the mystery of reproduction. Even the Positivist who would re- duce all belief to zero, is obliged to admit the incomprehensible to be true. And those who will believe neither in God nor spirit be- cause they ai-e invisible and intangible, say that all we know is the unknowable, — we know only force, — but of force we know noth- ing but that it is, and that it persists. If, therefore, the incompre- hensible must be believed in eveiy other department of knowledge, no rational ground can be given why it should be banished from religion.
2. Rationalism assumes that the human intelligence is the meas- ure of all truth. This is an insane presumption on the part of such a creature as man. If a child believes with implicit confi- dence what it cannot understand, on the testimony of a parent, surely man may believe what he cannot understand, on the testi- mony of God.
3. Rationalism destroys the distinction between faith and knowl- edge, which all men and all ages admit. Faith is assent to truth founded on testimony, " credo quod non video." Knowledge is assent founded on the direct or indirect, the intuitive or discursive, apprehension of its object. If there can be no rational faith, if we are to receive as true only what we know and understand, the whole world is beggared. It loses all that sustains, beautifies, and ennobles life.
4. The poor cannot be Rationalists. If we must understand what we believe, even on the pi'inciples of the Rationalists, only philosophers can be religious. They alone can comprehend the rational grounds on which the great truths of even natural religion are to be received. Widespread, therefore, as has been the in- fluence of a Rationalistic spirit, it has never taken hold of the people ; it has never controlled the creed of any church ; because all religion is founded on the incomprehensible and the infinite.
5. The protest, therefore, which our religious nature makes against the narrow, cold, and barren system of Rationalism, is a sufficient proof that it cannot be true, because it cannot meet our most urgent necessities. The object of worship must be infinite, and of necessity incomprehensible.
6. Faith implies knowledge. And if we must understand in order to know, faith and knowledge become alike impossible. The principle, thei-efore, on which Rationalism is founded, leads to Nihilism, or universal negation. Even the latest form of philoso- phy, taking the lowest possible ground as to religious faith, admits that we are surrounded on every side by the incomprehensible.
42 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. LQ. — Rationalism
Herbert Spencer, in his " First Principles of a New Philosophy," asserts, p. 45, " the omnipresence of something which passes com- prehension." He declares that the ultimate truth in which all forms of religion agree, and in which religion and science are in harmony, is, " Tiiat tlie Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable."^ The inscrutable, the incomprehensible, what we cannot understand, must therefore of necessity be ration- ally the object of faith. And consequently reason, rational de- monstrati(m, or philosophical proof is not the ground of faith. We may rationally believe what we cannot understand. We may be assured of truths which are encompassed with objections which we cannot satisfactorily answer.
C. History, The modern form of Deistic Rationalism had its rise in England during the latter part of the seventeenth, and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. Lord Herbert, who died as early as 1648, in his work, " De Veritate, prout distinguitur a Revelatione," etc., taught that all religion consists in the acknowledgment of the fol- lowing truths : 1. The existence of God. 2. The dependence of man on God, and his obligation to reverence him. 3. Piety con- sists in the harmony of the human faculties. 4. The essential dif- ference between good and evil. 5. A future state of rewards and punishment. These he held to be intuitive truths, needing no proof, and virtually believed by all men. This may be considered as the confession of Faith of all Deists, and even of those Ration- alists who admit a supernatural revelation ; for such revelation, they maintain, can only authenticate what reason itself teaches. Other writers quickly followed in the course opened by Lord Herbert ; as, Toland in his " Christianity without Mystery," 1696, a work which excited great attention, and drew out numerous refutations. Toland ended by avowing himself a Pantheist. Hobbes was a Materialist. Loi-d Shaftesbury, who died 1773, in his " Char- acteristics," " Miscellaneous Treatises," and " Moralist," made ridi- cule the test of truth. He declared revelation and inspiration to be fanaticism. Collins (died 1729) was a more serious writer. His principal works were, " An Essay on Free-thinking,'' and " The Grounds and Reasons of Christianity." Lord Bolingbroke, Secretary of State under Queen Anne, " Letters on the Study and Utility of History." Matthew Tindal, " Christianity as Old as the Creation." Tindal, instead of attacking Christianity in detail, at-
1 Fint Principles of a New Philosophy, p. 46.