The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 4

party-spirit in the air. And thus advocacy on
one side is simply met by advocacy on the other. Such has at least been
hitherto the history of English thought upon most great subjects. We
may hope that at last this state of things is coming to an end. But until
now, and even now, it has been difficult to find that quiet atmosphere
in which alone true criticism can flourish.
Let it not be thought that these few remarks are made in a spirit of
censoriousness. They are made by one who is only too conscious of
being subject to the very same conditions, and who knows not how far
he may need indulgence on the same score himself. How far his own
work is tainted with the spirit of advocacy it is not for him to say. He
knows well that the author whom he has set himself to criticise is at
least a writer of remarkable vigour and ability, and that he cannot lay
claim to these qualities; but he has confidence in the power of
truth--whatever that truth may be-- to assert itself in the end. An open
and fair field and full and free criticism are all that is needed to
eliminate the effects of individual strength or weakness. 'The opinions
of good men are but knowledge in the making'--especially where they
are based upon a survey of the original facts. Mistakes will be made
and have currency for a time. But little by little truth emerges; it
receives the suffrages of those who are competent to judge; gradually
the controversy narrows; parts of it are closed up entirely, and a solid
and permanent advance is made.
* * * * *
The author of 'Supernatural Religion' starts from a rigid and somewhat
antiquated view of Revelation--Revelation is 'a direct and external
communication by God to man of truths undiscoverable by human
reason. The divine origin of this communication is proved by miracles.
Miracles are proved by the record of Scripture, which, in its turn, is
attested by the history of the Canon.--This is certainly the kind of

theory which was in favour at the end of the last century, and found
expression in works like Paley's Evidences. It belongs to a time of
vigorous and clear but mechanical and narrow culture, when the
philosophy of religion was made up of abrupt and violent contrasts;
when Christianity (including under that name the Old Testament as
well as the New) was thought to be simply true and all other religions
simply false; when the revelation of divine truth was thought to be as
sudden and complete as the act of creation; and when the presence of
any local and temporary elements in the Christian documents or society
was ignored.
The world has undergone a great change since then. A new and far-
reaching philosophy is gradually displacing the old. The Christian sees
that evolution is as much a law of religion as of nature. The Ethnic, or
non-Christian, religions are no longer treated as outside the pale of the
Divine government. Each falls into its place as part of a vast divinely
appointed scheme, of the character of which we are beginning to have
some faint glimmerings. Other religions are seen to be correlated to
Christianity much as the other tentative efforts of nature are correlated
to man. A divine operation, and what from our limited human point of
view we should call a special divine operation, is not excluded but
rather implied in the physical process by which man has been planted
on the earth, and it is still more evidently implied in the corresponding
process of his spiritual enlightenment. The deeper and more
comprehensive view that we have been led to take as to the dealings of
Providence has not by any means been followed by a depreciation of
Christianity. Rather it appears on a loftier height than ever. The
spiritual movements of recent times have opened men's eyes more and
more to its supreme spiritual excellence. It is no longer possible to
resolve it into a mere 'code of morals.' The Christian ethics grow
organically out of the relations which Christianity assumes between
God and man, and in their fulness are inseparable from those relations.
The author of 'Supernatural Religion' speaks as if they were separable,
as if a man could assume all the Christian graces merely by wishing to
assume them. But he forgets the root of the whole Christian system,
'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
The old idea of the _Aufklärung_ that Christianity was nothing more

than a code of morals, has now long ago been given up, and the
self-complacency which characterised that movement has for the most