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THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW
AND DR. STRAUSS.
BY
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1873.
Price Threepence,
��THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW” AND
DR.
STRAUSS.
EAR SIR,—I want to call your attention to an
article in the last Edinburgh upon Dr. Strauss’
Confession of Faith, for it seems to me to have
a special importance at the present moment, when
there is so much of uncertainty and insecurity in
Church matters.
D
“It is not that the thing is rich or rare,
The only wonder is how it got there.”
It purports to he a critique upon “The Old Faith
and the New,” and were this all, I should have had
little to say about it. A scrimmage between the
Edinburgh and the great Arch-Heretic would not be
very edifying; though in truth the writer goes into it
with a will and something more. Never, I should
think, has the Doctor been so savagely pommelled.
His critic gives him no rest. It recalls the Flaming
Tinman in L’avengro,—“ he knocked him down, and he
knocked him up again, he knocked him into the hedge,
and he knocked him out of it ”—words however break
no bones, and doubtless the Professor will live to
make sport some other day.
The most noteworthy part of the article lies near
the end of it, where the question occurs, “ Why is
apostacy from Christianity being so lightly treated in
our day 1 ” Has any new weapon qf assault been ex
cogitated—any weak place in the Christian armour
discovered ? To this the Reviewer confidently
�4
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
answers, none. We are as we ever were—heart-whole
as a biscuit—sound to the very core—the universal
reign of law, and the unhistorical nature of the Gospels
notwithstanding. The true answer to the former is
to remember that ££ stability of purpose is a standing
characteristic of the highest minds/’ and that miracle
is nothing else than the ££ outcrop of some previously
unknown law,’ while the untenableness of the second
is shewn in ££ the general reception of the Gospels in
the early part of the second centuryj thus allowing
no time for fictitious accounts of our Lord’s life and
death to gain currency or circulation.”
These two questions then being settled to his entire
satisfaction, the writer proceeds to enquire “ what,
under present circumstances, is the duty of men of
sense and of a true loyalty to Christ and His religion.”
Imprimis, ££to remember that the future unity and
efficiency of the Church entirely depend on the exer
cise of such prudence and charity among Christians as
shall combine together the various elements that create
a true Catholicity,” which nobody can deny—££ and
then in the next place, it appears to him that
there are three points to which the attention of all
students, and especially of the clergy, ought at the
present time to be carefully directed.”
These three points are—well, what do you guess ?
I defy any man in his sober senses (without the aid
of some special Theological intuition or faculty) to
read me my riddle. The first, then, is to get rid in
toto and at once of that troublesome book, yclept the
Old Testament, to shelve it now and for ever. “ Why
should Christian churchmen think it necessary to
burden their cause, and to hamper every movement
of their strategy, by undertaking the perfectly gratuit
ous task of making Gentile Christianity responsible
for the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures ?
We are not Jews/’ (certainly not, if you count noses.)
“ and there is no reason in the world why we should
�and Dr. Strauss.
5
be weighted with this burden of understanding and
defending, at all risks, the Jewish Scriptures. It is
a burden that was never laid upon us either by Christ,
or by His Apostles. Our German race, in particular,
as a matter of simple fact, was not trained by them.
They were not our ‘ schoolmasters to lead us to Christ.’
We affirm, what appears to us to be a simple historical
fact, viz. : that the Jewish Scriptures do not belong
to us, and that we are in no way responsible for them.
It was not by the Old Testament that the Gentile
nations were trained; it was not by the Mosaic law
that our heathen forefathers were prepared for the
reception of Christ. It was by quite another agency.
It was by that magnificent Book of God, in which we
have read ever since, and are reading to this day, the
ever-opening revelations of His wisdom and His
power. It is the realm of Nature, which is our own
proper inheritance. It is physical science which has
hitherto led us—why should it not lead us still?—
through Nature up to Nature’s God. We earnestly
trust, therefore, that the mistake of burdening our
Christian cause with needless anxieties and absolutely
unprofitable controversies, relating to the Old Testa
ment Scriptures, may gradually be made to cease;
and that the clergy will read to us their invaluable
lections from the Old Testament, at no very distant
day, without either calling upon us, or troubling them
selves, to solve the innumerable problems which they
raise. Why should we go out of our way to deprive
ourselves of that precious ‘ liberty,’ from the law and
from the Old Testament—‘ wherewith Christ has made
us free.’ ”
Now what does all this mean? Suppose this notice
able advice had been given by yourself or by
any of your compeers, what would or rather what
would not have been said of it ? Doubtless, the ship
of the Church is labouring heavily in the very trough
of the sea, well-nigh water-logged, and the Edinburgh
�6
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
Plimsoll steps forward and tells us that she is top
hampered, deck-loaded to a dangerous degree. Over
board, then, with all that lumber, and she will float
like a duck once more, or, in plain words, when a
person comes troubling you with questions as to
Mosaic cosmogony, universal deluge, Pentateuchal
Theories, sun stationary, sun retrograde, food pur
veying ravens, and the like legendary matters, as the
Reviewer styles it, bid him begone and take his
queries and his crude impertinencies to those whom
they concern—Moses ben Toledoth, or the first Old Clo’
he may come across—to them belong these ancient
oracles “ which are the religious lesson books of a
different race from our own, and the sole remaining
relics of a national literature with whose very
language our own has hardly anything whatever in
common.” Verily, if this be not a hoisting of the
engineer with his own petard, may I die a Dean 1
Por of all the words of ill savour in the nostrils of
the u unco-gude,” that of Legend stands pre-eminent.
How often has it been cast in the teeth of free
thinkers that they are an infidel and impious genera
tion, turning the word of God into myths and fables,
and yet here you have a champion of the Paith
quietly shelving the Old Book for the legendary
matter contained in it, its unprofitable controversies,
its insoluble problems, whereas Jesus enforced these
very legends, these idle tales, when he quoted Lot’s
wife, Moses at the Bush, the cities of the Plain,
Elias’ first coming, Jonah and the Ninevites, &c.
“ But John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.”
Startling as this is, point the second takes us a step
further. “ Is it right,” he asks, “ is it truthful, is it
any longer possible—in the face of all that is now known
upon like subjects—to pretend that legendary matter
has not intruded itself into the New Testament, as
well as into the Old? It is now universally granted
�and Dr. Strauss.
7
by all competent critics, that the three synoptical
Gospels are simply written notes of the oral teaching
of the apostolic age. Now, even in what may be called
‘ regular histories ’ a certain play of the imagination is
unavoidable. Indeed, without it any history would
sink at once to the level of a chronicle or an almanac.
But in an oral history, used during many years for pur
poses of religious emotion and edification, some slight
admixture of this plastic and poetic element appears
to be absolutely inevitable.” And more to the like
effect.
We are now brought to the third and last point.
Hitherto, it must be granted, the writer has been frank
and free beyond his kind. Seldom is orthodoxy so can
did and outspoken. He takes up his parable, and
what do we find written therein, ‘ Legend here, legend
there, legend everywhere.’ What more can he say ?
What more is wanted ? But is not this the voice of
Jacob ? the very words of that old rogue Free Thought.
‘ Fas est et ab hoste doceri ’ quoth the Beviewer. And
now one would think there was nothing to be done
but to shake hands all round, cry we are all miserable
sinners, forget and forgive, and live in unity to our
lives’ end. “ Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards,
and I will shew you the veriest hanky-panky trick that
ever was played upon board.” So far the writer is clear
and unmistakeable, it is the speech of Free Thought from
orthodox lips ; but now a change comes over the
spirit of his dream, he begins to chide his rash out
spoken ways. May he not be going too far ? is there
no terra firma, nothing for the feet to rest upon ? is all
mist and haze? does the heavy cloud of doubt and uncer
tainty hang over all alike? is all tainted with suspicion’s
cruel breath ? nothing stable and secure ? there must,
there shall be,—and once more he takes up his parable,
but in how different a strain. “ The last point which
appears to us to be of incalculable importance for all
students of theology to bear in mind at the present
�8
The il Edinburgh Review”
day, is this: The absolute necessity of candidly
accepting as • fact ’ whatever can honestly he shewn to
be such. One feels at a loss to understand, e.g., how
any men, calling themselves votaries of science, can
pretend to set aside, with a contemptuous smile,
‘ facts ’ of such singular interest, and reposing on such
an extraordinary accumulation of evidence, as those on
which Christianity is built. (Legend, you see, has quite
dropt out of sight.) They may not hitherto have been
quite rightly explained, they may not yet have been
wholly divested of their graceful drapery of fancy,
they may not be, so to say, extra-natural, though they
may be super-natural events, transcending, that is, the
ordinary and accustomed routine of nature.” Then he
girds at the men of science for their mistakes, rash
assumptions and inability to see an inch beyond their
nose, and finally settles down upon the Resurrection of
Christ from the dead, as a plain historical fact, in these
words “the historical proof that accumulates around
that one point is so overwhelmingly conclusive, that
no honest and really scientific mind, we are bold to say,
can escape the conviction that it really happened: If
unbelievers would condescend to explain to us (1),
How St. Paul’s four great Epistles and the Apocalypse
(which they all acknowledge to be genuine) can, under
any other hypothesis, have come to be written ; (2),
How the terrified and scattered apostles, can, on any
other rational supposition, have suddenly recovered
their courage and their hopes; and (3), how, if the
basis and key-stone of her whole teaching be a gross
imposture or delusion, the Christian church can conceiv
ably have grasped, with such a wonderful and perma
nent force, the reins which govern the human will, and
have kept for centuries in the highway of progress the
otherwise wild and wasteful powers of the human
intelligence; then, and not till then, will we consent to
abandon the keep and citadel of the Christian Faith.”
Is there not a proverb warning against putting all
�and Dr. Strauss.
9
our eggs into one basket? Can the writer be serious in his
assertion that St. Paul’s four great Epistles, the revi
val of the disciples’ hope and the churches’ grasp upon
the reins that govern the human will, have their basis
in nothing but the ‘ fact ’ of Christ’s Resurrection.
Would not a belief in it have done just as well 1
Specially so, when this belief was always accompanied
in the minds of the apostles by another—to them equally
certain, equally incontrovertible—viz., the speedy
return-coming of Christ; yet where is the latter now ?
I grant fully that these two beliefs formed the wou ffrw,
from which Christianity moved the world ; and like
wise that without a future, “human life itself with all its
hopes and aspirations would be an imposture.” I fail
however to see the logic of the following sentence, “ If
the possibility of our Lord’s resurrection be once fairly
conceded, as it must be conceded by those who admit
the immortality of the soul, then the cause of Christi
anity is as good as won.” But I have no wish to hargufy, specially with so smart a writer as this Reviewer.
One word before I quit this part of the subject. The
next time he plays Jack on both sides, and holds a brief
for both plaintiff and defendant alike, let him drop
his mask and appear before the world in propria persona.
We shall then know how to class him. If his heart
is in his cause, he will never shrink from putting his
name thereto, whether that be well known or not at all.
And now, how seems it to you, the appearance of this
article in the pages of the “ Edinburgh 1” To me it is
as if the “ Quarterly ” took to patronizing John Bright,
and the “Record” to fraternizing with Messrs Holyoake
and Bradlaugh. What does it mean ? for me judice it is
the work of no prentice hand ; the pen that trans
cribed it has done yeoman’s service ere now. I am
hugely mistaken if there were not great thoughts of
heart in Paternoster Row before that article was de
cided upon. Is it a feather thrown up to shew which
way the wind is blowing ? Surely there must be more
�IO
The “Edinburgh Review ”
behind. The Edinburgh is not celebrated for its
Coups de Theatre, its surprises a la Napoleon III. It
seldom travels far out of its accustomed groove. In
the whole course of its long career, I doubt if any
other article can be mentioned, so isolated, so clearly
beside its wonted walk and conversation as this ; for
it is nothing less than a wilful, deliberate attack upon
what the Religious world in England holds most dear,
its beloved Bibliolatry, its worship of the letter in
every jot and tittle. It is the red rag flaunted in the
bull’s face—enough to make Dean Alford, that most
cautious of commentators, move uneasily in his
grave. To call a spade, a spade—to tell Truth and
shame the devil ; these are new maxims in theo
logical warfare, and mark the altered spirit of the times.
What then can have provoked this startling escapade ?
It is not so much the weight of the blow that stuns
one, as its coming from so unexpected a quarter, from
a hand whilom so friendly. Et tu, Brute / no envious
Casca made this rent or vented the bitter taunt that
the Church’s title-deeds are a mass of idle tales, the
time-honoured writings she so venerates not worth
defending, a burden not a support. Legend, in short.
111 thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word ”—the outside world has long made up its mind upon the
matter; but what can have wrung it from that stubborn
breast, or so pricked the heart of dull unbending ortho
doxy that it should now come and chant its Palinodia in
the ears of all, unasked, uncalled for 1 what has rent
the veil from eyes that have long blinked in the blaze
of a light that men were everywhere welcoming and
rejoicing in ? Can they ever close again ? Will it
meet with its usual self-satisfied sneer the Truth when
it appears not in the writings of the Tubingen school
or of English Free thought, but in the respectable
pages of the Old Blue and Buff ? Shades of Sydney
Smith, Jeffrey and Horner ! that the nursling of
Whiggism should so belie its ancient fame, as to turn
�and Dr. Strauss.
11
traitor, and hang out the white flag, ere three
quarters of a century have passed over its honoured
head ?
“ Point de boucles, Monsieur, tout est perdu ! ” the
Edinburgh dallying with rationalism is no less ominous.
1 To your tents, 0 Israel ’—for war is at hand. The
Reviewer quotes Bunsen’s well known words, that a
religious war is impending, and may soon he upon us,
and yet the Church heeds not the tramp of mustering
hosts, ‘ nor the low wail that bodes the coming storm.’
As proud as in the days of Laud, she will not yield an
inch or make the slightest change demanded of her.
“ 1 sit a queen,” she saith,“ and shall see no sorrow.”
Surely this is to mistake porcine obstinacy for manly
firmness, to shut the eyes and say, I see naught.
What is asked of her ? What the demand made each
year in tones louder and more menacing than the last ?
What, but that she should adapt her tone and her
teaching to the altered state of the times in which she
finds herself, that she should descend from the pinnacle
on which her pride has placed her, lay aside her mys
terious pretensions, her mumming tones, her priestly
gabardine and mock sanctimoniousness, and preach to
her fellow men in words that should reach their hearts,
and raise them from the littleness, the carking cares
and concerns of this world to some thought of the
eternal and the invisible, that spirit-land which all
dream of and yearn after, fascinating even to those
grimy myriads who six days out of seven moil and toil
in the dust and mire of earth and its sadly stern
belongings. To do this rightly she must free herself
from the swaddling clothes of a dead past, which serve
but to impede her utterance and check the full use of
her powers—that act of a false and impossible uni
formity—those Thirty-nine articles, the spawn of an
unhappy compromise, which narrow living minds
within the soul-enslaving fetters of a bygone gener
ation, cruel as the Tyrrhenian tyrant ‘ contemptor
�I2
The “Edinburgh Review”
Divflm Mezentius. Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora
vivis.’ These are our festering sores, this the heavy
load that is hearing down and fast sinking the Church
in the yawning depth that threatens shortly to engulph
her. Do this and she would find recruits among the
most highly educated the most deeply thinking minds
of the rising generation and of others yet to come.
To neglect this, is to spurn an opportunity that may
never occur again. It may be that the Sibyl is offering
the book for the last time. If she still set her face
against reform and refuse to strip herself of the garb
and surroundings of a past age, there are rude hands
ready to do it for her.
What a future—what a glorious vocation is in store
for the Church, if only she could see it—nothing less
than to lead the van in that fierce strife which is draw
ing each day nearer and nearer—not the petty war of
rival sects, of this and that doxy, but between the
unchristian, worldly spirit which is gradually leaven
ing men’s minds, finding its expression in those
sad, scornful words: “ Let us eat and drink, for to
morrow we die; ” and the wisdom that is from above,
which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partial
ity, without hypocrisy. This is the tribulation that
awaits the Future—the fire that shall try every man’s
work what it is— as yet it slumbers, gathering force—
it is but in its cradle, as it were. Would that some
infant Hercules was there to strangle it. Increased
prosperity, the wealth that each year is pouring into
our laps, the upward movement of the lower strata
upon which the State reposes, the general spread of
education and intelligence, the crude speculations of
men who have only just begun to use their reasoning
powers, and forbear not to criticise all things in heaven
and earth in the most approved fashion of modern
Positivism—“ fools that rush in where angels fear to
tread.” All mark the advent of that materialism which
�and Dr. Strauss.
J3
is now informing and moulding society, that love of
the carnal and earthy, that care only for what can be
realized and appreciated by the bodily senses, the loath
some disrespect for everything that brings not money
in its train, the mammon-worship and glorification of
success, no matter how obtained, the impatience of all
but worldly gains and gratifications, the contempt for
the meek and poor in heart who shrink from trumpet
ing their own wares, and putting a false value upon
their works. “These be thy gods, 0 Israel?” the idols
of the hearth in many a fair English household. “As
in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells,” so lurks
this danger in the jewelled cup of our greatness ; the
more to be dreaded that it does not openly renounce
its allegiance to God, whom it professes to know, while
in works it denies Him, being abominable, disobedient,
to every good work reprobate.
I ask the judgment of any sober man if herein I
exaggerate, or aught set down in malice. The hand
goes slowly round the dial, pointing ever to the same
old figures —the spirit of selfish pride and superstition,
that has overturned nation after nation, that never
slumbers or sleeps, never lets its victim go when
once encircled in its folds. Was it ever so deeply
engrained in our hearts as now ? and who should be
the first to oppose the fiend, to throw themselves into
the struggle with all utter self-negation and forgetful
ness—but those who owe all they most prize to Jesus
of Hazara, whose commission they execute, in whose
ranks they fight ? These are the very men who are
squabbling about days, and observances, and vestments,
and the like, who would, if they could, stifle the very
breath of Free Thought, and throw us back into the
mediaeval past of superstition and subservience to the
power of Sir Priest who rules over men’s hearts, only
to fill them with the twin demons of bigotry and
spiritual pride. “ It is a sight to make angels weep,”
�14
The “Edinburgh Review.”
but it is the old tale, the Jews tearing and rending each
other, and Rome thundering at the gates.
May a wiser heart be ours ; the church of God in
this land might become a power for good such as the
world never yet saw; embracing in a loving fold the
hearts of thousands and tens of thousands who now
never worship at all; yet turn a wistful look to the
churches of their ancestors, and their green hillocky
graves. Years of mutual neglect and coldness have
ripened into distrust and dislike.
“ They stand apart, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor rain, nor thunder
Can ever do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.”
She might be the spiritual friend and comforter of a
race which has never been surpassed for solidity and
thoughtfulness, for mental and bodily energy in all their
forms—that still loves and worships God, still respects
religion, still asks for guidance and support. But
when it finds its natural leaders vain and busied about
things that it looks upon as trifles or something
worse, when it sees them turning a deaf ear to
warning or remonstrance, blind to the light that shines
all around them, fiercely opposed to truths which others
have long recognised, caring only for that which lies
within their own magic circle, distrustful of every
thing in the shape of change or progress, can it be
wondered at that men are turning to other leaders;
that, sick of the strife of tongues, and the weary jargon
of ecclesiastical disputes, they are ready to cry a
plague upon both your houses—to follow any Jeroboam
who shall set up his calves at Dan and Bethel, and
spurn the altar at Jerusalem ?—Yours truly,
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
Thomas Scott, Esq.
10«/t Dec. 1873.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss
Creator
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Wheelwright, G.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A letter concerning an article by G.H. Curteis in the Edinburgh Review 138 (October 1873) p. 536-539 commenting on "Der alte und der neue Glaube" by David F. Strauss. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1873
Identifier
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CT118
Subject
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Christianity
Free thought
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss</span><span>), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Christianity-Controversial Literature
Conway Tracts
David Friedrich Strauss
Edinburgh Review
Free Thought
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ON
THE VOISEY JUDGMENT
AND
THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY’S LECTURES.
REV. GEORGE WHEELWRIGHT,
MEET. COLL., OXON.,
VICAR OF CROWHURST.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
�THREE LETTERS, &c.
-------- ♦---------
IR, —Many doubtless have read with pleasure the
article upon Mr Voysey’s trial, which appeared
in the Examiner of February 25th 1871. Many, too,
will echo the ominous words with which it closes :
“ Every such judgment tells more against the Church
than against the individual condemned: it puts
another nail into its coffin,”—and in truth the last
charge against Mr Voysey (derogation and depraving
of Holy Scripture) leaves the clergy in a most per
plexing situation. All knew them to be muzzled
slaves, and yet hardly thought that the muzzle fitted
as closely as the Lord Chancellor is determined to
make it. One result I venture to predict from the
Voysey judgment—the opening of people’s eyes to
the immense gulf that now separates the two
antagonists, Orthodoxy and Free-thought. Hitherto
it has been the object of many well-meaning persons
to make this appear less than it really is—as not so
very serious after all. However much many have
tried to patch up an unreal agreement between them,
it is from this moment impossible—henceforth it is
“ guerra a cuchillo,” and there is no discharge in that
war, one or other must yield. How many amiable
but weak attempts have been made to reconcile
Scripture with science, as the phrase is; to shew
that the two can go arm in arm without dispute or
jostling! Good-bye to all such pleasant dreams!
We are now told plainly that the Church’s living
S
�and Christian Evidence Society's Lectures.
5
to. Can anything be more characteristic of the per
versity of our ecclesiastical rulers than the way in
which the Ritual Commission has dealt with the
Athanasian Creed ? Has it granted any relief to the
laity who are still compelled to listen and be damned?
So far from it, that a dispute has actually been carried
on in the Times between certain members of the said
Commission as to what its real opinion upon the sub
ject was. The same mulish obstinacy meets us at
every turn. Not a jot nor a tittle will our rulers
surrender. We laugh at the Papal “ non possumus
it is just the same here. Relief and concession have
to be forced from them. Surely the events that have
lately passed before their eyes should act as a warning.
Let them think of the French statesman and his vain
boast, “ Pas unpouce de notre territoire, pas une pierre
de nos forteresses.”
It is of no use to be for ever beating about the
bush—lip salve never yet cured heart-disease; and
religious belief in England (as our forefathers under
stood the words) is paralyzed at the core. The
whole question of miracles will have to be faced
sooner or later, and the more our minds get accus
tomed to this fact the better. The present is an era
of rapid changes. Events that appeared at one time
impossible, now take place in the natural order of
things, and the only cause for wonder is that they have
been so long in coming. And thus it is that the
present is called an infidel age, wanting in reverence
and respect for religion. Is it so ? Let the great
debate upon education bear witness. Did the people
ask for education without religion—were they satis
fied with merely secular teaching ? The immense
majority for religious instruction proves to me that
we are just as our forefathers—a stubborn generation,
not a faithless one : our hold upon religion is as
firm as ever. We cling to it with the grasp of death.
We are quite as God-fearing as they; but, and here
�and Christian Evidence Society’s Lectures,
y
minds are becoming awakened, their judgments un
fettered, their eyes opened, their ears unstopped, and
the first use they make of their liberty is to turn upon
their spiritual pastors and masters with the direct
question, “ Are these things so 1—we have heard these
words for many a long year—from our childhood the
same story has been in our ears. We enquire of our
fathers—of the years that are past, and all tell the
same tale—they have known none other. Is it then
all true, ‘ are these things so ? ’ ”
All over the land is this query pricking and
stirring men’s hearts—diverse in form and mode.
One puts it in this shape, another in that. One can
stomach this—his fellow stickles at that. The Bible
is torn piecemeal. Brave is the man who can
swallow the whole at a gulp, and feel none the worse
for it—but alas ! for this degenerate age—ofo/ vuv
(Bpotoi sl<ri—such hearty digestions are rare indeed.
I remember once sitting upon a fallen log in the
backwoods of America, and discussing Bible matters
with an old Buckeye (as the Ohio men were then
styled) and the only thing that troubled his primitive
imagination was the tale of Samson and the foxes—
“ the darn’d skunks ” as he called them—it was
impossible—he was sure he himself could never have
done it, and he had trapped and hunted ever since he
could draw a trigger.
Caricature you will say—no rude image neverthe
less of men’s thoughts in this present age. Each one
has his Samson and the Foxes—his own particular ob
jection, doubt and difficulty, and be sure the day is not
far distant when the long pent up murmurs will swell
into one loud chorus of dissent, which the clergy and
ministers of every denomination will find impossible
to stifle, and very hard to answer.
These thoughts passed across my mind upon
reading a paragraph in the Times of last April 26th,
headed “ Christianity versus Scepticism,” and giving
�and Christian Evidence Society’s Lectures.
9
time for the authorized teachers and expounders of
Holy Writ to come down from their lofty pedestals
and stem the torrent which is bursting in upon us
from so many and such different quarters. Sooth to
say—it is none too soon. For the temper of the pre
sent age is not to be played with, pooh-poohed, or put
aside with the cold remark, “ we have heard this
before, the Church and the World never did agree,
nor ever will." So much the worse for the Church
then—if she cannot lead men, she must give up all
thoughts of driving them. If she can return a
satisfactory answer to all that is implied in those
words, “ are these things "so,” well and good, if not,
she must give place to those that can. Let her look
well to her armour and the joints of her harness, for
new times bring new weapons, and unless she can
forge something very different from aught that her
armoury has yet supplied, I fear that perilous days
are in store for her. Theologians can no longer
shelter themselves behind the ample shield of Bishop
Butler, or fly for refuge to Paley and Lardner. Arch
bishop Thomson himself confesses in the notes to his
“ Bampton Lectures on the Atonement," that “ the
Analogy of Bishop Butler by no means covers all the
ground contested at present,’’ and yet he finds a
sufficient defence in the works of the two writers
above mentioned. Truly this is going down to
Egypt for help, a staff no better than a broken reed.
I look upon this fact of Divines turning Lecturers as
the greatest compliment that could be paid to the
spirit of Free Enquiry which is now abroad. That
the missiles with which modern Criticism has for the
last thirty years been fighting the great battle of Free
Thought should have at last pierced the pachy
dermatous hide of slumbering orthodoxy; and so
stung Prelates and Preachers that for very shame
they can no longer keep silence, is indeed a thing to
make a note of. And moreover that they should
�and Christian Evidence Society's Lectures, n
Since last I wrote to you, Sir, the oracle has de
livered its response—Bos loculus est—eleven doughty
champions of orthodoxy have shown us with what
vigour they can repel the assaults and stem the tide
of infidelity, which, as they assert, is rushing in upon
this devoted land; and after a careful perusal of their
several lucubrations, I am bound to confess that the
great doings of Dame Partington and her mop have
received in them a fresh illustration. Every one
knows the story of the starving peasants in France
previous to the First Revolution, when their bitter
cry for bread reached at last the gilded halls of the
Tuileries, and the Queen, amazed at the importunity
of the “wordy peoples,” asked naively, why, if they
were without bread, did they not eat those dear little
buns which her Majesty, and the other grandes dames
du Palais found so palatable. Now it seems to me
that our hierarchy are pretty much of the Queen’s
way of thinking, as I shall show further on. For
years past a storm has been brewing in fitful, violent
gusts, striking upon the Church’s venerated fabric
from every quarter of the compass—doctrine after doc
trine challenged—time-honoured traditions assailed
and overthrown—old landmarks obliterated—the.
veil torn ruthlessly from so called mysteries—prac
tices hallowed by the superstitious reverence of past
ages stripped of their tinsel covering, brought forth
and exposed to the garish light of day—“ what was
once rejected as heresy now all but recognised as
Dogma,” and become the common talk of men, until
at last the culminating point is reached in the Voysey
case, and our spiritual guides and leaders are forced,
per fas aut nefas, to confess that silence on their part
is no longer becoming; in fact, impossible.
How many vexed questions, how many perplexed
and anxious thoughts have the last ten years awak
ened in the breasts of men—a restless uneasiness,
one knows not why or wherefore, has grown up in
�and Christian Evidence Society’s Lectures. 13
the so-called facts which we have been taught to
believe in about the Christian religion, facts indeed,
or ecclesiastical fictions ? Are we to look upon what
we find recorded in the Bible as true in its history,
true in all its details as our teachers have always told
us ? Is the old saying, ‘ Gospel true,’ to pass any
longer current amongst men ?”
What is the reply ? The querists, serious and
earnest men (sceptics though they be), are seeking for
some solid, wholesome mental food to strengthen and
nourish both their hearts and intellects, and, as I said
at the beginning of this letter, the Archbishop and
his coadjutors when asked for bread, deal out buns
instead, and moreover stale buns, of a somewhat
puffy and indigestible kind. Let an unprejudiced
reader go through these eleven lectures (they should
have made up the baker’s dozen) and point, if he
can, to any doubts dispelled by them, to honest
difficulties openly and manfully faced.
A few words shall substantiate this. The lectures
are broken up into three groups, the first treats
of three subjects—Materialism, Pantheism, Positiv
ism ; the second of science and revelation, and the
nature and place of the miraculous testimony to
Christianity; group the third embraces the following
subjects—the gradual development of revelation, the
alleged historical difficulties of the Old and New
Testament, the mythical theories of Christianity, the
evidential value of St Paul’s Epistles, Christ’s teaching
and influence on the world, the completeness and
adequacy of the evidences of Christianity. Such is
the Bishops’ answer, such their mode of dealing with
the religious problems of the present day, and I
maintain that as controversial writings (it is in this
light only that I am viewing them) they are valueless,
and worse, they are damaging to the sacred cause
which they have been put forth to defend. With one
or two exceptions, hardly any of the real difficulties
�and Christian Evidence Society's Lectures. 15
fathers after the sober fashion of by-gone days,
but who can no longer believe all that their ancestors
did, or follow them in their blind unquestioning
faith, their docile submission to their spiritual pas
tors and masters. Sad will it be if ever the thought
and intelligence of this land revolt from the Church’s
teaching, as no longer answering to their spiritual needs
and aspirations, to that yearning for greater breadth
and freedom, that passionate desire for the Truth, the
whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, which
has seized upon so many hearts at the present day,
making itself heard in the oft-repeated question, “are
these things so 1 ”
Two much mooted points are especially prominent
in the controversy we are now engaged in, viz.,—■
The moral difficulties that are felt in reference to
some parts of the Old Testament, and. secondly,
the authenticity of St John’s Gospel, and it is truly
ominous to find them both omitted from these Lec
tures. W^e are told indeed in the Preface that a
Lecturer could not be got for the first, and with
regard to the latter, Professor Lightfoot,. who had
undertaken it, expressed a desire that his Lecture
should not be published. Bishop Ellicott speaks of
this as most unfortunate and regretable—hiatus
vcdde deflendus—and well he may, for after the great
question of miracles there is none of such grave
import as this of the Fourth Gospel. Considering
how much depends upon it, one is struck with
wonder at the cool audacity which professes to meet
its adversaries in fair and open combat, and then
shrinks from the very trial that would most have
put its manhood to the test. What must the outside
world think of such a proceeding 1 What is this,
but giving great occasion to the enemies of the
Truth to blaspheme ? Of the whole eleven Lec
tures, there are only three that can be said to deal
with the special difficulties of our day, viz
The
�and Christian Evidence Society’s Lectures.
words •, but the Professor has no such fear, and he
certainly manages to make a very small argument
go a long way. How far this dialectical skill would
avail against an unbeliever in the fact of the
Resurrection appears somewhat doubtful. I would
ask any impartial reader of this Lecture whether he
has got out of it all that the writer thinks he has
put therein. The most that can be said is that
St Paul believed in the Resurrection, and fortifies
that belief by recounting the other traditionary
appearances of our Lord, which were current in
the church at his day. We now come to the Lecture
which has the most direct bearing upon the chief
stumbling block of our age, viz :—the question of
miracles. Years ago M. Guizot maintained it as
a special difficulty of Religion, to get people to
believe in the supernatural. And this spirit of
incredulity, like an avalanche set in motion, gathers
force and intensity with each succeeding year. A
singular instance of this has just presented itself
in the case of Dr Kalisch, the well known Biblical
expositor.
In his elaborate Commentary upon the Pentateuch
(of which the first volume, containing the Book of
Exodus, appeared in 1855) he describes the Plagues
of Egypt as based upon natural circumstances, adding
that “ their miraculous character is unmistakeably
observable in the following points,” which he then
proceeds to enumerate. Whereas, in the first part of
his Commentary on Leviticus (lately published) in
the chapter on “ The Theology of the Past and the
Future,” he says plainly, “ Miracles are both 'impossible and incredible—impossible because against the
established laws of the universe, and incredible be
cause those set forth by tradition, are palpable inven
tions of unhistoric times.” Which now is Philip
drunk, and which Philip sober here ? But to proceed
with Dr Stoughton’s Lecture on. the Nature, and
�and Christian Evidence Society’s Lectures. 19
Testament subserve a moral end or purpose; or he
knew how impossible it now is to get people to be
lieve in the ark’s capability for holding a pair of all
living creatures, the standing still of the sun, or its
going backward on the dial—in Balaam’s ass or
Jonah’s whale—in the death of twenty-seven thousand
people at once by the sudden fall of a wall—or in
that most stupendous miracle of the Old Testament,
the recovery to life of the dead Moabite when his
body touched the bones of Elisha.
Whatever be his reason, the love of simplicity or
what not, this shirking of the most difficult part of
his argument tells strongly against him; it is no
proof of faith in a cause, to keep half of it in the
dark, and every one feels that the whole Book must
stand or fall together. But as Dr Stoughton well
knows, one thing and one thing only, could make
men accept the whole of the Bible as strictly and per
fectly true, viz., the belief in its Infallible Inspiration.
So long were its pages beyond the breath of cavil,
none dared to raise his voice or stretch forth his
hand against the sacred ark of God’s truth. But this
incubus once removed, this bugbear of literal inter
pretation taken out of the way, and henceforth men
were free to make diligent and honest inquiry into
the truth of what they read in the Bible, and the
first fruits of this freedom we are now reaping in
England.
One thing we may thank the Bishops for, the
generous and kindly spirit in which they regard the
scepticism of the present day; neither is this as easy
a matter as one might think it. Call to mind the
flood of abuse which theologians have been too prone
to heap upon an opponent; their ferocious hatred of
everything that bore the name of Free-thought; the
determination to find therein* “ a set and system of
opinions, the most slavish, the most abject and base,
* Bentley’s Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, p. 4.
���
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Three letters on the Voysey judgment and the Christian Evidence Society's Lectures
Creator
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Wheelwright, G.
Description
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. The letters, written to Thomas Scott, centre around Voysey's trial, reported in the 'Examiner' of February 25th, 1871. Voysey's major work The Sling and the Stone was condemned by the conservative wing of the Anglican Church and William Thomson, Archbishop of York, began proceedings against him in 1869. He was summoned before the Chancery Court of York for heterodox teaching, where he defended his case for two years. He appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which gave its judgement on 11 February 1871. The pamphlet contains three letters; the full lectures to the Christian Evidence Society are not printed. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1871]
Identifier
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G5517
Subject
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Bible
Heresy
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Bible-Criticism
Charles Voysey
Christian Evidence Society
Conway Tracts
Trials