Chapter X: Part III: p. 59 (5)

Strange that so great a man as Skelton should first affirm eternity of both, yet in the next sentence talk of "long before." These Reflections [5] are excellent, but here Skelton offends against his own canons. I should feel no reluctance, moral or speculative, in accepting the apparent necessity of both propositions, as a sufficient reason for believing both; and the transcendancy of the subject as a sufficient solution of their apparent incompatibility. But yet I think that another view of the subject, not less congruous with universal reason and more agreeable to the light of reason in the human understanding, might be defended, without detracting from any perfection of the Divine Being. Nay, I think that Skelton needed but one step more to have seen it.

Ib. p. 478.

'In fine.'

To what purpose were these Reflections, taken as a whole, written? I cannot answer. To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject beyond our faculties? Then why all this reasoning?

Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.

'Shepherd'. Were you ever at Constantinople, Sir?

'Dechaine'. Never.

'Shep.' Yet I believe you have no more doubt there is such a city,
than that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right ones.

'Temp.' I am sure 1 have not.

'Dech.' Nor I; but what then?

'Shep.' Pray, Mr. Dechaine, did you see Julius Cæsar assassinated in
the Capitol?

'Dech.' A pretty question! No indeed, Sir.

'Shep.' Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told us by the
historians concerning that memorable transaction?

'Dech.' Not the least.

'Shep.' Pray, is it either self-evident or demonstrable to you, at
this time and place, that there is any such city as
Constantinople, or that there ever was such a man as Cæsar?

'Dech.' By no means.

'Shep.' And you have all you know concerning the being of either the
city, or the man, merely from the report of others, who had it
from others, and so on, through many links of tradition?

'Dech.' I have.

'Shep.' You see then, that there are certain cases, in which the
evidence of things not seen nor either sensibly or
demonstrably perceived, can justly challenge so entire an
assent, that he who should pretend to refuse it in the fullest
measure of acquiescence, would be deservedly esteemed the most
stupid or perverse of mankind.

That there is a sophism here, every one must feel in the very fact of being 'non-plus'd' without being convinced. The sophism consists in the instance being 'haud ejusdem generis' ([Greek: élegchos metabáseôs eis állo génos]); and what the allogeneity is between the assurance of the being of Madrid or Constantinople, and the belief of the fact of the resurrection of Christ, I have shown elsewhere. The universal belief of the 'tyrannicidium' of Julius Cæsar is doubtless a fairer instance, but the whole mode of argument is unsound and unsatisfying. Why run off from the fact in question, or the class at least to which it belongs? The victory can be but accidental--a victory obtained by the unguarded logic, or want of logical foresight of the antagonist, who needs only narrow his positions to narrations of facts and events, in our judgment of which we are not aided by the analogy of previous and succeeding experience, to deprive you of the opportunity of skirmishing thus on No Man's land. But this is Skelton's ruling passion, sometimes his strength--too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe: or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and exclusively before his imagination; or if he thinks of the reader at all, it is as of a partizan enjoying every hard thump, and smashing 'fister' he gives the adversary, whom Skelton hates too cordially to endure to obtain any thing from him with his own liking. No! It must be against his will, and in spite of it. No thanks to him--the dog could not help himself! How much more effectual would he have found it to have commenced by placing himself in a state of sympathy with the supposed sceptic or unbeliever;--to have stated to him his own feelings, and the real grounds on which they rested;--to have shown himself the difference between the historical facts which the sceptic takes for granted and believes spontaneously, as it were,--and those, which are to be the subject of discussion; and this brings the question at once to the proof. And here, after all, lies the strength of Skelton's reasoning, which would have worked far more powerfully, had it come first and single, and with the whole attention directed towards it.

Ib. p. 35.

'Templeton.' Surely the resurrection of Christ, or any other man,
cannot be a thing impossible with God. It is neither
above his power, nor, when employed for a sufficient
purpose, inconsistent with his majesty, wisdom, and
goodness.

This is the ever open and vulnerable part of Deism. The Deist, as a Deist, believes, 'implicite' at least, so many and stupendous miracles as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles, simply because they are miraculous, gross inconsistencies. To have the battle fairly fought out, Spinoza, or a Bhuddist, or a Burmese Gymnosoph, should be challenged. Then, I am deeply persuaded, would the truth appear in full evidence, that no Christ, no God,--and, conversely, if the Father, then the Son. I can never too often repeat, that revealed religion is a pleonasm. --Religion is revelation, and revelation the only religion.

Ib. p. 37.

'Shep.' Those believers, whose faith is to rely on the truth of the
Christian history, rest their assent on a written report made
by eye-witnesses; which report the various Churches and sects,
jealous of one another, took care to preserve genuine and
uncorrupted, at least in all material points, and all the
religious writers in every age since have amply attested.

A divine of the present day who shall undertake the demonstration of the truth of Christianity by external evidences, or historically, must not content himself with assuming or asserting this. He must either prove it; or prove that such proof is not necessary. I myself should be quite satisfied if I proved the former position in respect to the fourth Gospel, and showed that the evidence of the other three was equivalent to a record by an eye-witness: which would not be at all inconsistent with my contending at the same time for the authenticity of the first Gospel, or rather for the Catholic interpretation of the title-words [Greek: Katà Matthaion], as the more probable opinion, which a sound divine will neither abandon nor overload, neither place it in the foundation, nor on the other hand suffer it to be extruded from the wall. Believe me, there is great, very great, danger in these broad unqualified assertions that Skelton deals in. Even though the balance of evidence should be on his side, yet the inquirer will be unfavourably affected by the numerous doubts and difficulties which an acquaintance with the more modern works of Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and for which his mind is wholly unprepared. To meet with a far weaker evidence than we had taken it for granted we were to find, gives the same shake to the mind, that missing a stair gives to the body.

Ib. p. 243.

'Temp.' You, Mr. Dechaine, seem to forget that God is just; and you,
Mr. Shepherd, that he is merciful

'Dech.' I insist, that, as God is merciful, he will forgive.

'Shep.' And I insist, that, as he is just, he will punish.

'Temp.' Pray Mr. Dechaine, are you able, upon the Deistical scheme to
rid yourself of this difficulty?

'Dech.' I see no difficulty in it at all. God gives us laws only for
our good, and will never suffer those laws to become a snare
to us, and the occasion of our eternal misery.

Here is the 'cardo'! The man of sense asserts that it is necessary for the good of all, that a code of laws should exist, while yet it is impossible that all should at all times be obeyed by each person: but what is impossible cannot be required. Nevertheless, it may be required that no 'iota' of any one of these laws should be wilfully and deliberately transgressed, nor is there any one for the transgression of which the transgressor must not hold himself punishable. "And yet" (says our man of sense,) "what may not be said of any one point, or any one moment, cannot be denied of the collective agency of a whole life, or any considerable section of it. Here we find ourselves constrained by our best feelings to praise or condemn, to reward or punish, according as a great predominance of acts of obedience or disobedience, and a continued love of the better, or the lusting after the worst, manifests the maxim ('regula maxima'), the radical will and proper character of the individual. So parents judge of their children; so schoolmasters of their scholars; so friends of friends, and even so will God judge his creatures, if we are to trust in our common sense, or believe the repeated declarations in the Old Testament." And now I should be glad to hear any satisfactory 'sensible' reply to this, or any answer that does not fly higher than 'sense' can follow, and pierce into "the thick clouds" of decried metaphysics! For no fair reply can be imagined, but one which would find the root of the moral evil, the true [Greek: ponaerón], in this very impossibility.

Ib. p. 249.

'Cunningham.' But how does all this discourse about sacrifices and the
natural light show that your faith does not ascribe
injustice to God in putting an innocent person to death
for the transgressions of the guilty?

'Shep.' Was Christ innocent?

'Cunn.' 'He was without sin.'

'Shep.' And he was put to death by the appointment and
predetermination of God?

'Cunn.' The Jews put him to death.

'Shep.' Do not evade the question. Was he not 'the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world'? Was he not 'so delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, that the Jews,
having taken him, by wicked hands crucified and slew him?'

'Cunn'. And what then?

'Shep'. Nothing; but that you are to answer, as well as I, for saying
that God predetermined the death of this only innocent person.

I am less pleased with this volume than with any of the preceding. Ask your own heart and conscience whether (for instance,) they are satisfied with this defence 'duri per durius': or whether frightening a modest query into silence by perverting it into an accusation of the Almighty, by virtue of a conclusion borrowed from the Calvinistic theory of Predestination, is not more in the spirit of Job's comforters, than becomes a minister of the Apostolic Church of England and Ireland? Such arguments are but edge-tools at the safest, but more often they may rather be likened to the two-edged blade of Parysatis's knife, the one of which was poisoned. Leave them to Calvin, or those who dare appropriate Calvin's words, that "God's absolute will is the only rule of his justice;"--thus dividing the divine attributes. Yet Calvin himself distinguishes the hidden from the revealed God, even as the Greek Fathers distinguished the [Greek: thélaema Theou], the absolute ground of all being, from the [Greek: Boulàe tou Theou], as the cause and disposing providence of all existence.

But I disapprove of the plan and spirit of this work, (Deism Revealed.) The cold-hearted, worldly-minded, cunning Deist, or the coarse sensual Infidel, is of all men the least likely to be converted; and the conscientious, inquiring, though misled and perplexed, Sceptic will throw aside a book at once, as not applicable to his case, which treats every doubt as a crime, and supposes that there is no doubt at all possible but in a bad heart and from wicked wishes. Compare this with St. Paul's language concerning the Jews.

So again, pp. 225, &c. of this volume. Do not the plainest intuitions of our moral and rational being confirm the positions here attributed to the Deist, Dechaine? Are they not the same by which Melancthon de-Calvinized, at least de-Augustinized, the heroic Luther;--those which constitute one of the only two essential differences between the Augsburg Confession and the Calvinistic Articles of Faith? And can anything be more flittery and special-pleading than Skelton's objections? And again, p. 507, "and that prayer which he (Tindal) is reported to have used a little before his death, 'If there is a God, I desire he may have mercy on me;'"--was it Christian-like to publish and circulate a blind report--so improbable and disgusting, as to demand the strongest and most unsuspicious testimony for its reception?

Ib. p. 268.

'Shep'. Pray, Mr. Dechaine, if a person, whom you knew to be an honest
and clear-sighted man, should solemnly assure you he saw a
dead man restored to life, what would you think of his
testimony?

'Dech'. As I could not possibly have as strong an assurance of his
honesty, clear-sightedness, and penetration, as of the great
improbability of the fact, I should not believe him.

'Shep'. Well; it is true he might be deceived himself, or intend to
impose on you. But in case ten such persons should all, at
different times, confirm the same report, how would this
affect you?

There is one inconvenience, not to say danger, in this argument of Mr. Shepherd's; namely, that of its not standing in the same force, when it comes to be repeated in the particular miraculous facts in support of which it is adduced.

Ib. p. 281.

No other ancient book can be so well proved to have been the work of
the author it is now ascribed to, as every book of the New Testament
can be proved to have been written by him whose name it hath all along
borne.

This is true to the full extent that the defence of the divinity of our religion needs, or perhaps permits, and I see no advantage gained by asserting more. I must lose all power of distinction, before I can affirm that the genuineness of the first Gospel,--that in its present form it was written by Matthew, or is a literal translation of a Gospel written by him,--rests on as strong external evidence as Luke's, or on as strong internal evidence as St. John's. Sufficient that the evidence greatly preponderates in its favor.

[Footnote 1: The complete Works of the late Rev. Philip Skelton, Rector of Fintona. 6. vols. 8vo. London, 1824. 'Ed.']

[Footnote 2: See South's Works, vol. iii. p. 500. Clarendon edit. 1823 --Ed.]

[Footnote 3: But it will be proper to observe, that it strikes directly at the very root of Revelation, which cannot possibly give any other evidence of itself, as the dictate of God, but what must be drawn from miracles, wrought to prove the divine mission of those who publish it to the world.]

[Footnote 4: The Editor is not aware of the existence of the Essay here mentioned. But see for the distinction of the 'Ecclesia' and 'Enclesia', the Church and State, 3rd edit.--Ed.]

[Footnote 5: On Predestination, as far as p. 445.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON ANDREW FULLER'S CALVINISTIC AND SOCINIAN SYSTEMS EXAMINED AND COMPARED. [1] 1807.