Conditions of the question :

(a) The plea advanced for civilization.

Involves :

1. The incapacity of uncivilized men to understand dogmatic teaching.

With what limitations is it true.

2. That religious truth and temporal well-being occupy separate spheres.

Their true relation and interdependency.

The spring of all human action inward.

Testimony of experience.

3. That religious susceptibility is proportioned to temporal welfare.

The ultimate source of temptation is in the heart.

(b) The plea advanced for Christianity.

Has to meet the following objections.

1. That religion unfits a man for the present.
2. That it destroys patriotism.

Example of our Lord.

3. That it weakens the natural virtues.

The question of precedence settled by an appeal to facts.

Two civilizations known.

1. The heathen civilization :

Rests on reason, is undogmatic, is human.

2. The Christian civilization

Rests on revelation, is dogmatic, is Divine.

I. The heathen civilization.

Its freedom from all dogmatic restraint.

Contained all the principles of modern thought.

Its material and intellectual splendour.

Not adequately appreciated, from the absence of the moral

element.

Its fatal defects.

Always decayed at the centre.

II. The Christian civilization.

A. Its morality compared to that of heathenism.

Specific difference of the morality of a system and the morality

of individuals.

B. Its greater length of life.

Is strongest at the centre.

Causes of its peculiar energy to be found in the dogmas on

which it is based.

Characteristics of the Christian civilization :1. The importance of the individual.

2. The law of mutual love.

3. The sacredness of human life.

4. The doctrine of internal holiness.

5. The sanctity of home.

6. Monogamy and the equality of the sexes.
7. Identification of belief and practice.

These causes referable to revealed doctrines.

The influence of our Lord's example.

These characteristics unknown to heathenism.

Proportioned in their intensity to the strength of belief in dogmas. Christian civilization due, not to the Church,

but to the Gospel which the Church minis

ters.

LECTURE VII

Conscience and its relation to the Faith.
No theory of conscience in Scripture.

1. The Old Testament.

The word "conscience" absent.
An inward moral faculty recognized.
2. The New Testament and its teaching.
Conscience (a) is individual.

(b) is the supreme moral guide.

(c) consists of two parts.

(d) is prior to a positive revelation.
(e) is associated with the judgment.
(f) needs to be educated.

Scriptural teaching in harmony with moral philosophy.
Contradictory views of Rationalism.

(a) Denies the existence of conscience as a faculty.
(b) Makes it the measure and arbiter of faith.

The two views mutually destructive.

The first alternative dismissed: the second considered.

Allegation that revealed dogmas contradict the verdict of the conscience.

Fallacy of the assertion.

The facts of the case examined.

Protest against controversial misrepresentation of Christian doctrines

The conscience of the Church.

The conscience of the heathen.

Claim for conscience to be the arbiter of truth denied.
Conscience, what is it? What are its prerogatives ?
The verdict of moral science.

Review of the controversy.

I. The classical period:
Homer.

The Tragedians of Greece.

Menander.

Socrates.

Plato.

Aristotle.

II. The period from the Christian Era to the Reformation :

Tertullian.

Chrysostom.

Augustine.

The Schoolmen.

III. The period since the Reformation :

A. Perkins, Ames, Hall, Sanderson, Taylor.

B. Hobbs, Locke, Mandeville.

-

C. Shaftesbury, Hume, Hartley, More, Hutcheson,
Butler, Reid.

D. Gay, Tucker, Paley, Bentham.

E. Mackintosh, Stewart, Whewell, Chalmers, Whately. The authority of conscience subordinate and derivative. F. Moral science abroad ::

1. Leibnitz, Malbranche, Crusius, Kant, Fichte, De Wette, Delitzsch, Mosheim.

2. Reinhard, Harless, Rothe, Baader, Schubert, Hoffman, Marheinecke, Schenkel.

The German and English Schools contrasted.

Conclusion. Conscience a collective term for our moral sensibilities. Peculiarities of the controversy noted.

The conclusion compared with the assertion that conscience is the supreme verifying faculty of man.

Its supremacy to the individual admitted.

Its autocratic independence denied.

The claim labours under three defects:-
:-

I. It transcends the proper sphere of conscience.

As a judge of truth, the verdict of conscience can only

be negative.

Its sufficiency contradicted by facts.
Not admitted between man and man.

Not admissible between man and God.

Revealed religion dependent on evidence.

This evidence wholly beyond the sphere of conscience. II. It asserts attributes for conscience inconsistent with all human experience.

Not faultlessly accurate; still less infallible.

III. Requires Omniscience as well as Infallibility.

Moral verdicts dependent on an accurate knowledge of the

Not possessed in human things.

A fortiori not possessed in divine things.

The partial character of all history.

The sacred books, and their record of facts.

The sacred books, and their revelation of doctrines.

The Divine Government beyond the scope of human knowledge.

The Deity Himself.

His government over man.

His government over the universe.

Their width and complexity.

The Faith and the conscience not in conflict.

The master and the pupil.

LECTURE VIII

The warlike illustrations of Scripture.

Not suggested to St. Paul at Ephesus by local associations.

Arise from the facts of the Christian conflict.

Duty of believers to maintain "the Faith."

Faith as a quality.

The Faith as a Creed.

The faith believing and the faith believed correlative.
Vindication of the dogmatic character of the Faith.
The question re-stated.

The argument recapitulated.

Evidence of facts to the perpetuity, antiquity, and apostolicity of the Christian Faith.

Claim of the dogmatic Faith upon belief.

The Faith bound up with the soul's inward life and its experiences.

The just temper of a Christian mind, not pusillanimity, but fortitude

and courage.

Relative position of the inquirer and the believer :

I. The inquirer, his position temporary and transitional.
a. By virtue of our relation towards God.

Neglect is rejection.

b. By virtue of the duty of our manhood.
Right use of the faculties.

A decision actually made in all cases.

c. By virtue of our mental and moral constitution. d. By virtue of the pressing questions of life and death. Honest inquiry distinguished from sceptical indifference. The duty of an honest inquiry.

Cautions to be borne in mind in conducting it.

1. Inquiry into all the branches of evidence.
The consilience of Christian proof.

No one argument disproved.

Tendency to decide upon a single point increased by the habits of historical criticism.

Disposition to reduce history into a science, and classify it under successive and independent epochs.

The evidential school.

2. Danger of antecedent prejudice.

3. Advice not to be afraid of consequences:

In what sense true.

In what sense untrue.

The contradiction between disbelief and the moral wants of the soul not to be disregarded.

II. The believer.

Obligations of Church membership.

Obligations of the Ministerial office.

The relative position of an inquirer and a teacher incompatible.

The maturity of faith.

Not to be confounded with blind obstinacy.

Equally remote from cowardly distrust.

Cowardice in the maintenance of truth is treachery to ourselves, to the

Church, to Christ, to God.

True source of strength to be found in an experimental Religion.