PREFACE My object in these pages is to show that the faith in which we have been brought up has not been able to withstand without damage the attacks which have been made against it from the new sources of knowledge that have been opened up in the last two or three generations. Christianity as a dogmatic system has assumed many forms, at different times, and in various countries, during the nineteen centuries of its history; but in some respects it has scarcely changed. All the churches have agreed as to its supernatural origin in a series of direct revelations from the Almighty, and as having for its basis the need of man, fallen from his first estate of innocence, and powerless to help himself, -for some external means V vi PLEA FOR A SIMPLER FAITH by which he could be reconciled to his Maker, and thus recover his original state of purity and happiness. The means by which this could be effected was thought to be indicated by the rite of sacrifice, or vicarious punishment for sin. In the Bible this rite first appears in the generation after Adam, in Abel's sacrifice. It reappears in the substitution of the ram for Isaac, and in the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, the death of which, as related in Exodus, preserved the lives of the first - born of the Jewish people in Egypt; and it continued by far the most prominent rite of the Jewish Church, the ceremonial of which is stated to have been given by God to Moses and Aaron. The completion of the work of restoration and redemption is held by all Christian Churches to have been accomplished in the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, the son of Mary—a consummation which has never been adopted as the true one by the Jews. But Christians still adhere to the Jewish Scriptures as giving the true history of their religion up to the time of the close of the Jewish canon. The Jews, when evil days overtook them, looked for a Messiah who would restore their nation to more than all its ancient glory, and as yet they have looked in vain. The scheme of Christianity is absolutely founded on the Jewish Scriptures, and on the historic truth of their account of the fall of man. Till recently these scriptures stood alone as giving almost the only early history of our race. They could not be called in question except by comparing one part with another, and there was no authentic history outside of them by which to test their authenticity. A few able, and, as is now generally admitted, honest men were not satisfied with the moral teachings of the writings, in which also they thought they found contradictions in facts and sentiments seemingly impossible to reconcile. But they were treated with a high-handed disdain by viii PLEA FOR A SIMPLER FAITH the orthodox teachers of the Church, and were sometimes subjected to the grossest calumnies. In quite recent years similar calumnies have been raised against earnest seekers after truth, and even though refuted have, to the shame of over-zealous supporters of their creed, been brought forward again and again until, argument and exposure availing nothing, the law has been called in to check the evil. This is a real advance from the time when the law was on the side of the Church, and when the seeker for truth had to cease from troubling, or to perish. But another and surer help has come to those who think that truth-and truth alone-can command the homage of the human mind. A vast series of ancient documents-which had long been hidden, first from being mostly covered up by the ruins of ages, and then from want of a key to decipher the characters and to read the languages in which they were written-has been revealed by the industry of able and untiring investi |