MIRACLES AND ROBERT ELSMERE, OR THE NEW THEOLOGY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1862, 7 March 1889, Page 2

MIRACLES AND ROBERT ELSMERE, OR THE NEW THEOLOGY.

On last Sabbath, at tho Presbyterian Church, Temuka, the Bev. John Dickson preached on the above subject to a largo and appreciative audience, and as it is one which is attracting a good deal of attention we asked and obtained some extracts thsrofrom. After showing the place occupied by “ Christian apologetics ” ia the pulpit, and how Paul dealt with the philosophers of Greece and Rome, and our Saviour with tho objeotioas of the Scribea and Pharisees, he said • NEW BOOK. A book dealing with tho subject of the miraculous has been recently published, which has attracted much attention. It is in the form of fiction, but in matter, thought, and design far above tho ordinary literature of that kind. It is virtually a theological controversy, designed to disparage Christianity as generally believed in at the present day—a religious tragedy conceived in the interests of Theism, which acknowledges no revelation, but that of nature and history, and goes far toward* the adoption of rank Deism. Its object is to get rid of the miraculous element in religion, and show tho so-called miracles of the Bible to bo myths, It is written by a Mrs Humphrey Ward, daughter of Matthew Arnold, and granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, of Rugby fame, and its author may naturally be supposed to be interested in propagating the erratic opinions of her father, as displayed in the many theological works he has given forth to the world. Indeed, not a few think this the primary object of the book. Be that as it may, it gives us a jaundiced view of Christianity} brings forward as many exploded objections to it as could be conveniently crushed into the subject, and lauds the action of all those who have thrown it overboard. The material is arranged to suit the plan of tho work. It is as if a painter drew upon his imagination for a picture; or a man who is his own opponent in a game of chess manipulated the moves so that a particular side must come off gloriously victorious ; or a lawyer who undertook to state the case for both plaintiff and defendant. Many reasons may be given to account for ifca having run through five editions in the short space of six months, and for the fact that now in a cheaper form it is reaching a still wider class of readers. It does not run in the ordinary groove. It displays considerable ability 5 It ennobles virtue and love, and the nobler instincts of our being; it has been criticised by the ex-Premier of England; it treat* of a subject that ha# been exercising the minds of not a few; above all, it takes a slap at orthodoxy, while professing to hold by a religion of a certain kind. Many are naturally curious to know what the new theology 'advocated here and elsewhere, which denies miracles and reitriot# God to tho course of ordinary nature, and in which no place ia found for the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection of Christ, the outpouring of the spirit, the new birth, or prayer as influencing passing events, can substitute for the old theology, which it recklessly attempts to undermine and deitroy. The hero of tho booki# a youth called

BOBBET EI3JTBBB, son of a woman of evangelical tendencies, and who determine* to enter the ministry of the Anglican Ohuroh. At Oxford, that educational institute which is said to have the knack of gathering to itself the exploded speculations of the German theological schools, he became acquainted with many departures from the Faith in which ho wai brought up, His tutor took advantage o 1 his position to instil doubts into his mind He finishes his collegiate studies, accepts of a living in the offer' of bis cousin Mowbray marries a lady of strong religions conviction* and decided Christian character, displays ax attachment to his wife which no changes o! time, oiroumttanoos, or opinion could weaker (and this manifests what we are disposed t» view as the chief redeeming feature in hii character), outers with enthusiasm into hi ministerial and pastoral work, and gaits some popularity amongst his people. Among his parishioners was a Mr Wendover, the squire and chief landed proprietor of the district, whose library, stocked with all kin* of literary, scientific and theological wirks, especially such of the latter as were of unsettling tendency, including treatises <f hii own, was a source of great attraction to Elsinore, especially that he was now on/aged in compiling material for a great historical work ho designed to publish. This lamed and atheistical squire and Elsmero bad many a walk and ohafc together, tho former taking every suitable opportunity of influenong tho impressible mind of his young ooopanion. The result of all is that Elsmere cases to believe in the doctrines of tho Ohuch that called him to office, and in which he fancied he himself once believed. At this sage, instead of opening bis mind to hii wife, he sonjirarjr to her exposition, in

cultivating the acquaintance of WendoVW, and when he find* hit faith shaken, apph«» secretly to a former professor more advanced than himself in order to find oat the best coarse under the circumstances to pursue. Thau oames the question, Shall I retain my living and remain in the ministry, and bold and advocate opinions directly oppOied to the tenets of the Church which lam expected and have underjaken to advocate 1 And here we must say, in the interest•> of the congregation, in the inters*' • of the Ohuroh, and in the interests of himself perhaps, he took n whe course, and one wo would recommend to all professors, ministers, elders, deacons, Sabbath school teachers, and other officebearers in the Presbyterian, or any other Church, who are are similarly circumstanced. y - There is nothing, we think, so mean, so ufjfr' manly, so dhhoneit, so das'ractive of- all religious conviction ai to hold office in a Ohuroh, whose doctrines formally and aubsoribed to, wo no longer beliva in of ", advocate, especially whan that office brings us our bread and our butter, Elsmere r jigns his charge, and for a time remains without ony regular occupation, again cultivating profane society sgainstjthe wishes of his wife, and is well nigh coming to pay dearly for it, takes work in connection with a (Jnitarian congregation, and founds a rehgions society called by him The New Brotherhood, in which baptism is replaced by a badge, and the Lord's Sapper by a common meal, and Christianity divested of every supernatural element is like a babble on the water which looks well at a distance, but when the least pressure is put upon it bursts and no trace of its existence behind, The philanthropy ;of this New Brotherhood is in this book applauded as if there never had been such thing on the face of the earth before as love and brotherly kindness. Wendover is naturally enough represented going out of the world dementad, we being left to infer either that his sceptical opinions had deranged his intellect, or that his intellect deranged, illustrated the saying of scripture, “ The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” Elsmere is made to pass out of this life very happy, although be is noVr sure what kind of reception he will get in another world, and is obliged to reason from his knowledge of God, n seen in nature, and history, and the human soul, that the Almighty will act justly in the world to come, and that he having played hh part well here will there have nothing to fear. Who wonld like to lay his head on a dying pillow and stake bis hope of Heaven and happiness on that belief? yet that is the Faith which this book applauds, and which many modern theologians advocate at the present day.

MIKA.CI/E3. What was the mental process by which HUmere arrived at his strange conclusions ? Whnt| was the obstacle that lay in the way of his belief in the miraculous ? It was partly a conviction as to the strength of the a priori argument of Hume, which Benan and Bauri&nd other members of the Eationalistio school have now given up as untenable, i.e:, that it is our experience that Nature iouniform and reliable, and hence that no amount of fallible human testimony can satisfy us that a miracle has taken place thus making the experience of one man, or a number of men, the test of the phenomena of Nature for all time, and laying the argument open to the retort that if we can rely on testimony to prove that in our experience miracles have not taken place there is no reason why we should refuse credence to testimony outside our experience in proving that miracles have taken place. Many things we believe in which have never come under our experience—nay, which we at one time thought could not take place, Fifty years ago who would have fancied the propelling of a boat by steam, or the sending of a message by electricity or the telephone possible? Let us not in religion betray th«V folly of the Siamese King who put a courfciarV to death beomse ho averted that in a cold northern country which ho had visited he had walked ou the surface of the water! There has been far too much made of the uniformity of Nature by scientific men. Geology reveals a secession of leaps, not only from kingdom to kingdom, but from formation to formation, and from one species of plant or animal to another. Over and above all this we have the miraculous coming of the world into existence, and no one can tell how, apart from miracle, it will go out of existence. You may then deny a special revelation from God $ nay, the very existence of a Creator, and yet not get rid of miracles. Professor Huxley, a short time ago, with great candour took the Bishop of Manchester to task because he in a public address admitted an apparent antagonism to exist between the economy of nature and the economy of prayer, and laid it down as a principle that all wo can fnfer from our experience is that events in the past have happened in a cert ;iu order and manner, that there is a strong presumption thatin the future they will happen in the same order and manner, and that strong and satisfactory evidence is necessary to prove that they happen otherwise, and he illustrates the possibility of miracles by saying, in substance, “ I have confidence in a friend, and I ask him to do me a favor, and he does it without causing any confusion in nature; and why can’t a man who believes in the existence of God suppose him capable of doing' sots of kindness in the same world for the distressed, who sincerely and confidingly appeals to him for help P” In this he takes his stand with Mill, in admitting that the question of miracles is entirely a question of evidence. Elsmero’s motto, therefore, “ Miracles do not happen,” really counts for nothing. But we arc told that he arrive! at his conclusions chiefly by a proears of inductive reasoning; that he examined history, found it in its early stages associated with myths, and general belief in miracles characterising (he T time of Our Lord; that the farther we advance from oar own time the more unreliable history becomes; that the evangelists who saw and recorded Christ’s miracles were honest, but incompetent, and dooeived men; and thus discovering, as he thought, how miracles were menu* factured, he drew the sweeping generalize tion that miracles cannot take plaoe, In reply to this we have to say that a universal belief in miracles, if acknowledged,, -. to exist iu the first century, might be used to strengthen instead of to weaken the orthodox ease. Whence came the belief ? It mast have an origin. If there be no special revelation, and religion is a matter of evolution, out of what was it evolved P Is it not jast possible that the occurrence of miracles in the past led to an expectation that they might occur in the future, especially in oonnection with the coming of great events and great upheavals in religion ? Moreover, we deny that the ago of Oiir Lord wci unenlightened. It was, on the contrary, an age saturated with the learning of Greece and Borne, Alexander the Great, by his conquests, had introduced everywhere the Greek learning and literature, and some of the greatest minds that ever lived then taught and contributed to “ The Agustan Period of Bomao Literature.” This knowledge was introduoed into Palestine by the stream of foreign Jews and Gentiles that continually poured into Jerusalem for the purpose of trade or worship. It is essentially a critical, if not a sceptical, age. The Saduoaes did not believe in the Resurrection; the Etsefb never entered the Temple ; the Pharisees maligned the character of Our Lord, and. would have been glad to have been able toi expose the hollowness of His miracle?, closely investigated tho cure of the blmd man recorded in the Dfch chapter of St. John’a Gospel, and, finding no appearance cf deception, admitted the fqptj and said, absurdly

‘•The Devil did it!” Our Saviour's own diioiples were " (low to believe all that the prophets have spoken,” and some of them required very convincing evidence before they admitted the fact of the Resurrection. Jndai would not have hanged himself if he had had any suspicion ai to the genuineness of Christ's miracles. For our purpose it ia not necessary that the Evangelists should be m learned as the savants who in the nineteenth century criticise their writing. AH that we require is that they be honest men, of ordinary intelligence, possessed of all their faculties, and able to record faithfully what they saw and heard. It is absurd to suppose that because every nation has its mythology that therefore all history and unreliable. Where would this land us? We should be certain of nothing that happened in the past. Our Herodous, our Thucydides, oar Livy, our Tacitus, and onr Josephus, and all such like must be thrown into the fire, The men of Obriit’s time were juet mi able to record what they saw enacted in their midst as the historians of modem time what they see. Nay, we would go farther, and say that in that age men were less likely to be warped and prejudiced in opinion and more likely to five" a plain, unvarnished tale. When rightly considered Christianity has a literary J and historical basis which c:.nnot be denied, and if so, miracles have been wrought, and U wrought the beneficent and merciful nature of Christ’s miracles has been illustrated, and Christ proved to he superhuman, super, natural, heaveply, Godlike, and divine, and worthy of onr most implicit confidence. Mr Dickson concluded with a close application of bis subject, pointing out Elsmere’a lack of true views of sin or faith in Christ as the central figure of Christianity,