
all his troubles " (Ps. xxiv. 6). " Call on me, and I
will answer thee " (Jer. xxiii. 3). " Every one that
asketh receiveth " ( Mat. vii. 8 ) . 2. It is associated
with the foreknowledge of God :-" Thy Father knoweth
""
what things ye have need of before ye ask him'
(Mat. vi. 8). 3. The answer is often made to depend
on the spiritual condition of the suppliant :-" If I
regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear
me" (Ps. lxvi. 18). " Ye ask, and receive not, because
ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts "
(James iv. 3) . 4. It is not limited to spiritual bless-
ings :-" Abraham prayed unto God, and he healed
Abimelech " (Gen. xx. 17). " Ask of the Lord rain in
the time of the latter rain ; so the Lord shall make
bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every
one grass in the field " (Zech. x. 1). " When ye pray,
say, Give us day by day our daily bread " (Luke
xi. 3). 5. It was Christ's habit : "Who in the
days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears unto him
that was able to save him from death, and was heard
in that he feared " (Heb. v. 7). Such passages might
be multiplied. The design in every one is to create in
us the belief that God is influenced by our prayers.
I am fully alive to the strangeness , if not mystery,
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 143

implied in such a view as this, so soon as it is stated ;

but certainly the words of Scripture warrant it. Thus
such expressions as the following occur in the Word
of God :-" It repenteth me that I have set up Saul
to be king ; " " He is slow to anger, and repenteth him
of the evil ; " " Let it repent thee concerning thy ser-
vants ;" " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim, &c. ?"
"Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are
kindled together."
Now there may be impenetrable mystery to me in
all this, but of one thing I am sure there is no
mockery of my wants, and wishes, and longings.
Yea, there is far more here than the mere speaking
after the manner of men. There is something like
feelings and affections, and sympathies akin to our
own, and I am not to lose the sweet satisfaction which
this is fitted to bring me, merely because I cannot
explain it all to myself or to others. But parallel with
this statement we must set the distinct and unmis-
takeable acknowledgment of the eternity and immu-
tability of God, and willingly leave the solution of this
difficulty with Himself, as indeed we must leave many
more difficulties, even in regard to very common
matters. In time He may open to me the mystery,
and shew the divine simplicity in the very point of
harmony. Meanwhile, we are convinced that the
antagonism here is apparent only, not real. My
prayers are like the one side of the arch, and the un-
changing character of God like the other ; but both
meet in the keystone- in this case the sovereign will
of God himself.
But while this is so, let it not be thought that we
refuse to look the difficulty full in the face. It is
144 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

felt. It is unreservedly acknowledged, but it is not

believed to be a stumbling-block to any soul. Look-
ing at it fully and candidly, there are two hypotheses ,
according to either of which, it seems to me, we may
make good the harmony between the action of natural
law, and the answer to prayer. One of these I asso-
ciate with the limited knowledge of man ; the other
with the will of God In either case, however, we
must assume the doctrine of the omniscience of God,
the hearer of prayer. There is no ground on which
to argue the question if this be refused, but granting
this, which indeed is common to Theism and Chris-
tianity, the ground is clear and firm.

I. Suppose, then, that we, readily and without

reserve, acknowledge all that our objector could
affirm as to the unchanging character of the action of
natural law, and that we accept without questioning
every alleged fact referred to , as illustrative of this !
How far in doing so have we gone away from the
belief common to all true Christians, that God hears
prayer, even for those temporal blessings which come
to us in the line of the constant working of these
same laws ? Not one step. We have done no more
than characterise their action, as far as the aspects go
which meet our eyes . Temporal blessings are associ-
ated in our minds with a system of natural causation
named providence. Spiritual blessings become ours
in the administration of a kingdom whose forces are
everywhere intertwined with those of providence in
such a close, intimate, and complicated way, that in
very few cases are we able to draw a broad line of
distinction between the two. But, in full view of this
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 145

we are in the habit of believing that all answers to

prayer come to us, not supernaturally, but in the
course of ordinary causation. How is this ? Simply
because we feel that the Creator is above creation, the
controller of events greater than these, and the All-
Wise equal to the management of ever working laws,
so that their action shall harmonise with his purpose,
and the fruit of all shall seem to the one most deeply
interested, to be the direct interference of sovereign
will, and in no sense the manifestation of mere
natural causation. Schiller puts this thought finely,

"The world's great architect,

* * * * *
Grandly he sits behind vicegerent laws,
He the great master workman."

The points at which we meet with God may be

regarded as in the circumference of a well defined
circle, but there may be many other circles lying
within this, which, if seen as clearly by us as the
outer one, might shew us God's method of using the
forces of that outer circle in answering prayer, with-
out altering those aspects in which they are chiefly
regarded by man. But is it worthy of man ? Is it
even in the spirit of a true philosophy to limit God
to our view of natural forces, and to reason as if those
which we see are the only ones in exercise, or, if
there be others, as if it were impossible they could
act on these, without altering the features which we
have been accustomed to regard ? These features, we
believe, are of the utmost consequence to us in our
daily life. Yea, we have regarded them as ordained,
in order to the growth and preservation of our bodies,
K
146 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

and to the education of our spiritual nature. But

it is said, if we are daily to see them altering in
those features which we had believed to be permanent,
and because permanent, of the greatest value, where
would be our walk in confidence ? Where our calm
trust that to-morrow shall be as to-day ? Would
not all be doubt, uncertainty, hesitancy ? This is
indeed the point of deepest interest. But according
to the hypothesis now under notice, no such evidences
of interference are to be seen, and yet God may so
hold in his hand- so guide- forces which lie behind
those which we observe, as to make what we see fulfil
our desires, work out our wishes, in a word, answer
our prayers. The trial of our faith will at this point
simply consist in this, that we do not understand how
this can be. No great trial, I presume !
Take an illustration . A friend leaves a healthy
home to visit one of those crowded closes in a large
city, from which the sweet light of heaven and the air
which is loaded with health are shut out, with the
view of helping some working man's household to
fight that battle, sore and difficult yet very noble, to
which so many in crowded cities are called. As he
enters ' the stair,' he is told that typhus and death
are in the dwelling. Shall he proceed ? Yes ! May
not his words strengthen a father to bear his burden ?
May they not reach a mother's heart, and direct her
to Jesus as the One who comforteth ? He enters , and
afterwards returns home with poison in his blood
enough to kill three men. Typhus strikes him. Laid
on his bed the doctor says there is no hope. But a
wife, a sister, a mother, or Christian friend, believing
in the efficacy of prayer, cries unto God for him .
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 147

The burning fever relaxes its terrible grasp. Death,

as if plagued by prayer, draws reluctantly back. He
recovers ; believing, as those who prayed believe, that
recovery came in answer to prayer. But the child, by
whose bedside he had pleaded with God, and for
whom the parents had pleaded, recovers also, as all
believe, in answer to prayer. Now, I do not ask,
merely, if the benefit to each is to be lost, that comes
in the persuasion that, true or not, prayer has been
answered. But, I do ask you to notice three facts
here. (1.) That we are right in tracing the fever to
the neglect of well-known natural laws. (2.) That
while those to whose neglect this might be traced
suffered ; another, who was not to blame, suffered
likewise. (3. ) That, contrary to man's hope, one in
the house, where death had been, recovered and our
friend against hope got better also. In the latter case
we are not entitled to trace the recovery to the influ-
ence of good air, a comfortable dwelling, and devoted
medical skill, because in the former case all this was
awanting, and yet there was recovery. Yet we see
no miracle. All was in a very natural way. But is
there one who will venture to characterise the belief
in the efficacy of prayer in these cases as silly super-
stition, and deny to God the power to answer the cry
of his children, by the forth-putting of influences
which lie beyond the view of the physician and the
friend, but which yet interfere not with those natural
sequences which all behold ? Yea, which not only
never clash, but act in divine harmony with the laws,
which it is the physician's work to keep in healthy
action-to guide, and even to modify in order to cure
the disease-stricken bodies of men.
148 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

II. I find the alternative hypothesis in the will of

God. Though well aware of the strong prejudice
which exists against this, on the part of some men of
culture, who allege they cannot rest in anything which
they are not able to think out, I am, nevertheless,
persuaded that it is the most satisfactory foundation
on which to build our belief of the prevailing power
of prayer. It is, moreover, the point of view of Chris-
tianity- meaning by that word Christ's life in the
individual man, as One in him, the true substitute
and surety, and as abiding in him the eternal life.
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
By this abiding, and in it, the will of man is brought
into harmony with his heavenly Father's will. Thus
prayer comes to be no more than the prompting of
the Spirit of the Father in us to ask what, when we
ask aright, it is the Father's will and wish to give
This promise, then, whose fulfilling is conditional to
our having Christ's words abiding in us, reaches to
all times, looks with a face of love on all his people,
and is the constant encouragement for the poor and
needy, the sick and sorrowful, yea, even for those
gladdest in him as assuredly saved, to ask, to seek,
to knock, to cry, to pray.
I wish to put this as broadly and clearly as I can,
because it seems to me to lie at the very root of the
difficulty. And, in putting it thus, I may freely chal-
lenge the statement of even one fact in science in con-
tradiction of what I believe to be a great truth, namely,
that, even in nature, phenomena are impenetrable if
you do not associate them with constantly working
divine will, and this none the less that we hasten to
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 149

name this working the manifestation of natural cau-

sation. We may, indeed, lose sight of the personal
will as underlying phenomena, in the very use of
this word. Nevertheless all true science bears most
emphatic testimony to the fact, that creative thought
is before and above creation, that personality is more
than principle, and that the action of will is above
mere law. This subject might be set amidst rich
illustration, drawn from recent discoveries in natural
science, but to do more than name it would lead us
away from our present task.
The direct action of creative Will in nature and of
sovereign Will in grace, both of which are suggested
by this subject, opens a very wide field for thoughtful
inquiry. The doctrine has, however, met with much
opposition from thinkers at one time and another.
In our own country this has especially been the case.
It was a stumbling block in poor David Hume's way.
Even to the gentle, loving, tender-hearted , and sweetly
poetic Thomas Brown, it was foolishness. To George
Combe it seemed almost hideous. I unwillingly
name Brown in this connection, but it is done with
the intent of indicating how much use is at present
made of his views without acknowledgment. "It is
quite evident," he says, "that even omnipotence,
which cannot do what is contradictory, cannot com-
bine both advantages : the advantage of regular order
in the sequence of nature, and the advantages of a
uniform adaptation of the particular circumstances of
the individual. We may take our choice, but we
cannot think of a combination of both ; and if, as is
very obvious, the greater advantage be that of
150 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

uniformity of operation, we must not complain of the

evils to which that very uniformity, which we cannot
fail to prefer (if the option had been allowed us) , has
been the very circumstance that gave rise." Combe
has taken these thoughts out of that setting of warm
sentiment and fine feeling, which almost softens our
view of them when we read them in Brown's lectures,
and has set them in ice. " Science," he says, " has
banished from the minds of profound thinkers belief
in the exercise by the Deity, in our day, of special acts
of supernatural power, as a means of influencing
human affairs ; and it has presented a systematic
order of nature, which man may study, comprehend,
and follow as a guide to his practical conduct. Many
educated laymen, and also a number of the clergy,
have declined to recognize fasts, humiliations, and
prayers, as means adapted, according to their views,
to avert the recurrence of the evil. Indeed, these
observances, inasmuch as they mislead the public
mind with respect to its causes, are regarded by such
persons as positive evils."
The evil referred to here, was the potato disease or
blight, and now we have the very same words used in
regard to the rinderprest, by men who might at least
have had the honesty and heart to say with that son
of the prophet who lost the axe head in the Jordan,-
66
' Alas, sir, for it was borrowed."
But views of this kind proceed on the baseless
assumption that, " Providence " is no more than the
expression of undeviating laws-the subordination of
the great first cause to secondary causes, stamped on
nature, or acquired by nature, and now universal and
 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 151

unchangeable, if, indeed, they are not eternal. Thus,

to acknowledge the working of divine sovereign will
seems, to such thinkers, to necessitate arbitrary action,
spasmodic influences, wilful interferences, so as to
destroy what is now held to be permanent, undeviat-
ing, unchanging.
I at once acknowledge a difficulty here. But then
the difficulty is not all on my side. I can point to
interferences with nature, say in the geologic history
of the earth, and in the destruction and introduction
of species, as formidable to an opponent's argument
as any that can be advanced against mine. We are
on a level then as to this. But my position is stronger
than his. I believe that God is infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable ; yet I believe , too, that this is not
inconsistent with his power to hear prayer. There is
no doubt much which I cannot explain ; but choose
your ground, in matter or in mind, and I am ready to
point out a hundred things which you cannot explain
either. You are troubled, yet I have rest. Intellect-
ually, I see an hypothesis which satisfies me.
Experimentally, I am yet more at ease as to this
whole matter. Yea, my belief in the omniscience and
eternal forethought of Jehovah, leads me to enjoy the
privilege of prayer, and to leave all the difficulties
with Him, who, to win me to trust Him, has not
spared even His own dear Son- " When we were yet
enemies, Christ died for us." And now in conclusion
allow me to say, that I know not any sure standing
ground in the midst of present spiritual disquietude
and intellectual unrest, except this foundation laid
in Zion ; and no refuge from the dangers of unbelief,
but in Christ Himself ; and no true and abiding sense
152 PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.

of safety in the heart of sore trials, but that which

comes to child and old man , to young man and
maiden, to rich and poor, to learned and unlearned
alike, in the simple belief that God has sent His Son
to save sinners.
 THE SABBATH :

BY

ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D.,

PRINCIPAL OF THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.
19
 VI. -The Sabbath.

I THINK it right to say at the outset, that I had agreed

to take part in this series of lectures, and had selected
my subject, and that both of these facts had been
publicly advertised, before the speech was delivered
in the Presbytery of the Established Church at Glas-
gow which has occasioned so much discussion. I will
frankly add that, in the view of that speech and that
discussion, had I foreseen them, I would have avoided
the topic, and that I now regret my having to deal
with it in the circumstances which have emerged. Of
course, I need scarcely explain that this feeling does
not arise out of any difficulty or unwillingness on my
part as regards the statement of my own views. But
I have a deep conviction that the controversy has now
come into such a position as to demand something
more elaborate than a sermon or lecture, an address
or pamphlet can supply. It is not, certainly, that
either the speech or its defences and apologies display
much fresh learning or fresh thought. The Bampton
lectures of Dr Hessey ( 1860 ) , with Cox's valuable
though one-sided digest, furnish well nigh all their
erudition. But the question is raised in a form in-
volving large and wide issues, not only as to the
156 THE SABBATH.

Sabbath, but as to the entire plan of Divine provi-

dence, from the creation to the consummation of all
things. The view to be taken of that plan, and of its
consistent and harmonious development through all
the Divine dispensations, is very closely bound up
with the argument about the Sabbath, especially as
now raised. This may not be matter of regret ; I do
not think that it is so. But it makes it difficult to do
justice to the subject in such a paper as I now read,
prepared amid the hurry of other avocations . And it
surely imposes upon our men of leisure and learning
the obligation of a thorough scholarly and scriptural
treatment of the whole case.
I have another preliminary observation to make. I
doubt if I can bring my subject, or my manner of
treating it, fairly and legitimately under the general
heading of this short course of lectures. This doubt
has grown upon me since I began to gather materials,
especially of the most recent sort.
For in truth, so far as I can see, modern thought
has done little or nothing either in the way of chang-
ing or modifying the state of the question as regards
the Sabbath itself, or in the way of altering, or at all
affecting, its relation to the gospel system as a whole,
or to any of its practical details.
Let it be kept in mind that the discussion of the
Sabbath question-by which I mean the question or
controversy about the origin, perpetuity, and universal
obligation of the Sabbatic institution- dates from a
comparatively late period in the Church's history. It
began in England with the rise of Puritanism , or of
the protest against High Churchism, in the days of
Elizabeth and James the First. I cannot better de-
 THE SABBATH. 157

scribe its origin than in the words of Dr Hessey. Ad-

mitting the " low tone of feeling on the subject of the
Holy Day " which then practically prevailed, he adds
this statement : " Meanwhile, the state of theology in
reference to it was equally unsatisfactory. The chief
writers against the prevalent desecration of Sunday
were not found among persons who represented the
moderate and reserved views which I suppose the
Church to have advisedly entertained. A new sect
had sprung up, whose members were called sometimes
Precisians, sometimes Disciplinarians, but more gene-
rally Puritans. They were shocked at the forgetful-
ness of God which manifested itself at all times, and
on the Lord's own day especially. The government,
political, social, and ecclesiastical, under which it
existed, must evidently be unsound. Was there any
remedy for it ? They took the Bible into their hands,
and decided that in it they would find a model of the
true polity. And in particular they decided that in it
they would find a model for God's worship superior
to anything visible, and yet applicable to the present
hour." Thus far Dr Hessey. He goes on to allow
that though " perhaps there was not exactly what they
wanted " in the Bible, " there was something like it."
I make nothing of that allowance. But I hold him to
have fairly put the issue raised at that crisis, and
raised then for the first time, between those " who re-
presented the moderate and reserved view which the
Church," as he supposes, " had advisedly entertained,"
and those who " took the Bible into their hands, and
decided that in it," as regards this and other matters,
66
they would find a model of the true polity."
* Bampton Lectures, p. 271 .
 158 THE SABBATH.

It is here and thus that, properly speaking, the

literature of the Sabbath question begins ; for it is
here and thus that the Sabbath question itself comes
up. All that had been previously written on the sub-
ject, by the fathers, the mediæval divines and school-
men, and the reformers, was simply incidental ; occur-
ring, I mean, in the course of argument on other
topics, or of general scriptural exposition. The pre-
cise point now in debate - the substantial identity of
the Sabbatic institution from the creation to the end
of time was never formally handled as a matter of
special inquiry and controversy.
I am aware that some will be disposed to regard
this as the very reason why we should fall back upon
the notices, more or less explicit, in the earlier works
of the divines who wrote before the dust and din of
wordy strife confused and confounded the Sabbatic
atmosphere. Fain would I do so. For I believe, and
I might show some ground for my belief, that these
good and godly men were, in the main, practically,
almost as Sabbatarian, as good observers of the Lord's
day, as I am myself or would have any one else to be.
But, at the same time, I protest against the notion
that truth, on any debateable topic, is better ascertained
by looking to those utterances about it which have
preceded the thorough controversial discussion of
it, than by the study of the discussion itself and of its
results. And therefore, very specially, as regards this
Sabbath question, I object to the mass of references
and quotations from writers prior to the real rise of
the contest being held to form part of the literature of
the Sabbath question. They may furnish the mate-
 THE SABBATH. 159

rials, so far, of its discussion, but they are not them-

selves, properly speaking, any part of its literature.
This may seem a merely formal or verbal criticism,
a quibble or cavil. I do not think that it is so. And
at all events, I have another remark to make of a
much more serious nature, as to the use made of these
old authorities, particularly in our own day.
It has been painfully forced upon my mind that
there is a very marked contrast between the way in
which the opponents of our views on the Sabbath
question deal with the Fathers and the Reformers, and
the way in which the supporters of our views deal
with them. That I may not be accused of vague
allusion, I name Dr Hessey and Mr Cox on the one
hand, and Dr Fairbairn and Mr Gilfillan on the other.
I find the former eagerly seizing upon any sayings of
these great men that seem to favour their views, and
making no account whatever of qualifications or state-
ments of an opposite tendency. The latter also I find
bringing forward passages from the writings of the
same men, giving plain and strong countenance to
our doctrine of the Sabbath. But there is this
difference. Fairbairn and Gilfillan do not ignore or
pass by the apparently antagonistic utterances that
are exclusively dwelt on by Hessey and Cox. They
bring them forward, and deal with them, and profess to
account for them, as I may by and by try partly to
show. Meanwhile, it is not surely difficult to deter-
mine which of these two courses indicates the greater
learning or the greater fairness.
But I gladly avail myself of Dr Hessey's mode of
putting the alternative as to the state of the question,
as it stood when it was for the first time fairly raised.
 160 THE SABBATH.

It is always important, in judging of any controversy,

to know and understand the points of view, or points
of departure, from which the disputants respectively
approach the subject. In this instance, especially if
we direct our attention to our own country, in which
the discussion first arose, it is not difficult to adjust
the matter. There can be no doubt that the High
Church Divines had a strong inclination towards what
may be called the ecclesiastical point of view, while
the Puritans took their stand upon the Scriptural or
Biblical. The former, being strenuous assertors of
church authority and power, particularly with refer-
ence to the appointment and observance of holy days,
disliked a mode of argument which separated entirely
the Lord's day from other festivals, and placed the
ground of its observance on an entirely different foot-
ing. The latter, again, being zealous for the supreme
and exclusive authority of the Divine word, preferred
to make their appeal directly to its teachings. It is
not of course meant that either party wholly overlooked
the position occupied by the other. The Puritans
were accustomed to take full advantage of the testi-
mony uniformly borne by the Fathers to the setting
apart of the first day of the week, as an ordinance re-
cognised universally in the Church, from Apostolic
times downwards, and resting largely on Apostolic
authority ; and in so far as these venerable writers.
seemed to come short of the full Sabbatic doctrine of
Scripture, they professed to explain and account for
the shortcoming. On the other hand, their opponents
did not refuse to deal with the facts and statements
of the Bible ; but they came to the study of them
with minds already biassed in a certain direction by
 THE SABBATH. 161

their patristic and ecclesiastical leanings. They

looked at Scripture too much through the eyes of the
Fathers.
On this point let me here read an extract from
a Review of Dr Hessey's book, generally, and, I be-
lieve, correctly, ascribed to Principal Fairbairn. He
has been speaking of the authority of the Fathers on
the point of the alleged essential difference between
the Lord's day of the Gospel, and the Sabbath of the
Decalogue, as to which he says : " These good men
did not properly know what they were writing about.”
And he goes on thus-" This touches on a phase of
patristic theology which, had it been more thoroughly
studied by Dr Hessey, would have saved him from
the inconsistency now adverted to, the inconsistency
of an admission that the Sabbath had a character
more evangelical than one has been accustomed to
attribute to it, and is scarcely the exact institution
to the continuance of which the Fathers objected, and
kept him from pressing those earlier Fathers into a
service which they are specially disqualified from
rendering. Their acquaintance with the earlier reve-
lations of God was comparatively meagre and imper-
fect. In particular, the relation between the new and
the old in the Divine economy was just the point on
which their discernment was most defective, and on
which their judgment should be received with the
greatest caution. It was the field where they most
frequently lost their way, wandering ' sometimes into
puerile conceits, sometimes even into entangling and
pernicious errors. The disadvantages of their posi-
tion naturally led to this result, and form an adequate
explanation of it. They were, for the most part, bred
L
 162 THE SABBATH.

in heathenism ; and coming to know Christianity

before they knew much of what preceded it, they
wanted the discipline of a gradual and successive
study of the plan of God's dispensations, and the help
of a well-digested scheme of Scriptural theology.
They knew the Bible in portions, rather than as an
organic and progressive whole ; and even for that
knowledge they were but poorly furnished, either
with grammatical helps or with formal expositions.
Is it surprising if, in such circumstances, they should
have but imperfectly caught the meaning of Old
Testament Scripture, and should have appeared not
always at home in proper acquaintance with its con-
tents ? Even Jerome, the most learned of them all
in the Hebrew Scriptures, occasionally discovers what
would now be regarded as a somewhat discreditable
looseness and inaccuracy of statement. And both he
and others, in applying what is written on the insti-
tutions and history of former times, often leave us at
a loss to say, whether the true or the false predomi-
nated ; spiritualizings, the most arbitrary, go hand in
hand with the crudest literalisms, and the most pal-
pable Judaistic tendencies are fostered, while evan-
gelical principles alone were thought to be honoured.* "
"Take the following from Tertullian as a specimen of this very
subject of days. Pleading, for the propriety of instituting and
observing stated seasons of fasting, he thus defends himself against
the charge of Judaizing, or, as he calls it, Galatianizing : " In ob-
serving these seasons, and days, and months, and years, we plainly
Galatianize, if we are observant of Jewish ceremonies, of legal
solemnities ; for the apostle dissuades us from these, forbidding
us to persevere in keeping up the Old Testament, which has been
buried in Christ, and pressing the New, because, if there is a
new condition in Christ, the solemnities ought also to be new."
As ifthe mere connection of an essentially legal observance with
 THE SABBATH. 163

"A multitude of similar instances might easily be

produced, if this were the proper place, showing that,
in what relates to the connection between the view of
the old in God's dispensations, the views of the
Fathers continually oscillated between the two ex-
tremes of excessive and arbitrary spiritualism on the
one hand, and grossly literal and fleshly applications
on the other. In this particular respect, they are in
irreconcileable variance. with themselves, and should
not be appealed to as authorities on what they are so
little qualified to determine. In truth, in this field,
they are not the venerable doctors of the Christian
Church, but rather its junior students ; and while
their testimony as to the religious observance of the
Lord's-day is to be received with implicit confidence
(for so far it was their veracity and Christian feeling
alone that were concerned), small account is to be
made of their judgment respecting the alleged con-
trariety between the Lord's-day and the Sabbath.
Dr Hessey himself has unwittingly admitted as much,
though with apparent unconsciousness of having
thereby surrendered an important link in his argu-
ment.""'*
Thus far Dr Fairbairn. We are apt to think that
a Gospel era or event could transmute it into an evangelical rite
There is here in embryo the principle of all the ritualism of
Popery. Chrysostom saw the matter somewhat more correctly ;
he saw what Tertullian failed to see, -that stated times and ordi-
nances of fasting, even if connected with specific Christian events,
were not thereby relieved of a Judaistic character ; yet he also
wanted clearness and strength of conviction to urge their abandon-
ment, as foreign to the genius of the Gospel ; and his advice is a
compromise between the truth he apprehended, and the practices
he allowed."
* North British Review, No. lxvii. pp. 224, 225.
164 THE SABBATH

the early Fathers, living so very near the fountain-

head of gospel truth and the Christian development,
must have been in circumstances peculiarly favourable
for forming a sound judgment, as well as giving cor-
rect information, on all matters relating to the doctrines
of the faith and usages of the church. If the proposed
English version of their writings goes on, it may open
the eyes of many to a somewhat strange and startling
discovery of human weakness and prejudice making
sad work, in more ways than one, immediately upon
inspired guidance being withdrawn . Certainly the
consideration stated by Dr Fairbairn ought very ma-
terially to modify our respect for their opinion and
deference to their authority, as regards the Scripture
doctrine of the Sabbath.
Following out the line of thought thus suggested , I
would briefly call attention to a fact respecting the
origin of the Christian Church which is not, as I think,
always kept sufficiently in mind, when appeals are
made to the early Christian writers on topics of this
sort. I refer to the manifest departure from the ori-
ginal Divine ideal which the unbelief of the Jews
necessitated, and which the Book of Acts records.
Beyond all doubt, it was the desire of the Master, as
intimated from the first to His apostles, that the new
should grow out of and fit into the old ; that the Church
should be an enlargement and spiritualisation of the
synagogue ; that it should start from a Jewish source,
and have a Jewish centre or nucleus. Preaching was
to begin at Jerusalem. The scene at Pentecost brought
out the primary plan according to which the chosen
nation was to fulfil its mission, and to grow and ex-
pand, so as to gather around it, in one great world-
 THE SABBATH. 165

wide communion, all tribes and tongues, even "the

multitude innumerable out of all nations, and kindreds,
and people, and tongues." So the gospel would have
been propagated, and the Church catholic would have
been formed, if Israel had known the day of her visi-
tation and accepted her high commission. But rulers,
priests, and people successively rejected the offer, and
set themselves against the religion of the cross. Then
there sprang up, at Antioch in Syria, what was a new
thing under the sun, a Gentile community of believers,
composed from its very origin of Gentiles, and having
a purely Gentile character ; and the great apostle of
the Gentiles, sent for by Barnabas the " good," dropping
his Hebrew name Saul for the Gentile form of it,
Paul, began his ministry, making the Syrian Antioch
his headquarters, and from thence, upon a Gentile
footing, establishing and extending the Christian
Church. For a time there might thus seem to be two
centres, Jerusalem and Antioch. But soon what holds
of Jerusalem drops out of view and disappears from
the stage, under a doubtful cloud, it is alleged , of de-
parture more or less from the faith ; and substantially,
to all intents and purposes, the Church beginning at
the Gentile city, and wearing the Gentile guise, occu-
pies the field. So the spiritual kingdom passes out of
the hands of Israel into the hands of the Gentiles, and
the times of the Gentiles begin to run.*
Now, whatever good may have come out of this

* This view is brought out, with admirable fulness and clearness,

by Baumgarten, in his most valuable " Apostolic History, " or
Commentary on the Acts, of which a Translation has been pub-
lished by the Messrs. Clark, in their " Foreign Theological
Library," 1864.
166 THE SABBATH.

evil-for surely it was an evil- however he who is

the Church's Divine Head, and Head over all things
to the Church, may have overruled for gracious ends
this inevitable result of Jewish unbelief-it might
have been anticipated that it would entail on the
Christian cause certain drawbacks and disadvantages.
It made a wider and more violent breach, or wrench,
between the old form of the covenant and the new,
than had been originally contemplated according to
the original ideal . It severed, more than had been
intended, the two Testaments. It was fitted to break the
line of connection and continuity between the less and
the more spiritual-the less and the more perfect—
economies or dispensations, which otherwise, if the
primary plan could have been carried out, might have
become clearer, brighter, and more beautiful, as the
Holy Spirit more and more removed the veil from off
the face of Moses, and exhibited the foreshadowing
likeness of his features to those of Christ. Doubtless,
Christianity has suffered loss from this cause. In
particular, I cannot help thinking that we may trace
to this source a tendency, which has from of old pre-
vailed and prevails perhaps too much even to the
present day, to see antagonism where there is agree-
ment, difference where there is substantial identity,
variance where there is harmony. May it not be one
of the benefits which Paul anticipates as likely to flow
to the world from Israel's restoration that then this
untoward and, so to speak, abnormal state of things
shall cease ? For then, the grand original design or
ideal may be realised, and the unity of God's mighty
plan of providence and grace, through all the stages of
 THE SABBATH. 167

its progress and development, may be seen at last

conspicuously and gloriously demonstrated.
But I must not dwell on this theme, although it has,
I think, an important bearing on the subject I am now
handling. We may thus account for the defective and
erroneous views of the Fathers, as on many points, so
upon this of the continuity of the weekly Sabbatic in-
stitute, which, gradually rising in respect of spiri-
tuality, may be traced all along the advancing line of
God's government and revelation. The reformers, too,
while one and all of them maintained earnestly the
primeval institution of the Sabbath at the creation,
and its consequent permanent obligation, were led, by
what we may call an inherited bias, to misapprehend
somewhat the nature of the ordinance as Israel was
commanded to obey it, and so to contrast it far too
strongly with the free and happy Resurrection- day
which it is the joy of Christians to observe, in memory
of the risen Lord they love.
The honour was reserved for the Puritans and
Presbyterians to be the first to go straight to the foun
tain of all truth, and draw pure water from thence
alone ; to ask simply what does Scripture teach ?
And what has been the issue so far as our own
country is concerned ? In England, not among
extreme Calvinists and Evangelicals merely, but
among the great body of the clergy and the laity,
within as well as without the pale of the establish-
ment, it came to be the all but unanimous conviction ,
-for the exceptions were inconsiderable in point of
number at least, if not in point of weight and
influence,—that from the beginning of the world the
Sabbath, though subject to some outward changes of
168 THE SABBATH.

form, continued to be virtually the same institution.

Of course men held different views and adopted
different practices as regards the way of keeping it. But
as to the obligation of the day, and the ground of that
obligation, there was really no material diversity of
opinion. In Scotland, the unanimity was even more
conspicuous. I say was. May I not say that it still
is so ? And soon will be so more and more ! For
despite some ugly signs, I cannot but entertain the
hope that if only men will keep their temper, and
have patience for a little, and not misapprehend one
another, and calmly study some other books besides.
Cox and Hessey, we may see all go right in the end,
and our brethren who have alarmed us, may probably
come to be satisfied that the monster they are fight-
ing against is, when rightly understood, not so
very monstrous as they think, after all.
I cannot be expected to discuss in detail the
Scriptural evidence. But I have a few remarks to
offer on the sort of evidence that ought to satisfy a
mind, really bent on knowing the Lord's will, as
Scripture reveals it.
Dr. Hessey makes a very strong statement on this
point. " We live," he says, " in an age in which the
titles, so to speak, of our ordinances are examined
into with most exact and juridical strictness . Men,
rightly or wrongly, (for my part I believe rightly),
demand that no weakerevidence should be given ofthe
right of the Lord's Day to succeed in whatever degree,
to the hours ofthe Sabbath, than of the right of a family
to possess the temporal honours or the estates of a
family which has preceded it. "* As is usual, when
* Page 18.
 THE SABBATH. 169

a man ventures on an extreme position, he is not

consistent with himself. For he says in his next
Lecture, speaking of the evidence of his theory of the
apostolical, and therefore, at second hand, the divine
origin of " the Lord's day." " This," its being called
the Lord's day, " I think will at least amount to a
high probability that the day would be chosen by the
apostles as characteristic of the New Dispensation, and
to an evidence that it was so chosen. At any rate,
if we may judge from parallel instances, it is all that
the nature of the case allows." * I accept this last rule
or principle as utterly subversive of the former ; which
indeed I hold to be in the highest degree unreason-
able and presumptuous. We have no right to stipu-
late beforehand the kind or amount of evidence which
God must give us, or which we will accept. And in
the present instance the demand is especially absurd.
If "the temporal honours or the estates of a preced-
ing family " exist as realities, and must be trans-
mitted, -which is our case, so that the law must
somehow and somewhere find a legitimate inheritor ;
the question as to evidence is surely materially
affected by that consideration. But apart from that,
and taking a more serious view of Dr. Hessey's
principle, I think it altogether inconsistent with any
right apprehension of the manner of God in reveal-
ing himself and his mind to his intelligent creatures.
He does not deal with us as a grammar-school master
might deal with his scholars in the lowest form. He
does not proceed on the assumption of our needing
chapter and verse for everything ; so that whatever
we are to believe must be told us in express terms, and
* Page 38. See also page 68.
170 THE SABBATH.

whatever we are to do must be categorically laid down.

Nor does he treat us as persons who can be held in only
with bit and bridle ; who can take no hint and draw
no inference ; but must have proof enough to satisfy
or silence the most perverse litigant, or the most
petty-fogging of his counsel. On the contrary, the
very law of revelation is that it at once appeals to,
and puts to the proof, our good sense and our good faith ;
and that too, in a large, liberal and generous sense.
The Revealer would carry us along with him, intelli-
gently and sympathizingly, in all his revelations.
And he trusts us. He trusts to our intelligence and
sympathy to gather his mind and enter into it, as we
watch his onward march and movements in the re-
vealed course of his providence, and listen to the
explanations, which not always, but from time to
time, he articulately gives.
Thus, at the creation, we have the sacred rest of
the seventh day sanctioned by divine example, not
by express precept ; just as in the same manner, at
the resurrection of Christ, we have the first day
similarly sanctioned in its stead. This mode of
sanc tioning the observance of the day is admitted in
the second of these instances, by some who question
its applicability to the first. Dr. Hessey, for example,
claims for the Lord's day a divine authority on the
ground of the practice of the inspired apostles ; for
he thinks there is sufficient proof of their having set
apart the first day of the week for worship and rest.
He puts the obligation of the Lord's day on that
footing. In so doing, he goes beyond what most of
those who think along with him would allow ; for
generally they demur to the idea of there being
 THE SABBATH. 171

anything more in the New Testament notices of the

first day ofthe week, than what indicates and warrants
the appointment of it, as a day of sacred repose, by
ordinary ecclesiastical authority, and on the ground of
ecclesiastical expediency. So far I agree with them.
If it is the setting up of an entirely new institution
that is in question, I doubt very much if the " seven
texts usually adduced from Scripture to prove the
transference of the Sabbath from the seventh day to
the first," and adduced also by Dr. Hessey with a
totally different purpose,* will really serve his pur-
pose. These texts are, first those recording our Lord's
appearances to the disciples on the day of his resur-
rection, and on the first day of the week following ;
secondly, that which fixes the Pentecostal miracle to
the first day of the week ; and thirdly, those which
incidentally refer to the first day of the week as
having associated with it, in apostolic practise, coming
together to break bread, or " to eat the Lord's Supper,"
(Acts xx. 7 ; 1 Cor. xi. 20) ; almsgiving, or laying
up in store for almsgiving, (1 Cor. xvi . 1 , 2) ; “ assem-
bling together " for worship and fellowship, ( Heb. x.
25) ; and " being in the spirit," (Rev. i. 10.)
Now, I freely allow, or rather strenuously hold, that
these notices are amply sufficient to prove inspired,
Apostolic, and therefore Divine authority, for some
slight modification of an existing institution, such as
the change of day involves ; all the rather, if the
change commends itself to the intelligent and
spiritual mind as an appropriate and all but
necessary indication of the higher stage into which
creation-work has come, in virtue of the new creation
* Page 37.
172 THE SABBATH.

which the Lord's resurrection has at once consummated

and inaugurated. But I agree with those who think
--and they are this author's own friends-that for the
bringing in of an entirely new ordinance, as of divine
authority, these scanty and indirect references are but
poor supports indeed.
Let them be taken, however, as the last links in a
long chain of historical proof, and let the proof be
estimated according to the ordinary way in which God
communicates his mind to man by revelation, so as to
lay man under obligation to himself. Then we have
a consistent, progressive plan.
The creation of this world is cast into the mould or
fashion of six days of work, followed by a day of rest.
I care not here for any question as to the length of the
divine days, or the nature of the divine rest ; save only
to remark that it could be no rest of mere inactivity, but
only one of satisfaction and joy in a finished good . This
arrangement of the Creator, which could not be meant for
his own sake, but must have been adopted in accom-
modation to man, is made known to him from the
beginning. There is no formal precept or command
connected with it ; as there is no formal precept or
command about marriage, connected with the circum-
stance ofa single pair being found alone together ; there
is simply the fact discovered, that God created man ,
male and female. Such a mode of dealing with his
intelligent creatures, by means of express orders,
would have been inappropriate. What God reveals
to them of his own doings, is a sufficiently authorita-
tive rule. As such, it is owned and obeyed.
True, the record of the observance of the primeval
Sabbath between the creation and the Exodus is very
 THE SABBATH. 173

meagre ; nor is this to be wondered at ; for it did not fall

within the scope and compass of the brief patriarchal
narrative, which is rather to trace the progress of the
chosen seed, and of the divine discoveries regarding
it, than to notice customary religious usages. Still,
there are traces of stated worship, and stated times of
worship. And in spite of all special pleading to the
contrary, I confess I still incline to think that the
reckoning of time by weeks, to whatever extent it
prevailed, is better accounted for by the Sabbatic
institute, than by any natural periodical movement
of the heavenly bodies. The very circumstance of
this way of reckoning time being, however extensive,
still only partial, confirms this view ; for if it had the
other origin, why was it not universal ? And the
decade system of the first French Revolution may
suggest the probability of partial, and even consider-
able deviations from the weekly order, being the fruit
of growing heathenism.
Descending from the patriarchal we come to the
Levitical economy. And there we find the Sab-
bath, after the unavoidable disuse implied in the
Egyptian bondage, rather revived as an old ordin-
ance than instituted as a new one, and taking
its place in the one only code written by the Lord's
own fingers, and stored in his holiest shrine. All
down the stream of prophecy we trace this institution,
not as one among the ritual and ceremonial ordinances,
whose observance the prophets often seemed to dis-
parage, but as lying in the very heart of vital godli-
ness, and being the symbol at once and the means of
true religious reformation and revival.*

* See Isaiah lviii., and similar passages in Jeremiah and the

other prophets.
174 THE SABBATH.

Through the whole teaching of the great Teacher it

passes, repeatedly vindicated and exalted to the highest
point of divine benevolence ; never once with any hint
of its being designed to pass away. And instantly on
his rising from the grave in which he lay, as not
destroying, but fulfilling and satisfying the law, it is
baptized with the new wine which he drinks with us
in his kingdom ; and, -honoured first by his own
fellowship with his chosen ones, -sealed thereafter
by his Spirit's pentecostal grace,-it stands, attested
by inspired apostolic example, the same as when a still
more divine example hallowed it at first ; to continue
the same till the end of time.
In some such manner, as I humbly think, the
evidence on this subject should be combined and
weighed. It is of an inductive character and histori-
cally cumulative. And to one considering it as a
whole, and not committed to the demand of mere
categorical imperatives, it is on that very account, as
being in accordance with the usual manner of God,
all the more convincing and conclusive.
But did not the institution of the weekly Sabbath,
as it formed a part of Judaism, and took its place
practically among the other formal ordinances of that
typical and symbolical religion, partake, more or less ,
of the ritual character belonging generally to its
worship ? So the Reformers for the most part
thought. They always, however, drew a distinction,
between what they held to be merely ritual in the
Institution, and therefore temporary, and what they
maintained to be moral, and of original and permanent
obligation. I find this briefly and clearly brought
out in Calvin's Catechism, which was in use among
 THE SABBATH. 175

us in the early days of our Scottish Reformation. On

the Fourth Commandment, the question is put (168),
" Are we bound, by God's commandment, to refrain
one day in the week from all manner of labour ?" The
answer is, “ This commandment hath a certain special
consideration in it ; for, as touching the observation
of bodily rest, it belongeth to the ceremonial law,
which was abolished at the coming of Christ," (169.)
" Sayest thou, then, that this commandment belongeth
peculiarly to the Jews, and that God did give it only
for the time of the Old Testament ?" " Yea, verily, as
touching the ceremony thereof." (170. ) " Why, then,
is there any other thing contained in it besides the
ceremony ?" "There be three considerations , why
this commandment was given." (171), " What are
they ?" " The first is, that it might be a figure to re-
present our spiritual rest ; the second, for a comely
order to be used in the church ; and, thirdly, for the
refreshing of servants." Again, as to the reason given
in the Fourth Commandment for keeping the Sabbath,
the Catechism asks : (171.) " What is meant by that
which the Lord allegeth here, saying that it behoveth
us to rest, for so much as he hath done the same ?"
"When God created all his works in six days, he ap-
pointed the seventh to the consideration of his works.
And to the intent we might be more stirred thereto,
he setteth forth his own example unto us, because
there is nothing so much to be desired as to be like
him." " Must we then daily meditate the works of
God ? or is it enough to have mind of them one day
in the week?" " Our duty is to be exercised daily
therein ; but for our weakness ' sake there is one
176 THE SABBATH.

certain day appointed. And this is that politick

(comely) order of which I spake." *
Plainly the idea is that in the Jewish Economy, the
mere bodily rest of the Sabbath was a capital element
of its sacredness, that it was symbolical and signifi-
cant of Gospel rest ; so that when the substance came
the foreshadowing image passed away. I think it is.
an error to put that construction, even partially, on
the Sabbath, as ordained in the Fourth Command-
ment. At all events, it savours of over-refining, in
the interpretation of a clear and broad law, and in
point of fact, in Calvin's own country, it soon
opened the door to far looser views. At the same
time, it may be admitted that, being actually associ-
ated in practice with other Sabbatical arrangements
and ritual observances in the worship of Israel, the
weekly Sabbaths did come, at least in popular estima-
tion, to be viewed as kindred and analogous services ;
and might, therefore, for certain purposes of evangeli-
cal teaching, be not improperly classed with holidays
and new moons, " which are a shadow of things to
come ; but the body is of Christ " (Col. ii . 16-17. ) This,
as it would seem, is a sufficiently satisfactory expla-
nation of the incidental allusion of which so much
is often made ; although I cannot help thinking that
Paul's meaning reaches higher.
The apostle is not, in that passage, discussing the
subject of set times and modes of worship. He is
thinking of something altogether different. He is
insisting and dwelling on the spiritual standing of
believers, as crucified with Christ and risen with him.

* See " Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation," edited by Dr

Horatius Bonar. London : Nisbet & Co., 1866.
 THE SABBATH. 177

As crucified with Christ, they are dead to all legal

ordinances and formal observances. These have now
no power to enslave, because they have no right to
judge or condemn them. Risen with Christ, they have
a life which sets at defiance their tyranny and
judgment : " a life hid with Christ in God." Are they to
forego or compromise this liberty of acceptance and
peace with God, on the footing of free grace and
perfect righteousness, on which in Christ they now
stand ? No ; not at the summons of any ordinances,
be they ever so sacred or ever so salutary ; least of all
at the summons of ordinances which, for any virtue
they might ever have to give, in symbol, any spiri-
tual grace, have passed away. Such, I apprehend,
is Paul's reasoning ; and being such, it really does
not require him to be very careful as to what ordi-
nances he names as specimens. Nay, it is reasoning
which will apply in full force to ordinances that are
still of divine authority ; to Baptism, the Lord's
Supper, the Lord's-Day ; insomuch that if at any
time I saw a Christian brother suffering the observ-
ance of the Lord's-day to come in between him and
God's free grace ; keeping the holy Sabbath in a legal
frame of mind or in the spirit of bondage ; I could
almost find it in my heart to address him in the bold
words of Luther, and bid him work, or play, or dance,
or do anything with all its hours ; rather than let it be-
come an occasion of servilely working out a righteous-
ness of his own ; or mar the simplicity of his sole and
single reliance on the perfect righteousness of Christ
and the sovereign love of God.
Here let me notice a fallacy, for the most part latent,
which is apt to confuse or obscure our views of the
M
178 THE SABBATH.

relations between the Jewish and the Christian dis-

pensations. In comparing or contrasting them, we
very often look at the Mosaic system generally, and
at the Sinaitic covenant in particular, as they prac-
tically told upon the mass of the people, carnal and
unbelieving. To them the whole took the form of
what we call the covenant of works ; the natural
covenant, under which all men, prior to grace, are ;
the covenant requiring perfect and personal obedience,
and promising life on that condition : Do this and live.
To the nation at large the whole economy, including
the moral and ceremonial parts alike, took very much
that character, and was viewed merely as declaring
and enjoining the terms on which they were to possess
the land of their inheritance. So viewed, it cannot be
put in too strong opposition to the economy of the
gospel. But Paul does not so view it in his Epistle
to the Galatians. It is not the fair view to take of it.
We should rather regard it in the light in which it
appeared to those of the people who were spiritual
men-Israelites indeed. Taught by the Spirit, they
could not fail to see that, whatever else it might be,
the transaction at Sinai was not meant to be, and was
not really, the ratifying of any form of the covenant of
works ; that it proceeded on the footing, not of works,
but of grace ; that it was, in fact, the renewal or ful-
filment of the Abrahamic covenant. The very first
words uttered by Jehovah proclaimed salvation by
grace alone. Any new covenant given on Sinai must
necessarily be supplemental merely to that prior one ;
it cannot possibly be subversive of it.* Hence true

* This whole topic is most satisfactorily handled by Dr Fair-

bairn in his Typology. See especially his chapters on the Sabbath
and on the Law.
 THE SABBATH. 179

believers under the old dispensation found and felt

themselves to be living under an economy of free
grace, and realised salvation as not of works, but of
faith. In what was ceremonial, they saw the day of
Christ afar off, and were glad. In what was moral,
they welcomed the directory and the means of a free
and holy walking with God. The law was written in
their hearts ; it was their delight ; it was to them the
law of liberty, the law of love.
The difference in this matter between them and us
who believe now is entirely one of degree and not at
all of kind ; it is like the difference between the re-
stricted freedom of the son and heir in his minority,
and his larger freedom when he comes of age. (Gala-
tians iii., iv.) And, as an intelligent, docile, loving
child may be seen, even in his non-age, enjoying much
of the enlargement of his riper years,―so, many of
the saints of old reached a height of spiritual emanci-
pation to which, alas ! too few of us aspire ; and
might quite as safely as any of us have dispensed
with outward, objective, authoritative law. But that
was not in all their thoughts, nor should it be in
ours.
For in all ages, and under all modes of dealing
with him on the part of his Creator, three things
are necessary to the true and acceptable obedience
of a reasonable creature. These three things are
motive, power, and rule-an impelling motive, an
enabling power, an authoritative rule. In the case of
man, everywhere and always, these must be of God-
the motive, God's love ; the power, God's grace ; the
rule, God's law. The motive and the power will not
suffice ; no, not in the holiest of us all. To teach
180 THE SABBATH .

otherwise is unwittingly to pave the way, and it is a

short and easy way, to the utmost license of the worst
antinomianism. The three factors I have named as
entering into all real obedience- motive, power, and
authoritative rule-may bear different proportions, as
it were, in different dispensations, and among different
men under the same dispensation. If God's love is
only dimly known, and comparatively in shadow, and
if God's grace--the grace of his Almighty Spirit—is
granted only in comparatively small measure, his
commanding law may bulk more prominently, and be
more obviously needful, than when his love is more
fully revealed and more largely shed abroad in the
heart, and his Holy Spirit is more freely given, and
works more energetically. But I doubt if even in
heaven there can be service or obedience without ob-
jective law ; and that, too, law not merely pointing
out duty, but enjoining it ; law felt, however it may
be made known, to be speaking from without, from
above, and speaking with authority. Nor is this all.
If the obedience is to be perfect, the law must be per-
fect. Not only must the motive and the power be
perfect- perfectly sufficient ; which they are, being
God's full love and his omnipotent grace ; but the
rule must be perfect-perfectly complete ;-which it is,
being the law of the ten commandments. That law
alone is perfect ; no other law on earth, no other law
given under heaven among men, is or ever was. It
omits no duty ; it leaves unregulated no department of
life, inner or outer. Read in the light of the tenth com-
mandment, as Paul teaches us to read it (Rom. vii.)
-the commandment which goes into man's inmost
spirit, and gives its own spiritual character to all the
 THE SABBATH. 181

rest-it is all holy, and just, and good. It is perfect.

But you cannot say that of it if the fourth command-
ment is to be dropped out. For then there is a duty
for which no rule is given, a duty which the natural
conscience and natural religion alike acknowledge-
the duty of setting apart a sufficient portion of our
time for rest, refreshment, meditation, worship. What
is a sufficient portion for any man, and how it is to
be secured to all men, the law leaves all at sea.
Therefore it ceases to be perfect, and the possibility
of perfect obedience ceases too.
Does not this consideration go far to shew that the
positive part of the precept, fixing the very thing
needing to be fixed, -naming the day, and naming
it authoritatively for all mankind alike,-is really
after all not so distinguishable, at least not so sepa-
rable, from the moral, as we sometimes take it to
be ? It enters into the heart's core of the com-
mandment, and is indeed of its very essence. Nor
is this a peculiarity of the fourth commandment
alone ; the seventh stands in the very same pre-
dicament. That precept also has a positive part ;
it has in its very bosom what is matter of positive
divine appointment quite as much as the weekly
Sabbath -the ordinance of marriage. In fact, a very
close parallel or analogy may be traced between these
two commandments. They both alike proceed upon
positive divine institutions, not, as it seems to me,
discoverable by the light of nature, not capable of
being enforced by any natural law. Marriage is God's
ordinance for securing our purity. The Sabbath is
his ordinance for securing his own worship . And
notwithstanding the element of positive ordination in
182 THE SABBATH.

both, they are both alike essentially moral, and have

their proper place in the perfect moral law.
I cannot close without a few words about the teach-
ing of the great Master on this subject. I suppose I
may assume, as what will not now be called in ques-
tion, that in all his teaching with regard to it, he is in-
terpreting and not modifying the existing Sabbath Law.
He is vindicating it, as he vindicated other command-
ments, as for instanee, the third, the fifth, the sixth,
the seventh, against the false glosses put upon it, and
the misapplications made of it, by the Pharisees. He is
not altering or relaxing it. As the Messiah, the Son of
Man, he had no commission, no authority, and indeed ,
to speak with reverence, no right to do so. He does,
indeed, in that character, claim to be Lord of the
Sabbath ; but not in any other sense than that in
which David was lord of the shewbread when he used
it, in his necessity, for common food, and the priests
were lords of the Sabbath, when, for the higher ser-
vices of the Temple, they did work that, in ordinary
circumstances, would have been accounted a profana-
tion of the holy day. The Lord claims for himself,
and for all men, a lordship over the Sabbath, to the
effect of being entitled, and indeed bound, to make
what is matter of positive institution about it give
way, when a more paramount duty of the same sort,
still more when a duty of a purely moral nature, or
the duty of meeting a case of necessity, comes into
collision with it. There is here no setting aside of the
Sabbath law, but a magnifying of it and making it
honourable. And it is with the Mosaic Sabbath law
that he deals, the law of the Fourth Commandment ;
placing it on its right footing ; expounding its true
 THE SABBATH. 183

meaning. For one thing, he negatives the idea of

there being any virtue or sanctity in mere bodily rest-
ing on the Sabbath ; thus cutting away the ground,
as I think, from under Calvin and others, who held
that to be one element of the Jewish Sabbath. The
rest enjoined he shows to be compatible with activity
in serving God and doing good to men.
But I do not dwell on the Lord's teaching as to what
the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment really was,
and how it was to be kept. Nor do I insist on the argu-
ment for the universality of the Sabbath Institute,
founded on the great maxim, the charter of moral
liberty, " the Sabbath was made for man and not man
for the Sabbath." Notwithstanding the objection that
that is not the precise point of the Lord's teaching,—
since it is simply the relation between the Sabbath
and whoever may be bound to keep it that he is
dealing with I still think that his putting his pithy
apothegm so widely and generally means something.
Otherwise, why might he not have said "The Sabbath
was made for you, and not you for the Sabbath." I
consider him to have the whole human family in his
view when he utters his wide and broad proclamation,
"The Sabbath was made for man and not man for
the Sabbath."
But passing from that argument, I wish to point
out again another noticeable fact about his teach-
ing, to which I have already cursorily adverted.
Often as he is obliged to speak of the Sabbath, he
never once drops a hint as to its being abolished
or superseded . On the contrary he assumes its con-
tinuance ; at least his language is far more easily
reconcileable with that idea than with the other.
184 THE SABBATH.

And this argument will be greatly strengthened if we

look at his teaching on another subject. He has
occasion to speak of the place of worship, the Temple ;
not so often as of the day of worship, the Sabbath, but
yet more than once. In conversing with the Samari-
tan woman he does so. And how does he do so ?
First, he states and applies the existing law about the
place of worship . But immediately after, he takes
care to announce the coming change, the abrogation
of the ordinance conferring sanctity on one place
more than on another. How much pains also does
he take to prepare the minds of the disciples for
the destruction of the Temple-virtually in his death,
and literally some short time after-and the substitution
of himself when risen, as coming instead of it, and
of all its services ? Does not this anxious plain
speaking about the superseding of the place of wor-
ship, contrast strangely with the entire silence about
the superseding of the day of worship. Does it not
give to that silence a meaning and force not to be re-
sisted ? He very explicitly and very earnestly an-
nounces that the ordinance of the place of worship is
to be abolished. But, often as he is called to explain
the ordinance of the day of worship, he never once
utters a single syllable pointing in the direction of its
ceasing or being superseded. In any teacher, aware of
the Mosaic Sabbath being about to expire, such a
mode of dealing with it would be held to be unac-
countable, or something worse. In him who had to
prepare his followers for the new kingdom, it is, as I
view it, simply and utterly inconceivable. If the in-
stitution was to continue, with some slight outward
change, yet in substance the same, there was no need
 THE SABBATH. 185

of any express intimation to that effect. And good

reasons might be shewn for our Lord and his apostles
abstaining from any very formal and peremptory in-
junctions on the whole subject, and trusting rather to
the effect of authoritative precedent. In the state of
society in which the truth was to be preached and the
Church planted among all nations, it must have been
found altogether impossible to obtain or to enforce
the universal observance of a weekly day of rest ; and
to have made that a matter of absolute and indis-
pensable command would have been to clog the chariot
of the gospel with a most serious obstacle indeed. It
is a proof of holy, heavenly wisdom and love, that the
Sabbath, as the Lord's day, was made to pass, as it
were, silently from the old economy into the new, and
left to establish itself, as it gradually did, upon the
authority of divine example, in the consciences and
hearts of Christians. I say, divine example. For in
the view of all the Lord's previous teaching about the
nature of the Sabbath, and his significant silence about
its cessation, his two appearances to his disciples before
he finally left the world-the first on the very day
when he completed his new creation work, and the
second on the weekly return of that day- must, I
think, have been felt to be decisive as to what, in this
matter, he would have them to do.
I have left no room for any practical applications
of my subject, or any discussion of the practical ques-
tions that may be raised about the right way of ob-
serving and the right way of protecting the Sabbath.
I conclude with the closing words of Dr Fairbairn's
article.
"A connection, such as we believe to exist, and have
briefly indicated, between Christianity and the earliest
186 THE SABBATH.

dispensations of God, involves the permanence of

whatever is properly original, inherent in the nature
of things, adapted to man's state generally, or neces-
sary to his physical and moral well-being. Such a
connection, therefore, requires, in regard to the special
subject now under consideration, the perpetual obliga-
tion of a weekly Sabbath, to be withdrawn from
worldly occupations, and devoted mainly to higher
""
purposes.
" But as the Christian economy was an advance on
the Jewish, the same connection involves also super-
ficial differences in mere adjuncts and accompani-
ments. It therefore admits of and even requires such
circumstantial alterations as have actually taken place
in the Lord's day, as compared with the Jewish Sab-
bath ; in particular, a change of day from the last to
the first day of the week, to adapt it to the new phase
of the divine economy, which began with the resurrec-
tion of Christ ; in consequence of which, Sabbaths, or
what had become distinctively Jewish Sabbaths, fell
away, that the Lord's day might remain radiant with
the spiritual life, with the serene and heavenly yet
active and beneficent genius of the gospel of Christ.”
" Cast aside the sacred design and character of the
day, break its connection (in respect to the substance
of the appointment) with the Sabbaths interwoven
with the beginnings of the world's history, and en-
shrined in the moral legislation of Moses ; place it
simply on the footing of ecclesiastical sanction, or even
of apostolical usage and example, we believe that you
thereby strike at the root of its obligation ; you re-
move it from the one foundation on which alone it
can get a proper hold of men's consciences, and lay it
 THE SABBATH. 187

as a comparatively defenceless citadel at the mercy of

the world. Men, even men not altogether or avow-
edly unchristian, will feel that the day is in some
sense their own, and the demands of pleasure first,
then of drudging, toiling business to meet these de-
mands, will grow and multiply on every hand. No
legislative enactments nor well-meant efforts of Chris-
tian philanthropy will be able, to arrest the evil. It
is the knowledge and belief of God's word that alone
can secure the observance of His day.”

TURNBULL AND SPEARS PRINTERS, Edinburgh.

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