Page images
PDF
EPUB

and He that teacheth know?

man knowledge shall He not

On external evidence the great question was miracles. Hume's argument must be answered-that the miracles are more likely to be false than the testimony true. Both Englishmen and Scotchmen had written against Hume. The latter reasoned about reasoning, while the former assumed the validity of reason, and went straight to the argument. Campbell had taken the position that belief in testimony did not depend on experience, but is an intuitive and original principle. Chalmers founds belief in testimony on experience, and finds Hume's mistake to be that he did not distinguish between a testimony which was honest and one which was suspicious. There may be cases in which a miracle is not improbable, and testimony may be conclusive. Whately had said that it was absurd merely to consider the average chances for the truth of testimony in the abstract, without inquiring what the testimony is in the instance before us. We have the testimony of credible witnesses to credible facts. In the last of his thoughts on evidences, Chalmers clung to the idea that the Bible, being proved to be from God, must not be judged by man. We may sit in judgment on the credentials of heaven's ambassadors, but we have no right to sit in judgment on the Revelation given.

mony is the same. There are two ways by which a message may be tested, one from what we know of the person from whom the message comes, and the likelihood of his sending such a message, the other by the credibility of the messenger. The first is subject to great uncertainty. We may be unable to judge of the message. We are unable to judge of the truth of Christianity merely from its doctrines.

The primary object in dwelling entirely on the External Evidence was to keep it distinct from all other, and to express a strong faith that it was perfectly sufficient in itself. Paley was the great master who had proved Christianity on the principles of Bacon. Friends and reviewers remonstrated with Chalmers that he was setting aside not only internal evidence, but the evidence of natural religion. On the internal evidence the faith of the vast majority of Christians was founded. When the article was republished by itself, a short advertisement intimated that though the object was to show that external testimony was sufficient, the author was far from asserting it to be the only channel to a faith in the truth of Christianity. Other kinds of evidence were admitted to be important, and in a later publication1 Chalmers spoke of the self-evidencing power of the Bible, than which he said no position could be more strongly or more philosophically sustained. Dr Owen had proved that this evidence is superior to the testimony of eye-witnesses or the evidence of miracles, or those supernatural gifts with which the first teachers of Christianity were endowed.'

Dr Chalmers' biographer says, that in 1836 he 'undertook to add to his original volume what might render it a complete treatise on the evidences of Christianity. The part now occupied with the internal equalled that assigned to the external.' Natural theology took its ordinary place as independent of Revelation. The proofs of the Being of God were such as, that the present transitional economy had a beginning which is shown from geological and other evidence from the phenomena of nature and the constitution of the human mind. The apparent cause of intelligent beings must be itself intelligent. He that formed the eye shall He not see,

He not

and He that teacheth man knowledge shall He know?

On external evidence the great question was miracles. Hume's argument must be answered-that the miracles are more likely to be false than the testimony true. Both Englishmen and Scotchmen had written against Hume. The latter reasoned about reasoning, while the former assumed the validity of reason, and went straight to the argument. Campbell had taken the position that belief in testimony did not depend on experience, but is an intuitive and original principle. Chalmers founds belief in testimony on experience, and finds Hume's mistake to be that he did not distinguish between a testimony which was honest and one which was suspicious. There may be cases in which a miracle is not improbable, and testimony may be conclusive. Whately had said that it was absurd merely to consider the average chances for the truth of testimony in the abstract, without inquiring what the testimony is in the instance before us. We have the testimony of credible witnesses to credible facts. In the last of his thoughts on evidences, Chalmers clung to the idea that the Bible, being proved to be from God, must not be judged by man. We may sit in judgment on the credentials of heaven's ambassadors, but we have no right to sit in judgment on the Revelation given.

CHAPTER VI

CHURCH AND STATE

THE question of the connection between Church and State had often been discussed both by theologians and politicians, but never so fully and ardently as in the early part of the present century. The subject has a theoretical side, also a practical, and both the theory and the practice are capable of endless varieties. There are scarcely two countries in which the connection is the same, nor even two centuries in any one country. There may be, as sometimes in the middle ages, control of the State by the Church, or as in the East and in some Reformed Churches in the West, control of the Church by the State, and this again may be in an infinity of degrees. In old countries where there has been collision between Church and State, there may be an agreement for the independence of each, or in new countries where there are many sects, and no single Church with great influence, there may be entire independence. The question how a State Church originates is much the same in kind as that of the origin of government. There has been a growth, though how and when, it is often hard to say. The most obvious explanation of the origin is in the necessity for every State having control over the property of corporate bodies. To this extent, and in this sense, every sect with endowed property is an established Church. But the richer and stronger a Church is, the greater is the necessity for State control. This is a simple fact manifested in history The primary

But the question has other bearings. Hooker regarded the Church and State as one and the same community under two different aspects. This was a theory which fitted the actual condition of the Church of England in the time of Queen Elizabeth. All foreign influence was excluded. The Christian people of England were one Church and one State. They were one in the face of opposition from without and schism from within. In the last century, Warburton wrote of an alliance as if there had been a time when Church and State made an agreement. But this has no foundation in history. The Church and State grew into each other by the mutual necessities of both, and in the circumstances for their mutual advantage. Paley, recognising simply the fact of the connection, spoke of the benefits accruing from it. It was no part of Christianity. A Church might exist with or without State connection, but this alliance was beneficial to both. The Reformation in England resulted in a closer connection of Church and State than had been before, and in a greater supremacy of the State over the Church. This began with the submission of the clergy under Archbishop Warham, and ended with the Royal Supremacy as established under Elizabeth. The civil ruler took the place of the Pope, and the Church was governed by King and Parliament, that is, as Hooker said, the lay governor or the lay synod.

The opposition to the Church and State connection arose from two different quarters. There was There was a growing party both in the Church of England and in the Church of Scotland which demanded more freedom for the Church. There were also Nonconformists, who originally had no objections to the principle of a State Church, but who rather, some of them at least, held it to be the duty of the State to support what was orthodox, but who now thought that they suffered a disadvantage from the existence of a State Church from which they dissented. The growing desire in the Church of England for independence of the State was set forth in a pamphlet called 'Letters on the Church,' by an Episcopalian,1 which sets forth the modern Anglican idea of ecclesiastical independence. This publication was ascribed to Whately, and 1 1826.

2

« PreviousContinue »