Value of his Experience.

799

infidelity, as Romish reasoning has done in all ages. Men will say, Here is a man who has deep religious convictions, and whose character leads him to follow out principles, to demand an adequate basis for his convictions and for the system of his thinking and his life. This man tells you that, starting from protestantism, he has been driven into the arms of the Church of Rome, and finds it impossible to maintain his Christianity on any other theory than that which accepts an infallible church as a leading element and constituent. Is not this, so far as it goes, a presumption against revealed religion? Does it not indicate that, while those who will not go to the bottom of things may hold on to Christianity in any of the popular forms, a man who proves his belief is driven either to give up revealed religion, and, perhaps, even theism, or to go on to a point at which he practically resigns the idea of rational conviction, and places himself on another foundation altogether?

We have already said that Newman never really stood on true protestant ground, as regards the foundation of Christian faith; for what of protestant principle or impression he had, was resigned without a struggle, "faded" when he was emerging from boyhood. His experience therefore affords no legitimate presumption in the matter. But besides this, when experience is pleaded, Dr Newman's idiosyncrasies come up for consideration, and certainly they are such as should for ever preclude an appeal to his experience. We owe not a little to Dr Newman for the candour with which he has supplied materials bearing on this point. A few notes upon it will wind up our dealings with Dr Newman. If the subject becomes somewhat personal, it cannot be helped, for the nature of the case requires it. Confessions are confessions, and bring up the individual himself for judgment.

The notices already given from the Apologia will have indicated distinctly enough what we have here to deal with. Dr Newman is constitutionally eccentric in the matter of belief. The first thing that strikes us is the slight hold which he has of what may be called the natural certainties. Those things which make the primary appeal to our sense and assurance of reality, which constitute the first exercise for the faculty of truth, destined afterwards to rise to higher objects,-made their appeal to him with very moderate success. The experimental and phenomenal world failed to assure him of its reality. It may be all a dream; nay, a drollery. He is a predisposed Berkeleyan. Next, there is his strong susceptibility for the idea and faith of the supernatural. He is too imaginative, too devout, and has too strong a moral consciousness to rest in mere scepticism; and if he shakes himself free of the experimental world, he naturally yearns after a universe of personal relations,

supernaturally determined and ascertained. This tendency, or capacity, was early fixed and filled by the impressions of his youth, which so vividly awoke within him the assurance of a personal God with whom he had to do, a destiny to be judicially determined, and the alternative of a right or a wrong, a blessed or a miserable relation to the Supreme. Also his light upon those points appeared to him to come in indissoluble connection with some of the fundamental truths of Christianity which are supernaturally revealed, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. Still further, his mind proves to be one, susceptible indeed of high culture and of fine impulse, and in particular, sufficiently acute, subtle, and dialectical, but yet prone to puzzle and perplex itself, not able to take a strong broad grasp of the ascertainable, not measuring and resting in evidence, not apt to come to final convictions on the appropriate proofs and grounds; always tending to feel insecure on mere discussion. of evidence, and therefore feeling about for something supple mentary to secure it. Men of this class are eminently capable of confusing and obscuring all those topics of discussion on which a clear head is inconvenient. They do it through a fertile instinct for multiplying difficulties; and are often suspected, too hastily, of dishonest artifice in so doing. Those who have read Dr Newman's work on Justification will know what we

mean.

As his mind developed and came to an understanding with itself, the tendencies now noticed received an appropriate expression. He formed a method to guide or to certify his mental procedure. He laid hold of Bishop Butler's principle, that "probability is the guide of life," and gave it a new development. Converging probabilities" are the guides to be relied upon in coming to a conclusion. But now if a man deals. with conscious rectitude with those converging probabilities, there providentially arises a certitude about the conclusion, quite disproportioned to the attainable evidence. This certitude is to be taken as providentially appointed and providentially or divinely sanctioned. The certitude is disproportioned to the certainty of the conclusion. The certainty is a quality of the proposition, is measured by the logical value of the evidence, and that, by hypothesis, is no more than probable; but the certitude is a quality of my mind as it rests in the conclusion, and may be absolute, as, e.g., a divine faith. We are not going to criticise this theory: and, indeed, we should not feel disposed to reckon too sharply with any one for his theoretical statements about the foundations of belief. On a subject so difficult we feel quite disposed to shew a good deal of forbearAll we shall say is this, that the method becomes very significant when one watches its application. In the first place,

ance.

His Method and its Application.

801

in forming his religious views on this method, Dr Newman relies much on his impression of what God may fittingly do in given circumstances, contrary to Bishop Butler's very express admonition (Anal. p. ii. c. 3). In the next place, feeling, as we think, how well he could argue on any side, he is greatly disposed to find converging probabilities. not when there are converging reasons, but when there are converging attractions addressed to his susceptibilities, or converging necessities bearing on his actual position at any given time. And, finally, he is apt to attach an irrational importance to his impressions, to the way in which things strike him, and the moods in which he finds himself. These constitute for him a kind of providential signalling, as if they warranted him in succumbing to arguments, that should or might otherwise be resisted. Ere his especial career began, Dr Newman tells us, Thalaba was often in his mind; and really, to the end, we may read Thalaba and Newman conjointly, with considerable advantage to the understanding of both. These details all suit the general idea. You alight on your convictions from above, as it were, divinely borne, bringing your certitude with you.

of ap

Let it be observed now how all this bore on his way prehending the great question about Christianity. Pretty early, i. e. from the time that he began to apprehend a conflict between "liberalism" and the church, he seems to have made up his mind that it would be extremely difficult to keep a clear and firm hold of dogma, i. e. of the truths he had learned to value, on the ground of mere exegesis and reasoning from the Scriptures. It would be difficult to make that a ground of public action; nay, it would be difficult to make it a ground of private conviction. How much might be said, and so plausibly said, on all sides! How much for all shades and degrees of conviction! This was precisely the kind of difficulty to weigh with Newman, and to perplex him. It was therefore a relief to commit himself firmly to the ground already suggested to him by Hawkins. Let it be assumed that the church of the early ages was in possession of a divine treasure, which she brought out in her exposition and application of Scripture, in her general teaching and practice. Let it be assumed that what she thus held and delivered down, can be argued, if need be, out of the Scriptures, but need not be expected to stand on the face of Scripture. This could be made probable, nay, probabilities could be made to "converge " upon it. And then it furnished you with a definite doctrinal line, for you had the creeds, and a pretty strong consent about church and sacraments. Moreover, it had this immense advantage, that a good deal of "Anglicanism," that could not easily be based upon the text of the New Testament, found precedents in the early

centuries. Thus the church could be well fenced against "liberalism."

This was all very well for a time. But then when the teaching of those early centuries, and their practice, came to be discussed in detail, new difficulties arose. It had been hoped at first that the early centuries would prove to be so homogeneous, and so defined, that no awkward question would rise about what they taught or pointed to. It had been hoped also that they would cover pretty nearly the ground of the Church of England, or at least sanction that which, within that church, could be held and practised. But while it became more and more doubtful whether the Church of England did not add to and take from "Catholic" faith and practice, and bind her ministers to do the same, it became more and more evident that primitive principle demanded a unity which Anglicanism does not give; and it became clear that an unreserved acceptance of the first five centuries made way for very plausible pleas on behalf of Rome. There remained, no doubt, plausible pleas that could be urged against her, from the same source. But what then? In order to draw the line between the early church and Rome, so as to shut out the latter, you had to exercise a mere private judgment, of a protestant kind, relying on reasons which you perfectly well knew were dubious and insecure. Moreover, the inquiry, as urged from Rome, "At the very least are not we much liker the primitive church than your protestant establishment?" suggested the most painful reflections. Nothing was gained if a man had to hold his own in this way. So now there arose the alternative that Rome was right, introduced by the ideas of development and infallibility. Rome differs in some things from the earlier church. But so, also, one age of the earlier church differed from another. Is not this the solution :-There is a perpetual development of Christian thought and piety going on through the activity of Christian minds, and there is an infallible church determining the authentic developments, and preserving the purity while not stifling the unfoldings of the faith. Probabilities could be made to "converge" on this too. It is an idea that explains the relation of the teaching of each age to all that precede and to all that follow. It answers the expectation of what God might do and provide in this world in connection with the gospel. It presents the impressive image of a gravitation of the Christian mind, age after age, into truth, to some extent in new forms and unfoldings, but always into truth, Rome being still the centre of the process, as she has always been before. Finally, it removes the miserable dubiety that besets a man judging for England and against Rome, on the mere strength of his own argumentations; it takes away the arguments he

Authorship of the Pentateuch.

803

had urged against Rome, and it lands him not merely in a primitive tradition, but in an infallible church, that holds and unfolds it.

Such has been Dr Newman's route; and now from his final resting-place he can expound the philosophy of infallibility, as related to the history of the world and of human reason, to his own complete satisfaction (pp. 377 and foll.), and can declare to what a land of content he is come. But this is the history of a man led by his tendencies, his circumstances, his temptations in a word, to renounce as unsatisfying rational methods of assurance, and to seek certainty, or "certitude," by others of his own contrivance, embodying a private method of providential gravitation, as it were, toward the true and the divine. What does this count for, as an experiment in the tenableness of Bible Christianity? About as much as an experiment on the audibleness of an utterance, conducted by a man who places no reliance on his ears, and trusts only to the language of signs. Or, on the other hand, what is proved by Dr Newman's sensations of repose and tranquillity now? Of course he is at rest. What could he desire more? He has found an oracle, which leaves him at liberty to hold those fundamental dogmas, which, happily, were early endeared to his heart; an oracle which at the same time announces its deliverances so as to relieve his faculties of all the strain implied in basing faith upon evidence; an oracle which has enough of the historical and the poetical about it, to supply "converging probabilities" almost ad infinitum; an oracle which ministers plenty of work to his intellect, relieved of the trouble of holding his convictions, in refining away difficulties, neutralising objections, and "shewing with what small pain the wounds of faith are healed again;" finally, an oracle which knows well how to find scope for Dr Newman's fine tastes and faculties, and for his aspirations and his enthusiasm, in her public service. Surely he could not be so pertinaciously unreasonable as not now to be at rest. Rr.

A

ART. VII.-Authorship of the Pentateuch.*

UTHORSHIP is a matter of testimony. Resemblance in style and thought, and apparent conformity of circum

* From Bibliotheca Sacra, July 1864. By Samuel C. Bartlett, D.D., Professor in Chicago Theological Seminary. This article is the continuation of another which appeared in a former volume of the Bibliotheca; the substance of which will be found at the commencement of the present paper.