The Eclipse of Faith

Eclipse of Faith, The

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Title: The Eclipse of Faith Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic
Author: Henry Rogers
Release Date: October 13, 2005 [EBook #16866]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH;
OR
A VISIT TO A RELIGIOUS SCEPTIC.
FIFTH EDITION.

BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS AND COMPANY, 111
WASHINGTON STREET.
1854.
AMERICAN PREFACE.
The effect of the perusal of this book, and the estimate put upon it by a
reader, will depend upon his taking with him a right view of its design.
That design seems in the mind of the writer to have been very definite
and very restricted. If he should be thought to have intended an answer
to all the elaborate objections from criticism and philosophy recently or
renewedly urged against faith in the Christian revelation, and, still more,
if the reader should suppose that the author had aimed to remove all the
difficulties in the way of such a faith, he would equally insure his own
disappointment, and wrong the writer. The book comes forth
anonymously, but it is ascribed to Mr. Henry Rogers, some of whose
very able papers in the Edinburgh Review have been republished in two
octavo volumes in England, and one of whose articles, that on "Reason
and Faith," dealt with some of the topics which form the subject-matter
of this volume.
The author seems to have viewed with a keenly attentive and anxious
mind the generally unsettled state of opinion, equally among the
literary and some of the humbler classes in England, concerning the
terms and the sanction of a religious faith, especially as the issue bears
upon the contents and the authority of the Bible. That he understands
the state of things in which he proposes himself as one who has a word
to utter, will be allowed by all candid judges, whatever criticism they
may pass upon the effectiveness of his own argument. There is
abundant evidence in this book of his large intimacy with the freshest
forms of speculation, as developed by the free thought of our age.
While he identifies these speculations with the recent writers who have
adopted them, he is not to be understood as allowing that these writers
have originated any novel speculations, or excelled the sceptics of
former times in acuteness, or plausibility, or success in urging their
cause. He adopts the method of the Platonic dialogue, and exhibits a
dialectic skill in confounding by objections when objections can be

made to do service as arguments. His frank admission that he leaves
insurmountable objections and unfathomable mysteries still involved in
the theme, a portion of whose range alone he traverses, should secure
him from the imputation of having attempted too much, or of
boastfulness for what he considers that he has accomplished.
The truculent notice of this book in the Westminster Review for July is
wholly unworthy of the reputation and the claims of that journal.
Probably a careful perusal of the book is an essential condition for
enlightening the mind of the writer, and for rectifying his judgment, so
far as information has power to promote candor.
The Prospective Review for August, in an article on the work, for the
most part commendatory, though certainly without any warmth of
praise, makes the prominent stricture upon it to be, a charge against the
author of having evaded "the gravest, and in one sense the only serious
difficulty, with which the evidences he supports have to contend." This
difficulty is defined to be in the question as to whether our four
Gospels are essentially and substantially documents from the pens of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, actual companions and
contemporaries of Him whose life and lessons are therein recorded. The
Reviewer professes to have satisfied his own mind by an affirmative
conclusion on this point. But regarding the question as the very
turning-point, the paramount and vital element of the existing issue
between faith and unbelief, and not finding it to be dealt with in this
volume, the Reviewer considers that it is evaded. It might be urged in
reply, that this question is not to other minds of such paramount
importance, and that its affirmative answer would not be conclusive, as
it would still leave open other questions; such, for instance, as those
which enter into the theories of Paulus and other Rationalists, and such
as