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425 Eternal love, and patting mutability, yindictiyeness, arbitrari- ness, untruth, and elective caprice, in its place ? (4) " Fourthly, the explanation which some give of your Chris- tian election only makes the doctrine worse. For they resolve it, not merely into the mystery of things, but into a wilful decree, conceived by Grod from eternity, which they call predestination. We are not, they say, to murmur against Grod, nor reply against His Will. I do not murmur against what comes of Grod, but does this come of Him ? I accept His Will, but has He shewn us this to be His Will ? If He has revealed Himself, as you say, through all history and conscience, and especially through the long line of the Hebrew Scriptures, as the very fountain of justice, mercy, and truth, these principles, once laying hold of any mind, are a better clue to His holy will, than a few texts in which the contrary seems spoken. That is not just, because of infinite power, which we should call horrible from man to man. I say nothing, of such a doctrine's making human agency a mockery, and throwing a more than Brahmanical M^y& over the moral world, because that would lead us into a wider mysteiy. But at least this doctrine of election of a few by predestination is not good news to me ; nor can I reconcile it with Divine justice, even if with human morality. (5) '^ But fifthly, all the above doctrines are bound up with the Divinity of Christ. He is, you say, * very God of very God,' and you speak of His appearance as a Divine Incarnation. Those who teach your religion in a system, go on to explain that you have three Persons in one Divine and Infinite Being. A missionary once, shewing me a creed, threatened me with endless perdition, if I did not fully believe what perhaps I did not understand, and what so far as I did understand it, con- tradicted itself. Each of the Three Persons, he said, was * by Himself, God and Lord ; yet there were not three gods, but one God.' Now, if I could understand how three may be one by difference of relation or aspect, yet at least it is difficult to imagine Three Persons in One Being, of whom the first shall 426 QUESTIONS AS TO FAITH. have a Tindictive will to pnnifih all mankind, but the second have a benevolent will to save them; so that the first shall only change His mind upon receiving a price from the second. Then, if the wills of the first and second Persons are at any time difierent, how can they be one ? For if by sub- stance you mean spirit, and not matter, there is nothing more essential to unity of spiritual being, than unity of self-conscious will? Again, if the will and self-consciousness are one, how are there three? Much more, if each is * by Himself' God, and Grod is both infinite and One, how is there room for another to be by His side? All this doctrine of Three and One is difficult; and it becomes more so, when you connect with it anger, and punishing, and propitiation, and intercession, as if from one self-consciousness to another. (6) " But sixthly, you say this doctrine is a mystery, and must be received by faith. But I thought that in Christianity you had a revelation, and that what was once a mystery had be- come imveiled. I do not deny, that reason goes beyond sense, and perhaps faith reasonably beyond the full company of reason ; yet neither should contradict the other. But what do Christians mean by faith ? J£ they mean belief, then it is an intellectual quality, and requires some ground, if not naked evidence. Then if it has good ground to assent upon, it is mechanical, and has no merit. But you have rather implied, that it is that mental ap- prehension which gives body to unseen things : as such, I see no objection to it, but it is not peculiar to Christians ; perhaps even it is stronger among Hindus. Some again, make faith consist in trust, or confidence. If they mean trust in things holy and right, such as our conscience answers to, and the most Divine Intelligence supports, then it might be a moral quality ; but this very fidth, as I apprehend it, forbids me to receive immoral or arbitrary doctrines of God, as if He were Might and Self-will, instead of being also Bight and Love. If, again, Christians by faith mean confidence, or assurance of our own sal- vation, this may come of selfishness, as well as of righteousness^ CHARGE OF EXCLUSIYENESS. 427 And what right has a man to be so sanguine ? He can only be rightly assured of what is first true ; and if he is saved by con- fiding that he is so, does this make our salvation a process of our own minds ? Or, if it is by confiding that he is one of the elect, does not this make God partial, and an accepter of per- sons ? Still more, does not the stress thus laid on faith, in the sense of confidence, either make men presumptuous ; or, if it consists in intense abnegation of merit, then make Christ jealous, and His religion a thing of name ? What is the essential dif- ference between those degenerate forms of Hinddism, which set the name of a favourite deity above all moral distinctions, and such a doctrine of faith as makes mere self-negation, and ac- knowledgment of Christ as a Saviour, avail more with heaven, than pure heart, or upright life? You have yourself," (here he turned to Blancombe) '' touched on the danger of religion's losing morality: and I think the Christian stress on faith in Christ as opposed to good deeds, shews such a tendency in doctrine, which I should not wonder if bad men carried out in act. Especially all that is said of there being ' none other name given,' seems at variance with the equity and goodness of God. Through such a faith, and not from want of faith, I feel unable to receive your doctrine. (7) " Here comes in, seventhly, all the exclusiveness of your religion. It is acknowledged, that such was a fault in part of the Jews. But yet it was a natural fruit of their Mosaic system : how then can that system have been Divine? You say, it was temporary. Be it so; but it obscured truths, which had been known before, as the case of Melchisedec in Canaan proves, no less than that of Yisw&mitra in India. Why then obscure things, only in order to uncover them ? Or why construct an elaborate polity, which fi'eedom and truth would require to be one day broken down? How does the long usurpation of the Levitical tribe in Jerusalem differ from that of the Brahmanical caste in India? Let your great Teacher and Deliverer have the merit of breaking down the one ; but why may I not claim an 428 OBJECTION OF MATERIALISM AND LOCALISATION. equally unfading crown for our master S&kja? His faith stands in the same relation to the Brahmans, as Christianity does to the priesthood of Aaron and Hilkiah. It should also be noticed, that Sdkya was in age far prior of the two. But have not you Christians inherited too much of that exclusiveness, which you blame in the Jews of old? I should not wonder, if all thai doctrine of election had something to do with old Jewish feel- ings. Still more it strikes me that the narrowness of mind with which Christians speak of themselves as especial favourites of heaven, and of all other nations as wandering in darkness, ii either Jewish, or at least wrong. To us it seems that ever} man everywhere is accepted, in proportion as he grows in intel- ligence, and does the thing that is right. (8) "Tou are perhaps not accustomed to such freedom o1 speech from us. But you were, though in all friendliness, our as- sailants on this question, and you invited me to speak. I will now however, try you with only one more objection. If Judaism and in a less degree Christianity, seem to be narrow in theu sympathies, or unfair in their way of regarding other modes o; worship, still more we think both one and the other have to< local and material a view of all that concerns mental things, anc especially the Divine intelligence. You speak of God, as of i king sitting upon a visible throne in the sky, with His eldest Soi at His right hand, and one receiving petitions from the other Then you make men, like mere animals, creeping upon thi earth, at a great distance from Grod, and hardly daring to thinl any thought of immortality but what is written down for thei in a book. If ever we are to see God, you think we must I transferred bodily through the air into this palace of the grej King, taking with us flesh and bones, and I suppose, fleshly a] petites.