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THE ENGLISH

PRESBYTERIAN MESSENGER.

NOVEMBER, 1866.

OPENING OF THE COLLEGE-DR. LORIMER ON
CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES AND "ECCE HOMO."

WE can afford space for only a brief summary of the first and main part of Dr. Lorimer's elaborate lecture; his closing remarks on "Ecce Homo" we shall give as he uttered them.

Of late years the Professor has favoured us with a biennial adaptation of the evidences to the theological developments of the day. The idea is good; and Dr. Lorimer deserves our thanks for the careful study he has bestowed on passing controversies, and on the best methods of meeting the successive departures from orthodox belief which have marked our time. Yet it is not unaccompanied by danger. Looking back we discern a shifting of positions, and a changing of the order and relative importance of the different kinds of evidence which seem to us to involve at each period a rectification rather than a simple adaptation of the evidences to meet present requirements. There was a time when Dr. Lorimer gave the front place to the historical branch of evidence, maintaining that the authenticity, genuineness, and credibility of the sacred books must be established before we can interrogate, with any satisfaction, the books themselves. Two years ago, in his inaugural lecture at the opening of the New College Hall, he became the champion of the internal as against the external evidences. That lecture was a very valuable one, showing, with much effect, the "self-evidencing light, and power" of Christ, of the Christian documents, and of the early Christian Church. But now he has advanced another step, and he insists that the first and chief place in the Christian argument must be given to the life and character of Jesus Christ. Now there is truth in all these positions, and if they were to be regarded simply as showing the varied resources of Christian evidence and its applicability to all phases of theological error, they would have our entire assent. But when we are told that each has an essential priority or excelling value, we get confused; and, considering the Professor's somewhat rapid advancement in his rectifications of our evidential system, we are inclined to ask, Where will it end? Is "Ecce Homo" to be the last questionable production? Are the person and character of Christ to afford the last field of theological controversy? Error repeats itself; and it may be that a few years hence we shall have to furbish up our old historical weapons and meet the enemy in company once more with Paley and Chalmers. The truth is, each kind of evidence has its own place, its own work, and its own value; and it weakens the whole to exalt one at the expense of the rest. The hand must not say to the eye, or the ear to the mouth, I have no need of thee. It is true that our creeds and confessions, and our methods of stating and defending truth, owe their form in some measure to past controversies, but it is surely giving our opponents a huge triumph if we are to admit that every blow they strike reveals some weak No. 227.-New Series.

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point in our defences, and necessitates a reconstruction of our forces. We are not prepared to make such an admission. We are not among those who regard every heresy as springing directly from some defect or one-sidedness in the orthodox presentation of truth. However fully and consistently the Word of God might be taught, there would still be error and unbelief. It has often been said that the Mauricean school is the birth of the Church's neglect of Bible doctrine concerning the risen and living Christ. The assertion may be true; but we feel very confident that recent attacks on the character of Christ, as presented in the Gospel records, have not risen from any want of attention, on the part of our Christian teachers, to the life, character, work, and words of Jesus; or from their failing to give him, in their writings and discourses, that unapproachable position which he claims from himself as the "light of the world." If the present state of the evidences and the ordinary way of using them be such as to involve an obscuring of Christ, or a diminishing of the power of his self-evidencing light in our theological halls, it is to be deplored; but we have no hesitation in saying that every earnest preacher of the Gospel makes Christ his one, ever-recurring, all-pervading theme, and has enforced a thousand times, and in as many ways, that truth concerning Christ which forms the burden of the Professor's lecture. Are the practical exhibitions of truth from the pulpit in advance, theologically, of the more systematic statements of the dogmatic and apologetic chairs? If so, the sooner things are adjusted the better; and Dr. Lorimer does good service in seeking to bring about a change as to the order and method that are observed in treating the Christian evidences. Meanwhile, however, the frequent shifting of position, and confession of error in view and method to which we have referred, makes one feel uneasy, and seems to attach a measure of uncertainty to the ground on which the Church stands as a defender of the faith.

While making these remarks we have a high appreciation of many portions of the present lecture. It contains points which all would do well to consider, and it is marked by equal learning, force, and breadth.

The Professor took, as the basis of his discourse, the words of Christ, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself," John vii. 16. From this passage he deduced certain "evidential principles" which he proceeded to state and illustrate.

The first of these principles was, "that the conditions of Christian faith and certitude were primarily moral conditions."

"It was not said-If any man has a clear head, or sound common sense, or strong reasoning powers, or an adequate store of relevant learning, he shall know of the doctrine; but Christ made the state of a man's will the primary condition, and that will in relation to the will of God. No man inquiring into the truth of Christianity could arrive at a profound and settled Christian faith except upon these conditions-that God was a reality to him-that God's will was recognised by him as the law to which his moral being was bound to be subject—and that he was in earnest to learn all God's will with a view to be all that God would have him to be, and to do all that God would have him to do. Why should we marvel at such a phenomenon as Pantheistic Infidelity, since it is plain from our Lord's words that no man can become a Christian believer who has already adopted an unreligious philosophy unless he consents to cast that philosophy away. Christ says a man must be willing to do the will of God in order to arrive at Christian faith and certitude. But what if a man has philosoph sed himself out of any belief in God or in God's will at all? What if a man is au Atheist in philosophy, or a Pantheist, a Positivist or a Materialist? To all such the God whom Christ spoke of is as good as non-existent, and the will of God, as Christ meant it, a nullity. Take the case of Strauss, for example. He is, without doubt, a Pantheist, i.e., to him God and nature are the same thing. There is no Deity distinct from and above

nature, no powers of God different from the forces of nature, no will or law of God different from the natural laws of matter and mind. With Strauss, willingness to do the will of God means no more than willingness to submit and conform himself to the laws of nature, such as the laws of heat, and the laws of health, and the laws of digestion. Such a philosopher and Christ have no common standing ground at all, their first principles are utterly incompatible and irreconcileable with each other. When they speak of God, and of God's will, and of doing God's will, they are speaking of totally different things, and expressing ideas which not only differ from another, but mutually exclude and nullify each other. How could Strauss be expected to become a Christian? No man can serve two masters, and when once a false philosophy of God and God's will has got the mastery of a man's mind, he is necessarily disqualified from becoming a disciple of the school of Christ."*

The second evidential principle was, "that the only appropriate organ for the examination of the question of the truth of Christianity, and for the perception of the full force of its evidences, was the moral mind," as distinguished from "the purely intellectual or scientific mind."

"He asked how a writer like Rénan could be expected to appreciate and understand and embrace so lofty a moralist, so intensely moral a religionist, as Jesus Christ, inasmuch as his morale was singularly deficient in depth and earnestness, in proof of which he cited his scandalous theory of the resurrection of Lazarus. What moral soundness of feeling and judgment could there be in a man who in one breath held up Jesus Christ as the beau ideal of virtue and goodness, and in the next represented Him as a delusive miracle-monger, deliberately lending himself to an imposture of his friends, and solemnly appealing to his Father at the same moment, in order to give colour and success to a conscious knavery and lie? Were the moral instincts of such a mind in a healthy and unperverted condition? They had then no cause to feel surprise that men of such a type should be repelled from Christ and Christianity."

Both on hearing and on reading the Professor's remarks on the two principles above stated, we felt that they were somewhat defective. There should have been some statement connected with them of a more purely evangelical sort. There is something higher and more needed than "moral conditions," and a "moral mind." Many have fulfilled the conditions named, and possessed a high "morale," without arriving at-(or at least in virtue of these things)"a profound and settled Christian faith." Just as no false philosophy necessarily disqualifies a man from becoming a Christian, so no soundness of the moral instincts would necessarily lead a man to embrace Christ. Suppose Rénan had possessed moral " depth and earnestness," does it follow that he would have become a "Christian believer "? Moral sensibility, however pure and lively, can in no case carry the soul beyond a fine appreciation of the morally beautiful in the character and teachings of the Saviour; and such an appreciation may exist apart from evangelical faith. Even Rénan is allowed by Dr. Lorimer to find in Christ his "beau ideal of virtue and goodness."

We have been always taught that the enlightening and quickening power of the Spirit is needed before any man can truly know or accept Christ; and further, that whoever has the Spirit given to him, be his moral mind in what condition it may, is brought into union and fellowship with Christ. And we think this the safer position to take up. We may concede too much to our opponents. If we abandon our evangelical stand-point, we run the risk of losing all. The Spirit is the promised and only effectual teacher; and in the possession or non-possession of the Spirit lies the real difference between earnest men on the two contending sides. Of course the Professor was right in pointing out what theoretical difficulties or moral deficiencies he had discovered in the minds of the leading heresiarchs of the day, and he could,

* We take our extracts from the report of the lecture that appeared in the Weekly Review.

no doubt, explain his positions consistently with received truth; but it would have been wise, we think, if he had shown at the time how the course of thought he pursued stood related to the doctrine and work of the Holy Ghost.

We were inclined to share the feeling that he had been unconsciously influenced by the views of the author of " Ecce Homo," from whose book may be culled passages which substantially agree with the statements of the Professor, but which the Professor himself would be amongst the first to reject as false and pernicious. Take the following passages:-" But now what is the quality that carries a man through the ordeal? (the ordeal of deciding for Christ, or for the right and good in any conflict between principles.) Can we find a name for it? It is no doubt neither more nor less than moral worth or goodness: but this is no reason why a more precise name should not be given to this particular aspect of goodness. The first Christians had manifestly occasion for such a word, and one came into use which may be said to have become a permanent addition to the moral vocabulary of the world. This word was faith." Again, "It is to be understood that this is not strictly a Christian virtue; it is the virtue required of one who wishes to become a Christian. So much a man must bring with him; without it he is not worthy of the kingdom of God." then see the use that is made of this necessary moral condition amount of disobedience which can be named, no amount of disbelief or ignorance of doctrine, is sufficient to deprive a man of the name of Christian. For it is held in the Christian Church, that the man most stained with crime, and even most unsuccessful in breaking himself off criminal habits, and in the same manner the man whose speculative notions are most erroneous or despairing, may yet possess that rudiment of goodness which Christ called faith." Professor Lorimer's idea of faith is very different from that indicated in these passages; but, the name apart, we can discern little or no difference between his "moral instincts" and the "moral worth and goodness," or the "rudiment of goodness," of the writer of "Ecce Homo."

And

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The third evidential principle discussed was, "that the criteria by which the truth of Christianity is to be tried must be primarily, though not exclusively, moral criteria." Under this division we have the following spirited advocacy of the superiority in place and value of moral criticism as contrasted with literary criticism:

"What, then, are we to think of that criticism of Christianity which is neither moral nor spiritual, but entirely literary or verbal? It occupies itself entirely with the documents of Christianity, and very little with the Christianity which the documents contain. It discusses the several dates and authors, and goes into minute investigations, sometimes of the true textual readings, sometimes of the true exegesis of terms and sentences, sometimes of the harmony of text with text, and sometimes of the tendency or drift of book compared with book. This literary criticism is a favourite weapon of the Infidels and the Rationalists-Strauss, Rénan, and Baur, and many more, have all made large use of it to damage and discredit the New Testament books, and especially the Gospels. And large use, too, has been made of it on the side of Christianity to repel such hostile criticisms and to vindicate the genuineness and historical truth of the documents. And it is not my meanness, of course, to deny that a criticism of the Christian documents is both legitimate and necessary, and, when rightly conducted, highly fruitful and beneficial. But I wish to point out the important distinction between the moral criticism of Christianity as a system contained in the documents, and the literary criticism of the documents which contain it, and to urge that the moral criticism is entitled to primary place and rank. It is easy for a very commonplace critic to raise a thousand small difficulties about the inspiration of the documents, and then to leap to a conclusion against the inspiration of Christ, as if the faith of the Church were that the inspiration of the documents determines the inspiration of Christ, and not

the inspiration of Christ which determines the inspiration of the documents. We contend that is not the true order of procedure. The question of Christ and Christianity must first of all be treated as a moral and not as a literary question. Leaving the genuineness and inspiration of the documents for after consideration, and taking up first and foremost the character and doctrine of Christ as therein exhibited, for examination, we are entitled to ask these text critics this primary and fundamental question-'What think you of Christ? and what think you of Christ's teaching?' Christ and Christianity are not a question of text and text criticism. Christ and Christianity were preached to the world and were accepted by multitudes in the world before any of the New Testament documents were written or heard of. Suppose you had lived then, and could only judge of Christ and Christianity from what you heard of them from the preaching of a Paul or a Peter, what would have been your judgment of them-a judgment determined purely and entirely by 'moral and spiritual criteria ? ' If you would possibly have determined favourably on the question, before the documents appeared, would your judgment on the same question have undergone a change after they had appeared from the hands of the same Apostles and their brethren, merely on account of some verbal and literary or historical faults which you found in them?",

The fourth evidential principle was, "that the primary and central evidences of Christianity must be those which are richest in materials for the application of the moral and spiritual criteria which have just been referred to." It will be observed that in the last half of the lecture-in the consideration of the third and fourth evidential principles, the word “ spiritual" is united with the word "moral." Does this word represent an additional idea? If not, it was unnecessary to use it; if it does, it ought to have been inserted in the enunciation of the first and second principles, and had due weight given to it in their illustration. The presence of this word, and the special idea it contains throughout the lecture, would probably have saved it from the danger of misapprehension and adverse criticism, for it would scarcely have failed to elicit some recognition of the soul's deadness (however deep and earnest its "moral mind" may be) and entire dependence for light as well as for life on the grace of God.

Contrasting the internal with the external evidences, the lecturer proceeded:-

"Most certainly it will be no innovation for the Christian apologist to assign the first and chief place to the self-evidencing character of Christ, and the Christian doctrine; for that will be only to return to the method and order of the earlier English apologists. One of the earliest and best books on the evidences produced in this country was Richard Baxter's 'Reasons of the Christian Religion,' published exactly 200 years ago this month. Now, in the exhibition of what he calls the great demonstrative evidence of the verity and authority of Jesus Christ,' the constitutive or inherent evidence, viz., the image of God stamped on his person, life, and doctrine,' is set forth before what he calls the concomitant evidence, or the miraculous power and works of Christ and his disciples,' and this again before the subservient proofs and means by which the forementioned evidences are brought to our certain knowledge.' In The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, published forty years later by the famous Dr. Samuel Clarke, in which the author arranges his matter in the form of fifteen ptopositions, it is not till he reaches the 14th proposition that he treats of the testimony of the Apostles to the Christian facts, and of the genuineness of their writings as handed down to us in the New Testament Canon, thus postponing to the last place the same parts of the argument to which Paley in the latter half of the century assigned the first place. It was in truth with Paley that this latter order and method of treatment began, and it is easy to explain how he shonld have been the first to begin it. His historical argument in proof of the miracles of Christ arose out of the celebrated 'Essay on Miracles of Hume. That essay had become the boast of infidelity, and its most formidable weapon, and it was natural that that topic should be taken up first and most prominently by the Christian advocate, which was uppermost in men's minds at the time. And, as Hume had made it his chief business to throw discredit upon the testimonies to the Christian miracles, not only by involving them unjustly in the suspicion attaching to human testimony when taken without discrimination in the mass, but also by putting them in the same rank with the testimonies adduced in support of the lying wonders of the Church of Rome, it was natural for Paley and his successors to make the

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