MR. LLEWELLYN DAVIES AND TIIE PALL MALL GAZETTE.* ALL these
sermons, as is usual with what comes from Mr. Llewellyn Davies, are thoughtful and worth study ; some of them, —like those on "Human Corruption," " Giving by Calculation," "Public and Private Expenditure," and others,—in a very Ligh degree able and instructive. But we propose in the notice which alone we can give to the volume in these columns, to restrict our
• 27w Gospel and Modern Life. Sermons on Some of the Difficulties of the Day, with a Preface on • Recent Phase of Deism. By the Be,. J. Llewellyn Davies, Rector of Christ Church, litaryiebone. London : Macmillan. selves to the very striking preface on the theology of the Pall Mall Gazette which, alike for its remarkable literary ability, and its careful intellectual soundings on a difficult subject, deserves the most deliberate criticism,—which we are somewhat surprised that the Pull Mall Gazette itself has not as yet accorded it. The only point which it will be profitable for us to discuss, within such limits as we have, is the issue raised between Mr. Davila and the Pall Molt ou the subject of the nature of religious evidence The first article in the creed of the Pall Mall Gazette is that as to things belonging to the unseen world certainty is not to be attained. Some suppositions are probable. Nothing is more than probable. To this preliminary article the Gazette returns again and again. Amongst probable suppositions in the sphere of religion these are the three which specially commend themselves,—the existence of it God, it future state, rewards and punishments awaiting virtue and vice. Many arguments. point to these as probable ; and a rational man will at the same time guard himself from assuming their certainty and allow himself to be swayed by their probability. But every form of systematic theology must be surrendered. For 'as soon as you admit that probability is the utmost to which you can attain upon these subjects, it becomes plain that the uncertainty of every inference which you draw increases. in a geometrical ratio.' Accordingly, on one Easter Eve (1867) the writer whose voice is to be chiefly heard in the theology of the Pall Mall Gazette, prOtested that the keeping of Good Friday nud Easter Day was an obsolete superstition. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were not to him historical facts which it was worth while to remember. He did not care to have these in any sense brought before him."
That, we think, is a just representation of the attitude of the Pall Mall, and would doubtless be admitted to be so by the author of the articles referred to. We do not quite agree with all. Mr. Davies's criticisms thereupon, at least with those which would seem to be directed towards proving to the writer that it is illogical for him and such as he not to go further in the direction of scepticism, and especially illogical to go to church and join ina liturgy based on assumptions so very different. That the ablewriter referred to cannot accept literally a great number of themost characteristic and beautiful prayers used by our Church is a matter of course, but which of us is there who does not demur to some of the hundreds of assumptions made in the course of the service? At all events we dislike themethod of deducing from that part of any thinker's religious convictions which happens to be most sharply expressed, what the, other parts ought to be but are not, instead of taking as a wholewhat ho tells us of his creed, and trying to mould our wilful and often perverse logic to his own conception of the moral tenability of his position. Few men were ever yet persuaded to give up any article of faith by having it affirmed to them that it was inconsistent with something else with which they thought it in very tolerable harmony ; and on religious matters especially, the method of establishing a logical contradiction between different sides of a man's mind is oftener duo to a faulty logic in the critic than in the person criticized, is generally inefficient, and even if efficient at all, is apt to be efficient in what the critic would himself regard as the wrong direction,—that is, in the direction of making his opponeut give up that element of his creed which they both held in common, instead of that element of it which the critic was striving to refute.
With these exceptions, we concur heartily in Mr. Llewelyn. Davies's criticisms, though we wish to add something to thorn, and to explain the sense in which we accept them. Mr. Davies's reply is substantially contained in the two following extracts :—
" Christians in general, therefore, would oppose to such a creed as. that of the Pall Mall Gazette, not the pretence of conclusions which they can demonstrate against all corners, but strong and deep convictions continually assailed and sometimes agitated by insoluble difficulties. These difficulties are especially formidable to those who mix with the world, and to those who study with interest the progress of thought in the provinces of natural science and historical criticism. And the question which they have to ask themselves is whether their convictions as to the nature of God and the work of reconciliation are of such a kind, and rest upon such a ground, that they do right in saying, 'I cannot fully answer this or that objection, nevertheless I will persevere in believing.' And then it must come into view that the arguments by which Christians of the firmest faith are and have been always moss powerfully moved are not such as it is easy to lay out in controversy, or such as can be conveniently weighed or measured by logical instruments. One way of describing them is to say that they are such as verify the Christian hypothesis, which Is, that there is a living God, acting upon the spirits of men, and seeking to draw then) by the proper influences to a supersensual life of faith and love. Christians are continually tempted to do what all controversy solicits them to do, namely, to forget their hypothesis, and to argue Belt their business was to establish, in the light of the understanding, certain conclusions to which every rational person must assent. But this is to put the main point, the attractive action of God himself, out of the question. If the end of God be what we bold it to be, to bring human souls to Himself, then the menu; He actually employs must be living and spiritual. They ars likely to be infinitely various and subtle, but they will deal princij ally with the conscience and the affections. God is likely—nay, is certain to manifest Himself more and more in proportion to faith and love. Christian appeals belong naturally to a region that may be called mystical, or may be otherwise described as personal and spiritual. The experience of the inner life, rightly understood and tested, is the best evidence that can be adduced. Words which one man can say out of his heart may strongly move another man. If we will not acknowledge evidence of this kind, the evidence does not perish or lose its power, but we are simply remaining on the outside of the question. No Christian need be ashamed of trying to rise into the sphere of those motives and to submit to the government of those influences which have produced all that is best in Christendom. But the truth is that no one, Christian or non-Christian, can become serious and think of what he himself lives by and for, without appealing to considerations which may incur the taunt of being personal and mystical." . . . And again, "no wise Christian ever pretended that the Gospel could be demonstrated like the elements of geometry. The perpetual warning has been, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot see, ye cannot enter into, the kingdom of heaven. All the mysticism and superstition and delusion that have cloaked themselves with this law, cannot take away its authority as a primary condition of the faith of Christendom. If it is a true law, then assurance will naturally grow with spiritual insight. And before you can pronounce the assurance to be a delusion, you must show that this law, not an afterthought, but promulgated from the first,
has no ground in reality."
To which the theologian criticized would probably reply that Mr. Davies virtually admits his own thesis that all religious con
victions are merely probable. He would maintain that 4, deep convictions, continually assailed and sometimes agitated by insoluble difficulties," are only a paraphrase for arguments which, if they stood alone, might, indeed, produce moral certainty, but, as they do not stand alone, but are confronted by other arguments having an opposite drift, produce only a wavering state of mind which vibratts between conviction and doubt. That, we have no doubt, would be the reply of the writer criticized. What we want to discuss is whether it would be a just reply. We hold that it would not. We believe that the implied assumption that certainty is simply a very great preponderance of the arguments on one side over the arguments on the other, is utterly mistaken. That would mean, of course, that there is in effect no such thing as certainty, because it would mean that all conviction, however firm, is simply provisional, and is liable at any moment to be upset, reduced to a be a mere probability, or even to a doubt or disbelief, by the production of sufficiently strong arguments hitherto unheard of on the other side. For instance, the conviction of the present writer that he has a pen in his hand at the present moment does not seem to him a conviction which any counter-evidence could upset. Yet it is easily conceivable that by to-morrow a great deal of counter-evidence could be amassed, which, when submitted to him, would, so far as he yielded his mind up to its drift, tend to produce the impression that at the given moment to-day he had had no pen in his hand. Would it be uniformly his duty to listen to all this counter-evidence before forming an opinion, and then deliberately balance the confident evidence of his own memory against it? We do not think that even the critic in the Pall Mall would maintain it ; even he would admit that there are evidences and evidences of such completely different orders of authority, that even though they be opposed to each other, there is, to the mind which knows the full weight of the more important evidence, not even a sufficient presumption in the secondary evidence to shake for an instant the certainty founded on the former, — and this, too, even though it may be admitted that were the mind submitted solely and exclusively to the full weight of the lesser evidence, there would be quite enough in it to produce a very strong presumptive belief. Suppose that a man whose thoughts and opinions and casual judgments on himself and on other men and their motives I have known day by day for half a lifetime, is accused on the strongest circumstantial evidence of a very base and disgraceful theft. Here is a case where mathematical certainty is not attainable on either side. We should admit that no man can speak with more than what is called moral certainty of the possibilities in any other man's heart. But, unquestionably, in such a case I should be warranted in not even weighing for a moment the evidence, however seemingly overwhelming, against Lim, before forming an opinion, if I knew, or thought I knew, that he was utterly incapable of such an act. It is by no means true, even within the region of probabilities, that " strong convictions continually assailed and sometimes agitated by insoluble difficulties" mean the same thing as arguments sufficient, if they stood alone, to convince, but the force of which is materially broken by other arguments of an opposite tendency. On the contrary, we entertain plenty of deep convictions which are not, and ought not to be, merely provisional, —i.e ., which need no proviso that we entertain them only so long as nothing more convincing appears on the other side, and which may, nevertheless, be by no means left in quiet possession of the field ; and yet it might be positively silly in us to examine the counter-evidence at all though it may be quite reasonable for others differently situated to accept it as the most convincing within their reach. Thus, in the case suggested above, it may be highly reasonable for me, the most intimate friend of the accused, not even to admit a momentary doubt of his guilt, while it is reasonable for some less intimate friend to vibrate between the two distinct planes of evidence, the moral and the circumstantial, while to the outer world, again, it is equally reasonable to rely on the latter evidence alone.
But how does this touch Mr. Davies's admission that even those who entertain the deepest convictions, convictions too deep to class themselves as in any sense " probable " inferences, are yet liable to be " assailed," and sometimes "agitated " by " insoluble difficulties "? Of course, it is quite one thing to have totally opposite currents of inconsistent evidence swaying different minds on any subject, and quite another to have the same mind vibrating between these mutually incompatible drifts of belief, acting upon it, as we may say, in quite different planes, like the upper and under currents of the sea or atmosphere, which often move in diametrically opposite directions. Is it possible for any man to be in any strict sense certain of that which yet he can, in another condition of mind, and without any real change in the evidence accessible to him, be brought to marvel at and doubt? Clearly it is, and that for a very simple reason,—that our minds are so limited in energy that we are incapable of entering into many points of view, of grasping fully more than one or two trains of evidence, at the same moment. Once get me to attend exclusively to the strong circumstantial evidence proving that myfriend, whose inmost motives and aims I have known intimately all my life, is a base sort of thief,—and so long as my intellect is saturated with that evidence, I shall be staggered, though the moment I am allowed to revert to the far higher kind of evidence in my own possession, it will seem as nothing in the comparison. Well, precisely the same seems to ns to be true of Theistic and Christian evidence, and the 'insoluble difficulties' conceded by Mr. Davies. While the mind is occupied in the struggle between right and wrong, appreciating the force of a temptation, and recognizing the absolute authority of the spiritual voice which forbids us to yield to it, no evidence of any sort or kind would or could have the smallest effect in breaking down the certainty of a spiritual existence of some sort, recognizable by us, the righteous authority of which over us we cannot dispute. Of coarse, what may be the extent of that authority, whether it is that of the Being who created the world, whether He is infinite and eternal and omnipotent, whether He has set us any tasks beyond our power to do, and a vast number of other questions tending to define and discriminate the range of the authority we recognize, all these things are not thus determined, and are determined, so far as they are determined.at all, by other and less positive evidence. But while we are sensible of that ultimate authority over our conscience, no countervailing evidence to prove that we only receive moral instruction through the senses and reflection thereon, would be listened to fora moment. But now transfer the attention from such a state of mind as this, to a general train of minute observations tending to prove that man's outward life is by no means adapted to hia moral education,—that numbers of men are placed by no fault of their own in circumstances which compel and imply moral debasement,— that progress, so far as it takes place at all, is due to the failure and gradual extinction of poor natures, rather than to their elevation and ennoblement,—that our Lord's doctrine of providence which makes the fall of each sparrow a separate care to a perfectly loving Father is an ideal dream, instead of a transcript of fact,—and it will be inevitable that while this class of observations monopolize our attention, we shall be forced by them to contemplate some power of Destiny as a possibility, a power far removed from the spirit of righteousness which we recognized in the former mood. Well, does it follow in any way that the former moral certainty,— so far as it went,—is either undermined or altered in kind by this very differently based " insoluble difficulty "? Far from it. The one is, so far as it goes, a positive certainty, which is not even provisional, which is as complete as the present writer's certainty that he holds a pen. But then it is only coextensive with the special experience, while the " insoluble difficulties" suggested in the latter train of thought, though, if taken alone, they would land ns in a different region of belief, do not even touch it. In this case we have not probabilities in one direction, to be balanced by probabilities of an opposite kind. The one is a certainty, the others are only fragments of evidence, which may point in a different direction, but can no more invalidate the former, than two straight lines in different planes can meet. This seems to us, then, the force of Mr. Davies's answer :—He reminds us that the evidence of Christianity has ever been asserted to be of a peculiar kind, ' Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' That is a sort of evidence which, though it is perfectly reasonable of its kind, does not profess to meet the insoluble difficulties.' What we maintain is that real certainty in one plane of evidence, is absolutely compatible with doubts in another plane of evidence, so long as we have minds so limited as we have, so incapable of grasping in one act of attention the upshot of very different experiences. We believe heartily with Mr. Davies that the existence of the ' insoluble difficulties' which he so wisely and frankly recognizes, does not in the least reduce to mere probabilities' the positive spiritual certainties which he seta forth so powerfully both in the preface and in some of these fine sermons.
We wish we could quote Mr. Davies's humorous and really exquisite postscript to the fine and powerfully imagined parable in which the Pall Mall Gazette set forth some time ago the general character of the faith which its managers think rational and justified. But we have taken up too much space already with this discussion, and we will leave the literary plum of this thoughtful volume where it is, for our readers to extract for themselves. We only hope it may induce them to read the rest of this timely, able, and spiritual little book.
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