The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature
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166
[The maintenance by the Jews, of a system of pure Theism, through so many and so rude ages, without being superior, or even equal to their neighbors, in science and civilization, can only be accounted for on the presumption of a revelation.]
167
P. 166, &c.
168
[Mills (Logic, chap. 24, § 5,) points out what he deems a mistake of “some of the writers against Hume on Miracles,” in confounding the improbability of an event, before its occurrence, with the improbability afterwards; that is, considering them equal in degree. He fully proves that the great Laplace fell into this error, and the student should consult the passage.Prof. Fitzgerald holds Butler to have fallen into the mistake adverted to by Mills; and quotes the latter author in a way which seems to make him say that such is his opinion also. I do not so understand Mills, nor do I see that Butler has confounded these meanings; but the very contrary. He expressly affirms, and most truly, that the strongest presumption may lie against “the most ordinary facts before the proof which yet is overcome by almost any proof.” Butler’s position here, may be thus illustrated. Suppose a hundred numbers to be put in a box, and it is proposed to draw out the number 42. Now there are 99 chances to 1 against drawing that, or any other given number. But suppose a child tells you he put the hundred numbers into a box, and drew out one, and it proved to be 42; you at once believe, for that was as likely to come as any other.The proof of Christianity from prophecy becomes amazingly strong, thus viewed. There are many predictions, for instance that Christ should be born at a certain time, and place, and under certain very particular circumstances. The probabilities against such a conjuncture of events are almost infinite; yet they happened exactly as foretold.]
169
[For instance, a mass of ice or snow, may imperceptibly accumulate for an age, and then suddenly fall and overwhelm a village. Or a planet, or comet, may have been gradually nearing our earth for a million of years, without producing, as yet, any effect on our orbit; but in process of time, its proximity may work great changes in our condition.]
170
P. 208.
171
1 Cor. i. 28.
172
See Chap. vi.
173
See Chap. vi.
174
[See note, page 218.]
175
P. 220.
176
[It is not to be understood that Butler would not have the ordinary rules of interpretation applied to the Holy Scriptures. Because the interpretation, “if not gathered out of the words, must be brought into them.” We cannot interpret them as if we knew beforehand, what the Holy Ghost meant to say; as Spinoza proposes to do, in his Philosophia Scripturæ Interpretes. The student will do well to consult Benson’s Hulsean Lectures on Scripture Difficulties: King’s Morsels of Criticism: Storr, Exertationes Exeget.: Michaelis, Introd. ad. Nov. Test.: and Featley’s Key.]
177
Pp. 207, 208.
178
[See 1 Cor. xii. 1-10: xiii. 1: and xiv. 1-19.]
179
[“The power of healing, or working miracles, is, during the whole course of its operation, one continued arrest or diversion of the general laws of matter and motion. It was therefore fit that this power should be given occasionally. But the speaking with tongues, when once the gift was conferred, became thenceforth a natural power; just as the free use of members of the body, after being restored, by miracle, to the exercise of their natural functions. In healing, the apostles are to be considered as the workers of a miracle; in speaking strange tongues, as persons on whom a miracle is performed.” – Warburton, Doct. of Grace, b. i. ch. iii.]
180
Heb. vi. 1.
181
Acts iii. 21.
182
[The doctrine of “development” has of late been popular in some quarters. Butler here shows the only safe notion we may entertain on that subject. “Exact thought, and careful consideration” may show us how to confute specious heresies, expound embarrassing passages, dissipate painful doubts, and remove many prejudices or misapprehensions. But revelation is complete as it stands.We may hope for progress in theology as in other sciences; not in the development of new facts or faith, as Papists and Socinians pretend, but in the increase of sound wisdom, aided by a more perfect interpretation of God’s word.]
183
Chap. vi.
184
Chap. v.
185
Chap. vii.
186
Chap. iv. latter part, and v. vi.
187
[This pregnant paragraph should receive very full attention. We know much of men, little of God. What men are likely to do, or say, in certain circumstances, is often very clear; and generally may be guessed at. But what God would do or say in new contingencies, who shall attempt to prescribe or predict? We are poorly qualified to assert that such and such declarations could not have come from infinite wisdom; but we are quite competent to affirm that such and such things could not have come from human contrivance or enthusiasm.]
188
In the foregoing chapter.
189
Part I, ch. vii., to which this all along refers.
190
[“It is the last step of reason to know there is an infinity of things which surpass it.” – Pascal. “The wall of adamant which bounds human inquiry, has scarcely ever been discovered by any adventurer, till he was aroused by the shock that drove him back.” – Sir Jas. Mackintosh. “Of the dark parts of revelation there are two sorts: one which may be cleared up by the studious; the other which will always reside within the shadow of God’s throne where it would be impiety to intrude.” – Warburton. “A Christianity without mystery is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural.” – Angus.]
191
John xi. 52.
192
2 Peter iii. 13.
193
1 Peter i. 11, 12.
194
Phil. ii. [6-11.]
195
[The influences of the Holy Spirit are not only “given to good men,” but are sent upon many who live unmindful of eternity, quickening their consciences, enlightening their understandings and arresting their passions, and thus it is they are converted unto the truth in Christ.]
196
John xiv. 2.
197
John v. 22, 23.
198
Matt. xxviii. 18.
199
1 Cor. xv. 28.
200
1 Tim. iii. 16.
201
P. 174, &c.
202
1 Cor. i. [18-25.]
203
Pp. 178, 179.
204
Pp. 180, 181.
205
P. 172, &c.
206
[“Providence hurries not himself to display to-day the consequence of the principle he yesterday announced. He will draw it out in the lapse of ages Even according to our reasoning logic is none the less sure, because it is slow.” – Guizot on Civilization, Lect. I.How impressively is this sentiment sustained by modern geology, and astronomy!]
207
[“Philosophers make shameful and dangerous mistakes, when they judge of the Divine economy. He cannot, they tell us, act thus, it would be contrary to his wisdom, or his justice, &c. But while they make these peremptory assertions they show themselves to be unacquainted with the fundamental rules of their own science, and with the origin of all late improvements. True philosophy would begin the other way, with observing the constitution of the world, how God has made us, and in what circumstances he has placed us, and then from what he has done, form a sure judgment what he would do. Thus might they learn ‘the invisible things of God from those which are clearly seen’ the things which are not accomplished from those which are.” – Powell’s Use and Abuse of Philosophy.]
208
1 Tim. ii. 5.
209
[The interposition of a man of known probity and worth often saves the thoughtless or the guilty from punishment. Mediation is seen in a thousand forms in the arrangements of social life; and the common sense of all mankind approves of it. The release of the offending, by the intercession of the good, and all the benefits of advice, caution, example, instruction, persuasion, and authority, are instances of mediation.]
210
[Mr. Newman notices a distinction between the facts of revelation, and its principles; and considers the argument from analogy more concerned with its principles than with its facts. “The revealed facts are special and singular, from the nature of the case, but the revealed principles are common to all the works of God; and if the Author of nature be the author of grace, it may be expected that the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle, lies the analogy of natural and revealed religion, in Butler’s sense of the word. The Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by any thing in nature: the doctrine of mediation is a principle, and is abundantly exemplified in nature.” —Essay on Developments.]
211
[The student will find the inadequacy of repentance to cancel guilt, beautifully exhibited by Wayland, Mor. Science: Magee, Atonement: Howe, Living Temple.]
212
P. 232, &c.
213
John iii. 16.
214
It cannot, I suppose, be imagined, even by the most cursory reader, that it is, in any sort, affirmed or implied in any thing said in this chapter, that none can have the benefit of the general redemption, but such as have the advantage of being made acquainted with it in the present life. But it may be needful to mention, that several questions, which have been brought into the subject before us, and determined, are not in the least entered into here, questions which have been, I fear, rashly determined, and perhaps with equal rashness contrary ways. For instance, whether God could have saved the world by other means than the death of Christ, consistently with the general laws of his government. And had not Christ come into the world, what would have been the future condition of the better sort of men; those just persons over the face of the earth, for whom Manasses in his prayer asserts, repentance was not appointed. The meaning of the first of these questions is greatly ambiguous: and neither of them can properly be answered, without going upon that infinitely absurd supposition, that we know the whole of the case. And perhaps the very inquiry, What would have followed, if God had not done as he has, may have in it some very great impropriety: and ought not to be carried on any further than is necessary to help our partial and inadequate conceptions of things.
215
John i., and viii. 12.
216
Rom. iii. 25, v. 11: 1 Cor. v. 7: Eph. v. 2: 1 John ii. 2: Matt xxvi. 28.
217
John i. 29, 36, and throughout the book of Revelation.
218
Throughout the epistle to the Hebrews.
219
Isa. liii.: Dan. ix. 24: Ps. cx. 4.
220
Heb. x. 1.
221
Heb. viii. 4, 5.
222
Heb. x. 4, 5, 7, 9, 10.
223
Heb. ix. 28.
224
John xi. 51, 52.
225
1 Pet. iii. 18.
226
Matt. xx. 28: Mark x. 45: 1 Tim. ii. 6.
227
2 Pet. ii. 1: Rev. xiv. 4: 1 Cor. vi. 20.
228
1 Pet. i. 19: Rev. v. 9: Gal. iii. 13.
229
Heb. vii. 25: 1 John ii. 1, 2.
230
Heb. ii. 10.: v. 9.
231
2 Cor. v. 19: Rom. v. 10: Eph. ii. 16.
232
Heb. ii. 14. See also a remarkable passage in the book of Job, xxxiii. 24.
233
Phil. ii. 8, 9: John iii. 35, and v. 22, 23.
234
Rev. v. 12, 13.
235
John vi. 14.
236
P. 188, &c.
237
Eph. iv. 12, 13.
238
John xiv. 2, 3: Rev. iii. 21, and xi. 15.
239
2 Thess. i. 8.
240
Heb. ix. 26.
241
[Consult Magee, on Atonement: Stapferi Institutiones: Turretin, De Satisfactione: Chalmers, Discourses: Owen, Satis. of Christ.]
242
P. 194, &c.
243
[This objection is ably urged by Tindall. The answer of our author is complete. We should remember, that twice in the history of mankind, revelation has been universal. The first pair, and the occupants of the ark, comprised the whole population. But how soon was light rejected! Christianity is universal, in nature and intention; is to become so in fact; and according to a very probable construction of prophecy, will continue to be universal, for three hundred and sixty thousand years.]
244
[May not this be a principal object of the Apocalypse? As the book of Daniel furnished a constant and powerful support to the faith of the Jew, by the constant development of prophecy, so the Apocalypse, rightly studied must powerfully, and through all time, support the faith of the Christian by the continual unfolding and verification of its predictions.]
245
2 Cor. viii. 12.
246
Introduction.
247
Part I. chap. v.
248
Part I. chap. iv. and pp. 156, 157.
249
Pp. 156, 157.
250
Dan. xii. 10. See also Isa. xxix. 13, 14: Matt. vi. 23, and xi. 25, and xiii. 11, 12: John iii. 19, and v. 44: 1 Cor. ii. 14, and 2 Cor. iv. 4: 2 Tim. iii. 13; and that affectionate as well as authoritative admonition, so very many times inculcated, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Grotius saw so strongly the thing intended in these and other passages of Scripture of the like sense, as to say, that the proof given us of Christianity was less than it might have been, for this very purpose: Ut ita sermo Evangelii tanquam lapis esset Lydius ad quem ingenia sanabilia explorarentur. De Ver. R. C. lib. ii. [So that the Gospel should be a touchstone, to test the honesty of men’s dispositions.]
251
Pp. 100, 257, &c.
252
[See Witsii Meletemeta, Diss. IV.: Pfafii Disput.: Campbell on Miracles: Douglass’ Criterion: Farmer’s Dissertations: Paley’s Evid.: Taylor’s Apol. of Ben Mordecai: Tucker’s Light of Nat.: Watson’s Tracts, vol. iv.: Jortin’s Sermons: Bp. Fleetwood’s Essays: Boyle Lectures: Lardner’s Credibility.]
253
[“The miracles of the Jewish historian, are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a necessary and inseparable part. The whole history is founded in them; it consists of little else; and if it were not a history of them, it would be a history of nothing.” – Bolingbroke, Posthumous Works, vol. iii. p. 279.]
254
[An admirable work on this recondite mode of proving the truth of the New Testament narrative, is Paley’s Horæ Paulinæ. The same department of evidence is ably handled by Birk, in his Horæ Evangelicæ, and Horæ Apostolicæ: Graves on the Pentateuch: and Blunt in his “Undesigned Coincidences both of the Old and New Testament.” Grotius, De Veritate, has some excellent passages on the same subject.]
255
[Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. c. 47.] Clement, who is here quoted, lived in the first century, and is mentioned Phil. iv. 3. His epistle to the Corinthians, written in Greek, contains the passage here referred to, which may be thus translated: “Take the letter of the blessed Paul the Apostle. What did he write to you, in the first beginning of the Gospel? Truly he sent you a divinely inspired letter about himself, and Cephas, and Apollos.”
256
Gal. i.: 1 Cor. xi. 23, &c.: 1 Cor. xv. 8.
257
Rom. xv. 19: 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9, 10-28, &c., and xiii. 1, 2, 8, and the whole 14th chapter: 2 Cor. xii. 12, 13: Gal. iii. 2, 5.
258
See the Koran, chap. xiii. and chap. xvii.
259
[Mahomet expressly declares that he worked no public miracles in confirmation of his mission, “because the former nations have charged them with imposture.” He claims, however, to have had private miraculous assurances of his mission, and most preposterous they were.Whately, in his Christian Evidences, has handled this aspect of miracles with great ability. See also Paley’s Evidences, sec. 3: and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, chap. 1.]
260
[Alexander, in his Evidences, and several other writers have placed this argument in a very convincing light. Arnobius, one of the earliest Christian writers, asks, “Shall we say that the men of those times were inconsiderate, deceitful, stupid, and brutish enough to feign having seen what they never saw? and that when they might have lived in peace and comfort, they chose gratuitous hatred and obloquy?”The rejection of Christianity by so many in the first age was the result of the continued action of personal and hereditary prejudice and depravity, capable of resisting any supposable evidence. The reception of Christianity by multitudes, under the same evidences, and to their immediate personal damage, shows strongly that there was enough evidence to produce those effects. Thus the rejection by some does not countervail the acceptance by others.]
261
P. 294, &c.
262
[Compare Butler’s Sermons; on Balaam, and on Self-deceit.]
263
See the foregoing chapter.
264
[“Whenever a general scheme is known to be pursued by a writer, that scheme becomes the true key in the hands of his reader, for unlocking the meaning of particular parts, which would otherwise not be seen clearly to refer to such scheme. The inspired writers had one common and predominant scheme in view, which was to bear testimony to Jesus. Whatever passages occur in their writings, which bear an apt and easy resemblance to the history of Jesus, may, or rather must in all reasonable construction, be applied to him.” – Hurd on the Proph., p. 117.]
265
[Consult on this point, Gulick, Theologia Prophetica: Vitringa, Observationes: Hengstenburg, Christologia: Horsley’s Tracts and Sermons: King’s Morsels of Criticism: Waugh’s Dissertations: Lyall’s Propœdia Prophetica.]
266
It appears that Porphyry did nothing worth mentioning in this way. For Jerome on the place says: Duas posteriores bestias – in uno Macedonum regno ponit. And as to the ten kings; Decem reges enumerat, qui fuerunt sævissimi: ipsosque reges non unius ponit regni, verbi gratia, Macedoniæ, Syriæ, Asiæ, et Ægypti; sed de diversis regnis unum efficit regum ordinem. [“The two latter beasts he places in one of the Macedonian kingdoms.” “He reckons up ten kings who had been excessively cruel and these not kings of one country, as Macedonia, for instance, or Syria, or Asia, or Egypt; but makes up his set of kings out of different kingdoms.”] In this way of interpretation, any thing may be made of any thing.
267
P. 189, &c.
268
John i. 3.
269
Eph. iii. 9.
270
Acts iii. 21.
271
Rev. x. 7.
272
Dan. ii. 44.
273
Dan. vii. 22.
274
Rev. xi. 17, 18; xx. 6.
275
Dan. vii. 27.
276
Chap. ii. iii. &c.
277
Deut. xxviii. 64; xxx. 2, 3: Isa. xlv. 17.
278
Isa. lx. 21: Jer. xxx. 11; xlvi. 28: Amos ix. 14, 15: Jer. xxxi. 36.
279
Isa. viii. 14, 15; xlix. 5; chap. liii.: Mal. i. 10, 11, and chap. iii.
280
Isa. xlix. 6, chap. ii., chap, xi., chap. lvi. 7: Mal. i. 11. To which must be added, the other prophecies of the like kind, several in the New Testament, and very many in the Old; which describe what shall be the completion of the revealed plan of Providence.
281
[See Davidson’s Disc. on Proph.: Blaney on Daniel’s LXX. Weeks: Hurd’s Introd. to the Study of Proph.: Jortin’s Ser. at Boyle Lect.: Fuller’s Gosp. its own Witness, part ii.: Waugh’s Diss.: Apthorpe’s Discourses.]
282
P. 250.
283
[Hundreds of instances might be adduced, in which profane historians corroborate the statements of the Scriptures. The following are merely specimens: Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, and Solinus, speak of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The lives of David and Solomon are given in the remains of the Phœnician Annals, in Damascenus, and Eupolemus. Menander describes the carrying away of the Ten Tribes by Salmanasor. Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, and Numenius, speak of Jesus Christ. His miracles are owned by Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, and Jewish writers opposed to Christianity. Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Julian, and others describe his being put to death; and Tacitus says that many were put to death for adhering to his religion. Phlegon mentions the miracles of Peter; and Paul is enumerated among eminent authors, in a fragment of Longinus.]
284
[This thought is elaborated with skill by Whately in his “Historic Doubts.” He takes up all the popular infidel objections as to the life of Christ, and applies them with undiminished or even increased force against the evidences that such a man as Buonaparte ever existed.Johnson in a lively sally once said – “‘It is easy to be on the negative side. I deny that Canada is taken. The French are a much more numerous people than we; and it is not likely they would allow us to take it.’ ‘But the Government have announced the fact.’ ‘Very true. But the ministry have put us to an enormous expense by the war in America, and it is their interest to persuade us that we have got something for our money.’ ‘But the fact is confirmed by thousands who were at the taking of it.’ ‘Aye, but these men have an interest in deceiving us: they don’t want you should think the French have beat them. Now suppose you go over and find it so, that would only satisfy yourself; for when you come back we will not believe you. We will say you have been bribed.’” – Boswell.]