Chapter 5

A CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN ILL-JUDGED METHODS OF DEFENCE

The reader has now heard the utmost that can be said against the historic character of the Resurrection by the ablest of its impugners. I know of nothing in any of Strauss's works which can be considered as doing better justice to his opinions than the passages which I have quoted and, I trust, refuted. I have quoted fully, and have kept nothing in the background. If I had known of anything stronger against the Resurrection from any other source, I should certainly have produced it. I have answered in outline only, but I do not believe that I have passed any difficulty on one side.

What then does the reader think? Was the attack so dangerous, or the defence so far to seek? I believe he will agree with me that the combat was one of no great danger when it was once fairly entered upon. But the wonder, and, let me add, the disgrace, to English divines, is that the battle should have been shirked so long. What is it that has made the name of Strauss so terrible to the ears of English Churchmen? Surely nothing but the ominous silence which has been maintained concerning him in almost all quarters of our Church. For what can he say or do against the other miracles if he be powerless against the Resurrection? He can make sentences which sound plausible, but that is no great feat. Can he show that there is any a priori improbability whatever, in the fact of miracles having been wrought by one who died and rose from the dead? If a man did this it is a small thing that he should also walk upon the waves and command the winds. But if there is no a priori difficulty with regard to these miracles, there is certainly none other.

Let this, however, for the present pass, only let me beg of the reader to have patience while I follow out the plan which I have pursued up to the present point, and proceed to examine certain difficulties of another character. I propose to do so with the same unflinching examination as heretofore, concealing nothing that has been said, or that can be said; going out of my way to find arguments for opponents, if I do not think that they have put forward all that from their own point of view they might have done, and careless how many difficulties I may bring before the reader which may never yet have occurred to him, provided I feel that I can also shew him how little occasion there is to fear them.

I must, however, maintain two propositions, which may perhaps be unfamiliar to some of those who have not as yet given more than a conventional and superficial attention to the Scriptural records, but which will meet with ready assent from all whose studies have been deeper. Fain would I avoid paining even a single reader, but I am convinced that the arresting of infidelity depends mainly upon the general recognition of two broad facts. The first is this--that the Apostles, even after they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit were still