The author of _Supernatural Religion_ proposes to himself the task of demonstrating that the miraculous element in Christianity is a delusion. The work is divided into three parts. The first part undertakes to prove that miracles are not only highly improbable, but antecedently incredible, so that no amount of testimony can overcome the objections to them. As a subsidiary aim, he endeavours to show that the sort of evidence, which, under the most favourable circumstances, we should be likely to obtain in the early Christian ages, ought not to inspire confidence. The second and third parts are occupied in examining the actual witnesses themselves, that is, the four Gospels; the second being devoted to the Synoptists, and the third to St John. The main contention is that the four Gospels are entirely devoid of evidence sufficient to satisfy us of their date and authorship, considering the momentous import of their contents. These portions of the work therefore are chiefly occupied in examining the external testimonies to the authenticity and genuineness of the Gospels. In the case of St John the internal character of the document is likewise subjected to examination.
Obviously, if the author has established his conclusions in the first part, the second and third are altogether superfluous [27:1]. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that more than three-fourths of the whole work should be devoted to this needless task. Impressed, as it would seem, by the elaboration of these portions, reviewers have singled them out for special praise, even when they have condemned the first as unsatisfactory. With this estimate of their value I find myself altogether unable to agree; and in the articles which will follow I hope to give my reasons for dissenting. Regarded as a handbook of the critical fallacies of the modern destructive school, _Supernatural Religion_ well deserves examination.
For this reason I shall hereafter occupy myself solely with the two latter portions of the work, and more especially with the external evidences of the Gospels; but there is one point, affecting the main question at issue, which it is impossible to pass over in silence. Anyone who, with the arguments of the first part fresh in his memory, will turn to the final chapter, in which the author gives a confession of faith, must be struck with the startling dislocation between the principles from which the work starts and the manifesto with which it concludes. Our author has eliminated, as he believes, the miraculous or supernatural element from the Gospel. He will have nothing to say to 'Ecclesiastical Christianity,' by which strange phrase is meant the Christianity of the Apostles and Evangelists. He will not even hear of a future life with its hopes and fears [27:1]. He will purge the Gospel of all 'dogmas,' and will present it as an ethical system alone. The extreme beauty, I might almost say the absolute perfection, of Christ's moral teaching [27:2] he not only allows, but insists upon. 'Morality,' he adds, 'was the essence of his system; theology was an after-thought.' [27:3] And yet almost in the same breath he adopts as his 'two fundamental principles, Love to God and love to man.' He commends a 'morality based upon the earnest and intelligent acceptance of Divine Law, and perfect recognition of the brotherhood of man,' as 'the highest conceivable by humanity.' [27:4] He speaks of the 'purity of heart which alone "sees God.'" [27:5] He enforces the necessity of 'rising to higher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being ... whose laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection we ever perceive in operation around us.' [28:1] All this is well said, but is it consistent? This universal 'brotherhood of man,' what is it but a 'dogma' of the most comprehensive application? This 'Love to God' springing from the apprehension of a 'wondrous perfection,' and the recognition of an 'infinitely wise and beneficent Being,'--in short, this belief in a Heavenly Father, which on any showing was the fundamental axiom of our Lord's teaching, and which our author thus accepts as a cardinal article in his own creed,--what is it but a theological proposition of the most overwhelming import, before which all other 'dogmas' sink into insignificance?