SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5997, 5 February 1881, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

METHODS OF MEETING MODERN ' UNBELIEF. A MxrrCP.E BY THE REV. JOSEPH COOK, OF EOSTOX, U.S.A. [Delivered in tho Memorial Hall, Farringdon-street, on Tuesday, the 2nd November, in connection with the Half yearly Meeting of the London Congregational Union.] It is, of course, no part of my purpose tonight to instruct this dignified assembly, in the presence of which I ought to be dumb ; but it may be that a few facts concerning rationalism in the United States, and a few glimpses of the power of our free churches, may not be without their worth as the testimony of a stranger to facts within his observation at home I believe that the trend of history is toward the enlargement of civil as well as religious liberty. We must learn how to manage men when they all think for themselves. The time has come when every man will exercise his judgment for himself, and when, unfortunately., not every man lias judgment to exercise. Adolescent culture of the masses is at once a glory and a peril of our republican age. This is the chief origin, I believe, of the scepticism of adolescent culture which in our time is the most notorious. We are, I think, troubled now less than we have been for many ages with the scepticism of experts. Mr. Cobden used to say that the number of trained infidels, of really reasoned sceptics in England among the working classes, especially among the skilled operatives, could be put into a draw-ing-room. I venture to say that the number of infidels in the United States among the working classes who can give a reason for their unbelief that would bear examination under the microscope and scapel of scholarship, could be put into any small cabin on an Atlantic steamer, and that iu the rolling of the ship there would be very much danger of physical injury by the space left for them in which to toss to and fro. It is notorious that American infidelity of the popular species publishes very little that is worth readiivj. There is almost nothing in Amer rican or British infidel publications that has a name on both sides of the Atlantic. Our Theodore Parker, indeed, whose anti-slavery polities deserved all honour, has been much read in America and here ; but he left no theological school behind him in Boston. Theodore Parker is now far less a power in Boston than ho was ten years ago; he was then far less a power than ten previously. He represents no extensive or permanent movement of thought. We have learned in the United States, by our experience in heterodoxy, to judge it not so much by tho men who make it, as by the men it makes. We have bad noble men revolting from Puritanism. We have had a Socinian secession from orthodoxy ; Boston has been the centre of it; but experience shows that the third generation of rationalistic negation, on tho line of the Unitarian faith, usually becomes far more: rationalistic than the first generation. Tho third t(eneration of Socinian negation is usually rationalistic in the extreme, sometimes infidel. You drop from Chaiming to Theodore Parker, from Theodore Parker to Frothingham, from Frothiui-ham to the incomprehensible and undcscribable ! You arrhe at last at a state where lax teachers have no Gospel to preach; they become simply literary men, aud in that way end their career a3 defeated propagandists of a fallen faith.

To run rapidly over some general considerations touching this immense theme of the methods of meeting modern unbelief, let me say, in the first place, that there is no modern form of scepticism which mail not lie. exnloiJUd hij a fair use of its own concession*. AGNOSTICISM Take, for instance, agnosticism, and what are its concessions? Sir, I believe agnosticism to be about half of it chaff and half of it chaffing. But when you approach its more serious representatives you find them claiming that'-they ai-e a sort of theists; they nilirin that they are not atheists. The character of God to the'agnostic is unknown as the back side of the moon ; but I have a right to assert, that, although-unknown, that side exerts an attraction on every flaahing wave of all the great and has its power, as well as any part of the orb which we can behold. We are indebted, I think, to Mr. Herbert Spencer, in this country, and to Mr. John Fiske, the most brilliant Spnneerian in the United States, for the best representation of agnosticism. I suppose."l need not pause to justify the assertion that agnosticism itself admits that the Great First Cause is, and is a cause, and is Omnipresent, and'has existed from eternity. Thus there are four things known about this Cause ; its existence, its power or causal energy, its omnipresence, its eternity. But Mr. Herbert Spencer will tell you that the nature of things works well; he will tell you that the arrangement of this universe is such that the right has immense advantages in the struggle for existence. "We are told by Mr. Arnold that there is, in the universe, "an eternal power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." Now, take these concessions, and what follows? Why, if there be no personal God, but simply an eternal power, not myself, that makes for righteousness, then I must learn to love what that power loves, and hate what that power hates, or it is ill with me. The doctrine that we need to love what the Supreme Power of the universe loves, and hate what He hates, stands even under the little that agnosticism knows about the primal Cause, omnipresent, eternal, and everywhere making for righteousness. If 1 make for unrighteousness, the wheels of the universe are against me. The very nature of things requires that I shall love what it loves, and hate what it hates. Anu so I would approach all aznosties on the basis oi their own concessions, and affirm that of self-evident necessity men cannot have harmonization with their environment without similarity of feeling with the Eternal Somewhat which makes for righteousness--. THE U.NIVKKSK KEVFALS A TJIIXKKK. Modern science has shown us more clearly in these last ages than any science or imagination of man ever showed us before that the universe is full of thought. All nature bursts with fulness of evidence that it is arranged on a plan. But, I believe, it is a self-evident truth that there cannot be thought without a thinker. Wherever we find in the universe thought not our own, we may be sure that there is a Thinker not ourselves. The universe is not only a thing ; it is a thought. And it is one thought. The broadest and most vaunted doctrine of physical science is the universality and inviolability of law. The reign of law, omnipresent, eternal—teach it as much as you please! The thought that is behind the reign of universal and unified natural law must be regarded as one; and that one thought I hold to be the outcome and proof of the existence of one Thinker, omnipresent, eternal, and personal as is the Thought. A thinker is a person. That Supreme Somewhat which, as the blindest agnostic admits, makes for righteousness is thusdenionstrably known to be an Eternal Some One who makes for righteousness and from whom we cannot escape. THE CHAItAOTEU l> H THIS TiIIN'KEK I-< ASUEIS.TAINABI.E. You have been told, I suppose, that the absolute and infinite must contain everything, or else thoy are not absolute and infinite. To define God, said Spinoza, is to deny Him. Now, I hold that it is certain that infinite space is space, that infinite time is time, that infinite power is power, that infinite knowledge is knowledge, that infinite goodness is goodness. What is affirmed in calling the Divine attributes of power, knowledge, goodness, infinite, is intelligible and involves no self-contradiction. Except m the elements of infinity any given quality is the same in its infinite as in its finite development. We cannot adequately conceive of the quantity, but we may of the quality of infinity. What is inconsistent with goodness will be inconsistent with infinite goodness. Mr. Mill was perfectly right in saying. except that his profaueness should have been omitted, that ho would call no being good who is not what he means when he applies the epithet to his fellow-creatures. "If such a bciiiff," said Mr Mill, " can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell 1 will go." There was an earthquake rent. and into this chasm the whole really puerile philosophy of nescience, I believe, will be ■ ultimately cast, in the name of logic, and ! with the acclamations of all thinking men. This unscientific doctrine of agnosticism i has very little hold on what calls itself eul- , ture in the United States. My friend Mr. ■ Fiske is a brilliant man and an agnostic ; J. i speak always with respect of his honesty, but I he is to this hour plunging m the Sei- . bouian boa of the Spencerian philosophy. ■ Professor Bowen, a profound metaphysician I and devout Christiou believer, and not JMr. , Fisko, represents Harvard University. I ro fessor Bowen, of Harvard, President Porter, 1 of Yale, and President McCosh, of Princeton College, the foremost American authorities in philosophy, are all vigorous oppo-

nents of the agnosticism of the Spencerian school. That man in London whose opinion I believe to be worth more than that of any other living Englishman on the sulijcct, told me not lon-.-ago thai he b.-lieved that Spencer's liooks would not !>.' bought in i;:r o 'e numbers ton years after his du-ith. Tlie attributes of • nowk-dgf, power, ami goodness, each of them in ;•« infinite degree, can be intelligibly an I without tradiction attributed to one Thinker, and to but one, and that one He whose thought the origination and preservation of the universe exhibit. Immense distinctions exist between the Absolute defined as the unrelated, or that which exists out of all relations ; and the Absolute defined as the independent, or that which exists out of out «:/ of relations— that is, out of all relations of dependence. It is in the latter sense only that scientific Theism asssrts that the O.ie Person whose existence is proved by the one thought of the universe is absolute. Great distinctions exist between the Absolute defined as that which is capable of existing out of relation to anything else, and denned as that which is incapable of existing in relation to anytliing else. It is in the former sense that scientific Theism calls God absolute. It is in the latter that Herbert Spenc-.-r, Jlansel, and others, who deny that we can prove intellectually that (iod is a person, call God absolute. This false definition overlooks the distinction between infinite and all, and leads Hansel to He el's conclusion that God's nature embraces everything, evil included. The definition which Mansel and Spencer hold is repudiated by scientific Theism. "With that repudiation, all the alleged difficulties that arise from asserting the personality of God vanish. Herbert Spencer and his school admit that the Eternal l'ower, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness in the universe, is omnipresent, self-existent, omnipotent, and in this sense infinite and absolute.

In a recent volume of most searching applications of the scientific method to philosophical thought, Thomas Hill, lately President of Harvanl University, writes ("The Natural Sources of Philosophy," p. 32): — "Spencer says that our belief in an Omnipresent Eternal Cause of the Universe has a higher warrant than any other belief— that is, that the existence of such a cause is the most certain of all certainties ; but assorts that we can assign to it no attributes whatever, anil that it is absolutely unknown ami unknowable. Yet, in his very statement of its existence, he assigns to the Ultimate Cause four attributes—Being, Casual Energy, Omnipresence, and Eternity. And afterwards he implicitly assigns to it two other attributes, repeatedly expressing his faitb that the Cosmos is obedient to law, and that this law is of beneficent result, which is an implicit ascription of wisdom and love to the Ultimate Cause. All thinkers concede that human reason is competent to discover the existence of an Ultimate Cause, to form the inductions of its Being, its Casual Energy ov Power, its Omnipresence, and Eternitv." The intelligence, the unity, and, in a correct sense, the infinity, of the Cause of tUe universe are, therefore, proved in entire harmony with the scientific method on the one hand, and Christian Theism on the other. JirOGNOSTICISM. For one, having given at least fiftciii years to philosophical themes, I personally am not disturbed by agnosticism. I hold it to bo the next thing to the truth, and therefore a most mischevious half-truth ; but every, half-truth is a half-falsehood, and the truth makes the lie alluring to our modern speculation. The truth I suppose to be, not that we cannot know anything of God, but that we can know a little, and that this little is enough for practical purposes. I believe that the twentieth century will teach, not agnosticism, but what I love to call miognosticisin, or the doctrine that we can know a little of God, and not that we can know nothing of Him. My conviction is that it is our duty to lift up 'over against the hardy arrogant agnosticism of our tines—the by no means arrogant or extravagant, but cool and scientific doctrine of miognostieism, which is likely to be the doctrine of enlightened future times. NECESSITY OK AN ATONKMEST. [ In the concession of agnosticism that there iii an Omnipresent Eternal rower which makes for righteousness, we find, therefore, no release from the doctrine of the new birth. Had I time I-should endeavour to show also that while thatTqvrev unswathes us, we can lind no release from,the doctrh-.e of the necessity of an atonement. I believe if the nature of tilings makes for righteousness, and if I have a black record behind me in the past, that record which I must face while I continue to exist, will be a source of dissonance between me ami my v environment. I believe as thoroughly as that I exist that my environment must be made up of my own faculties and of my record in the past, and of an Omnipresent First Cause which makes for righteousness. How am Ito be harmonised with that environment ? It is self-evident that without similarity of feeling with this Power, I can have no harmonisation with it. for two cannot walk together unless they arc agreed. I hold also that without a screen let down between me and my black past T can have no harmony with that portion of my environment. On all who admit that there is a power, not ourselves, whic i makes for righteousness, a merciless necessity ot thought forces the admission of necessity of similarity of feeling with that Power, and of some great arrangement by which we can be screened from a past which is irreversible anil iuerasible. There arc more things in the nature of tilings than have ever been dreamt of in our philosophy. (.)•< t ! :p basis of mere Positivism mid Secu lari--.ni. believing in nothing but the nature of thin**, I would assert that similarity ol feeling with Clod.is demonstrably noeessarj to peace in His presence, or, in the language of the l'ositivists, to love what the nature of things love and to hate what it hates, ii demonstrably necessary to our harmunisatioi with our environment. Let us then em phasize these concessions and bring thos< who make them into sucli n mood of serious ness as will at last enable them to lift ui their eyes to inferences far above their pro sent low plane of intellectual attainment.

UOKS r>KATII KSli .U.L? If I were to approach a Positivist who denies that there is an existence for tlic soul after death, I believe that I should iind him una) ilo to prove that organisation begins everything in our human existence ; but if he cannot prove that, how docs he know that disorganisation ends everything? Organisation implies an organising power, and that power must -o bafoi-e its own effects. We are - ' woven bv something not ourselves," as Tyndall says. What is the cause of form in organisms V There must be a cause, and if organisation duos not begin all, but is itself be-mi, no Positivist, no Secularist, no man of merely great adeptuess in the physicists" portions ot investigation —1 will not call these portions science, I call them a pinched physicism—no man of that department has a right to assert that disorganisation ends all. The thing that goes before organisation may live after disorganisation, and that may prove that death does not end all. And so I would say to the "ceptie, As yon do not know that death ends all, make preparation for that unseen world in which no doubt the laws of the nature ol things are to be what they are here ; make preparation to walk while you have your existence wit!, a Being or with a nature of thiii-s which you cannot be harmonised with unless you ina'ke for righteousness as it does. Tlii'-'i. , art-, plain, straightforward concessions of tlio w.n-st school of reasoned sceptics, and I hold hat it is very important for the Christian pulpit to seize upon these outlying portions of the fortress of Rationalism, and show that whoever takes them can take the citadel at l;.st. Thcro are no outlying fortrc»«ei of nationalism well protected ; we can enter the outlying forts almost without the loss of a man : indeed our spies are talking to each other constantly on the borders hi-.tween our two armies. Let the talk he sometimes courteous, sometimes friendly, never apologetic, on our part, and when we "et a hearing let us stand on the outposts :?.id take the citadel. 11. Another method of meeting modern inlidelitv I'-- to »/«;«/ <"' JUtmctne** and venji- „/,/,.,„;,■ «./■ .l-iivu;,,,,,*. The very worst disease in the blood and bones, of what calls it-elf liberalise thought in our time, is •■..a.c.ess of definition, thir vague, literary rationalism rarely attempts to define g. chief term.-, but drifts from tog bank to tog lvuik across the seas of discussion, making it's protection very often the vapour itself This has been the difficulty of Lmtaiianism in the United States; it w.-« the difficulty f Theodore Parker ; it was the difficulty of Air Emerson, who so lately wai a Pantlitist, ami who to-day, as I thank God lor being able to affirm, is a Theist. He allows his friends to call him a. Christian Theist. Mr. Kmcrson, who began his career as more or less Pantheistic, has of late been assisting his neighbour, Mr. Alcott, in conducting a summer school of philosophy at Concord, ■which teaches Tlicism and carries its doc-

trines almost up to the verge of Christianity. That school is full of mistrust of Positivism, of Agnosticism, and of all. those forms of speculation which do not take an integral view of the universe. All fractional schemes of thought science itself will ultimately distrust, and it ■will bo found that of all views of the universe the Biblical is the least fractional. Mr. Emerson said lately to ilr. Alcott, and the latter reported the words before fifty ladies and gentlemen in my parlour in Boston, "If you wish to call me a Christian theist, 3'ou have mv authority to do so, and you must not leave" out the word Christian, for to leave that out is to leave out everything." Mr. Emerson's is the only eminent name that was quoted in America in support of Rationalism, and to-day it can be quoted in support of theism, although I do not dare yet call Emerson exactly a Christian theist, in spite of his calling himself so. 111. Another method of meeting modern unbelief is to point out the practical character of vnxound schemes of thought and ic/tat httidenty usually becomes in the third generation. Is there an infidel book in the world that any sane man wants for a dying pillow ? I look north, south, east, and west for such a volume. I look to the thirty-two points of the compass for any infidel book 100 years old, yet holding its own among scholars. I find no such volume. 1 do not want for my dying pillow any book of Strauss.or Kenan, any more than of Voltaire. I have seen the decadence of the negations of Strauss, and I believe we shall live to see the decadence of some arrogant philosophies which to-day underlie infidelity. Who is there here, above fifty years of aLie, who does not remember the time when Hegel was the great authority in Germany, and was quoted in support of Rationalism ? Who does not remember when that great man, John Stuart Mill, was such an authority that to differ from him was almost as much as one's intellectual reputation was worth ? But you know that to-day, since the publication of his Autobiography, that philosophic authority of his lias waned ; and now Professor Jcvons is telling us we must look yet further before we find logical infallibility. As these men have waxed and" waned, so some who now fill the earn of the world with rationalistic speculations will wax and wane. We shall ultimately, out of our wrecks in philosphy. come to a profounder reverence for the Biblical view of the world as itself the best philosophy. What works well, age after age, is likely' to be the truth. There is no unsound scheme of thought which does work well when transmuted into life ; and, therefore, the sternest judge of error is its reduction to practice. IV. Of all methods of meeting unbelief, the most efficient is, in my judgment, the famous scientific one— repeated and prolonged experiment. PKAVKK. Who here is willinj to try, for example the experiment of testing whether prayer really has an answer V It is written in the Book which is an authority in Christendom, that God is more willing to give His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him for it than fathers are to give bread to their children. What is prayer? It has commonly been taught that prayer consists of four parts— adora ion, confession, thanksgiving, petition. I love to teach that it consists of tive parts— adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, and total self-surrender. Any prayer that has not in the petition "Thy will be done" is mere vain repetition. Where is the sceptic that dares try the experiment of prayer in that sense, and see whether the Holy Spirit will be given to him or not? A man is not manly who vaunts that he believes in the scientific method and will not test it. You believe that experiment is the test of all truth, and that the scientific method must prevail. England, Germany, and the United States are very well agreed in their best cultured circles, that inductive experiment must be applied to theology as well as to all other themes. Reverence for proof, clear, ideas at any cost, obedience the organ of spiritual knowledge, .".re the great points in the creed of all true culture. Our century believes in making known to anybody all that is thoroughly known by anvbodv. The Church is anxious that even the truths of Christianity should be tested iy merciless experiment. Take the doctrine of prayer in all its five parts, and try an experiment with it. I hold it to be a truth of experience that whoever yields himself utterly te God receives at the instant of surrender an innci illumination unobtainable in any other way. I hold that this experiment, repeated age after age in innumerable personal careers, has never once been repeated without success. I IS THERE ANOTHER PROBATION AFTER I>EATII'

I am willing to test modern latitudinariauism within the Church itself by experiment. We are told that there is to be opportunity for repentance after death. We are "told that extinction is to overtake ultimately the incorrigibly wicked. Is any man, as a praeti&il experiment, willing to be incorrigibly wicked and take his chance as to extinction?' Eternal hope, we are told, is before us, whatever we do. There will be opportunity of repbntance after death, say some revered men : b>it arc these men willing to trust their owii chances of eternal peace to the opportunity of. repentance after death ? That is a practical, experiment for you, and the application scientific method which you revere to this-department of religious research. "" . Thomas Corwin, Governor of Ohio, was renowned for his quick retorts. HeVoncc met a negro who had lied from Kentucky, and whom he had known in that slave Stat'-e. The negro had left friends mid a comfortable?, home, and in Ohio was dressed in rags. The Governor said to the negro, '-Were you not well treated in Kentucky by your master ?" "Yes." "Did you not have other friends there, and clothing and food enough ?" "Always." "Well, then," said the Governor," " I must say you made a mistake in running away." "Governor Corwin," said the negro, "the situation in Kentucky is open with all its advantages, and, if you like it, you can go and occupy it." We are told by a few of the representatives of circles of society, of whose culture and seriousness I must speak with respect, that it is a barbaric doctrine to teach that character tends to a final permanence, good or bad, and that, in the very nature of things, a final permanence can come but once. " Without using the seriptur.il argument at all, I beg leave to say to any man who teaches this doctrine of repentance after death, " The situation is open with all its advantages. Do yon purpose to go and occupy it?" Not he, not J, not yon, if we are in our senses. What I dare not, and will not, do for myself, I will not recommend to others. ITo bu continued.]