When I undertook, at the request of the Christian Evidence Society, to deliver a lecture having for its title The Gradual Development of Revelation, I confess that I did not perceive that the title was open to criticism. I thought that I understood the terms employed, and I still trust that this is so; but a little consideration showed me that the language was not used very strictly, and that there was in it a confusion of metaphors, which might possibly be connected with a confusion of thought.

This being so, I propose to introduce what I have to say by a short examination of the words which express the subject of my lecture: and I do so, as I need hardly say, not for the purpose of finding fault, but because it seems to me that I shall in this manner most easily explain the nature of the subject which I conceive to be committed to me, and indicate the manner in which I purpose to treat it. Now the word development, which like many other long words has become very common, is also, like many other words, not unfrequently used somewhat loosely. The root of it, the word velop, is unknown in any other form than the two words envelope and develope.61 In mathematics, the word develope is used, as all words are, with the utmost precision. We speak of developing a function, that is, putting it into a new and unfolded form, which, however, shall be essentially equivalent to the original. So also we speak of developable surfaces, that is, surfaces such as cones and cylinders, which can be unfolded and laid flat upon a plane without tearing. It will be seen that in these applications of the word the essential thought is that of a change, by a process of unfolding, in the condition of something which you already possess; and this I take to be the true definition of development.

From this, however, we easily pass to a cognate meaning of the term. Thus we speak of the development of an idea, that is, the unfolding and applying of the results of an original thought, a discovery or principle, which were truly contained in it from the first, but were not from the first perceived to be so contained. For example, we say that railways are only a development of the original idea of turning to account the expansive force of steam; or that Newton's "Principia" and Laplace's "Mecanique Celeste," and, in fact, the whole of modern physical astronomy, are developments of the idea, or fact, call it which you will, of the universal gravitation of matter; or that the British constitution of this century is a development of Magna Charta; and so forth. What we mean by this language is that the essential principles of the development were implicitly contained in the original idea, and that one has been derived from the other somewhat in the same way as that in which the bird comes from the egg and the plant from the seed.

Dr. Newman, in his Essay "On the Development of Christian Doctrine," takes a somewhat different view. He speaks of the development of an idea as follows: "When some great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the public throng and draws attention, then it is not only passively admitted in this or that form into the minds of men, but it becomes a living principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of itself, an acting upon it, and a propagation of it. Such is the doctrine of the natural bondage of the will, or of individual responsibility, or of the immortality of the soul, or of the rights of man, or of the divine right of kings, or of the hypocrisy and tyranny of priestcraft, or of the lawfulness of self-indulgence.... Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the mind of any set of persons, and it is not difficult to understand the effects which will ensue."62 Taking this view, there is manifestly a difficulty in determining whether an idea has been rightly or wrongly developed, whether the growth be wholly from the root or partly parasitical; and the prime intention of Dr. Newman's book is to supply tests of genuine development, and to apply them in one particular case; but I wish it to be perceived that whether we take this wider view, or the stricter one which I endeavoured to present to you just now, it is essentially necessary to regard development as the exhibition in a new unfolded form of that which already existed in another.

When therefore we speak of development with reference to God, we must regard Him as the developer, and His eternal purposes as the thing developed: the point which I have to bring before you with reference to its bearing upon the faith of Christians, and the unbelief of those who scruple to be regarded as disciples of Christ, is the gradual character of the process by which God has developed His purposes.

And this being the meaning of development, I think it is manifest that it is a confusion of figures to speak of the development of a revelation. To reveal is to draw back a veil, and so to uncover something which was concealed before. Hence we can properly speak of God as revealing to us His person, His character, His will. His person is eternal and unchangeable; so is His character; so is His will; but He uncovers and shows these to us; it may be by Holy Scripture, it may be by the living voice, or the life, or the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; but however it be, the conception appropriate to the word revelation is that of something which exists independently of our minds, and which is uncovered, so that our minds can perceive it. Revelation, therefore, cannot be developed; if we use the word as meaning the process of revealing, then this is a different process from that of developing; and if we use the word as meaning objectively the knowledge which has been revealed, the knowledge which we obtain of God by revelation, then this knowledge comes to us in an already developed form: it is not an idea to be developed, but a truth to be received.

On the whole, I regard as the most important word in the title of my lecture, the word gradual: whether we speak of the development of His eternal purposes and intentions, or the revelation of His person and character, the process appears to have been a gradual one, and in a certain sense a slow one: and this gradualness of operation may be variously estimated according to the turn of mind and habits of thought of him who considers it: some will be content simply to bow their heads and worship as being in the presence of Him whose ways are past finding out: some will say that that which Christians believe to be the development of His purposes and the revelation of His person is inconsistent with their conceptions of God, and so will reject it: others will hesitate to reject on À priori grounds that which, to say the least, admits of a strong argument in its favour, but will confess that they feel the difficulties which have been urged against the creed of Christendom; and with regard to that particular phase of difficulty with which I am professing to deal in this lecture, they will say, and perhaps say with sadness, that the revelation which the volume of Holy Scripture purports to contain, does not commend itself to their minds, as corresponding to their highest thoughts of that which God might be expected to do in making Himself known to man. Now it is to minds in this condition that considerations concerning the doings of God may be hopefully offered. I do not see how it is possible to treat such a subject as mine, if I consider myself as speaking to persons who deny the impossibility of revelation as distinct from human knowledge: if a revelation be impossible, per se, it is useless to discuss the qualities of that particular form of revelation which Christians profess to have received; but if a man is willing to receive a revelation, and has something of the spirit indicated by the words, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him," then it does seem to be possible to offer some suggestions which shall tend to show that the manner of revelation which Holy Scripture exhibits is in harmony with all that we know of our Creator from other sources, and that the gradual character of the Divine operations, as exhibited in that history which culminates in the Lord Jesus Christ, is wonderfully analogous to the character of every other operation which we can rightly call divine.

Let us then observe what the revelation of God purports to be; and for the special end which I have in view, I think we may suitably divide it into the following principal steps:—

• 1. That made to Adam and Eve;
• 2. That made to Abraham;
• 3. That made to Moses;
• 4. That made in and by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us look at each of these for a moment.

The revelation to Adam and Eve is represented as being of the simplest kind possible. In fact it is difficult to conceive how anything beyond a very simple and partial revelation could be possible in the very infancy of humanity. It amounts to little more than the revelation of God as a personal governor, whose will must be obeyed: a command is given; that command is broken, and a punishment is inflicted; and then mankind is represented as cast out of Eden into the wild, uncultivated world. It is necessary to realize the extreme simplicity of this history, and the imperfect character of the revelation: the more so, because there is some temptation to imagine Adam and Eve as being in the possession of more knowledge than Scripture attributes to them; Scripture in reality attributes no knowledge to them, but rather represents the tree of knowledge as having been the cause of their fall. Philosophically speaking, we may describe the condition of things which existed in Eden as being the dawn of man's religious consciousness; he has no responsibility, and no sin; but a law is imposed upon him, and thus comes responsibility, and thus by the breach of law comes sin: man "was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived," and man "died."

The sacred history represents the world as engaged, so to speak, in working out the results of this primitive revelation till the time of Abraham. God is represented as punishing the evil and rewarding the good, the punishment of the evil being the more conspicuous conduct of the two; thus Cain is punished, the people in the days of Noah are punished, the builders of the tower of Babel are punished: but I do not think it can be said that the being and character of God are any further revealed till the time of Abraham. Then we have the new fact of God calling out a family; granting to that family special promises and special privileges, and making it (as it were) the depository of the fortunes of the world. Probably this is a step which we should not have expected; possibly it may even be argued that it is no real step in advance; but, be this as it may, it is represented in Scripture as the next step in the process of revelation; whether it strike us as strange or not, we are compelled, on the hypothesis that Scripture contains the history of revelation, to regard Abraham and his family as a point, a station, in the process.

And so we come to Moses. I am disposed, however, to regard the Mosaic revelation as differing in degree rather than in kind from that made to Abraham. A family was called in Abraham, a nation in Moses; but in the one case as in the other, the fortunes of the whole world were bound up with the history and conduct of a chosen few; the family of Abraham was a peculiar and chosen family, the Israelites whom Moses made into a nation were a peculiar and chosen people: the principle was the same, namely that of selection, and whatever difficulty belongs to one case, belongs equally to the other.

It would be a long task, and for my purpose an unnecessary one, to trace the gradual progress of the revelation made "in sundry times and in divers manners" to the Israelitish church and people; beginning with the grand announcement of the Name of God from the Burning Bush, and continued by the declaration of the law in the wilderness, rendered visible, so to speak, by the sacrificial ritual, and expounded by priests and prophets, it gradually became clearer and clearer, until "the fulness of time" came, and "God sent forth His Son made of a woman." I need not say that to Christians this is emphatically the revelation of God—"he who has seen the Son has seen the Father." All previous revelations are only preparatory for this; and when we have received this, all others seem to be lost, just as the moon and stars which shine so brightly at night are absolutely extinguished as soon as the sun is risen. Assuming all this, however, it may be worth while to remark, first, that Jesus Christ expressly connected Himself with all that had gone before, saying that He "came not to destroy, but to fulfil;" and secondly, that He, like Moses and Abraham before Him, founded an ?????s?a [Greek: ekklÊsia], or church, as a depository of the fortunes of mankind, only with this difference or extension of principle, that whereas the church of Abraham was a family, and the church of Moses was a nation, the church of Christ was catholic, knowing no distinction of family or nation, but embracing all who were willing to take Him as their Captain, and His Cross as their banner. This sketch, slight as it is, of the progress of revelation, as presented to us in Holy Scripture, will be abundantly sufficient for my present purpose. In considering its claims to be received by mankind, I think it should be at once candidly owned, as seems indeed to be conceded in Holy Scripture, that the method of revelation is probably different from anything which we should have expected on general grounds of reason. Perhaps it is difficult, it may be impossible, to say very precisely what we should have expected; but certainly I think we should not have expected to have found the principal revelations of God made, as they are alleged to have been made, to a selected family, a selected nation, a selected corporate body. It is only candid to acknowledge that, from a philosophical point of view, we may here see a great difficulty; and the difficulty becomes more salient when we look out of the narrow groove of sacred history into the wide history of the world at large. There we find a remarkable growth of knowledge, and an exhibition of the highest powers and gifts of humanity, quite separated from that region which is asserted to have been specially illuminated with light from heaven. The progress of our knowledge of the literature of ancient nations, and a greater familiarity with the thoughts and feelings of people outside the Christian pale, have tended to throw this difficulty into stronger relief: our old acquaintance with Greece and Rome, our more recent acquaintance with such countries as India and China, have made us aware that, somehow or other, great light did shine upon these countries in olden days, and it is harsh to say that the light did not come from heaven. Let, therefore, the difficulty be frankly acknowledged; while at the same time it is also acknowledged that in a matter so much beyond the scope of our faculties as that of saying in what manner God can best reveal Himself to mankind, all difficulties depending upon the strangeness or unexpectedness of a method alleged to have been adopted, must in the nature of things be of less than first-rate magnitude, and must give way to sufficient evidence.

Acknowledging, however, as frankly as can be desired, the difficulty here stated, I observe that there is anyhow a remarkable consistency in the scheme of revelation which Scripture contains. One step leads naturally to another; and looking at the whole course of Scripture history, from the first verse of the Book of Genesis to the last verse of the Book of Revelation, it is wonderful (perhaps upon any infidel hypothesis, more than wonderful) how the various parts hang together, and how the beginning, the middle, and the end seem to dovetail themselves together into one connected and consistent whole. I do not know that I have ever been more struck with this, than when reading the recent work on "The History and Literature of the Israelites," by C. and A. de Rothschild. In this work we have the advantage of seeing the Old Testament exhibited in a reverent and loving spirit without the New, and as it might have appeared if Jesus Christ had not been born. Any one reading the book would be impelled to say that the influence of the literature of the Israelites must be for the improvement and enlightenment of mankind; but the questions press upon the mind of the reader—at least they did upon mine—"What does all this lead to? What has become of these Israelites? and what is the meaning of the language of their prophets?" In fact, the book seems to put the reader very much in the position of the Ethiopian nobleman in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, who was prepared by reading some of the "literature of the Israelites" to receive from Philip the evangelist the preaching of the name of Jesus. The New Testament seems exactly to fit upon the Old; and that gradual progress of revelation which we notice in the Old Testament, seems to lead up to, and find its completion and explanation in, the history which is contained in the New.

On the whole, looking at the scheme of revelation as it appears in Scripture, and as it has been illustrated by history, both profane and sacred, I believe that I discern these features. I see the knowledge of God emerging from very obscure beginnings, and imparted in very unexpected ways; I see, however, that this knowledge does somehow or another not merely remain with mankind, but increase and become clearer and more influential; I see a particular family and nation selected for the reception and spread of this knowledge, and the family and nation so selected, after going through much education and many vicissitudes, producing at length One in whom the whole history appears to culminate, and then disappearing from all position of influence upon the fortunes of the world except through this one pre-eminent member. Still further, I perceive, and it is absolutely impossible for the most sceptical to deny, that the name of this remarkable member of the selected family and nation has been the most potent that has ever been named, and that His influence in the world has been and is far greater, more extended, and more intense in its action, than any other influence which has ever been brought to bear upon the human heart and mind. Even in the work to which I referred just now, in which the Old Testament alone comes under consideration, the dates of the history are given by reference to the birth of Jesus Christ; and whatever view men may be disposed to take of the more mysterious and transcendental allegations concerning the life of Jesus of Nazareth, it is impossible to deny that the civilization and improvement of the world, and the purification of human society and the like, are more connected with His Name than with that of any other philosopher or teacher or leader of mankind. When I say that it is impossible to deny this, I am of course aware that it has been denied, and that there are and have been persons who have asserted that Christianity has not only not been that which Christians believe it to have been, but has been positively detrimental to human progress; but what I mean is, that to make the denial to which I refer, is so contrary to the general verdict of mankind that it is hard for any one to make it, and impossible for any one who is at all likely to be influenced by anything that I can say. For those who are at all likely to be influenced are persons who are sceptical, not those who are antagonistic; a man may doubt—who has not doubted?—and a man may be tortured by his doubts, and it may be possible to relieve him; but I see no probability of helping that man who has come to the conclusion that the influence of Jesus Christ has been a mischievous and obstructive influence in the history of human progress; with such a man, I, at least, as a Christian apologist, do not feel that I have any common ground.

Taking then the view of revelation to which I have referred as being that contained in Holy Scripture, and acknowledging that such a view presents difficulties to thoughtful and inquiring minds, I wish to examine and see whether we cannot find some help towards a right appreciation of God's method of revelation by examining the course of nature, or that which is supposed to be its course.

And when we look to nature with this purpose, it is impossible not to be struck by this general fact, namely, that gradualness of development appears to be a universal law. The manner in which the original design of the Creator (for I assume that there was an original design) has been carried out, so far from being sudden, has been very slow;63 and more than this, the method of operation has been frequently such as we should scarcely have expected, and greatly opposed to those notions of creative majesty which most of us are very much disposed to preconceive. In order to put this clearly before you, let me call your attention to the very picturesque and poetical view of creation, contained in Chateaubriand's "Genie du Christianisme." That work appeared after the explosion of the volcano of the first great French revolution, and was intended to reconcile the minds of men, weary with the infidelity and atheism which had so long been rampant, to the views of God contained in Holy Scripture, and maintained by Christians. Writing with this purpose, M. Chateaubriand tells us that we may conceive of the Creator as having called the world into existence in a condition as complete, and having as many marks of antiquity, as we now see about us: when this earth was created there would be already ancient forests, and abundance of animals, some in their maturity, others dancing about in the friskiness of youth; the trees would be furnished with birds' nests, and the crows and pigeons would be hatching their eggs, or tending their young; the butterflies and moths would be sporting on the plants; the bees would be making honey from the new-formed flowers; the sheep would be followed by their lambs; and the nightingales would be astonishing themselves with their first, yet perfect songs, in all the groves. Finally, Adam would be a man of thirty, and Eve a girl of sixteen. "Without this original antiquity," says our author, "there would have been neither pomp nor majesty in the work of the Eternal; and, which could not well be, nature in her innocence would have been less fair than she is now in her corruption. An insipid infancy of plants, animals, elements, would have crowned a world devoid of poetry."64 No doubt this description is anything but devoid of poetry; it is perhaps the only way in which a poet would be disposed to conceive of creation; it is difficult to imagine the music of Haydn set to any other description of the creative work; but undoubtedly it is not scientific, and, what is more, it is not Scriptural. Chateaubriand no more got his picture of creation from the Book of Genesis than Ernest RÉnan got his picture of Jesus Christ from the four Gospels; and that there may be no mistake about this latter point, let me ask you to observe that the most marked and salient feature of the Bible picture of creation is the gradualness of the creative work. I do not say that the picture is not poetical; I believe it to be quite as poetical as that which Chateaubriand would substitute for it, and I quite admit that it ought to be regarded from a poetical rather than a scientific point of view; still gradualness of development is the most marked and salient of its features: first, a chaos of matter without life; then vegetable life; then the lower forms of animal life; then mammals; and lastly, man. No one can deny that these and other steps, spread over the time which is indicated by the mysterious creative days, do together make up the Bible history of physical creation; and no one can fail to perceive that the order of proceeding is as different as possible from that described by the French apologist. According to this latter view, creation starts forth, Minerva-like, from the mind of God; according to Scripture, the work is expressly gradual and presumably slow. We are so accustomed to the first chapter of Genesis, that I think we sometimes scarcely perceive its peculiarities; but suppose that the reverse order of arrangement had been adopted, and that man in deference to his dignity had been represented as coming in first, and that other creatures had been represented as being made afterwards for his use and pleasure, would not this have made a radical change, and introduced an enormous scientific difficulty? I remember once being told by a person, who held strong views with regard to the dangerous character of the conclusions of geology, that it seemed to him absolutely incredible that a period should have existed when the earth was inhabited by nothing but fishes, reptiles, and the like; yet this is precisely what Scripture affirms to have been the fact; and if the creative work had been concluded with the fifth day, there would have been no mammals upon the earth, and no man.

Gradualness in creative work, therefore, is so far from being contrary to the indications of God's method given in Scripture, that it is one of the few things which stand out from the scriptural account with undeniable prominence. That this same feature is not less prominent in the results of all the physical sciences, it would take more time and more ability to demonstrate than are at my command; nevertheless it is necessary that I should ask you kindly to accompany me, while I endeavour to show you that the conclusions of science, and even the guesses of scientific men, point to this conclusion, and tend to make untenable any objections to the revelation of God contained in Scripture, on the ground of the gradual manner in which that revelation is alleged to have been made.

The general evidence of geology is familiar probably to most of us, and it is only the general evidence with which I can desire to deal on such an occasion as this; but pray observe that while the particular conclusions of geology, like those of other physical sciences, are liable to continued modification and amendment, the general drift of the conclusions is sufficiently clear and certain. No one can doubt, for instance, the great antiquity of our globe, and the fact that it has gone through successive changes with regard to the character of its surface, the nature of its inhabitants, and the like. Undoubtedly there was a time when civilized men did not dwell upon it; undoubtedly there was a still more distant period when men did not dwell upon it in any form, civilized or uncivilized; perhaps there was a period even more distant, when life was not to be found upon the earth's surface at all. And physical astronomy will take us even beyond geology, and will make it probable that the earth was originally in a fluid condition, in which from the excessive temperature no form of life could have existed. Few problems are more curious than that which deduces the present figure of our globe from the hypothesis of original fluidity. Take a mass of fluid, and set it revolving slowly about an axis, as our earth revolves, and it can be shown that it will assume such a form as that which our earth has. I do not lay stress upon the remarkable numerical coincidence of the ellipticity of the earth, as derived by Laplace from theory, with that which is discovered by observation, because this involves certain arbitrary hypotheses; but taking those results which involve nothing arbitrary at all, it is almost impossible not to believe that the earth was at one time a hot fluid mass, and that it has gradually cooled down and hardened into its present permanent condition.

Look upon the earth then as being once in this hot fluid condition. It turns slowly round upon its axis and cools. I cannot trace the whole of the process, but before it arrived at its present condition there must have been crackings and burstings and eruptions; and so continents and islands and mountains would be formed; but upon the whole, even in the wildest times, the process would be very gentle, for the highest mountains on the earth's surface are but as the down upon the surface of a peach. Then upon this globe appear creatures suited to its condition; and the eye which could have watched the world in its progress would have seen animals of successively higher types occupying the earth's surface, till at length that surface was spotted with cities built by the hand of man, and the ocean studded with his ships. It is impossible to guess the time which must have elapsed between the epoch when the earth was a hot revolving mass of fluid, and the epoch in which we live; neither is it very possible to say, though it is possible to guess, what would have been the successive scenes presented by the earth to the eye which should have witnessed the whole of the changes; but whatever may have been the nature of the changes, this conclusion is inevitable, namely, that there has been a progression of some kind from the fluidity of the primÆval dead revolving mass to the inhabited world of this nineteenth century; it matters not for my argument whether the progression, so far as animal life is concerned, has been due to natural selection, or to such a process as that advocated by the author of "Vestiges of Creation," or to successive and distinct creative acts; the fact holds good, upon any hypothesis, that the Almighty Creator has produced that universe which we see, not by one act, but by a gradual and apparently very slow creative process, whether continuous or discontinuous it matters not for my purpose to inquire.

Now this course of nature is strikingly analogous to that gradual mode of proceeding which is alleged to belong to revelation; and any difficulty which belongs to one appears to attach equally to the other. Nay, if we are to give any weight to the most recent physical speculations, it may be fairly argued that the difficulties connected with revelation are but as trifles compared with those which nature presents. I refer to those views of which the latest exposition is to be found in Mr. Darwin's "Descent of Man." Let me touch upon those views for a moment.

It seems that "the early progenitors of man were once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail, having the proper muscles.... The males were provided with great canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons.... At a still earlier period, the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits." And lastly, "the most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata, at which we are able to obtain an obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group of marine animals resembling the larvÆ of existing ascidians." This is certainly a somewhat alarming conclusion; looking however to the ascent (for so I think it ought to be called) rather than the descent, it would seem to be the view of some of our advanced natural investigators, that the marine animals in question produced certain lowly organized fishes; these produced ganoids and the like; these produced amphibians;—here there seems to be a difficulty—"No one," writes Mr. Darwin, "can at present say by what line of descent the three higher and related classes, namely, mammals, birds, and reptiles, were derived from either of the two lower vertebrate classes, namely, amphibians and fishes." However, once get to the mammals, and all difficulty ceases: the Monotremata produced the Marsupials; these the placental Mammals: thus we come to the LemuridÆ, and from them the interval is not great to the SimiadÆ; the SimiadÆ branched off into two great stems,—the New World and Old World Monkeys; and "from the latter at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the universe, proceeded."65 Of this pedigree, which, "if not of noble quality," is "of prodigious length," Mr. Darwin tells us "we need not feel ashamed." Perhaps not; though certainly the nerves of any one unaccustomed to anthropological investigations may be excused for trembling slightly as he hears it recited; but the point which I wish to press is this, that supposing (for argument's sake) this view of man's origin, or anything like it, to be true, it is impossible to imagine a more thorough case of gradual development; there is nothing in the religious history of mankind as expounded in Holy Scripture so amazingly marvellous as that which is contained in this physical history; and certainly those who are prepared to receive the Darwinian view of the development of man's body, ought not to find anything to offend them on the ground of improbability in the Scriptural account of the revelation made by God to the human soul.

I do not know to what extent Mr. Darwin's views are likely to be permanent; but supposing that they, or any view of the same class, should eventually overcome all existing difficulties, and be generally regarded as representing the process by which it has pleased God to bring about man's physical and mental supremacy, then it can hardly seem strange that the same God should have adopted a course of progress and development in the spiritual and religious world. I say, emphatically, "if it has pleased God" to act thus; because if I accept the hypothesis of the nebular origin of planetary systems, or the supposition of the earth being a fluid globe gradually cooled, or even the assertion that our most ancient progenitors were marine animals, I must do so with the underlying assumption that it has pleased God so to work. I do not find fault with scientific men for not putting their theories in this form; but looking at the question from a religious, or even from a philosophical, point of view, I cannot consent to lose sight of God, as the intelligent maker of the whole. If this earth was originally a fluid mass, then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I know to the contrary, the only way of making a world; if the marine animals, which Mr. Darwin sees through his scientific telescope, did become fish, and those fish eventually became men, then I believe that that was the best, or, for anything I know to the contrary, the only way of making men; and this being so, why may I not deal in the same manner with the alleged course of man's spiritual history? I have in my hands something which purports to be a revelation to my intellect, and to my soul, of the God who made me: that revelation is contained in a history which tells me that God spake at sundry times and in divers manners to the people of olden time, and that finally He spake by One who is called His Son. Now I do not say that this revelation is or is not a real one; but I do say that there is nothing to render us suspicious of its reality in the fact that it has been communicated gradually, that it has grown as the human race has grown, and that some of the steps in the process of revelation appear strange, or even, at first sight, unworthy of the grand scheme of which they form a part. No one has a right to find fault on this ground who has read the lessons of natural science, and observed how it points to gradual progression as a characteristic of the doings of God. Least of all can they find fault on this ground, who receive in whole, or even in part, the recent theories concerning the origin of man. I will not undertake to answer for those students who have gone deeply into these physical questions; but I do assert, without fear of contradiction, that to men of ordinary education, and ordinary habits of thought, the difficulties of accepting Scripture as the revelation of God to the human soul, however much those difficulties may be expounded or even exaggerated, are absolutely nothing as compared with the difficulty of accepting recent views of man's prodigious pedigree.

The fact is, that it is not so much the process by which a result has been brought about, as the result itself, which is the all-important thing. Whatever may have been the history of our earth in the dark dim distance of incalculable ages, we know that its present condition is very beautiful, and that it answers admirably well the purpose for which it seems to have been originally designed, namely, that of serving for the residence of intelligent man; and whatever may have been the process by which that creative work was consummated, which is described in Scripture as the making of man out of the dust, and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, we know that man is high above all the rest of creation, and worthy of being spoken of as being made in the image of God. And so in the case of man's spiritual history, we need not be over-careful to criticize the several steps when we are able to see the result; the question is, not so much whether the steps of God which we trace in Old Testament history be such steps as we should imagine that the Most High would have left, as whether the mystery of the Incarnation, and the truth that God has spoken to us by His own Son, be not worthy of all acceptation. If Christ be worthy of our adoration and love, then, though the way may have been long, and strange, and dark, and sometimes even weary, yet we may be sure that it is the right way, because it has led us to Him.

For there is this further analogy between nature and revelation, namely, that in each the progress is not indefinite, but tends to a limit. Whatever theory be adopted with regard to the history of the earth, we seem to see in its present settled condition the limit towards which everything has been moving in past geological ages; and even if man has been a progressive animal, and has only gradually attained his present physical perfection, I presume it is not anticipated that the process of natural selection, or any other process, will carry him beyond the point which he has now reached. Or, if we take the divine picture of creation, we see the creative work tending from the limit of chaos to the limit of man; then physics cease and religion begins, and we hear utterances of the voice of God beginning with whispers, and becoming more and more distinct, until we are permitted to listen to divine oracles uttered by human lips. Beyond this the dreams of philosophy, and the aspirations of the human heart, and the longings of the weary and heavy-laden cannot carry our thoughts or raise our desires.

Those who are acquainted with Bishop Butler's great work will perceive that I have now been endeavouring—how imperfectly no one knows better than myself—to apply to the question of "the gradual development of revelation," those principles of reasoning which Bishop Butler has taught us to use. I was very sorry to see it stated in the evidence taken before the select committee of the House of Lords on University Tests, that Bishop Butler's Analogy was "out of fashion" in Oxford.66 I trust that the witness only intended to assert that the Analogy was not now so commonly chosen for examinations as formerly, for it will be an evil day for us all when the method of reasoning which Bishop Butler taught us shall be "out of fashion" with thinking people. In truth, the advantage of the method is that, properly speaking, it never can be out of fashion; it is like the method of Euclid, or that of the Differential Calculus; it is an organum, an instrument, a machine, which may be applied in all the varying circumstances of theological controversy, and to almost all religious difficulties. For the principle of the method is this. You find certain difficulties in that which professes to be a revelation of God; you think to get rid of these difficulties by denying the revelation; will you succeed in doing so? Not if you find precisely analogous difficulties in the course of nature; unless you go further, and deny not only that there is a God of revelation, but a God of nature too. Nay, the argument carries you beyond this point, and suggests to you that if there be difficulties in God's natural world, and if He be pleased to reveal the spiritual world to us, then we ought to expect to find the same general method of proceeding in matters spiritual which we have been able to observe in the natural world. I quite admit that this reasoning has no force for the man who says "There is no God;" he must be dealt with in another way; but it has force and it has comfort for the doubting inquiring soul, by assuring it that it can find a logical resting-place, and that the refuge from the misery of blank and hopeless atheism is to be found in simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.67 With the atheist, I honestly confess, that I have little or no sympathy; certainly I should not think it worth while to compose a lecture intended for his special behoof. I should feel disposed rather to send him for his answer to the fourteenth and fifty-third Psalms. The difficulty of supposing the framework of the universe to have had no architect, appears to me to be so great, so absolutely immeasurable, that the man who can fancy that he has got over it must, as I believe, either not have understood the difficulty, or else have deceived himself as to his power of solving it; anyhow, I feel that he has cut away all ground of argument, as between him and me. Not so the man whose mind is sceptically inclined. Be it ever remembered that the word sceptic is derived from a word which means to look or to see—it is the same word which forms the root of the word bishop or overseer; and accordingly there is nothing radically reproachful in the name of sceptic. It implies that a man is determined to look into matters for himself, not to trust every assertion, not to repeat a parrot creed; and so far as this determination is concerned, it is high and noble, and is in fact the very root and spring of all human knowledge; but who can wonder if looking should lead to doubting, and that so the name of sceptic should popularly imply, not the man who looks and believes, but the man who looks and doubts? And I am not ashamed to confess that I have much sympathy with this sceptical frame of mind. Not only is it closely connected with a noble instinct of inquiry and search for truth which God has implanted in the human mind, but also, as I believe, it is well-nigh impossible that an inquiring mind should deal seriously with religious subjects and remain entirely free from doubt. In my opinion, the amount of scepticism which has, during some period of his life, occupied the mind of each thoughtful earnest man, will be merely a question of degree; while, at the same time, I most sincerely believe that scepticism ought not to be, and need not be the lasting condition of the human soul, and that all doubts may be made to vanish in the light which God has given to "lighten every man who is born into the world."

I know not what may be the condition of mind of those to whom I have been speaking to-day. I presume the hope of the Christian Evidence Society is that some persons who feel practically the pressure of doubt and unbelief, will come and see whether any of their difficulties can be resolved by this course of Lectures. If there be such in this company, I beg them, in concluding this Lecture, to believe that they have been listening to one who does not wish to treat their speculative difficulties as trifles, but who would consider it as an unspeakable privilege to be able to help a doubting brother to get rid of his doubts, and to exchange them for the steady assurance of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.