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    898 & f tt &*&&**? [Saturday ,

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    The Creed Of Christendom. The Creed Of C...

    with the spirit and wants of the age . Another class of readers to whom it is adapted , are those struggling towards free religious thought amidst the impediments of critical ignorance and early artificial associations . To such , Mr . Greg ' hook will be valuable , both as an introductory manual of Biblical criticism and as a help in the consideration of certain moral questions . In stating the reasons which urged him to publication , Mr . Greg says : —

    ' * Much observation of the conversation and controversy of the religious world had brought the conviction that the evil resulting from the received notions as to Scriptural authority has been immensely under-estimated . I was compelled to see that there is scarcely a low and dishonouring conception of God current among men , scarcely a narrow and malignant passion of the human heart , scarcely a moral

    obliquity , scarcely a political error or misdeed , which Biblical texts are not , and may not be , without any violence to their obvious signification , adduced to countenance and justify . On the other hand I was compelled to see how many clear , honest , andaspiring minds have been hampered and baffled in theirstruggles after truth and light , how many tender , pure , and loving hearts have been hardened , perverted , and foraed to a denial of their nobler nature and their

    better instincts , by the ruthless influence of some passages of Scripture which seemed in the clearest language to condemn the good and to denounce the true . No work contributed more than Mr . Newman ' s Phases of Faith , to force upon me the conviction that little progress can be hoped , either for religious science or charitable feeling , till the question of Biblical authority shall have been placed upon a sounder footing , and viewed in a very different light . "

    Mr . Greg sets out by examining the dogma of Scriptural inspiration , which he justly regards as the keystone of Protestant orthodoxy . After considering separately each of the grounds on which it rests , he concludes that there is no valid foundation for believing the Hebrew and Christian canonical writings to be inspired , in the ordinary acceptation of the word—that is , dictated or suggested by God ; that hence we must regard them " as records , not revelations j as histories , to be investigated like other histories ; documents , of which the date , the authorship , the genuineness , the accuracy of

    the text , are to be ascertained by the same principles as we apply to other documents . " Having thus cleared away the dazzling haze with which the inspiration dogma invests the Biblical writings , be proceeds to investigate the genuineness and authenticity of the Old Testament canon , and traces briefly but forcibly the chief results of modern criticism in relation to this subject ; indicating such of the reasons on which they are founded as are readily appreciable by the general reader . According to these results , no longer held debateable by critics of high standing , the Pentateuch ,

    instead of being , as is popularly supposed , the production of Moses , is a compilation from separate documents , the earliest of which must have been written as late as the time of Saul ; while the whole book of Deuteronomy , and many parts of the preceding books , are irrefragably proved by the subsequent history of the Hebrews to have had no existence prior to the reign of Josiah . Mr . Greg instances some of the straits to which English divines have been driven , in the effort to maintain

    the authority of the Old Testament in the face of scientific discovery ; and dwells on the advantage which would accrue , not only to the truthfulness of divines , but to the real instructiveness of the Hebrew writings , if the latter were regarded as merely human narratives , traditions , and speculations . He next discusses the prophecies , and adduces many considerations tending to prove how far we arc from possessing that clear knowledge concerning them which alone could warrant the conclusions of orthodoxy , in his opinion , —¦

    " The Hebrew prophets wore wise , gifted , earnest nion , deeply conversant with the Past—looking far into the Future—shocked with the unrightuoutmcHH around them—sagacious to see impending evil—bold to denounce wickedness ia high places— -imbued , above all , with an unfailing faith , peculiarly atrong among their people , that national delinquency and national virtue would alike meet with a temporal and inevitable retribution—and gifted ' with the glorious faculty of poetic hopo , exerted on human prospects , and presenting its results with the vividness of prophecy '—but prophets in no stricter sense than this . "

    The Theism of the Hebrews , Mr . Grog maintains , was impure und progressive ; they arrived at their mono-theism by the same stages that characterize the development of the human race in general , the Old Testament exhibiting strong

    evidence that the Hebrew deity was originally a family god , elevated by Moses to the dignity of a national god , and ultimately , owing to the influence of prophets and sages , and yet more to the contact of the Hebrews with other Oriental nations , expanded into the God of the Universe . The claims of the New Testament on our credence are next considered . The chapters on the Origin of the Gospels and the Fidelity of the Gospel History contain no fresh contributions to Biblical criticism , nor anything new to persons conversant with this class of subjects ; but they are a well arranged summary of salient facts and arguments , gathered chiefly from Strauss , Hug , Schleiermacher , and Hennell . The conclusions to which the writer

    is led are , that we have no certitude as to the Gospels conveying the testimony of eyewitnesses , while , on the other band , there is the strongest evidence of their containing a large admixture of legend , and that we can trust them no further than as giving an outline of Christ ' s life and teaching . Hence Mr . Greg holds that dogmas founded on sayings attributed to Jesus , but discordant with the impression of his character conveyed by the general tenor of the Gospels , must be rejected ; for example , the dogmas of the necessity of belief to salvation , the proper Deity of Christ , and the Atonement . We quote some of his reflections on these results : —

    " In fine , then , we arrive at this irresistible conclusion , that , knowing many passages in the Evangelists to be unauthentic , and having reason to suspect the authenticity of many others , and not being able with absolute certainty to point to any "which are perfectly and indubitably authentic—the probability in favour of the fidelity of any of the texts relied on to prove the peculiar and perplexing doctrines of modern orthodoxy , is far inferior to the probability against the truth of those doctrines . A doctrine perplexing

    to our reason , and painful to our feelings , may be from God ; but in this case the proof of its being from God must be proportionately clear and irrefragable ; the assertion of it in a narrative , which does not scruple to attribute to God ' s messenger words which he never uttered , is not only no proof , but does not even amount to a presumption . There is no text in the Evangelists , the Divine ( or Christian ) origin of which is sufficiently unquestionable to enable it to serve as the foundation of doctrines

    repugnant to natural feeling or to common sense . " But it will be objected , if these conclusions are sound , absolute uncertainty is thrown over the whole Gospel history , and over all Christ ' s teaching . To this we reply , in limine , in the language of Algernon Sydney , ' No consequence can destroy a truth ; ' the sole matter for consideration is , Are our arguments correct ?—not , Do they lead to a result which is emharassing and unwelcome ?

    " JBut the inference is excessive ; the premises do not reach so far . The uncertainty thrown is not over the main points of Christ's history , which , after all retrenchments , still stands out an intelligible , though a skeleton account—not over the grand features , the pervading tone of his doctrines or his character , which still present to us a clear , consistent , and splendid delineation ; but over those individual statements , passages , and discourses which mar this delineation—which break its unity—which destroy its consistency—which cloud its clearness—which tarnish its beauty . The gain to us seems immense .

    "It is true we have no longer absolute certainty with regard to any one especial text or scene ; such is neither necessary nor attainable ; it is true that , instead of passively accepting the whole heterogeneous and indigestible mass , we must , by the careful and conscientious exercise of those faculties with which we are endowed , by ratiocination and moral tact , separate what Christ did , from what he did not teach , as best we may . liut the task will be difficult to those only who look in the Gospels for a miuute , dogmatic , and sententiouB creed ; not to those who seek only to learn Christ ' s spirit that they may imbibe it , and to comprehend his views of virtue and of God , that they may draw strength and consolation from those fountains of living water . "

    In discussing the limitu of Apostolic wisdom and authority , Mr . Greg ' s prepossessions , perhaps , lead him to heighten the difference between the spirit and teaching of the Apostles and those of their Master ; but for much that lie maintains under this head , he has strictly critical grounds . His observations on the misapprehension of the Apostles and the early Church concerning the " gift of tongues , " are especially juat and pointed . In the chapter on Miracles , ho treats the subject chiefly on a priori grounds , and only cursorily touches on the ? uestion whether the miraculous narratives in the Jospels bear the marks of credibility . No argues for the position , long ago strenuously maintained by Locke , and admitted by many even of our orthodox divines , that a miracle can never authenticate a doctrine ; and ho further shows , that

    miracles are not a safe foundation on which to the claims of Christianity , inasmuch as they not susceptible of proof by documentary eviden The crowning miracle of the Resurrection he co *' siders separately , giving a condensed anal ysis of the evidence on which it rests . The con clusi that this evidence is insufficient is , he thinks ren n dered needlessly painful by the undue doctrinal value assigned by theologians to the Resurrectio of Christ , whether as a sanction of his doctrines o as a type and pledge of our own resurrection ; for viewed in the one light it is superfluou s , while in the other , it utterly-fails-of-the ^ supposed end , since a bodily resurrection after three days' interment can bear no resemblance to anything that awaits

    ourselves . Even after the renunciation of implicit credence in the Gospel narratives and Apostolic writings and the rejection of all miraculous evidence , the question remains—Is Christianity a revealed religion ? Since , however , the lustre of Christ ' s life and teaching may have been obscured by the errors and limitations of his biographers and immediate disciples , it is still possible that he may have had a special divine mission . In seeking for an answer to this question , Mr . Greg " finds no adequate reason for believing Jesus to be the son of God , nor his doctrines to be a direct and special revelation . " The following is his conception of Jesus : —

    "We do not believe that Christianity contains anything which a genius like Christ ' s , brought up and nourished as his had been , might not have disentangled for itself . We hold that God has so arranged matters in this beautiful and well-ordered but mysteriously governed universe , that one great mind after another will arise from time to time , as such are needed , to discover and flash forth before the eyea of men the truths that are wanted , and the amount of truth , that can be borne . We conceive that this is effected by endowing them—or ( for we pretend to no scholastic nicety of expression ) by having arranged that nature and the course of events shall send them

    into the world endowed with that superior mental and moral organization , in which grand truths , sublime gleams of spiritual light , will spontaneously and inevitably arise . Such , a one we believe was Jesus of Nazareth—the most exalted genius -whom God ever sent upon earth ; in himself an embodied revelation ; humanity in its divinest phase— " God manifest in the flesh , " according to Eastern hyperbole ; an exemplar vouchsafed , in an early age of the world , of whatman may and should become , in the course of ages , in his progress towards the realization of his destiny ; an individual gifted with a glorious intellect , a noble soul , a fine organization , and a perfectly balanced moral being ; and who , by virtue of these endowments , saw further than all other

    men" Beyond the verge of that blue sky , Where God ' s sublimest secrets lie ;" an earnest , not only of what humanity may be , but of what it will be , when the most perfected races shall bear the same relation to the finest minds of existing times , as these now bear to the Bushmen and the Esquimaux . He was , as Parker beautifully expresses it , * the possibility of the rare made real . He was a sublime poet , prophet , hero , and philosopher ; and had the usual fate of su ch—misrepresented by his enemies , misconstrued by his friends ; unhappin thisthat his nearest intimates and

    ioiy , lowers were not of a calibre to understand him ; happy in this , that liia words contained eucn undying seeds of truth as could survive even the media through which they passed . -Lakc the wheat found in the Egyptian catacombs , the retain the power of germinating undiminisnea , whenever their appropriate soil i » found . 1 hey have been preserved almost pure , notwithstanding -tnc Judaic narrowness of Peter , the orthodox passions ot

    John , and the metaphysical subtleties of Paul . Everything seems to us to confirm the conclusion that wo have in the Christianity of Scripture a code oi beautiful , simple , sublime , profound , but not P J " truth , obscured by having come down to us by tn intervention of minds far inferior to that « its Author ; narrowed by their uncultivation ; marreu by their misapprehensions ; and tarnished by th «> foreign admixtures . It is a collection of grand t ru " transmitted to us by men who only half comprehend ^ , their grandeur , and imperfectly grasped their trutn .

    If Christianity be no longer regarded as a revelalation , but as the conception of a fallible tnougn transcendantly gifted mind , it follows that only «> muck of it is to be accepted ne harmonizes witn imreason and conscience : Christianity beco mes " Christian Eclecticism . " Mr . Greg unhesitatingly receives many of Christ ' s precepts as unsurpassable and unimprovable : for examp le , those wliitn inculcate the worthlessnesH of ceremonial observance and the necessity of active virtue , purity of heart . i the security for purity of life , universal p hilanthropy , forgiveness of injuriea , aelf-sacrificc in the <*««« <» duty , humility , and genuine sincerity . « e rog **

    898 & F Tt &*&&**? [Saturday ,

    898 & f tt &*&&**? [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1851, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20091851/page/14/