MR PEEBLES AND THE CLERGY.

Evening Star, Issue 3129, 28 February 1873, Page 2

MR PEEBLES AND THE CLERGY.

To the Editor. Sin,—The fact that Mr Peebles has given a public challenge to the ministers of Otago is at present causing some amount of talk ; and since his challenge is being treated with silence by them, it seems to be commonly regarded as being to their discredit, especially as they are the men who above all others would be expected to defend tbe

cause by which they live. And it must, be admitted that, when first looked at, the f ict does seem strange, that they who are. the defenders of a Divine institution should not be ready to combat the assertions of a man who denies the validity of their commission, and the truthfulness of their teaching—nry, more, who endeavors to subvert the very foundation of their cause, and hold it up to public ridicule. But anything more than a cursory glance at the matter will reveal good reasons for their following the course they have adopted. Take first Mr Peebles’s own advice—“ We should imitate the example of the life of Jesus ” —an advice which I hope our clergy are ever ready to act upon. Then in that example we find no encouragement to public discussions. He preached the Gospel of His Kingdom to those who would hear Him, but never sought public opportunity to debate with those who opposed His teaching. Again, one who understands the nature of the cause of Christianity can be under no apprehension of Spiritism overthrowing its influence. It has a foundation, a uniformity, and consistency which every advocate of Spiritism professes they do not present, and which wdl commend itself to every one who impartially examines the subject, which examination can be performed by the simplest mind. Further, the arguments which have been made use of by Mr Peebles, by which to confute the common teachings of Christians and establish his own, are by no means modem. This denial of the Divinity of Christ is no new thing in the history of the Church ; for the nature of Christ has occupied a very large portion of the writings of both Christians and sceptics, even from the days of the very learned and polite sect—the Gnostics—who went to the extreme of affirming that Jesus merely assumed the visible appearance of a mortal, and that the ministers of Pilate wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who seemed to expire on the cross, and after three days to rise from the dead : these appeared in the first century. After them came the sect who denied that Christ was divine, any more than other men, except that he was the first created of all beings ; but that he was nevertheless a creature ; and from that time to the present there have always been some who have advanced arguments for the establishment of that notion, and some have long ago gone s > far as to say he did not exist before his birth at Judea. Most of the other arguments of Mr Peebles are equally familiar, aud perhaps antiquated j aud all, so far as they have to bear on religion, have been refuted so often that it is tedious to wade through the vast amount of literature on the various subjects. He has as yet brought forth no argument against Christianity or Church doctrines, which have not been most ably answered already in all manner of ways ; and therefore it is needless for the ministers of this place, for tbe mere gratification of infidels and sceptics, to come forward aud warm up the old subject. Let Mr Peebles bring something new for ward, and attempt in a logical manner to substantiate it, and then he may find combatants.—l am, &c., Philologia.