test thus element in man, cannot be divorced from the morality which it must teach or tolerate.' Its converts will act upon the principles of their belief, which supply them with a new series of motives, and these will accordingly become evident in the conduct and disposition of the believer. In this A moral manner a moral test may be applied of the character applicable and efficacy of the Revelation, for it may fail on either side. On the one hand, it may be found to put "bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter;" it may put "darkness for light, and light for darkness; "2 that is, its tenets, as in the case of many heathen idolatries, may corrupt the moral sense; its positive enactments or promises may confound the natural law of right. On the other hand, its power of moral suasion, though wholesomely directed, may be feeble and inoperative. Its voice may utter no 1 Mr. Buckle, I. 425 (after Hallam) traces the scientific separation of theology from morals to Bishop Cumberland. Mr. Pattison (Ess, and Rev., p. 256) remarks very truly that those ages in which morality alone has been most spoken of have ever been those in which it has been least practised. 2 Isaiah v. 20. Thus Bishop Butler, Anal., II. c. iii.: "Though objections against the evidence of Christianity are most seriously to be considered, yet objections against Christianity itself are in a great measure frivolous; almost all objections against it, excepting those which are alleged against the particular proofs of its coming from God. I express myself with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason; which is, indeed, the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even Revelation itself: or be misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved false from internal characters. For it may contain clear immoralities or contradictions; and either of these would prove it false. Nor will I take upon me to affirm, that nothing else can possibly render any supposed revelation incredible." And again: "It is the province of reason to judge of the morality of the Scripture," &c. tical na ture. uncertain sound, but yet it may fail to nerve man of a prac kind for the battle with evil. The standard, then, of the truth, and hence of the permanence of a religious system, apart from its particular evidences, will appear first and properly in the character of the hold gained by it on the spirit and conscience of those who profess it; then, by consequence, but in a secondary degree, in its general moral effects as exhibited in practice. If without marked effect, or if immoral in tendency, a presumption arises against its truth, stronger or weaker in the former case in proportion to the length of date and nature of the circumstances attending its operation. Success upon certain occasions affords, it is true, but slender guarantee for truth, for the result may be differently explained. But when itself the issue of unfavourable conjunctures and contrary to ordinary expectation, or when steadily continuous, however slow the process,' it raises in the mind an almost instinctive conviction of its providential character and ultimate triumph. Different theories § 3. Very different reasons, as might be expected, have been assigned to the rise and first successes of Success of Christianity, according to the varying temperament as to the original Chris tianity. .... 1 "The Christian body," says Dr. Mozley (B. L., p. 140)," is enlarged by growth and stationariness combined: each successive age contributing its quota, and the acquisition, once made, remaining. And the same principle of growth can at last convert the world: however slow the process, the result will come, if Christianity always keeps the ground it gets: for that which always gains and never loses must ultimately win the whole." of particular thinkers. It has been regarded by some in the light of a moral protest against general and overwhelming corruption. By others it is viewed as a stage in the history of superstitions, a phase and a necessary phase of mental enthusiasm. By others it is admitted to have embodied a large moral advance. By some, again, its rapid progress is explained through the advantage of an unrivalled organization. But those who attribute its success to its moral excellences, neglect to take into account its qualities as a religion. They ignore Neglect its qualities as the fact that it is to these, and not to any mere a religion. ethical superiority, that its real advance is due. But, if it be regarded as but one among the many superstitions which had preceded it in East and West, the fact of its success, and still more of its continuance, remains yet to be explained. To the liberal zeal of Christianity, freed from the fetters of the Mosaic Law, Gibbon assigns much of the success View of of its preaching.' But other superstitions, in the times of the Empire, were equally yielding, equally 1 Decline and Fall, c. xv.: "Under these circumstances Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic Law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters," &c. If, indeed, the remarks of this great historian be understood of a comparison between the genius of the Christian religion and the class-interests of previous systems as well as of the existing state of Roman society, they might well be received as a fair tribute to the intrinsic superiority of Christianity. M. Littré (Études sur les Barbares et le Moyen-Age, p. 2) has some true and fine remarks on the sterility of the results arrived at by Gibbon, who in recounting the Fall of the Empire, takes no heed of the regeneration of the world by Christianity. Gibbon inadequate. True causes of its triumph. pliant in receiving proselytes, without being equally rewarded. And the intolerance of the simple-minded followers of Jesus for all other forms of belief; their impolitic vehemence against immoral institutions; their somewhat narrow impatience of current philosophical systems; their jealous secrecy as regards the mysteries of the faith, while little in accord with the liberality to which such great results have been attributed, are known to have proved stumbling-blocks to a general reception of the new Religion. It does not seem to have occurred to this writer that the secret of the success of Christianity may well have lain in the harmony of its doctrines with the religious needs of the time, the deliverance which it held forth from impending ruin at the end of the world, by many deemed so near; the inward calm and satisfaction which it wrought on the minds of its converts; the stores of spiritual strength which it instilled under circumstances of much worldly depression. These were its legitimate instruments of triumph. The miracles which it claimed, whatever part they may have had in the 1 This subject, it is well known, is especially brought forward by Gibbon, u. s. But he treats it in the light of a vulgar superstition, which must have been at least as dangerous through the discovery of its fallacious expectation, as powerful in the cogency of the alarm which it created. 2 "No other religion ever combined so many forms of attraction as Christianity, both from its intrinsic excellence, and from its manifest adaptation to the special wants of the time."-Lecky, H. E. M., I. 419. by the formation persuasion of unbelievers, were shared by it with rival faiths. Its virtues, like its doctrines, were certainly its own. The pen of our great historian, though dipped in gall, does not disallow the moral reformation introduced by Christianity, enforcing, Testified as it did, repentance for sin and blamelessness of moral relife. "He that nameth the name of Christ, let effected. him depart from iniquity," was long the rule and mark of Christian converts. Nor was this a result of which the causes remain unexplained. They are patient in the character of the Religion preached, as well as in the circumstances of the age which received it. The doctrines of Christ- Character ianity contained within them the core of man's trines. moral regeneration, a supply to his spiritual destitution, motives to repentance laid in the atoning work of God for man; motives to new action, founded evermore on promises of Divine grace.2 Hence the peculiar characteristics of Christian virtue, issuing in a new moral type built upon the 1 For testimonies to an admitted moral superiority on the part of the first Christians, compare Pliny, Epp., X. 97; Galen (ap. Gieseler, I. 126, ed. Clark); Justin M., Apol., II. i. xii.; Paræn., c. xxxv. ; Athenag., Leg., c. ii. xi.; Ep. ad Diogn., c. v. vi.; Tertull., Apol., c. 45; Origen, c. Cels., III. 30; VII. 48, 49; I. 67: Tò ovoμa тoû Ἰησοῦ . . . ἐμποιεῖ θαυμασίαν τινα πραότητα, καὶ καταστολὴν τοῦ ἤθους, καὶ φιλανθρωπίαν, καὶ χρηστότητα, καὶ ἡμερότητα ἐν τοῖς μὴ διὰ τὰ βιωτικά, ἤ τινας χρείας ἀνθρωπικὰς ὑποκριναμένοις, ἀλλὰ παρὰ δεξα μένοις γνησίως τὸν περὶ Θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ καὶ τῆς ἐσομένης κρίσεως λόγον. 2 "The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by which it has produced that change in the world which it has, is, in a word, the doctrine of grace."-Mozley, B. L., p. 180. of its doc |