90 THE LATEST FOEM OF INFIDELITF.

demonstrated. The ground of faith in moral truth, from the
nature of the case, is the perception of the nature of the truth
believed. It is seen and felt to be true. That one man does not
see a proposition in morals to be true, can have no effect upon him
who does perceive it. And the only way to produce conviction
in the mind of him who doubts or disbelieves, is to remove the
darkness which prevents the perception of the truth to be believed.
If seen in its true nature, it is believed ; just as beauty is believed
as soon as seen. "Faith is no work of reason, and therefore can-
not be overthrown by it, since believing no more arises from
arguments than tasting or seeing."'

It is very true, that the great majority of men have no such
perception of the peculiar truths of the gospel as produces this
unwavering faith. The only belief that they have rests on tra-
dition, or prejudice, or, in the learned few, on the external
evidences of the gospel. The reason of this fact, however, is not
that the doctrines in question do not contain the evidence of
their own truth, but that the minds of the majority of men are
not in a state to perceive it. What is the reason that savages
do not j)erceive many things to be wrong, the moral turpitude of
which is to us a matter of intuition ? The reason lies in the
state of their minds. So, also, the "natural man receive th not
the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto
him ; neither can he know them ; for they are spiritually dis-
cerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things." The
spiritual man, then, (that is, the man under the influence of the
Spirit of God,) discerns the excellence of the things of the Spirit ;
and he receives them because he does discern them. He sees
the excellence of the divine character ; the glory of God as it
shines in the face of Jesus Christ ; the perfection of the divine
law ; the accordance of the declarations of God with his own
experience ; the suitableness of the plan of salvation to his
necessities, and to the perfections of God. He feels the power
which attends these truths in his own soul, and his faith, there-
fore, rests not on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God.
It must be remembered, that the Bible is a whole. The believer
sees these doctrines every where, and he therefore believes the

■ Der Glaube ist kein "Werk der Yernunft, kann also auch kcinen AngrifFen der*
selben unterliegen, well Glauben so ■wenig durch Griindo geschicht, als Sclimecken
und Sehen.



THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 91

whole. One portion of Scripture supposes and confirms another.
The authority of the ancient prophets, of Christ, and of the
apostles, is one and indivisible. As the prophets testified to
Christ, so he testified of them. As Christ testified of the apos-
tles, so did they testify of him. The object of the believer's
faith, therefore, is the whole Bible. He sees every where the
same God, the same law, the same Saviour, the same plan of
redemption. He believes the whole, because it is one glorious
system of effulgent truth.

As this is the doctrine of the Bible on this subject, so it is also
the doctrine of the church. Were it our present object to estab-
lish this point, the correctness of the above statement could be
easily proved. We cannot forbear, however, to quote the
following beautiful passage from the Westminster Confession :
" We may be moved and induced," says that venerable symbol,
"by the testimony of the church, to an high and reverend esteem
for the Holy Scripture ; and the heavenliness of the matter, the
efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of
all the parts, the scope of the whole, (which is to give all glory
to God,) the full discovery which it makes of the only way of
man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and
the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth
abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God ; yet, notwith-
standing, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth
and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy
Spirit, bearing witness by and with the truth in our hearts."

Owen wrote a treatise on this subject, which bears the impress
of his sound and vigorous understanding, as well as of his inti-
mate acquaintance with the nature of true religion.' In his
Treatise on the Reason of Faith, he says : " The formal reason
of faith, divine and supernatural, whereby we believe the Scrip-
tures to be the word of God, in the way of duty, as it is required
of us, is the authority and veracity of God alone, evidencing
themselves unto our minds and consciences, in and by the Scrip-
ture itself. And herein consisteth that divine testimony of the
Holy Spirit, which, as it is a testimony, gives our assent unto
the Scripture, the general nature of faith, and, as it is a divine

' See his work on the Divine Authority, Solf-cvidoncing Light, and Power of the
Scriptures, with an answer to the inquiry. How we know the Scriptures to be the
word of God ?



92 THE LATEST FOEM OF INFIDELITY.

testimony, gives it the especial nature of faith divine and super-
natural.

" This divine testimony given unto the divine original of the
sacred Scriptures, in and by itself, wherein our faith is ultimately
resolved, is evidenced and made known, as by the character of
the infinite perfections of the divine nature which are in and
upon it ; so by the authority, power, and efficacy, over and
upon the souls and consciences of men, and the satisfactory
excellence of the truths contained therein, wherewith it is
accompanied."

This view of the ground of faith is confirmed by the experience
and testimony of the people of God in all ages.

It is a monstrous idea, that the thousands of illiterate saints
who have entered eternity in the full assurance of hope, had no
better foundation for their faith than the testimony of the learned
to the truth of the Bible. Let the advocates of such an opinion
ask the true Christian, why he believes the word of God, and
they will find he can give some better reason for the hope that is
in him than the faith or testimony of others. Let them try the
resources of their philosophy, empirical or transcendental, on a
faith founded on the testimony of the Holy Spirit by and with
the truth ; let them try the effect of demonstrating that such
and such doctrines cannot be true ; they will assuredly meet
with the simple answer, "One thing I know, whereas I was blind
now I see."

It is by no means intended to undervalue the importance of
the external evidence of a divine revelation, whether derived
from miracles, prophecy, or any other source, but simply to
protest against the extreme doctrine of Mr. Norton's discourse :
that such evidence is the only proof of a divine revelation, and
that all who cannot examine such evidence for themselves must
take their religion upon trust. The refutation of this doctrine
occupies much the larger portion of the Letter of the Alumnus of
the Cambridge Theological School, the title of which is placed at
the head of this article. The argument of the Alumnus, as far
as it is a refutation, is perfectly successful. With his own
doctrine, we are as little satisfied as with that of Mr. Norton.
"The truths of Christianity," he tells us, "have always been
addressed to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind."^

1 Letter, &c. p. 116.



THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 93

He quotes witli miicli commendation, the following passage from
Professor Park, of Andover : " The argument from miracles is not
the kind of proof to which the majority of cordial believers in the
Bible are, at the present day, most attached. They have neither
the time nor the ability to form an estimate of the historical
evidence that favors or ojiposes the actual occurrence of miracles.
They know the Bible to be true, because they feel it to be so.
The excellence of its morality, like a magnet, attracts their
souls ; and sophistry, which they cannot refute, will not weaken
their faith, resulting as it does, from the accordance of their

HIGHER NATURE WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE." Tllis language,

as coming from Professor Park, if it be any thing more than a
specimen of the desire to express a familiar truth in a philosoph-
ical form, is something far worse. If this "higher nature" of
man, which thus accords with the spirit of the Bible, is his
renewed nature — his nature purified and enlightened by the
Holy Spirit — then we have a solemn truth disguised in order to
secure favor with the world. But if this "higher nature" be the
nature of man, in any of its aspects, as it exists before regenera-
tion, then is the language of Professor Park a betrayal of the
scriptural truth. The doctrines of depravity, and of the necessity
of divine influence are virtually denied. That which is born of
the flesh, is flesh ; unless a man be born of the Sphit, he cannot
see the kingdom of God; the carnal mind is enmity against God;
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him ; we preach Christ crucified, unto
the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but
unto them which are called (and to them only) Christ the power
of God, and the wisdom of God. To assert, therefore, the
accordance of the higher nature of unrenewed men with the
spirit of the Bible, is to contradict one of the primary doctrines
of the word of God. It contradicts, moreover, universal experi-
ence. Does the character of God, as a being of inflexible justice
and perfect holiness ; do the doctrines of Christ crucified, of the
corruption of man, of the necessity of regeneration by the power
of the Holy Ghost, and of eternal retribution, commend them-
selves to the hearts of unrenewed men ? Are they not, on the
contrary, rejected by those who delight to talk of the accordance
of their higher nature with the spirit of the Bible ?

If the passage on which wc are commenting, refers to nothing



94 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY.

more than the accordance between the ethics of the Bible and
the moral sense of men, and between its general representations
of God and human reason, it is still more objectionable. It
supposes that all that is peculiar to the gosj^el, all that distin-
guishes it from a system of natural religion, may be left out of
view, and yet its spirit, its essential part, remain. Is the spirit of
a system which makes Christ a mere man, which denies the
apostacy of our race, which rejects the doctrines of atonement and
regeneration, the spirit of the Bible ? Then, indeed, has the
offence of the cross ceased.

While, therefore, we dissent from Mr. Norton's doctrine, that
miracles are the only adequate proof of a divine revelation, and
that those who cannot examine that proof for themselves, must
believe upon the testimony of others, we dissent no less earnestly
from the doctrine of his opponent, that Christianity is addressed
to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind ; that it is
embraced because of the accordance of its spirit with the higher
nature of man. We believe the external evidence of the Bible to
be perfectly conclusive ; we believe its internal evidence, (that is,
its majesty, its purity, its consistency, its manifold perfections,)
to be no less satisfactory; but we believe also, that the ultimate
foundation of the Christian's faith, is the testimony of the Holy
Spirit, by and with the truth in our hearts.

Though the author of the letter to Mr. Norton devotes most
of his attention to the refutation of the doctrine above stated,
respecting miracles, the feature of the discourse which seems to
have given him and his friends the greatest umbrage, is its
denunciatory character ; that is, its venturing to assert, that
those who deny the miracles of Christianity are infidels. This,
it appears, was considered singularly out of taste, and incongru-
ous, seeing the discourse was delivered before an association of
liberal theologians. Its members, it is said, "agree in the
rejection of many articles of faith which have usually been held
sacred in the church ; a traditional theology has taken no strong
hold of their minds ; they deem the simple truths of Christianity
more important than the mysteries that have been combined
with them ; but the principle of their union has never been made
to consist in any speculative belief ; no test has been required as
a condition of fellowship ; the mere suggestion of such a course
would be met only with a smile of derision." The Association



THE LATEST FOEM OF INFIDELITY. 95

" is composed of tlie alumni of a theological school, which has
always claimed the favor of the community, on account of its
freedom from an exclusive spirit ; its confidence in the safety and
utility of thorough inquiry in all matters of faith ; its attachment
to the principles of liberal theology ; and its renunciation of the
desire to impose articles of belief on the minds of its pupils."'
That the exclusive principle should be adopted in a discourse
before such an audience was not to be expected. By this prin-
ciple is meant, " the assumption of the right for an individual, or
for any body of individuals, to make their own private opinions
the measure of what is fundamental in the Christian faith. As
liberal Christians," it is said, " we have long protested against this
principle, as contrary to the very essence of Protestantism. It
was not because our exclusive brethren made a belief in the
Trinity a test of allegiance to Christ, that we accused them of
inconsistency with the liberty of the gospel ; but because they
presumed to erect any standard whatever, according to which
the faith of individuals should be made to conform to the judg-
ment of others. It was not any special application of the
principle that we objected to ; but the principle itself ; and,
assuredly, the exercise of this principle does not change its
character, by reason of the source from which it proceeds.'"

This strikes us as very good declamation, but very poor reason-
ing. There may be just complaint about the application of the
exclusive principle ; but to complain of the principle, is certainly
very unreasonable. The author of this letter is just as exclusive
as Mr. Norton, and Mr. Norton as the Trinitarians. They draw
the line of exclusion at different places ; but all must draw it
some where. An infidel is a man who denies the truth of the
Christian religion. That religion is certainly something. Differ-
ent men may have different views of what it consists, or what is
essential to it. But all must regard it as embracing some doc-
trines, or it would cease to be a religion ; and, consequently,
they must regard those who reject those doctrines as infidels,
whether they say so or not. This Alumnus would hardly call
Mohammedans Christians, though they reckon Abraham and
Christ among the prophets, and believe in Grod and the immor-
tality of the soul. Would he then call him a Christian who
denies the divine mission of Christ, the being of an intelhgent
' Letter, &e., pp. 5 and 6. 2 Letter, &c., pp. 23 and 24.



96 THE LATEST FOK SI OF IX FIDELITY.

God, and the existence of tlie soul after death, merely becraise he
lives in a Christian country, and assumes the Christian name ?
This -would he to make liherality ridiculous. Yet such claimants
of the Christian name are heginning to abound. Mr. Norton,
therefore, is not to he blamed, even as a "liberal theologian," for
the adoption of the exclusive principle. He may have drawn the
line in an inconvenient place ; he may have violated the code of
Unitarian etiquette, in making a belief in miracles essential to a
behef in Christianity, and thus justly exposed himself to the
charge of a breach of privilege ; but he can hardly be blamed for
making the belief of something necessary to entitle a man to the
name of a Christian. We have no doubt, his real offence was in
drawing the line of exclusion in such a manner as to cast out of
the pale of even liberal Christianity, some who are not disposed to
be thus publicly disowned. This is, indeed, distinctly stated.
" Your declaration," says the author of the letter, to Mr. Norton,
" is that a certain kind of evidence, in your view, establishes the
truth of Christianity, and that he who rests his faith on any
other is an infidel, notwithstanding his earnest and open profes-
sions to the contrary. You thus, in fact, denied the name of
Cliristian to not a few individuals in your audience, although
you avoided discussing the grounds by which their opinions are
supported. For it is perfectly well known, that many of our
most eminent clergymen — I will not refrain from speaking of
them as they deserve on account of my personal sympathy with
their views — repose their belief on a different foundation from
that which you approve as the only tenable one." It is plain,
therefore, that the offensive exclusiveness of Mr. Norton's Dis-
course consisted in denying the Christian name to those who
deny the miracles of Christ.

It appears to us, however, that the Avriter of this letter does
Mr. Norton great injustice. He accuses him of confounding "two
l^ropositions which are essentially distinct : a belief in a divine
revelation, and a belief in the miracles alleged in its support.
You utterly confound," it is said, "the divine origin of Christian-
ity, and a certain class of the proofs of its divine origin." — P. 84.
Mr. Norton does not confound these two things ; nor does he, as
represented by this writer, pronounce all those to be infidels
whose faith rests on any other foundatian than miracles. He
declares those to be infidels who denv the miracles of the New



THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 97

Testament, but this is a very different affair. Many who feel the
force of other kinds of evidence much more tlian that of miracles,
and whose faith, therefore, does not rest on that foundation,
admit their truth. Mr. Norton's doctrine is, that the miraculous
accounts contained in the New Testament are so interwoven with
all the other portions of the history, and enter so essentially into
the nature of the whole system of Christianity, that they cannot
be denied, without denying what is essential to the Christian
religion. There is no confusion here of the thing to be proved,
and the proof itself. It is true, he teaches that miracles are th.e
only proof of a divine revelation. But this is only one of his
reasons for maintaining that the rejection of the miracles of
Christianity, is a rejection of Christianity itself We believe this
latter proposition, though we do not believe the former. We be-
lieve that miracles are essential to Christianity, though we do not
believe that they are the only sufficient proof of its divine origin.

The Alumnus moreover censures Mr. Norton severely, for call-
ing Spinoza an Atheist and Pantheist. The propriety of this
censure depends on the sense given to the terms employed. An
Atheist is one who denies the existence of God. But what is
Grod ? If the term be so extended as to include even a blind vis
formativa operative through the universe, then there never was
an Atheist. But if the term is used in its true scriptural
sense ; if it designates an intelligent and moral being, distinct
from his creatures, whose essence is not their essence, whose acts
are not their acts, and especially whose consciousness is not their
consciousness, then Spinoza was an Atheist. He acknowledges
no such being. The universe was God ; or rather all creatures
where but the phenomena of the only really existing being. It
may, indeed, seem incongruous to call a man an Atheist, of whom
it may with equal truth be said, that he believed in nothing but
God. But in the sense stated above, which is a correct and
acknowledged sense of the term, Spinoza was an Atheist.

" We come now," says the Alumnus, " to a still more extra-
ordinary mistake, which arose probably from the habit, too
prevalent among us, of grouping together theologians who have
scarcely anything in common, but the language in which they
write. You class Schleiermacher with the modern German
school, whose disciples are called Rationalists or Naturalists." —
P. 133. This he says is as whimsical a mistake as if a foreigner



98 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY.

were to describe tlie celebrated Dr. Beecher as one of tbe most
noted of the Unitarian school^ in New England. This mistake
is not quite as whimsical as the author supposes. The term
Eationalist is, indeed, commonly employed to designate those
w^ho, making reason the source as well as the standard of relig-
ious truth, deny all divine revelation. Have the pietists, says
Rhor, the superintendent of Weimar, yet to learn that we admit
no other revelation in Christ than such as occurred in Socrates or
Plato .^ Of such Rationalists, who are in Germany just what the
Deists are in England, Schleiermacher, and all the transcendal
school, were the determined and contemptuous opponents. In
another sense, however, the term Rationalist is applicable, and is
in fact applied, to the transcendentalists of the highest grade.
Under the head of the Ilystisch-spekiilative Rationalismus,
Tholuck includes the gnosticism of the first centuries, the Pan-
theists of the middle ages, and of modern Germany.' To this
class of mystical Rationalists, Schleiermacher undoubtedly be-
longed. As, however, the tenn is generally applied to the
deistical oj)posers of a supernatural revelation, with whom he
was ever in controversy, it certainly produces confusion to call
Schleiermacher himself a Rationalist. As to the question,
whether he was a Pantheist, as it is a matter about which his
learned cotemporaries in his own country are at variance, we may
well stand in doubt. Few unbiassed readers of his Reden Uber
die Religion, however, could regard him in any other light when
those discourses were written. They are, to be sure, a rhapsody,
full of genius and feeling, but still a rhapsody, in which the mean-
ing is a very secondary concern ; which the reader is not expected
to understand, but simply to feel. Such a liook may betray a man's
sentiments, but is hardly fit to be cited in any doctrinal contro-
versy. Schleiermacher was a very extraordinary man. Though
he placed far too little stress on historical Christianity, (i. e., on
the religion of Christ, considered as objective revelation, recorded
in the New Testament,) yet as he made Christ the centre of his
mystical system, exalting him as the j)crfect manifestation of
God, he exerted an extraordinary influence in breaking down the
authority of those deistical Rationalists, who were accustomed to
speak of Christ as altogether such an one as themselves. He
was once a Moravian, and there is reason to believe, that the

' Tholuck's Glaubwurdigkeit der evangel. GescJ.icli. &c., Cii. 1.



THE LATEST FOHM OF INFIDELITY. 99

interior life of his soul existed, after all, more under the form
thus originally impressed upon it, than under the influence of
his subsequent speculations. It was no uncommon thing for him
to call upon his family to join with him in singing some devout
Moravian hymn of praise to Christ ; and though his preaching-
was of a philosoi3hical cast, yet the hymns which he assigned
were commonly expressive in a high degree, of devotional feeling
and correct sentiment/ Such a worshipper of Christ ought not to
be confounded with such heartless Deists as Paulus, Wegschei-
der, and Rhdr,

The Alumnus makes another objection to Mr. Norton's dis-
course, the justice of which we admit. It does not fulfil the
expectations which the annunciation of his subject excites. It
is not a discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity ; it is a mere
consideration of one subordinate feature of that form, viz., the
denial of the miracles of the New Testament. And this feature
is by no means characteristic of the system, as this denial was as
formally made by Paulus as it is now by Strauss, men who have
scarcely any other opinion in common. Mr. Norton's discom-se
gives us little insight into the form which infidelity has recently
assumed in Germany, and still less into the nature of the opinions
which have begun to prevail in his own neighborhood. Accord-
ing to the Alumnus, it is better adapted to mislead than to
inform the reader, as far as this latter point is concerned. " You
announce,' says he to Mr. Norton, " as the theme of your dis-
course, ^the characteristics of the times, and some of those
opinions now prevalent, which are at war with a belief in Chris-
tianity.' This, certainly, was a judicious opening, and I only