There is another difficulty of belief in the divinity of Christ, which it is all the more essential to bring into prominence because it usually receives but scant notice from the pulpit. I refer to the “ignorance” of Jesus Christ. In a review of Le Réalisme Chrétien et l’Idéalisme Grec

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

In the June (1906) number of Review of Theology and Philosophy, edited by Professor Allan Menzies, D.D.

As the Rev. John A. Hutton attempts to show in the Hibbert Journal, July, 1905.

In his address at the London Diocesan Conference in April, 1904.

When addressing a conference of clergy and church-workers at Blandford on September 7th, 1905.

In the course of one of those remarkable orations of his which always command the thoughtful attention of the House. The speech was reported in the newspapers of March 15th, 1904.

See Dr. Horton’s letter to the Daily News, August 23rd, 1905.

The Rev. Charles Voysey, in a sermon preached at the Theistic Church, Swallow Street, on February 5th, 1905.

See pp. 63–4.

Quoted from What it is to be a Christian, a pamphlet written by the Ven. J. M. Wilson, D.D.

Eighteen per cent. was the figure given by Bishop Ingram, speaking of “Londoners,” in his speech at the annual meeting of the Bishop of London’s Fund in 1904; but, according to the strict results of the census, the figure for London is twenty-two or twenty-three per cent. of the total population.

As Mr. Fielding remarks in his book, The Hearts of Men (pp. 217–8): “To one coming to Europe after years in the East and visiting churches, nothing is more striking than the enormous preponderance of women there. It is immaterial whether the church be in England or France, whether it be Anglican or Roman Catholic or Dissenter. The result is always the same—women outnumber the men as two to one, as three to one, sometimes as ten to one.”

As a matter of fact, no distinguished leader among modern biologists has come to any such conclusion. People are apt to forget that, while Lord Kelvin is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished living physicists, he is not himself a biologist.

See Nature, April 23rd, 1903; also Appendix to this work.

This assertion is severely criticised by Mr. Joseph McCabe in the Hibbert for July, 1905. Mr. McCabe holds that “Sir Oliver Lodge’s own conception of life may, with a far greater show of reason, be described as a modified survival of an older doctrine” (p. 746).

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the distinguished naturalist and evolutionist, is another scientist with spiritist convictions, and his concern for supernatural religion led him to step outside his own domain and make that remarkable attack upon current scientific opinions in astronomical matters which met with such unanimous condemnation (see the Fortnightly Review for March and September, 1903).

In the Times, October, 1904.

At Exeter Hall, in March, 1905, Lady Blount developed her “flat-earth” theory, and accused Newton of want of logic.

A book, edited by the Rev. J. E. Hand (George Allen), which gives, perhaps, the best that can be said by able and fair-minded men, writing in the light of the latest knowledge and criticism, in favour of a reconciliation between religion and science. The book contains essays by various authors—Sir O. Lodge, Professors Thomson, Geddes, and Muirhead, the Rev. P. N. Waggett, the Rev. John Kelman, and others.

Dr. W. Barry, in his Ernest Renan, is content to attribute the change mainly to Renan’s study of Kant. But such a theory is inconsistent with Renan’s own statement in his Reminiscences, where he expressly declares that questions of history, not metaphysics, shook his faith.

Author of a vituperative libel on agnostics, called Atheism and Faith.

The psychical aspect of the belief of such persons is discussed in Chap. VI., § 5.

Canon Scott Holland, in a sermon preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral on the first Sunday after Epiphany, 1905. See also Appendix.

The Secretary of the Rationalist Press Association has received several private letters from clergymen expressing their desire to leave the Church if they could find some employment. They usually have large families dependent upon them for support.

I omit all mention of the trading or domestic classes who often depend directly for their support on strict religionists. The way in which “their bread is buttered” is bound to enter considerably into their calculations, and also they have often even less leisure for the study of modern thought than a steady (temperate) working man.

A cheap edition has since been published by the R. P. A.

Anti-Nunquam, by Dr. Warschauer, with prefatory note by J. Estlin Carpenter, is considered by many Churchmen to be an admirable refutation of God and My Neighbour. I have seldom read anything less likely to convince. Sentence after sentence is open to the gravest exception.

See Appendix.

E.g., in the Nineteenth Century and After, see the article on “The Present Position of Religious Apologetics,” appearing in the issue for October, 1903; or on “Freethought in the Church of England” in the issues for September and December, 1904. The answers in the same journal are most unsatisfactory, and only serve to show how very little, apparently, can be said in reply.

Although the Church has ever been charitable, she has made no effort to cure poverty. She is, she must be, the ally of those to whom she chiefly owes her power and prestige. Jeremy Taylor is not the only eminent divine who has systematically courted the favour of the influential and rich.

Essay on “Possibilities and Impossibilities,” appearing in the Agnostic Annual for 1892.

Paley’s Evidences—Preparatory Considerations.

In his book, The Service of Man.

In his notable oration upon the apparitions of Llanthony.

See p. 132 of An Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, by the Right Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon.

See p. 222 of Some Elements of Religion, Liddon.

See p. 51 of An Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures.

Extract from a sermon preached in St. Paul’s, Finsbury, on November 23rd, 1904.

This explanation has been given by the Rev. Samuel Cox, and it is quoted with approval by the Bishop of London on p. 63 of his little work, Old Testament Difficulties (S.P.C.K.).

See p. 41 of Old Testament Difficulties.

Article “Genesis.”

Miraculum means merely a wonderful thing. It is certainly a proper translation of σημεῖα (signs) and τέρατα (wonders), as used by New Testament writers.

By the author of Supernatural Religion. (Longmans, Green, and Co.; 1889.)

See Encyclopædia Biblica, article “Gospels,” paragraph 138 (e).

See article “Paul” in the Encyclopædia Biblica. Four of the Pauline Epistles are, however, pretty generally accepted. Five are hotly disputed; Professor Loofs, for example, rejects them.

See article “Epistolary Literature” in the Encyclopædia Biblica.

Swedenborgians (the New Jerusalem Church) are to be found scattered throughout almost every part of Christendom. In England, principally in Lancashire and Yorkshire, there are seventy-five societies with 6,063 registered members.

Eight persons in all testify to the apparition of the Virgin Mary in the Abbot’s meadow at Llanthony on September 15th, 1880.

Hodder & Stoughton, 1906.

See p. 31 of What is Christianity? (Williams & Norgate, 1904).

See, for instance, art. “Moses,” Encyclopædia Biblica.

Quoted from a sermon by the Bishop of London in Fulham parish, Christmas Day, 1904. Compare this with Dr. Kirkpatrick’s remark, p. 2 of his book, The Divine Library of the Old Testament: “It is true that the critical investigation of the Bible raises not a few questions of grave difficulty.”

“The adjective ‘higher’ (the sense of which is often misunderstood) has reference simply to the higher and more difficult class of problems, with which, as opposed to textual criticism, the ‘higher’ criticism has to deal” (see Preface to The Higher Criticism, being three papers by S. R. Driver, D.D., and A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D.).

See Appendix.

Exodus xxxi. 18 and xxxii. 16. Or, to be precise, these having been broken and their fragments considered of no value at the time, the duplicates carefully prepared and inscribed to the dictation of God Himself (Exodus xxxix.).

Believed to date from about 853 B.C. The inscription records the victories of King Mesha over the Israelites.

Erected in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes, 106 B.C. Famous as having furnished the first key for the interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Encyclopædia Biblica, art. “Messiah,” p. 3058, par. 2.

Ibid, p. 3063, par 10.

In Studies in the Character of Christ, by Rev. C. H. Robinson, Hon. Canon of Ripon and Editorial Secretary to the S.P.G.

Enc. Bib., art. “Nativity,” par. 10, 11, 12.

The late Rev. A. B. Bruce, D.D., Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow.

See Enc. Bib., art. “Gospels,” par. 139.

See Enc. Bib., art. “Gospels,” par. 138, where the reasons for this conclusion are explained. See also par. 108.

Author of various theological works, Hulsean Lecturer, Cambridge, 1876; Select Preacher, Oxford, 1877.

The interpolation in the last chapter of St. Mark goes back far into the second century. It is important to bear in mind that none of the dates given by Dr. Harnack and other authorities applies to the Gospels exactly as we now have them. Accounts of miracles have been added subsequently!

Enc. Bib., art. “Lazarus.”

Ibid, art. “Gospels,” par. 147.

W. C. van Manen, D.D., Professor of Old-Christian Literature and New Testament Exegesis, Leyden.

Spoken in an address to the St. Paul’s Lecture Society, at the opening of a new session in 1904.

The italics in these quotations from Dr. Harnack are mine.

Fully reported in the Methodist Times.

The Greek version, known as the Septuagint (LXX.), made in Egypt in the third and second centuries B.C. for the use of the numerous body of Greek-speaking Jews and proselytes in that country.

A Greek document which is supposed to have existed and then to have been entirely lost (imagine God’s Word lost!), and to contain some of the matter related by St. Matthew and St. Luke, while omitted by St. Mark. N.B.—While the evangelist St. Mark is relegated to the position of a translator only, St. Matthew and St. Luke are taken by orthodox theologians to be mere copyists of St. Mark and a “lost” document!

See art. “Gospels,” in the Enc. Bib., and Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek.

In his address at the Church Congress held at Weymouth in 1905.

In his work, Verbal Inspiration. Quoted by Bishop Colenso in The Pentateuch Examined.

The Dean of Canterbury, speaking on the Bishop of Winchester’s paper at the Church Congress, 1903.

The Dean of Canterbury, speaking in St. Mary Bredin’s Church, Canterbury, December 4th, 1904.

See Appendix.

See Bk. VIII., chap. ii., par. 2, on p. 324, vol. i. Eusebius (Oxford: Parker & Co.). His candour here is deserving of all praise; but his methods can hardly be termed scientific; while an impartial perusal of his Vita Constantini, a panegyric on the Emperor Constantine, should be enough to shake the confidence of all but the blindest of his admirers.

See p. 179, chap. xv., of Gibbon’s Rome (Oddy, 1809).

See Appendix.

In note A, pp. 42–3, of his book, The Study of the Gospels.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента

Купить и скачать всю книгу

<1...6 7 8

На страницу:

Перейти

8 из 8