DISSERTATION II. The Nature of Virtue (7)
Joseph Butler · The Analogy of Religion · 77 of 80
[A] [The “prayer of Manasses” is one of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, which next precedes “Maccabees.”]
[215] John i., and viii. 12.
[216] Rom. iii. 25, v. 11: 1 Cor. v. 7: Eph. v. 2: 1 John ii. 2: Matt xxvi. 28.
[217] John i. 29, 36, and throughout the book of Revelation.
[218] Throughout the epistle to the Hebrews.
[219] Isa. liii.: Dan. ix. 24: Ps. cx. 4.
[220] Heb. x. 1.
[221] Heb. viii. 4, 5.
[222] Heb. x. 4, 5, 7, 9, 10.
[223] Heb. ix. 28.
[224] John xi. 51, 52.
[225] 1 Pet. iii. 18.
[226] Matt. xx. 28: Mark x. 45: 1 Tim. ii. 6.
[227] 2 Pet. ii. 1: Rev. xiv. 4: 1 Cor. vi. 20.
[228] 1 Pet. i. 19: Rev. v. 9: Gal. iii. 13.
[229] Heb. vii. 25: 1 John ii. 1, 2.
[230] Heb. ii. 10.: v. 9.
[231] 2 Cor. v. 19: Rom. v. 10: Eph. ii. 16.
[232] Heb. ii. 14. See also a remarkable passage in the book of Job, xxxiii. 24.
[233] Phil. ii. 8, 9: John iii. 35, and v. 22, 23.
[234] Rev. v. 12, 13.
[235] John vi. 14.
[237] Eph. iv. 12, 13.
[238] John xiv. 2, 3: Rev. iii. 21, and xi. 15.
[239] 2 Thess. i. 8.
[240] Heb. ix. 26.
[241] [Consult Magee, on Atonement: Stapferi Institutiones: Turretin, De Satisfactione: Chalmers, Discourses: Owen, Satis. of Christ.]
[243] [This objection is ably urged by Tindall. The answer of our author is complete. We should remember, that twice in the history of mankind, revelation has been universal. The first pair, and the occupants of the ark, comprised the whole population. But how soon was light rejected! Christianity is universal, in nature and intention; is to become so in fact; and according to a very probable construction of prophecy, will continue to be universal, for three hundred and sixty thousand years.]
[244] [May not this be a principal object of the Apocalypse? As the book of Daniel furnished a constant and powerful support to the faith of the Jew, by the constant development of prophecy, so the Apocalypse, rightly studied must powerfully, and through all time, support the faith of the Christian by the continual unfolding and verification of its predictions.]
[245] 2 Cor. viii. 12.
[248] Part I. chap. iv. and pp. 156, 157.
[250] Dan. xii. 10. See also Isa. xxix. 13, 14: Matt. vi. 23, and xi. 25, and xiii. 11, 12: John iii. 19, and v. 44: 1 Cor. ii. 14, and 2 Cor. iv. 4: 2 Tim. iii. 13; and that affectionate as well as authoritative admonition, so very many times inculcated, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Grotius saw so strongly the thing intended in these and other passages of Scripture of the like sense, as to say, that the proof given us of Christianity was less than it might have been, for this very purpose: Ut ita sermo Evangelii tanquam lapis esset Lydius ad quem ingenia sanabilia explorarentur. De Ver. R. C. lib. ii. [So that the Gospel should be a touchstone, to test the honesty of men’s dispositions.]
[252] [See Witsii Meletemeta, Diss. IV.: Pfafii Disput.: Campbell on Miracles: Douglass’ Criterion: Farmer’s Dissertations: Paley’s Evid.: Taylor’s Apol. of Ben Mordecai: Tucker’s Light of Nat.: Watson’s Tracts, vol. iv.: Jortin’s Sermons: Bp. Fleetwood’s Essays: Boyle Lectures: Lardner’s Credibility.]
[253] [“The miracles of the Jewish historian, are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a necessary and inseparable part. The whole history is founded in them; it consists of little else; and if it were not a history of them, it would be a history of nothing.”—Bolingbroke, Posthumous Works, vol. iii. p. 279.]
[254] [An admirable work on this recondite mode of proving the truth of the New Testament narrative, is Paley’s Horæ Paulinæ. The same department of evidence is ably handled by Birk, in his Horæ Evangelicæ, and Horæ Apostolicæ: Graves on the Pentateuch: and Blunt in his “Undesigned Coincidences both of the Old and New Testament.” Grotius, De Veritate, has some excellent passages on the same subject.]
[255] [Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. c. 47.] Clement, who is here quoted, lived in the first century, and is mentioned Phil. iv. 3. His epistle to the Corinthians, written in Greek, contains the passage here referred to, which may be thus translated: “Take the letter of the blessed Paul the Apostle. What did he write to you, in the first beginning of the Gospel? Truly he sent you a divinely inspired letter about himself, and Cephas, and Apollos.”
[256] Gal. i.: 1 Cor. xi. 23, &c.: 1 Cor. xv. 8.
[257] Rom. xv. 19: 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9, 10-28, &c., and xiii. 1, 2, 8, and the whole 14th chapter: 2 Cor. xii. 12, 13: Gal. iii. 2, 5.
[258] See the Koran, chap. xiii. and chap. xvii.
[259] [Mahomet expressly declares that he worked no public miracles in confirmation of his mission, “because the former nations have charged them with imposture.” He claims, however, to have had private miraculous assurances of his mission, and most preposterous they were.Whately, in his Christian Evidences, has handled this aspect of miracles with great ability. See also Paley’s Evidences, sec. 3: and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, chap. 1.]
[260] [Alexander, in his Evidences, and several other writers have placed this argument in a very convincing light. Arnobius, one of the earliest Christian writers, asks, “Shall we say that the men of those times were inconsiderate, deceitful, stupid, and brutish enough to feign having seen what they never saw? and that when they might have lived in peace and comfort, they chose gratuitous hatred and obloquy?”The rejection of Christianity by so many in the first age was the result of the continued action of personal and hereditary prejudice and depravity, capable of resisting any supposable evidence. The reception of Christianity by multitudes, under the same evidences, and to their immediate personal damage, shows strongly that there was enough evidence to produce those effects. Thus the rejection by some does not countervail the acceptance by others.]
[262] [Compare Butler’s Sermons; on Balaam, and on Self-deceit.]
[263] See the foregoing chapter.
[264] [“Whenever a general scheme is known to be pursued by a writer, that scheme becomes the true key in the hands of his reader, for unlocking the meaning of particular parts, which would otherwise not be seen clearly to refer to such scheme. The inspired writers had one common and predominant scheme in view, which was to bear testimony to Jesus. Whatever passages occur in their writings, which bear an apt and easy resemblance to the history of Jesus, may, or rather must in all reasonable construction, be applied to him.”—Hurd on the Proph., p. 117.]
[265] [Consult on this point, Gulick, Theologia Prophetica: Vitringa, Observationes: Hengstenburg, Christologia: Horsley’s Tracts and Sermons: King’s Morsels of Criticism: Waugh’s Dissertations: Lyall’s Propœdia Prophetica.]
[266] It appears that Porphyry did nothing worth mentioning in this way. For Jerome on the place says: Duas posteriores bestias—in uno Macedonum regno ponit. And as to the ten kings; Decem reges enumerat, qui fuerunt sævissimi: ipsosque reges non unius ponit regni, verbi gratia, Macedoniæ, Syriæ, Asiæ, et Ægypti; sed de diversis regnis unum efficit regum ordinem. [“The two latter beasts he places in one of the Macedonian kingdoms.” “He reckons up ten kings who had been excessively cruel and these not kings of one country, as Macedonia, for instance, or Syria, or Asia, or Egypt; but makes up his set of kings out of different kingdoms.”] In this way of interpretation, any thing may be made of any thing.
[268] John i. 3.
[269] Eph. iii. 9.
[270] Acts iii. 21.
[271] Rev. x. 7.
[272] Dan. ii. 44.
[273] Dan. vii. 22.
[274] Rev. xi. 17, 18; xx. 6.
[275] Dan. vii. 27.
[277] Deut. xxviii. 64; xxx. 2, 3: Isa. xlv. 17.
[278] Isa. lx. 21: Jer. xxx. 11; xlvi. 28: Amos ix. 14, 15: Jer. xxxi. 36.
[279] Isa. viii. 14, 15; xlix. 5; chap. liii.: Mal. i. 10, 11, and chap. iii.
[280] Isa. xlix. 6, chap. ii., chap, xi., chap. lvi. 7: Mal. i. 11. To which must be added, the other prophecies of the like kind, several in the New Testament, and very many in the Old; which describe what shall be the completion of the revealed plan of Providence.
[281] [See Davidson’s Disc. on Proph.: Blaney on Daniel’s LXX. Weeks: Hurd’s Introd. to the Study of Proph.: Jortin’s Ser. at Boyle Lect.: Fuller’s Gosp. its own Witness, part ii.: Waugh’s Diss.: Apthorpe’s Discourses.]
[283] [Hundreds of instances might be adduced, in which profane historians corroborate the statements of the Scriptures. The following are merely specimens: Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, and Solinus, speak of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The lives of David and Solomon are given in the remains of the Phœnician Annals, in Damascenus, and Eupolemus. Menander describes the carrying away of the Ten Tribes by Salmanasor. Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, and Numenius, speak of Jesus Christ. His miracles are owned by Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, and Jewish writers opposed to Christianity. Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Julian, and others describe his being put to death; and Tacitus says that many were put to death for adhering to his religion. Phlegon mentions the miracles of Peter; and Paul is enumerated among eminent authors, in a fragment of Longinus.]
[284] [This thought is elaborated with skill by Whately in his “Historic Doubts.” He takes up all the popular infidel objections as to the life of Christ, and applies them with undiminished or even increased force against the evidences that such a man as Buonaparte ever existed.Johnson in a lively sally once said—“‘It is easy to be on the negative side. I deny that Canada is taken. The French are a much more numerous people than we; and it is not likely they would allow us to take it.’ ‘But the Government have announced the fact.’ ‘Very true. But the ministry have put us to an enormous expense by the war in America, and it is their interest to persuade us that we have got something for our money.’ ‘But the fact is confirmed by thousands who were at the taking of it.’ ‘Aye, but these men have an interest in deceiving us: they don’t want you should think the French have beat them. Now suppose you go over and find it so, that would only satisfy yourself; for when you come back we will not believe you. We will say you have been bribed.’”—Boswell.]
[287] Deut. xxviii. 37.
[288] All the particular things mentioned in this chapter, not reducible to the head of certain miracles, or determinate completions of prophecy. See p. 263.
[289] [Butler states this argument with more than his usual brevity, and its force is not seen without reflection. “If contrivance or accident could have given to Christianity any of its apparent testimonies, its miracles, its prophecies, its morals, its propagation, or [the character of] its founder, there could be no room to believe, or even imagine, that all these appearances of great credibility, could be united together, by any such means. If successful craft could have contrived its public miracles, or the pretence of them, it requires another reach of craft, to adopt its prophecies to the same object. Further, it required not only a different, but a totally opposite art to conceive and promulgate its admirable morals. Again, its propagation, in defiance of the powers and terrors of the world, implied still other qualities of action. Lastly, the model of the life of its founder, is a work of such originality and wisdom, as could be the offspring only of consummate powers of invention, or rather never could have been devised, but must have come from real life. The hypothesis sinks under its incredibility. Each of these suppositions of contrivance, being arbitrary and unsupported, the climax of them is an extravagance.”—Davison, on Prophecy.]
[290] 1 John iv. 18.—[“There is no fear in love,” &c.]
[291] [Obedience from dread, if it continue to be the only motive, precludes advance toward perfection; for “He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” But obedience from a discernment of the reasonableness and beneficence of religion, and of the perfections of its Author, increases love till it “casteth out fear.”]
[292] [See a discussion of this subject, in Bayle’s Historical and Biographical Dictionary: art. Xenophanes: notes D, E, F, G.]
[293] See Dissertation II.
[294] [It is remarked by Dean Fitzgerald, that “It is not inconceivable that the Almighty should apply such a test of men’s candor and fidelity, as should require them first to act upon a thing as true, before they were so fully satisfied of its truth as to leave no doubt remaining. Such a course of action might be the appointed, and for all we know, the only possible way of overcoming habits of thought and feeling, repugnant to the belief demanded, so that a fixed religious faith might be the reward, as it were, of a sincere course of prudent behavior.”]
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DISSERTATION II. The Nature of Virtue (7) · this device only