Walter Richard Cassels

“ As to the other reproach, let us ask what has actually been destroyed by such an inquiry pressed to its logical conclusion. Can Truth by any means be made less true? Can reality be melted into thin air? The Revelation not being a reality, that which has been destroyed is only an illusion, and that which is left is the Truth. Losing belief in it and its contents, we have lost absolutely nothing but that which the traveller loses when the mirage, which has displayed cool waters and green shades before him, melts swiftly away. ”

“ The nineteenth century here comes into direct contact with the age of miracles, but at the touch the miracles vanish, and that which, seen through the golden mist of pious tradition, seems to possess unearthly power and beauty, on closer examination dwindles into the prose of every day life. The more minutely reported miracles are scanned, the more unreal they are recognized to be. The point to which we now desire to call attention, however, is the belief and the mental constitution of Paul. We have seen something of the nature and operation of the gift of tongues. ”

“ Would anyone believe the affirmation that Alfred the Great, for instance, did not die at all? What amount of evidence would be required before such a statement could be pronounced sufficiently attested? Universal experience would be so uniformly opposed to the assertion that such a phenomenon had taken place, that probably no evidence which could readily be conceived could ensure the belief of more than a credulous few. The assertion that a man actually died and was buried, and yet afterwards rose from the dead, is still more at variance with human experience. ”

“ It is impossible to deny that the total removal of conditions, advocated by the Apostle Paul with all the vehemence and warmth of his energetic character, and involving nothing short of the abrogation of the Law and surrender of all the privileges of Israel, must have been shocking not only to the prejudices but also to the deepest religious convictions of men who, although Christians, had not ceased to be Jews, and, unlike the Apostle of the Gentiles, had been directly and daily in contact with Jesus, without having been taught such revolutionary principles. ”

“ When any assertion is made which contradicts unvarying experience, upon evidence which experience knows to be universally liable to error, there cannot be much hesitation in disbelieving the assertion and preferring belief in the order of nature. And when evidence proceeds from an age not only highly exposed to error, from ignorance of natural laws, superstition, and religious excitement, but prolific in fabulous reports and untenable theories, it cannot be received without the gravest suspicion. ”

“ Why were ordinary and natural means so completely set aside, and the qualifications which are generally found adequate for the conduct and regulation of life supplanted by divine Charismata? At least, we may suppose that communities endowed with such supernatural advantages, and guided by the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, must have been distinguished in every way from the rest of humanity, and must have presented a spectacle of the noblest life, free from the weakness and inconsistency of the world, and betraying none of the moral and intellectual frailties of ordinary society. ”

“ There were no cool fountains really there to allay his thirst, no flowery meadows for his wearied limbs; his pleasure was delusion, and the wilderness is blank. Rather the mirage with its pleasant illusion, is the human cry, than the desert with its barrenness. Not so, is the friendly warning; seek not vainly in the desert that which is not there, but turn rather to other horizons, and to surer hopes. Do not waste life clinging to ecclesiastical dogmas which represent no eternal verities, but search elsewhere for truth which may haply be found. ”

“ No one can examine the contents of the Acts without perceiving that some secret motive or influence did certainly govern the writer's mind, and guide him in the selection of topics, and this is betrayed by many peculiarities in his narrative. Quite apart from any attempt to discover precisely what that motive was, it is desirable that we should briefly point out some of these peculiarities. It is evident that every man who writes a history must commence with a distinct plan, and that the choice of subjects to be introduced or omitted must proceed upon a certain principle. ”

“ The prolongation of life to long periods is comparatively consistent with experience; and if a life extending to several centuries be incredible it is only so in degree, and is not absolutely contrary to the order of nature, which certainly under present conditions does not favour the supposition of such lengthened existence, but still does not fix hard and fast limits to the life of man. The resurrection of a man who has once been absolutely dead, however, is contrary to all human experience, and to all that we know of the order of nature. ”

“ When he has commenced his own public ministry, Jesus is represented as asking his disciples:—"Who do men say that I am?" and setting aside the popular conjectures that he is John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, by the still more direct question:—"And whom do ye say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said:—Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And in consequence of this recognition of his Messiahship, Jesus rejoins:—"And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." ”

“ Whatever definition be given of miracles, such exceptional phenomena must at least be antecedently incredible. In the absence of absolute knowledge, human belief must be guided by the balance of evidence, and it is obvious that the evidence for the uniformity of the order of nature, which is derived from universal experience, must be enormously greater than can be the testimony for my alleged exception to it. ”

“ The early enunciation of so pure a system of morality, and one so intelligible to the simple as well as profound to the wise, was of great value to the world, but experience being once systematized and codified, if higher principles do not constrain us, society may safely be left to see morals sufficiently observed. It is true that, notwithstanding its fluctuating rules, morality has hitherto assumed the character of a Divine institution, but its sway has not, in consequence, been more real than it must be as the simple result of human wisdom, and the outcome of social experience. ”

“ From all points of view, and upon any hypothesis, the Acts of the Apostles is so obviously incomplete as a history, so fragmentary and defective as biography, that critics have to the present day failed in framing any theory which could satisfactorily account for its anomalies, and have almost been forced to explain them by supposing a partial, apologetic or conciliatory, design, which removes the work from the region of veritable history. The whole interest of the narrative, of course, centres in the two representative Apostles, Peter and Paul, who alternately fill the scene. ”

“ He recognized and maintained the universality of the Gospel and, in resolving to go to the heathen, he practically repudiated the very theory of Jewish preference which he is here supposed to advance. If the Gospel, instead of being a power of God to salvation to every man who believed, was for the Jew first, the Apostolate of the Gentiles was a mere delusion and a snare. What could be the advantage of so urgently offering salvation to the Greek, if the gift, instead of being "for every one that believeth," was a mere prospective benefit, inoperative until the Jew had first been saved? ”

“ Now in such positions and such company, speech in foreign tongues would be something altogether without object and without meaning. Where the consciousness of the grace of salvation, and of a heavenly life springing from it, is first aroused in man, his own mother tongue verily, not a foreign language, will be the natural expression of his feelings. Or we must imagine a magical power which, taking possession of men, like instruments without volition, forces them to utter strange tones—a thing contradicting all analogy in the operations of Christianity. ”

“ Similar miracles are reported long antecedently to the first promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. The evidence was too hackneyed and commonplace to make any impression upon those before whom the Christian miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to convince the people to whom the Revelation was primarily addressed. ”

“ It would be hopeless to endeavour to define the evidence which could establish the reality of the alleged occurrences.
As the central doctrines of a religion upon which the salvation of the human race is said to depend, we are too deeply interested to be satisfied with slight evidence or no evidence at all. It has not unfrequently been made a reproach that forensic evidence is required of the reality of Divine Revelation. Such a course is regarded as perfectly preposterous, whether the test be applied to the primary assertion that a revelation has been made at all, or to its contents. ”

“ There has not been a single historical religion largely held amongst men which has not pretended to be divinely revealed, and the written books of which have not been represented as directly inspired. There is not a doctrine, sacrament or rite of Christianity which has not substantially formed part of earlier religions; and not a single phase of the supernatural history of the Christ, from his miraculous conception, birth and incarnation to his death, resurrection and ascension, which has not had its counterpart in earlier mythologies. ”

“ It may be conceived that, under such circumstances, his teachings may have assumed even a higher spirituality than before and, rising above the clouds of the present, soared out into that calmer future when the religion he founded would be accepted by men, and become a light to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel. It is probable that he may have spoken of his death in spiritual terms as a sacrifice for them and for the world, which would secure the triumph of his work and regenerate mankind. ”

“ No sooner is the first question formulated than it becomes obvious to every one who is acquainted with psychological and physiological researches, or who has even the most elementary knowledge of the influence of the mind upon the body, that it must at once be answered in the affirmative. Indeed the affirmation that subjective impressions, in connection with every sense, can be mistaken for, and believed to be, actual objective effects, is so trite that it seems almost superfluous to make it. Every reader must be well acquainted with illustrations of the fact. ”

“ It is infinitely more probable that these persons were mistaken, than that a dead man returned to life again, and appeared to them. We shall presently consider how much importance is to be attached to the mere belief in the occurrence of such phenomena, but with regard to the appearances referred to by Paul, except in so far as they attest the fact that certain persons may have believed that Jesus appeared to them, such evidence has not the slightest value, and is indeed almost ludicrously insufficient to establish the reality of so stupendous a miracle as the Resurrection. ”

“ The excitement of each acts upon the whole body, and is itself increased by reaction from the aggregate emotion. Each receives impressions from the other, which are vividly felt even without being verified by personal experience. The most nervous temperament in the assembly gives the final impetus to the excited imagination of the rest. In moments of supreme expectation and doubt, enthusiasm overcomes reason. ”

“ The temper of the man is well shown in Paul's indignant letter to the Galatians. He receives his Gospel, not from men, but by direct revelation from Jesus Christ and, so far is he from submission of the kind implied, that he says: "But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so say I now again: If any man preach any Gospel to you other than that ye received, let him be accursed." ”

“ Paul sees no significance in that life, but concentrates all interest in the death and resurrection of his Messiah. In the sepulchre hewn out of the rock are deposited the teaching and example of Jesus, and from it there rises a mystic Christ lost in a halo of theology. The ecclesiastical Christianity which was mainly Paul's work has almost effaced the true work of Jesus. Too little can now be traced of that teaching, and few are the genuine records of his work which have survived the pious enthusiasm evoked by his character. Theology has done its worst with the life ”