Ten Great Religions | Page 6

Otherwise we must conclude that the Being without whom
not a sparrow falls to the ground, the Being who never puts an insect
into the air or a polyp into the water without providing it with some
appropriate food, so that it may live and grow, has left the vast majority
of his human children, made with religious appetences of conscience,
reverence, hope, without a corresponding nutriment of truth. This view
tends to atheism; for if the presence of adaptation everywhere is the

legitimate proof of creative design, the absence of adaptation in so
important a sphere tends, so far, to set aside that proof.
The view which we are opposing contradicts that law of progress which
alone gives meaning and unity to history. Instead of progress, it teaches
degeneracy and failure. But elsewhere we see progress, not recession.
Geology shows us higher forms of life succeeding to the lower. Botany
exhibits the lichens and mosses preparing a soil for more complex
forms of vegetation. Civil history shows the savage state giving way to
the semi-civilized, and that to the civilized. If heathen religions are a
step, a preparation for Christianity, then this law of degrees appears
also in religion; then we see an order in the progress of the human
soul,--"first the blade, then the ear, afterward the full corn in the ear."
Then we can understand why Christ's coming was delayed till the
fulness of the time had come. But otherwise all, in this most important
sphere of human life, is in disorder, without unity, progress, meaning,
or providence.
These views, we trust, will be amply confirmed when we come to
examine each great religion separately and carefully. We shall find
them always feeling after God, often finding him. We shall see that in
their origin they are not the work of priestcraft, but of human nature; in
their essence not superstitions, but religions; in their doctrines true
more frequently than false; in their moral tendency good rather than
evil. And instead of degenerating toward something worse, they come
to prepare the way for something better.

§ 4. How Ethnic Religions were regarded by Christ and his Apostles.
According to Christ and the Apostles, Christianity was to grow out of
Judaism, and be developed into a universal religion. Accordingly, the
method of Jesus was to go first to the Jews; and when he left the limits
of Palestine on a single occasion, he declared himself as only going
into Phoenicia to seek after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But he
stated that he had other sheep, not of this fold, whom he must bring,
recognizing that there were, among the heathen, good and honest hearts

prepared for Christianity, and already belonging to him; sheep who
knew his voice and were ready to follow him. He also declared that the
Roman centurion and the Phoenician woman already possessed great
faith, the centurion more than he had yet found in Israel. But the most
striking declaration of Jesus, and one singularly overlooked, concerning
the character of the heathen, is to be found in his description of the day
of judgment, in Matthew (chap. XXV.). It is very curious that men
should speculate as to the fate of the heathen, when Jesus has here
distinctly taught that all good men among them are his sheep, though
they never heard of him. The account begins, "Before him shall be
gathered all the Gentiles" (or heathen). It is not a description of the
judgment of the Christian world, but of the heathen world. The word
here used ([Greek: ta ethnæ]) occurs about one hundred and sixty-four
times in the New Testament. It is translated "gentiles" oftener than by
any other word, that is, about ninety-three times; by "heathen" four or
five times; and in the remaining passages it is mostly translated
"nations." That it means the Gentiles or heathen here appears from the
fact that they are represented as ignorant of Christ, and are judged, not
by the standard of Christian faith, but by their humanity and charity
toward those in suffering. Jesus recognizes, therefore, among these
ethnic or heathen people, some as belonging to himself,--the "other
sheep," not of the Jewish fold.
The Apostle Paul, who was especially commissioned to the Gentiles,
must be considered as the best authority upon this question. Did he
regard their religions as wholly false? On the contrary, he tells the
Athenians that they are already worshipping the true God, though
ignorantly. "Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you."
When he said this he was standing face to face with all that was most
imposing in the religion of Greece. He saw the city filled with idols,
majestic forms, the perfection of artistic grace and beauty. Was his
spirit then moved only with