FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68  
69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   >>  
ess be alleged, except in the case of Mahomet; and to that the answer is brief. The history of Mahomet is the history of a conqueror--and his logic was the logic of the sword. In spite of the theory of Strauss, therefore, not less than that of Gibbon, the old and ever recurring difficulty of giving a rational account of the origin and establishment of Christianity still presents itself for solution to the infidel, as it always has done, and, we venture to say, always will do. It is an insoluble phenomenon, except by the admission of the facts of the--New Testament. 'The miracles,' says Butler, 'are a satisfactory account of the events, of which no other satisfactory account can be given; nor any account at all, but what is imaginary merely and invented.' In the meantime, the different theories of unbelief mutually refute one another; and we may plead the authority of one against the authority of another. Those who believe Strauss believe both the theory of imposture and the theory of illusion improbable; and those who believe in the theory of imposture believe the theory of myths improbable. And both parties, we are glad to think, are quite right in the judgment they form of one another. But what must strike every one who reflects as the most surprising thing in Dr. Strauss, is, that with the postulatum with which he sets out, and which he modestly takes for granted as too evident to need proof, he should have thought it worth while to write two bulky volumes of minute criticism on the subject. A miracle he declares to be an absurdity, an contradiction, an impossibility. If we believed this, we should deem a very concise enthymene (after having proved that postulatum though) all that it was necessary to construct on the subject. A miracle cannot be true; ergo, Christianity, which in the only records by which we know anything about it, avows its absolute dependence upon miracles, must be false. It is a modification of one or other of these monstrous forms of unbelieving belief and Christian infidelity, that Mr. Foxton, late of Oxford, has adopted in his 'Popular Christianity;' as perhaps also Mr. Froude in his 'Nemesis.' It is not very easy, indeed, to say what Mr. Foxton positively believes; having, like his German prototypes, a greater facility of telling what he does believe, and of wrapping up what he does believe in a most impregnable mysticism. He certainly rejects, however, all that which, when rejected a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68  
69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   >>  



Top keywords:

theory

 

account

 

Christianity

 

Strauss

 
satisfactory
 

Foxton

 

subject

 

postulatum

 

miracle

 

authority


imposture

 

improbable

 

miracles

 
history
 
Mahomet
 
believed
 

impossibility

 

declares

 

absurdity

 

contradiction


concise

 

Froude

 

impregnable

 
mysticism
 

Oxford

 

enthymene

 
adopted
 
volumes
 

thought

 
rejected

rejects
 

criticism

 
Popular
 

minute

 
proved
 

prototypes

 

German

 
greater
 

modification

 

monstrous


infidelity

 
positively
 

Christian

 

belief

 
believes
 

unbelieving

 

dependence

 

absolute

 
wrapping
 

Nemesis