Chapter 17
Section 17 of Lectures on Butler's Analogy by Thomas Chalmers. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Conclusion The Prayer We draw near to Thee, O God, under a deep sense both of our dependence as creatures and of our unworthiness as sinners.
Yet sinners though we be, we draw near not without hope, but rather with full assurance of heart in the blood of the everlasting covenant. We obey the invitations of thy gospel, we plead its assurances, and build our confidence before thee on the exceeding great and precious promises of thy word. We pray for mercy to pardon, we pray for grace to help us. May the blood which cleanseth from all sin cleanse us from our sin, and may the spirit which quickens even the dead in trespasses quicken us into a new moral and spiritual existence. 36.
I shall be strictly observant of my promise to expatiate no more on the substance or contents of the volume which we have now traversed, but let me not take leave of it without expressing my hope that many of you have imbibed, along the passage, the sound and philosophical spirit of its great author. I have already given repeated intimation that, viewed as a Christian composition, I do not regard it as being sufficiently impregnated with the sale evangelicum,
and that even his own principles are not fully and practically followed out. He is like one who with admirable skill lays down the distances and directions of a land which himself hath not travelled far into. The wisdom of Butler is more like the wisdom of the letter than the wisdom of the Spirit. Yet let us never forget that it is the letter animated and lighted up by the Spirit which constitutes the pabulum of Christian instruction. The Spirit, in revealing truth to the mind, reveals to it nothing that is beside or beyond the record.
Still, it is Bible instruction that we receive even under the teaching of the Spirit, though, if I may so express myself, it is the Bible in illuminated characters. Spiritual Christianity takes the very shape and dimensions and outline and whole structure of literal Christianity. The lessons of the Spirit are but the lessons of the Word made impressive,
or of the Word brought clearly and powerfully home, and without sitting in judgment on the personal religion of Butler, it is the part of the Christian world to own their deepest obligations to the man who hath so nobly asserted the authority of that word over all the darkling speculations of human fancy, and who hath evinced to us, by the truest of all philosophy, that we should cast
down every lofty imagination, and bring all our thoughts into the captivity of its obedience. 37. The service which Bacon rendered to science, that service hath Butler rendered to Christianity. The former succeeded in nullifying the pride and the presumption of all human excogitations respecting the natural constitution of the universe, and reduced the work of discovery in things of science
to the business of observation. The latter hath, with like success, demonstrated the vanity of man's preconceptions respecting the moral constitution of the universe, and reduced the work of discovery in things sacred
to the business of observation also. If rightly tutored by the one, we go forth with the plumb line and the balance and the crucible and the telescope and all the apparatus of experiment
on the observation of nature. If rightly tutored by the other, we go forth with the grammar and the lexicon and the polyglot and all the apparatus of criticism on the observation of scripture. In the first enterprise, we patiently collect the facts of what God hath done in the world, and out of these we build up the entire system of our philosophy.
In the second enterprise, we patiently collect the facts of what God hath written in the Bible, and out of these we build up the entire system of our faith. There is an identity of spirit and principle in the two processes, and whether they be the works of God or the word of God that we investigate, it is alike the lesson of those great masters that we evince the truest wisdom
by sitting down to the task with the docility of little children. And whatever the disposition may be in the philosophers of our present day towards Christianity, the days have been when the men of most colossal strength and proudest achievement in science pressed forward to do her reverence, as when Newton transferred his mighty intellect from the study of the works of God to the study of his word.
38. And now that we have made full trial of one book and actually finished it, I leave the question to yourselves as to the best method of learning theology, whether from a succession of lectures alone or from a succession of textbooks supplemented by lectures and mixed up with the familiar remarks and urgent reiterations of an expounder, reiterations persevered in till every misconception be rectified and all resistance be driven in. I ask in which of the two ways you can be made to drink more deeply into the existent literature of a science or have a compact and memorable impression of its truths effectually wrought upon you is there any comparison between the efficiency of the methods whether the object be to multiply the lessons of the course or to revise them
do you not experience that in one way the instruction is far more abundant in its quantity as well as far more enduring in the fruits of it and that by a series of actual deliverances on every topic whether direct or incidental, which occurs in the volume, you are not only rendered masters of the book, but masters of the subject of the book. And we speak not merely of the effect it must have on
the caste and habitude of your thoughts by being brought into collision with authors of such staple as Butler and Paley. We speak of the virtue that lies in your own preparations. We speak of your abridgements and your analysis and your written memoranda, these substantial products of your own well-exercised intellects, and while we appeal to all this palpable handiwork as the enduring memorial of your industry, we confidently ask whether, in the actual moulding of your
conceptions on the matters of Christianity, there be not effects which, though by their nature unseen, are alike enduring. 39. Were my own conceptions on the subject of theological seminary realised, there would be distinct classes for the students of each year, in which case the whole number would be broken up into forties or fifties, and the examinational process would circulate with far greater rapidity, so as to complete the rotation somewhat oftener than once
in a fortnight. The charm and efficacy of the method would thus be brought out in far more convincing illustration, but even as it is, and without the advantage of this division, your own appearances have fully vindicated the course that we have taken, and from the highly intellectual exhibitions which many of you have made, I feel abundantly encouraged and warranted to persevere in it. 40. In one respect you will find Paley less laborious than Butler,
and in another respect more so. You will have to prepare a greater quantity of the latter, but then, in the description of his lucid pages, you will experience the facility and even the entertainment of light reading. Let me recommend that you give a portion of each evening in the week to your preparations, if you find that the space traversed by the three days' examinations actually require it. Above all, let me recommend the construction of an ample notebook, grounded
on this inestimable work, and leaving space in it for our own supplementary observations. Remember that we are now entering on the positive evidence for Christianity, and you will find it a precious acquisition to have a manuscript written by your own hands presenting the outline of this very extensive argument with notices of the authors who have most signalized themselves by the contributions which they have made to it. End of section 17. End of Lectures on Butler's Analogy by Thomas Chalmers.
