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NOTES ON BISHOP MAGEE’S
PLEADINGS FOR CHRIST.
BY A BARRISTER.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price, Sixpence.
��PLEADINGS FOR CHRIST.
-------- ♦--------
VERY one, who knows anything of his public
career, will be inclined to think and to speak
favourably of Dr Magee, Bishop of Peterborough. A
man who, by his own unaided talents and eloquence,
has raised himself from the position of a humble curate
to a deanery, and subsequently to the Episcopal Bench,
must possess qualities of a character to recommend
him to the sympathy of most Englishmen. His first
speech in the House of Lords was such as abundantly
to justify his elevation, if oratory is to be held as a
qualification for the office of a Bishop. It was emi
nently rhetorical, but rhetoric is not out of place in a
public assembly, and it possessed the superlative
merit of being effective.
It is for these reasons that we lament seeing him in
what we think a false character, that we regret to ob
serve him not taking the proper measure of his natural
powers. He should have contented himself with
moving the hearts of men by his eloquence, and have
avoided all attempts at close reasoning, either on
scepticism or on any other subject. Above all, he
should not have attempted to reason in print. 11 It
would be as idle for an orator,” says Lord Macaulay,
“to waste deep meditation and long research on his
speeches, as for a manager to adorn the crowd of
courtiers and ladies who cross the stage with real
pearls and diamonds.” But the case is very different
. with a treatise intended not to command loud plaudits
E
A
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Pleadings for Christ.
but to be perused in the calm of the closet, not merely
to excite admiration but to carry conviction. Here
paste diamonds are quite inadmissible. And we
regret to find that in the sermons before us Bishop
Magee has given us nothing but paste.
We first took our pen in hand with the intention of
briefly reviewing these remarkable sermons, and com
mencing our review by a sketch of their contents.
We do not know whether it will be possible to carry
out this intention, for the more they are examined the
greater does the difficulty of the task appear. How to
give a reduced outline of that which is, in itself,
without form and void ! Confused thought, bad logic,
false analogies, mark every step of the Bishop’s pro
gress. For pages together, he fires at imaginary enemies,
sometimes he fires in the air, at others, he is firing into
the ranks of his own co-religionists. It is as difficult to
convey an idea of his general argument, as to put together
the fragments of an ill-prepared pudding which has
fallen to pieces in the boiling. After reading and
re-reading these sermons, a sense of hopelessness of
reproducing their purport weighs on the mind, like
that which appalls the hearer, after listening to Foote’s
burlesque narrative which ends in the marriage of the
barber.
We are not exaggerating. We pledge ourselves to
establish every one of these statements before we have
done with the Bishop. We do not even profess to
argue from the “sceptical” point of view; for we
think that it is the orthodox who have a cause of
complaint against such a “ defence” as this. We are
perfectly ready to admit that it furnishes no fair sample
of what may be alleged in defence of Christian dog
mas ; and that from that side have emanated, and are
even now being produced, defences of Christianity
which, if to be answered at all, are only to be answered
by writers of consummate skill in dialectics. Our
observations apply solely to the pamphlet before us.
�Pleadings for Christ.
5
We repeat that it is impossible to give an idea of it as
a whole, and that all that we can hope to do is to lay
a few of the bricks of which it is bnilt at the feet of
the reader, in order to enable him to judge of the
character of the edifice. 'We may take the opportunity
of saying here that we should never have taken this
trouble, if these discourses had not been heralded with
an immense flourish of trumpets, and borne the name
__ with the announcement that they are revised and
corrected by the preacher—of an English prelate. It
may be added that they are edited by a dean who was
at one time the head master of one of our greatest
public schools. There has been a great labouring of
the mountain; let us try and give some idea of the
result.
These discourses, then—“Argumentative Discourses”
they are called on the title-page—are three in number,
“Christianity and Eree-Thought,” “Christianity and
Scepticism,” “ Christianity and Faith,” and they appear
together under the general title of “Pleadings for
Christ.” The text of the first sermon is taken from
St John’s G-ospel viii. 33, “ How sayest thou ‘ Ye shall
be made freeP” We regret to find at the outset that
the Bishop does not understand the narrative which
he has made the theme of his discourse; or, at any
rate, does not seem to know that the rendering of it
which he assumes to be the true one, is open to discus
sion. He supposes “they” at the beginning of verse
33, to refer to those Jews who are said to have “ be
lieved on Christ” in verses 30, 31, and he takes “the
Jews” who are represented as disputing with Christ
throughout the remainder of the chapter, and who
ultimately take up stones to throw at him, to be these
same converts, who immediately lapse into disbelief on
hearing the words “ Ye shall be made free.” The way
in which the narrative is printed in our English ver
sion should have guarded the Bishop against rushing
to this conclusion. There is a
before “They” at
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Pleadings for Christ.
verse 31, showing the sense the translators attached
to the passage. The context should equally have
warned him: at verse 37, “ye seek to kill me,”
cannot refer to those who had just professed their
belief in him, but to the mass who still disbelieved.
“The Jews” again are spoken of at verses 48, 52, 57.
They it was, not “those Jews which had believed on
him,” who took up the stones. “The Jews” is the
term constantly used by John to signify those who
dispute with and do not acknowledge Christ. There
is a similar division of opinion in the next chapter but
one, x. 19. Further on, the Jews (the unbelievers)
again pick up stones to throw at him. The Greek is
aurp. “ Answer was made to him
as the
orthodox commentator, Bloomfield, says, “ not by those
just before mentioned who ‘believed on him,’ but
some bystanders.” Dr Brown in his commentary
writes, “ The hostile part of his audience here break
ing in upon the words of encouragement addressed to
the believing portion,” &c. “ Some present asserted,”
(Scott). “ That is the other Jews who had not believed,”
(Dr Adam Clarke.) This is the obvious sense, and so
de Wette and most other commentators take it. Dean
Alford, it is true, takes Bishop Magee’s view, referring
to v. 36, which we do not think by any means conclusive.
So that the occurrence which the Bishop makes the
theme of his discourse, pressing it upon our attention,
with frequent repetitions of its purport, “First they
believe on him, shortly afterwards they seek to take
his fife,” the scene which is “ a prophecy of the whole
history of Christ’s life in his church, the story of those
who come and of those who go,” &c., &c., is to our
way of thinking, and if the opinions of the best com
mentators are worth anything, a purely imaginary one.
This, however, is a small matter. The Bishop
* So Mark xii. 13, “And they send unto him,” &c. Gr.
d.iroaTeX\ovui irpos a-urbv rivas, &c. Certain persons are sent to
him. John xviii. 28, “ Then led they Jesus,” &c.
�Pleadings for Christ.
7
presently goes on to give us his idea of Free-thought
and Free-thinkers. The ideas which he has formed on
this subject, always more or less confused, and often
contradicting each other, are constantly appearing on
the surface all through his three discourses. As these
free-thinkers are the class of persons against whom
we presume that he directs his arguments, it is certainly
essential that he should understand what is meant by
the term. Let us see, then, what he does understand
by it. Free-thinkers, it seems, are persons “ deter
mined not to hear reason,” “ unwilling even to listen
to arguments for Christianity.” They are men who
say, “ I cannot stop to listen to your evidences of
Christianity, when upon the very face of it you bear
this stamp of falsehood, that you are opposed to free
dom.” And again, “No evidence of prophecy or
miracle will make me give up my freedom of thought.”
Elsewhere we read that free-thinkers are those “ who
reject either all or a part of Christianity.” With re
gard to this last definition, we must notice, in passing,
its singular felicity and clearness. According to the
Bishop, a Unitarian is a free-thinker, because he rejects
a part of Christianity, i.e., the divinity of Christ. But
the Bishop himself is a free-thinker, according to twothirds of the Christian world ; for he rejects a doc
trine which is with them a part and parcel of Chris
tianity, i.e., that of a supreme visible church. What
is “ Christianity 1 ” In this passage it must mean the
particular form of it professed by Dr Magee.
Having thus introduced us to the Free-thinker—
who is, it seems, a being who rejects all or a part of
the Bishop’s theological views, because they interfere
with his freedom—the preacher proceeds, throughout
the rest of his sermon, to treat us to a dissertation on
free-thought in general. This, he says, can only be
of three kinds. Freedom, as opposed to necessity ;
freedom, as opposed to authority; or freedom as op
posed to responsibility. Our space does not permit us
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Pleadings for Christ.
to deal more than briefly with the Bishop’s mode of
arguing under these three heads.
The doctrine of “ Freedom as opposed to necessity ”
—“ that a man is free to think in one way or another,
that it is not an absolute necessity for him always to
think in one way or another, that his thoughts do
not grow out of him as the blade grows out of the
seed,”—we had generally heard defined as the doctrine
of Free-will; and surely it is much better, in discus
sions of this kind, to adhere to a recognised term,
than to devise a fresh one (unless good cause be shown),
which may only serve to confuse all concerned. Here
it is the Bishop himself who, as usual, becomes con
fused. “Thought” immediately afterwards figures as
“ belief,” and an entirely new proposition is intro
duced to the reader : “ Christianity teaches that man
is free—ay, terribly free I—to will his own belief,
when it teaches us that man is answerable for his
belief, because men cannot be answerable for that over
which they have no choice or power whatever.”
Noting with pleasure this last admission, we must
say that there is a good deal in this sentence which
might challenge comment, as illustrating the Bishop’s
slip-shod method, and which yet we must pass by.
But we feel constrained to ask this question, Is it
true that man has the power to will his own belief ?
To be of any service to the argument, belief must
here mean a true belief. Man must have it in his
power to will to believe what is certainly true, and
must have some verifying faculty within him, inde
pendent of the external accidents which help to shape
opinions, for the non-exercise of which faculty he is
responsible. For it is only in consequence of his
possessing such a power that he can be held to be
justly punishable for going wrong, in which case alone
he will be liable to punishment. This is only a round
about way of stating an old view, as to which orthodox
theologians are at issue with all reasonable Christians.
�Pleadings for Christ.
9
That a man is responsible for the steps which he takes
and the care which he exercises in arriving at an
opinion, is a reasonable statement ; but the assertion
that he is responsible for the opinion itself, if it turns
out to be a wrong one (in other words, that he has the
power of willing to adopt a right one), is an assertion
not likely to help the Bishop in his crusade against
the free-thinkers. Nor will he probably make more
way with them when he goes on to point out that it
is a very remarkable and a very strange thing that it
is the very people who call themselves free-thinkers—
many of them at least—who most strongly insist upon
the fact, that man is not answerable for his belief;
whereas, “ it is the Christian ” (i.e., the man who holds
the opposite view), “ who is the real free-thinker.”
They will be inclined to contend that there is more,
much more, real freedom, not to speak of morality, in
the doctrine that man is bound to form the very best
opinion he can, without being subject to punishment
in case he should honestly fall into error, than in the
view which represents us as being complete masters of
truth and error, on the condition of being subject to
eternal damnation, if we perversely arrive at a con
clusion different from that of the Bishop of Peter
borough.
We are next treated to the Bishop’s views on Free
Thought as opposed to authority. “It is said that
freedom of thought is opposed to all authority: and we
are told that thought cannot be free if it submits to
authority.” We do not know by whom these foolish
statements are supposed to be “ told ” or “ said.” Here
as elsewhere the Bishop constructs a lay figure for the
purpose of smashing it to pieces; an innocent pastime,
but one not at all conducive to the spread of Christi
anity. Accordingly he proceeds to ask, in a tone of
conscious triumph, “ Have you ever considered how
many of your most cherished opinions you are receiving
on authority, not because you have proved them for
�io
Pleadings for Christ.
yourselves, hut because you have taken them from
some one who you believe knows more than you do ?
You take the opinion of your lawyer on law as an
authority; you take the opinion of your doctor on
medicine as an authority, &c.” The Bishop might
have added that we should be perfectly willing to
accept him and other right reverend persons, as autho
rities on certain ecclesiastical subjects. If for instance
we wished to know from what side of the altar or
table, north, south, east, or west, it is lawful to read
the communion service, and which are the Popish
points of the compass in connection with that ceremony;
what the precise functions of god-fathers and god
mothers, or of archdeacons may be; what the exact
force of the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian
creed, and how far an Anglican may be allowed to
accept them cum grano; we should personally be
glad to accept the Bishop as an authority on these
matters, of which he must necessarily know a great deal
more than we, who indeed know nothing. But the
Bishop has omitted to say (indeed he could not say)
that we are bound to accept any of these people as
infallible authorities, even on the matters of fact to
which they testify (as for instance, what is the law,
lay, or ecclesiastical in a particular case, what is the
precise effect, sudorific or emetic, of a certain drug, &c.),
much less that we are bound so to accept them on
points where an independent judgment may fairly be
exercised, as for example the goodness or badness of a
law, the beneficial effects of a particular mode of
treatment, the wisdom or silliness of certain ecclesias
tical practices. And without this notion of infallibility
as attached to authority, his illustrations will be of no
use at all against real free-thinkers: in fact, they are
such as these latter will be glad to adduce on their own
behalf. Thus, so far are we from yielding up our
judgment implicitly to the authority of lawyers, that we
believe some of the very worst laws ever devised to
�Pleadings for Christ.
11
have been their especial work, and nearly every bad law
to have received their general approval. The mistakes
of doctors are proverbial. The bleedings, and sweatings,
and purgings and blisterings of the last century are pro
nounced by the modern practitioner to aggravate. the
very symptoms which they were intended to alleviate.
Indeed, no better illustration than that, of medicine
could be adduced to show that authority is not . always
on the right side, and that we are bound, even in cases
where some deference is due to it, not altogether to lay
aside that watchful attitude of the mind which charac
terizes free thought. If the Bishop means to assert that
theology is an exception to this rule, he is advocating
Boman Catholic doctrine pure and simple, and that
under circumstances which are not likely to commend
it to our acceptance : since the very Protestantism of
which he is a professing minister was founded at the
Reformation by those who refused to submit to the
then existing authority, and distinctly exercised their
own free thought.
But, says the Bishop—supposing any one to work a
miracle, then clearly you ought to submit to his. au
thority. The passage in which he sets forth this view,
is so curious, and at the same time so well illustrates the
style of his reasoning, that we subjoin it.
“ Let us suppose that you were walking through one
of the grave-yards of this city in company with another,
and that the discourse fell upon the resurrection of the
dead, and that you were arguing that it was impossible
-—that there was no authority to prove it-—and suppose
that the person walking with you said, £ I know more
than you of the dead, and I will give you a proof that I
know more than you do,’ and suppose that, stretching
out his hand, he bid the dead in that grave-yard arise,
and that they sprung up alive out of the earth ■where
they had been sleeping, do you mean to say—is there
any one in this congregation who could say, if he saw
that miracle—that the person who had wrought it would
be no authority on the question of the resurrection of
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Pleadings for Christ.
the dead, or that it would he any tyranny over his
Free-thought to say, ‘ Believe this person ?’ Your freethought, because it is free, would immediately ally itself
with the authority of the person who had done this
thing?’
If by this it be meant that a man who went about
raising dead people would be looked upon as an au
thority on the subject of raising the dead, this is a
truism.
He would, we think, be the sole living
authority on that head. But if it be meant that a
simple manifestation of miraculous power (and one
miracle is not more wonderful than another) ought im
mediately to command our submission to the authority
of the wonder-worker on all other points,—as for
instance on morals,—this is diametrically opposed to
common sense and to the teachings of Scripture. We
are repeatedly warned in the Bible that the power to
work miracles and signs and wonders is no proof of a
Divine mission. We do not know what any of the
*
congregation in Norwich Cathedral might do, under
the hypothetical circumstances, but we hope that all of
them would act in a way the exact opposite to thatattributed to them by the Bishop. We trust that, in
stead of “ allying themselves to the authority ” of the
resurrectionist, they would very carefully weigh any
moral teaching with which he might favour them. In
other words, we advise them, should the case arise, to
use their “ freedom of thought.” Nor could a better
illustration of the importance and necessity of exercis
ing true Free-thought (as distinguished from the strange
and unintelligible creation of the Bishop) be set before
them.
The next two sentences have somewhat puzzled us.
We append them in the hope and belief that the
reader will be better able than ourselves to seize their
full purport.
* Matt. vii. 22 and xxiv. 24 • Rev. xvi. 14; 2 Thess. ii. 9, &c.
and of Deuteron, xiii. 1-5.
�Pleadings for Christ.
13
“ So you see freedom of thought is not inconsistent
with the authority we claim for the Christian Revela
tion. For this reason, that the revelation submits its
proof to your Free-thought, and unless you accept its
proof, of course you cannot accept its authority ; but,
if you do accept it, you do not lose your freedom ; on
the contrary, you are asserting and acting upon your
freedom.”
.
Upon this, as far as we can understand it, and indeed
upon the whole argument of which it forms a part, we
must remark that we never heard of a person who
rejected the Christian Revelation because it interfered
with his freedom of thought, in the sense in which the
term is used here, that is to say the exercise of his
free-will. One man examines the evidences in favour
of Christianity and is satisfied with them and embraces
Christianity. Another, after examination, deems them
inconclusive and declines to accept Christianity. Both
these men exercise their “ free-thought ” or free-wfLl.
The Bishop is all the time tilting against a wind-mill.
Or, to take the illustration with which he has himself
furnished us : A. sees a person raise a dead body in a
Norwich churchyard, and immediatelyyields an implicit
obedience to this person. B., who sees the same thing,
would like a little more information, before following
this course. In what sense can it be said that A. is
“ asserting and acting upon his freedom ” more than B 1
The Bishop now approaches his third point. “ Now,
I come to the third idea of freedom—that of free
dom as opposed to responsibility—and this is what
I really believe most men mean, when they talk
of Free-thought as opposed to Christianity.” We
are glad, after following the preacher through a
labyrinth of which we are never sure that we hold
the clue, to find ourselves at last face to face with
him on a bit of open ground. For it is certain
that a claim to Free-thought must include the idea
of our not being morally responsible for any opinion
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Pleadings for Christ.
honestly arrived at. We hold the truth of this
idea, or proposition, to be absolutely unassailable,
on the assumption that there is an equitable God.
We do not say that man will not be punished eternally
for an honest mistake ; but we do assert that it is
impossible to conceive such a punishment as other
than immoral and unjust. Theologians have tried
to get out of the difficulty by pleading that what
seems unjust to us, may be just upon the whole, &c.
But this does not really help them. Words must
be used in the sense which is commonly attached
to them, or there is an end of all clearness in our
ideas and our reasoning. If Supreme Justice to all
can, without a contradiction, be made to include
what we call Injustice to us, we must think of it
as Injustice, and are not assisted one whit, by revers
ing the terms and calling it Justice. Theologians,
we repeat, have always felt this to be a great difficulty,
and some of them have devised the doctrine that
God may not after all be omnipotent, and may be
compelled to doom the greater part of the human
race to endless tortures. But the Bishop pours
out his rhetoric, undismayed by any such considera
tions as these. To him everything is quite clear
and satisfactory. Yet we should have thought that
a little reflection might have induced him to pause
before giving his approval to the doctrine that man
ought to be condemned for his opinions. Supposing
the dogma of the Church of Borne (which embraces
the majority of Christians) to be correct—“ Hors de
l’Eglise point de salut,” the Bishop himself would
be liable to eternal hell-fire for his opinions, nor
would it help him on his own theory, that he had
formed them conscientiously.
We are sure that if
his Lordship examines his own heart, he will confess
that he could not avoid thinking such a judgment
on him to be an unjust one, and we are equally sure
that he would be quite right in his conclusion.
�Pleadings for Christ.
15
The way in. which the Bishop seeks to establish
the propriety of eternal punishment for mistaken
opinions from the analogies furnished by Society, Law
and Nature, is as singular as anything in these
singular discourses. He tells us that Society and
the Laws are perpetually punishing men for their
Free-thought. “ If a man utters a seditious thought,
if he utters a libellous thought about his neighbour,
if he utters a foul or indecent thought, is it true that
he ought not to be punished?” And again “Let
a man entertain uncharitable thoughts, suspicious
thoughts, evil and unkind thoughts of his neighbour—
let him not even utter them in speech, but show
them in his manner and look—let his fellow-men
know that he thinks ill of them, or unjustly of them
—and you know well how Society visits on that man
this exercise of his Free-thought.” Here it will be
observed that, with systematic confusion, the Bishop
uses “ Free-thought ” in an entirely new sense. It
means here the claim of a man to think (and act)
precisely as he pleases : and no reference is made
to the one important point “ Does the man honestly
believe that he is doing right in indulging in the
thought, or act 1” In the majority of the instances
given above, the man must clearly know that he
is doing wrong, and he is very properly punishable
both in this world and, as we believe, in that to
come. By simply changing the meaning of Freethought in this way the Bishop escapes in a cloud
of verbiage. And yet, to take his own analogy,
nothing is more clear than that society, in awarding
its moral judgment, invariably attaches great weight
to this plea, where it can be satisfactorily established,
viz., that a man has done an act under a conscientious
sense of its being a right one. The Laws, it is true,
cannot always do this. The reason is, of course,
that our Justice must necessarily be dispensed in a
rude fashion. We are obliged to mark out certain
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Pleadings for Christ.
actions as injurious to society and to punish, those
who commit them: and not having the necessary
machinery to weigh motives, we are, as a general
rule, obliged to neglect them, though even here a
striking exception will occur to every one in the
case of the insane, whom we do not punish, but only
keep out of harm’s way, on the ground that they are
not responsible, because they are supposed not to know
that they are doing wrong. No one, now-a-days,
will call General Washington and his associates
criminals: and the fact of their success in their
enterprize has nothing to do with their criminality or
innocence : they would have been precisely the same
men, morally speaking, if they had succumbed to
the British Forces instead of gaining the advantage
over them.
Yet it is probable that they would
all have been hanged or shot if the issue had been
different. The Law would have punished and society
would have acquitted them. Charlotte Corday was
executed, and we think rightly executed, for assass
inating Marat: but posterity has refused to assign
to her action any but an infinitesimal share of moral
blame. We remember reading some years ago of
a Swedish clergyman who, if we recollect rightly,
poisoned some of the most religious among his con
gregation, under the idea that he was conferring a
benefit on them by sending them to Heaven. This
man was probably put to death—he ought to have
been, if sane—but it is clear that, if the truth of his
plea could he established, his offence in a moral point
of view, was of a totally different kind from that of
Thurtell or the Mannings.
It is true then that
the Law does often punish men for acting on con
scientious motives : but this arises from the necessary
imperfection of all Law which as we have said can
go only a very little way into the question of Intent
and must deal with the overt Act. To argue from
this that an all-seeing Being who is acquainted with
�Pleadings far Christ.
17
intents and motives must be expected to act in a
similar way, is a strange piece of reasoning. Nor
does it appear to us that any such conclusion can
be drawn from the Analogy of Society. It is true
that it has often punished men for their conscientious
opinions; but the more civilization has advanced
the more has such a practice come to be admitted,
in theory at least, to be indefensible and barbarous.
And there is no surer sign of a healthy society than
this ; that its members should be allowed to hold and
to express publicly any opinion whatever that is not
positively illegal, or immoral, without incurring repro
bation. In short, we are altogether at a loss to see
how any inference can be drawn from the “ Analogy
of Society” of a kind to lead us to suppose that God
will condemn honest error to never-ending torment.
In appealing to the “ Analogy of Nature ” the
Bishop seems to us to be standing on much firmer
ground. In all these sixty-six closely printed pages,
the only coherent argument is one adapted from Butler.
Bishop Magee points out that the forces of nature are
inexorable. However conscientious a man’s views
may be as to these, yet, if- they happen to be wrong
ones, they may lead him to his destruction. “ Let him
freely think that fire does not burn, or water drown ;
let him think that fever is not infectious, or that
ventilation is unhealthy ; let him think wrongly con
cerning any law of nature, and he will find that he
will be visited by a sharp and merciless punishment.”
We must enter some preliminary objection to the
word “ punishment ” here. No doubt the term is used
popularly, precisely in this sense. Nothing is more
common than to hear of a person being “ punished for
a mistake : ” though, even here, if we are able to show
that the mistake was unavoidable, this is generally
held to be destructive of any such view, and the idea
of Punishment disappears. The same vague use of
the term obtains in such expressions as “ punished for
�t8
Pleadings for Christ.
the sins of his ancestors.” But, in its more exact sense,
we shall find punishment (at any rate among civil
ized nations) invariably conceived as the consequence
of wrong-doing.
The history of Persecution fur
nishes no exception to this, for the Catholics who
burnt the Protestants, burnt them, among other reasons,
for this one : that they believed them to be indulging
themselves in wanton and wilful errors. They had
not arrived at the conception (any more than Bishop
Magee appears to have arrived at it), that a conviction
might force itself upon the mind. They thought, as
he does, that every man has a complete control over his
own belief, and a power of forming a true belief, and as
they felt that their belief was the true one, they deemed
every one deeply culpable who did not conform to
it. In any case, the fact that the word “ punishment”
is used in a loose, and sometimes figurative sense of
almost everything that hurts, should make us cautious
about accepting it here, where it takes for granted a
point that admits of argument. We are aware that
Death and Suffering of all kinds are looked upon by
theologians as punishments from on high, but this is a
position which requires to be established, and cannot
be assumed in the above passage. We do not think
then that the man who innocently runs his head
against one of the great powers of nature and is
stunned, as far as this life is concerned, can properly
be said to be punished, in the sense in which that
term is affixed to the endless punishment of the im
penitent. We once knew of a person whose case was
exactly that which the Bishop puts. He had arrived
at certain very strong notions as to the power of
volition. He had convinced himself that if a man
who had never learnt to swim, found himself all of a
sudden out of his depth, and retained perfect presence
of mind, he would instinctively strike out in a swim
ming attitude, and so remain on the surface. Full of
this discovery, and of the great benefit which he would
�Pleadings for Christ.
19
confer upon mankind by illustrating it in his person, he
jumped into the Severn and was immediately drowned.
We have never been able to think of the waters which
closed over this good soul’s head as punishing him, or
doing anything else to him than stopping his breath,
and so removing him from the world. Similarly, one
of ourselves who overdrinks himself is properly
“ punished ” by a splitting headache : but we should
not use the same word (at least not in the same sense)
in the case of a savage who drank off a flask of brandy
in ignorance of its intoxicating properties. A spec
tator who adventures himself into a battle is said to be
punished for his temerity by receiving a bullet in his
person, but no one uses the word in the case of a
soldier engaged in the fight. Take any instances that
you like, and you will always find that the idea of
punishment, properly speaking, corresponds with the
idea of wilful transgression, (of which, of course, negli
gence is a form), and that wilful transgression excludes
the notion of a conscientious mistake.
Putting aside this consideration, however, and
admitting, as we must do, that at any rate suffering
does often, in this world, follow upon innocent
mistakes, it seems to us a very large deduction to
make from these premises, that a like order of things
may be expected to hold good in another world. We
do not recollect that even Bishop Butler went so far
as this. He argued that the analogy of nature, the
whole present course of things, shows that there is
nothing incredible in God’s rewarding and punishing
men for their actions («.<?., their good or bad actions)
hereafter; and this we think a reasonable proposition.
If we may argue from our experience of this world,
that men in another world will suffer for their mistakes
here, there are many like inferences to be drawn with
as good reason as this one : for example that, inasmuch
as many generations are known to suffer through the
innocent error of an ancestor, a similar law may be
�20
Pleadings for Christ.
expected to be enforced hereafter: which surely will
commend itself to no one.
*
These are assumptions
altogether without warrant; mere projections of all the
admitted difficulties which we find in our present
imperfect scheme into another one, of which we know
nothing positive. And they have the suspicious
appearance (which marks Butler’s great treatise
throughout) of being devised as buttresses to a preestablished dogmatic system of theology. As there
were many things in this, which, impartially considered,
must offend the moral sense of mankind, it was deemed
opportune to show that there were many similar things
in the constitution of nature. There is no theology,
however monstrous, which might not be bolstered up
by the same method. That because A, who disbelieves
in infection, + catches the small-pox, there is reason to
believe that B, who is not satisfied on the evidence
that the Pentateuch is an inspired work, will be
roasted everlastingly, is an inference that never would
have occurred to any one educated human being, if
there had not been a church or churches in existence
which had previously insisted on the latter proposition.
Granting, however, to the fullest extent, the truth
of the Bishop’s position, and admitting that man may
(or if you please will) be punished hereafter for errors
in belief: we are at a loss to see how he can turn this
to account in arguing with an infidel, e.g., a man who
does not believe in miracles. If we can conceive the
. * Whenever a dogma in theology suggests itself to the imagination, of such a monstrous character as to provoke the in
ternal exclamation, “ Nobody can believe this! ” one is always
forced to check the utterance by the second thought that
probably a great number of persons do preach and believe
either that or something still more monstrous. But we hope
no one holds the exact view in the text. Adam’s error, it
will be recollected, was not an innocent one.
t We take one of the Bishop’s illustrations, without
committing ourselves to an opinion on the theory of infection
prevalent among most medical men. He is probably aware
that it has been disputed.
�Pleadings for Christ.
21
latter as becoming convinced of the truth of the
assertion, he will only exclaim with the Roman
Catholic, “ So much the worse then for the Bishop of
Peterborough, and those who agree with him! ” The
fact is, and this crops up all through these sermons,
the Bishop does not really believe in the existence of
such a thing as an honest and conscientious rejection of
a miraculous revelation.
As he himself tells us,
further on, such facts as that Jesus Christ was miracu
lously conceived and bom of a virgin, that he descended
into hell, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven,
are to him, “facts as certain as the great lights of
heaven; we cannot conceive the possibility of our
doubting them.” He feels that they are true; therefore
they must be true. It would be as impossible for a
reasoner of this description to imagine that there are
people holding opinions diametrically opposite to his
own, with an earnestness, a sincerity, a tenacity of
conviction, and a sense of deep responsibility to God
for the way in which those opinions have been formed,
in no respect inferior to his, as it was for the Eastern
King to imagine the existence of ice. Somehow or other,
if these people would only take proper pains, they must
see how wrong they are 1 The Bishop thinks that if they
were once convinced of the awful consequences which
may attend mistakes in theology, they would be in
duced to change their views. He warns them of their
danger, as one might warn a parcel of careless school
boys playing on the edge of a precipice. We know some
old Tories who altogether deny that modern Radicals
can be sincere, and modern Radicals who hold precisely
the same narrow-minded view about old Tories. We
make no doubt, both these Tories and Radicals would
hold as certain, that if their adversaries could once be
convinced of this dogma, that “ a mistaken view of
politics may entail eternal damnation,” they would
immediately become frightened, reconsider their posi
tion, and come over to the opposite side !
�22
Pleadings for Christ.
Before concluding our notice of this discourse, there
are two more passages in it which we must briefly call
attention to. “ Ah! there is something after all in
that word, ‘ I believe in God the Father Almighty,’—
there is something in knowing and believing in an
omnipotent and loving will, that has the power to save
the free thought of an erring creature from the terrible
punishment which comes from the soulless and merci
less machinery of law,” and further on we read of the
great importance to us of God “suspending those
terrible laws which we so dread.” We are not sure
that we quite understand this. If by “ the soulless
and merciless machinery of law,” and “ those terrible
laws which we so dread,” are meant those general laws
which we observe working around us, we do not see
that as a rule they are suspended, or that erring creatures
are ever rescued, except by the operation of other laws,
from their effects. As the preacher himself has very
correctly put it,—f£ The great machinery of the world
will not arrest its revolutions for the cry of a human
creature, who, by a very innocent error, by the mistaken
action of his free thought, is being ground to pieces
beneath them.” It cannot therefore be of any import
ance to us, in this sense, that God should have the
power to save us from the machinery of these laws, or
to suspend them, since, in point of fact, he never does
exercise these powers. The Bishop evidently alludes
to laws supposed to hold good in regard to another
world, as, for instance, that all men are by nature
doomed to endless and excruciating torment through
the fault of Adam—a law the operation of which was
miraculously suspended by the Almighty in favour of
certain persons. The Bishop quietly assumes the exist
ence of this law as a matter not open to dispute, just
as that fire burns and water drowns, and then cries
out, “ How important it is that we should have some
one to save us from its operation ! ” We think it
much more important that no such frightful law
�Pleadings for Christ.
23
should exist, and the Free-thinker is, in our opinion,
quite justified who requires very strong proof of it.
And, for this reason, we entirely concur in the remarks
which follow. “ Let us,” he says, “ introduce a new
fact into the world of existing facts. Let us suppose,
for argument’s sake, that there is a God. Can it be pos
sible that it should be a matter of indifference how men
think about this new fact ? Does it make no difference
to 11s whether he is a father or a tyrant 1 ” &c., &c. We
believe that there is not a Free-thinker who would not
cordially endorse this ; and we have read the same
sentiments, almost the same words, from the pens of
some among them.
*
In short, while it is granted on
both sides that it is of the greatest importance to us to
acquire, as far as we are able to do so, correct notions
about God, and that it certainly does make a great
“ difference to us whether he is a father or a tyrant,”
the Free-thinker argues that it is the orthodox doctrine
which represents him as a tyrant. We must say that
there is some prima facie ground for this assertion.
An Almighty Sovereign who condemns the great ma
jority of his subjects to unceasing agonies of the most
exquisite kind, bears some resemblance to such a
character, and it is for theologians to prove that there
is no likeness between the two. It will not help them
with their opponents (and we presume that it is their
object to persuade and to convince such), to point out
the importance of believing in a Being able mercifully
to suspend “terrible laws,” the existence of which
these latter deny; or who, if they admitted them,
* “ Is there not something absolutely rotten in the condi
tion of those who contentedly jog on with what may be en
tirely false notions of their Deity ? Assuredly it is of as
much consequence to the human race to acquire, as far as it
is able to do so, correct notions about him as about the physi
cal configuration of the world it inhabits. And if people don’t
choose to inquire, they cannot make sure that their notions on
this head may not be deplorably false ones —Pleas for Free
Inquiry (published in this Series), page 12.
�24
Pleadings for Christ.
■would look upon such an exercise of mercy as akin
to the act of a king of Dahomey, who, after con
demning a thousand of his captives to slow torture,
should mercifully except a few who happened to strike
his fancy.
We must now take the liberty of explaining to the
Bishop, in a few words, what we take to be the mean
ing of a Free-thinker and Free Thought. We do not
hold Free Thought, in our acceptation of the word, to
have anything to do with the doctrines of Necessity
and Free Will, or to be opposed to authority (in the
sense of all authority), or to responsibility (in the sense
of all responsibility). Still less are we ready to admit
that Free Thought “ will not stop to listen to evidence.”
On the contrary, we understand by a Free-thinker in
religion, a man who lays claim to the right of what is
called private judgment, the right of examining for
himself the evidences of every creed that is submitted
to him, in opposition to the dogma that he is bound
to accept any one creed solely on authority. Niebuhr
was a free-thinker on the subject of early Boman history,
but so far from not stopping to listen to the evidence, we
should say that a great part of his life was passed in
weighing it. Protestantism is the legitimate outcome
of free-thought. Wicklyffe, Luther, Calvin, and the
rest of the Reformers, were free-thinkers. The belief
which the Bishop professes, has been established by
the persistent exercise of this right; but as sometimes
happens in the case of the heir to a wealthy tradesman,
he is for repudiating the very means by which his
possessions have been acquired. The fact is that,
whenever a religion becomes stereotyped, it inevitably
puts forth this claim to authority. In the case of
Roman Catholicism, this is a consistent claim, and the
term h'&re penseur has a definite meaning, as opposed
to implicit obedience to authority, the doctrine of the
church, and the word is freely applied by Roman
Catholic divines to Protestants. For a Protestant
�Pleadings for Christ.
25
Bishop to take arms against Free-thought, is to try and
cut away the ground from under his own creed. Unless
indeed it be contended that a man is free to examine
into the claims of orthodox Protestantism on the con
dition of accepting them, but not free to examine on
the condition of rejecting them, which is a very Irish
way indeed of expressing the doctrine of authority.
It will be said that this is not the meaning vulgarly
attached to the term a Free-thinker. This is quite
true. By a process, the steps of which are very plain,
the development of Protestantism (originally the
creation of Free-thought) into a system not less
authoritative in its claims than that from which it
sprang, has been the cause that “ Free-thinker ” has
come to be applied to a man who ventures to inquire into
and to doubt these its own claims. It means generally
the same thing as Sceptic, Infidel, Unbeliever. In
Brande’s Dictionary of Science, it is defined as “ almost
synonymous with Deist.” If the Bishop had used the
word in this accepted sense, we should not have had
to trouble ourselves with questions of definition. But
he has not so used it. He has credited Free-thinkers
with opinions and modes of reasoning evolved out of
the depths of his own internal consciousness. Against
Free-thinking in the ordinary meaning of the term, it
would be easy to show that his arguments are alto
gether worthless. But we must go on briefly to
consider his second sermon, which bears the title
“ Christianity and Scepticism.”
Here, again, we think it a great pity that he has
not stuck to the use of words in their ordinary sense.
We all know what is meant by the expression, “Mr
So-and-so is a religious sceptic.” It means that he
doubts, that he does not yield a full assent to the
dogmas of Christianity, or it may cover more than this,
and imply that he disbelieves them. In ordinary
parlance, the term is not distinguished from Free
thinker, Infidel, &c., as we have just said. But the
�2,6
Pleadings for Christ.
Bishop in his affectation of exact definitions has
furnished us with a Sceptic whom we do not recognize.
With him a Sceptic is a man who “ will not recognize
the existence of a God until he has it demonstrated as
clearly as that the three angles of a triangle are equal
to two right angles.” “ He doubts all human testi
mony.” “ He demands certainty.” “ He will assent
only upon scientific demonstration,” &c., &c. And in
a wonderful passage (wonderful even in these sermons)
he supposes his audience to have come to listen to
him, not only possessed of this same view of the
meaning of Scepticism, but actually prepared to hear
him (the Bishop) demolish it once and for ever by a
proof of the truths of Christianity, as clear to their
minds as that two and two make four! After ex
claiming “We cannot demonstrate Christianity I” (the
ejaculation is printed once in italics, and twice in
capital letters) he goes on, “ With what effect does this
announcement fall upon your hearts 1 Possibly upon
some with a feeling of disappointment. You may
have come to these sermons, expecting to go away
from them, with your faith made as clear and certain
to you, as that two and two make four. You may ex
claim, ‘ If, after all you say, there is room for doubt,
what do you mean by talking of evidence ? Evidence
leaves no room for doubt. I thought you were
going to make my faith so certain that I should never
doubt again. I thought you were going to answer all
questions, to silence all objections, and to send me
away with a mathematical certainty of every truth in
my creed ” We know nothing of Norwich, but we
do not believe that any single individual in the
Cathedral was such an idiot as this passage would
seem to imply—that he came under the impression
that the truths of Christianity might possibly be
demonstrated like a proposition in Euclid, and that
now, after eighteen centuries, the Bishop of Peter
�Pleadings for Christ.
27
borough, with his brilliant reputation, was the man
likely to furnish the demonstration.
We do not deny that there may be in the world
sceptics who answer the Bishop’s description, though,
after a considerable intercourse with those who bear
the name, we have never chanced to meet with such a
person. We think it not at all unlikely that in this
case he may have drawn upon his personal experience.
Possibly some infidel cobbler or tinker may have
accosted him during his ministrations as a hard-work
ing curate (we can hardly imagine such a being coming
in contact with a Dean or a Bishop) with the remark,
“ Prove to me your religion as you prove that two and
two are four, and then I will believe it 1
And . Dr
Magee has perhaps gone away with the reflection,
“ This then is modern Scepticism 1 ” A very small
attention to the arguments, the “insidious objec
tions,” as Dean Goulburn calls them—which are
exciting so much consternation in the orthodox camp,
might have convinced him that this is not Modern
Scepticism. This is not the foe that he has to combat,
if he would render any service to the cause which he
has at heart. Those who reject “ all human testi
mony ” must of necessity be a very small minority,
call them by what name you will, and seem to. us
scarcely worth powder and shot, for they must reject
the story of Caesar and of Napoleon as'well as that of
Christ. If by the term “ all human testimony ” be
meant, “human testimony in favour of the miraculous,
this ground has certainly been taken up by respectable
advocates, but it has been expressly. repudiated by
nearly every sceptical thinker of eminence. When
you are going out to meet an enemy, it is of .no
use directing your artillery at one of his outlying
wings, which is not only disowned by the main
body, but has got itself hopelessly entangled in a
morass.
There is, indeed, such a thing as a Sceptical school
in Philosophy—the school of Pyrrho and others—of
�28
Pleadings for Christ.
which we should imagine that not one in every hundred
of the Norwich audience had ever heard—a confused
notion of which may have been present to the Bishop’s
mind in constructing his definitions—yet, even as ap
plied to that, they would be wholly wide of the mark.
We cannot of course go into this : and shall content
ourselves with remarking that the last known Sceptic
of this school, the man who, in modern times, dropped
the plummet of scepticism into human consciousness
itself, was David Hume.
“Sceptic,”in its proper acceptation—since the Bishop
is so particular in his definitions—means one who
meditates before giving his assent to a proposition,
who looks about him, observes, deliberates, entertains
doubts, suspends his judgment. He need not be one
who suspends his judgment as to the dogmas of Christi
anity (or anything else) because they are not capable
of mathematical demonstration—as the Bishop’s defini
tion implies-—but he may doubt, on the ground that
the evidence for them is not satisfactory to his mind.
This is the case with nine out of ten sceptics properly
so called. And it is of course only a truism to say that
we are all of us sceptics on many points, on precisely
the same grounds. We are, for instance, ourselves, at
this present moment of writing (September, 1871) en
tire “ sceptics,” in the proper sense of the term, as to
the Tichborne case. It is not that we refuse to hear
evidence on the question, for we have waded, with
great attention, through all the evidence that has been
produced: it is not that we demand absolute demonstra
tion before forming an opinion, for we shall be satisfied
with a reasonable balance of probability, on one side or
the other, just as we are often perfectly satisfied with
the result of a conviction for murder based on ci rcn mstantial evidence. Supposing the suit to determine
through the death of the claimant, or some other cause,
and no fresh facts to be adduced, we should remain
permanently in this state of mind. If we were told
that we must believe one way or the other, on pain of
�Pleadings for Christ.
2.9
eternal damnation, we should be infallibly damned to
all eternity• because it would not be “ in our power
to will a belief” (notwithstanding the Bishop’s ridicu
lous assertion to the contrary) but only to affect one ;
and we should not take the trouble to do this, because
it would not answer the purpose. To Hell we must go.
Imagine a person in this frame of mind being stowed
into a cathedral and talked at for an hour on the im
propriety of not arriving at a conclusion as to the
validity of the plaintiff’s claim, on the folly of
requiring absolute demonstration, and being warned
how a similar demand would be fatal to all morality,
&c., and he will tell you that all this does not touch
him. “The gentleman in the pulpit,” he will say,
“doesnot understand my case.” And similarly, we
believe, that throughout the whole of this sermon,
the Bishop has misunderstood modern Scepticism as
completely as in the preceding one he has misunder
stood Free-thought.
Every sceptic, then, with whom we are acquainted
will entirely concur with the Bishop in thinking it most
unreasonable to ask for mathematical proof of Christi
anity, and will he ready to admit that there is much
which we ought to believe on less evidence than this.
We agree also in this, that the laws of morality are not
susceptible of any such proof, and yet we should be for
immediately hanging up the next convicted murderer,
without taking the least notice of his plea that we had
not demonstrated murder to be wrong. In short, we
agree in several of the Bishop’s conclusions, while
carefully repudiating all connection with his arguments
and his inferences, when we are lucky enough to be able
to understand them.
For example, while he is quite right in saying, that
we ought not to ask for positive proof of the existence
of a God, we think he is entirely without warrant in
adding, “ If we could give you the same kind of proof
that there is a God, that we can give you that two
and two make four, then your religion would do you
�30
Pleadings for Christ.
just as much good as the knowledge that two and
two make four.” This is assuredly a startling mode
of expression, for we had thought that without the
knowledge that two and two make four, man would
still be a hairy savage, frequenting caves and hollow
trees instead of cathedrals.
*
The bishop would
seem to take the view of the charity-boy in “ Pickwick,”
who, after being taught his letters, wondered whether
it was worth while going through so much to learn so
little. However, he immediately explains his mean
ing : “ It would not cultivate that which religion is
meant to cultivate in you ; and that is the quality of
faith—of belief in spite of doubt, of assent in spite of
difficulty. ’ ’ Of course the same argument applies to the
Evidences of Christianity. If these were made quite
plain, “ the dwellers in the citadel would die for want
of food; the faith that should be the nutriment of
your souls would perish utterly.” This is not new,
and it has the awkward appearance which we noticed
just now, in a somewhat similar case, of being an
ex post facto plea, in view of certain difficulties in the
way of the Christian evidences, which had to be ad
mitted. If the difficulties had not existed, or could
have been boldly denied, we should not have heard
of the plea. Such as it is, it is good for every religion
under the sun, for the distinctive tenets of Catholicism,
for Buddhism, Confucianism, Mahometanism, Mor
monism, Spiritualism. Indeed, if “belief in spite of
doubt, assent in spite of difficulty,” be “ the quality
which religion is meant to cultivate in us,” it might
be alleged, without any violent absurdity, that the
greater the difficulties, the more highly is this quality
of faith exercised, and that, consequently, that religion
is most likely to be true on behalf of which the
smallest amount of evidence can be offered. Grant
* Galton, in his Tropical South Africa (quoted by Sir J.
Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, 2nd edition, pp. 334, 335),
tells an amusing story of the difficulty experienced by a
savage in understanding that two and two make four.
�Pleadings for Christ.
31
ing, however, that absence of direct proof, and even
(for the sake of argument) of very strong proof, should
be no bar to our accepting a revelation; yet it seems
to us to be. an entirely unauthorised inference to draw
from this, that God could not, if he had so chosen,
have favoured us with a revelation of his will as clear
as that two and two make four, without thereby causing
our highest faculties to deteriorate, “to die for want
of food,” to cease to be “living things.” Yet this is
what the Bishop's assertion means. We may be
quite sure that if divines thought they could establish
their dogmas by a mathematical proof, they would not
hesitate to make the attempt; * and they would point
(with great justice) to the fact, or supposed fact, of
their being so provable, as a sure evidence of their
divine origin. It would be represented to be incon
ceivable that God should suffer man to be led astray
by difficulties purposely interposed in the way of his
arriving at the truth on matters affecting his eternal
interests, or should furnish him with less than a
mathematical proof on a subject of such absorbing
importance : as inconceivable as that two and two
should not always and everywhere be equal to four,
or that the properties of one triangle should not be
found in every similar triangle ; in other words, that
God should throw difficulties in the way of all at
tempts at a science of Numbers, or Mensuration or
* The late Professor Ferrier actually did make the attempt,
in his Institutes of Metaphysics, to establish the existence of
a God, in a series of propositions, after the manner of Euclid.
If he had succeeded, there can be no doubt that his work
would have been hailed—and not by divines only—as the
most important of all contributions to human knowledge.
We should have heard nothing of the “ decay of faith,” &c.,
consequent on his discovery. Similar attempts have been
made (not to speak of Descartes) by Dr Samuel Clarke, Mr
Gillespie", and other Christian writers. Bishop Butler, in his
well-known correspondence with the former, says, that he
had for a long time made it his business to try and prove the
being and attributes of God. He clearly did not think, with
Bishop Magee, that success in such an undertaking would be
injurious to mankind.
�32
Pleadings for Christ.
Astronomy. Indeed, there is no end to the considera
tions which might be pressed into the service of an
analogy between nature and revelation, if (which is
conceivable) a revelation had been imparted in this
particular way.
A few pages on, we are surprised to find the Bishop,
who is preaching against one form of scepticism, launch
into praises of Doubt, or the sceptical spirit, as Buckle
terms it. Is it possible that he has taken to bless, what
he was called to curse ? “ Very valuable and important
is this first calling out of the instinct of doubt, this
first awakening of the sceptical part of man—of his
understanding. . . the sceptical inquiring mind is ever
questioning of every apparent fact................doubt,
precious and invaluable doubt, is ever leading man on
from question to question. . . . doubt is the cause of
progress, the implement of discovery, the spur to
reformation, the motive power that is specially needed
for the ever onward march of humanity in knowledge
and science. Doubt! without this invaluable instinct
of doubt, humanity would be stagnant: with it and by
its help humanity progresses. We do not disparage,
we highly value the uses of doubt.” This passage, by
the way, is a singular illustration of the manner in
which a man may be unconsciously the subject of
influences to the tendencies of which he is opposed.
The Bishop cannot altogether shake off the philosophy
of his epoch: the breath of Free Inquiry plays
through his Theology. You would search in vain
for such a passage in the writings of an orthodox
Divine of the eighteenth century.
It is true that he qualifies this by the observation
that “ doubt is useful upon one condition, and one
only—that it start from a first belief.” This is defined
as “the supreme instinctive belief that beneath all
appearances there is a reality—that something under
lies and causes all being. It is the search after this
�Pleadings for Christ.
33
(if I may so speak of it) Essence of Existence, the
search after this I am that still leads on the doubter.”
We are not sure that we understand this, and should
like to apply it to an example. Among the doubts,
i.e., instances of the exercise of the sceptical spirit,
which have most largely benefited Humanity, are the
doubts which arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries as to the reality of witchcraft. Fighting
against the general faith of mankind and the authority
of the Bible, wielded by the clergy, this doubt has
passed into a conviction. It seems to us now-a-days
well-nigh incredible that hecatombs of innocent
creatures should have been offered up to a mischievous
delusion and a passage in Exodus: toothless old
crones, even such as have a hump on their backs, live
in peace in their cottages, or at the Union workhouse :
the superstition has been banished to such localities
as the wilds of Scotland and Cornwall, where its evil
effects are kept in check by the strong arm of the law.
Surely this doubt was a useful one. What then was
“ the first belief ” from which it started ? What is
meant by “the search after the Essence of Existence,
the great I am ” which must have 11 led on the
doubters” in this case, if they were to render any
service? We should imagine that great service might
have been rendered by men who had no belief in the
world but one, and that of a negative character,
namely, that there was no such thing as witchcraft.
We should suppose that Atheists and Sceptics such as
the Bishop is arguing with, might render great service
by their doubts, on various points, even though their
doubts were attached to no “primary belief that there
is a cause in all things ” even though they denied a
God, and Futurity, and the existence of a soul, and
the existence of matter, and the trustworthiness of
the senses, and the reality of everything but pheno
menal impressions. Indeed we know that men such
as this have constantly benefited humanity by their
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Pleadings for Christ.
scepticism on other questions, and originated 'and
stimulated doubts of the most beneficial' character.
Not one whit more clear is the Bishop, in his ex
position, when he comes to deal with the important
subject of morality. He is quite right in saying that
the rules of morality cannot be proved, and he should
have contented himself with this, wrhich is a good re
joinder to those wdio demand that the truths of
Christianity should be proved. He should, we think,
have followed the advice of Lord Mansfield to the
gentleman possessed of little law who was going out
to the colonies as a judge, and have pronounced an
opinion, without giving his reasons. As it is, he
follows his adversary to a point, where his own retreat
seems to be cut off. “ What is morality ? ” he asks,
“ Morality is that code or rule of action which you.
follow in questions of right or wrong. It is something
different from the moral sense or the power of feeling
right or wrong.” It is the power of knowing what is
right or wrong. All this is very slovenly as a defini
tion, and we do not understand the last words,
especially taken in connection with what follows. It
is of course a part of the Bishop’s case that the rules
of morality cannot be demonstrated, and by way of
clinching this argument, he reminds us that these
rules are constantly varying. They vary from one
generation to another. “Whose morality is it that
you will have ? That of your own day, or that of the
past generation? These differ very much on many
points. As you know, our ancestors approved of
duelling and the slave trade. We disapprove of both.
Which are in the right ? ” We should like to ask the
Bishop a similar question. What guarantee has he
for his morality, whatever it may be? There is of
course a certain moral code laid down in the New
Testament which will serve as his Law generally, but
on points of constant occurrence which cannot be re
ferred to this code, or on which its interpretation may
�Pleadings for Christ.
35
be doubtful, how does he decide, and how does he
know that he is right in his decision 1 Of course the
Bishop would repudiate any guide of such a grovelling
character and mushroom origin as Utilitarianism.
Faith is his guide ! “ An act of Faith ” relieves him
of all his difficulties. “ He wills and chooses to be
lieve that conscience in him is something supreme and
divine ” (and yet two pages before this it is admitted
that man “knows that his conscience has been mis
taken more than once—that at one time he thought
that right, which he now thinks wrong.” How can a
man have that within him which is Supreme and
Divine, and which at the same time is continually
urging him to do what he ought not to do ? And how
can this be a guide of any kind ?) In the next sermon
the Bishop reiterates his point. “We must submit
the understanding to the soul; must elevate the con
science above the merely logical and questioning
faculty ; must say, by the help of that instinct of faith
which is given us for the very purpose of rising above
the instinct of doubt—1 In spite of all that can be
pleaded to the contrary, I feel, I know that this is right
and true.’ ”
Surely all this only requires to be stated, and needs
no refutation. And yet it was preached to a number
of persons and appears in print “ revised and corrected
by the preacher.” Let us take one case as an illustra
tion. Not so very long ago, Christian Inquisitors
“ handed over to the secular arm ” or, in other words,
caused to be burnt, persons who differed from their
theological views, and they believed that they were
doing not only a moral, but a religious act. Supposing
an inquisitor to have conceived some doubts as to the
propriety of the practice, he should according to this
view have stilled them at once (we have no doubt
that some did so still them) by reasoning like that of
Bishop Magee’s, “ I will submit my understanding to
my soul. I will elevate my conscience above the
o
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Pleadings for Christ.
reasoning faculty. I will appeal to the instinct of
faith -which was given to me to stifle doubt. In spite
of all that can be pleaded to the contrary, I feel, I know
that it is right to burn the man. To the stake with
the heretic ! ” We will admit that the inquisitor may
have thought that it was right to act as he did: and
we do not suppose that any moral culpability would in
that case attach to him on account of his action. But we
altogether deny that he knew that he was right, because
he thought that he was right. This appeal to the
instinct of Faith, this silencing of doubts, these wild
cries of “This must be so ! ” “This shall be so !” “I
feel I am right!” “I know I am right!” furnish, it
is needless to say, no foundation for a science of
morals. They are shifting quicksands, in which every
attempt at a building would immediately sink out of
sight, and be engulfed for ever. They form the kind
of argument which we should expect to see put with
perfect sincerity, before a missionary, by a Feejee Chief
about to offer up a human sacrifice to his Deity. “A
fig for your objections ! I feel I’m right! I know
I’m right! ” &c. And if the Bishop happened to be
that missionary, we don’t see how he could meet the
argument. It is his own.
It is not very easy to follow the Bishop’s meaning
in his Third Sermon. His chain of reasoning may be
set forth in the following terms, without omitting any
material link.
Our whole moral and religious life is based upon
faith; faith being a trust in a person—in a nature—
i.e. in our spiritual as opposed to our animal nature.
Whenever these two latter are brought into conflict,
man is subject to a trial, a discipline, &c. But we
have to deal not only with our own higher and better
selves (our spiritual nature); we also come in contact
with other natures higher than our own. Whenever
we come in contact with these higher natures, the same
trial is repeated, which occurs when our animal is
�Pleadings for Christ.
yj
brought in contact with our spiritual nature. There
is a trial whether the lower nature will recognize the
good that is in the higher one, and admit it to be
higher than itself. For this higher nature, in that it
is higher, must necessarily be a mystery to a lower
one.
Now, there is in the heart of every one of us an
instinctive belief that there must be somewhere a
perfect nature. Suppose such a perfect being to exist,
and suppose him to make himself known to man by
means of a revelation, we should expect from analogy
that the same thing would occur, that the manifesta
tion of him would be a trial to our faith, that it would
be mysterious and self-contradictory. It might be said
beforehand, that a God who was as easy to understand
as a proposition of Euclid, could not be the true God.
In this last sentence, we think that the Bishop is again
drawing a most unwarranted inference. A few pages
ago, we were told that God could not make a revelation
of himself which should be incapable of being denied,
without thereby causing man to deteriorate. Now, we
learn that he could not make his nature and attributes
intelligible to mankind. This is a purely gratuitous
assumption, and it is surely unwise in a preacher, or
indeed in any one, thus to limit the powers of the
Almighty, and to attempt to show, or at least to infer,
that no other kind of revelation was possible to God
except that on behalf of which he is arguing. Moreover,
it is wholly unnecessary for his purpose. The Bishop,
like an inexperienced soldier, almost always charges
the enemy to a point where he is left without supports.
It is indeed quite true (and we suppose this is what is
meant by the preceding part of the paragraph) that we
should not expect or think it likely, a priori, that a
revelation from God would make the whole of his
nature as plain to man as a proposition in Euclid. We
should expect it to be a revelation of his existence, and
of such a portion of his attributes as he might choose
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Pleadings for Christ.
to convey to us, coupled it may be with some commands,
or intimations which would amount to commands, as to
our duties towards him, and towards one another.
Granting this, how will it help the Bishop? We
never heard the contrary maintained. We never heard
it urged as an objection to the Mosaic and Christian
revelations that they do not make perfectly plain to
man all the mysteries of the Divine Existence. And
it is not too much to say that not a single Eree-thinker
or Sceptic would take up this ground.
The Bishop’s argument now takes a jump of a
startling character. Not only should we expect that
a revelation would be accompanied by all sorts of
difficulties—for without such difficulties where would
be the trial of faith ?—“ but we should expect also that
it would be a revelation of God by means of a person,
because we know that the highest tendencies of our
being, at its best moments, are ever to find a righteous
personality; we should expect, therefore, that if there
came to us a revelation of God, it would not come
merely in the form of certain propositions or doctrines,
but in the manifesting of a nature.” We are be
wildered on meeting with this remark from the pen of
a prelate who must necessarily believe in the inspiration
of the Old Testament. For if its records be true, it is
certain that God Almighty did make a revelation “ in
the form of certain propositions or doctrines,” and
without any exhibition of “ a person” or “a righteous
personality,” or “ a nature” such as the Bishop postu
lates as antecedently to be expected in the case of all
revelations. If it be objected that this revelation
contains prophecies of the future manifestation of a
perfect human nature, we reply that a prophecy of
what was one day to take place under a more perfect
dispensation does not in any way affect the fact that a
revelation was made by God to the Jews of a character
precisely the opposite of what the Bishop tells us “ we
should expect.” The Mosaic revelation, we repeat, was
�Pleadings for Christ.
39
not made “by means of a Person,” (though it may
have contained intimations of the future appearance
of such a person), but by means of “ propositions and
doctrines” communicated by God to Moses and the
Jews throughout their history. This we think alto
gether fatal to the argument that, granted the possi
bility of a revelation, we should expect it a priori to
be made by means of a Person—for here is a wellauthenticated instance of a revelation which was not
made in this manner. It is indeed astonishing how
persons of average intelligence can imagine that they
are advancing arguments of great weight when, start
ing from an established theological belief or dogma,
they proceed to show by an a priori method how every
one who considered the matter must have anticipated
exactly what they themselves believe to have happened.
Nor is there any creed, past or present, or conceivable
by the human mind, which is not susceptible of this
treatment. By the exercise of a little trouble, a very
plausible case might be made out for the Buddhist,
Confucian, or Mahometan systems. It might, for in
stance, be shown to be antecedently probable that the
descendants of Ishmael would in time receive a reve
lation in the same manner as the descendants of Isaac
had received one, through the direct communications
of God to a mighty prophet of their own race. Or, if
Jesus had appeared in the shape of a woman (a con
ceivable hypothesis, and one in no way blasphemous)
it is easy to see how divines might have shown that
the selection of this sex for the exhibition of the
highest and most loveable qualities of humanity was
exactly what might have been expected, and that the
fact of Jesus appearing as a woman, and not as a man,
was among the most startling proofs of the truth of
the whole story. On looking closely into this kind
of reasoning, we see that for the purpose of convincing
an adversary it is absolutely valueless. Thus the
Bishop tells us that among the things to be expected
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Pleadings for Christ.
was this : that the earth should be visited by a perfect
man. Or, to give his exact words, “We do believe
that in answer to the craving desire of the soul of
man to look upon human perfection, this earth has
once been visited by a perfect man.” We do not be
lieve that there exists a craving desire in the soul of
man to look upon an absolutely perfect being of his
own species—much less a desire so intense that it was
to be expected that a miracle would be wrought to
gratify it. We admit, indeed, that there is such a
thing as an abstract idea of moral perfection—for of
course it is moral perfection that is here spoken of—that
there is a vague ideal, which in different minds assumes
different types, of perfect wisdom, goodness, &c., an
ideal towards which the best minds are always striving;
but this is a different proposition altogether. If there
be such a natural craving to look upon an embodied
specimen of human perfection, and one so strong, as
to demand the exhibition of a miracle, there are other
natural cravings much stronger, and which by a parity
of reasoning, would require miracles to satisfy them.
For instance, the desire to have some positive expe
rience of the existence of the soul after death, some
knowledge of the conditions of such existence, if real,
are far more intense in man than the one just men
tioned. It would follow that in answer to this he
ought to be visited by spirits, or in some other way
have his craving satisfied, and in fact we believe that
this is the doctrine professed by Mrs Guppy and Mr
Home, but not assented to, as far as we have been able
to learn, by any person of sound judgment.
But the Bishop does not stop here. Not only was
it to be expected that if God revealed himself to man
kind, he would reveal himself by means of a Person,
and that an absolutely perfect one (or, in other words,
that God would assume a human form, since to no
being save God can we attribute absolute perfection)
but, he adds, it was similarly to be expected that on
�Pleadings for Christ.
41
the appearance of God in the flesh, he would he
treated just as he was treated. “ You would expect
to hear just what the story tells you—how he was
despised and rejected of men ; how those who saw
Pirn besought him that he would depart out of their
coasts.” We should have been led to anticipate all
this “ before we opened a page of the gospels, before
we read a line of that wondrous life ! ” That is to
say, we should have been led to anticipate beforehand
not only that God would put on the form of man, but
also that of a very humble man, so as to admit of his
being “ despised and rejected j ” and that many would
eye him unfavourably; for we scarcely suppose the
Bishop to mean, in his last sentence, that we should
have been irresistibly led to infer such a detail as that
the Divine Being would transport devils into swine,
and so cause his absence to be desired, though this
would not be much more absurd than the rest of the
right reverend prelate’s a priori a expectations.’
Now, we are afraid that this style of argument is not
likely to carry great weight with the free-thinkers
and sceptics, to convince whom has been the Bishop’s
object in penning, and preaching, and printing these
discourses. Nor do we think it calculated to have much
weight with anybody. Nothing, we repeat, is more easy,
and at the same time more thoroughly useless, than to
construct an enormous chain of antecedent probabilities,
leading necessarily to any religious dogmas whatever.
It is like a man designing a labyrinth of his own, and
taking care that the issues shall all be in one direction.
Thus the Roman Catholic, taking up the Bishop’s
expectations, would add another of his own. He
would expect beforehand that a divine Being would
not leave the truths which he had come to proclaim
to be scrambled for by a multitude of differing sects,
but would found a divine society or church as the
infallible authority to be looked up to after his de
parture. And granting the premises, this seems to us
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Pleadings for Christ.
as reasonable an anticipation as any of those which
the Bishop sets before us. A Jew’s “anticipations”
will be exactly opposite to those of the Bishop. He
will tell you that it was not to be expected that God must
necessarily reveal himself through a divine person, and
that when the Messiah appeared, he would not appear
in a lowly station to be derided and persecuted, but
to rule over his nation as a king. A Mahometan or a
Buddhist would have no difficulty in showing how the
events recorded in their several religious histories, and
the dogmas of their several creeds, were just such as
“might have been expected” from the nature of
things. And a Parsee would expect, “ before you
opened a page ” of the Zendavesta, “ before you read a
line of that wondrous book,” that it would contain just
exactly whatever it does contain. When the preacher,
by the aid of fancy, transports himself back to a period
antecedent to the Christian revelation, he carries his
own religious belief with him, and ingeniously projects
into the imaginary future what he has brought from
the real past. Deprive him of this knowledge, and
we shall never hear of his expecting any of the events
which he says were to be expected. As gratitude has
been defined to be a lively sense of favours to come,
so expectation, in this sense, may be described as a
lively anticipation of occurrences which we believe to
have actually taken place.
*
The preacher, to do him justice, seems, at the close
of his discourse, to be visited by a faint glimmering of
consciousness of the utter uselessness of this kind of
talk. “We have reached the point,” he says, “at
which, leaving speculations as to what might be or
ought to be, we arrive at the historical facts which
we assert have been. Others will take up the argu
* A well-known illustration of the truth we have been
affirming—if what is so obvious needs illustration—is to be
found in the argument of Irenaeus, showing how we should
have expected from analogy that there would be four Gospels.
�Pleadings for Christ.
43
ment here, and go on to show you, from history, or
prophecy, or miracle, such evidences as the facts , of
the Christian story may furnish. My task ends with
the attempt to remove those stumhling-blocks which
might prevent your coming to hear them. It will be
their task to lead you onwards from the door of the
temple to its very innermost shrine ; it has been mine
to lead you up these three steps, as it were, just to the
very threshold.” AWe cannot congratulate the Bishop
upon his metaphors any more than upon his arguments.
The stumbling-blocks which are interposed between the
free-thinker and the door of Norwich Cathedral are partly
of his Lordship’s own laying. There cannot be three
greater ones than these three discourses which lie before
us. So far from being able to lead any one up a .flight
of steps, the Bishop has been quite unable to maintain
his own equilibrium. In plain English, these “ Plead
ings for Christ ” are calculated to do a good deal of
harm to the cause of orthodoxy in Norwich, where we
suppose they will be principally read. Sceptics or
free-thinkers there will be led to suppose that such a
prelude as this contains small promise for the series
of sermons to which it serves as an introduction. They
will be apt to surmise that when one preacher has so
ingeniously avoided, where he has not entirely mis
apprehended, their real difficulties, others will be likely
to follow in the same path.
It would have been
better, we think, if these discourses had begun at the
point where the Bishop of Peterborough leaves off.
It would have been better if those who, he says, are
going to “ prove the miracles of Christianity ” * (which
he elsewhere says can’t be proved), had at once ad
dressed themselves to that task, which, if accomplished,
would have rendered any preface unnecessary and all
reply useless.
We cannot conclude without giving one or two
detached specimens of the Bishop’s reasoning powers.
* Discourse i., page 13.
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Pleadings for Christ.
They might be taken almost at random from almost
every page. The difficulty is in making a selection.
Thus, at the very outset, we have this : “ Those who
tell you that Christianity was received in an ignorant
age, because men thought they saw miracles to prove
it, say what is contradicted by the story of Christianity
itself, and forget that many of those who saw the
miracles nevertheless rejected the worker of the
miracles.” We must not be understood to profess
the view as to the propagation of Christianity which
the Bishop assails ; but for the life of us we cannot
see how the statement that Christianity was received
in an ignorant age, because men (i. e. the converts)
saw certain phenomena which they deemed miracles,
to prove it, is contradicted by the fact that many
other people who saw the same phenomena rejected
Christianity. Substitute “Spirit-rapping,’’for “Christ
ianity;” “ Manifestations,” for “ Miracles,” and soften
down “ an ignorant age ” into “an age not free from
superstition” and you will see what nonsense this
makes. “ Those who tell you that Spirit-rapping
was received (z.e. believed in) in an age not free
from superstition because men thought that they
saw manifestations to prove it, say what is contra
dicted by the story of Spirit-rapping itself and forget
that many of those who saw the manifestations never
theless rejected the workers of the manifestations.”
In this case both statements are true and neither
contradicts the other. Nor is there any contradiction
in the case put by the Bishop. “Miracles,” too,
is used in two entirely different senses in this
sentence of his. The word, in the first place means
“ acts which whether real miracles or not they believed
to be such.” In the second place, it may mean either
this or “acts which were really miracles, but which
they did not deem to be such” and this entirely
vitiates the reasoning. Bor, in no case would the
statement that Christianity was received in an ignorant
�Pleadings for Christ.
45
age, because people thought they saw what they
deemed to be miracles to prove it, be coutradicted
by the fact that other people who saw the miracles
(not necessarily believing them to be miracles) rejected
it. There are other instances of confusion in this
one sentence, which in an ordinary sermon we
should have thought nothing of; but which in “ an
argumentative series of discourses in defence and
confirmation of the Faith ” are quite inexcusable.
But the whole book is, in this sense, inexcusable.
For instance, what is meant by this assertion ?
“ All mysteries, everything that we cannot understand,
must come to our understanding in the shape of two
contradictory propositions; we view the thing on
two opposite sides, because we cannot see it all round
and at once.” We are aware that some mysteries
are of this character, but we are surprised to hear that
this is true of everything that we cannot understand.
We should not have hesitated to say, for instance, that
the sensations of animals are a great mystery to man.
What, then, are the two contradictory propositions
which this mystery conveys to the understanding ?
Again, the authorship of Junius, is to many people still
a mystery. As to this, not two but some twenty
different propositions, each one contradicting all the
rest, will probably suggest themselves to the mind.
We had marked some other samples for comment,
but our Paper is already swollen to twice its projected
bulk. We cannot however take leave of the Preacher,
without noticing his parting fling at Science and
Civilization. “Did Science ever comfort a sorrow?”
he asks, “ Did Science ever heal a broken heart ?
Faith in civilization I Did civilization ever yet
remedy the evils that are burrowing and festering
into the heart of Society ? Civilization 1 . . .
It means the rich growing very rich. It means the
poor growing very poor.......................... Civilization and
Science !
Have they arrested war 1
Have they
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Pleadings for Christ.
softened the heart of humanity ? Civilization and art
and science ! Why, they are busy making mitra.illeuses,” and so on.
We are certainly not among those, if such there he,
who hold that Science is likely to remove all evil and
misery from among us, to turn men into angels and
the earth into a paradise. But we do think, at the
same time, that the above expressions of Dr Magee
on the subject of Science and Civilization are most
pernicious nonsense. And we think further that it is
very sad that such nonsense should fall from the lips
of a man who receives five thousand a-year of the
public money, and is accommodated with a seat in the
Legislature in the capacity of a National Instructor.
“ Did science ever comfort a sorrow ? ” Yes, in thou
sands and hundreds of thousands of cases, and startling
proofs of this are before the Bishop’s eyes every day of
his life. A man is smitten with a disease which a
couple of centuries ago was deemed incurable. Science
relieves him by an operation, and restores a smile to
the faces of his sorrowing wife and children. The
agonizing dread with which, in times past, he would
have contemplated the prospect of being hacked and
cut into, is soothed by the assurance that he will
undergo the process without pain. The telegraph
summons the operator, and the railway train brings
him in time to save the life of the patient. Here,
under God, Science has comforted the sorrows of a
whole family. A widowed mother is expecting her
only son home from a distant land, and trembles with
apprehension as she hears the wind roar down the
chimney. Her son is at sea in the gale, but Science,
in the shape of a chart, points out the dangerous coast
to the captain, and Science, in the shape of steam,
enables him to avoid it. When the ship springs a
leak, Science is there with its pumps, which keep her
from sinking. Science throws up a rocket, and Science
puts out a life-boat. Civilization brings a number of
�Pleadings for Christ.
47
people down to the beach with offers of lodging
and dry clothes for the shipwrecked mariners,
where, less than a hundred years ago, false lights
would have been exhibited by wreckers, and the
vaults of the parish church would have been stocked
with smuggled casks of brandy, with the full know
ledge and acquiescence of the parson. Will any one say
that Science has not comforted the sorrow of the widow
by restoring her son to her ? Does the Bishop suppose
that reading the Bible in the solitude of one’s closet has
ever comforted a sorrow ! We are sure that he does.
Has he reflected that if civilization had not given birth
to printing, there would have been no printed Bibles to
read ? “ Science never healed a broken heart! ” Has
he considered how many hearts have been prevented
from breaking at the loss of their dear ones, by the
single discovery of Jenner ?—a discovery which, by the
way, like that of chloroform, was bitterly opposed, on
religious grounds, by the clergy.
*
Really, these are
the kind of observations which we should feel our
selves called upon to make in a Dame’s school.
Civilization, he says, has never yet remedied the evils
that burrow and fester into the heart of Society. It
has not remedied all of them certainly, and never will,
but it has put a stop to, and diminished a good many.
That men are no longer bought and sold as slaves, or
burnt and drowned for witches, or tortured to make
them confess crimes of which they are innocent, or
* “ The introduction of vaccination was fiercely opposed,
because it was alleged to be repugnant to religion, morality,
law, and humanity. The pulpits resounded with attacks on
the impious and presumptuous man who dared to interfere
with a visitation from God. ” Dr Lyon Playfair, Speech in the
House of Commons, May 24, 1870. The use of Chloroform
in cases of child-birth was similarly opposed, as being a viola
tion of Genesis iii. 16, but happily with little effect. Civiliza
tion, or in other words, the progress of Science and Enlighten
ment, had by this time provided men with an armour of proof
against these theological darts, which, being found incapable
of doing serious harm, ceased to be thrown.
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Pleadings for Christ.
hung for trifling acts of dishonesty prompted by
hunger, or loaded with chains and beaten with whips
when insane, or tortured for their religious opinions,
that drunkenness has died out of the upper and is
surely doomed in the lower classes, that duelling, and
bull-baiting and cock-fighting and prize-fighting are
things of the past, that bribery is deemed disreput
able, that a respectable householder has a voice in the
government of the country, and can no longer be
politically disposed of, along with a number of other
householders, like a pack of sheep, by a Duke, or
a Dean and Chapter; these are among a thousand
blessings which will suggest themselves to every
one as being due to the advance of Civilization in
this country. In most cases they have been gained
without any active aid on the part of the clergy—in
many, despite their opposition. And this is intelli
gible, for the Bishop, in his tirade against Civilization, is
only advocating—doubtless with good intentions and per
haps unconsciously—the interests of his own class. The
motto of the bulk of the clergy (we admit that there
are bright exceptions) is, and always has been, Quieta
non movere, for advancing civilization means necessarily
the decline of the theological spirit. But the Bishop
has not done belabouring civilization. “ It means the
rich growing very rich; it means the poor growing
very poor.” What it really means for the poor man
is cheaper necessaries and cheaper luxuries, many of
the things which he has learnt to look upon as neces
saries having formerly been luxuries even for the
wealthy. It means cheaper provisions, cheaper bread,
cheaper tea, cheaper sugar, cheaper clothing, cheaper
furniture, cheaper newspapers. The conveniences now
to be found in the cottage of a Lancashire mechanic were
not to be found in the castle of the greatest mediaeval
baron. Giles, the Devonshire ploughman, after his
day’s work, repairs, if he is a steady, sober man, with
out a wife, or with a good one, to his very humble
�Pleadings for Christ.
49
but very tidy abode, puts his damp linen to dry before
the fire-place if he is wet, has his bit of supper, possibly
with his bit of fresh meat at harvest or other times,
drinks his cup of tea, puts on his spectacles, reads his
Bible, or a scrap of old newspaper, with his feet resting
on a square of cheap carpet, goes up to his bed-room,
opens or shuts his window according to the state of
the temperature, extinguishes the benzoline lamp on
his little deal table, and creeps into his rough but not
very dirty sheets, covered with a blanket. Giles’s
ancestor, four hundred years ago, after a longer day’s
work, had nothing but a mud hovel to resort to, with
out furniture, linen, fire-place, tea, spectacles, carpet,
bed, sheets, blankets, window, table, lamp, newspaper,
or Bible. He never tasted meat. The few waking
hours which he spent out of his work were as complete
a blank to him, in respect to intellectual resources, as
the waking hours of a pig or a goose. He was not
permitted to change the character of his labour, or the
place of his residence. "When past work he simply
rotted off the face of the earth. That civilization has
made “ the poor poorer ” is utterly untrue; it has
made them infinitely richer than they were before.
11 Have civilization and science softened the heart of
humanity ? ” asks the Bishop. We do not remember
to have met with a sillier question than this, even in
a sermon. The poor benighted heathen poet answered
it eighteen hundred years ago.
‘ ‘ Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros,”
isamong the first passages inhisDeZec/wswhichtheschoolboy is put to construe. Look merely to the experience of
the last forty years. The amendment of our Draconian
code, the abandonment of the brutal pastimes of our
forefathers, the laws for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, the improved treatment of prisoners, the
whole course of legislation with regard to the poorer
classes, the Factory Acts, the prohibition of female and
�Pleadings for Christ.
infant underground labour, the law relating to chimney
sweeps, the laws passed for the protection of sailors,
the establishment of post-office savings’ banks, loan
societies, benefit building societies, the sanitary acts,
the recent provision for enabling a pauper to have his
children educated at the public expense, not to speak
of that much older law acknowledging the right of the
worn-out labourer to claim the means of subsistence
from the commonwealth—all these are so many glaring
proofs that civilization does soften the heart of humanity.
But, says the Bishop, “ Have civilization and science
arrested war ? ” No. But we may ask in return—“ Has
religion ? ” The priests of the various Christian sects,
while loudly proclaiming their horror of all war in
general, have always accommodated themselves most
cheerfully to each individual war in particular. The
Archbishop of Paris is invoking the blessing of the
Almighty on the chassepot, while the Archbishop of
Cologne is invoking his blessing on the needle-gun.
Perhaps Dr Magee may recollect, himself, putting up
prayers for the successes of the national arms (in other
words, that a large number of Russians might be
slaughtered) during the Crimean war; and the priests
at Moscow and Odessa were, we may be sure, offering
up similar prayers for the destruction of the Allies.
The victory of Sedan is a “divine mercy” to the
Christians in one part of the world, as the victory of
Jena was to those in another. Where the Divinity is
thus made to figure on both sides, revelation will have
no more effect in changing the general estimate of war
than the introduction of the same quantity into both
sides of an equation will alter its value.
We are
silent as to the numerous wars which have been directly
provoked by religion. Now civilization has certainly
done what theology has utterly failed to do. It has
greatly ameliorated and softened the usages of war, from
•the days when prisoners ceased to be slaughtered in
cold blood and saw death commuted to slavery, to the
�Pleadings for Christ.
51
davs of the Geneva Convention. And if anything is
likelv to pnt a complete stop to war, it is precisely
that very scienee which the bishop describes as manu
facturing implements of such a deadly character, Ihe
man who invents a machine which, at the touch of a
spring, will sweep away a whole army, will be one of
the greatest benefactors to humanity that the world
ever saw. Supposing the discovery to become generally
known, as must inevitably be the ease, he will have
rendered war impossible. We have heard of duels
aeross a pocket handkerchief, but not when both com
batants have loaded pistols in their hands. Now it is
in this direction that the most deadly discoveries in
science are unquestionably fending—appalling in the
immediate destruction of life which they cause, bene
ficent in the ultimate saving of it.
We believe, then, in Science, and also in civiliza
tion or in other words, in the moral and material
improvement of the race effected by mans own
intelligence and exertions. We believe that one is
the mainspring of the other. What is it that the
Bishop would have us turn to, as a panaeea for our
pis
“Faith’” Faith in what? Whaf is meant
by Faith in this place ? The Bishop is not very clear
on the point: nor do we make this a subjeet of
reproach, for we have noticed the word used in the .
same hazy sense elsewhere. Does he mean Faith
in the dogmas of Christianity ?_ We should suppose
so from the general seope of his argument, and from
a passage in whieh he says: “Webelieve m an eternal
peace, but it is to be at the coming of the Prince of
Peace.” “It is in this faith and this alone, he adds,
“ that we gain courage to look upon the sins and
sorrows whieh afflict humanity.” If this be so, then
this is a mere assertion of his own views, which he
is quite entitled to make, provided he does not put
it before us in the light of an argument. With
Free-thinkers it can carry no weight _ whatever. If
he means something different from this : a belief m
n
�52
Pleadings for Christ.
a God, in our responsibility to God, in what are
called the truths of Natural Eeligion, we do not see
how this will help him. For nine out of every ten
Free-thinkers will agree with him, not only in holding
'these as truths, but as truths of the highest interest
and importance to mankind. Believing in the con
clusions of Science, as being what they undoubtedly
are, so many direct revelations of His modus operandi
made by God to man, they are prepared to yield
an assent to other propositions which are not capable
of a scientific demonstration. Of this character is the
existence of a God. They hold that this and other
similar propositions rest upon a very solid basis
of reason, in that they solve all the phenomena to
which they can be applied, and are the only attainable
solutions which can be made to solve them. But
they do not believe them to have been the subject of
any special and miraculous revelation. A man may
hold this sort of faith, thousands do, without believing
in a revealed religion. Now it is on behalf of a
revealed religion that the Bishop has been arguing
throughout.
It is not perhaps a bad suggestion on the part of
the Dean of Norwich, who edits this pamphlet, that
the Cathedrals “ with their naves capable of holding
vast congregations ” should be utilized for the de
livery of sermons in aid of the orthodox faith. But
we must warn him of one thing. “ The vast congre
gations ” which are likely to pour into the cathedrals
on these occasions will be mainly composed of women,
and orthodox males, who do not require these sermons,
and of the curious, the people who are always attracted
by a “ Star,” and who will be mightily pleased by
an eloquent and frothy discourse, till they lose the
recollection of it in the next monster concert or thril
ling melodrama.
The unbelievers, the class for
whom these productions are specially intended, will,
for the most part, see them in their printed form.
�Pleadings for Christ.
53
We think, then, that it would be judicious to enlist, at
any rate for some portion of this series, the services of
preachers of whom happily there are many in the Church
of England : men who without any public reputation
as Bishops and debaters, are able to think consecutively,
and have made themselves acquainted with the real
difficulties which lie in the way of belief. We notice
this, because we observe that the only other name on
the rota is that of another Bishop and brilliant speaker,
the Bishop of Derry. What he may do for the cause
we have no means of prejudging. He may do ex
cellently well. He can scarcely do worse than his
predecessor.
But there are, we repeat, numerous
clergymen of less note admirably adapted for this
task : who might not half fill the nave and north aisle
of Norwich Cathedral, but who would produce some
thing that Free-thinkers and Sceptics would have to
attend to : who would carry out the object promised
to us in the programme to this series, and furnish us
with what the pamphlet before us certainly does not
contain—“Argumentative discourses in defence and
confirmation of the Faith.”
TUBNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
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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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Notes on Bishop Magee's pleadings for Christ
Description
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 53 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "By A Barrister". Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1871]
Identifier
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G5541
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[Unknown]
Subject
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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 (Notes on Bishop Magee's pleadings for Christ), 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
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
William Connor Magee