THE

MERCERSBURG REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1859.

ART. I.-RELIGION AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHRISTIANITY may be called the religion of Jesus Christ; or the true religion, all the religions of the world being regarded as false. Using the terms in such relation to cach other, we imply both a difference and a connection between the objects which they name; a difference, however, which holds between a genus and one of the species belonging to it, and a connection which consists in the possession of elements common to both. Religion is the general term and applicable to Buddhism, Parseeism, or Mohammedanism with as much propriety as to Christianity; each system is a religion; whilst Christianity is a particular term designating the system of truth revealed in Jesus Christ, and none other. Christianity is a religion; but because the only true one, it is called by way of emphasis the religion. Or, to use a logical expression, we may say, according to this view of their difference, that religion is the more extensive and Christianity the more intensive term; the one applying to all systems no matter what be their character, and the other to but one system which includes the truth and excludes the errors of all, and besides contains what no other system does or can contain.

This view of the relation of religion to Christianity, considering the general subject scientifically, we deem insufficient. It fails to recognize the essential nature of Christianity as something unique-as something which is not shared by any Pagan system, nor even by Judaism. It seems also to overlook the fact, that all the religions of the

world taken together constitute a class. They are all developed from the same principle active in the heart of mankind, and possess common and essential characteristics; a principle and characteristics which do not enter into the constitution of Christianity. We think that Christianity differs from religion, or from all the religions of the world, not specifically, nor in degree, but generically or in kind. There must be a generic difference between the opposing systems.

This generic difference we shall endeavor to unfold; but in order to prepare the way for it, we propose, in the first place, to review the distinctions which arise on what we regard as the insufficient principle of difference.

The first and most common distinction relates to their origin. Pagan systems are the religions of nature, or na. tural religion, but Christianity is a revealed religion. The one is derived from reflection on the natural world; the other is established by divine revelation. This distinction, however, proceeds on the assumption that the constitution. of nature and supernatural revelation are opposites. It implies that nature is not a certain revelation of God, and that the supernatural revelation of Christ is given independently of the natural world; an assumption that can certainly not stand the test of criticism. There is no such opposition. The two things do not exclude but include each other.

Nature itself is a certain revelation of the existence and majesty of God; so certain that all men possess the fundamental truth without any knowledge of Christ; so certain that neither the Old nor the New Testament formally teach it. The first book of Genesis opens with: "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth;" and proceeds throughout, like every other book of the Sacred Scriptures in the same spirit; thus assuming the principle that belief in the Majesty of God is certainly at hand in the minds of all to whom they are addressed. They teach clearly what He is, what His will is, what He has done, is doing and will do; but not that He is. This fact na

ture reveals with irresistible authority; so authoritatively that they deal at once with a pretended atheist as a wicked man: "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." (Ps. 14: 1.)

The revelation of nature is immediate. The knowledge of God it affords is not obtained only from logical reflection on it, or from scientific study, as if the scholar alone could acquire it; but it arises directly from the constitution of things, so that all classes of men possess it, however ignorant they may be in all other respects. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. (Ps. 19: 1–3.) The external world says to every human being: God is, and God is great.

Not only the external world but man also is a revelation of God. Man makes God known to himself. Not that he does this at will or merely by thinking on himself, his body, soul and spirit, or on his manifold relations; but the knowledge of God is developed directly in his consciousness. Whenever the development of his rational being goes forward normally the idea of God arises in his mind immediately. It springs from himself, or, as Mansel expresses it, "We are compelled by the constitution of our minds to believe in the existence of an Absolute and Infinite Being,—a belief which appears forced upon us, as the complement of our consciousness of the relative and finite."* The same thing is taught by the Apostle Paul. Speaking of the state of the heathen, he says; "That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them." (Rom. 2: 19.) That which may be known of God is His eternal power and Godhead; and this is manifest in the heathen. Their idea and views of God they get from the visible creation and from themselves. In other words, they and the world are a natural revelation

Limits of Religious Thought, p. 91.

of God, a revelation so certain and satisfactory, as far as it goes, that humanity neither needs nor demands corroboration of its great truths from any other source.

It follows that the religions of the world rest on a revelation as really as Christianity; and we can not say, religion is natural, but Christianity revealed. Both are revealed; the one in nature, the other in Christ. Nature and revelation are then not contradictory opposites; and Christianity does not differ from religion in being a certain and authoritative revelation of God. Religion is the same. But the two systems differ as to the matter revealed. That which Christianity is and reveals, is generically different from that which nature reveals in all systems of religion. And just because the revelation of God in the external world and in man is so authoritative and indestructible does there exist the deepest and an intensely painful necessity in the fallen, sinful, helpless subject of religion for that higher and more glorious and truly satisfying revelation which has been accomplished in Christianity.

But as nature does not exclude revelation, so neither does revelation exclude nature. The distinction we are reviewing seems to divorce in thought the things which are in reality connected. It divorces nature from revelation. This we have shown to be an error; for the constitution of nature is a true revelation. So it divorces revelation from nature. It seems to regard revelation and especially the Christian Revelation as an act of Almighty God done independently of the order of the natural world. This is undoubtedly an error also. Christianity is a revelation in and through nature much more really than any sys tem the world has ever produced. Indeed all revelation of divine, invisible and eternal things adapted to man's rational being is possible only in as far as it addresses him in natural and finite forms. For though man unfolds from himself an idea of God and of an unchangeable relation to Him, and is endowed with the capacity of living communion with the Invisible and Eternal, he is nevertheless a finite being; he lives in finite relations; and must think in finite

categories of thought. He can not rise in modes of thought above the sphere of existence to which he belongs. When he thinks of God he must do it in a human way. Above nature, therefore, or in supernatural and super-human forms God can not address man; and never has done it. Could we believe such an act possible it would accomplish no conceivable purpose. Remaining in a sphere of manifestation which is above and outside of the constitution of nature, the Divine Being would be totally separated from man and continue to be the Unknown One. To become known He must cease to be thus totally separated from him and draw near in a way which is congenial to human being. He must manifest Himself not in a form foreign to man, but in the very form in which the laws of his rational constitution require man to think and to know.

This is the very idea which meets us in the Christian revelation. It runs through all its preparatory stages as recorded in the Old Testament. God speaks to man in human language and in modes of conception which prevail in a particular age of the world, in a particular country and among a particular people. He manifests Himself in dreams and visions. He exhibits His supernatural power and majesty in wonderful deeds wrought by His commissioned servants before the eyes of the people. He represents His personal glory by a visible symbol, the mysterious cloud dwelling on the mercy-seat between the cherubim. The import and relations of the great promise, which, first uttered in Eden, develops itself in ever-increas. ing fulness during four thousand years like the life of the mustard-seed in the growth of the tree, He teaches in civil regulations, in outward rites, in special ordinances and bloody sacrifices, which were observed from day to day for a period of fifteen hundred years.

All these forms of divine revelation were outward, visible, tangible, real. They were derived from every department of the natural world, from the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms; from man himself, from his birth, stages of growth, maturity and death; from social and civil relations,