a certain set of assumptions, has often a
merely temporary force, and carries with it an accompanying danger.
When the state of mind contemplated becomes a matter of history, the
argument based on its assumption has lost its power. In {12} view of a
quite different set of assumptions it may become even misleading. For
example, Bishop Butler argued for the truths of natural and revealed
religion, on the analogy of the facts of nature and on the assumption
of a divine author of nature, thus--If, as you admit, God made nature,
and yet nature is shown to contain such and such facts or processes,
how can you argue against the divine authorship of natural religion and
revelation on the ground that it attributes to God similar facts and
processes? This was a very effective argument so long as men did treat
the doctrine of God having created the world as a matter of course.
But when 'agnosticism' arose--when men ceased to discover in nature any
decisive argument for God or against God, and professed only an
inability to draw any conclusion at all, Butler's argument had lost its
force, and the difficulties in nature and religion to which he called
attention could even be used against ascribing a divine authorship to
either. Apologetic arguments are always liable to this peril. Thus
St. Paul's arguments, based on an unhesitating belief that the Old
Testament contained really the words of God, that what they asserted
about God was certainly true, and that God was certainly just {13} and
the standard of justice, may have an effect very contrary to his
intention when they are applied to people who feel no such certainties.
St. Paul may seem to be making the difficulties of believing in the
Bible only more obvious, by calling attention to its 'harsh and
unedifying' elements.

But this unfortunate result of most 'apologies' is, at least in the
case of St. Paul and Bishop Butler, only superficial. If the
apologetic argument is really deep, it retains, if not exactly its
original value, yet a value not the less real. Butler's indications of
the profound analogy which holds between the doctrines of religion and
the facts of nature, can never be out of place or lose force. Still
less can men ever cease to learn the deepest lessons from his temper of
mind and method. And that it is so with St. Paul's apology--that it
contains the profoundest and most abiding lessons about the
responsibility and danger of all elect bodies and indiv