MODERN SKEPTICISM:

A

JOURNEY THROUGH THE LAND OF DOUBT
AND BACK AGAIN.

A LIFE STORY

BY

JOSEPH BARKER.

PHILADELPHIA:
SMITH, ENGLISH & CO.

BX

9869
·B28

A 3

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
REV. JOSEPH BARKER,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Jas. B. Rodgers Co., Printers and Stereotypers, Philadelphia.

9936

CONTENTS.

7

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.-My early life.-Enter the Church.-The Ministry.-Happy days.-

Sad change.-How happened it?....

CHAPTER II.

17

Causes of unbelief.-Vice.-Other causes.-Constitutional tendencies to doubt.

-Disappointed expectations about Christianity.-Mysteries of Providence.-

Misrepresentations of Christ and Christianity in human creeds.-Church divi-

sions. Ignorant advocates of Christianity.-Wrong principles of reasoning.-

False science,....................................................

CHAPTER III.

19

Another cause of unbelief.-Bad feeling between ministers or among church

members.-Alienates them from each other. Then separates them from

the Church. Then from Christ.-How it works.-My case...........

CHAPTER IV.

26

Origin of the unhappy feeling between me and some of my brother ministers.

-Tendencies of my mind.-Rationalizing tendency.-Its effects.-Reading.—

Investigations.—Discoveries,.................

CHAPTER V.

30

Modification of my early creed.-Unscriptural doctrines relinquished.-Scrip-

tural ones adopted.-Some doctrines modified.-Theological fictions dropped.

-Eager for the pure, simple truth as taught by Jesus.-Doctrine of types

given up.-Other notions relinquished.-Alarm of some of my brethren at

these changes,...........
44

CHAPTER VI.

How preachers and theologians indulge their fancies on religion.-John Wes-

ley. His resolution to be a man of one book.-What came of his resolution.

-His sermon on God's approbation of His works,-unscriptural and unphilo-

sophical throughout.-Illustrations and proofs.-And Wesley was one of the

best and wisest, one of the most honest and single-minded of our theologians.

-What then may we expect of others?-Evils of theological trifling.-Mischie-

vous effects of mixing human fictions with Divine revelations,.......

CHAPTER VII.

55

Further theological investigations.-Unwarranted statements by preachers.—
John Foster's Essay on Some of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion is
Rendered Distasteful to Persons of Cultivated Minds.-Introduction of similar
views to the notice of my ministerial brethren.-The reception they met
with.-No Church has got all the truth.-Most Churches, perhaps all, have got
portions of it, which others have not.-My attempts to gather up the frag-
ments from all.-Freedom from bigotry.-Love to all Christians.-Judging
trees by their fruit.-Reading the books of various denominations, like
foreign travel, liberalizes the mind.-I found truth and goodness in all de-