Produced by Michael John Madden
1854.
The effect of the perusal of this book, and the estimate putupon it by a reader, will depend upon his taking with him aright view of its design. That design seems in the mind ofthe writer to have been very definite and very restricted. Ifhe should be thought to have intended an answer to all theelaborate objections from criticism and philosophy recently orrenewedly urged against faith in the Christian revelation,and, still more, if the reader should suppose that the authorhad aimed to remove all the difficulties in the way ofsuch a faith, he would equally insure his own disappointment,and wrong the writer. The book comes forth anonymously, but itis ascribed to Mr. Henry Rogers, some of whose very ablepapers in the Edinburgh Review have been republished in twooctavo volumes in England, and one of whose articles, that on"Reason and Faith," dealt with some of the topics which formthe subject-matter of this volume.
The author seems to have viewed with a keenly attentive andanxious mind the generally unsettled state of opinion, equallyamong the literary and some of the humbler classes in England,concerning the terms and the sanction of a religious faith,especially as the issue bears upon the contents and theauthority of the Bible. That he understands the state of thingsin which he proposes himself as one who has a word to utter,will be allowed by all candid judges, whatever criticism theymay pass upon the effectiveness of his own argument. There isabundant evidence in this book of his large intimacy withthe freshest forms of speculation, as developed by the freethought of our age. While he identifies these speculations withthe recent writers who have adopted them, he is not to beunderstood as allowing that these writers have originatedany novel speculations, or excelled the sceptics of formertimes in acuteness, or plausibility, or success in urging theircause. He adopts the method of the Platonic dialogue, andexhibits a dialectic skill in confounding by objections whenobjections can be made to do service as arguments. His frankadmission that he leaves insurmountable objections andunfathomable mysteries still involved in the theme, a portionof whose range alone he traverses, should secure him from theimputation of having attempted too much, or of boastfulness forwhat he considers that he has accomplished.
The truculent notice of this book in the Westminster Reviewfor July is wholly unworthy of the reputation and the claimsof that journal. Probably a careful perusal of the book is anessential condition for enlightening the mind of the writer,and for rectifying his judgment, so far as information haspower to promote candor.
The Prospective Review for August, in an article on the work,for the most part commendatory, though certainly without anywarmth of praise, makes the prominent stricture upon it to be,a charge against the author of having evaded "the gravest, andin one sense the only serious difficulty, with which theevidences he supports have to contend." This difficulty isdefined to be in the question as to whether our four Gospelsare essentially and substantially documents from the pens ofMatthew, Mark, Luke, and John, actual companions andcontemporaries of Him whose life and lessons are therein recorded.The Reviewer professes to have satisfied his own mindby an affirmative conclusion on this point. But regarding thequestion as the very