Ten Great Religions | Page 8

Old Testament, and Confucius is quoted as an authority quite equal to
Paul or John. An ignorant admiration of the sacred books of the
Buddhists and Brahmins has succeeded to the former ignorant and
sweeping condemnation of them. What is now needed is a fair and
candid examination and comparison of these systems from reliable
sources.

§ 5. Comparative Theology will furnish a new Class of Evidences in

Support of Christianity.
Such an examination, doing full justice to all other religions,
acknowledging their partial truth and use, will not depreciate, but exalt
the value of Christianity. It will furnish a new kind of evidence in its
favor. But the usual form of argument may perhaps be changed.
Is Christianity a supernatural or a natural religion? Is it a religion
attested to be from God by miracles? This has been the great question
in evidences for the last century. The truth and divine origin of
Christianity have been made to depend on its supernatural character,
and to stand or fall with a certain view of miracles. And then, in order
to maintain the reality of miracles, it became necessary to prove the
infallibility of the record; and so we were taught that, to believe in
Jesus Christ, we must first believe in the genuineness and authenticity
of the whole New Testament. "All the theology of England," says Mr.
Pattison,[7] "was devoted to proving the Christian religion credible, in
this manner." "The apostles," said Dr. Johnson, "were being tried one a
week for the capital crime of forgery." This was the work of the school
of Lardner, Paley, and Whately.
But the real question between Christians and unbelievers in Christianity
is, not whether our religion is or is not supernatural; not whether
Christ's miracles were or not violations of law; nor whether the New
Testament, as it stands, is the work of inspired men. The main question,
back of all these, is different, and not dependent on the views we may
happen to take of the universality of law. It is this: Is Christianity, as
taught by Jesus, intended by God to be the religion of the human race?
Is it only one among natural religions? is it to be superseded in its turn
by others, or is it the one religion which is to unite all mankind? "Art
thou he that should come, or look we for another?" This is the question
which we ask of Jesus of Nazareth, and the answer to which makes the
real problem of apologetic theology.
Now the defenders of Christianity have been so occupied with their
special disputes about miracles, about naturalism and supernaturalism,
and about the inspiration and infallibility of the apostles, that they have
left uncultivated the wide field of inquiry belonging to Comparative

Theology. But it belongs to this science to establish the truth of
Christianity by showing that it possesses all the aptitudes which fit it to
be the religion of the human race.
This method of establishing Christianity differs from the traditional
argument in this: that, while the last undertakes to prove Christianity to
be true, this shows it to be true. For if we can make it appear, by a fair
survey of the principal religions of the world, that, while they are ethnic
or local, Christianity is catholic or universal; that, while they are
defective, possessing some truths and wanting others, Christianity
possesses all; and that, while they are stationary, Christianity is
progressive; it will not then be necessary to discuss in what sense it is a
supernatural religion. Such a survey will show that it is adapted to the
nature of man. When we see adaptation we naturally infer design. If
Christianity appears, after a full comparison with other religions, to be
the one and only religion which is perfectly adapted to man, it will be
impossible to doubt that it was designed by God to be the religion of
our race; that it is the providential religion sent by God to man, its truth
God's truth its way the way to God and to heaven.

§ 6. It will show that, while most of the Religions of the World are
Ethnic, or the Religions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or adapted to
become the Religion of all Races.
By ethnic religions we mean those religions, each of which has always
been confined within the boundaries of a particular race or family of
mankind, and has never made proselytes or converts, except
accidentally, outside of it. By catholic religions we mean those which
have shown the desire and power of passing over these limits, and
becoming the religion of a considerable number of persons belonging
to different races.
Now we are met at once with the striking and obvious fact, that most of
the religions of the